Morse and I sat at supper in a room which differed in no way from the
ordinary study of a country gentleman. Except for the very slightest
suggestion rather than sensation of vibration, which my host explained
was the drag of the City on the three great towers which perpetually
oscillated out of the perpendicular, and so insured the safety of the
vast elastic structure, there was nothing to indicate that we were two
thousand two hundred feet up in the air.
Our meal was of the simplest, and during it I told Morse, without
reservation, all that I had heard from Arthur Winstanley.
"He has the outline very correctly. I'll fill it in later. How long has
Lord Arthur been in London?"
"About five days, I believe."
"Time for many preparations to be made if they're going to strike
quickly," he said, more to himself than to me, drumming his fingers on
the tablecloth.
Then he looked up.
"And these two men who were seen to-day in the bar of your public
house?"
"One, sir, was undoubtedly Midwinter. My very sharp-witted informant
describes the other man as a swarthy person of just over middle height
and apparently of great personal strength. He was bearded, sallow-faced,
and had somewhat the appearance of a half-caste."
"Zorilla y Toro, as I expected," said Morse. "Zorilla the Bull, as he is
known in half the Republics of South America."
"No doubt," I remarked, "a formidable pair of ruffians, but remember
that I saw you deal with one of them at any rate, that night at the Ritz
Hotel. The way he legged it out of the drawing-room wouldn't have
inspired me with any particular fear of him."
Morse struck the table with his hand.
"I wish I'd sent a bullet through his heart instead of playing fancy
fireworks round him. But I feared London and your colossal law and
order. It's perfectly true, he didn't influence me in the least on that
night. He came to sell his employers, to sell the Hermandad for a
hundred thousand pounds."
"It would have been cheaper than this." I waved my hand to indicate the
expensive crow's-nest of my future father-in-law.
Morse laughed.
"It wouldn't have made the least difference," he said. "The man couldn't
hurt me at the time because he had to obey the orders of the villainous
Society at his back. The old Marquis da Silva, who is simply a tool in
their hands, insisted that I was not to be even interfered with in any
way until the two years of grace from my first warning were up. Though
their object was to get hold of half my fortune, and Midwinter's to
revenge himself personally upon me, the Society and he didn't dare do
anything until the moment struck. There were too many political issues
still involved.
"That's why I made Mr. Mark Antony Midwinter dance out of the Ritz Hotel
on that night."
"It's what Arthur Winstanley said."
"That young man will go far. Now, Kirby, I think you understand
everything, and you've got to throw in your lot with Juanita and me, for
a time at any rate, and never say you didn't know what you were up
against."