"I understand the _facts_, as you say, but I don't understand you.
Allowing for all your natural and deep anxiety about Juanita, I simply
fail to understand why you regard this Midwinter and his companion or
companions with such apprehension. Surely you could have the man locked
up to-morrow, knowing what you know about him."
Morse sighed, with a sort of gentle patience.
"A few more facts," he said; "and do reflect that it's most improbable
that a man of my intelligence and resources should act as he has done
without being sure of what he was doing. In the first place, I've had
Midwinter watched by the most famous detectives in America, watched for
years. None of these people have ever been able quite to bowl him out--a
simile from your English game of cricket. But three of the most trusted
and acute agents have lost their lives during these investigations, and
lost them in a singularly unpleasant manner."
He sighed again, this time wearily, and I saw that his face was old and
without interest or hope.
"What on earth is the use," he went on, "of telling you all I know about
this man? Sir"--his voice began to rise, and a light came into the dark
depths of his eyes--"Sir, if I saw his corpse before me now, I wouldn't
believe him dead or his power for evil ended until I had hacked his head
from his shoulders with my own hand! You cannot, I say you simply cannot
realize or understand the fiendish ingenuity, persistence, and icy
cruelty of this being, for I will not insult our common humanity by
calling it a man. If Juanita ever gets into his hands--"
His mouth, his whole face, was working, I thought he was going to have a
fit, and truth to tell, something icy began to congeal around my own
heart.
"Calm yourself, sir," I said, as authoritatively as I could. "Juanita is
doubly safe now that I am here, and as for Midwinter, he'll never
approach us here. It's beyond the wit of mortal man, and, meanwhile,
I'll see that he's apprehended and removed from all power of doing harm.
I am only a young man, Mr. Morse, but I'm rather a power in the land.
You see I have an important newspaper at my back, and as for you, who
have already made the Government feed out of your hand in the matter of
these towers, you should have gone to the Home Secretary in the first
instance. At any rate, we'll go together, and believe me, we shall be
listened to."
"I thank you, my dear boy," he replied with an effort, "but there is
such a thing as Fate, and Fate has whispered in my ear. I am not
naturally a superstitious man, but during a life spent in strange places
among strange people I have learnt to be very wary of a material
interpretation of life. But this I will say, whatever I feel about
myself, however my precautions might fail, I believe that my dear
daughter will win to safety in the end, that the power of evil will be
overcome, and that you will be her savior."
I could have sworn, as he shook hands and bade me good-night, there was
a tear in the great man's eye, and I wondered how long it was since any
one had seen that in this master of millions and of men.
A picturesque young Chinaman, a valet in flowing Oriental robes, who
spoke English with the most appalling cockney accent you ever heard in
your life, conducted me to a charming bedroom, provided me with
everything necessary, and in five minutes I fell into a deep, dreamless
sleep.
A really full day, wasn't it?
* * * * *
When I woke up the next morning my room was flooded with sunshine from a
dome in the ceiling.
Seated upon my bed, and balancing a cup of tea, was Master Bill Rolston.
His hair was restored to its natural red, his nose normal, and his high
cheek-bones were gone. On each side of his chubby face his transparent
ears stood out at right angles, and his button of a mouth was wreathed
in a genial smile.
"Good old Pu-Yi came for me about two o'clock this morning, Sir Thomas,
and told me all that had happened. I say, sir, _what_ a man to have on
the staff of the _Evening Special_! _What_ an intellect!"--I seemed to
have heard that phrase before. "Why, we'd have him dictating to Cabinet
Ministers within a year!"
I lay idly watching this brilliant and faithful boy; journalist once, I
reflected, journalist forever. There's no getting it out of the blood,
and here, if I'm not mistaken, when many of us have faded away from
Fleet Street forever, will be the biggest of us all.
I was surprised to find that Bill was distinctly on the side of Gideon
Morse in his anticipation of evil. We argued it out while I was dressing
and I insisted that the City was impregnable.
"To all ordinary appearance, to all ordinary efforts, yes. But I shall
never change my belief that there's nothing that human wit can invent
that human wit cannot circumvent."
After breakfast, which I took alone, the servant led me to a great white
house standing among conservatories, which I learned was almost an exact
reproduction of the Palacete Mendoza, the residence of Gideon Morse at
Rio. And there, in her own charming sitting-room, fragrant with flowers
and stamped in a hundred ways with her personality, Juanita was waiting.
She was radiant. Happiness lay about her like sunbeams. I never saw any
one more changed than she was from the girl I had met the night before.
"Come, dearest," she said, "and I'll show you some of our wonders. I
could not show you all of them in one day. Oh, Tom, isn't it all
splendid, couldn't you sing and shout for joy!"
I helped her into a fur coat--for it was bitter cold outside, though the
wind of the night before had dropped--and was provided with one myself
as we left the house. Standing in the patio was a little two-seated
automobile, a tiny toy of a thing run from electric storage batteries,
which made no noise louder than the humming of a wasp. We got into this
and Juanita was like a child as she pulled the starting lever and we
rolled away.
I have said I woke to find my bedroom full of sunlight, but, as we
glided down an arcade of conservatories, upon each side of the road, so
that the illusion of passing among a palm grove was almost complete, I
noticed that dark and angry clouds were gathering not far above our
heads, and it was through one single aperture that the sunlight poured.
The effect of this, when we ran through the tunneled archway and came
out into a great square, was curious. A third of the buildings which
towered up on every side were bathed in glory, the rest, gray, sullen,
and throwing shadows of sable upon the lawns, gravel sweeps, and parquet
flooring. We investigated a dozen marvels of which I shall not speak
here. The whole experience was a dream of luxury so wonderful, and so
fantastic also, that my readers must wait for William Rolston's book,
now nearing completion. It was impossible to believe that we were
actually walking, motoring, more than two thousand feet above London in
a little world of our own which bore no relation whatever to ordinary
human life.
This was especially borne in upon me with overwhelming force when we had
ascended the steps of a tower and came out into a glass chamber on the
roof, where an old Chinese gentleman with tortoise-shell spectacles
showed us the great telescope which Morse had installed. Following the
shifting path of sunlight, I got a dim glimpse of the English Channel
over a far-flung champaign of fertile woods and downs, studded here and
there with toy towns the size of threepenny-pieces. Once, but only for a
moment, I made out the great towers of Canterbury Cathedral, but the sun
shifted and the vision passed. London itself, brought immediately to our
feet, was an astonishing sight, but as every one has seen the
photographs taken from aeroplanes I will not dilate upon it, though it
differed in many ways from these.
Perhaps the most pleasing sight of all was that of Richmond Park, where
the winter Fair had just begun. We could see the roundabouts, the
swings, and so forth, with great clearness, and even, as the wind
freshened, catch a faint buzzing noise from the steam organs. Then a
captive balloon rose up, I suppose a thousand feet, and some quarter of
a mile away. With powerful field glasses we could see the big basket
crammed with adventurous trippers, till she was hauled down again to
make another ascent and add a few more pounds to the profits of her
proprietors.