The City in the Clouds

"Take him and let him wash up a few of the glasses, Stanley, and ask him a few questions if you like, and if you are satisfied with him I'll engage him."

In a quarter of an hour the Honest Fool returned to express himself pleased with the young Asiatic's performances, and there and then I engaged him, Stanley showing him the room in which he was to sleep. It was quite late that night before I could be alone with the new assistant, who, by the way, served in the saloon bar during the evening and was spoken of with commendation by Mr. Carter, fish and green grocer; Mr. Mogridge, our principal newsagent and tobacconist, and Mr. Abrahams, dealer in anything, whose shop was labeled – really with great propriety – "Antiques."

These gentlemen were my most constant patrons and their word had weight, and it was endorsed by Mr. Sliddim, who slipped in about nine and in the position of a friend of the landlord, had been received into our best circle. It was Mr. Mogridge, a wit, who, just before closing time, christened Ah Sing, the name of the new potman, "Ting-A-Ling-A-Ling," the name which he retained to the end of the chapter. I could hear my clients laughing for the twentieth time as they went home and Mr. Carter's rich bass: "Mogridge, I call that good. That's damned good, Mogridge. Ting-A-Ling-A-Ling! Ha, ha, ha, ha!"

Ah Sing glided into my private room just as the upper portion of the house began to tremble with the snores of the Honest Fool. He put his fingers into his mouth and withdrew two pads of composition such as dentists use, with a sigh of relief. Immediately the high cheek bones and the narrowness of the eyes disappeared, though even then Bill Rolston would have passed for a Chinaman at a glance, though when he removed the quills from his nose and it ceased to be flat and distended, the likeness was less apparent.

"It's wonderful, Rolston," I said, shaking him warmly by the hand. "It would deceive any one. Well, here we are and now we can begin."

The lad was all fire and enthusiasm. He did me no end of good, for the sordid environment, the appalling meals – principally of pork served in great gobbets with quantities of onions – which Mrs. Abbs provided for the H.F., herself and me, and above all the overpowering, incredible structure at hand which seemed, in its strength and majesty, to laugh at the ant-like activities of such an one as I, were beginning to depress and to tinge my hours with the quality of a fantastic dream.

But Rolston changed all that and we talked far on into the night, planning, plotting, and arranging all the details of our campaign.

"To-morrow," he said, "I'll paint the board to go over the side door, in black and gilt Chinese lettering. As soon as it's done, we will make one or two alterations to the upstairs room, buy a gas urn with constant hot water and some special tea which I know where to get. When that's done, I'll start the game by going down to the 'Rising Sun' and meeting the Chinese there."

"You are quite certain that you won't be discovered?"

"I think it's in the last degree improbable. Certainly no one could find me out owing to my speech. That I can assure you, Sir Thomas, and it's nearly all the battle. So very, very few Europeans ever attain to good colloquial Chinese that there would never be a doubt in any one but I was what I seemed to be. I not only know the language, but I know how these people think and most of their customs. As far as disguise goes, I think it's good enough to deceive any one. When I was a prisoner within the inclosure, the Chinese who saw me were for the most part coolies and laborers, engaged upon the works. All these have now gone away forever and there's only the regular, selected staff. Some of these of course must have seen me as I was, but I don't think they will penetrate my get-up. You see the whole shape of the face is altered to begin with, and the coloring of hair and face has been done so well as to defy detection. I certainly was afraid about my ears," and he grinned ruefully, "but I saw the way out by having them pierced and these rings put in. Most of the natives from the Province of Yün-Nan, where I come from, wear these rings. The ones I have on at the present moment are made of lead, and gilded. They have pulled my ears right out of their ordinary shape."

"Good Lord!" I cried, astounded at the length to which he had gone. "You're torturing yourself for me."

"Not a bit of it, Sir Thomas," he replied. "I – I rather like it!"

"And you think you will be able to get us a Chinese clientèle?"

"I am quite certain of it. First of all I don't suppose I shall get the best class – I mean the upper and more confidential servants who ascend the tower itself – for I understand there's a very rigid system of grades. But little by little they will come also. It will take us weeks, maybe months, but it will be done."

"If it takes me half a lifetime I'll go through with it," I said savagely.

"My sentiments, also," he replied, lighting a cigarette. "By the way, I hope you're not incommoded in any way by my – er – odor!"

"Good Heaven! What do you mean?"

"The Chinaman smells quite different to the European, though not necessarily unpleasantly. It's taken me quite a lot of trouble to attain the essential perfume!"

He grinned impishly as he said it, and there certainly was a sort of stale, camphory smell, now he mentioned it.

"You're a great artist, Rolston, and I don't know what I should do without you, oh, Mandarin from Yün-Nan!"

"That's another point," he said quickly. "You wouldn't guess why I'm supposed to come from Yün-Nan, where I actually did spend some years of my childhood?"

"Not in the least."

"It's the principal opium producing Province in China," he replied, with a quick look at me. "Now, Sir Thomas, I've let the cat out of the bag. You see how I propose to attract the Chinese here, and get into their confidence."

A light flashed in upon me, and I took a long breath.

"But it would never do," I said. "If we were to start an opium den in that room upstairs, we should have the police in in a fortnight, and then the game would be up entirely."

He smiled superior.

"There will never be a single pipe of opium smoked in the 'Golden Swan,'" he said. "Of that I can assure you. That will be the very strictest rule that I shall make, but I shall supply opium to the customers, in varying quantities, and at intervals, according to the need of each individual case. It is almost impossible to bribe a Chinaman with money – the better sort, that is, the picked and chosen men who will be around Mr. Morse himself. But opium is quite another thing, and besides they won't know they're being bribed. I sat hours and hours working this thing out and I'm confident it's the only way."

When he said that I realized that he spoke the truth, but I confess that the idea startled and alarmed me.

"We shall be breaking the law, Rolston. We shall be risking heavy fines and certain imprisonment if we're found out."

"To that I would say two things, Sir Thomas. First of all, that no fine matters; and secondly, that I shouldn't in the least mind doing six months if necessary. This great game is worth more than that. But secondly, and you may really put your mind at ease, we shall not be found out. I have worked the thing out to a hair's breadth and my system is so complete that discovery is utterly impossible."

"I oughtn't to let you risk it, though of course I shall share equally if anything happens."

He disregarded this entirely.

"But the stuff," I said, "the opium itself, how will you get that?"

"I have made my plans here also. I shall have to pay a price so enormous that I'm afraid it will stagger you, Sir Thomas, but it's the only way in which I can get hold of the right stuff. For what it is intrinsically worth, about sixty pounds sterling, your east-end dealer will pay four-hundred pounds, and make a big profit on it. I shall have to pay nearly a thousand and I shall want double that money – two thousand pounds."

He stared at me in anxiety.

"My dear Rolston," I said, "cheer up. My income is over twenty thousand a year, and in normal times I don't spend a third of it. Buy all the filth you want, and Heaven send that it does the trick!"

"In two days," he said, "the 'Golden Swan' will house two cases of the best 'red bricks' obtainable on the market anywhere, for it's as much by the superior quality of what I shall supply, as well as the fact of being able to supply it, that I depend. Of course, you'll get nearly all the money back."

"Confound it, no, that's going too far. We'll send all the abominable profits to the Richmond Hospital anonymously."

We talked until the fire was out and the gray wintry dawn began to steal in through the dirty windows of the bar beyond, and when all our plans were laid with meticulous care I went to bed but not to sleep, assailed by a thousand doubts and fears.

… In a week or two the upstairs room began to be frequented by silent-footed yellow men, who came and went unobtrusively. Whenever any of them chanced to meet me I was greeted with a profound obeisance which was rather disconcerting at first, but my conversation was limited to a mere greeting or farewell. Most of these men spoke pigeon English, but I had little or nothing to say to them of set purpose. It had been arranged between Rolston and myself that I was to be represented as a good-natured fool, who mattered very little in any way.

For his part, the pretended Ah Sing was up and down the stairs a dozen times every evening. He was never once suspected, his influence and importance in the lives of these aliens grew every day. But it was a long business, a long and weary business, in which at first hardly any progress towards our aim could be discerned.

"It's no use being discouraged, Sir Thomas," Rolston would say, "we're getting on famously."

"And the opium?" – somehow I wasn't very keen on discussing that aspect of the question.

"I'm employing it most judiciously, selling it in very small quantities, and of course not a grain is ever smoked or consumed in any way upon these premises. That's thoroughly understood by every one, and you need not have the slightest doubt but that the secret will be rigidly kept. At present the men frequenting the house are nearly all of the upper coolie class. That is to say, they are the gardeners, stokers of the power house, sweepers, and so forth. But, quite recently a better class of man has made his appearance. There's a young, semi-Europeanized electrician who has been once or twice. Moreover, I have gained a great point. I have become acquainted with Kwang-su, the keeper of the inclosure gate."

"That's certainly something," I replied, recalling the figure of the gigantic Chinaman in question, which was familiar to most of the residents beneath the wall. "He's a ferocious-looking brute."

"At one time he was headsman of Yangtsun, and they say a most finished expert with the sword," Rolston remarked with a grin. "All I know about him is that he'd sell his soul for the black smoke, and regards me as a most valuable addition to the neighborhood. In a fortnight or so, I am pretty certain I shall be able to pass in and out of the grounds pretty much as I like, and then a great move in our game will have been accomplished. As an undoubted Chinaman and as a confidential purveyer of opium, I shall soon have complete freedom below the towers."

"But what about the great prizefighter, Mulligan?"

"He has nothing to do with the park, as they call all the grounds around the towers. Now that the building is finished his functions are up in the air, and I gather that he lives on the third stage, just beneath the City itself, as a sort of watch-dog. The Asiatics are entirely managed by their own leaders, appointed by Morse himself."

It was as Bill predicted. In a very short space of time he was away from the "Golden Swan" as much as he was in it, and every day he gathered more and more information about the tower and its mistress – information which was carefully noted down in the silence of the night, so that no detail should be forgotten.

Of course the fact that my hotel had become a haunt of the yellow men neither escaped the notice of the neighbors, nor of the police. The former were easily dealt with, and especially my patrons. Mr. Mogridge, having invented "Ting-A-Ling-A-Ling," was disposed to look upon the "Chinks" with genial patronage, and his self-importance was gratified by the low bows with which they always greeted him as they passed to their club-room above. The lead of Mr. Mogridge was followed by others in the saloon bar, and Sliddim tactfully kept everything running smoothly. As for the police, they paid me one visit or two, were shown everything and were perfectly satisfied that the house was being conducted with propriety – as indeed it was.