Chapter Six
I must now, in the progress of the story, give a brief account of what I may call "The week of rumour," which immediately preceded my disappearance and plunge into the unknown.
I spent a miserable and agitated evening at Cerne Hall, and went early to my room. Arthur and Pat joined me there an hour later and for some time we talked over what the telegram from Morse might mean. Eventually they retired to their own rooms and I was left alone.
I did not sleep a wink -- indeed, I made no effort to go to bed, though I took off my clothes and wrapped myself in a dressing gown. The suspense was almost unbearable, and, failing further news, I determined, at any cost to the shooting plans of my host, to get myself recalled to London by telegram. I felt sure that the whole of my life's happiness was at stake.
The next morning at nine o'clock, just as I was preparing to go down to breakfast, a long wire was brought to me. It was in our own office cipher, which I was trained to read without the key, and it was signed by Julia Dewsbury. The gist of the message was that there were strange rumours all over Fleet Street about the great towers at Richmond. An enormous sensation was gathering like a thunder cloud in the world of news and would shortly burst. Would I come to London at the earliest possible moment?
How I got out of Cerne Hall I hardly remember, but I did, to the blank astonishment of my host; drove to the nearest station, caught a train which got me to Norwich in half an hour and engaged the swiftest car in the city to run me up to London at top speed. Just after lunch I burst into the office of the Evening Special.
Williams and Miss Dewsbury were expecting me.
"It's big stuff," said the acting editor excitedly, "and we ought to be in it first, considering that we've more definite information than I expect any other paper possesses as yet, though it won't be the case for very long."
I sat down with hardly a word, and nodded to Miss Dewsbury. Her training was wonderful. She had everything ready in order to acquaint me with the facts in the shortest possible space of time.
She spoke into the telephone and Miss Easey -- "Vera" of our "Society Gossip" -- came in.
"I have found out, Sir Thomas," she said, "that Mr. Gideon Morse has cancelled all social engagements whatever for himself and his daughter. Miss Dewsbury tells me that it's not necessary now to say what these were. I will, however, tell you that they extended until the New Year and were of the utmost social importance."
"Cancelled, Miss Easey?"
"Definitely and finally cancelled, both by letter to the various hosts and hostesses concerned, and by an intimation which is already sent to all the London dailies, for publication tomorrow. The notice came up to my room this morning from our own advertising office, for inclusion in 'Society Notes'. As you know, such intimations are printed as news and paid for at a guinea a line."
"Any reason given, Miss Easey?"
"None whatever in the notices, which are brief almost to curtness. However, I have been able to see one of the private letters which has been received by my friends, Lord and Lady William Gatehouse, of Banks. It is courteously worded, and explains that Mr. and Miss Morse are definitely retiring from social life. It's signed by his secretary."
The invaluable Julia nodded to Miss Easey. She pursed up her prim old mouth, wished me good morning and rustled away.
"That's that!" said Julia. "Now about the towers."
"Yes, about the towers," I said, and my voice was hoarse.
"As my poor friend, Mr. Rolston, discovered," she said bravely, "these monstrous blots on London are certainly not for the purposes of wireless telegraphy. There are half the journalists in London at Richmond at the present moment, including two of our own reporters, and it is said that on the immense platforms between the towers, a series of extraordinary and luxurious buildings has been erected. It is widely believed that Gideon Morse is out of his mind, and has retired to a sort of unassailable, luxurious hermitage in the sky."
There was a knock at the door and a sub-editor came in with a long white strip just torn from the tape machine. I took it and read that the "Central News Agencies" announces "crowds at base of towers surrounded by a thirty-foot wall. Callers at principal gate are politely received by Boss Mulligan, formerly well-known boxer, United States, now in the service of Gideon M. Morse. Inquirers told that no statement can be issued for publication. Later. Rumour in neighbourhood says towers are entirely staffed by special Chinese servants, large company of which arrived at Liverpool on Thursday last. Growing certainty that towers are private enterprise of one man, Morse, the Brazilian multi-millionaire."
A telephone bell on my table rang. I took it up.
"Is that Sir Thomas? Charles Danvers speaking." It was the voice of our dapper young Parliamentary correspondent, the nephew of a prominent under-secretary, and as smart as they make them.
"Yes, where are you?"
"House of Commons. Mr. Bloxhame, Member for Budmouth, is asking a question in the House this afternoon about the Richmond Tower sensation. The Secretary to the Board of Trade will reply. There's great interest in the lobby. Special edition clearly indicated. Question will come on about four."
I sent everyone away and thought for a quarter of an hour. Of course all this absolved me of my promise to Morse. He had played with me, fooled me absolutely and I had been like a babe in his astute hands. Well, there was no time to think of my own private grievances. My immediate duty was to make as good a show that afternoon and the next day as any other paper. My hope was to beat all my rivals out of the field.
After all, there were nothing but rumours and surmise up to the present. The news situation might change in a couple of hours, but at the present moment I felt certain that I knew more about the affair than any other man in Fleet Street. I set my teeth and resolved to let Gideon Mendoza Morse have it in the neck.
Within an hour or so we had an "Extra Edition" on the streets, and during that hour I drew on my own private knowledge, and dictated to Miss Dewsbury and a couple of other stenographers. Poppy Boynton's experience was a godsend. I remembered her own vivid words of the night before, and I printed them in the form of an interview which must have satisfied even that delightful girl's hunger for advertisement.
Incidentally, I sent a man from the Corps of Commissionaires down to Cerne in a fast motorcar, with banknotes for two hundred and fifty in an envelope, and instructions to stop in Regent Street on his way and buy the finest box of chocolates that London could produce. I remember the bill came in a few days afterwards, and if you'll believe me, it was for seventeen pounds ten shilling!
At four o'clock, while the question was being asked in the House of Commons, and all the other evening papers were waiting the result for their special editions, my "Extra Special" was rushing all over London -- the "Extra Special" containing the "First Authentic Description of the City in the Clouds."
"You really are wonderful, Sir Thomas," said Miss Dewsbury, removing her tortoiseshell spectacles and touching her eyes with a somewhat dingy handkerchief, "but where, oh, where is young Mr. William Rolston?"
"My dear girl," I replied, "from what I've seen of William Rolston, I'm quite certain he's alive and kicking. Not only that, but we'll hear from him again very shortly."
"You really think so, Sir Thomas?" The eyes, hitherto concealed by the spectacles, were really rather fascinating eyes after all.
"I don't think so, I know it. Look here, Miss Dewsbury" -- for some reason I couldn't resist the temptation of a confidence "this thing, this stunt hits me privately a great deal harder than you can have any idea of. You said that the shadow of the towers was across my path, and you were more right than you knew. Enough said. I think we've whacked Fleet Street this afternoon, well and good. There's a lot behind this momentary sensation, which I will never leave go of until it's straightened out. This is between you and me, not for office consumption, but," I put my hand on her thin arm, "if I can help in any way, you shall have your Bill Rolston."
She turned h
er head away and walked to the window. Then she said an astonishing thing.
"If only I could help you to your Juanita!"
"What!" I shouted. "What on earth----"
A page came in with a telegram.
"Addressed to you, Sir Thomas," he said, "marked personal."
I tore it open, it was from my friend Pat Moore.
"Extraordinary youth followed us out shooting, and came up at lunch asking for you. Boy of about sixteen. Mysterious cove with the assurance of Mephistopheles. Some question of fifty pounds he was to get from you on delivering letter. Gave him your address and he departed for London."
I couldn't make head or tail of Pat's wire, and I put it down on the table for future consideration, when Williams hurried in with a pad of paper.
"Danvers just phoned through," he said, "and I've sent the message downstairs for the stop press."
I began to read.
Bloxhame interrogated Secretary to the Board of Trade, who replied it was perfectly true that the towers were built to the order of Gideon Mendoza Morse and were his property. Morse has entered into an agreement with the Government engaging not to use the towers for wireless telegraphy or for any other purpose than a strictly private one, which appears to be that he intends to live on the platforms on the top.
At his death the whole property will pass into possession of the Government, to be used for wireless purposes, or for the principal aeroplane station between England and the Continent. Aeroplanes, when the existing buildings are removed, will be able to alight from the platforms in numbers. Expenditure from first to last, Board of Trade estimates at seven millions. Feeling of House at such a magnificent gift to the Nation, which is bound to fall in within twenty years or so, friendly and satisfactory.
In answer to a question from Commander Crosman, M.P. for Rodwell, President Board of Aerial Control announces that strict orders have been issued that aeroplanes are not to circle round the towers or in any way annoy present proprietor. The House is greatly amused and interested at this news."
Williams departed to issue another "Extra Special," and I was once more left alone. Obviously the secret was out. It was startling enough in all conscience, and, as I thought, merely the whim of a madman. And yet there were aspects of it which were inexplicable. There could be no doubt whatever that Gideon Morse had flouted English society, which had treated him with extreme kindness, in a way that it would never forget. That surely was not the action of a sane man.
If he had wanted to build for himself a lordly "pleasure house" to which he might retire on occasions, a sane man would have arranged things very differently. Certainly, and this was not without some bitter satisfaction to me, he had ruined his daughter's chances of a brilliant marriage -- for a long time at any rate. I saw that secrecy had been necessary, though it had been carried to an extreme degree; but why had he fooled me under the guise of friendship? Surely he could have trusted my word.
I was furious as I thought of the way I had been done. I was furious also, and worse than furious, alarmed, when I thought of Juanita. Had she been in the plot the whole time? Did she like being spirited away from all that could make a young girl's life bright and happy? What was at the bottom of it all?
The only thing to do was to try and keep ahead, or level, with my rival contemporaries in the matter of news, and privately to wait on events, and think the matter out definitely. For the next few days, weeks perhaps, some of the acutest brains in England would be puzzled over this problem, and if there was really anything more in it than the freak of a colossal egotist, who thus, with a superb gesture, signified his scorn of the world, then some light might come.
Suddenly I felt ill. I gave a few instructions, left the office and went home to Piccadilly, and to bed.
It was about eight o'clock that evening when Preston woke me. I had had a bath and changed, and was wondering exactly what to do for the rest of the evening, when Preston came in and said that there was a boy who wished to see me. He would neither give his name nor his business, but seemed respectable.
I remembered Pat's mysterious telegram, which till now I had quite forgotten, and with a certain quickening of the pulses I ordered the boy to be shown up.
He came into the room with a scrape and a bow; a nice-looking lad of sixteen, decently dressed in black.
"Who are you and what do you want?" I said.
He seemed a little nervous and his eyes were bright. "Are you Sir Thomas Kirby?"
"Yes, what is it? By the way, haven't you been all the way to Norfolk to find me?"
"Yes, sir, it's my day off, but unfortunately I found you had left, sir, so I came on here as fast as I could. A gentleman at Cerne Hall gave me your address."
"And how did you know I was at Cerne Hall?"
"It's on the envelope, sir."
"The envelope?"
"Yes, sir, the one I was to deliver to you personally, and on no account to let it get into the hands of anyone else, even one of your servants, sir, and" -- he breathed a little fast -- "and the lady said that you would certainly give me fifty pounds, sir, if I did exactly as she ordered, and never breathed a word to a single soul."
In an instant I understood. The blood grew hot and raced into my veins as I held out my hand, trembling with impatience, while the youth performed a somewhat complicated operation of half undressing, eventually producing a brown paper packet intricately tied with string, from some inner recesses of his wardrobe.
"Who are you?" I asked while he was unbuttoning.
"James Smith, sir, one of the pages at the Ritz Hotel."
I tore off the wrappers imposed on the letter by this cautious youth. There was a letter addressed to me in a fine Italian hand which I knew from having seen it written in one word only -- "Cerne."
Fortunately, I had plenty of money in the flat and there was no need to give the excellent James Smith a cheque.
He gasped with joy as he tucked away the crackling bits of paper.
"And remember, not ever a word to anyone, Smith."
"On my honour, sir," he said, saluting.
"And what will you do with it, Smith?"
"Please, sir, I hope to train myself into an hotel manager," he said, and I let him go at that. I only hope that he will succeed.
I opened the letter. It ran as follows:
Farewell. I don't suppose we will ever meet again. I am forced to retire from the world -- from love -- from you. I cannot explain, but fear walks with me night and day. Oh, my love, if you could only save me, you would, I know, but it is impossible and so farewell. Were I not sure that we will never see each other more I could not write as I have done and signed myself here,
Your, Juanita.
I put the letter carefully into the breast pocket of my coat, and then, for the first time in my life, I fainted dead away.
Preston found me a few minutes later, got me right somehow, ascertained that I had not eaten for many hours, scolded me like a father, and poured turtle soup into me till I was alive again, alive and changed from the man I had been a few hours ago.