"I can't help that. You have made your bed, and you must lie upon it."
"But such a bed!" he murmured, and his head fell forward on his chest.
His arms were bound at the elbow, but he could move the lower portion, and he now brought his right hand to his face.
"I'll telephone," said Bill, and went to the wall by the door where hung the instrument.
I sat gloomily watching the man in the chair.
What was he doing? His jaw was moving up and down. He seemed biting at his wrist.
Suddenly there was a slight, tearing, ripping noise, followed by a jerk backwards of his head and a deep intake of the breath.
"What is he doing?" Rolston said, turning round with the receiver of the telephone at his ear.
Midwinter held out his arm. I saw that the braid round the cuff of his morning coat was hanging in a little strip.
"I told you I always had something in reserve," he said, showing all his teeth as he grinned at me. "Always something up my sleeve--literally, in this case. I have just swallowed a little capsule of prussic acid which--"
If you want to learn of how a man dies who has swallowed hydrocyanic acid--the correct term, I believe--consult a medical dictionary. It is not a pleasant thing to see in actual operation, but, thank heavens, it is speedy!
The sweat was pouring down my face when it was over, but Bill Rolston had not turned a hair.
"Put something over his face, Sir Thomas," he said, "and I'll get through to Mr. Morse."
I take up my pen this evening, exactly ten years after I wrote the last paragraph of the above narrative, to read of James Antony Midwinter, dead like a poisoned rat in his chair, with a sort of amazement in my mind.
The whole story has been locked in a safe for ten long years, and that blessed and happy time has made the wild adventures, the terrible moments in the City in the Clouds, indeed seem things far off and long ago.
This afternoon I paid what will probably be my last visit to the strange kingdom up there.
I stood with my little son, Viscount Kirby, and my small daughter, Lady Juanita, and my wife, the Countess of Stax, at a very solemn ceremony.
In the presence of a Government official, a representative of His Majesty--Colonel Patrick Moore, of the Irish Guards, A.D.C.--the Cardinal Archbishop, and a few private friends, I watched the elmwood shell, containing Gideon Mendoza Morse, placed in its marble tomb.