The Grand Babylon Hôtel
the trouble to make a tour of the hotel, but I omitted the cellars in my
excursions.’
‘Impossible, my dear fellow!’ said Babylon, amused at such a confession,
to him--a great connoisseur and lover of fine wines--almost incredible.
‘But really you must see them to-morrow. If I may, I will accompany
you.’
‘Why not to-night?’ Racksole suggested, calmly.
‘To-night! It is very late: Hubbard will have gone to bed.’
‘And may I ask who is Hubbard? I remember the name but dimly.’
‘Hubbard is the wine-clerk of the Grand Babylon,’ said Felix, with a
certain emphasis. ‘A sedate man of forty. He has the keys of the
cellars. He knows every bottle of every bin, its date, its qualities,
its value. And he’s a teetotaler. Hubbard is a curiosity. No wine can
leave the cellars without his knowledge, and no person can enter the
cellars without his knowledge. At least, that is how it was in my time,’
Babylon added.
‘We will wake him,’ said Racksole.
‘But it is one o’clock in the morning,’ Babylon protested.
‘Never mind--that is, if you consent to accompany me. A cellar is the
same by night as by day. Therefore, why not now?’
Babylon shrugged his shoulders. ‘As you wish,’ he agreed, with his
indestructible politeness.
‘And now to find this Mr Hubbard, with his key of the cupboard,’ said
Racksole, as they walked out of the room together. Although the hour was
so late, the hotel was not, of course, closed for the night. A few
guests still remained about in the public rooms, and a few fatigued
waiters were still in attendance. One of these latter was despatched in
search of the singular Mr Hubbard, and it fortunately turned out that
this gentleman had not actually retired, though he was on the point of
doing so. He brought the keys to Mr Racksole in person, and after he had
had a little chat with his former master, the proprietor and the ex-
proprietor of the Grand Babylon Hôtel proceeded on their way to the
cellars.
These cellars extend over, or rather under, quite half the superficial
areas of the whole hotel--the longitudinal half which lies next to the
Strand.
Owing to the fact that the ground slopes sharply from the Strand to the
river, the Grand Babylon is, so to speak, deeper near the Strand than it
is near the Thames. Towards the Thames there is, below the entrance
level, a basement and a sub-basement. Towards the Strand there is
basement, sub-basement, and the huge wine cellars beneath all. After
descending the four flights of the service stairs, and traversing a long
passage running parallel with the kitchen, the two found themselves
opposite a door, which, on being unlocked, gave access to another flight
of stairs. At the foot of this was the main entrance to the cellars.
Outside the entrance was the wine-lift, for the ascension of delicious
fluids to the upper floors, and, opposite, Mr Hubbard’s little office.
There was electric light everywhere.
Babylon, who, as being most accustomed to them, held the bunch of keys,
opened the great door, and then they were in the first cellar--the first
of a suite of five. Racksole was struck not only by the icy coolness of
the place, but also by its vastness. Babylon had seized a portable
electric handlight, attached to a long wire, which lay handy, and,
waving it about, disclosed the dimensions of the place. By that flashing
illumination the subterranean chamber looked unutterably weird and
mysterious, with its rows of numbered bins, stretching away into the
distance till the radiance was reduced to the occasional far gleam of
the light on the shoulder of a bottle. Then Babylon switched on the
fixed electric lights, and Theodore Racksole entered upon a personally-
conducted tour of what was quite the most interesting part of his own
property.
To see the innocent enthusiasm of Felix Babylon for these stores of
exhilarating liquid was what is called in the North ‘a sight for sair
een’.
He displayed to Racksole’s bewildered gaze, in their due order, all the
wines of three continents--nay, of four, for the superb and luscious
Constantia wine of Cape Colony was not wanting in that most catholic
collection of vintages. Beginning with the unsurpassed products of
Burgundy, he continued with the clarets of Médoc, Bordeaux, and
Sauterne; then to the champagnes of Ay, Hautvilliers, and Pierry; then
to the hocks and moselles of Germany, and the brilliant imitation
champagnes of Main, Neckar, and Naumburg; then to the famous and
adorable Tokay of Hungary, and all the Austrian varieties of French
wines, including Carlowitz and Somlauer; then to the dry sherries of
Spain, including purest Manzanilla, and Amontillado, and Vino de Pasto;
then to the wines of Malaga, both sweet and dry, and all the ‘Spanish
reds’ from Catalonia, including the dark ‘Tent’ so often used
sacramentally; then to the renowned port of Oporto. Then he proceeded to
the Italian cellar, and descanted upon the excellence of Barolo from
Piedmont, of Chianti from Tuscany, of Orvieto from the Roman States, of
the ‘Tears of Christ’ from Naples, and the commoner Marsala from Sicily.
And so on, to an extent and with a fullness of detail which cannot be
rendered here.
At the end of the suite of cellars there was a glazed door, which, as
could be seen, gave access to a supplemental and smaller cellar, an
apartment about fifteen or sixteen feet square.
‘Anything special in there?’ asked Racksole curiously, as they stood
before the door, and looked within at the seined ends of bottles.
‘Ah!’ exclaimed Babylon, almost smacking his lips, ‘therein lies the
cream of all.’
‘The best champagne, I suppose?’ said Racksole.
‘Yes,’ said Babylon, ‘the best champagne is there--a very special
Sillery, as exquisite as you will find anywhere. But I see, my friend,
that you fall into the common error of putting champagne first among
wines. That distinction belongs to Burgundy. You have old Burgundy in
that cellar, Mr Racksole, which cost me--how much do you think?--eighty
pounds a bottle.
Probably it will never be drunk,’ he added with a sigh. ‘It is too
expensive even for princes and plutocrats.’
‘Yes, it will,’ said Racksole quickly. ‘You and I will have a bottle up
to-morrow.’
‘Then,’ continued Babylon, still riding his hobby-horse, ‘there is a
sample of the Rhine wine dated 1706 which caused such a sensation at the
Vienna Exhibition of 1873. There is also a singularly glorious Persian
wine from Shiraz, the like of which I have never seen elsewhere. Also
there is an unrivalled vintage of Romanée-Conti, greatest of all modern
Burgundies. If I remember right Prince Eugen invariably has a bottle
when he comes to stay here. It is not on the hotel wine list, of course,
and only a few customers know of it. We do not precisely hawk it about
the dining-room.’
‘Indeed!’ said Racksole. ‘Let us go inside.’
They entered the stone apartment, rendered almost sacred by the
preciousness of its contents, and Racksole looked round with a strangely
intent and curious air. At the far side was a grating, through which
came a feeble light.
‘What is that?’ asked the millionaire sharply.
‘That is merely a ventilation grating. Good ventilation is absolutely
essential.’
‘Looks broken, doesn’t it?’ Racksole suggested and then, putting a
finger quickly on Babylon’s shoulder, ‘there’s someone in the cellar.
Can’t you hear breathing, down there, behind that bin?’
The two men stood tense and silent for a while, listening, under the ray
of the single electric light in the ceiling. Half the cellar was
involved in gloom. At length Racksole walked firmly down the central
passage-way between the bins and turned to the corner at the right.
‘Come out, you villain!’ he said in a low, well-nigh vicious tone, and
dragged up a cowering figure.
He had expected to find a man, but it was his own daughter, Nella
Racksole, upon whom he had laid angry hands.
Chapter Twenty-Three FURTHER EVENTS IN THE CELLAR
‘WELL, Father,’ Nella greeted her astounded parent. ‘You should make
sure that you have got hold of the right person before you use all that
terrible muscular force of yours. I do believe you have broken my
shoulder bone.’ She rubbed her shoulder with a comical expression of
pain, and then stood up before the two men. The skirt of her dark grey
dress was torn and dirty, and the usually trim Nella looked as though
she had been shot down a canvas fire-escape. Mechanically she smoothed
her frock, and gave a straightening touch to her hair.
‘Good evening, Miss Racksole,’ said Felix Babylon, bowing formally.
‘This is an unexpected pleasure.’ Felix’s drawing-room manners never
deserted him upon any occasion whatever.
‘May I inquire what you are doing in my wine cellar, Nella Racksole?’
said the millionaire a little stiffly He was certainly somewhat annoyed
at having mistaken his daughter for a criminal; moreover, he hated to be
surprised, and upon this occasion he had been surprised beyond any
ordinary surprise; lastly, he was not at all pleased that Nella should
be observed in that strange predicament by a stranger.
‘I will tell you,’ said Nella. ‘I had been reading rather late in my
room--the night was so close. I heard Big Ben strike half-past twelve,
and then I put the book down, and went out on to the balcony of my
window for a little fresh air before going to bed. I leaned over the
balcony very quietly--you will remember that I am on the third floor
now--and looked down below into the little sunk yard which separates the
wall of the hotel from Salisbury Lane. I was rather astonished to see a
figure creeping across the yard. I knew there was no entrance into the
hotel from that yard, and besides, it is fifteen or twenty feet below
the level of the street. So I watched. The figure went close up against
the wall, and disappeared from my view. I leaned over the balcony as far
as I dared, but I couldn’t see him. I could hear him, however.’
‘What could you hear?’ questioned Racksole sharply.
‘It sounded like a sawing noise,’ said Nella; ‘and it went on for quite
a long time--nearly a quarter of an hour, I should think--a rasping sort
of noise.’
‘Why on earth didn’t you come and warn me or someone else in the hotel?’
asked Racksole.
‘Oh, I don’t know, Dad,’ she replied sweetly. ‘I had got interested in
it, and I thought I would see it out myself. Well, as I was saying, Mr.
Babylon,’ she continued, addressing her remarks to Felix, with a
dazzling smile, ‘that noise went on for quite a long time. At last it
stopped, and the figure reappeared from under the wall, crossed the
yard, climbed up the opposite wall by some means or other, and so over
the railings into Salisbury Lane. I felt rather relieved then, because I
knew he hadn’t actually broken into the hotel. He walked down Salisbury
Lane very slowly. A policeman was just coming up. “Goodnight, officer,”
I heard him say to the policeman, and he asked him for a match. The
policeman supplied the match, and the other man lighted a cigarette, and
proceeded further down the lane. By cricking your neck from my window,
Mr Babylon, you can get a glimpse of the Embankment and the river. I saw
the man cross the Embankment, and lean over the river wall, where he
seemed to be talking to some one. He then walked along the Embankment to
Westminster and that was the last I saw of him. I waited a minute or two
for him to come back, but he didn’t come back, and so I thought it was
about time I began to make inquiries into the affair. I went downstairs
instantly, and out of the hotel, through the quadrangle, into Salisbury
Lane, and I looked over those railings. There was a ladder on the other
side, by which it was perfectly easy--once you had got over the
railings--to climb down into the yard. I was horribly afraid lest