I take up my pen this evening, exactly ten years after I wrote the last
paragraph of the above narrative, to read of James Antony Midwinter,
dead like a poisoned rat in his chair, with a sort of amazement in my
mind.
The whole story has been locked in a safe for ten long years, and that
blessed and happy time has made the wild adventures, the terrible
moments in the City in the Clouds, indeed seem things far off and long
ago.
This afternoon I paid what will probably be my last visit to the strange
kingdom up there.
I stood with my little son, Viscount Kirby, and my small daughter, Lady
Juanita, and my wife, the Countess of Stax, at a very solemn ceremony.
In the presence of a Government official, a representative of His
Majesty--Colonel Patrick Moore, of the Irish Guards, A.D.C.--the
Cardinal Archbishop, and a few private friends, I watched the elmwood
shell, containing Gideon Mendoza Morse, placed in its marble tomb.
It was his wish, to be buried there in his fantastic City, and no one
said him nay. Well, the body lies in its place, two hundred weeping
Chinamen are returning to the Flowery Land, wealthy beyond their utmost
hopes, and in a few months the City in the Clouds will dissolve and
disappear.
The rich treasures are coming to Stax, my castle in Norfolk--such as
are not bequeathed, by Morse's munificence, to the museums of England
and the galleries at Brazil.
Soon the immense plateau will be England's aerial terminus for the mail
ships from all parts of the world.
While Gideon Morse lived it was impossible to publish the truth. It is
to appear now, at last, and I simply want to tie a few loose ends, and
to bring down the curtain, leaving nothing unexplained.
First of all let me say that the general public knew nothing at all of
the horrors in which I was so intimately concerned.
Juanita and I were married very quietly in Westminster Cathedral soon
after Midwinter went to his account. The enormous fortune that she
brought me, supplementing my own very considerable means, operated in
the natural way. Other journals were added to the _Evening Special_, and
we started a great campaign for the sweetening of ordinary life, and not
unsuccessfully, as every one knows.
They made me a baron, and four years afterwards, Earl of Stax. As for my
father-in-law, he refused to budge from the City in the Clouds.
I don't mean that he didn't make appearances in society, but he loved to
get back to his fantastic haven, from whence, like a magician, he
showered benefits upon London.
Arthur Winstanley, as everybody knows, is Under-Secretary for India and
the most rising politician of our day.
It is said that William Rolston, editor of the _Evening Special_, is
our most brilliant journalist, though the older school condemn him for
an excess of imagination. I saw the other day, in the old-fashioned
_Thunderer_, a slashing attack upon a series of articles which had
recently appeared upon China, and which the critic of the _Thunderer_
conclusively proved to be written from an abysmal depth of ignorance.
I don't often go to the office now, though I am still proprietor of the
paper, but when I do, and sit in the editorial room, I miss Julia
Dewsbury, best of all private secretaries since the beginning of the
world.
Bill, however, assures me that she is all right, entirely taken up with
the children, and not in the least inclined to bully him in spite of her
eight years advantage in age.
"To that woman," says Bill reverentially, "I owe everything."
Let me wind up properly.
Crouching behind a high wall on Richmond Hill is a modest hostelry still
known as the "Golden Swan." It is still my property, and pays me a
satisfactory dividend. It is run by a co-partnership, which I should say
is unique.
The Honest Fool and my ex-valet, Mr. Preston, perform this feat
together, but, now that Morse is dead and the Chinese have all departed,
I fear they will lose a good deal of custom. This I gathered from Mr.
Mogridge, that pillar of the saloon bar, who happened to meet me by
chance in Fleet Street not long ago.
"'Allo! Why, it's Mr. Thomas, late landlord of the 'Golden Swan'!" said
Mr. Mogridge. "'Aven't seen you for years. What are you doing now?"
"Oh, I'm doing very well, thank you, Mr. Mogridge. And how is the old
'Swan'?"
"Same as ever and no dropping off in the quality of the drinks. Still, I
fear it's going down. I'm afraid it will never be quite the same as it
was in the days of Ting-A-ling-A-ling," and here Mr. Mogridge placed his
hands upon his hips and roared with laughter at that ancient joke.