The City in the Clouds

CHAPTER TWELVE

I had ordered my Chinese boy to wake me at eight. In one corner of the Grand Square was a beautifully fitted gymnasium with a swimming-bath adjoining. I proposed three-quarters of an hour's vigorous exercise before dressing.

At it happens I generally wake more or less at the time I want to. This morning, however, it was half-past eight. There was no sound of Chang whatever. I got out of bed, put on a sweater, Norfolk jacket, flannel trousers, and tennis shoes – I had sent for a portmanteau of clothes from the "Golden Swan" – went across the hall and let myself out into the gardens.

Then I hesitated in amazement. A thick, heavy, impenetrable mist hid everything from sight. It seemed as solid as wool. One literally had to push one's way through it, and when I say that I couldn't see more than a yard before my face, I mean it in the strict sense of the words. Still, I remembered that I have a good sense of topography, and I was quite confident that I could find my way to the central Square, where there would be sure to be people about whom I could ask.

From my front door there was a good hundred and twenty yards of wide gravel path to the Palacete Mendoza. I sprinted up this in less than twenty seconds I should say, and then warily turned into the palm-tree grove – the great sheets of plated glass on either side of the way were in place now, but I knew where I was because of the different quality of the ground, which was here paved with wood blocks. Soon, a faint gray mass to my right, the palace itself loomed up, but the blanket of mist was too thick for me to discern windows or doors. One could see nothing but the gray hint of mass.

The curious thing was that one could hear nothing either. That had not struck me as I did my sprint, but now it did, and most forcibly. Of course there was no sound of wind – had there been any wind we should not have been buried in the very heart of this fog – thicker and more sticky than anything I had ever experienced in the Alps themselves. But there were no sounds of occupation such as an extensive place like the City might have been expected to produce at this hour, and in fact, as I realized, did produce, when I remembered yesterday. The place was never noisy. It was a haunt of peace if ever there was one. But the sound of gardeners and servants going about their daily toil, the distant throbbing of an engine perhaps, a subdued voice giving an order, the plashing of fountains, and the strains of music, all these were utterly and entirely absent. It was as though the mist killed not only vision but hearing also. I might have been on the top of Mont Blanc.

"What little town by harbor or sea-shore
Is empty of its folk this pious morn?"

I quoted to myself with a laugh, just as I entered the arched tunnel wide enough for two coaches to be driven under it abreast, which I knew led to Grand Square.

I laughed, and then quite suddenly all laughter went out of me. I couldn't explain it at the moment, but the mist, the loneliness, my whole surroundings, seemed quite horrible.

Surely something had passed me? I called out, and my voice seemed like the bleating of a sheep. Of course, it was illusion. My nerves had suddenly gone wrong. But, honestly, I felt that there was something nasty in the atmosphere, nasty from a psychic point of view I mean. There are moments when the human soul turns sick and retches with disgust, and I experienced such a moment now. I think it was exactly then that I knew, though I wouldn't allow myself to believe it, that I knew inwardly all was not well. I walked on and my india-rubber shoes seemed to make a sly, unpleasant noise – it was the only one I heard even now.

I could see nothing, I was quite uncertain of where I was, so I turned and walked straight to the right until, from the impact of the air upon my face, I knew that I was within a yard or so of some building. This was correct. My hand touched what seemed like stonework, and glancing up I became aware that a building rose high above.

I followed this along, keeping my hand on the stone, moving it round projecting buttresses and going with great caution. This insect-like progression seemed to be endless. I took out my watch, which I had shoved into the breast pocket of my Norfolk jacket. It was nearly nine o'clock, and not a single sound!

A second or two afterwards I came to a balustrade, felt my way along it, and found that I was at the foot of a broad flight of steps. There seemed something vaguely familiar here, and as I ran up them I began to be sure that I was at the library. I knew that Pu-Yi lived somewhere on the premises and I felt all over the great iron-studded door until I came to the small postern wicket through which one generally entered. This was locked, but a bell-pull of wrought iron hung at the side and I pulled at it lustily for a considerable time.

It opened with a jerk and Pu-Yi stood there in his skull cap with the coral button on the top and wrapped in a bear-skin robe.

"Thank goodness I've found some one," I said. "I've lost my way. I was going to the gymnasium, to exercise a little and then have a swim. My boy didn't turn up so I came out by myself."

"Come in, come in, Sir Thomas," he said, peering out at the white curtain. "What a dreadful morning! I've been here some months now, but I have never seen it so bad as this. I daresay it will blow off by nine o'clock or so when the sun gets up."

"It's nine o'clock now," I told him.

He started violently.

"Then my servant also is at fault," he said. "I ordered my coffee for eight. I was reading far into the night and must have overslept myself. This is very curious."

"Do you know, I don't quite like it, Pu-Yi. I've come all the way from the pavilion in the Palace gardens and haven't heard the least sound of any sort whatever."

We passed through a lobby and entered the great library, which was cold and gray as a tomb.

Pu-Yi snapped at a switch, then at another. Nothing happened.

"The electric light is off!" he cried. "What an extraordinary thing!"

"Mine wasn't," I said. "I got out of bed and dressed by it."

He did not reply, but took down the speaking part of a telephone and turned the handle of the box. In that gray light his thin face, with its expression of strained attention, was one I shall not easily forget.

He turned the handle again, angrily. Again an interval of silence.

"The telephone is out of order," he said, and we looked at each other with a question in our eyes.

"Well, I'm confoundedly glad I've found you," I said.

"We must look into this at once, Sir Thomas. I can find my way perfectly well to one of the lifts at the other end of the Square. We must summon assistance. One moment." He vanished for a minute and returned with something cool and shining which he pressed into my hand. It was a venomous ten-shot Colt automatic. "You never know," he whispered.

We hurried across the great Square, passing by the central fountain basins, though the fountains were not playing, which added to our uneasiness. Everything was deathly still until we came to the little lift pavilion. I half expected the thing to stick, but it glided down easily enough. As if my companion read my thoughts he said:

"All these small lifts are not electrical, but are worked by hydraulic power, the station for which is in the City and not below on the earth."

I shall never forget the extraordinary sight as we stepped from the lift. The mist here was nothing like so thick as it was above. This was owing to the fact that a hundred feet above our heads there was the immense ceiling of steel plates and girders upon which the City rested. As I said before, on all three sides this second service City was open to the air, but not above. Consequently the mist moved in tall white shapes like ghosts; it entirely surrounded one group of huts and left another great vista of buildings plain to the eye. Here a gaudily painted gable thrust itself out of the white sheet; there, through a proscenium of clinging wool, one saw the gray interior of a machine-room. A chill twilight brooded everywhere. There wasn't a single lamp burning, and from one end to the other lay the desolation of utter silence.

I leant against the jamb of the lift door, and, despite the cold, the sweat ran down my body in a stream.

Pu-Yi raised a thin arm over his head and it seemed to clutch crookedly at the somber panoply aloft.

A high, thin wail came from his parted lips and went mournfully away down the deserted streets and empty habitations.

For myself, I had been so stunned that I couldn't think, but my friend's despairing call seemed to jerk some cog-wheel within the brain and start again the mechanism of thought.

I gripped him by the shoulder.

"There isn't a soul here," I rasped out. "What does it mean, what on earth does it mean?"

"There should be three hundred at least," he answered.

I broke away at a run, flung open the first door I came to and peered in. It was some sort of a sleeping-room, there were bunks and couches all around the walls. Each one of them was empty. I had time to see that, and also that a stand of short carbines and cutlasses was full of weapons.

Then I had to back out quickly for the late inmates had left an odorous legacy behind them.

Pu-Yi faced me.

"That was one of the patrol rooms," he said.

Then I remembered our coming two days ago.

"Mulligan!" I cried. "Nobody could get here except through the guard-room, nobody could leave here except through that, could they?"

"Not unless they threw themselves from the side of the tower."

"Well, it's quite impossible to believe that three hundred people have committed suicide during the night without a sound being heard. Quick! let's get to the bottom of this."

Pu-Yi led. He didn't seem really to run, only to glide along the ghostly streets and passages. But I had hard work to keep up with him, all the same. My mouth felt as if it had been sucking a brass tap. The most deadly fear clutched at my heart – that noiseless, pattering run through the deserted town in the air, accompanied always by the mouthing, gibbering ghosts of the mist, was appalling.

We dashed down the last corridor and were brought up by a stout door. Pu-Yi bent down to the handle, turned it gently, and – it opened.

We tiptoed into that room. Directly I was over the threshold, the spiritual odor of death, of violent death, came to me.