The City in the Clouds

In the afternoon I went back to my own quarters, which consisted of a villa at the end of the Palace gardens, where I was lodged with Rolston, and attended by various well-trained Chinamen. I had rarely seen a more delightful bachelor dwelling. I took a cup of tea with Bill about four o'clock. It was now quite dark, and the bitter wind was rising again, but heavy curtains of tussore silk were pulled over the windows, a fire of yew logs burned in the open hearth, and softly shaded electric lights all combined to produce the coziest and most homelike effect it is possible to imagine.

It was then that a man came in to say that Mr. Pu-Yi begged the honor of an audience.

Bill vanished, and my thin, ascetic friend glided in, and at my invitation sank into a chair by the fire. I don't think, in the whole course of my life, I could recall a conversation which touched, interested, and excited my admiration more than this, and I have met every one "from Emperor to Clown." He apologized profoundly for his seeming treachery. With a wealth of lucid self-analysis and the power of presenting a clear statement which I have seldom heard equaled, he showed how he was torn between his new-born debtorship to me, his loyalty to Morse, for whom he professed a profound esteem, and – here he hinted with extraordinary finesse– his mute adoration for Juanita.

"It was, Sir Thomas, touch and go, of course. I was in the position of a surgeon who has to risk everything upon one heroic stroke of the knife. I did so, and behold, all the conflicting elements are reconciled. The pieces of the puzzle have come together."

"My friend," I said, "betray me twenty million times if you can bring me such happiness as you have brought. Besides, it wasn't a betrayal, it was a great brain leading a smaller one to its appointed goal."

We talked a little more, he drank tea, he smoked, and, to my growing discomfort, I found in him the same note of pessimism and apprehension that Morse could not conceal, and Rolston himself had partially revealed.

"But I won't believe that any harm can come to Miss Morse," I said, almost angrily.

The thin lips smiled.

"That I never said, Sir Thomas. There are no indications of that. You and your lady are in peril, but you will win through."

"Confound it, man, your liver must be out of order. It seems to me that captivity in this magnificent bird-cage has the same effect on every one. I shall get Morse to come and hunt with me in the Shires. I've got a nice little box in Gloucestershire, close to Chipping Norton, and by Jove, Pu-Yi, I'll mount you and give you a run with the Heythrope. You talk as if you actually knew something. As if you had information of a calamity."

"I hear it in the wind," he said strangely, and his voice was like a withered leaf blown before the wind. Then he left me.

I dined with Juanita and her father. Bill was asked too, and he kept my girl, and sometimes even Mr. Morse, in fits of laughter with stories of his short but erratic career, and especially a racy account of his illicit opium-selling down below.

"You see, sir," he said, "you brought it on yourself, by kidnaping me in the first instance. I had to get my own back."

Morse's face clouded over for a moment.

"It was a disgraceful thing to do," he said. "I quite admit it, but had the necessity arisen I'd have kidnaped George Robey or the Prince of Wales," and from that moment always I seemed to see that a faint but perceptible shadow was creeping over his spirits.

We had a little music, in a charming room built for the purpose. Juanita played upon the guitar and sang little Spanish love songs. Bill "obliged" with a ditty which he said was a favorite of the revered Charles Lamb, which seemed to consist entirely of the following lines:

"Diddle-diddle-dumpling, my son John
Went to bed with his breeches on."

I think that when Juanita said good-night to us all – and to me privately in the passage – she went to bed quite happy and cheerful.

About half-past ten Bill slipped off and I remained to smoke a final cigar with Morse.

"I'm low, Thomas," he said, "I'm very low to-night."

I made him take a little whisky and potash – a thing he rarely did.

"It's the unnatural life, sir, that you've condemned yourself to recently. You come out of this and hunt with me in Gloucestershire and I'll protect you as well as you're protected here, and you'll get as right as rain."

"You're very kind," he replied, "but – take care of her, Kirby, for God's sake, take care of her. She'll have no one else in the world but you if they get me or Pu-Yi."

I was about to expostulate again when the door opened and Boss Mulligan slouched in.

"Been all round the City, governor, with the usual patrol. Everything quiet, nothing unusual anywhere. All the servants have given in their tallies and are safe in their quarters."

Morse looked at me.

"That's our system, Tom," he said. "At a certain hour all the servants go to the lower stage, except those that may be urgently wanted. For instance, there's a fellow in your house to valet you to-night. Juanita has her little Spanish maid, and I think Pu-Yi keeps some one. Otherwise we are all to ourselves up here. All the lift doors are locked on the second stage and so is the central staircase. Mulligan here is on guard all night in the room where you saw him."

"An' watchin' ye from the ind of me eye, Sorr Thomas," said the genial ruffian, "av ye'll belave ut."

"You're a good actor, Mulligan," I said – it seemed about the only thing I could say.

"Sure, an' I am that," he said, "I am that, sorr, but I'm a bether doer. An' av ye'd reely bin staling in – "

His immense fist clenched itself and he shook it in my direction.

"Mulligan, go back to the guard-room," said Morse, "you're drunk."

The giant's face changed from ferocity into pained surprise.

"But av course, sorr," he said, "it's me usual time, as your honor must know. But begob, I'm efficient!"

The mingled grin and glare on his countenance when Mr. Mulligan went away left no doubt in my mind about that.

A few minutes afterwards, certainly not drunk, and I hope efficient, I left the Palacete Mendoza, and walked through the gardens to the villa. Morse himself barred the door after me.

It was bitter, aching cold and the wind was razor-keen. Gaunt wreaths of mist were all around like a legion of ghosts, and I realized that the clouds were descending upon us, and soon I should not be able to see a yard before me, though the electric lamps that never went out all night, over the whole City, glowed with a dim blueness here and there through the fog.

However, I found the villa all right, and my Chinese boy waiting in the hall. He took my coat, saw that the fires in the sitting-room and the adjoining bedroom were made up, and then I told him he might be off to his quarters on the second stage, for which he seemed extremely thankful.

I don't suppose he had been gone more than a minute when the door of my sitting-room opened and Rolston came in quickly. He was wearing a dressing-gown and pyjamas and his hair was all rough like one recently aroused from sleep.

"What on earth's the matter?" I said.

"I undressed," he said, "in my bedroom, which is just above yours as you know, and fell asleep in my chair with all the lights on. I woke only a short time ago, and before switching off the lamps I went to the window to see what sort of a night it was."

"Hellish, if you want to know."

"The light streamed out upon a great curtain of mist, almost like the projector lamp upon a screen of a kinema. Sir Thomas, as I stood there I could swear that something big, black and oblong sank down from that darkness above, passed through my zone of light and disappeared in the blackness below."

"What on earth do you mean, what sort of a thing?"

He hesitated for a moment and then he said:

"Almost like a group of statuary, though I only saw it for a mere instant."

He had obviously been half dreaming when he went to the window, his eyes, even now, were heavy with sleep.

"Simply and solely a trick of the wind upon the mist, and your own figure interposing between the light and the window, and throwing a momentary shade on the swaying white curtain outside. The mist's as thick as linen and it changes every moment. You go to bed properly, and sleep the sleep of the just."

He didn't attempt to argue, but looked a little ashamed of himself for obtruding for such a trivial reason. Ten minutes afterwards I was also in bed and fast asleep.