"And his motive?" I asked, and I don't mind saying that I was almost trembling with excitement.
"The dream of a genius, or the whim of a madman," Rolston answered in a grave voice. "The world will call it one or the other without a doubt. At any rate it's the product of a colossal imagination. For myself, I am dead certain that there's some deeper and stranger motive beneath it all, but that can rest for the present. Sir Thomas, between those three great towers, two thousand feet up in the air, will very shortly come into being a fantastic pleasure city like a dream of the Arabian Nights! It will be unique in the history of the world, and already the preparations are so far advanced that it will be completed with extraordinary rapidity."
"A pleasure city!" I gasped. "A Pleasure City in the Clouds!"
"On two stages right up at the very summit, suspended by a system of cantilevers of the most intricate modern construction and of toughened steel. I understand that a triangle measuring in all four acres will support a marvelous series of palaces, a Lhassa of the air!"
"Why Lhassa, Mr. Rolston?"
"Because," he replied, "it's to be a Forbidden City, which no one will be allowed to penetrate or see. It is a marvelous conception only possible to enormous wealth and the vision of a superman."
I left my chair and began pacing up and down the room as the freakish grandeur of the conception burst fully upon me. Towering over London, dwarfing Saint Paul's to a child's toy, a City in the Clouds!
I stopped suddenly, wheeled round and shouted: "But who, Mr. Rolston, is the madman, genius or superman who has imagined this and actually carried it out in sober twentieth-century England?"
"That's the greatest secret of all," he said, looking round the room as if frightened.
Then he slid from his chair and was at my side in a moment.
"It's a Mr. Gideon Mendoza Morse from Brazil," he whispered.
CHAPTER THREE
Rolston's revelation, utterly unexpected, came to me with the suddenness of a blow over the heart. For a few seconds I was incapable of consecutive thought, though I don't think my face showed anything of it.
The lad was watching me anxiously and I had to do something with him at once. Fortunately, I thought of the obvious thing.
"Leave me now, Mr. Rolston," I said. "Go to the room down the passage marked 'Mr. Williams' on the door, and ask him to put you into a room by yourself. Then please, as quickly as possible, write me out a newspaper 'story' setting out fully all the facts you have told me. Remember that you've got to interest the public in the very first paragraph in what is undoubtedly a most sensational piece of news."
"How many words, sir?" he asked me – I liked that, it was professional.
"A thousand. And when you've done that bring it straight in to me."
He was out of the room in a minute and I sat down to think.
In the first place I didn't doubt his story for a moment, there was something transparently honest about the boy, and, unless I was very much mistaken, there was great ability in him also. When there was time for it I expected I should hear a breathless story of his adventures in the search of this stuff. He had hinted that his life had been in danger… I began to think – hard. Assuming that was true, that Morse had been seized with this extraordinary whim, how did I stand in the matter? At a first view it appeared that I was rather badly snookered. Morse, always assuming young Rolston was correct, had spent a huge fortune in keeping his secret. Moreover, the Government was in it with him. It would hardly be the way to recommend myself to Juanita's father – whose good opinion I desired to gain more than that of any other person in the world, save one – by giving his cherished secret to the world in order to increase the prestige and circulation of the Evening Special.
If I did publish it, it was odds on that I never saw Juanita again. One thing occurred to me with relief – it wasn't a case in which I had to publish, in the public interest. By suppressing news I was not failing my duty as an editor, only losing a big scoop, though that was hard enough. What was to be done? As I asked myself that question I confess that for a brief moment – thank Heaven it did not last long – it occurred to me that I was now in a position to put considerable pressure upon the millionaire. I could hold out inducements…
Fortunately, I crushed all such ugly thoughts without much effort, and then the real solution came. When I had questioned Rolston a little more and was bedrock certain that he was right, I would see Morse at once and tell him all I had learnt without reserve. I would present the thing to him as one in which I claimed no personal interest, and my attitude would be that I felt he ought to be warned. I would engage to publish nothing without his wish, but he must look to it – if he wished to preserve his secret – that other people were not upon the same track. That could do me no harm whatever. It was the straight thing to do, and at the same time it would certainly help me with him. I thought, and think still, that this was a fair advantage to take. It is only a fool who throws away a legitimate weapon in love or war.
I rang up the Ritz Hotel and asked for Mr. Morse. There was some little delay at the Hotel Bureau, and then I was switched on to the telephone of the private apartments.
"Who's that?" asked a cold, characterless voice.
"Sir Thomas Kirby of the Evening Special speaking. Who are you?"
"Secretary to Mr. Morse" – now the voice was a little warmer.
"Is Mr. Morse at home?"
"I can see that he gets a message very shortly, Sir Thomas, if the matter is of importance."
"It is of very considerable importance or I shouldn't have troubled to ring Mr. Morse up, especially as I shall be meeting him in a day or two at a social engagement."
"Wait a moment, please."
I knew by this that I had struck lucky and that Morse was in the hotel, and within a minute I heard his calm, resonant voice in my ear.
"Good afternoon, Kirby. My secretary says you wanted to speak to me."
"Thank you, I am most anxious to have a conversation."
"Well, shall we hold the wire?"
"I daren't discuss my business over the wire, Mr. Morse."
There was a short silence and then:
"Please forgive me, but you know how busy I am. Could you give me the least indication of what you wish to talk to me about?"
I had an inspiration.
"Towers," I said in a low voice.
A quiet "Ah!" came to me over the wire, and then:
"I think I understand, Sir Thomas, you wish – ?"
"To tell you something that I feel sure you ought to know, in your own interests."
"Pass, Friend!" was the reply, followed by a little chuckle in which I thought – I might have been mistaken – I detected a note of relief.
"When shall we meet?" I asked.
"Look here, Kirby," was the reply, "can you come here at eleven to-night? I'll give orders that you are to be taken up to my rooms at once. I can't guarantee that I shall be in at the moment. I also have something of considerable importance on hand, but if you will wait – I'm afraid I'm asking a great deal – I'll be certain to be with you sooner or later. My daughter may be at home and, if she is, no doubt she'll give you a cup of coffee or something while you wait. Do you think you can manage this?"
"I shall be delighted," I answered, trying to control my voice, and I hardly heard the quiet "Good-by" that concluded our conversation.
Well, I had done better for myself than I had hoped, and, so vain are all of us, I felt a kind of satisfaction in having "played the game" and at the same time won the trick. I did not reflect till