The City in the Clouds Part 31

He had been strangled by a yard of catgut, twisted, tourniquet-fas.h.i.+on, by a piece of stick at the back of the neck. The catgut had sunk far into the flesh, reducing the neck to less than half its ordinary size, and the great staring head hung down upon one shoulder.

One of the logs in the grate fell with a crackle of sparks. For the rest, dead silence.

"They have come," Pu-Yi said simply.

"But what has happened?" I whispered, my throat was so dry that the sound was like the rustling of paper.

"I shall know soon. I am going to find out. There is not a minute to lose. Can you, dare you, wait here--"

I nodded and he was out of the room in a flash. Upon the dead man's table was the usual array of bottles and gla.s.ses. I took some brandy and gulped it down and my brain cleared instantly. There was a little touch of infinite pathos even in this hideous moment, for by the side of an empty gla.s.s I saw a string of beads with a little metal crucifix. The Irishman, a Roman Catholic of course, must have been saying his prayers some time before he met his end. Somehow the thought comforted me and gave me power to act. I found a knife, and cut the bonds that tied the giant to the chair. I lowered him reverently to the floor and finally severed the horrible ligature around his throat. An examination of the steel door in the screen of bars showed that it was securely locked, but the bunch of keys which the dead man usually carried upon a chain was no longer there--the end of the chain dangled from his trousers pocket.

While I was doing these things a most deadly apprehension was standing specter-like by my side and plucking with wan fingers at my sleeve. What had happened, what might even now be happening at the Palacete Mendoza?

Pu-Yi whirled into the room. He made no noise, it was as though a dried leaf had been blown in by the wind. His face was transformed. Every outline was sharpened, and the color was changed until it bore the exact resemblance to a mask of green bronze. In its frozen immobility it was dead, yet awfully alive, and the eyes glittered like little crumbs of diamond.

"Well?"

"I know how it has been done. It is very clever, very clever indeed. Let me tell you that all the power cables connecting us with below have been scientifically cut. We can neither telephone down to the Park nor can we descend to it in one of the lifts. We are isolated up here in the clouds."

"But the men, the staff?" I gasped, and then I stepped back, staring down at his hands. They were all foul and stained with blood.

"Not far away," he said, "there is another body, that of my servant, a youth from my own Province, whom I loved and whom I was educating. He was alive five minutes ago. He had just time to sob out the truth and his repentance."

"Tell me quickly, Pu-Yi, time presses."

"They caught him last night, so they must have been here then."

"Who caught him?"

"He never knew. They were masked, but there were two of them, and from his description we know very well who they were. Sir Thomas, they tortured him for a long time until he spoke, promising him freedom if he did so. His story was disjointed, gasped out with his dying breath, but I can put it together pretty well.

"They made him give an order by telephone from the upper City that, immediately, the staff were to leave here and descend to the ground and await further orders, all but Mulligan, who was to remain at his post until I came to him. This message was delivered in Chinese to the man at the telephone exchange, and the poor boy was forced to counterfeit my voice. He was blindfolded immediately afterwards, but he heard a man speaking, and he said he could not have told the voice from that of Mr.

Morse."

In a flash I saw the whole thing, in its devilish ingenuity, its fiendish completeness.

"Then we are absolutely alone, you, I, Mr. Rolston, Mr. Morse and his daughter?"

"And her maid," he answered quietly.

"At the mercy of--"

"That we have yet to prove. We must throw all emotion, all fear aside.

That's what we have to do now. It's diamond cut diamond. There's one problem in my mind, and one only."

"What's that, quick!"

"I daresay that in an hour I could get down to the ground. Among the intricate steel-work of this tower there's a tiny circular staircase of open lattice-work, sufficient for the pa.s.sage of one person only, and even here, every three or four hundred feet the way is barred by locked gates, though I have a master key to all of them. Shall I make the attempt, and risk cras.h.i.+ng off into s.p.a.ce--for it is a mere steeplejack's way--and summon a.s.sistance, which may well be another hour in arriving, for the tower cables have been scientifically cut and no one but an electrician could repair them? Or shall I rush with you to defend the Palace?"

"You leave the decision to me?"

"It is in your hands, Prince."

"Then, old chap, tumble down this accursed tower, h.e.l.l for leather, and rouse the pack. If I and Morse and Bill Rolston cannot account for these cowardly a.s.sa.s.sins, then one more man won't make any difference."

So I said, so I thought. I had no idea into what peril I was sending him, though I have sometimes wondered if he knew. He took my hand, kissed it, and beckoning me, we hurried through the silent under City towards the lift.

"You go up, Sir Thomas," he said, "and exercise the utmost care. Have your pistol ready. The mist is as thick as ever, which is in your favor.

You can find your way now to the Palace, I am sure."

"And you?"

"I go off here," he said, pointing with his left arm down a long vista to where, under a square arch, there was nothing to be seen at all but swaying yellow-white. "One opens the gate in the railing and drops on to the circular stairs," he said, "which cling to the outside of the steel-work all the way down like a little train of ivy."

"_Au revoir_, be as quick as you can."

"Good-by," and I jumped into the elevator.

Some two minutes afterwards, when I was creeping through the wool with my pistol in my hand, alert for the slightest sound around me, I heard the sharp crack of a rifle. It came from behind me. There was a perceptible interval and then another crack, followed, I could have sworn to it, by a thin wailing cry.

Then utter silence fell once more upon the white and m.u.f.fled City.

As I ran I tried to steel myself, if that were as I suspected, the last dying cry of Pu-Yi, not to think about it. The immediate moment, the immediate future, these were everything.

All the extraordinary precautions had failed. The a.s.sa.s.sins were here!

In what force? How had they come?--though that was useless to speculate on. Two things only remained. I must warn Morse if it was not already too late, must avenge him if it was. I resolutely put aside the thought of Juanita--of any personal feeling which might mar my judgment and unstring my nerves at this supreme and dreadful moment.

I found myself, somehow or other, at the entrance to the tunneled pa.s.sage. Save for my own quick breathing there had not been a sound, and the horrible curtain of the fog was as thick as ever. Should I at once creep up to the Palace, or should I go back to the villa and find Rolston? It was a nice question and the decision had to be instantaneous. I decided that it would give me a tremendous advantage to have him with me, and besides that, he himself must be warned of the terror that lurked in the darkness of the cloud.

I arrived without any mishap, pushed open the door and was crossing the dark hall when my foot caught in some obstruction and I fell headlong.

There was no time to cry out, had I been startled enough to do so, before something leapt upon my back with a soft yet heavy thud. A hand slipped over my mouth and the round barrel of a pistol was pressed into my neck.

I lay helpless, thinking that it was all over, when the weight lifted, the pistol was s.n.a.t.c.hed away and I was hauled to my feet to discover--Rolston.

"Not a word," he whispered. "I set a trap in the hall, Sir Thomas. Thank G.o.d you are alive!"

"Thank G.o.d you are too. Bill, they've strangled Mulligan, killed another Chinese by torture and I am very much afraid have shot Pu-Yi as he was trying to get down to earth to summon help.

"Every single member of the staff is down in the Park with orders to stay there--false orders. The lifts are all put out of action beyond possibility of being repaired for several hours. That's how things stand. Now we must get to the Palace as quickly as we possibly can. G.o.d knows what has happened or may be happening there."

"This way, quick!" he said, when he had listened to me with strained attention.

He took my arm, hurried me into the back part of the house, opened a door with a key and we entered a bedroom which I had not before seen.

The windows were shuttered and curtained but the electric light--which never failed either my villa or the Palace during the whole of those terrible hours--made every detail clear. Upon the bed, lying as if asleep, was Juanita. Leaning over her was a tall, elderly, hard-featured French woman with a typical Norman face.

I staggered back into Bill Rolston's arms.

"Good G.o.d!" I cried, and then, "She's not dead, tell me she's not dead!"