Part 16 (1/2)
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 a.s.suming 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 pa.s.sengers and arrive at the top in a comparatively short s.p.a.ce 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.
”The men who had brought me up were just rough Chinese workmen from Hong Kong, but a door opened and a c.h.i.n.k of quite another sort came in and took me by the arm.
”You see, Sir Thomas,” he explained, ”to the ordinary Englishman one Chinaman is just like another, but my experience in the East enables me to distinguish at once.
”The newcomer was of a very superior cla.s.s, and he led me out of the storeroom, across a swaying bridge of latticed steel to a little rotunda. As we pa.s.sed along, I had a glimpse of the whole of London, far, far below. The Thames was like a piece of glittering string.
Everything else were simply patches of gray, green, and brown.
”We went into the cupola and a tiny lift shot us up like a bullet until it stopped with a clank and I knew that I was now upon the highest platform of all.
”But I could see nothing, for we simply turned down a long corridor lighted by electricity and softly carpeted, which might have been the corridor of one of the great hotels far down below in town.
”My conductor, who wore pince-nez and a suit of dark blue alpaca and who had a charming smile, stopped at a door, rapped, and pushed me in.
”I found myself in a room of considerable size. It was a library. The walls were covered with shelves of old oak, in which there were innumerable books. A Turkey carpet, two or three writing-tables--and Mr.