I must now, in the progress of the story, give a brief account of what I may call "The week of rumor," 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, until 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 rumors 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 canceled 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."

"Canceled, Miss Easey?"

"Definitely and finally canceled, 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 to-morrow. 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 very hoarse.

"As my poor friend, Mr. Rolston, discovered," she said bravely, "these monstrous blots upon 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. Rumor in neighborhood says that 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 every one 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 rumors 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 old 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 motor-car, with notes 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!

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 tortoise-shell spectacles and touching her eyes with a somewhat dingy handkerchief, "but where, oh, where is William Rolston?"

"My dear girl," I replied, "from what I've seen of William Rolston, I'm quite certain that he's alive and kicking. Not only that, but we shall 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 shall never leave go of until it's straightened out. This is between you and me, not for office consumption, but," I put my hand upon her thin arm, "if I can help in any way, you shall have your Bill Rolston."

She turned her 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 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 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 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 romantic 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 upon 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, and collapsed. I gave a few instructions, left the office and went home to Piccadilly, and to bed.

It was about eight o'clock when Preston woke me. I had had a bath and changed, and was wondering exactly what I should 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 any one 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 upon 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 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 check.

He gasped with joy as he tucked away the crackling bits of paper.

"And remember, not ever a word to any one, Smith."

"On my honor, sir," he said, saluting.

"And what will you do with it, Smith?"

"Please, sir, I hope to pelmanize 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 shall 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 shall not 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.

The next day I satisfied myself that all was going well in the office, and simply roamed about London. Already I think the dim purpose which afterwards came to such extraordinary fruit was being born in my mind. I wanted to be alone, taken quite out of my usual surroundings, and I achieved this with considerable success. I rode in tube trains and heard every one discussing Gideon Morse, and what was already known as the "City in the Clouds." The papers announced that thousands of people were encamped in Richmond Park gazing upwards, and seeing nothing because of a cloud veil that hung around the top of the towers. It seemed the proprietors of telescopes on tripods were doing a roaring trade at threepence a look, but the gate in the grim, prison-like walls surrounding the grounds at the foot of the tower, was never once opened all day long.

I began to realize that probably nothing new, nothing reliable that is, would transpire at present. The sensation would go its usual way. There would be songs and allusions in all the revues to-night. Punch would have a cartoon, suggesting the City in the Clouds as a place of banishment for its particular bugbear of the moment. Gossip papers would be full of beautiful, untrue stories of a romantic nature about the girl I loved, her name would be the subject of a million jokes by a million vulgar people. Then, little by little, the excitement would die away.

All this, as a trained journalist I foresaw easily enough, but knowing what I knew – what probably I alone of all the teeming millions in London knew – I was forming a resolve, which hourly grew stronger, that I would never rest until I knew the worst.

I found myself in Kensington. There was a motor-omnibus starting for Whitechapel Road. I climbed on the top.

"I sye," piped a little ragamuffin office boy to his friend, "why does Jewanniter live in the clouds, Willum?"

"Arsk me another."

"'Cos she's a celebrated 'airess – see?"

"What I say," said a meager-looking man with a bristling mustache which unsuccessfully concealed his slack and feeble mouth, "is simply this. If Mr. Morse chooses to live in a certain way of life and 'as the money to carry it out, why not let him alone? Freedom for every individual is a 'progative of English life, and I expect Morse is fair furious with what they're saying about him, for I have it on the best authority that a copy of every edition of the Evening Special goes up to him in the tower lifts as soon as it is issued."

Words, words, words! everywhere, silly, irresponsible chatter which I heeded as little as a thrush heeds a shower of rain.

Steadily, swiftly, certainly, my purpose grew.

I got down in the Whitechapel Road, that wide and unlovely thoroughfare, and, feeling hungry, went into a dingy little restaurant partitioned off in boxes. The tablecloth was of stained oil skin, the guests the seediest type of minor clerks, but I do remember that for ninepence I had a little beefsteak and kidney pudding to myself which was as good as anything I have ever eaten. As I went out I saw my neighbor of the omnibus who had spoken so eloquently of freedom, walking by with a little black bag, as in an aimless way I hailed a taxicab from the rank opposite a London hospital and told the man to drive slowly westwards.

He did so, and when we came to the Embankment a gleam of afternoon sunshine began to enlighten what had been a leaden day. Thinking a brisk walk from Black Friars to Westminster would help my thoughts, I dismissed the cab and started.

It was with an odd little thrill and flutter of the heart that far away westwards, to the left of the Houses of Parliament, I saw three ghostly lines, no thicker than lamp posts, it seemed, springing upwards from nothingness. At Cleopatra's Needle, I felt the want of a cigarette and stopped to light one.

At the moment there were few people on the pavement, though the unceasing traffic in the road roared by as usual. I lit the cigarette, put my case back in my pocket, and was about to continue my stroll when I heard some one padding up behind me with obvious purpose.

I half turned, and there again I saw the man with the weak mouth and the big mustache.

It flashed upon me, for the first time, that I was being followed, had been followed probably during the whole of my wanderings.

As I said, there was nobody immediately about, so I turned to rabbit-face and challenged him.

"You're following me, my man, why? Out with it or I'll give you in charge."

"Yer can't," he said. "This is a free country, freedom is my 'progative as well as yerself, Sir Thomas Kirby. I've done nothing to annoy yer, have I?"

I shrugged my shoulders.

"But you have been following me."

His manner changed at once.

"Ever since you left Piccadilly, Sir Thomas, waiting my opportunity. I'm a private inquiry agent by profession, though this job of shadowing you has nothing to do with the office that employs me. I have a young friend in my house who's turned up sudden and mysterious, a young friend I lost sight of many weeks ago. He says you'll come to him at once if I could only get you alone and be certain that no one saw me speak to you. His instructions were to follow you about until such an opportunity as this arose, and all the time I was to be certain that no one else was following you. I have ascertained that all right."

He put his head close to mine and I felt his hot breath upon my cheek.

"It's Mr. William Rolston, Sir Thomas," he said. "I'm not in his confidence, though I have long admired his abilities and predicted a great future for him. He's come to me in distress and I am doing what I can to 'elp 'im – this being a day when they've no job for me at the office."

"Good Lord! why didn't you speak to me this morning, if you've been following me all day?"

He shook his head.

"Wouldn't have done. Mr. Rolston's instructions was different and he has his reasons, though I'm not in his confidence. I've done it out of admiration for his talents, and no doubt some day he'll be in a position to pay me for my work."

"Pay you, you idiot!" I could have taken him by the throat and shaken the fool. "Mr. Rolston knows very well that he can command any money he chooses. He's a member of my staff."

We were now walking along together towards Westminster.

"That's as may be," said my seedy friend, "but 'e 'adn't a brass farthing this morning, and come to that, Sir Thomas, if you'd got into another blinking taxi, you'd have snookered me!"

"Where do you live?" I asked impatiently.

"Not far from where you 'ad your lunch, Sir Thomas. 15, Imperial Mansions, Royal Road, Stepney."

"It's a magnificent address," I said, as I held out my stick for a cab.

"It's a block o' workmen's buildings, reely," he replied gloomily, "and in the thick of the Chinese quarter, which makes it none too savory. But an Englishman's house is his castle and he has the 'progative to call it what he likes."

Back east we went again and in half an hour I was mounting interminable stone steps to a door nearly at the top of "Imperial Mansions," which my guide, who during our drive had introduced himself to me as Mr. Herbert Sliddim, announced as his home. In a dingily furnished room, sitting on a molting, plush sofa I saw the curious little man to whom I had so taken months ago. He was shabby almost to beggary. His face was pale and worn, which gave him an aspect of being much older than I had imagined him. But his irrepressible ears stood out as of yore and his eyes were not dimmed.

"Hallo," I said, "glad to see you, Mr. Rolston, though you've neglected us at the office for a long time. Your arrears of salary have been mounting up."

His hand was trembling as I gripped it.

"Oh, Sir Thomas," he said, "do you really mean that I am still on the staff?"

"Of course you are, my dear boy."

I turned to Mr. Sliddim.

"Now I wonder," I said, "if I might have a little quiet conversation with Mr. Rolston."

"By all means," he replied. "I'll wait in the courtyard."

"I shouldn't do that, Mr. Sliddim. Why not take a tour round?"

I led him out of the room into the passage which served for hall, pressed a couple of pounds into his hand and had the satisfaction of seeing him leap away down the stairs like an antelope.

"That's all right," said Rolston. "Now he'll go and get blotto, it's the poor devil's failing. Still, he'll be happy."

I sat down, passed my cigarette case to Rolston, and waited for him to begin.

He sort of came to attention.

"I was rung up, Sir Thomas, at your flat – at least your valet was – and told to come to the office of the Evening Special at once."

"I know, go on."

"I dressed as quickly as I could, ran down the stairs and jumped into the waiting cab. The door banged and we started off. The engines must have been running, for we went away like a flash. There was some one else sitting there. A hand clapped over my mouth and an arm round my body. I couldn't move or speak. Then the thumb of the hand did something to the big nerves behind my ear. It's an Oriental trick and I had just realized it when something wet and sweet was pressed over my mouth and nose, and I lost all consciousness.

"When I woke up I found myself in a fair-sized room, lit by a skylight high up in the roof. There was a bed, a table, a chair, and various other conveniences, and I hadn't the slightest idea where I could be. My head ached and I felt bruised all over, so I drank a glass of water, crawled back into the bed and slept. When I woke again there was an affable Chink sitting by my side, who spoke quite good English.

"'You will,' he said, 'be kept here for some time in durance, yess. It's an unfortunate necessity, yess.'

"I heard on all sides familiar noises. I knew in a moment what had happened. I had been brought back to the works at the base of the three towers."

"All this fits in very well with what I now know, Rolston. I'll tell you everything in a minute, but I want to hear your story first."

"Very good, Sir Thomas. For over three months I've been kept a prisoner at Richmond. I wasn't badly treated. I had anything I liked to eat and drink, any books to read – tobacco, a bath – everything but newspapers, which were rigidly denied me. I wasn't kept entirely to my prison room. I was allowed to go out and take exercise within the domain surrounded by the great thirty-foot wall, though I was never let to roam about as I wished. There was always a big Chinese coolie with a leaded cane attending me, a man that only spoke a few words of English.

"Now, Sir Thomas, please remember this. From first to last none of my jailers knew that I understood Chinese. And none of them knew or suspected that I had been among the workmen before, in order to get materials for the scoop with which I came to you."

I saw the value of that at once.

"Good for you, Rolston; now please continue."

"Well, Sir Thomas, I kept my eyes and ears very wide open and I learnt a lot. Things were being prepared with a feverish activity of which the people outside had not the slightest idea. I found that round the base of the towers, in the miniature park inclosed by the high wall, there were already magnificent vegetable gardens in active being. There were huge conservatories which must have been set up when the towers were only a few hundred feet high, now full of the rarest flowers and shrubs. In my walks, I saw a miniature poultry farm, conducted on the most up-to-date methods; there was a dairy, with four or five cows – already this part of the huge inclosure was assuming a rural aspect. It must have been planned and started nearly two years ago."

"You asked questions, I suppose?"

"Any amount, as innocently as I possibly could. I got very little out of my captors in reply. Your Chinaman is the most secretive person in the world. But, I heard them talking among themselves; and I was amazed at the calculated organization which had been going on without cessation from the beginning.

"It all fitted in exactly with what I told you at the Special office. It was as though Mr. Morse was planning a little private world of his own, which would be independent of everything outside."

"And about the towers themselves?"

"It will take me hours to tell you. In one quarter of the inclosure there are great dynamo sheds – an electric installation inferior to nothing else of its kind in the world. The great lifts which rise and fall in the towers are electric. Heating, lighting, artificial daylight for the conservatories – all are electric.

"Where I was kept," he went on, "was nearly a quarter of a mile from the engineering section, but I knew that it hummed with extraordinary activity night and day. I discovered that structural buildings of light steel were pouring in from America, that an army of decorators and painters was at work; vans of priceless Oriental furniture and hangings were arriving from all parts of the world, rare flowers and shrubs also. Sir Thomas, it was as though the Universe was being searched for wonders – all to be concentrated here.

"This went on and on till I lost count of the days and lived in a sort of dream, kindly treated enough, allowed to see many secret things, and always with a sense that because this was so, I should never again emerge into the real world."

"I can understand that, Rolston. Every word you say interests me extremely."

"I'll come to the present, Sir Thomas. You can ask me any details that you like afterwards. A few days ago everything was speeded up to extraordinary pitch. Then, late one night, there was a great to-do, and in the morning I learned that Mr. Morse and his family had arrived, and that they were up at the top. I have found out since that this was the fourteenth of September."

"The fourteenth!" I cried.

"Yes, Sir Thomas, the fourteenth. The next day, it was late in the afternoon and the sun was setting, two Chinamen came into my room, tied a handkerchief over my eyes and led me out. I was put into one of the little electric railways – open cars which run all over the inclosure – and taken to the base of the towers.

"I don't know which tower it was, but I was led into a lift and a long, slow ascent began. I knew that I was in one of the big carrying lifts that take a long time to do the third of a mile up to the City, not one of the quick-running elevators which leap upwards from stage to stage for passengers and arrive at the top in a comparatively short space of time.

"When the lift stopped they took off the handkerchief and I found myself in a great whitewashed barn of a place which was obviously a storeroom. There were bales of stuff, huge boxes and barrels on every side.