"Good for you, Rolston; now please continue."
"Well, Sir Thomas, I kept my eyes and ears very wide open and I learnt a
lot. Things were being prepared with a feverish activity of which the
people outside had not the slightest idea. I found that round the base
of the towers, in the miniature park inclosed by the high wall, there
were already magnificent vegetable gardens in active being. There were
huge conservatories which must have been set up when the towers were
only a few hundred feet high, now full of the rarest flowers and shrubs.
In my walks, I saw a miniature poultry farm, conducted on the most
up-to-date methods; there was a dairy, with four or five cows--already
this part of the huge inclosure was assuming a rural aspect. It must
have been planned and started nearly two years ago."
"You asked questions, I suppose?"
"Any amount, as innocently as I possibly could. I got very little out of
my captors in reply. Your Chinaman is the most secretive person in the
world. _But_, I heard them talking among themselves; and I was amazed at
the calculated organization which had been going on without cessation
from the beginning.
"It all fitted in exactly with what I told you at the _Special_ office.
It was as though Mr. Morse was planning a little private world of his
own, which would be independent of everything outside."
"And about the towers themselves?"
"It will take me hours to tell you. In one quarter of the inclosure
there are great dynamo sheds--an electric installation inferior to
nothing else of its kind in the world. The great lifts which rise and
fall in the towers are electric. Heating, lighting, artificial daylight
for the conservatories--all are electric.
"Where I was kept," he went on, "was nearly a quarter of a mile from the
engineering section, but I knew that it hummed with extraordinary
activity night and day. I discovered that structural buildings of light
steel were pouring in from America, that an army of decorators and
painters was at work; vans of priceless Oriental furniture and hangings
were arriving from all parts of the world, rare flowers and shrubs also.
Sir Thomas, it was as though the Universe was being searched for
wonders--all to be concentrated here.
"This went on and on till I lost count of the days and lived in a sort
of dream, kindly treated enough, allowed to see many secret things, and
always with a sense that because this was so, I should never again
emerge into the real world."
"I can understand that, Rolston. Every word you say interests me
extremely."
"I'll come to the present, Sir Thomas. You can ask me any details that
you like afterwards. A few days ago everything was speeded up to
extraordinary pitch. Then, late one night, there was a great to-do, and
in the morning I learned that Mr. Morse and his family had arrived, and
that they were up at the top. I have found out since that this was the
fourteenth of September."
"The fourteenth!" I cried.
"Yes, Sir Thomas, the fourteenth. The next day, it was late in the
afternoon and the sun was setting, two Chinamen came into my room, tied
a handkerchief over my eyes and led me out. I was put into one of the
little electric railways--open cars which run all over the
inclosure--and taken to the base of the towers.
"I don't know which tower it was, but I was led into a lift and a long,
slow ascent began. I knew that I was in one of the big carrying lifts
that take a long time to do the third of a mile up to the City, not one
of the quick-running elevators which leap upwards from stage to stage
for passengers and arrive at the top in a comparatively short space of
time.
"When the lift stopped they took off the handkerchief and I found myself
in a great whitewashed barn of a place which was obviously a storeroom.
There were bales of stuff, huge boxes and barrels on every side.
"The men who had brought me up were just rough Chinese workmen from Hong
Kong, but a door opened and a Chink of quite another sort came in and
took me by the arm.
"You see, Sir Thomas," he explained, "to the ordinary Englishman one
Chinaman is just like another, but my experience in the East enables me
to distinguish at once.
"The newcomer was of a very superior class, and he led me out of the
storeroom, across a swaying bridge of latticed steel to a little
rotunda. As we passed along, I had a glimpse of the whole of London,
far, far below. The Thames was like a piece of glittering string.
Everything else were simply patches of gray, green, and brown.
"We went into the cupola and a tiny lift shot us up like a bullet until
it stopped with a clank and I knew that I was now upon the highest
platform of all.
"But I could see nothing, for we simply turned down a long corridor
lighted by electricity and softly carpeted, which might have been the
corridor of one of the great hotels far down below in town.
"My conductor, who wore pince-nez and a suit of dark blue alpaca and who
had a charming smile, stopped at a door, rapped, and pushed me in.
"I found myself in a room of considerable size. It was a library. The
walls were covered with shelves of old oak, in which there were
innumerable books. A Turkey carpet, two or three writing-tables--and Mr.
Gideon Morse, whom I had never spoken to, but had seen driving in Hyde
Park, sat there smoking a cigar.
"I might have been in the library of a country house, except for two
things. There were no windows to this large and gracious room. It was
lit from above, like a billiard-room--domed skylights in the roof. But
the light that came down was not a light like anything I had ever seen.
It lit up every detail of the magnificent and stately place, but it was
new--'the light that never was on earth or sea.' It was just that that
made me realize where I was--two thousand three hundred feet up in the
air, alone with Gideon Morse, who had snatched me out of life three
months before."
"I know Mr. Morse, Rolston. What impression did he make on you?"
"For a moment he stunned me, Sir Thomas. I knew I was in the presence of
a superman. All that I had heard about him, all the legends that
surrounded his name, the fact of this stupendous sky city in which I
was--the ease with which he had stretched out his hand and made me a
prisoner, all combined to produce awe and fear."
"Yes, go on."
"I saw two other things--I think I did. One was that the man's sanity is
trembling in the balance. The other that if ever a human being lives and
moves and has his being in deadly temporal fear, Gideon Mendoza Morse is
that man."
The words rang out in that East-end room with prophetic force. It was as
though a brilliant light was snapped on to illumine a dark chamber in my
soul.
"What did he say to you, Rolston?"
"He was suavity and kindness itself. He said that he immensely regretted
the necessity for secluding me so long. 'But of course I shall make it
up to you. You're a young man, Mr. Rolston, only just commencing your
career. A little capital would doubtless assist that career, in which I
may say I have every belief. Shall we say that you leave Richmond this
afternoon with a solatium of five hundred pounds?'
"'A thousand would suit me better,' I said.
"He shrugged his shoulders, and suddenly smiled at me.
"'Very well,' he said, 'let it be a thousand pounds.'
"'Of course without prejudice, Mr. Morse.'
"'Please explain yourself.'
"'You've kidnaped me. You've also committed an offense against the law
of England--a criminal offense for which you will have to suffer.
Perhaps you don't realize that if you built your house miles further up,
if you managed to nearly reach the moon, British justice would reach you
at last.'
"He shook his head sadly.
"'To that point of view, I hardly agree, Mr. Rolston. I am quite unable
to purchase British justice, but I can put such obstacles in its way
that could--'
"He suddenly stopped there, lit a little brown cigarette, came up and
patted me on the shoulder.
"'Child,' he said, 'you are clever, you are original, I like you. But
have a sense of proportion, and remember that you have no choice in this
matter. I will give you the money you want on condition that you go away
and bring no action whatever against me. If not--'
"'If not, sir?'
"'Well, you will have to stay here, that's all. You won't be badly
treated. You can be librarian if you like, but you will never see the
outside world again.'
"'May I have a few hours to consider, sir?'
"'A month if you like,' he said, pressing a bell upon his table.
"The same bland young Chinaman led me out of the library and down to the
storeroom in the lift. I was blindfolded, and descended to the ground.
"There I met a man whom I had seen two or three times during the last
three days, a great seven-foot American with arms like a gorilla, a
thing called 'Boss Mulligan,' whom I had gathered from the conversation
of my Chinese friends, had now arrived to take charge of the whole
city--a sort of head policeman and guard.
"'Sonny,' he said, 'I've had a 'phone down from the top in regard to
you. Now don't you be a short sport. You've been made a good offer. You
grip it and be like fat in lavender. My advice to you is to wind a smile
round your neck and depart with the dollars. I can see you're full of
pep and now you've got fortune before you. See that pavilion over
there?'
"He pointed to where a little gaudily painted house nestled under one of
the great feet of the first tower.
"'That's my mansion. You wander about for an hour or so and come there
and say you agree to the boss's terms--we'll take your word for it. Upon
the word "Yes," I'll hand you out at the gate and you can go to Paris
for a trip.'
"'I'll think it over,' I said.
"'Do so, and don't be a life-everlasting, twenty-four-hours-a-day,
dyed-in-the-wool damn fool.'
"It was getting dusk. I was in a new part of the inclosed park. He let
me go without any watchful Chinese attendant at my heels, and I strolled
off with my head bent down as if deep in thought.
"I'd got an hour, and I think I made the best use of it. I hurried along
under the shadow of the towers, past shrubberies, artificial lakes,
summer-houses and little inclosed rose-gardens until I was far away from
Mr. Mulligan. Here and there I passed a patient Chinese gardener or some
hurrying member of Morse's little army. But nobody stopped me or
interfered with me. For the first time since my captivity I was
perfectly free.
"To cut a long story short, Sir Thomas, I came to a rectangle in the
great encircling wall, which at that point was thirty feet high. The
parapet at the top was obviously being repaired, for there was a ladder
right up, pails of mortar, bricklayers' tools, and a coil of rope for
binding scaffolding. I nipped up the ladder, carrying the rope after me,
fixed it at the top, slid down easily enough, and in a quarter of an
hour was in Richmond station. I didn't dare to go back to my old rooms
because I was sure there would be a secret hue and cry after me. I
thought of my old friend, Mr. Sliddim, traveled to Whitechapel with my
last pence, and here I am."
"Still a member of my staff?"
"If you please, Sir Thomas."
"Ready for anything?"
"Anything and everything."
"Then come with me to Piccadilly--if they look for you there again we
shall be prepared."