* * *
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, quite separate from those who worked below. They were interested in the Golden Swan, 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 entice to the public house.
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 Asian 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 Stanley Whistlecraft, 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 on the ground. 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 on 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 steel creation 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 seeming 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.
My eyes travelled 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 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 aloud, and laughed, but my laughter was sadness, and my longing, pain unbearable.
There was a slight bend in the towpath 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 on 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, yellow in the moonlight.
One of the brutes lunged at the man I now saw to be a Chinese man of some consequence, lunged at him with a brutal laugh and filthy oath. The Chinese man threw up his lean arms, cried out again in a thin, shrill scream, stepped backwards, missed his footing and went into the river. In a second the current caught him and began to whirl him over towards the Twickenham side.
It was obvious that he could not swim a stroke. There was a clatter of hobnailed 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.
It was icy cold. For a moment the shock seemed to stop my heart, and then it came right again and I struck out vigorously. 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 individual to rescue possible, and in another five minutes I had 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. After a few minutes I had the satisfaction of seeing his face turn from blue-grey to something like its normal yellow under the light of the moon. His teeth began to chatter as I jerked him to his feet and furiously rubbed him up and down.
I tried to recall what I knew of pigeon English. "Bad man throw you in river. You velly lucky, man come by save you, Johnny."
I had the shock of my life.
"I am indeed fortunate," came in a thin, reed-like voice, "I am indeed fortunate in having found so brave a preserver. Honourable sir, from this moment my life is yours."
"Why, you speak perfect English," I said in amazement.
"I have been resident in this country for some time, sir," he replied, "as a student at King's College, until I undertook my present work."
"Well," I said, "we'd better not stand here exchanging polite remarks much longer. There is such a thing as pneumonia, which you would do well to avoid. If you're strong enough, we'll hurry up to the terrace and find my house, where we'll get you dry and warm. I'm the landlord of the Golden Swan."
He was a polite fellow. He bowed profoundly, and then, as the water dripped from his black and meagre form, he said something rather extraordinary. "I should never have thought it."
I cursed myself. The excitement had made me return to the manner of Piccadilly, and this shrewd observer had seen it in a moment. I said no more, but took him by the arm and yanked him along for one of the fastest miles he had ever done in his life.
I took him to the side door of my pub. Fortunately Ah Sing was descending the stairs to replenish an empty decanter with whisky -- my Asian gentlemen used to like it in their tea. I explained what had happened in a few words, and my shivering derelict was hurried upstairs to my own bedroom. I don't know what Rolston did to him, though I heard Sliddim directed to run down into the kitchen and confer with Mrs. Abbs.
For my part, I sat in the room behind the bar, listening to Stanley talking with my patrons, and I shed my clothes before a blazing fire. A little hot rum, a change, and a dressing gown, and I was myself again. Smoking a pipe I fell into a sort of dream.
It was a pleasant dream. I suppose the shock of the swim, the race up the terrace to the Golden Swan and the rum and milk which followed had a soporific, soothing effect. I wasn't exactly asleep, but I was pleasantly drowsed, and I had a sort of feeling that something significant was going to happen.
Just about closing time Rolston glided in. I never saw a European before or since who could so perfectly imitate the ghost walk of the yellow men.
I looked to see that the door to the bar was shut.
"Well, how's our friend?" I asked.
"He's had a big shock, Sir Thomas, but he's all right now. I've rubbed him all over with oil, fed him up with beef tea and brandy, and found him dry clothes."
"H
e's from the towers, of course?"
As I said this, I saw Bill Rolston's face, beneath its yellow dye, was blazing with excitement. "Sir Thomas," he said in a whisper, "this is Pu-Yi himself, Mr. Morse's Chinese secretary; a man utterly different from the others we have seen here yet. He's of the Mandarin class. The buttons on his robe are of red coral. In this house, at this moment, we have one of the masters of the Secret City."
I gave a long, low whistle, which -- I remember it so well -- exactly coincided with the raucous shout of Stanley Whistlecraft. "Time, gentlemen, please!"
A thought struck me. "The other Chinese in the large and small rooms, do they know this man is here?"
"No, Sir Thomas. I am more than glad to say I got him up to your own room when both doors were closed."
"What's he doing now?"
"He's having a little sleep. I promised to call him in an hour or so, when he wishes to pay you his respects."
Bill Rolston listened for a moment.
"The others are going downstairs," he said. "I must be there to see them out, and I have one or two little transactions...."
He felt in a villainous side pocket and I knew as well as possible what it contained, and what would be handed to one or two of the Asian gentlemen as they slipped out of the side door on their way home.
Bill came back in some twenty minutes.
"Now," he said, "I'm going upstairs to wake Pu-Yi and bring him down to you. You must remember, Sir Thomas, that I am only a dirty little servant. I am as far beneath a man like Pu-Yi as Sir Thomas Kirby is above Stanley Whistlecraft, so I cannot be present at your interview. My idea was that I should creep into the bar -- Stanley will have had his supper and gone to bed -- and lie down on the floor with my ear to the bottom of the door, then I can hear everything."
"That's a good idea," I said, for I was beginning to realize what an enormous lot might depend on this interview. Then I thought of something else.
"Look here, Bill, you must remember this too. I fished the blighter out of the Thames and no doubt he will be thankful in his overdone, Asian fashion. But to him, a man of the class you say he is, I shall be nothing but a vulgar publican, and I don't see quite what's going to come out of that!"
He had slipped the gutta-percha pads out of his cheeks -- an operation to which I had grown quite accustomed -- and I could see his face as it really was.
"That's occurred to me also," he replied, "but somehow or other I'm sure the fates are on our side tonight."
He arose, turned away for a moment, there was a click and a gasp, and he was the little impassive Asian again. He glided up to me, put his yellow hand with the long, polished finger nails on my shoulder, and said in my ear, "Sir Thomas, he must see Her every day!"
He vanished from the room almost as he spoke, and left me with blood on fire.
I was to see someone who might have spoken with Juanita that very day! I sat almost trembling with impatience, though issuing a dozen warnings to myself to betray nothing, to keep every sense alert, so that I might turn the interview to my own advantage.
At last there was a knock on the door. Bill opened it and the slim figure of the man I had rescued glided in. They had dried his clothes, and he even wore his little skull cap which had apparently stuck to his head while he was in the water. I now had the opportunity of seeing him in the light for the first time.
Instead of the flat, Tartar nose, I saw one boldly aquiline, with large, narrow nostrils. His eyes were almond shaped but lustrous and full of fire. About the lips there was a kind of serene sorrow. I find it difficult to describe in any other way. The whole face was noble in contour and in expression, though the general impression it gave was one of unutterable sadness. Dress him how you might, meet him where you would, there was no possibility of mistaking Pu-Yi for anything but a gentleman of high degree.
The door closed and I rose from my seat and held out my hand. "Well," I said, "this is a bit of orlright, sir, and I'm glad to see you so well recovered. Tomorrow morning we'll have the law on them dirty rascals that assaulted you."
I put on the accent thickly and flashed my diamond ring at him, for this might well be a game of touch and go, and I had a deep secret to preserve.
He put his long, thin hand in mine, gripped it, and then suddenly turned it over so that the backs of my fingers were uppermost.
It was an odd thing to do and I wondered what it meant.
"Oh, landlord of the Swan of Gold," he piped, in his curious, flute-like voice, sorting out his words as he went on, "I owe you my unworthy life, which is nothing in itself and which I do not value, save only for a certain opportunity which remains to it, and is a private matter. But I owe my life to your courage and strength and flowering kindness, and I come to put myself in your hands."
Really he was making a damn lot of fuss about nothing!
"Look here," I said, "that's all right. You would have done as much for me. Now let's sit down and have a peg and a chat. I can put you up for the rest of the night, you know, and I shall be awfully glad to do it."
He looked as if he was going to make more speeches, but I cut him short. "As for putting your life in my hands," I said, "we don't talk like that in England."
He sat down and a faint smile came on his tired lips. "And do the public house keepers in England have hands such as yours are?" he said gently. "Sir, your hands are white, they are also shaped in a certain way, and your nails are not even in mourning for your profession!"
I cursed myself savagely as he mocked me. Bill had pointed out over and over again that I oughtn't to use a nail brush too frequently -- it wasn't in the part -- but I always forgot it.
To hide my confusion I moved a little table towards him on which was a box of excellent cigarettes. Unfortunately, also on the table was a little pocket edition of Shakespeare with which I used to solace the drab hours.
He picked it up, opened it plump at "Romeo and Juliet" -- the play which, for reasons known to you, I most affected at the time -- and looked up at me with gentle eyes.
"'Two households, both alike in dignity, in fair Verona,'" he said.
My brain was working like a mill. I could not make the fellow out. What did he know, what did he suspect? Well, the best thing was to ask him outright.
"You mean?"
He became distressed at once. "You speak harshly to me, O my preserver. I meant but that I knew at once that you are not born in the position in which I see you. Perhaps you will give me your kind leave to explain. In my native country I am of high hereditary rank, though I am poor enough and occupy a somewhat menial position here. My honourable name, honourable sir, is Pu-Yi, which will convey nothing to you. During the rebellion of twenty years ago in China, my ancestral house was destroyed, and as a child I was rescued and sent to Europe. For many years the peasants of my Province scraped their little earnings together, and a sum sufficient to support me in my studies was sent to me in Paris. I speak the French, Spanish and English languages. I am a Bachelor of Science of the London University, and my one hope and aim in life is, and has been, to acquire sufficient money to return to the tombs of my ancestors on the banks of the Yang-tse-kiang, there to live a quiet life, much resembling that of an English country squire, until I also fade away into the unknown, and become part of the Absolute."
There was something perfectly charming about him. Since he had somehow or other divined that I was an educated man, I felt drawn to him. You must remember that for months now the only person I had had to talk to was Bill Rolston. And all the time, he was so occupied in our tortuous campaign that we only met late at night to report progress.
For a moment I quite forgot what this new friend might mean to me, and opened out to him without a thought of further advantage.
I was a fool, no doubt. Afterwards, talking it all over with my friends Pat Moore and Arthur Winstanley, I saw that I ran a great risk. Anyhow, I reciprocated Pu-Yi's confidence as well as I could.
"I'm awfully glad we've met, even under such unf
ortunate circumstances. You are quite right. I come of a different class from what the ordinary frequenter of this public house might suppose. But since you have discovered it, I beg you to keep it entirely to yourself. I also have had my misfortunes. Perhaps I also am longing for some ultimate happiness or triumph."
Out of the box he took a cigarette, and his long, delicate fingers played with it. "Brother," he said, "I understand, and I say again, now that I can say it in a new voice, my life is yours."
Then I began on my own account. "Tell me," I said, "of yourself. Many of your fellow countrymen come here -- the lower orders -- and they are all employed by the millionaire, Gideon Morse, who seems to prefer the men of China to any other. You also, Pu-Yi, are connected with this colossal mystery?"
He didn't answer for a moment, but looked down at the glowing end of his cigarette.
"Yes," he replied, with some constraint, "I am in the service of the honourable Mr. Gideon Mendoza Morse. I am, in fact, his private secretary. and through me his instructions are conveyed to the various heads of departments."
"You are fortunate. I suppose that before long you will be able to fulfil your ambitions and retire to China?"
With a quick glance at me he admitted that this was so.
"And yet," I said thoughtfully, "it must be a very trying service, despite that you live in Wonderland, in a City of Enchantment."
Again I caught a swift regard and he leant forward in his chair.
"Why do you say that?" he asked.
I hazarded a bold shot. "Simply because the man is mad," I said.
His bright eyes narrowed to glittering slits. "You quote gossip of the newspapers," he replied.
"Do I? I happen to know more than the newspapers do."
He rose to his feet, took two steps towards me, and looked down with a twitching face. "Who are you?" he said, and his whole frail frame trembled.
I caught him firmly by the arm and stared into his face. "I am the one who has been waiting, the one who is waiting, to help -- the one who has come to save," I said, and my voice was not my own. It was as if the words were put into my mouth by an outside power.
He wrenched his arm away, gave a little cry, strode to the mantelpiece and bent his head on his arms. His whole body was shaken with convulsive sobs.
I stood in the middle of the room watching him, hardly daring to breathe, feeling that my heart was swelling until it occupied the whole of my body.
At length he looked up. "Then I shall be of some use to Her after all," he said. "This is too much honour. The Lily of White Jade----"
He staggered back, his face working terribly, and fell in a huddled heap on the floor. I was just opening my mouth to call for Rolston when there came a thunderous knocking on the side door of the house.
I ran into the dimly lit passage, and as I did so Rolston flitted out of the bar door and stood beside me.
"I have heard everything," he whispered, "but what, what is this?"
He pointed to the door, and as he did so there was again the thunder of the knocker and the sound of the electric bell.
Hardly knowing what I did, I shot back the bolts at top and bottom, turned the heavy key in its lock and opened the door.
Outside in the moonlight a figure was standing, a man in a heavy fur coat, carrying a suitcase in his left hand.
"What the devil----" I was beginning, when he pushed past me and came into the hall.
Then I saw, with a leap of all my pulses, that it was Lord Arthur Winstanley.