"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 part.i.tioned 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 n.o.body 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 bra.s.s 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 pa.s.sage 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, pa.s.sed 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 gla.s.s of water, crawled back into the bed and slept. When I woke again there was an affable c.h.i.n.k 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."