On the afternoon of the next day the potman summoned me from my private
room with the information that there was a young fellow from the Mile
End Road to see me.
"Chinese?" I asked.
"Yes, sir."
"Then it must be the lad come in answer to the telegram I sent to my
friend this morning. Show him in."
In a few moments the applicant for the situation entered. He wore his
oily black hair fairly short, like most of the Chinamen employed at the
towers, and had no pigtail; he was dressed in European clothes. His high
cheek bones, with little slits of eyes above them, the stolid yellow
face and fine tapering fingers were typically Oriental as he glided in,
and his European clothes seemed to accentuate that air of Eastern
mystery that even the commonest Chinaman carries about with him. He
looked about five or six and twenty and wore a thick gold ring in each
ear which had had the effect of dragging them away from the head.
I examined him carefully as to his qualities and he answered in better
English than most Chinamen attain to, though with the guttural, clicking
accent of his kind.
"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 Yuen-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 clientele?"
"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 Yuen-Nan!"
"That's another point," he said quickly. "You wouldn't guess why I'm
supposed to come from Yuen-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.
The yellow men neither gambled nor got drunk, that was perfectly
obvious. There was never a suspicion of opium from first to last, nor
was there a single instance of a brawl or a fight. Indeed the local
police-inspector, an excellent fellow with whom I had many a talk,
expressed himself as being both surprised and delighted at the way in
which I had the aliens in hand.
Nearly two months had gone by, and I was curbing the raging fires of
impatience and longing as well as I could when two incidents occurred
which greatly precipitated action.
Rolston came to me one day in a state of great excitement.
At last, he said, he was beginning to become acquainted with some of the
actual officials of the towers--at last, quite separate from those who
worked below. They were interested, or beginning to be so, and he urged
me at once to open a smaller, inner room as a select meeting-place for
such of them as he could inveigle to the "Golden Swan."
We did so at once, hanging the walls with a drapery of black worked with
golden dragons, which I bought in Regent Street, a Chinese lantern of
copper hanging from the ceiling, and around the wall we placed low
couches. Here, in twos and threes, but in slowly increasing numbers, a
different type of Oriental began to assemble, Ah Sing attending to all
their wants, ingratiating himself in every possible way, and keeping his
extremely useful ears wide open--very wide open indeed.
It was now that tiny fragments of personal gossip--more precious to me
than rubies--began to filter through. I had established no communication
with the City in the Clouds as yet, but I seemed to hear the distant
murmur of voices through the void.
One evening about eight o'clock I felt cramped and unutterably bored. I
felt that nothing could help me but a long walk and so, with a word to
the Honest Fool, Sliddim and Rolston, I took my hat and stick and
started out.
It was a brilliant moonlight night, calm, still, and with a white frost
upon the ground, as I descended the terrace and made my way down to the
side of the river. Here and there I passed a few courting couples; the
hum of distant London and the rumbling of trains was like the ground
swell of a sea, but peace brooded over everything. The trees made black
shadows like Chinese ink upon silver, and, in the full moonlight it was
bright enough to read.
When I had walked a mile or so, resisting a certain temptation as well
as I could, I stopped and turned at last.
There, a mile away behind me, yet seeming as if it was within a stone's
throw, was the huge erection on the hill. Every detail of the lower
parts was clear and distinct as an architectural drawing, the intricate
lattice-work of enormous cantilevers and girders seemed etched on the
inside of a great opal bowl. I can give you no adequate description of
the immensity, the awe-inspiring, almost terror-inducing sense of
magnitude and majesty. I have stood beside the Pyramids at night, I have
crossed the Piazza of Saint Peter's at Rome under the rays of the
Italian moon, and I have drunk coffee at the base of the Eiffel Tower in
Paris, but not one of these experiences approached what I felt now as I
surveyed, in an ecstasy of mingled emotions, this monstrous thing that
brooded over London.
The eye traveled up, onward and forever up until at length, not hidden
by clouds now but a faint blur of white, blue, gold, and tiny twinkling
lights, hung in the empyrean the far-off City of Desire.
Could she hear the call of my heart? God knows it seemed loud and strong
enough to me! Might she not be, even at this moment, a lovelier Juliet,
leaning over some gilded gallery and wondering where I was?
"Was ever a woman so high above her lover before?" I said, and laughed,
but my laughter was sadness, and my longing, pain unbearable.
... There was a slight bend in the tow-path where I stood, caused by
some out-jutting trees, and from just below I suddenly heard a burst of
loud and brutal laughter, followed by a shrill cry. It recalled me from
dreamland at once and I hurried round the projection to come upon a
strange scene. Two flash young bullies with spotted handkerchiefs around
their throats and ash sticks in their hands were menacing a third person
whose back was to the river. They were sawing the air with their sticks
just in front of a thin, tall figure dressed in what seemed to be a sort
of long, buttoned black cassock descending to the feet, and wearing a
skull cap of black alpaca. Beneath the skull cap was a thin, ascetic
face, ghastly yellow in the moonlight.
... One of the brutes lunged at the man I now saw to be a Chinese of
some consequence, lunged at him with a brutal laugh and filthy oath. The
Chinaman threw up his lean arms, cried out again in a thin, shrill
scream, stepped backwards, missed his footing and went souse into the
river. In a second the current caught him and began to whirl him away
over towards the Twickenham side. It was obvious that he could not swim
a stroke. There was a clatter of hob-nailed boots and bully number one
was legging it down the path like a hare. I had just time to give bully
number two a straight left on the nap which sent him down like a sack of
flour, before I got my coat off and dived in.
Wow! but it was icy cold. For a moment the shock seemed to stop my
heart, and then it came right again and I struck out heartily. It didn't
take long to catch up with the gentleman in the cassock, who had come
up for the second time and apparently resigned himself to the worst. I
got hold of him, turned on my back and prepared for stern measures if he
should attempt to grip me.
He didn't. He was the easiest johnny to rescue possible, and in another
five minutes I'd got him safely to the bank and scrambled up.
There was nobody about, worse luck, and I started to pump the water out
of him as well as I could, and after a few minutes had the satisfaction
of seeing his face turn from blue-gray to something like its normal
yellow under the somewhat ghastly light of the moon. His teeth began to
chatter as I jerked him to his feet and furiously rubbed him up and
down.