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diff --git a/707-h/707-h.htm b/707-h/707-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..604492f --- /dev/null +++ b/707-h/707-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,8950 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Raffles, by E. W. 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W. Hornung</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Raffles<br /> + Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: E. W. Hornung</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: November, 1996 [eBook #707]<br /> +[Most recently updated: November 2, 2021]</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Judith Boss. HTML version by Al Haines.</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RAFFLES ***</div> + +<div class="fig" style="width:55%;"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="[Illustration]" /> +</div> + +<h1>Raffles</h1> + +<h3>FURTHER ADVENTURES OF THE AMATEUR CRACKSMAN</h3> + +<h2 class="no-break">by E. W. Hornung</h2> + +<hr /> + +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<table summary="" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto"> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap01">NO SINECURE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap02">A JUBILEE PRESENT</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap03">THE FATE OF FAUSTINA</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap04">THE LAST LAUGH</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap05">TO CATCH A THIEF</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap06">AN OLD FLAME</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap07">THE WRONG HOUSE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap08">THE KNEES OF THE GODS</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>RAFFLES</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap01"></a>NO SINECURE</h2> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p> +I am still uncertain which surprised me more, the telegram calling my attention +to the advertisement, or the advertisement itself. The telegram is before me as +I write. It would appear to have been handed in at Vere Street at eight +o’clock in the morning of May 11, 1897, and received before half-past at +Holloway B.O. And in that drab region it duly found me, unwashen but at work +before the day grew hot and my attic insupportable. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +“See Mr. Maturin’s advertisement <i>Daily Mail</i> might suit you +earnestly beg try will speak if necessary —— ——” +</p> + +<p> +I transcribe the thing as I see it before me, all in one breath that took away +mine; but I leave out the initials at the end, which completed the surprise. +They stood very obviously for the knighted specialist whose consulting-room is +within a cab-whistle of Vere Street, and who once called me kinsman for his +sins. More recently he had called me other names. I was a disgrace, qualified +by an adjective which seemed to me another. I had made my bed, and I could go +and lie and die in it. If I ever again had the insolence to show my nose in +that house, I should go out quicker than I came in. All this, and more, my +least distant relative could tell a poor devil to his face; could ring for his +man, and give him his brutal instructions on the spot; and then relent to the +tune of this telegram! I have no phrase for my amazement. I literally could not +believe my eyes. Yet their evidence was more and more conclusive: a very +epistle could not have been more characteristic of its sender. Meanly +elliptical, ludicrously precise, saving half-pence at the expense of sense, yet +paying like a man for “Mr.” Maturin, that was my distinguished +relative from his bald patch to his corns. Nor was all the rest unlike him, +upon second thoughts. He had a reputation for charity; he was going to live up +to it after all. Either that, or it was the sudden impulse of which the most +calculating are capable at times; the morning papers with the early cup of tea, +this advertisement seen by chance, and the rest upon the spur of a guilty +conscience. +</p> + +<p> +Well, I must see it for myself, and the sooner the better, though work pressed. +I was writing a series of articles upon prison life, and had my nib into the +whole System; a literary and philanthropical daily was parading my +“charges,” the graver ones with the more gusto; and the terms, if +unhandsome for creative work, were temporary wealth to me. It so happened that +my first check had just arrived by the eight o’clock post; and my +position should be appreciated when I say that I had to cash it to obtain a +<i>Daily Mail</i>. +</p> + +<p> +Of the advertisement itself, what is to be said? It should speak for itself if +I could find it, but I cannot, and only remember that it was a “male +nurse and constant attendant” that was “wanted for an elderly +gentleman in feeble health.” A male nurse! An absurd tag was appended, +offering “liberal salary to University or public-school man”; and +of a sudden I saw that I should get this thing if I applied for it. What other +“University or public-school man” would dream of doing so? Was any +other in such straits as I? And then my relenting relative; he not only +promised to speak for me, but was the very man to do so. Could any +recommendation compete with his in the matter of a male nurse? And need the +duties of such be necessarily loathsome and repellent? Certainly the +surroundings would be better than those of my common lodging-house and own +particular garret; and the food; and every other condition of life that I could +think of on my way back to that unsavory asylum. So I dived into a +pawnbroker’s shop, where I was a stranger only upon my present errand, +and within the hour was airing a decent if antiquated suit, but little +corrupted by the pawnbroker’s moth, and a new straw hat, on the top of a +tram. +</p> + +<p> +The address given in the advertisement was that of a flat at Earl’s +Court, which cost me a cross-country journey, finishing with the District +Railway and a seven minutes’ walk. It was now past mid-day, and the tarry +wood-pavement was good to smell as I strode up the Earl’s Court Road. It +was great to walk the civilized world again. Here were men with coats on their +backs, and ladies in gloves. My only fear was lest I might run up against one +or other whom I had known of old. But it was my lucky day. I felt it in my +bones. I was going to get this berth; and sometimes I should be able to smell +the wood-pavement on the old boy’s errands; perhaps he would insist on +skimming over it in his bath-chair, with me behind. +</p> + +<p> +I felt quite nervous when I reached the flats. They were a small pile in a side +street, and I pitied the doctor whose plate I saw upon the palings before the +ground-floor windows; he must be in a very small way, I thought. I rather +pitied myself as well. I had indulged in visions of better flats than these. +There were no balconies. The porter was out of livery. There was no lift, and +my invalid on the third floor! I trudged up, wishing I had never lived in Mount +Street, and brushed against a dejected individual coming down. A full-blooded +young fellow in a frock-coat flung the right door open at my summons. +</p> + +<p> +“Does Mr. Maturin live here?” I inquired. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s right,” said the full-blooded young man, grinning all +over a convivial countenance. +</p> + +<p> +“I—I’ve come about his advertisement in the <i>Daily +Mail</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re the thirty-ninth,” cried the blood; “that was +the thirty-eighth you met upon the stairs, and the day’s still young. +Excuse my staring at you. Yes, you pass your prelim., and can come inside; +you’re one of the few. We had most just after breakfast, but now the +porter’s heading off the worst cases, and that last chap was the first +for twenty minutes. Come in here.” +</p> + +<p> +And I was ushered into an empty room with a good bay-window, which enabled my +full-blooded friend to inspect me yet more critically in a good light; this he +did without the least false delicacy; then his questions began. +</p> + +<p> +“’Varsity man?” +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +“Public school?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Which one?” +</p> + +<p> +I told him, and he sighed relief. +</p> + +<p> +“At last! You’re the very first I’ve not had to argue with as +to what is and what is not a public school. Expelled?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” I said, after a moment’s hesitation; “no, I was +not expelled. And I hope you won’t expel me if I ask a question in my +turn?” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly not.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are you Mr. Maturin’s son?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, my name’s Theobald. You may have seen it down below.” +</p> + +<p> +“The doctor?” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“His doctor,” said Theobald, with a satisfied eye. “Mr. +Maturin’s doctor. He is having a male nurse and attendant by my advice, +and he wants a gentleman if he can get one. I rather think he’ll see you, +though he’s only seen two or three all day. There are certain questions +which he prefers to ask himself, and it’s no good going over the same +ground twice. So perhaps I had better tell him about you before we get any +further.” +</p> + +<p> +And he withdrew to a room still nearer the entrance, as I could hear, for it +was a very small flat indeed. But now two doors were shut between us, and I had +to rest content with murmurs through the wall until the doctor returned to +summon me. +</p> + +<p> +“I have persuaded my patient to see you,” he whispered, “but +I confess I am not sanguine of the result. He is very difficult to please. You +must prepare yourself for a querulous invalid, and for no sinecure if you get +the billet.” +</p> + +<p> +“May I ask what’s the matter with him?” +</p> + +<p> +“By all means—when you’ve got the billet.” +</p> + +<p> +Dr. Theobald then led the way, his professional dignity so thoroughly intact +that I could not but smile as I followed his swinging coat-tails to the +sick-room. I carried no smile across the threshold of a darkened chamber which +reeked of drugs and twinkled with medicine bottles, and in the middle of which +a gaunt figure lay abed in the half-light. +</p> + +<p> +“Take him to the window, take him to the window,” a thin voice +snapped, “and let’s have a look at him. Open the blind a bit. Not +as much as that, damn you, not as much as that!” +</p> + +<p> +The doctor took the oath as though it had been a fee. I no longer pitied him. +It was now very clear to me that he had one patient who was a little practice +in himself. I determined there and then that he should prove a little +profession to me, if we could but keep him alive between us. Mr. Maturin, +however, had the whitest face that I have ever seen, and his teeth gleamed out +through the dusk as though the withered lips no longer met about them; nor did +they except in speech; and anything ghastlier than the perpetual grin of his +repose I defy you to imagine. It was with this grin that he lay regarding me +while the doctor held the blind. +</p> + +<p> +“So you think you could look after me, do you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m certain I could, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Single-handed, mind! I don’t keep another soul. You would have to +cook your own grub and my slops. Do you think you could do all that?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir, I think so.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why do you? Have you any experience of the kind?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, sir, none.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then why do you pretend you have?” +</p> + +<p> +“I only meant that I would do my best.” +</p> + +<p> +“Only meant, only meant! Have you done your best at everything else, +then?” +</p> + +<p> +I hung my head. This was a facer. And there was something in my invalid which +thrust the unspoken lie down my throat. +</p> + +<p> +“No, sir, I have not,” I told him plainly. +</p> + +<p> +“He, he, he!” the old wretch tittered; “and you do well to +own it; you do well, sir, very well indeed. If you hadn’t owned up, out +you would have gone, out neck-and-crop! You’ve saved your bacon. You may +do more. So you are a public-school boy, and a very good school yours is, but +you weren’t at either University. Is that correct?” +</p> + +<p> +“Absolutely.” +</p> + +<p> +“What did you do when you left school?” +</p> + +<p> +“I came in for money.” +</p> + +<p> +“And then?” +</p> + +<p> +“I spent my money.” +</p> + +<p> +“And since then?” +</p> + +<p> +I stood like a mule. +</p> + +<p> +“And since then, I say!” +</p> + +<p> +“A relative of mine will tell you if you ask him. He is an eminent man, +and he has promised to speak for me. I would rather say no more myself.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you shall, sir, but you shall! Do you suppose that I suppose a +public-school boy would apply for a berth like this if something or other +hadn’t happened? What I want is a gentleman of sorts, and I don’t +much care what sort; but you’ve got to tell me what did happen, if you +don’t tell anybody else. Dr. Theobald, sir, you can go to the devil if +you won’t take a hint. This man may do or he may not. You have no more to +say to it till I send him down to tell you one thing or the other. Clear out, +sir, clear out; and if you think you’ve anything to complain of, you +stick it down in the bill!” +</p> + +<p> +In the mild excitement of our interview the thin voice had gathered strength, +and the last shrill insult was screamed after the devoted medico, as he retired +in such order that I felt certain he was going to take this trying patient at +his word. The bedroom door closed, then the outer one, and the doctor’s +heels went drumming down the common stair. I was alone in the flat with this +highly singular and rather terrible old man. +</p> + +<p> +“And a damned good riddance!” croaked the invalid, raising himself +on one elbow without delay. “I may not have much body left to boast +about, but at least I’ve got a lost old soul to call my own. That’s +why I want a gentleman of sorts about me. I’ve been too dependent on that +chap. He won’t even let me smoke, and he’s been in the flat all day +to see I didn’t. You’ll find the cigarettes behind the Madonna of +the Chair.” +</p> + +<p> +It was a steel engraving of the great Raffaelle, and the frame was tilted from +the wall; at a touch a packet of cigarettes tumbled down from behind. +</p> + +<p> +“Thanks; and now a light.” +</p> + +<p> +I struck the match and held it, while the invalid inhaled with normal lips; and +suddenly I sighed. I was irresistibly reminded of my poor dear old Raffles. A +smoke-ring worthy of the great A. J. was floating upward from the sick +man’s lips. +</p> + +<p> +“And now take one yourself. I have smoked more poisonous cigarettes. But +even these are not Sullivans!” +</p> + +<p> +I cannot repeat what I said. I have no idea what I did. I only know—I +only knew—that it was A. J. Raffles in the flesh! +</p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p> +“Yes, Bunny, it was the very devil of a swim; but I defy you to sink in +the Mediterranean. That sunset saved me. The sea was on fire. I hardly swam +under water at all, but went all I knew for the sun itself; when it set I must +have been a mile away; until it did I was the invisible man. I figured on that, +and only hope it wasn’t set down as a case of suicide. I shall get outed +quite soon enough, Bunny, but I’d rather be dropped by the hangman than +throw my own wicket away.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, my dear old chap, to think of having you by the hand again! I feel +as though we were both aboard that German liner, and all that’s happened +since a nightmare. I thought that time was the last!” +</p> + +<p> +“It looked rather like it, Bunny. It was taking all the risks, and +hitting at everything. But the game came off, and some day I’ll tell you +how.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I’m in no hurry to hear. It’s enough for me to see you +lying there. I don’t want to know how you came there, or why, though I +fear you must be pretty bad. I must have a good look at you before I let you +speak another word!” +</p> + +<p> +I raised one of the blinds, I sat upon the bed, and I had that look. It left me +all unable to conjecture his true state of health, but quite certain in my own +mind that my dear Raffles was not and never would be the man that he had been. +He had aged twenty years; he looked fifty at the very least. His hair was +white; there was no trick about that; and his face was another white. The lines +about the corners of the eyes and mouth were both many and deep. On the other +hand, the eyes themselves were alight and alert as ever; they were still keen +and gray and gleaming, like finely tempered steel. Even the mouth, with a +cigarette to close it, was the mouth of Raffles and no other: strong and +unscrupulous as the man himself. It was only the physical strength which +appeared to have departed; but that was quite sufficient to make my heart bleed +for the dear rascal who had cost me every tie I valued but the tie between us +two. +</p> + +<p> +“Think I look much older?” he asked at length. +</p> + +<p> +“A bit,” I admitted. “But it is chiefly your hair.” +</p> + +<p> +“Whereby hangs a tale for when we’ve talked ourselves out, though I +have often thought it was that long swim that started it. Still, the Island of +Elba is a rummy show, I can assure you. And Naples is a rummier!” +</p> + +<p> +“You went there after all?” +</p> + +<p> +“Rather! It’s the European paradise for such as our noble selves. +But there’s no place that’s a patch on little London as a +non-conductor of heat; it never need get too hot for a fellow here; if it does +it’s his own fault. It’s the kind of wicket you don’t get out +on, unless you get yourself out. So here I am again, and have been for the last +six weeks. And I mean to have another knock.” +</p> + +<p> +“But surely, old fellow, you’re not awfully fit, are you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Fit? My dear Bunny, I’m dead—I’m at the bottom of the +sea—and don’t you forget it for a minute.” +</p> + +<p> +“But are you all right, or are you not?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I’m half-poisoned by Theobald’s prescriptions and putrid +cigarettes, and as weak as a cat from lying in bed.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then why on earth lie in bed, Raffles?” +</p> + +<p> +“Because it’s better than lying in gaol, as I am afraid <i>you</i> +know, my poor dear fellow. I tell you I am dead; and my one terror is of coming +to life again by accident. Can’t you see? I simply dare not show my nose +out of doors—by day. You have no idea of the number of perfectly innocent +things a dead man daren’t do. I can’t even smoke Sullivans, because +no one man was ever so partial to them as I was in my lifetime, and you never +know when you may start a clew.” +</p> + +<p> +“What brought you to these mansions?” +</p> + +<p> +“I fancied a flat, and a man recommended these on the boat; such a good +chap, Bunny; he was my reference when it came to signing the lease. You see I +landed on a stretcher—most pathetic case—old Australian without a +friend in old country—ordered Engadine as last chance—no +go—not an earthly—sentimental wish to die in +London—that’s the history of Mr. Maturin. If it doesn’t hit +you hard, Bunny, you’re the first. But it hit friend Theobald hardest of +all. I’m an income to him. I believe he’s going to marry on +me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Does he guess there’s nothing wrong?” +</p> + +<p> +“Knows, bless you! But he doesn’t know I know he knows, and there +isn’t a disease in the dictionary that he hasn’t treated me for +since he’s had me in hand. To do him justice, I believe he thinks me a +hypochondriac of the first water; but that young man will go far if he keeps on +the wicket. He has spent half his nights up here, at guineas apiece.” +</p> + +<p> +“Guineas must be plentiful, old chap!” +</p> + +<p> +“They have been, Bunny. I can’t say more. But I don’t see why +they shouldn’t be again.” +</p> + +<p> +I was not going to inquire where the guineas came from. As if I cared! But I +did ask old Raffles how in the world he had got upon my tracks; and thereby +drew the sort of smile with which old gentlemen rub their hands, and old ladies +nod their noses. Raffles merely produced a perfect oval of blue smoke before +replying. +</p> + +<p> +“I was waiting for you to ask that, Bunny; it’s a long time since I +did anything upon which I plume myself more. Of course, in the first place, I +spotted you at once by these prison articles; they were not signed, but the +fist was the fist of my sitting rabbit!” +</p> + +<p> +“But who gave you my address?” +</p> + +<p> +“I wheedled it out of your excellent editor; called on him at dead of +night, when I occasionally go afield like other ghosts, and wept it out of him +in five minutes. I was your only relative; your name was not your own name; if +he insisted I would give him mine. He didn’t insist, Bunny, and I danced +down his stairs with your address in my pocket.” +</p> + +<p> +“Last night?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, last week.” +</p> + +<p> +“And so the advertisement was yours, as well as the telegram!” +</p> + +<p> +I had, of course, forgotten both in the high excitement of the hour, or I +should scarcely have announced my belated discovery with such an air. As it was +I made Raffles look at me as I had known him look before, and the droop of his +eyelids began to sting. +</p> + +<p> +“Why all this subtlety?” I petulantly exclaimed. “Why +couldn’t you come straight away to me in a cab?” +</p> + +<p> +He did not inform me that I was hopeless as ever. He did not address me as his +good rabbit. +</p> + +<p> +He was silent for a time, and then spoke in a tone which made me ashamed of +mine. +</p> + +<p> +“You see, there are two or three of me now, Bunny: one’s at the +bottom of the Mediterranean, and one’s an old Australian desirous of +dying in the old country, but in no immediate danger of dying anywhere. The old +Australian doesn’t know a soul in town; he’s got to be consistent, +or he’s done. This sitter Theobald is his only friend, and has seen +rather too much of him; ordinary dust won’t do for his eyes. Begin to +see? To pick you out of a crowd, that was the game; to let old Theobald help to +pick you, better still! To start with, he was dead against my having anybody at +all; wanted me all to himself, naturally; but anything rather than kill the +goose! So he is to have a fiver a week while he keeps me alive, and he’s +going to be married next month. That’s a pity in some ways, but a good +thing in others; he will want more money than he foresees, and he may always be +of use to us at a pinch. Meanwhile he eats out of my hand.” +</p> + +<p> +I complimented Raffles on the mere composition of his telegram, with half the +characteristics of my distinguished kinsman squeezed into a dozen odd words; +and let him know how the old ruffian had really treated me. Raffles was not +surprised; we had dined together at my relative’s in the old days, and +filed for reference a professional valuation of his household gods. I now +learnt that the telegram had been posted, with the hour marked for its +despatch, at the pillar nearest Vere Street, on the night before the +advertisement was due to appear in the <i>Daily Mail</i>. This also had been +carefully prearranged; and Raffles’s only fear had been lest it might be +held over despite his explicit instructions, and so drive me to the doctor for +an explanation of his telegram. But the adverse chances had been weeded out and +weeded out to the irreducible minimum of risk. +</p> + +<p> +His greatest risk, according to Raffles, lay nearest home: bedridden invalid +that he was supposed to be, his nightly terror was of running into +Theobald’s arms in the immediate neighborhood of the flat. But Raffles +had characteristic methods of minimizing even that danger, of which something +anon; meanwhile he recounted more than one of his nocturnal adventures, all, +however, of a singularly innocent type; and one thing I noticed while he +talked. His room was the first as you entered the flat. The long inner wall +divided the room not merely from the passage but from the outer landing as +well. Thus every step upon the bare stone stairs could be heard by Raffles +where he lay; and he would never speak while one was ascending, until it had +passed his door. The afternoon brought more than one applicant for the post +which it was my duty to tell them that I had already obtained. Between three +and four, however, Raffles, suddenly looking at his watch, packed me off in a +hurry to the other end of London for my things. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid you must be famishing, Bunny. It’s a fact that I +eat very little, and that at odd hours, but I ought not to have forgotten you. +Get yourself a snack outside, but not a square meal if you can resist one. +We’ve got to celebrate this day this night!” +</p> + +<p> +“To-night?” I cried. +</p> + +<p> +“To-night at eleven, and Kellner’s the place. You may well open +your eyes, but we didn’t go there much, if you remember, and the staff +seems changed. Anyway we’ll risk it for once. I was in last night, +talking like a stage American, and supper’s ordered for eleven +sharp.” +</p> + +<p> +“You made as sure of me as all that!” +</p> + +<p> +“There was no harm in ordering supper. We shall have it in a private +room, but you may as well dress if you’ve got the duds.” +</p> + +<p> +“They’re at my only forgiving relative’s.” +</p> + +<p> +“How much will get them out, and square you up, and bring you back bag +and baggage in good time?” +</p> + +<p> +I had to calculate. +</p> + +<p> +“A tenner, easily.” +</p> + +<p> +“I had one ready for you. Here it is, and I wouldn’t lose any time +if I were you. On the way you might look up Theobald, tell him you’ve got +it and how long you’ll be gone, and that I can’t be left alone all +the time. And, by Jove, yes! You get me a stall for the Lyceum at the nearest +agent’s; there are two or three in High Street; and say it was given you +when you come in. That young man shall be out of the way to-night.” +</p> + +<p> +I found our doctor in a minute consulting-room and his shirt-sleeves, a tall +tumbler at his elbow; at least I caught sight of the tumbler on entering; +thereafter he stood in front of it, with a futility which had my sympathy. +</p> + +<p> +“So you’ve got the billet,” said Dr. Theobald. “Well, +as I told you before, and as you have since probably discovered for yourself, +you won’t find it exactly a sinecure. My own part of the business is by +no means that; indeed, there are those who would throw up the case, after the +kind of treatment that you have seen for yourself. But professional +considerations are not the only ones, and one cannot make too many allowances +in such a case.” +</p> + +<p> +“But what is the case?” I asked him. “You said you would tell +me if I was successful.” +</p> + +<p> +Dr. Theobald’s shrug was worthy of the profession he seemed destined to +adorn; it was not incompatible with any construction which one chose to put +upon it. Next moment he had stiffened. I suppose I still spoke more or less +like a gentleman. Yet, after all, I was only the male nurse. He seemed to +remember this suddenly, and he took occasion to remind me of the fact. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah,” said he, “that was before I knew you were altogether +without experience; and I must say that I was surprised even at Mr. +Maturin’s engaging you after that; but it will depend upon yourself how +long I allow him to persist in so curious an experiment. As for what is the +matter with him, my good fellow, it is no use my giving you an answer which +would be double Dutch to you; moreover, I have still to test your discretionary +powers. I may say, however, that that poor gentleman presents at once the most +complex and most troublesome case, which is responsibility enough without +certain features which make it all but insupportable. Beyond this I must refuse +to discuss my patient for the present; but I shall certainly go up if I can +find time.” +</p> + +<p> +He went up within five minutes. I found him there on my return at dusk. But he +did not refuse my stall for the Lyceum, which Raffles would not allow me to use +myself, and presented to him off-hand without my leave. +</p> + +<p> +“And don’t you bother any more about me till to-morrow,” +snapped the high thin voice as he was off. “I can send for you now when I +want you, and I’m hoping to have a decent night for once.” +</p> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p> +It was half-past ten when we left the flat, in an interval of silence on the +noisy stairs. The silence was unbroken by our wary feet. Yet for me a surprise +was in store upon the very landing. Instead of going downstairs, Raffles led me +up two flights, and so out upon a perfectly flat roof. +</p> + +<p> +“There are two entrances to these mansions,” he explained between +stars and chimney-stacks: “one to our staircase, and another round the +corner. But there’s only one porter, and he lives on the basement +underneath us, and affects the door nearest home. We miss him by using the +wrong stairs, and we run less risk of old Theobald. I got the tip from the +postmen, who come up one way and down the other. Now, follow me, and look +out!” +</p> + +<p> +There was indeed some necessity for caution, for each half of the building had +its L-shaped well dropping sheer to the base, the parapets so low that one +might easily have tripped over them into eternity. However, we were soon upon +the second staircase, which opened on the roof like the first. And twenty +minutes of the next twenty-five we spent in an admirable hansom, skimming east. +</p> + +<p> +“Not much change in the old hole, Bunny. More of these magic-lantern +advertisements ... and absolutely the worst bit of taste in town, though +it’s saying something, in that equestrian statue with the gilt stirrups +and fixings; why don’t they black the buffer’s boots and his +horse’s hoofs while they are about it? ... More bicyclists, of course. +That was just beginning, if you remember. It might have been useful to us.... +And there’s the old club, getting put into a crate for the Jubilee; by +Jove, Bunny, we ought to be there. I wouldn’t lean forward in Piccadilly, +old chap. If you’re seen I’m thought of, and we shall have to be +jolly careful at Kellner’s.... Ah, there it is! Did I tell you I was a +low-down stage Yankee at Kellner’s? You’d better be another, while +the waiter’s in the room.” +</p> + +<p> +We had the little room upstairs; and on the very threshold I, even I, who knew +my Raffles of old, was taken horribly aback. The table was laid for three. I +called his attention to it in a whisper. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, yep!” came through his nose. “Say, boy, the lady, +she’s not comin’, but you leave that tackle where ’tis. If +I’m liable to pay, I guess I’ll have all there is to it.” +</p> + +<p> +I have never been in America, and the American public is the last on earth that +I desire to insult; but idiom and intonation alike would have imposed upon my +inexperience. I had to look at Raffles to make sure that it was he who spoke, +and I had my own reasons for looking hard. +</p> + +<p> +“Who on earth was the lady?” I inquired aghast at the first +opportunity. +</p> + +<p> +“She isn’t on earth. They don’t like wasting this room on +two, that’s all. Bunny—my Bunny—here’s to us +both!” +</p> + +<p> +And we clinked glasses swimming with the liquid gold of Steinberg, 1868; but of +the rare delights of that supper I can scarcely trust myself to write. It was +no mere meal, it was no coarse orgy, but a little feast for the fastidious +gods, not unworthy of Lucullus at his worst. And I who had bolted my skilly at +Wormwood Scrubbs, and tightened my belt in a Holloway attic, it was I who sat +down to this ineffable repast! Where the courses were few, but each a triumph +of its kind, it would be invidious to single out any one dish; but the Jambon +de Westphalie au Champagne tempts me sorely. And then the champagne that we +drank, not the quantity but the quality! Well, it was Pol Roger, ’84, and +quite good enough for me; but even so it was not more dry, nor did it sparkle +more, than the merry rascal who had dragged me thus far to the devil, but +should lead me dancing the rest of the way. I was beginning to tell him so. I +had done my honest best since my reappearance in the world; but the world had +done its worst by me. A further antithesis and my final intention were both +upon my tongue when the waiter with the Château Margaux cut me short; for he +was the bearer of more than that great wine; bringing also a card upon a silver +tray. +</p> + +<p> +“Show him up,” said Raffles, laconically. +</p> + +<p> +“And who is this?” I cried when the man was gone. Raffles reached +across the table and gripped my arm in a vice. His eyes were steel points fixed +on mine. +</p> + +<p> +“Bunny, stand by me,” said he in the old irresistible voice, a +voice both stern and winning. “Stand by me, Bunny—if there’s +a row!” +</p> + +<p> +And there was time for nothing more, the door flying open, and a dapper person +entering with a bow; a frock-coat on his back, gold pince-nez on his nose; a +shiny hat in one hand, and a black bag in the other. +</p> + +<p> +“Good-evening, gentlemen,” said he, at home and smiling. +</p> + +<p> +“Sit down,” drawled Raffles in casual response. “Say, let me +introduce you to Mr. Ezra B. Martin, of Shicawgo. Mr. Martin is my future +brother-in-law. This is Mr. Robinson, Ezra, manager to Sparks & Company, +the cellerbrated joolers on Re-gent Street.” +</p> + +<p> +I pricked up my ears, but contented myself with a nod. I altogether distrusted +my ability to live up to my new name and address. +</p> + +<p> +“I figured on Miss Martin bein’ right here, too,” continued +Raffles, “but I regret to say she’s not feelin’ so good. We +light out for Parrus on the 9 A. M. train to-morrer mornin’, and she +guessed she’d be too dead. Sorry to disappoint you, Mr. Robinson; but +you’ll see I’m advertisin’ your wares.” +</p> + +<p> +Raffles held his right hand under the electric light, and a diamond ring +flashed upon his little finger. I could have sworn it was not there five +minutes before. +</p> + +<p> +The tradesman had a disappointed face, but for a moment it brightened as he +expatiated on the value of that ring and on the price his people had accepted +for it. I was invited to guess the figure, but I shook a discreet head. I have +seldom been more taciturn in my life. +</p> + +<p> +“Forty-five pounds,” cried the jeweller; “and it would be +cheap at fifty guineas.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s right,” assented Raffles. “That’d be dead +cheap, I allow. But then, my boy, you gotten ready cash, and don’t you +forget it.” +</p> + +<p> +I do not dwell upon my own mystification in all this. I merely pause to state +that I was keenly enjoying that very element. Nothing could have been more +typical of Raffles and the past. It was only my own attitude that was changed. +</p> + +<p> +It appeared that the mythical lady, my sister, had just become engaged to +Raffles, who seemed all anxiety to pin her down with gifts of price. I could +not quite gather whose gift to whom was the diamond ring; but it had evidently +been paid for; and I voyaged to the moon, wondering when and how. I was +recalled to this planet by a deluge of gems from the jeweller’s bag. They +lay alight in their cases like the electric lamps above. We all three put our +heads together over them, myself without the slightest clew as to what was +coming, but not unprepared for violent crime. One does not do eighteen months +for nothing. +</p> + +<p> +“Right away,” Raffles was saying. “We’ll choose for +her, and you’ll change anything she don’t like. Is that the +idea?” +</p> + +<p> +“That was my suggestion, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then come on, Ezra. I guess you know Sadie’s taste. You help me +choose.” +</p> + +<p> +And we chose—lord! What did we not choose? There was her ring, a diamond +half-hoop. It cost £95, and there was no attempt to get it for £90. Then there +was a diamond necklet—two hundred guineas, but pounds accepted. That was +to be the gift of the bridegroom. The wedding was evidently imminent. It +behooved me to play a brotherly part. I therefore rose to the occasion; +calculated she would like a diamond star (£116), but reckoned it was more than +I could afford; and sustained a vicious kick under the table for either verb. I +was afraid to open my mouth on finally obtaining the star for the round +hundred. And then the fat fell in the fire; for pay we could not; though a +remittance (said Raffles) was “overdo from Noo York.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I don’t know you, gentlemen,” the jeweller exclaimed. +“I haven’t even the name of your hotel!” +</p> + +<p> +“I told you we was stoppin’ with friends,” said Raffles, who +was not angry, though thwarted and crushed. “But that’s right, sir! +Oh, that’s dead right, and I’m the last man to ask you to take +Quixotic risks. I’m tryin’ to figure a way out. Yes, <i>sir</i>, +that’s what I’m tryin’ to do.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish you could, sir,” the jeweller said, with feeling. “It +isn’t as if we hadn’t seen the color of your money. But certain +rules I’m sworn to observe; it isn’t as if I was in business for +myself; and—you say you start for Paris in the morning!” +</p> + +<p> +“On the 9 A. M. train,” mused Raffles; “and I’ve heard +no-end yarns about the joolers’ stores in Parrus. But that ain’t +fair; don’t you take no notice o’ that. I’m tryin’ to +figure a way out. Yes, <i>sir!</i>” +</p> + +<p> +He was smoking cigarettes out of a twenty-five box; the tradesman and I had +cigars. Raffles sat frowning with a pregnant eye, and it was only too clear to +me that his plans had miscarried. I could not help thinking, however, that they +deserved to do so, if he had counted upon buying credit for all but £400 by a +single payment of some ten per cent. That again seemed unworthy of Raffles, and +I, for my part, still sat prepared to spring any moment at our visitor’s +throat. +</p> + +<p> +“We could mail you the money from Parrus,” drawled Raffles at +length. “But how should we know you’d hold up your end of the +string, and mail us the same articles we’ve selected to-night?” +</p> + +<p> +The visitor stiffened in his chair. The name of his firm should be sufficient +guarantee for that. +</p> + +<p> +“I guess I’m no better acquainted with their name than they are +with mine,” remarked Raffles, laughing. “See here, though! I got a +scheme. You pack ’em in this!” +</p> + +<p> +He turned the cigarettes out of the tin box, while the jeweller and I joined +wondering eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Pack ’em in this,” repeated Raffles, “the three things +we want, and never mind the boxes; you can pack ’em in cotton-wool. Then +we’ll ring for string and sealing wax, seal up the lot right here, and +you can take ’em away in your grip. Within three days we’ll have +our remittance, and mail you the money, and you’ll mail us this darned +box with my seal unbroken! It’s no use you lookin’ so sick, Mr. +Jooler; you won’t trust us any, and yet we’re goin’ to trust +you some. Ring the bell, Ezra, and we’ll see if they’ve gotten any +sealing-wax and string.” +</p> + +<p> +They had; and the thing was done. The tradesman did not like it; the precaution +was absolutely unnecessary; but since he was taking all his goods away with +him, the sold with the unsold, his sentimental objections soon fell to the +ground. He packed necklet, ring, and star, with his own hands, in cotton-wool; +and the cigarette-box held them so easily that at the last moment, when the box +was closed, and the string ready, Raffles very nearly added a diamond +bee-brooch at £51 10s. This temptation, however, he ultimately overcame, to the +other’s chagrin. The cigarette-box was tied up, and the string sealed, +oddly enough, with the diamond of the ring that had been bought and paid for. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll chance you having another ring in the store the dead spit of +mine,” laughed Raffles, as he relinquished the box, and it disappeared +into the tradesman’s bag. “And now, Mr. Robinson, I hope +you’ll appreciate my true hospitality in not offering you any thing to +drink while business was in progress. That’s Château Margaux, sir, and I +should judge it’s what you’d call an eighteen-carat article.” +</p> + +<p> +In the cab which we took to the vicinity of the flat, I was instantly snubbed +for asking questions which the driver might easily overhear, and took the +repulse just a little to heart. I could make neither head nor tail of +Raffles’s dealings with the man from Regent Street, and was naturally +inquisitive as to the meaning of it all. But I held my tongue until we had +regained the flat in the cautious manner of our exit, and even there until +Raffles rallied me with a hand on either shoulder and an old smile upon his +face. +</p> + +<p> +“You rabbit!” said he. “Why couldn’t you wait till we +got home?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why couldn’t you tell me what you were going to do?” I +retorted as of yore. +</p> + +<p> +“Because your dear old phiz is still worth its weight in innocence, and +because you never could act for nuts! You looked as puzzled as the other poor +devil; but you wouldn’t if you had known what my game really was.” +</p> + +<p> +“And pray what was it?” +</p> + +<p> +“That,” said Raffles, and he smacked the cigarette-box down upon +the mantelpiece. It was not tied. It was not sealed. It flew open from the +force of the impact. And the diamond ring that cost £95, the necklet for £200, +and my flaming star at another £100, all three lay safe and snug in the +jeweller’s own cotton-wool! +</p> + +<p> +“Duplicate boxes!” I cried. +</p> + +<p> +“Duplicate boxes, my brainy Bunny. One was already packed and weighted, +and in my pocket. I don’t know whether you noticed me weighing the three +things together in my hand? I know that neither of you saw me change the boxes, +for I did it when I was nearest buying the bee-brooch at the end, and you were +too puzzled, and the other Johnny too keen. It was the cheapest shot in the +game; the dear ones were sending old Theobald to Southampton on a fool’s +errand yesterday afternoon, and showing one’s own nose down Regent Street +in broad daylight while he was gone; but some things are worth paying for, and +certain risks one must always take. Nice boxes, aren’t they? I only +wished they contained a better cigarette; but a notorious brand was essential; +a box of Sullivans would have brought me to life to-morrow.” +</p> + +<p> +“But they oughtn’t to open it to-morrow.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nor will they, as a matter of fact. Meanwhile, Bunny, I may call upon +you to dispose of the boodle.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m on for any mortal thing!” +</p> + +<p> +My voice rang true, I swear, but it was the way of Raffles to take the evidence +of as many senses as possible. I felt the cold steel of his eyes through mine +and through my brain. But what he saw seemed to satisfy him no less than what +he heard, for his hand found my hand, and pressed it with a fervor foreign to +the man. +</p> + +<p> +“I know you are, and I knew you would be. Only remember, Bunny, +it’s my turn next to pay the shot!” +</p> + +<p> +You shall hear how he paid it when the time came. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap02"></a>A JUBILEE PRESENT</h2> + +<p> +The Room of Gold, in the British Museum, is probably well enough known to the +inquiring alien and the travelled American. A true Londoner, however, I myself +had never heard of it until Raffles casually proposed a raid. +</p> + +<p> +“The older I grow, Bunny, the less I think of your so-called precious +stones. When did they ever bring in half their market value in £. s. d. There was +the first little crib we ever cracked together—you with your innocent +eyes shut. A thousand pounds that stuff was worth; but how many hundreds did it +actually fetch. The Ardagh emeralds weren’t much better; old Lady +Melrose’s necklace was far worse; but that little lot the other night has +about finished me. A cool hundred for goods priced well over four; and £35 to +come off for bait, since we only got a tenner for the ring I bought and paid +for like an ass. I’ll be shot if I ever touch a diamond again! Not if it +was the Koh-i-noor; those few whacking stones are too well known, and to cut +them up is to decrease their value by arithmetical retrogression. Besides, that +brings you up against the Fence once more, and I’m done with the beggars +for good and all. You talk about your editors and publishers, you literary +swine. Barabbas was neither a robber nor a publisher, but a six-barred, +barbed-wired, spike-topped Fence. What we really want is an Incorporated +Society of Thieves, with some public-spirited old forger to run it for us on +business lines.” +</p> + +<p> +Raffles uttered these blasphemies under his breath, not, I am afraid, out of +any respect for my one redeeming profession, but because we were taking a +midnight airing on the roof, after a whole day of June in the little flat +below. The stars shone overhead, the lights of London underneath, and between +the lips of Raffles a cigarette of the old and only brand. I had sent in secret +for a box of the best; the boon had arrived that night; and the foregoing +speech was the first result. I could afford to ignore the insolent asides, +however, where the apparent contention was so manifestly unsound. +</p> + +<p> +“And how are you going to get rid of your gold?” said I, +pertinently. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing easier, my dear rabbit.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is your Room of Gold a roomful of sovereigns?” +</p> + +<p> +Raffles laughed softly at my scorn. +</p> + +<p> +“No, Bunny, it’s principally in the shape of archaic ornaments, +whose value, I admit, is largely extrinsic. But gold is gold, from Phœnicia to +Klondike, and if we cleared the room we should eventually do very well.” +</p> + +<p> +“How?” +</p> + +<p> +“I should melt it down into a nugget, and bring it home from the U.S.A. +to-morrow.” +</p> + +<p> +“And then?” +</p> + +<p> +“Make them pay up in hard cash across the counter of the Bank of England. +And you <i>can</i> make them.” +</p> + +<p> +That I knew, and so said nothing for a time, remaining a hostile though a +silent critic, while we paced the cool black leads with our bare feet, softly +as cats. +</p> + +<p> +“And how do you propose to get enough away,” at length I asked, +“to make it worth while?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, there you have it,” said Raffles. “I only propose to +reconnoitre the ground, to see what we can see. We might find some hiding-place +for a night; that, I am afraid, would be our only chance.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have you ever been there before?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not since they got the one good, portable piece which I believe that +they exhibit now. It’s a long time since I read of it—I can’t +remember where—but I know they have got a gold cup of sorts worth several +thousands. A number of the immorally rich clubbed together and presented it to +the nation; and two of the richly immoral intend to snaffle it for themselves. +At any rate we might go and have a look at it, Bunny, don’t you +think?” +</p> + +<p> +Think! I seized his arm. +</p> + +<p> +“When? When? When?” I asked, like a quick-firing gun. +</p> + +<p> +“The sooner the better, while old Theobald’s away on his +honeymoon.” +</p> + +<p> +Our medico had married the week before, nor was any fellow-practitioner taking +his work—at least not that considerable branch of it which consisted of +Raffles—during his brief absence from town. There were reasons, +delightfully obvious to us, why such a plan would have been highly unwise in +Dr. Theobald. I, however, was sending him daily screeds, and both matutinal and +nocturnal telegrams, the composition of which afforded Raffles not a little +enjoyment. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, then, when—when?” I began to repeat. +</p> + +<p> +“To-morrow, if you like.” +</p> + +<p> +“Only to look?” +</p> + +<p> +The limitation was my one regret. +</p> + +<p> +“We must do so, Bunny, before we leap.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well,” I sighed. “But to-morrow it is!” +</p> + +<p> +And the morrow it really was. +</p> + +<p> +I saw the porter that night, and, I still think, bought his absolute allegiance +for the second coin of the realm. My story, however, invented by Raffles, was +sufficiently specious in itself. That sick gentleman, Mr. Maturin (as I had to +remember to call him), was really, or apparently, sickening for fresh air. Dr. +Theobald would allow him none; he was pestering me for just one day in the +country while the glorious weather lasted. I was myself convinced that no +possible harm could come of the experiment. Would the porter help me in so +innocent and meritorious an intrigue? The man hesitated. I produced my +half-sovereign. The man was lost. And at half-past eight next +morning—before the heat of the day—Raffles and I drove to Kew +Gardens in a hired landau which was to call for us at mid-day and wait until we +came. The porter had assisted me to carry my invalid downstairs, in a +carrying-chair hired (like the landau) from Harrod’s Stores for the +occasion. +</p> + +<p> +It was little after nine when we crawled together into the gardens; by +half-past my invalid had had enough, and out he tottered on my arm; a cab, a +message to our coachman, a timely train to Baker Street, another cab, and we +were at the British Museum—brisk pedestrians now—not very many +minutes after the opening hour of 10 A.M. +</p> + +<p> +It was one of those glowing days which will not be forgotten by many who were +in town at the time. The Diamond Jubilee was upon us, and Queen’s weather +had already set in. Raffles, indeed, declared it was as hot as Italy and +Australia put together; and certainly the short summer nights gave the channels +of wood and asphalt and the continents of brick and mortar but little time to +cool. At the British Museum the pigeons were crooning among the shadows of the +grimy colonnade, and the stalwart janitors looked less stalwart than usual, as +though their medals were too heavy for them. I recognized some habitual Readers +going to their labor underneath the dome; of mere visitors we seemed among the +first. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s the room,” said Raffles, who had bought the two-penny +guide, as we studied it openly on the nearest bench; “number 43, upstairs +and sharp round to the right. Come on, Bunny!” +</p> + +<p> +And he led the way in silence, but with a long methodical stride which I could +not understand until we came to the corridor leading to the Room of Gold, when +he turned to me for a moment. +</p> + +<p> +“A hundred and thirty-nine yards from this to the open street,” +said Raffles, “not counting the stairs. I suppose we <i>could</i> do it +in twenty seconds, but if we did we should have to jump the gates. No, you must +remember to loaf out at slow march, Bunny, whether you like it or not.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you talked about a hiding-place for a night?” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite so—for all night. We should have to get back, go on lying +low, and saunter out with the crowd next day—after doing the whole show +thoroughly.” +</p> + +<p> +“What! With gold in our pockets—” +</p> + +<p> +“And gold in our boots, and gold up the sleeves and legs of our suits! +You leave that to me, Bunny, and wait till you’ve tried two pairs of +trousers sewn together at the foot! This is only a preliminary reconnoitre. And +here we are.” +</p> + +<p> +It is none of my business to describe the so-called Room of Gold, with which I, +for one, was not a little disappointed. The glass cases, which both fill and +line it, may contain unique examples of the goldsmith’s art in times and +places of which one heard quite enough in the course of one’s classical +education; but, from a professional point of view, I would as lief have the +ransacking of a single window in the West End as the pick of all those spoils +of Etruria and of ancient Greece. The gold may not be so soft as it appears, +but it certainly looks as though you could bite off the business ends of the +spoons, and stop your own teeth in doing so. Nor should I care to be seen +wearing one of the rings; but the greatest fraud of all (from the aforesaid +standpoint) is assuredly that very cup of which Raffles had spoken. Moreover, +he felt this himself. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, it’s as thin as paper,” said he, “and enamelled +like a middle-aged lady of quality! But, by Jove, it’s one of the most +beautiful things I ever saw in my life, Bunny. I should like to have it for its +own sake, by all my gods!” +</p> + +<p> +The thing had a little square case of plate-glass all to itself at one end of +the room. It may have been the thing of beauty that Raffles affected to +consider it, but I for my part was in no mood to look at it in that light. +Underneath were the names of the plutocrats who had subscribed for this +national gewgaw, and I fell to wondering where their £8,000 came in, while +Raffles devoured his two-penny guide-book as greedily as a school-girl with a +zeal for culture. +</p> + +<p> +“Those are scenes from the martyrdom of St. Agnes,” said he ... +“‘translucent on relief ... one of the finest specimens of its +kind.’ I should think it was! Bunny, you Philistine, why can’t you +admire the thing for its own sake? It would be worth having only to live up to! +There never was such rich enamelling on such thin gold; and what a good scheme +to hang the lid up over it, so that you can see how thin it is. I wonder if we +could lift it, Bunny, by hook or crook?” +</p> + +<p> +“You’d better try, sir,” said a dry voice at his elbow. +</p> + +<p> +The madman seemed to think we had the room to ourselves. I knew better, but, +like another madman, had let him ramble on unchecked. And here was a stolid +constable confronting us, in the short tunic that they wear in summer, his +whistle on its chain, but no truncheon at his side. Heavens! how I see him now: +a man of medium size, with a broad, good-humored, perspiring face, and a limp +moustache. He looked sternly at Raffles, and Raffles looked merrily at him. +</p> + +<p> +“Going to run me in, officer?” said he. “That <i>would</i> be +a joke—my hat!” +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t say as I was, sir,” replied the policeman. +“But that’s queer talk for a gentleman like you, sir, in the +British Museum!” And he wagged his helmet at my invalid, who had taken +his airing in frock-coat and top-hat, the more readily to assume his present +part. +</p> + +<p> +“What!” cried Raffles, “simply saying to my friend that +I’d like to lift the gold cup? Why, so I should, officer, so I should! I +don’t mind who hears me say so. It’s one of the most beautiful +things I ever saw in all my life.” +</p> + +<p> +The constable’s face had already relaxed, and now a grin peeped under the +limp moustache. “I daresay there’s many as feels like that, +sir,” said he. +</p> + +<p> +“Exactly; and I say what I feel, that’s all,” said Raffles +airily. “But seriously, officer, is a valuable thing like this quite safe +in a case like that?” +</p> + +<p> +“Safe enough as long as I’m here,” replied the other, between +grim jest and stout earnest. Raffles studied his face; he was still watching +Raffles; and I kept an eye on them both without putting in my word. +</p> + +<p> +“You appear to be single-handed,” observed Raffles. “Is that +wise?” +</p> + +<p> +The note of anxiety was capitally caught; it was at once personal and +public-spirited, that of the enthusiastic savant, afraid for a national +treasure which few appreciated as he did himself. And, to be sure, the three of +us now had this treasury to ourselves; one or two others had been there when we +entered; but now they were gone. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not single-handed,” said the officer, comfortably. +“See that seat by the door? One of the attendants sits there all day +long.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then where is he now?” +</p> + +<p> +“Talking to another attendant just outside. If you listen you’ll +hear them for yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +We listened, and we did hear them, but not just outside. In my own mind I even +questioned whether they were in the corridor through which we had come; to me +it sounded as though they were just outside the corridor. +</p> + +<p> +“You mean the fellow with the billiard-cue who was here when we came +in?” pursued Raffles. +</p> + +<p> +“That wasn’t a billiard-cue! It was a pointer,” the +intelligent officer explained. +</p> + +<p> +“It ought to be a javelin,” said Raffles, nervously. “It +ought to be a poleaxe! The public treasure ought to be better guarded than +this. I shall write to the <i>Times</i> about it—you see if I +don’t!” +</p> + +<p> +All at once, yet somehow not so suddenly as to excite suspicion, Raffles had +become the elderly busybody with nerves; why, I could not for the life of me +imagine; and the policeman seemed equally at sea. +</p> + +<p> +“Lor’ bless you, sir,” said he, “I’m all right; +don’t you bother your head about <i>me</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you haven’t even got a truncheon!” +</p> + +<p> +“Not likely to want one either. You see, sir, it’s early as yet; in +a few minutes these here rooms will fill up; and there’s safety in +numbers, as they say.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, it will fill up soon, will it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Any minute now, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah!” +</p> + +<p> +“It isn’t often empty as long as this, sir. It’s the Jubilee, +I suppose.” +</p> + +<p> +“Meanwhile, what if my friend and I had been professional thieves? Why, +we could have over-powered you in an instant, my good fellow!” +</p> + +<p> +“That you couldn’t; leastways, not without bringing the whole place +about your ears.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I shall write to the <i>Times</i>, all the same. I’m a +connoisseur in all this sort of thing, and I won’t have unnecessary risks +run with the nation’s property. You said there was an attendant just +outside, but he sounds to me as though he were at the other end of the +corridor. I shall write to-day!” +</p> + +<p> +For an instant we all three listened; and Raffles was right. Then I saw two +things in one glance. Raffles had stepped a few inches backward, and stood +poised upon the ball of each foot, his arms half raised, a light in his eyes. +And another kind of light was breaking over the crass features of our friend +the constable. +</p> + +<p> +“Then shall I tell you what <i>I’ll</i> do?” he cried, with a +sudden clutch at the whistle-chain on his chest. The whistle flew out, but it +never reached his lips. There were a couple of sharp smacks, like double +barrels discharged all but simultaneously, and the man reeled against me so +that I could not help catching him as he fell. +</p> + +<p> +“Well done, Bunny! I’ve knocked him out—I’ve knocked +him out! Run you to the door and see if the attendants have heard anything, and +take them on if they have.” +</p> + +<p> +Mechanically I did as I was told. There was no time for thought, still less for +remonstrance or reproach, though my surprise must have been even more complete +than that of the constable before Raffles knocked the sense out of him. Even in +my utter bewilderment, however, the instinctive caution of the real criminal +did not desert me. I ran to the door, but I sauntered through it, to plant +myself before a Pompeiian fresco in the corridor; and there were the two +attendants still gossiping outside the further door; nor did they hear the dull +crash which I heard even as I watched them out of the corner of each eye. +</p> + +<p> +It was hot weather, as I have said, but the perspiration on my body seemed +already to have turned into a skin of ice. Then I caught the faint reflection +of my own face in the casing of the fresco, and it frightened me into some +semblance of myself as Raffles joined me with his hands in his pockets. But my +fear and indignation were redoubled at the sight of him, when a single glance +convinced me that his pockets were as empty as his hands, and his mad outrage +the most wanton and reckless of his whole career. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, very interesting, very interesting, but nothing to what they have in +the museum at Naples or in Pompeii itself. You must go there some day, Bunny. +I’ve a good mind to take you myself. Meanwhile—slow march! The +beggar hasn’t moved an eyelid. We may swing for him if you show indecent +haste!” +</p> + +<p> +“We!” I whispered. “We!” +</p> + +<p> +And my knees knocked together as we came up to the chatting attendants. But +Raffles must needs interrupt them to ask the way to the Prehistoric Saloon. +</p> + +<p> +“At the top of the stairs.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you. Then we’ll work round that way to the Egyptian +part.” +</p> + +<p> +And we left them resuming their providential chat. +</p> + +<p> +“I believe you’re mad,” I said bitterly as we went. +</p> + +<p> +“I believe I <i>was</i>,” admitted Raffles; “but I’m +not now, and I’ll see you through. A hundred and thirty-nine yards, +wasn’t it? Then it can’t be more than a hundred and twenty +now—not as much. Steady, Bunny, for God’s sake. It’s +<i>slow</i> march—for our lives.” +</p> + +<p> +There was this much management. The rest was our colossal luck. A hansom was +being paid off at the foot of the steps outside, and in we jumped, Raffles +shouting “Charing Cross!” for all Bloomsbury to hear. +</p> + +<p> +We had turned into Bloomsbury Street without exchanging a syllable when he +struck the trap-door with his fist. +</p> + +<p> +“Where the devil are you driving us?” +</p> + +<p> +“Charing Cross, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“I said King’s Cross! Round you spin, and drive like blazes, or we +miss our train! There’s one to York at 10:35,” added Raffles as the +trap-door slammed; “we’ll book there, Bunny, and then we’ll +slope through the subway to the Metropolitan, and so to ground <i>via</i> Baker +Street and Earl’s Court.” +</p> + +<p> +And actually in half an hour he was seated once more in the hired carrying +chair, while the porter and I staggered upstairs with my decrepit charge, for +whose shattered strength even one hour in Kew Gardens had proved too much! +Then, and not until then, when we had got rid of the porter and were alone at +last, did I tell Raffles, in the most nervous English at my command, frankly +and exactly what I thought of him and of his latest deed. Once started, +moreover, I spoke as I have seldom spoken to living man; and Raffles, of all +men, stood my abuse without a murmur; or rather he sat it out, too astounded +even to take off his hat, though I thought his eyebrows would have lifted it +from his head. +</p> + +<p> +“But it always was your infernal way,” I was savagely concluding. +“You make one plan, and yet you tell me another—” +</p> + +<p> +“Not to-day, Bunny, I swear!” +</p> + +<p> +“You mean to tell me you really did start with the bare idea of finding a +place to hide in for a night?” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course I did.” +</p> + +<p> +“It was to be the mere reconnoitre you pretended?” +</p> + +<p> +“There was no pretence about it, Bunny.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then why on earth go and do what you did?” +</p> + +<p> +“The reason would be obvious to anyone but you,” said Raffles, +still with no unkindly scorn. “It was the temptation of a +minute—the final impulse of the fraction of a second, when Roberto saw +that I was tempted, and let me see that he saw it. It’s not a thing I +care to do, and I sha’n’t be happy till the papers tell me the poor +devil is alive. But a knock-out shot was the only chance for us then.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why? You don’t get run in for being tempted, nor yet for showing +that you are!” +</p> + +<p> +“But I should have deserved running in if I hadn’t yielded to such +a temptation as that, Bunny. It was a chance in a hundred thousand! We might go +there every day of our lives, and never again be the only outsiders in the +room, with the billiard-marking Johnnie practically out of ear-shot at one and +the same time. It was a gift from the gods; not to have taken it would have +been flying in the face of Providence.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you didn’t take it,” said I. “You went and left it +behind.” +</p> + +<p> +I wish I had had a Kodak for the little smile with which Raffles shook his +head, for it was one that he kept for those great moments of which our vocation +is not devoid. All this time he had been wearing his hat, tilted a little over +eyebrows no longer raised. And now at last I knew where the gold cup was. +</p> + +<p> +It stood for days upon his chimney-piece, this costly trophy whose ancient +history and final fate filled newspaper columns even in these days of Jubilee, +and for which the flower of Scotland Yard was said to be seeking high and low. +Our constable, we learnt, had been stunned only, and, from the moment that I +brought him an evening paper with the news, Raffles’s spirits rose to a +height inconsistent with his equable temperament, and as unusual in him as the +sudden impulse upon which he had acted with such effect. The cup itself +appealed to me no more than it had done before. Exquisite it might be, handsome +it was, but so light in the hand that the mere gold of it would scarcely have +poured three figures out of melting-pot. And what said Raffles but that he +would never melt it at all! +</p> + +<p> +“Taking it was an offence against the laws of the land, Bunny. That is +nothing. But destroying it would be a crime against God and Art, and may I be +spitted on the vane of St. Mary Abbot’s if I commit it!” +</p> + +<p> +Talk such as this was unanswerable; indeed, the whole affair had passed the +pale of useful comment; and the one course left to a practical person was to +shrug his shoulders and enjoy the joke. This was not a little enhanced by the +newspaper reports, which described Raffles as a handsome youth, and his +unwilling accomplice as an older man of blackguardly appearance and low type. +</p> + +<p> +“Hits us both off rather neatly, Bunny,” said he. “But what +none of them do justice to is my dear cup. Look at it; only look at it, man! +Was ever anything so rich and yet so chaste? St. Agnes must have had a pretty +bad time, but it would be almost worth it to go down to posterity in such +enamel upon such gold. And then the history of the thing. Do you realize that +it’s five hundred years old and has belonged to Henry the Eighth and to +Elizabeth among others? Bunny, when you have me cremated, you can put my ashes +in yonder cup, and lay us in the deep-delved earth together!” +</p> + +<p> +“And meanwhile?” +</p> + +<p> +“It is the joy of my heart, the light of my life, the delight of mine +eye.” +</p> + +<p> +“And suppose other eyes catch sight of it?” +</p> + +<p> +“They never must; they never shall.” +</p> + +<p> +Raffles would have been too absurd had he not been thoroughly alive to his own +absurdity; there was nevertheless an underlying sincerity in his appreciation +of any and every form of beauty, which all his nonsense could not conceal. And +his infatuation for the cup was, as he declared, a very pure passion, since the +circumstances debarred him from the chief joy of the average collector, that of +showing his treasure to his friends. At last, however, and at the height of his +craze, Raffles and reason seemed to come together again as suddenly as they had +parted company in the Room of Gold. +</p> + +<p> +“Bunny,” he cried, flinging his newspaper across the room, +“I’ve got an idea after your own heart. I know where I can place it +after all!” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you mean the cup?” +</p> + +<p> +“I do.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then I congratulate you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thanks.” +</p> + +<p> +“Upon the recovery of your senses.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thanks galore. But you’ve been confoundedly unsympathetic about +this thing, Bunny, and I don’t think I shall tell you my scheme till +I’ve carried it out.” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite time enough,” said I. +</p> + +<p> +“It will mean your letting me loose for an hour or two under cloud of +this very night. To-morrow’s Sunday, the Jubilee’s on Tuesday, and +old Theobald’s coming back for it.” +</p> + +<p> +“It doesn’t much matter whether he’s back or not if you go +late enough.” +</p> + +<p> +“I mustn’t be late. They don’t keep open. No, it’s no +use your asking any questions. Go out and buy me a big box of Huntley & +Palmer’s biscuits; any sort you like, only they must be theirs, and +absolutely the biggest box they sell.” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear man!” +</p> + +<p> +“No questions, Bunny; you do your part and I’ll do mine.” +</p> + +<p> +Subtlety and success were in his face. It was enough for me, and I had done his +extraordinary bidding within a quarter of an hour. In another minute Raffles +had opened the box and tumbled all the biscuits into the nearest chair. +</p> + +<p> +“Now newspapers!” +</p> + +<p> +I fetched a pile. He bid the cup of gold a ridiculous farewell, wrapped it up +in newspaper after newspaper, and finally packed it in the empty biscuit-box. +</p> + +<p> +“Now some brown paper. I don’t want to be taken for the +grocer’s young man.” +</p> + +<p> +A neat enough parcel it made, when the string had been tied and the ends cut +close; what was more difficult was to wrap up Raffles himself in such a way +that even the porter should not recognize him if they came face to face at the +corner. And the sun was still up. But Raffles would go, and when he did I +should not have known him myself. +</p> + +<p> +He may have been an hour away. It was barely dusk when he returned, and my +first question referred to our dangerous ally, the porter. Raffles had passed +him unsuspected in going, but had managed to avoid him altogether on the return +journey, which he had completed by way of the other entrance and the roof. I +breathed again. +</p> + +<p> +“And what have you done with the cup?” +</p> + +<p> +“Placed it!” +</p> + +<p> +“How much for? How much for?” +</p> + +<p> +“Let me think. I had a couple of cabs, and the postage was a tanner, with +another twopence for registration. Yes, it cost me exactly +five-and-eight.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>It</i> cost <i>you!</i> But what did you <i>get</i> for it, +Raffles?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing, my boy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing!” +</p> + +<p> +“Not a crimson cent.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am not surprised. I never thought it had a market value. I told you so +in the beginning,” I said, irritably. “But what on earth have you +done with the thing?” +</p> + +<p> +“Sent it to the Queen.” +</p> + +<p> +“You haven’t!” +</p> + +<p> +Rogue is a word with various meanings, and Raffles had been one sort of rogue +ever since I had known him; but now, for once, he was the innocent variety, a +great gray-haired child, running over with merriment and mischief. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I’ve sent it to Sir Arthur Bigge, to present to her Majesty, +with the loyal respects of the thief, if that will do for you,” said +Raffles. “I thought they might take too much stock of me at the G.P.O. if +I addressed it to the Sovereign herself. Yes, I drove over to St. +Martin’s-le-Grand with it, and I registered the box into the bargain. Do +a thing properly if you do it at all.” +</p> + +<p> +“But why on earth,” I groaned, “do such a thing at +all?” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear Bunny, we have been reigned over for sixty years by infinitely +the finest monarch the world has ever seen. The world is taking the present +opportunity of signifying the fact for all it is worth. Every nation is laying +of its best at her royal feet; every class in the community is doing its little +level—except ours. All I have done is to remove one reproach from our +fraternity.” +</p> + +<p> +At this I came round, was infected with his spirit, called him the sportsman he +always was and would be, and shook his daredevil hand in mine; but, at the same +time, I still had my qualms. +</p> + +<p> +“Supposing they trace it to us?” said I. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s not much to catch hold of in a biscuit-box by Huntley +& Palmer,” replied Raffles; “that was why I sent you for one. +And I didn’t write a word upon a sheet of paper which could possibly be +traced. I simply printed two or three on a virginal post-card—another +half-penny to the bad—which might have been bought at any post-office in +the kingdom. No, old chap, the G.P.O. was the one real danger; there was one +detective I spotted for myself; and the sight of him has left me with a thirst. +Whisky and Sullivans for two, Bunny, if you please.” +</p> + +<p> +Raffles was soon clinking his glass against mine. +</p> + +<p> +“The Queen,” said he. “God bless her!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap03"></a>THE FATE OF FAUSTINA</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“Mar—ga—rì,<br/> + e perzo a Salvatore!<br/> +Mar—ga—rì,<br/> + Ma l’ommo è cacciatore!<br/> +Mar—ga—rì,<br/> + Nun ce aje corpa tu!<br/> +Chello ch’ è fatto, è fatto, un ne parlammo cchieù!” +</p> + +<p> +A piano-organ was pouring the metallic music through our open windows, while a +voice of brass brayed the words, which I have since obtained, and print above +for identification by such as know their Italy better than I. They will not +thank me for reminding them of a tune so lately epidemic in that land of aloes +and blue skies; but at least it is unlikely to run in their heads as the ribald +accompaniment to a tragedy; and it does in mine. +</p> + +<p> +It was in the early heat of August, and the hour that of the lawful and +necessary siesta for such as turn night into day. I was therefore shutting my +window in a rage, and wondering whether I should not do the same for Raffles, +when he appeared in the silk pajamas to which the chronic solicitude of Dr. +Theobald confined him from morning to night. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t do that, Bunny,” said he. “I rather like that +thing, and want to listen. What sort of fellows are they to look at, by the +way?” +</p> + +<p> +I put my head out to see, it being a primary rule of our quaint establishment +that Raffles must never show himself at any of the windows. I remember now how +hot the sill was to my elbows, as I leant upon it and looked down, in order to +satisfy a curiosity in which I could see no point. +</p> + +<p> +“Dirty-looking beggars,” said I over my shoulder: “dark as +dark; blue chins, oleaginous curls, and ear-rings; ragged as they make them, +but nothing picturesque in their rags.” +</p> + +<p> +“Neapolitans all over,” murmured Raffles behind me; “and +that’s a characteristic touch, the one fellow singing while the other +grinds; they always have that out there.” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s rather a fine chap, the singer,” said I, as the song +ended. “My hat, what teeth! He’s looking up here, and grinning all +round his head; shall I chuck him anything?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I have no reason to love the Neapolitans; but it takes me +back—it takes me back! Yes, here you are, one each.” +</p> + +<p> +It was a couple of half-crowns that Raffles put into my hand, but I had thrown +them into the street for pennies before I saw what they were. Thereupon I left +the Italians bowing to the mud, as well they might, and I turned to protest +against such wanton waste. But Raffles was walking up and down, his head bent, +his eyes troubled; and his one excuse disarmed remonstrance. +</p> + +<p> +“They took me back,” he repeated. “My God, how they took me +back!” +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly he stopped in his stride. +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t understand, Bunny, old chap; but if you like you shall. +I always meant to tell you some day, but never felt worked up to it before, and +it’s not the kind of thing one talks about for talking’s sake. It +isn’t a nursery story, Bunny, and there isn’t a laugh in it from +start to finish; on the contrary, you have often asked me what turned my hair +gray, and now you are going to hear.” +</p> + +<p> +This was promising, but Raffles’s manner was something more. It was +unique in my memory of the man. His fine face softened and set hard by turns. I +never knew it so hard. I never knew it so soft. And the same might be said of +his voice, now tender as any woman’s, now flying to the other extreme of +equally unwonted ferocity. But this was toward the end of his tale; the +beginning he treated characteristically enough, though I could have wished for +a less cavalier account of the island of Elba, where, upon his own showing, he +had met with much humanity. +</p> + +<p> +“Deadly, my dear Bunny, is not the word for that glorified snag, or for +the mollusks, its inhabitants. But they started by wounding my vanity, so +perhaps I am prejudiced, after all. I sprung myself upon them as a shipwrecked +sailor—a sole survivor—stripped in the sea and landed without a +stitch—yet they took no more interest in me than you do in Italian +organ-grinders. They were decent enough. I didn’t have to pick and steal +for a square meal and a pair of trousers; it would have been more exciting if I +had. But what a place! Napoleon couldn’t stand it, you remember, but he +held on longer than I did. I put in a few weeks in their infernal mines, simply +to pick up a smattering of Italian; then got across to the mainland in a little +wooden timber-tramp; and ungratefully glad I was to leave Elba blazing in just +such another sunset as the one you won’t forget. +</p> + +<p> +“The tramp was bound for Naples, but first it touched at Baiæ, where I +carefully deserted in the night. There are too many English in Naples itself, +though I thought it would make a first happy hunting-ground when I knew the +language better and had altered myself a bit more. Meanwhile I got a billet of +several sorts on one of the loveliest spots that ever I struck on all my +travels. The place was a vineyard, but it overhung the sea, and I got taken on +as tame sailorman and emergency bottle-washer. The wages were the noble figure +of a lira and a half, which is just over a bob, a day, but there were lashings +of sound wine for one and all, and better wine to bathe in. And for eight whole +months, my boy, I was an absolutely honest man. The luxury of it, Bunny! I +out-heroded Herod, wouldn’t touch a grape, and went in the most delicious +danger of being knifed for my principles by the thieving crew I had joined. +</p> + +<p> +“It was the kind of place where every prospect pleases—and all the +rest of it—especially all the rest. But may I see it in my dreams till I +die—as it was in the beginning—before anything began to happen. It +was a wedge of rock sticking out into the bay, thatched with vines, and with +the rummiest old house on the very edge of all, a devil of a height above the +sea: you might have sat at the windows and dropped your Sullivan-ends plumb +into blue water a hundred and fifty feet below. +</p> + +<p> +“From the garden behind the house—such a garden, +Bunny—oleanders and mimosa, myrtles, rosemarys and red tangles of fiery, +untamed flowers—in a corner of this garden was the top of a subterranean +stair down to the sea; at least there were nearly two hundred steps tunnelled +through the solid rock; then an iron gate, and another eighty steps in the open +air; and last of all a cave fit for pirates, +a-penny-plain-and-two-pence-colored. This cave gave upon the sweetest little +thing in coves, all deep blue water and honest rocks; and here I looked after +the vineyard shipping, a pot-bellied tub with a brown sail, and a sort of +dingy. The tub took the wine to Naples, and the dingy was the tub’s +tender. +</p> + +<p> +“The house above was said to be on the identical site of a suburban +retreat of the admirable Tiberius; there was the old sinner’s private +theatre with the tiers cut clean to this day, the well where he used to fatten +his lampreys on his slaves, and a ruined temple of those ripping old Roman +bricks, shallow as dominoes and ruddier than the cherry. I never was much of an +antiquary, but I could have become one there if I’d had nothing else to +do; but I had lots. When I wasn’t busy with the boats I had to trim the +vines, or gather the grapes, or even help make the wine itself in a cool, dark, +musty vault underneath the temple, that I can see and smell as I jaw. And +can’t I hear it and feel it too! Squish, squash, bubble; squash, squish, +guggle; and your feet as though you had been wading through slaughter to a +throne. Yes, Bunny, you mightn’t think it, but this good right foot, that +never was on the wrong side of the crease when the ball left my hand, has also +been known to +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +‘crush the lees of pleasure<br/> + From sanguine grapes of pain.’” +</p> + +<p> +He made a sudden pause, as though he had stumbled on the truth in jest. His +face filled with lines. We were sitting in the room that had been bare when +first I saw it; there were basket-chairs and a table in it now, all meant +ostensibly for me; and hence Raffles would slip to his bed, with schoolboy +relish, at every tinkle of the bell. This afternoon we felt fairly safe, for +Theobald had called in the morning, and Mrs. Theobald still took up much of his +time. Through the open window we could hear the piano-organ and +“Mar—gar—rì” a few hundred yards further on. I fancied +Raffles was listening to it while he paused. He shook his head abstractedly +when I handed him the cigarettes; and his tone hereafter was never just what it +had been. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know, Bunny, whether you’re a believer in +transmigration of souls. I have often thought it easier to believe than lots of +other things, and I have been pretty near believing in it myself since I had my +being on that villa of Tiberius. The brute who had it in my day, if he +isn’t still running it with a whole skin, was or is as cold-blooded a +blackguard as the worst of the emperors, but I have often thought he had a lot +in common with Tiberius. He had the great high sensual Roman nose, eyes that +were sinks of iniquity in themselves, and that swelled with fatness, like the +rest of him, so that he wheezed if he walked a yard; otherwise rather a fine +beast to look at, with a huge gray moustache, like a flying gull, and the most +courteous manners even to his men; but one of the worst, Bunny, one of the +worst that ever was. It was said that the vineyard was only his hobby; if so, +he did his best to make his hobby pay. He used to come out from Naples for the +week-ends—in the tub when it wasn’t too rough for his +nerves—and he didn’t always come alone. His very name sounded +unhealthy—Corbucci. I suppose I ought to add that he was a Count, though +Counts are two-a-penny in Naples, and in season all the year round. +</p> + +<p> +“He had a little English, and liked to air it upon me, much to my +disgust; if I could not hope to conceal my nationality as yet, I at least did +not want to have it advertised; and the swine had English friends. When he +heard that I was bathing in November, when the bay is still as warm as new +milk, he would shake his wicked old head and say, ‘You are very +audashuss—you are very audashuss!’ and put on no end of side before +his Italians. By God, he had pitched upon the right word unawares, and I let +him know it in the end! +</p> + +<p> +“But that bathing, Bunny; it was absolutely the best I ever had anywhere. +I said just now the water was like wine; in my own mind I used to call it blue +champagne, and was rather annoyed that I had no one to admire the phrase. +Otherwise I assure you that I missed my own particular kind very little indeed, +though I often wished that <i>you</i> were there, old chap; particularly when I +went for my lonesome swim; first thing in the morning, when the Bay was all +rose-leaves, and last thing at night, when your body caught phosphorescent +fire! Ah, yes, it was a good enough life for a change; a perfect paradise to +lie low in; another Eden until.... +</p> + +<p> +“My poor Eve!” +</p> + +<p> +And he fetched a sigh that took away his words; then his jaws snapped together, +and his eyes spoke terribly while he conquered his emotion. I pen the last word +advisedly. I fancy it is one which I have never used before in writing of A. J. +Raffles, for I cannot at the moment recall any other occasion upon which its +use would have been justified. On resuming, however, he was not only calm, but +cold; and this flying for safety to the other extreme is the single instance of +self-distrust which the present Achates can record to the credit of his impious +Æneas. +</p> + +<p> +“I called the girl Eve,” said he. “Her real name was +Faustina, and she was one of a vast family who hung out in a hovel on the +inland border of the vineyard. And Aphrodite rising from the sea was less +wonderful and not more beautiful than Aphrodite emerging from that hole! +</p> + +<p> +“It was the most exquisite face I ever saw or shall see in this life. +Absolutely perfect features; a skin that reminded you of old gold, so delicate +was its bronze; magnificent hair, not black but nearly; and such eyes and teeth +as would have made the fortune of a face without another point. I tell you, +Bunny, London would go mad about a girl like that. But I don’t believe +there’s such another in the world. And there she was wasting her +sweetness upon that lovely but desolate little corner of it! Well, she did not +waste it upon me. I would have married her, and lived happily ever after in +such a hovel as her people’s—with her. Only to look at +her—only to look at her for the rest of my days—I could have lain +low and remained dead even to you! And that’s all I’m going to tell +you about that, Bunny; cursed be he who tells more! Yet don’t run away +with the idea that this poor Faustina was the only woman I ever cared about. I +don’t believe in all that ‘only’ rot; nevertheless I tell you +that she <i>was</i> the one being who ever entirely satisfied my sense of +beauty; and I honestly believe I could have chucked the world and been true to +Faustina for that alone. +</p> + +<p> +“We met sometimes in the little temple I told you about, sometimes among +the vines; now by honest accident, now by flagrant design; and found a +ready-made rendezvous, romantic as one could wish, in the cave down all those +subterranean steps. Then the sea would call us—my blue champagne—my +sparkling cobalt—and there was the dingy ready to our hand. Oh, those +nights! I never knew which I liked best, the moonlit ones when you sculled +through silver and could see for miles, or the dark nights when the +fishermen’s torches stood for the sea, and a red zig-zag in the sky for +old Vesuvius. We were happy. I don’t mind owning it. We seemed not to +have a care between us. My mates took no interest in my affairs, and +Faustina’s family did not appear to bother about her. The Count was in +Naples five nights of the seven; the other two we sighed apart. +</p> + +<p> +“At first it was the oldest story in literature—Eden <i>plus</i> +Eve. The place had been a heaven on earth before, but now it was heaven itself. +So for a little; then one night, a Monday night, Faustina burst out crying in +the boat; and sobbed her story as we drifted without mishap by the mercy of the +Lord. And that was almost as old a story as the other. +</p> + +<p> +“She was engaged—what! Had I never heard of it? Did I mean to upset +the boat? What was her engagement beside our love? ‘Niente, +niente,’ crooned Faustina, sighing yet smiling through her tears. No, but +what did matter was that the man had threatened to stab her to the +heart—and would do it as soon as look at her—that I knew. +</p> + +<p> +“I knew it merely from my knowledge of the Neapolitans, for I had no idea +who the man might be. I knew it, and yet I took this detail better than the +fact of the engagement, though now I began to laugh at both. As if I was going +to let her marry anybody else! As if a hair of her lovely head should be +touched while I lived to protect her! I had a great mind to row away to blazes +with her that very night, and never go near the vineyard again, or let her +either. But we had not a lira between us at the time, and only the rags in +which we sat barefoot in the boat. Besides, I had to know the name of the +animal who had threatened a woman, and such a woman as this. +</p> + +<p> +“For a long time she refused to tell me, with splendid obduracy; but I +was as determined as she; so at last she made conditions. I was not to go and +get put in prison for sticking a knife into him—he wasn’t worth +it—and I did promise not to stab him in the back. Faustina seemed quite +satisfied, though a little puzzled by my manner, having herself the racial +tolerance for cold steel; and next moment she had taken away my breath. +‘It is Stefano,’ she whispered, and hung her head. +</p> + +<p> +“And well she might, poor thing! Stefano, of all creatures on God’s +earth—for her! +</p> + +<p> +“Bunny, he was a miserable little undersized +wretch—ill-favored—servile—surly—and second only to his +master in bestial cunning and hypocrisy. His face was enough for me; that was +what I read in it, and I don’t often make mistakes. He was +Corbucci’s own confidential body-servant, and that alone was enough to +damn him in decent eyes: always came out first on the Saturday with the +<i>spese</i>, to have all ready for his master and current mistress, and stayed +behind on the Monday to clear and lock up. Stefano! That worm! I could well +understand <i>his</i> threatening a woman with a knife; what beat me was how +any woman could ever have listened to him; above all, that Faustina should be +the one! It passed my comprehension. But I questioned her as gently as I could; +and her explanation was largely the thread-bare one you would expect. Her +parents were so poor. They were so many in family. Some of them +begged—would I promise never to tell? Then some of them +stole—sometimes—and all knew the pains of actual want. She looked +after the cows, but there were only two of them, and brought the milk to the +vineyard and elsewhere; but that was not employment for more than one; and +there were countless sisters waiting to take her place. Then he was so rich, +Stefano. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Rich!’ I echoed. ‘Stefano?’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Si, Arturo mio.’ +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I played the game on that vineyard, Bunny, even to going my own +first name. +</p> + +<p> +“‘And how comes he to be rich?’ I asked, suspiciously. +</p> + +<p> +“She did not know; but he had given her such beautiful jewels; the family +had lived on them for months, she pretending an avocat had taken charge of them +for her against her marriage. But I cared nothing about all that. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Jewels! Stefano!’ I could only mutter. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Perhaps the Count has paid for some of them. He is very +kind.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘To you, is he?’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Oh, yes, very kind.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘And you would live in his house afterwards?’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Not now, mia cara—not now!’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘No, by God you don’t!’ said I in English. ‘But +you would have done so, eh?’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Of course. That was arranged. The Count is really very +kind.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Do you see anything of him when he comes here?’ +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, he had sometimes brought her little presents, sweetmeats, ribbons, +and the like; but the offering had always been made through this toad of a +Stefano. Knowing the men, I now knew all. But Faustina, she had the pure and +simple heart, and the white soul, by the God who made it, and for all her +kindness to a tattered scapegrace who made love to her in broken Italian +between the ripples and the stars. She was not to know what I was, remember; +and beside Corbucci and his henchman I was the Archangel Gabriel come down to +earth. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, as I lay awake that night, two more lines of Swinburne came into +my head, and came to stay: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“God said ‘Let him who wins her take<br/> + And keep Faustine.’ +</p> + +<p> +“On that couplet I slept at last, and it was my text and watchword when I +awoke in the morning. I forget how well you know your Swinburne, Bunny; but +don’t you run away with the idea that there was anything else in common +between his Faustine and mine. For the last time let me tell you that poor +Faustina was the whitest and the best I ever knew. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I was strung up for trouble when the next Saturday came, and +I’ll tell you what I had done. I had broken the pledge and burgled +Corbucci’s villa in my best manner during his absence in Naples. Not that +it gave me the slightest trouble; but no human being could have told that I had +been in, when I came out. And I had stolen nothing, mark you, but only borrowed +a revolver from a drawer in the Count’s desk, with one or two trifling +accessories; for by this time I had the measure of these damned Neapolitans. +They are spry enough with a knife, but you show them the business end of a +shooting-iron, and they’ll streak like rabbits for the nearest hole. But +the revolver wasn’t for my own use. It was for Faustina, and I taught her +how to use it in the cave down there by the sea, shooting at candles stuck upon +the rock. The noise in the cave was something frightful, but high up above it +couldn’t be heard at all, as we proved to each other’s satisfaction +pretty early in the proceedings. So now Faustina was armed with munitions of +self-defence; and I knew enough of her character to entertain no doubt as to +their spirited use upon occasion. Between the two of us, in fact, our friend +Stefano seemed tolerably certain of a warm week-end. +</p> + +<p> +“But the Saturday brought word that the Count was not coming this week, +being in Rome on business, and unable to return in time; so for a whole Sunday +we were promised peace; and made bold plans accordingly. There was no further +merit in hushing this thing up. ‘Let him who wins her take and keep +Faustine.’ Yes, but let him win her openly, or lose her and be damned to +him! So on the Sunday I was going to have it out with her people—with the +Count and Stefano as soon as they showed their noses. I had no inducement, +remember, ever to return to surreptitious life within a cab-fare of Wormwood +Scrubbs. Faustina and the Bay of Naples were quite good enough for me. And the +prehistoric man in me rather exulted in the idea of fighting for my desire. +</p> + +<p> +“On the Saturday, however, we were able to meet for the last time as +heretofore—just once more in secret—down there in the cave—as +soon as might be after dark. Neither of us minded if we were kept for hours; +each knew in the end that the other would come; and there was a charm of its +own even in waiting with such knowledge. But that night I did lose patience: +not in the cave, but up above, where first on one pretext and then on another +the direttore kept me going until I smelt a rat. He was not given to exacting +overtime, this direttore, whose only fault was his servile subjection to our +common boss. It seemed pretty obvious, therefore, that he was acting upon some +secret instructions from Corbucci himself, and, the moment I suspected this, I +asked him to his face if it was not the case. And it was; he admitted it with +many shrugs, being a conveniently weak person, whom one felt almost ashamed of +bullying as the occasion demanded. +</p> + +<p> +“The fact was, however, that the Count had sent for him on finding he had +to go to Rome, and had said he was very sorry to go just then, as among other +things he intended to speak to me about Faustina. Stefano had told him all +about his row with her, and moreover that it was on my account, which Faustina +had never told me, though I had guessed as much for myself. Well, the Count was +going to take his jackal’s part for all he was worth, which was just +exactly what I had expected him to do. He intended going for me on his return, +but meanwhile I was not to make hay in his absence, and so this tool of a +direttore had orders to keep me at it night and day. I undertook not to give +the poor beast away, but at the same time told him I had not the faintest +intention of doing another stroke of work that night. +</p> + +<p> +“It was very dark, and I remember knocking my head against the oranges as +I ran up the long, shallow steps which ended the journey between the +direttore’s lodge and the villa itself. But at the back of the villa was +the garden I spoke about, and also a bare chunk of the cliff where it was bored +by that subterranean stair. So I saw the stars close overhead, and the +fishermen’s torches far below, the coastwise lights and the crimson +hieroglyph that spelt Vesuvius, before I plunged into the darkness of the +shaft. And that was the last time I appreciated the unique and peaceful charm +of this outlandish spot. +</p> + +<p> +“The stair was in two long flights, with an air-hole or two at the top of +the upper one, but not another pin-prick till you came to the iron gate at the +bottom of the lower. As you may read of an infinitely lighter place, in a finer +work of fiction than you are ever likely to write, Bunny, it was ‘gloomy +at noon, dark as midnight at dusk, and black as the ninth plague of Egypt at +midnight.’ I won’t swear to my quotation, but I will to those +stairs. They were as black that night as the inside of the safest safe in the +strongest strong-room in the Chancery Lane Deposit. Yet I had not got far down +them with my bare feet before I heard somebody else coming up in boots. You may +imagine what a turn that gave me! It could not be Faustina, who went barefoot +three seasons of the four, and yet there was Faustina waiting for me down +below. What a fright she must have had! And all at once my own blood ran cold: +for the man sang like a kettle as he plodded up and up. It was, it must be, the +short-winded Count himself, whom we all supposed to be in Rome! +</p> + +<p> +“Higher he came and nearer, nearer, slowly yet hurriedly, now stopping to +cough and gasp, now taking a few steps by elephantine assault. I should have +enjoyed the situation if it had not been for poor Faustina in the cave; as it +was I was filled with nameless fears. But I could not resist giving that +grampus Corbucci one bad moment on account. A crazy hand-rail ran up one wall, +so I carefully flattened myself against the other, and he passed within six +inches of me, puffing and wheezing like a brass band. I let him go a few steps +higher, and then I let him have it with both lungs. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Buona sera, eccellenza, signorì!’ I roared after him. And a +scream came down in answer—such a scream! A dozen different terrors were +in it; and the wheezing had stopped, with the old scoundrel’s heart. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Chi sta la?’ he squeaked at last, gibbering and whimpering +like a whipped monkey, so that I could not bear to miss his face, and got a +match all ready to strike. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Arturo, signorì.’ +</p> + +<p> +“He didn’t repeat my name, nor did he damn me in heaps. He did +nothing but wheeze for a good minute, and when he spoke it was with insinuating +civility, in his best English. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Come nearer, Arturo. You are in the lower regions down there. I +want to speak with you.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘No, thanks. I’m in a hurry,’ I said, and dropped that +match back into my pocket. He might be armed, and I was not. +</p> + +<p> +“‘So you are in a ’urry!’ and he wheezed amusement. +‘And you thought I was still in Rome, no doubt; and so I was until this +afternoon, when I caught train at the eleventh moment, and then another train +from Naples to Pozzuoli. I have been rowed here now by a fisherman of Pozzuoli. +I had not time to stop anywhere in Naples, but only to drive from station to +station. So I am without Stefano, Arturo, I am without Stefano.’ +</p> + +<p> +“His sly voice sounded preternaturally sly in the absolute darkness, but +even through that impenetrable veil I knew it for a sham. I had laid hold of +the hand-rail. It shook violently in my hand; he also was holding it where he +stood. And these suppressed tremors, or rather their detection in this way, +struck a strange chill to my heart, just as I was beginning to pluck it up. +</p> + +<p> +“‘It is lucky for Stefano,’ said I, grim as death. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Ah, but you must not be too ’ard on ’im,’ +remonstrated the Count. ‘You have stole his girl, he speak with me about +it, and I wish to speak with you. It is very audashuss, Arturo, very audashuss! +Perhaps you are even going to meet her now, eh?’” +</p> + +<p> +I told him straight that I was. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Then there is no ’urry, for she is not there.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘You didn’t see her in the cave?’ I cried, too +delighted at the thought to keep it to myself. +</p> + +<p> +“‘I had no such fortune,’ the old devil said. +</p> + +<p> +“‘She is there, all the same.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘I only wish I ’ad known.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘And I’ve kept her long enough!’ +</p> + +<p> +“In fact I threw this over my shoulder as I turned and went running down. +</p> + +<p> +“‘I ’ope you will find her!’ his malicious voice came +croaking after me. ‘I ’ope you will—I ’ope so.’ +</p> + +<p> +“And find her I did.” +</p> + +<p> +Raffles had been on his feet some time, unable to sit still or to stand, moving +excitedly about the room. But now he stood still enough, his elbows on the +cast-iron mantelpiece, his head between his hands. +</p> + +<p> +“Dead?” I whispered. +</p> + +<p> +And he nodded to the wall. +</p> + +<p> +“There was not a sound in the cave. There was no answer to my voice. Then +I went in, and my foot touched hers, and it was colder than the rock ... Bunny, +they had stabbed her to the heart. She had fought them, and they had stabbed +her to the heart!” +</p> + +<p> +“You say ‘they,’” I said gently, as he stood in heavy +silence, his back still turned. “I thought Stefano had been left +behind?” +</p> + +<p> +Raffles was round in a flash, his face white-hot, his eyes dancing death. +</p> + +<p> +“He was in the cave!” he shouted. “I saw him—I spotted +him—it was broad twilight after those stairs—and I went for him +with my bare hands. Not fists, Bunny; not fists for a thing like that; I meant +getting my fingers into his vile little heart and tearing it out by the roots. +I was stark mad. But he had the revolver—hers. He blazed it at +arm’s length, and missed. And that steadied me. I had smashed his +funny-bone against the rock before he could blaze again; the revolver fell with +a rattle, but without going off; in an instant I had it tight, and the little +swine at my mercy at last.” +</p> + +<p> +“You didn’t show him any?” +</p> + +<p> +“Mercy? With Faustina dead at my feet? I should have deserved none in the +next world if I had shown him any in this! No, I just stood over him, with the +revolver in both hands, feeling the chambers with my thumb; and as I stood he +stabbed at me; but I stepped back to that one, and brought him down with a +bullet in his guts. +</p> + +<p> +“‘And I can spare you two or three more,’ I said, for my poor +girl could not have fired a shot. ‘Take that one to hell with +you—and that—and that!’ +</p> + +<p> +“Then I started coughing and wheezing like the Count himself, for the +place was full of smoke. When it cleared my man was very dead, and I tipped him +into the sea, to defile that rather than Faustina’s cave. And +then—and then—we were alone for the last time, she and I, in our +own pet haunt; and I could scarcely see her, yet I would not strike a match, +for I knew she would not have me see her as she was. I could say good-by to her +without that. I said it; and I left her like a man, and up the first open-air +steps with my head in the air and the stars all sharp in the sky; then suddenly +they swam, and back I went like a lunatic, to see if she was really dead, to +bring her back to life ... Bunny, I can’t tell you any more.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not of the Count?” I murmured at last. +</p> + +<p> +“Not even of the Count,” said Raffles, turning round with a sigh. +“I left him pretty sorry for himself; but what was the good of that? I +had taken blood for blood, and it was not Corbucci who had killed Faustina. No, +the plan was his, but that was not part of the plan. They had found out about +our meetings in the cave: nothing simpler than to have me kept hard at it +overhead and to carry off Faustina by brute force in the boat. It was their +only chance, for she had said more to Stefano than she had admitted to me, and +more than I am going to repeat about myself. No persuasion would have induced +her to listen to him again; so they tried force; and she drew Corbucci’s +revolver on them, but they had taken her by surprise, and Stefano stabbed her +before she could fire.” +</p> + +<p> +“But how do you know all that?” I asked Raffles, for his tale was +going to pieces in the telling, and the tragic end of poor Faustina was no +ending for me. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” said he, “I had it from Corbucci at his own +revolver’s point. He was waiting at his window, and I could have potted +him at my ease where he stood against the light listening hard enough but not +seeing a thing. So he asked whether it was Stefano, and I whispered, ‘Si, +signore’; and then whether he had finished Arturo, and I brought the same +shot off again. He had let me in before he knew who was finished and who was +not.” +</p> + +<p> +“And did you finish him?” +</p> + +<p> +“No; that was too good for Corbucci. But I bound and gagged him about as +tight as man was ever gagged or bound, and I left him in his room with the +shutters shut and the house locked up. The shutters of that old place were six +inches thick, and the walls nearly six feet; that was on the Saturday night, +and the Count wasn’t expected at the vineyard before the following +Saturday. Meanwhile he was supposed to be in Rome. But the dead would doubtless +be discovered next day, and I am afraid this would lead to his own discovery +with the life still in him. I believe he figured on that himself, for he sat +threatening me gamely till the last. You never saw such a sight as he was, with +his head split in two by a ruler tied at the back of it, and his great +moustache pushed up into his bulging eyes. But I locked him up in the dark +without a qualm, and I wished and still wish him every torment of the +damned.” +</p> + +<p> +“And then?” +</p> + +<p> +“The night was still young, and within ten miles there was the best of +ports in a storm, and hundreds of holds for the humble stowaway to choose from. +But I didn’t want to go further than Genoa, for by this time my Italian +would wash, so I chose the old Norddeutscher Lloyd, and had an excellent voyage +in one of the boats slung in-board over the bridge. That’s better than +any hold, Bunny, and I did splendidly on oranges brought from the +vineyard.” +</p> + +<p> +“And at Genoa?” +</p> + +<p> +“At Genoa I took to my wits once more, and have been living on nothing +else ever since. But there I had to begin all over again, and at the very +bottom of the ladder. I slept in the streets. I begged. I did all manner of +terrible things, rather hoping for a bad end, but never coming to one. Then one +day I saw a white-headed old chap looking at me through a shop-window—a +window I had designs upon—and when I stared at him he stared at +me—and we wore the same rags. So I had come to that! But one reflection +makes many. I had not recognized myself; who on earth would recognize me? +London called me—and here I am. Italy had broken my heart—and there +it stays.” +</p> + +<p> +Flippant as a schoolboy one moment, playful even in the bitterness of the next, +and now no longer giving way to the feeling which had spoilt the climax of his +tale, Raffles needed knowing as I alone knew him for a right appreciation of +those last words. That they were no mere words I know full well. That, but for +the tragedy of his Italian life, that life would have sufficed him for years, +if not for ever, I did and do still believe. But I alone see him as I saw him +then, the lines upon his face, and the pain behind the lines; how they came to +disappear, and what removed them, you will never guess. It was the one thing +you would have expected to have the opposite effect, the thing indeed that had +forced his confidence, the organ and the voice once more beneath our very +windows: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Margarita de Parete,<br/> + era a’ sarta d’ e’ signore;<br/> + se pugneva sempe e ddete<br/> + pe penzare a Salvatore!<br/> +“Mar—ga—rì,<br/> + e perzo e Salvatore!<br/> +Mar—ga—rì,<br/> + Ma l’ommo è cacciatore!<br/> +Mar—ga—rì,<br/> + Nun ce aje corpa tu!<br/> +Chello ch’ è fatto, è fatto, un ne parlammo cchieù!” +</p> + +<p> +I simply stared at Raffles. Instead of deepening, his lines had vanished. He +looked years younger, mischievous and merry and alert as I remembered him of +old in the breathless crisis of some madcap escapade. He was holding up his +finger; he was stealing to the window; he was peeping through the blind as +though our side street were Scotland Yard itself; he was stealing back again, +all revelry, excitement, and suspense. +</p> + +<p> +“I half thought they were after me before,” said he. “That +was why I made you look. I daren’t take a proper look myself, but what a +jest if they were! What a jest!” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you mean the police?” said I. +</p> + +<p> +“The police! Bunny, do you know them and me so little that you can look +me in the face and ask such a question? My boy, I’m dead to +them—off their books—a good deal deader than being off the hooks! +Why, if I went to Scotland Yard this minute, to give myself up, they’d +chuck me out for a harmless lunatic. No, I fear an enemy nowadays, and I go in +terror of the sometime friend, but I have the utmost confidence in the dear +police.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then whom do you mean?” +</p> + +<p> +“The Camorra!” +</p> + +<p> +I repeated the word with a different intonation. Not that I had never heard of +that most powerful and sinister of secret societies; but I failed to see on +what grounds Raffles should jump to the conclusion that these everyday +organ-grinders belonged to it. +</p> + +<p> +“It was one of Corbucci’s threats,” said he. “If I +killed him the Camorra would certainly kill me; he kept on telling me so; it +was like his cunning not to say that he would put them on my tracks whether or +no.” +</p> + +<p> +“He is probably a member himself!” +</p> + +<p> +“Obviously, from what he said.” +</p> + +<p> +“But why on earth should you think that these fellows are?” I +demanded, as that brazen voice came rasping through a second verse. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think. It was only an idea. That thing is so thoroughly +Neapolitan, and I never heard it on a London organ before. Then again, what +should bring them back here?” +</p> + +<p> +I peeped through the blind in my turn; and, to be sure, there was the fellow +with the blue chin and the white teeth watching our windows, and ours only, as +he bawled. +</p> + +<p> +“And why?” cried Raffles, his eyes dancing when I told him. +“Why should they come sneaking back to <i>us?</i> Doesn’t that look +suspicious, Bunny; doesn’t that promise a lark?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not to me,” I said, having the smile for once. “How many +people, should you imagine, toss them five shilling for as many minutes of +their infernal row? You seem to forget that’s what you did an hour +ago!” +</p> + +<p> +Raffles had forgotten. His blank face confessed the fact. Then suddenly he +burst outlaughing at himself. +</p> + +<p> +“Bunny,” said he, “you’ve no imagination, and I never +knew I had so much! Of course you’re right. I only wish you were not, for +there’s nothing I should enjoy more than taking on another Neapolitan or +two. You see, I owe them something still! I didn’t settle in full. I owe +them more than ever I shall pay them on this side Styx!” +</p> + +<p> +He had hardened even as he spoke: the lines and the years had come again, and +his eyes were flint and steel, with an honest grief behind the glitter. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap04"></a>THE LAST LAUGH</h2> + +<p> +As I have had occasion to remark elsewhere, the pick of our exploits, from a +frankly criminal point of view, are of least use for the comparatively pure +purposes of these papers. They might be appreciated in a trade journal (if only +that want could be supplied), by skilled manipulators of the jemmy and the +large light bunch; but, as records of unbroken yet insignificant success, they +would be found at once too trivial and too technical, if not sordid and +unprofitable into the bargain. The latter epithets, and worse, have indeed +already been applied, if not to Raffles and all his works, at least to mine +upon Raffles, by more than one worthy wielder of a virtuous pen. I need not say +how heartily I disagree with that truly pious opinion. So far from admitting a +single word of it, I maintain it is the liveliest warning that I am giving to +the world. Raffles was a genius, and he could not make it pay! Raffles had +invention, resource, incomparable audacity, and a nerve in ten thousand. He was +both strategian and tactician, and we all now know the difference between the +two. Yet for months he had been hiding like a rat in a hole, unable to show +even his altered face by night or day without risk, unless another risk were +courted by three inches of conspicuous crepe. Then thus far our rewards had +oftener than not been no reward at all. Altogether it was a very different +story from the old festive, unsuspected, club and cricket days, with their +<i>noctes ambrosianæ</i> at the Albany. +</p> + +<p> +And now, in addition to the eternal peril of recognition, there was yet another +menace of which I knew nothing. I thought no more of our Neapolitan +organ-grinders, though I did often think of the moving page that they had torn +for me out of my friend’s strange life in Italy. Raffles never alluded to +the subject again, and for my part I had entirely forgotten his wild ideas +connecting the organ-grinders with the Camorra, and imagining them upon his own +tracks. I heard no more of it, and thought as little, as I say. Then one night +in the autumn—I shrink from shocking the susceptible for +nothing—but there was a certain house in Palace Gardens, and when we got +there Raffles would pass on. I could see no soul in sight, no glimmer in the +windows. But Raffles had my arm, and on we went without talking about it. Sharp +to the left on the Notting Hill side, sharper still up Silver Street, a little +tacking west and south, a plunge across High Street, and presently we were +home. +</p> + +<p> +“Pyjamas first,” said Raffles, with as much authority as though it +mattered. It was a warm night, however, though September, and I did not mind +until I came in clad as he commanded to find the autocrat himself still booted +and capped. He was peeping through the blind, and the gas was still turned +down. But he said that I could turn it up, as he helped himself to a cigarette +and nothing with it. +</p> + +<p> +“May I mix you one?” said I. +</p> + +<p> +“No, thanks.” +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the trouble?” +</p> + +<p> +“We were followed.” +</p> + +<p> +“Never!” +</p> + +<p> +“You never saw it.” +</p> + +<p> +“But <i>you</i> never looked round.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have an eye at the back of each ear, Bunny.” +</p> + +<p> +I helped myself and I fear with less moderation than might have been the case a +minute before. +</p> + +<p> +“So that was why—” +</p> + +<p> +“That was why,” said Raffles, nodding; but he did not smile, and I +put down my glass untouched. +</p> + +<p> +“They were following us then!” +</p> + +<p> +“All up Palace Gardens.” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought you wound about coming back over the hill.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nevertheless, one of them’s in the street below at this +moment.” +</p> + +<p> +No, he was not fooling me. He was very grim. And he had not taken off a thing; +perhaps he did not think it worth while. +</p> + +<p> +“Plain clothes?” I sighed, following the sartorial train of +thought, even to the loathly arrows that had decorated my person once already +for a little aeon. Next time they would give me double. The skilly was in my +stomach when I saw Raffles’s face. +</p> + +<p> +“Who said it was the police, Bunny?” said he. “It’s the +Italians. They’re only after me; they won’t hurt a hair of +<i>your</i> head, let alone cropping it! Have a drink, and don’t mind me. +I shall score them off before I’m done.” +</p> + +<p> +“And I’ll help you!” +</p> + +<p> +“No, old chap, you won’t. This is my own little show. I’ve +known about it for weeks. I first tumbled to it the day those Neapolitans came +back with their organs, though I didn’t seriously suspect things then; +they never came again, those two, they had done their part. That’s the +Camorra all over, from all accounts. The Count I told you about is pretty high +up in it, by the way he spoke, but there will be grades and grades between him +and the organ-grinders. I shouldn’t be surprised if he had every low-down +Neapolitan ice-creamer in the town upon my tracks! The organization’s +incredible. Then do you remember the superior foreigner who came to the door a +few days afterwards? You said he had velvet eyes.” +</p> + +<p> +“I never connected him with those two!” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course you didn’t, Bunny, so you threatened to kick the fellow +downstairs, and only made them keener on the scent. It was too late to say +anything when you told me. But the very next time I showed my nose outside I +heard a camera click as I passed, and the fiend was a person with velvet eyes. +Then there was a lull—that happened weeks ago. They had sent me to Italy +for identification by Count Corbucci.” +</p> + +<p> +“But this is all theory,” I exclaimed. “How on earth can you +know?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know,” said Raffles, “but I should like to +bet. Our friend the bloodhound is hanging about the corner near the pillar-box; +look through my window, it’s dark in there, and tell me who he is.” +</p> + +<p> +The man was too far away for me to swear to his face, but he wore a covert-coat +of un-English length, and the lamp across the road played steadily on his +boots; they were very yellow, and they made no noise when he took a turn. I +strained my eyes, and all at once I remembered the thin-soled, low-heeled, +splay yellow boots of the insidious foreigner, with the soft eyes and the +brown-paper face, whom I had turned from the door as a palpable fraud. The ring +at the bell was the first I had heard of him, there had been no warning step +upon the stairs, and my suspicious eye had searched his feet for rubber soles. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s the fellow,” I said, returning to Raffles, and I +described his boots. +</p> + +<p> +Raffles was delighted. +</p> + +<p> +“Well done, Bunny; you’re coming on,” said he. “Now I +wonder if he’s been over here all the time, or if they sent him over +expressly? You did better than you think in spotting those boots, for they can +only have been made in Italy, and that looks like the special envoy. But +it’s no use speculating. I must find out.” +</p> + +<p> +“How can you?” +</p> + +<p> +“He won’t stay there all night.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” +</p> + +<p> +“When he gets tired of it I shall return the compliment and follow +<i>him</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not alone,” said I, firmly. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, we’ll see. We’ll see at once,” said Raffles, +rising. “Out with the gas, Bunny, while I take a look. Thank you. Now +wait a bit ... yes! He’s chucked it; he’s off already; and so am +I!” +</p> + +<p> +But I slipped to our outer door, and held the passage. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t let you go alone, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +“You can’t come with me in pyjamas.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now I see why you made me put them on!” +</p> + +<p> +“Bunny, if you don’t shift I shall have to shift you. This is my +very own private one-man show. But I’ll be back in an +hour—there!” +</p> + +<p> +“You swear?” +</p> + +<p> +“By all my gods.” +</p> + +<p> +I gave in. How could I help giving in? He did not look the man that he had +been, but you never knew with Raffles, and I could not have him lay a hand on +me. I let him go with a shrug and my blessing, then ran into his room to see +the last of him from the window. +</p> + +<p> +The creature in the coat and boots had reached the end of our little street, +where he appeared to have hesitated, so that Raffles was just in time to see +which way he turned. And Raffles was after him at an easy pace, and had himself +almost reached the corner when my attention was distracted from the alert +nonchalance of his gait. I was marvelling that it alone had not long ago +betrayed him, for nothing about him was so unconsciously characteristic, when +suddenly I realized that Raffles was not the only person in the little lonely +street. Another pedestrian had entered from the other end, a man heavily built +and clad, with an astrakhan collar to his coat on this warm night, and a black +slouch hat that hid his features from my bird’s-eye view. His steps were +the short and shuffling ones of a man advanced in years and in fatty +degeneration, but of a sudden they stopped beneath my very eyes. I could have +dropped a marble into the dinted crown of the black felt hat. Then, at the same +moment, Raffles turned the corner without looking round, and the big man below +raised both his hands and his face. Of the latter I saw only the huge white +moustache, like a flying gull, as Raffles had described it; for at a glance I +divined that this was his arch-enemy, the Count Corbucci himself. +</p> + +<p> +I did not stop to consider the subtleties of the system by which the real +hunter lagged behind while his subordinate pointed the quarry like a sporting +dog. I left the Count shuffling onward faster than before, and I jumped into +some clothes as though the flats were on fire. If the Count was going to follow +Raffles in his turn, then I would follow the Count in mine, and there would be +a midnight procession of us through the town. But I found no sign of him in the +empty street, and no sign in the Earl’s Court Road, that looked as empty +for all its length, save for a natural enemy standing like a waxwork figure +with a glimmer at his belt. +</p> + +<p> +“Officer,” I gasped, “have you seen anything of an old +gentleman with a big white mustache?” +</p> + +<p> +The unlicked cub of a common constable seemed to eye me the more suspiciously +for the flattering form of my address. +</p> + +<p> +“Took a hansom,” said he at length. +</p> + +<p> +A hansom! Then he was not following the others on foot; there was no guessing +his game. But something must be said or done. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s a friend of mine,” I explained, “and I want to +overtake him. Did you hear where he told the fellow to drive?” +</p> + +<p> +A curt negative was the policeman’s reply to that; and if ever I take +part in a night assault-at-arms, revolver <i>versus</i> baton, in the back +kitchen, I know which member of the Metropolitan Police Force I should like for +my opponent. +</p> + +<p> +If there was no overtaking the Count, however, it should be a comparatively +simple matter in the case of the couple on foot, and I wildly hailed the first +hansom that crawled into my ken. I must tell Raffles who it was that I had +seen; the Earl’s Court Road was long, and the time since he vanished in +it but a few short minutes. I drove down the length of that useful +thoroughfare, with an eye apiece on either pavement, sweeping each as with a +brush, but never a Raffles came into the pan. Then I tried the Fulham Road, +first to the west, then to the east, and in the end drove home to the flat as +bold as brass. I did not realize my indiscretion until I had paid the man and +was on the stairs. Raffles never dreamt of driving all the way back; but I was +hoping now to find him waiting up above. He had said an hour. I had remembered +it suddenly. And now the hour was more than up. But the flat was as empty as I +had left it; the very light that had encouraged me, pale though it was, as I +turned the corner in my hansom, was but the light that I myself had left +burning in the desolate passage. +</p> + +<p> +I can give you no conception of the night that I spent. Most of it I hung +across the sill, throwing a wide net with my ears, catching every footstep afar +off, every hansom bell farther still, only to gather in some alien whom I +seldom even landed in our street. Then I would listen at the door. +</p> + +<p> +He might come over the roof; and eventually some one did; but now it was broad +daylight, and I flung the door open in the milkman’s face, which whitened +at the shock as though I had ducked him in his own pail. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re late,” I thundered as the first excuse for my +excitement. +</p> + +<p> +“Beg your pardon,” said he, indignantly, “but I’m half +an hour before my usual time.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then I beg yours,” said I; “but the fact is, Mr. Maturin has +had one of his bad nights, and I seem to have been waiting hours for milk to +make him a cup of tea.” +</p> + +<p> +This little fib (ready enough for Raffles, though I say it) earned me not only +forgiveness but that obliging sympathy which is a branch of the business of the +man at the door. The good fellow said that he could see I had been sitting up +all night, and he left me pluming myself upon the accidental art with which I +had told my very necessary tarra-diddle. On reflection I gave the credit to +instinct, not accident, and then sighed afresh as I realized how the influence +of the master was sinking into me, and he Heaven knew where! But my punishment +was swift to follow, for within the hour the bell rang imperiously twice, and +there was Dr. Theobald on our mat; in a yellow Jaeger suit, with a chin as +yellow jutting over the flaps that he had turned up to hide his pyjamas. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s this about a bad night?” said he. +</p> + +<p> +“He couldn’t sleep, and he wouldn’t let me,” I +whispered, never loosening my grasp of the door, and standing tight against the +other wall. “But he’s sleeping like a baby now.” +</p> + +<p> +“I must see him.” +</p> + +<p> +“He gave strict orders that you should not.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m his medical man, and I—” +</p> + +<p> +“You know what he is,” I said, shrugging; “the least thing +wakes him, and you will if you insist on seeing him now. It will be the last +time, I warn you! I know what he said, and you don’t.” +</p> + +<p> +The doctor cursed me under his fiery moustache. +</p> + +<p> +“I shall come up during the course of the morning,” he snarled. +</p> + +<p> +“And I shall tie up the bell,” I said, “and if it +doesn’t ring he’ll be sleeping still, but I will not risk waking +him by coming to the door again.” +</p> + +<p> +And with that I shut it in his face. I was improving, as Raffles had said; but +what would it profit me if some evil had befallen him? And now I was prepared +for the worst. A boy came up whistling and leaving papers on the mats; it was +getting on for eight o’clock, and the whiskey and soda of half-past +twelve stood untouched and stagnant in the tumbler. If the worst had happened +to Raffles, I felt that I would either never drink again, or else seldom do +anything else. +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile I could not even break my fast, but roamed the flat in a misery not +to be described, my very linen still unchanged, my cheeks and chin now tawny +from the unwholesome night. How long would it go on? I wondered for a time. +Then I changed my tune: how long could I endure it? +</p> + +<p> +It went on actually until the forenoon only, but my endurance cannot be +measured by the time, for to me every hour of it was an arctic night. Yet it +cannot have been much after eleven when the ring came at the bell, which I had +forgotten to tie up after all. But this was not the doctor; neither, too well I +knew, was it the wanderer returned. Our bell was the pneumatic one that tells +you if the touch be light or heavy; the hand upon it now was tentative and shy. +</p> + +<p> +The owner of the hand I had never seen before. He was young and ragged, with +one eye blank, but the other ablaze with some fell excitement. And straightway +he burst into a low torrent of words, of which all I knew was that they were +Italian, and therefore news of Raffles, if only I had known the language! But +dumb-show might help us somewhat, and in I dragged him, though against his +will, a new alarm in his one wild eye. +</p> + +<p> +“Non capite?” he cried when I had him inside and had withstood the +torrent. +</p> + +<p> +“No, I’m bothered if I do!” I answered, guessing his question +from his tone. +</p> + +<p> +“Vostro amico,” he repeated over and over again; and then, +“Poco tempo, poco tempo, poco tempo!” +</p> + +<p> +For once in my life the classical education of my public-school days was of +real value. “My pal, my pal, and no time to be lost!” I translated +freely, and flew for my hat. +</p> + +<p> +“Ecco, signore!” cried the fellow, snatching the watch from my +waistcoat pocket, and putting one black thumb-nail on the long hand, the other +on the numeral twelve. “Mezzogiorno—poco tempo—poco +tempo!” And again I seized his meaning, that it was twenty past eleven, +and we must be there by twelve. But where, but where? It was maddening to be +summoned like this, and not to know what had happened, nor to have any means of +finding out. But my presence of mind stood by me still, I was improving by +seven-league strides, and I crammed my handkerchief between the drum and hammer +of the bell before leaving. The doctor could ring now till he was black in the +face, but I was not coming, and he need not think it. +</p> + +<p> +I half expected to find a hansom waiting, but there was none, and we had gone +some distance down the Earl’s Court Road before we got one; in fact, we +had to run to the stand. Opposite is the church with the clock upon it, as +everybody knows, and at sight of the dial my companion had wrung his hands; it +was close upon the half-hour. +</p> + +<p> +“Poco tempo—pochissimo!” he wailed. “Bloom-buree +Ske-warr,” he then cried to the cabman—“numero +trentotto!” +</p> + +<p> +“Bloomsbury Square,” I roared on my own account, “I’ll +show you the house when we get there, only drive like be-damned!” +</p> + +<p> +My companion lay back gasping in his corner. The small glass told me that my +own face was pretty red. +</p> + +<p> +“A nice show!” I cried; “and not a word can you tell me. +Didn’t you bring me a note?” +</p> + +<p> +I might have known by this time that he had not, still I went through the +pantomime of writing with my finger on my cuff. But he shrugged and shook his +head. +</p> + +<p> +“Niente,” said he. “Una quistione di vita, di vita!” +</p> + +<p> +“What’s that?” I snapped, my early training come in again. +“Say it slowly—andante—rallentando.” +</p> + +<p> +Thank Italy for the stage instructions in the songs one used to murder! The +fellow actually understood. +</p> + +<p> +“Una—quistione—di—vita.” +</p> + +<p> +“Or mors, eh?” I shouted, and up went the trap-door over our heads. +</p> + +<p> +“Avanti, avanti, avanti!” cried the Italian, turning up his +one-eyed face. +</p> + +<p> +“Hell-to-leather,” I translated, “and double fare if you do +it by twelve o’clock.” +</p> + +<p> +But in the streets of London how is one to know the time? In the Earl’s +Court Road it had not been half-past, and at Barker’s in High Street it +was but a minute later. A long half-mile a minute, that was going like the +wind, and indeed we had done much of it at a gallop. But the next hundred yards +took us five minutes by the next clock, and which was one to believe? I fell +back upon my own old watch (it was my own), which made it eighteen minutes to +the hour as we swung across the Serpentine bridge, and by the quarter we were +in the Bayswater Road—not up for once. +</p> + +<p> +“Presto, presto,” my pale guide murmured. +“Affretatevi—avanti!” +</p> + +<p> +“Ten bob if you do it,” I cried through the trap, without the +slightest notion of what we were to do. But it was “una quistione di +vita,” and “vostro amico” must and could only be my miserable +Raffles. +</p> + +<p> +What a very godsend is the perfect hansom to the man or woman in a hurry! It +had been our great good fortune to jump into a perfect hansom; there was no +choice, we had to take the first upon the rank, but it must have deserved its +place with the rest nowhere. New tires, superb springs, a horse in a thousand, +and a driver up to every trick of his trade! In and out we went like a fast +half-back at the Rugby game, yet where the traffic was thinnest, there were we. +And how he knew his way! At the Marble Arch he slipped out of the main stream, +and so into Wigmore Street, then up and in and out and on until I saw the gold +tips of the Museum palisade gleaming between the horse’s ears in the sun. +Plop, plop, plop; ting, ling, ling; bell and horse-shoes, horse-shoes and bell, +until the colossal figure of C. J. Fox in a grimy toga spelt Bloomsbury Square +with my watch still wanting three minutes to the hour. +</p> + +<p> +“What number?” cried the good fellow over-head. +</p> + +<p> +“Trentotto, trentotto,” said my guide, but he was looking to the +right, and I bundled him out to show the house on foot. I had not +half-a-sovereign after all, but I flung our dear driver a whole one instead, +and only wish that it had been a hundred. +</p> + +<p> +Already the Italian had his latch-key in the door of 38, and in another moment +we were rushing up the narrow stairs of as dingy a London house as prejudiced +countryman can conceive. It was panelled, but it was dark and evil-smelling, +and how we should have found our way even to the stairs but for an unwholesome +jet of yellow gas in the hall, I cannot myself imagine. However, up we went +pell-mell, to the right-about on the half-landing, and so like a whirlwind into +the drawing-room a few steps higher. There the gas was also burning behind +closed shutters, and the scene is photographed upon my brain, though I cannot +have looked upon it for a whole instant as I sprang in at my leader’s +heels. +</p> + +<p> +This room also was panelled, and in the middle of the wall on our left, his +hands lashed to a ring-bolt high above his head, his toes barely touching the +floor, his neck pinioned by a strap passing through smaller ring-bolts under +either ear, and every inch of him secured on the same principle, stood, or +rather hung, all that was left of Raffles, for at the first glance I believed +him dead. A black ruler gagged him, the ends lashed behind his neck, the blood +upon it caked to bronze in the gaslight. And in front of him, ticking like a +sledge-hammer, its only hand upon the stroke of twelve, stood a simple, +old-fashioned, grandfather’s clock—but not for half an instant +longer—only until my guide could hurl himself upon it and send the whole +thing crashing into the corner. An ear-splitting report accompanied the crash, +a white cloud lifted from the fallen clock, and I saw a revolver smoking in a +vice screwed below the dial, an arrangement of wires sprouting from the dial +itself, and the single hand at once at its zenith and in contact with these. +</p> + +<p> +“Tumble to it, Bunny?” +</p> + +<p> +He was alive; these were his first words; the Italian had the blood-caked ruler +in his hand, and with his knife was reaching up to cut the thongs that lashed +the hands. He was not tall enough, I seized him and lifted him up, then fell to +work with my own knife upon the straps. And Raffles smiled faintly upon us +through his blood-stains. +</p> + +<p> +“I want you to tumble to it,” he whispered; “the neatest +thing in revenge I ever knew, and another minute would have fixed it. +I’ve been waiting for it twelve hours, watching the clock round, death at +the end of the lap! Electric connection. Simple enough. Hour-hand only—O +Lord!” +</p> + +<p> +We had cut the last strap. He could not stand. We supported him between us to a +horsehair sofa, for the room was furnished, and I begged him not to speak, +while his one-eyed deliverer was at the door before Raffles recalled him with a +sharp word in Italian. +</p> + +<p> +“He wants to get me a drink, but that can wait,” said he, in firmer +voice; “I shall enjoy it the more when I’ve told you what happened. +Don’t let him go, Bunny; put your back against the door. He’s a +decent soul, and it’s lucky for me I got a word with him before they +trussed me up. I’ve promised to set him up in life, and I will, but I +don’t want him out of my sight for the moment.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you squared him last night,” I exclaimed, “why the blazes +didn’t he come to me till the eleventh hour?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, I knew he’d have to cut it fine though I hoped not quite so +fine as all that. But all’s well that ends well, and I declare I +don’t feel so much the worse. I shall be sore about the gills for a +bit—and what do you think?” +</p> + +<p> +He pointed to the long black ruler with the bronze stain; it lay upon the +floor; he held out his hand for it, and I gave it to him. +</p> + +<p> +“The same one I gagged him with,” said Raffles, with his still +ghastly smile; “he was a bit of an artist, old Corbucci, after +all!” +</p> + +<p> +“Now let’s hear how you fell into his clutches,” said I, +briskly, for I was as anxious to hear as he seemed to tell me, only for my part +I could have waited until we were safe in the flat. +</p> + +<p> +“I do want to get it off my chest, Bunny,” old Raffles admitted, +“and yet I hardly can tell you after all. I followed your friend with the +velvet eyes. I followed him all the way here. Of course I came up to have a +good look at the house when he’d let himself in, and damme if he +hadn’t left the door ajar! Who could resist that? I had pushed it half +open and had just one foot on the mat when I got such a crack on the head as I +hope never to get again. When I came to my wits they were hauling me up to that +ring-bolt by the hands, and old Corbucci himself was bowing to me, but how +<i>he</i> got here I don’t know yet.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can tell you that,” said I, and told how I had seen the Count +for myself on the pavement underneath our windows. “Moreover,” I +continued, “I saw him spot you, and five minutes after in Earl’s +Court Road I was told he’d driven off in a cab. He would see you +following his man, drive home ahead, and catch you by having the door left open +in the way you describe.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Raffles, “he deserved to catch me somehow, for +he’d come from Naples on purpose, ruler and all, and the ring-bolts were +ready fixed, and even this house taken furnished for nothing else! He meant +catching me before he’d done, and scoring me off in exactly the same way +that I scored off him, only going one better of course. He told me so himself, +sitting where I am sitting now, at three o’clock this morning, and +smoking a most abominable cigar that I’ve smelt ever since. It appears he +sat twenty-four hours when I left <i>him</i> trussed up, but he said twelve +would content him in my case, as there was certain death at the end of them, +and I mightn’t have life enough left to appreciate my end if he made it +longer. But I wouldn’t have trusted him if he could have got the clock to +go <i>twice</i> round without firing off the pistol. He explained the whole +mechanism of that to me; he had thought it all out on the vineyard I told you +about; and then he asked if I remembered what he had promised me in the name of +the Camorra. I only remembered some vague threats, but he was good enough to +give me so many particulars of that institution that I could make a European +reputation by exposing the whole show if it wasn’t for my unfortunate +resemblance to that infernal rascal Raffles. Do you think they would know me at +the Yard, Bunny, after all this time? Upon my soul I’ve a good mind to +risk it!” +</p> + +<p> +I offered no opinion on the point. How could it interest me then? But +interested I was in Raffles, never more so in my life. He had been tortured all +night and half a day, yet he could sit and talk like this the moment we cut him +down; he had been within a minute of his death, yet he was as full of life as +ever; ill-treated and defeated at the best, he could still smile through his +blood as though the boot were on the other leg. I had imagined that I knew my +Raffles at last. I was not likely so to flatter myself again. +</p> + +<p> +“But what has happened to these villains?” I burst out, and my +indignation was not only against them for their cruelty, but also against their +victim for his phlegmatic attitude toward them. It was difficult to believe +that this was Raffles. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” said he, “they were to go off to Italy +<i>instanter;</i> they should be crossing now. But do listen to what I am +telling you; it’s interesting, my dear man. This old sinner Corbucci +turns out to have been no end of a boss in the Camorra—says so himself. +One of the <i>capi paranze</i>, my boy, no less; and the velvety Johnny a<i> +giovano onorato</i>, Anglicé, fresher. This fellow here was also in it, and +I’ve sworn to protect him from them evermore; and it’s just as I +said, half the organ-grinders in London belong, and the whole lot of them were +put on my tracks by secret instructions. This excellent youth manufactures iced +poison on Saffron Hill when he’s at home.” +</p> + +<p> +“And why on earth didn’t he come to me quicker?” +</p> + +<p> +“Because he couldn’t talk to you, he could only fetch you, and it +was as much as his life was worth to do that before our friends had departed. +They were going by the eleven o’clock from Victoria, and that +didn’t leave much chance, but he certainly oughtn’t to have run it +as fine as he did. Still you must remember that I had to fix things up with him +in the fewest possible words, in a single minute that the other two were +indiscreet enough to leave us alone together.” +</p> + +<p> +The ragamuffin in question was watching us with all his solitary eye, as though +he knew that we were discussing him. Suddenly he broke out in agonized accents, +his hands clasped, and a face so full of fear that every moment I expected to +see him on his knees. But Raffles answered kindly, reassuringly, I could tell +from his tone, and then turned to me with a compassionate shrug. +</p> + +<p> +“He says he couldn’t find the mansions, Bunny, and really +it’s not to be wondered at. I had only time to tell him to hunt you up +and bring you here by hook or crook before twelve to-day, and after all he has +done that. But now the poor devil thinks you’re riled with him, and that +we’ll give him away to the Camorra.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, it’s not with him I’m riled,” I said frankly, +“but with those other blackguards, and—and with you, old chap, for +taking it all as you do, while such infamous scoundrels have the last laugh, +and are safely on their way to France!” +</p> + +<p> +Raffles looked up at me with a curiously open eye, an eye that I never saw when +he was not in earnest. I fancied he did not like my last expression but one. +After all, it was no laughing matter to him. +</p> + +<p> +“But are they?” said he. “I’m not so sure.” +</p> + +<p> +“You said they were!” +</p> + +<p> +“I said they should be.” +</p> + +<p> +“Didn’t you hear them go?” +</p> + +<p> +“I heard nothing but the clock all night. It was like Big Ben striking at +the last—striking nine to the fellow on the drop.” +</p> + +<p> +And in that open eye I saw at last a deep glimmer of the ordeal through which +he had passed. +</p> + +<p> +“But, my dear old Raffles, if they’re still on the +premises—” +</p> + +<p> +The thought was too thrilling for a finished sentence. +</p> + +<p> +“I hope they are,” he said grimly, going to the door. +“There’s a gas on! Was that burning when you came in?” +</p> + +<p> +Now that I thought of it, yes, it had been. +</p> + +<p> +“And there’s a frightfully foul smell,” I added, as I +followed Raffles down the stairs. He turned to me gravely with his hand upon +the front-room door, and at the same moment I saw a coat with an astrakhan +collar hanging on the pegs. +</p> + +<p> +“They are in here, Bunny,” he said, and turned the handle. +</p> + +<p> +The door would only open a few inches. But a detestable odor came out, with a +broad bar of yellow gaslight. Raffles put his handkerchief to his nose. I +followed his example, signing to our ally to do the same, and in another minute +we had all three squeezed into the room. +</p> + +<p> +The man with the yellow boots was lying against the door, the Count’s +great carcass sprawled upon the table, and at a glance it was evident that both +men had been dead some hours. The old Camorrist had the stem of a liqueur-glass +between his swollen blue fingers, one of which had been cut in the breakage, +and the livid flesh was also brown with the last blood that it would ever shed. +His face was on the table, the huge moustache projecting from under either +leaden cheek, yet looking itself strangely alive. Broken bread and scraps of +frozen macaroni lay upon the cloth and at the bottom of two soup-plates and a +tureen; the macaroni had a tinge of tomato; and there was a crimson dram left +in the tumblers, with an empty fiasco to show whence it came. But near the +great gray head upon the table another liqueur-glass stood, unbroken, and still +full of some white and stinking liquid; and near that a tiny silver flask, +which made me recoil from Raffles as I had not from the dead; for I knew it to +be his. +</p> + +<p> +“Come out of this poisonous air,” he said sternly, “and I +will tell you how it has happened.” +</p> + +<p> +So we all three gathered together in the hall. But it was Raffles who stood +nearest the street-door, his back to it, his eyes upon us two. And though it +was to me only that he spoke at first, he would pause from point to point, and +translate into Italian for the benefit of the one-eyed alien to whom he owed +his life. +</p> + +<p> +“You probably don’t even know the name, Bunny,” he began, +“of the deadliest poison yet known to science. It is cyanide of cacodyl, +and I have carried that small flask of it about with me for months. Where I got +it matters nothing; the whole point is that a mere sniff reduces flesh to clay. +I have never had any opinion of suicide, as you know, but I always felt it +worth while to be forearmed against the very worst. Well, a bottle of this +stuff is calculated to stiffen an ordinary roomful of ordinary people within +five minutes; and I remembered my flask when they had me as good as crucified +in the small hours of this morning. I asked them to take it out of my pocket. I +begged them to give me a drink before they left me. And what do you suppose +they did?” +</p> + +<p> +I thought of many things but suggested none, while Raffles turned this much of +his statement into sufficiently fluent Italian. But when he faced me again his +face was still flaming. +</p> + +<p> +“That beast Corbucci!” said he—“how can I pity him? He +took the flask; he would give me none; he flicked me in the face instead. My +idea was that he, at least, should go with me—to sell my life as dearly +as that—and a sniff would have settled us both. But no, he must tantalize +and torment me; he thought it brandy; he must take it downstairs to drink to my +destruction! Can you have any pity for a hound like that?” +</p> + +<p> +“Let us go,” I at last said, hoarsely, as Raffles finished speaking +in Italian, and his second listener stood open-mouthed. +</p> + +<p> +“We will go,” said Raffles, “and we will chance being seen; +if the worst comes to the worst this good chap will prove that I have been tied +up since one o’clock this morning, and the medical evidence will decide +how long those dogs have been dead.” +</p> + +<p> +But the worst did not come to the worst, more power to my unforgotten friend +the cabman, who never came forward to say what manner of men he had driven to +Bloomsbury Square at top speed on the very day upon which the tragedy was +discovered there, or whence he had driven them. To be sure, they had not +behaved like murderers, whereas the evidence at the inquest all went to show +that the defunct Corbucci was little better. His reputation, which transpired +with his identity, was that of a libertine and a renegade, while the infernal +apparatus upstairs revealed the fiendish arts of the anarchist to boot. The +inquiry resulted eventually in an open verdict, and was chiefly instrumental in +killing such compassion as is usually felt for the dead who die in their sins. +</p> + +<p> +But Raffles would not have passed this title for this tale. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap05"></a>TO CATCH A THIEF</h2> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p> +Society persons are not likely to have forgotten the series of audacious +robberies by which so many of themselves suffered in turn during the brief +course of a recent season. Raid after raid was made upon the smartest houses in +town, and within a few weeks more than one exalted head had been shorn of its +priceless tiara. The Duke and Duchess of Dorchester lost half the portable +pieces of their historic plate on the very night of their Graces’ almost +equally historic costume ball. The Kenworthy diamonds were taken in broad +daylight, during the excitement of a charitable meeting on the ground floor, +and the gifts of her belted bridegroom to Lady May Paulton while the outer air +was thick with a prismatic shower of <i>confetti</i>. It was obvious that all +this was the work of no ordinary thief, and perhaps inevitable that the name of +Raffles should have been dragged from oblivion by callous disrespecters of the +departed and unreasoning apologists for the police. These wiseacres did not +hesitate to bring a dead man back to life because they knew of no living one +capable of such feats; it is their heedless and inconsequent calumnies that the +present paper is partly intended to refute. As a matter of fact, our joint +innocence in this matter was only exceeded by our common envy, and for a long +time, like the rest of the world, neither of us had the slightest clew to the +identity of the person who was following in our steps with such irritating +results. +</p> + +<p> +“I should mind less,” said Raffles, “if the fellow were +really playing my game. But abuse of hospitality was never one of my strokes, +and it seems to me the only shot he’s got. When we took old Lady +Melrose’s necklace, Bunny, we were not staying with the Melroses, if you +recollect.” +</p> + +<p> +We were discussing the robberies for the hundredth time, but for once under +conditions more favorable to animated conversation than our unique +circumstances permitted in the flat. We did not often dine out. Dr. Theobald +was one impediment, the risk of recognition was another. But there were +exceptions, when the doctor was away or the patient defiant, and on these rare +occasions we frequented a certain unpretentious restaurant in the Fulham +quarter, where the cooking was plain but excellent, and the cellar a surprise. +Our bottle of ’89 champagne was empty to the label when the subject +arose, to be touched by Raffles in the reminiscent manner indicated above. I +can see his clear eye upon me now, reading me, weighing me. But I was not so +sensitive to his scrutiny at the time. His tone was deliberate, calculating, +preparatory; not as I heard it then, through a head full of wine, but as it +floats back to me across the gulf between that moment and this. +</p> + +<p> +“Excellent fillet!” said I, grossly. “So you think this chap +is as much in society as we were, do you?” +</p> + +<p> +I preferred not to think so myself. We had cause enough for jealousy without +that. But Raffles raised his eyebrows an eloquent half-inch. +</p> + +<p> +“As much, my dear Bunny? He is not only in it, but of it; there’s +no comparison between us there. Society is in rings like a target, and we never +were in the bull’s-eye, however thick you may lay on the ink! I was asked +for my cricket. I haven’t forgotten it yet. But this fellow’s one +of themselves, with the right of entrée into the houses which we could only +‘enter’ in a professional sense. That’s obvious unless all +these little exploits are the work of different hands, which they as obviously +are not. And it’s why I’d give five hundred pounds to put salt on +him to-night!” +</p> + +<p> +“Not you,” said I, as I drained my glass in festive incredulity. +</p> + +<p> +“But I would, my dear Bunny. Waiter! another half-bottle of this,” +and Raffles leant across the table as the empty one was taken away. “I +never was more serious in my life,” he continued below his breath. +“Whatever else our successor may be, he’s not a dead man like me, +or a marked man like you. If there’s any truth in my theory he’s +one of the last people upon whom suspicion is ever likely to rest; and oh, +Bunny, what a partner he would make for you and me!” +</p> + +<p> +Under less genial influences the very idea of a third partner would have filled +my soul with offence; but Raffles had chosen his moment unerringly, and his +arguments lost nothing by the flowing accompaniment of the extra pint. They +were, however, quite strong in themselves. The gist of them was that thus far +we had remarkably little to show for what Raffles would call “our second +innings.” This even I could not deny. We had scored a few “long +singles,” but our “best shots” had gone “straight to +hand,” and we were “playing a deuced slow game.” Therefore we +needed a new partner—and the metaphor failed Raffles. It had served its +turn. I already agreed with him. In truth I was tired of my false position as +hireling attendant, and had long fancied myself an object of suspicion to that +other impostor the doctor. A fresh, untrammelled start was a fascinating idea +to me, though two was company, and three in our case might be worse than none. +But I did not see how we could hope, with our respective handicaps, to solve a +problem which was already the despair of Scotland Yard. +</p> + +<p> +“Suppose I have solved it,” observed Raffles, cracking a walnut in +his palm. +</p> + +<p> +“How could you?” I asked, without believing for an instant that he +had. +</p> + +<p> +“I have been taking the <i>Morning Post</i> for some time now.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” +</p> + +<p> +“You have got me a good many odd numbers of the less base society +papers.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t for the life of me see what you’re driving +at.” +</p> + +<p> +Raffles smiled indulgently as he cracked another nut. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s because you’ve neither observation nor imagination, +Bunny—and yet you try to write! Well, you wouldn’t think it, but I +have a fairly complete list of the people who were at the various functions +under cover of which these different little coups were brought off.” +</p> + +<p> +I said very stolidly that I did not see how that could help him. It was the +only answer to his good-humored but self-satisfied contempt; it happened also +to be true. +</p> + +<p> +“Think,” said Raffles, in a patient voice. +</p> + +<p> +“When thieves break in and steal,” said I, “upstairs, I +don’t see much point in discovering who was downstairs at the +time.” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite,” said Raffles—“when they do break in.” +</p> + +<p> +“But that’s what they have done in all these cases. An upstairs +door found screwed up, when things were at their height below; thief gone and +jewels with him before alarm could be raised. Why, the trick’s so old +that I never knew you condescend to play it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not so old as it looks,” said Raffles, choosing the cigars and +handing me mine. “Cognac or Benedictine, Bunny?” +</p> + +<p> +“Brandy,” I said, coarsely. +</p> + +<p> +“Besides,” he went on, “the rooms were not screwed up; at +Dorchester House, at any rate, the door was only locked, and the key missing, +so that it might have been done on either side.” +</p> + +<p> +“But that was where he left his rope-ladder behind him!” I +exclaimed in triumph; but Raffles only shook his head. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t believe in that rope-ladder, Bunny, except as a +blind.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then what on earth do you believe?” +</p> + +<p> +“That every one of these so-called burglaries has been done from the +inside, by one of the guests; and what’s more I’m very much +mistaken if I haven’t spotted the right sportsman.” +</p> + +<p> +I began to believe that he really had, there was such a wicked gravity in the +eyes that twinkled faintly into mine. I raised my glass in convivial +congratulation, and still remember the somewhat anxious eye with which Raffles +saw it emptied. +</p> + +<p> +“I can only find one likely name,” he continued, “that +figures in all these lists, and it is anything but a likely one at first sight. +Lord Ernest Belville was at all those functions. Know anything about him, +Bunny?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not the Rational Drink fanatic?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s all I want to know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite,” said Raffles; “and yet what could be more promising? +A man whose views are so broad and moderate, and so widely held already (saving +your presence, Bunny), does not bore the world with them without ulterior +motives. So far so good. What are this chap’s motives? Does he want to +advertise himself? No, he’s somebody already. But is he rich? On the +contrary, he’s as poor as a rat for his position, and apparently without +the least ambition to be anything else; certainly he won’t enrich himself +by making a public fad of what all sensible people are agreed upon as it is. +Then suddenly one gets one’s own old idea—the alternative +profession! My cricket—his Rational Drink! But it is no use jumping to +conclusions. I must know more than the newspapers can tell me. Our aristocratic +friend is forty, and unmarried. What has he been doing all these years? How the +devil was I to find out?” +</p> + +<p> +“How did you?” I asked, declining to spoil my digestion with a +conundrum, as it was his evident intention that I should. +</p> + +<p> +“Interviewed him!” said Raffles, smiling slowly on my amazement. +</p> + +<p> +“You—interviewed him?” I echoed. “When—and +where?” +</p> + +<p> +“Last Thursday night, when, if you remember, we kept early hours, because +I felt done. What was the use of telling you what I had up my sleeve, Bunny? It +might have ended in fizzle, as it still may. But Lord Ernest Belville was +addressing the meeting at Exeter Hall; I waited for him when the show was over, +dogged him home to King John’s Mansions, and interviewed him in his own +rooms there before he turned in.” +</p> + +<p> +My journalistic jealousy was piqued to the quick. Affecting a scepticism I did +not feel (for no outrage was beyond the pale of his impudence), I inquired +dryly which journal Raffles had pretended to represent. It is unnecessary to +report his answer. I could not believe him without further explanation. +</p> + +<p> +“I should have thought,” he said, “that even you would have +spotted a practice I never omit upon certain occasions. I always pay a visit to +the drawing-room, and fill my waistcoat pocket from the card-tray. It is an +immense help in any little temporary impersonation. On Thursday night I sent up +the card of a powerful writer connected with a powerful paper; if Lord Ernest +had known him in the flesh I should have been obliged to confess to a +journalistic ruse; luckily he didn’t—and I had been sent by my +editor to get the interview for next morning. What could be better—for +the alternative profession?” +</p> + +<p> +I inquired what the interview had brought forth. +</p> + +<p> +“Everything,” said Raffles. “Lord Ernest has been a wanderer +these twenty years. Texas, Fiji, Australia. I suspect him of wives and families +in all three. But his manners are a liberal education. He gave me some +beautiful whiskey, and forgot all about his fad. He is strong and subtle, but I +talked him off his guard. He is going to the Kirkleathams’ +to-night—I saw the card stuck up. I stuck some wax into his keyhole as he +was switching off the lights.” +</p> + +<p> +And, with an eye upon the waiters, Raffles showed me a skeleton key, newly +twisted and filed; but my share of the extra pint (I am afraid no fair share) +had made me dense. I looked from the key to Raffles with puckered +forehead—for I happened to catch sight of it in the mirror behind him. +</p> + +<p> +“The Dowager Lady Kirkleatham,” he whispered, “has diamonds +as big as beans, and likes to have ’em all on—and goes to bed +early—and happens to be in town!” +</p> + +<p> +And now I saw. +</p> + +<p> +“The villain means to get them from her!” +</p> + +<p> +“And I mean to get them from the villain,” said Raffles; “or, +rather, your share and mine.” +</p> + +<p> +“Will he consent to a partnership?” +</p> + +<p> +“We shall have him at our mercy. He daren’t refuse.” +</p> + +<p> +Raffles’s plan was to gain access to Lord Ernest’s rooms before +midnight; there we were to lie in wait for the aristocratic rascal, and if I +left all details to Raffles, and simply stood by in case of a rumpus, I should +be playing my part and earning my share. It was a part that I had played +before, not always with a good grace, though there had never been any question +about the share. But to-night I was nothing loath. I had had just champagne +enough—how Raffles knew my measure!—and I was ready and eager for +anything. Indeed, I did not wish to wait for the coffee, which was to be +especially strong by order of Raffles. But on that he insisted, and it was +between ten and eleven when at last we were in our cab. +</p> + +<p> +“It would be fatal to be too early,” he said as we drove; “on +the other hand, it would be dangerous to leave it too late. One must risk +something. How I should love to drive down Piccadilly and see the lights! But +unnecessary risks are another story.” +</p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p> +King John’s Mansions, as everybody knows, are the oldest, the ugliest, +and the tallest block of flats in all London. But they are built upon a more +generous scale than has since become the rule, and with a less studious regard +for the economy of space. We were about to drive into the spacious courtyard +when the gate-keeper checked us in order to let another hansom drive out. +</p> + +<p> +It contained a middle-aged man of the military type, like ourselves in evening +dress. That much I saw as his hansom crossed our bows, because I could not help +seeing it, but I should not have given the incident a second thought if it had +not been for his extraordinary effect upon Raffles. In an instant he was out +upon the curb, paying the cabby, and in another he was leading me across the +street, away from the mansions. +</p> + +<p> +“Where on earth are you going?” I naturally exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +“Into the park,” said he. “We are too early.” +</p> + +<p> +His voice told me more than his words. It was strangely stern. +</p> + +<p> +“Was that him—in the hansom?” +</p> + +<p> +“It was.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, then, the coast’s clear,” said I, comfortably. I was +for turning back then and there, but Raffles forced me on with a hand that +hardened on my arm. +</p> + +<p> +“It was a nearer thing than I care about,” said he. “This +seat will do; no, the next one’s further from a lamp-post. We will give +him a good half-hour, and I don’t want to talk.” +</p> + +<p> +We had been seated some minutes when Big Ben sent a languid chime over our +heads to the stars. It was half-past ten, and a sultry night. Eleven had struck +before Raffles awoke from his sullen reverie, and recalled me from mine with a +slap on the back. In a couple of minutes we were in the lighted vestibule at +the inner end of the courtyard of King John’s Mansions. +</p> + +<p> +“Just left Lord Ernest at Lady Kirkleatham’s,” said Raffles. +“Gave me his key and asked us to wait for him in his rooms. Will you send +us up in the lift?” +</p> + +<p> +In a small way, I never knew old Raffles do anything better. There was not an +instant’s demur. Lord Ernest Belville’s rooms were at the top of +the building, but we were in them as quickly as lift could carry and page-boy +conduct us. And there was no need for the skeleton key after all; the boy +opened the outer door with one of his own, and switched on the lights before +leaving us. +</p> + +<p> +“Now that’s interesting,” said Raffles, as soon as we were +alone; “they can come in and clean when he is out. What if he keeps his +swag at the bank? By Jove, that’s an idea for him! I don’t believe +he’s getting rid of it; it’s all lying low somewhere, if I’m +not mistaken, and he’s not a fool.” +</p> + +<p> +While he spoke he was moving about the sitting-room, which was charmingly +furnished in the antique style, and making as many remarks as though he were an +auctioneer’s clerk with an inventory to prepare and a day to do it in, +instead of a cracksman who might be surprised in his crib at any moment. +</p> + +<p> +“Chippendale of sorts, eh, Bunny? Not genuine, of course; but where can +you get genuine Chippendale now, and who knows it when they see it? +There’s no merit in mere antiquity. Yet the way people pose on the +subject! If a thing’s handsome and useful, and good cabinet-making, +it’s good enough for me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hadn’t we better explore the whole place?” I suggested +nervously. He had not even bolted the outer door. Nor would he when I called +his attention to the omission. +</p> + +<p> +“If Lord Ernest finds his rooms locked up he’ll raise Cain,” +said Raffles; “we must let him come in and lock up for himself before we +corner him. But he won’t come yet; if he did it might be awkward, for +they’d tell him down below what I told them. A new staff comes on at +midnight. I discovered that the other night.” +</p> + +<p> +“Supposing he does come in before?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, he can’t have us turned out without first seeing who we are, +and he won’t try it on when I’ve had one word with him. Unless my +suspicions are unfounded, I mean.” +</p> + +<p> +“Isn’t it about time to test them?” +</p> + +<p> +“My good Bunny, what do you suppose I’ve been doing all this while? +He keeps nothing in here. There isn’t a lock to the Chippendale that you +couldn’t pick with a penknife, and not a loose board in the floor, for I +was treading for one before the boy left us. Chimney’s no use in a place +like this where they keep them swept for you. Yes, I’m quite ready to try +his bedroom.” +</p> + +<p> +There was but a bathroom besides; no kitchen, no servant’s room; neither +are necessary in King John’s Mansions. I thought it as well to put my +head inside the bathroom while Raffles went into the bedroom, for I was +tormented by the horrible idea that the man might all this time be concealed +somewhere in the flat. But the bathroom blazed void in the electric light. I +found Raffles hanging out of the starry square which was the bedroom window, +for the room was still in darkness. I felt for the switch at the door. +</p> + +<p> +“Put it out again!” said Raffles fiercely. He rose from the sill, +drew blind and curtains carefully, then switched on the light himself. It fell +upon a face creased more in pity than in anger, and Raffles only shook his head +as I hung mine. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s all right, old boy,” said he; “but corridors have +windows too, and servants have eyes; and you and I are supposed to be in the +other room, not in this. But cheer up, Bunny! This is <i>the</i> room; look at +the extra bolt on the door; he’s had that put on, and there’s an +iron ladder to his window in case of fire! Way of escape ready against the hour +of need; he’s a better man than I thought him, Bunny, after all. But you +may bet your bottom dollar that if there’s any boodle in the flat +it’s in this room.” +</p> + +<p> +Yet the room was very lightly furnished; and nothing was locked. We looked +everywhere, but we looked in vain. The wardrobe was filled with hanging coats +and trousers in a press, the drawers with the softest silk and finest linen. It +was a camp bedstead that would not have unsettled an anchorite; there was no +place for treasure there. I looked up the chimney, but Raffles told me not to +be a fool, and asked if I ever listened to what he said. There was no question +about his temper now. I never knew him in a worse. +</p> + +<p> +“Then he has got it in the bank,” he growled. “I’ll +swear I’m not mistaken in my man!” +</p> + +<p> +I had the tact not to differ with him there. But I could not help suggesting +that now was our time to remedy any mistake we might have made. We were on the +right side of midnight still. +</p> + +<p> +“Then we stultify ourselves downstairs,” said Raffles. “No, +I’ll be shot if I do! He may come in with the Kirkleatham diamonds! You +do what you like, Bunny, but I don’t budge.” +</p> + +<p> +“I certainly shan’t leave you,” I retorted, “to be +knocked into the middle of next week by a better man than yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +I had borrowed his own tone, and he did not like it. They never do. I thought +for a moment that Raffles was going to strike me—for the first and last +time in his life. He could if he liked. My blood was up. I was ready to send +him to the devil. And I emphasized my offence by nodding and shrugging toward a +pair of very large Indian clubs that stood in the fender, on either side of the +chimney up which I had presumed to glance. +</p> + +<p> +In an instant Raffles had seized the clubs, and was whirling them about his +gray head in a mixture of childish pique and puerile bravado which I should +have thought him altogether above. +</p> + +<p> +And suddenly as I watched him his face changed, softened, lit up, and he swung +the clubs gently down upon the bed. +</p> + +<p> +“They’re not heavy enough for their size,” said he rapidly; +“and I’ll take my oath they’re not the same weight!” +</p> + +<p> +He shook one club after the other, with both hands, close to his ear; then he +examined their butt-ends under the electric light. I saw what he suspected now, +and caught the contagion of his suppressed excitement. Neither of us spoke. But +Raffles had taken out the portable tool-box that he called a knife, and always +carried, and as he opened the gimlet he handed me the club he held. +Instinctively I tucked the small end under my arm, and presented the other to +Raffles. +</p> + +<p> +“Hold him tight,” he whispered, smiling. “He’s not only +a better man than I thought him, Bunny; he’s hit upon a better dodge than +ever I did, of its kind. Only I should have weighted them evenly—to a +hair.” +</p> + +<p> +He had screwed the gimlet into the circular butt, close to the edge, and now we +were wrenching in opposite directions. For a moment or more nothing happened. +Then all at once something gave, and Raffles swore an oath as soft as any +prayer. And for the minute after that his hand went round and round with the +gimlet, as though he were grinding a piano-organ, while the end wormed slowly +out on its delicate thread of fine hard wood. +</p> + +<p> +The clubs were as hollow as drinking-horns, the pair of them, for we went from +one to the other without pausing to undo the padded packets that poured out +upon the bed. These were deliciously heavy to the hand, yet thickly swathed in +cotton-wool, so that some stuck together, retaining the shape of the cavity, as +though they had been run out of a mould. And when we did open them—but +let Raffles speak. +</p> + +<p> +He had deputed me to screw in the ends of the clubs, and to replace the latter +in the fender where we had found them. When I had done the counterpane was +glittering with diamonds where it was not shimmering with pearls. +</p> + +<p> +“If this isn’t that tiara that Lady May was married in,” said +Raffles, “and that disappeared out of the room she changed in, while it +rained confetti on the steps, I’ll present it to her instead of the one +she lost.... It was stupid to keep these old gold spoons, valuable as they are; +they made the difference in the weight.... Here we have probably the Kenworthy +diamonds.... I don’t know the history of these pearls.... This looks like +one family of rings—left on the basin-stand, perhaps—alas, poor +lady! And that’s the lot.” +</p> + +<p> +Our eyes met across the bed. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s it all worth?” I asked, hoarsely. +</p> + +<p> +“Impossible to say. But more than all we ever took in all our lives. That +I’ll swear to.” +</p> + +<p> +“More than all—” +</p> + +<p> +My tongue swelled with the thought. +</p> + +<p> +“But it’ll take some turning into cash, old chap!” +</p> + +<p> +“And—must it be a partnership?” I asked, finding a lugubrious +voice at length. +</p> + +<p> +“Partnership be damned!” cried Raffles, heartily. +“Let’s get out quicker than we came in.” +</p> + +<p> +We pocketed the things between us, cotton-wool and all, not because we wanted +the latter, but to remove all immediate traces of our really meritorious deed. +</p> + +<p> +“The sinner won’t dare to say a word when he does find out,” +remarked Raffles of Lord Ernest; “but that’s no reason why he +should find out before he must. Everything’s straight in here, I think; +no, better leave the window open as it was, and the blind up. Now out with the +light. One peep at the other room. That’s all right, too. Out with the +passage light, Bunny, while I open—” +</p> + +<p> +His words died away in a whisper. A key was fumbling at the lock outside. +</p> + +<p> +“Out with it—out with it!” whispered Raffles in an agony; and +as I obeyed he picked me off my feet and swung me bodily but silently into the +bedroom, just as the outer door opened, and a masterful step strode in. +</p> + +<p> +The next five were horrible minutes. We heard the apostle of Rational Drink +unlock one of the deep drawers in his antique sideboard, and sounds followed +suspiciously like the splash of spirits and the steady stream from a siphon. +Never before or since did I experience such a thirst as assailed me at that +moment, nor do I believe that many tropical explorers have known its equal. But +I had Raffles with me, and his hand was as steady and as cool as the hand of a +trained nurse. That I know because he turned up the collar of my overcoat for +me, for some reason, and buttoned it at the throat. I afterwards found that he +had done the same to his own, but I did not hear him doing it. The one thing I +heard in the bedroom was a tiny metallic click, muffled and deadened in his +overcoat pocket, and it not only removed my last tremor, but strung me to a +higher pitch of excitement than ever. Yet I had then no conception of the game +that Raffles was deciding to play, and that I was to play with him in another +minute. +</p> + +<p> +It cannot have been longer before Lord Ernest came into his bedroom. Heavens, +but my heart had not forgotten how to thump! We were standing near the door, +and I could swear he touched me; then his boots creaked, there was a rattle in +the fender—and Raffles switched on the light. +</p> + +<p> +Lord Ernest Belville crouched in its glare with one Indian club held by the +end, like a footman with a stolen bottle. A good-looking, well-built, +iron-gray, iron-jawed man; but a fool and a weakling at that moment, if he had +never been either before. +</p> + +<p> +“Lord Ernest Belville,” said Raffles, “it’s no use. +This is a loaded revolver, and if you force me I shall use it on you as I would +on any other desperate criminal. I am here to arrest you for a series of +robberies at the Duke of Dorchester’s, Sir John Kenworthy’s, and +other noblemen’s and gentlemen’s houses during the present season. +You’d better drop what you’ve got in your hand. It’s +empty.” +</p> + +<p> +Lord Ernest lifted the club an inch or two, and with it his eyebrows—and +after it his stalwart frame as the club crashed back into the fender. And as he +stood at his full height, a courteous but ironic smile under the cropped +moustache, he looked what he was, criminal or not. +</p> + +<p> +“Scotland Yard?” said he. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s our affair, my lord.” +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t think they’d got it in them,” said Lord +Ernest. “Now I recognize you. You’re my interviewer. No, I +didn’t think any of you fellows had got all that in you. Come into the +other room, and I’ll show you something else. Oh, keep me covered by all +means. But look at this!” +</p> + +<p> +On the antique sideboard, their size doubled by reflection in the polished +mahogany, lay a coruscating cluster of precious stones, that fell in festoons +about Lord Ernest’s fingers as he handed them to Raffles with scarcely a +shrug. +</p> + +<p> +“The Kirkleatham diamonds,” said he. “Better add ’em to +the bag.” +</p> + +<p> +Raffles did so without a smile; with his overcoat buttoned up to the chin, his +tall hat pressed down to his eyes, and between the two his incisive features +and his keen, stern glance, he looked the ideal detective of fiction and the +stage. What <i>I</i> looked God knows, but I did my best to glower and show my +teeth at his side. I had thrown myself into the game, and it was obviously a +winning one. +</p> + +<p> +“Wouldn’t take a share, I suppose?” Lord Ernest said +casually. +</p> + +<p> +Raffles did not condescend to reply. I rolled back my lips like a bull-pup. +</p> + +<p> +“Then a drink, at least!” +</p> + +<p> +My mouth watered, but Raffles shook his head impatiently. +</p> + +<p> +“We must be going, my lord, and you will have to come with us.” +</p> + +<p> +I wondered what in the world we should do with him when we had got him. +</p> + +<p> +“Give me time to put some things together? Pair of pyjamas and +tooth-brush, don’t you know?” +</p> + +<p> +“I cannot give you many minutes, my lord, but I don’t want to cause +a disturbance here, so I’ll tell them to call a cab if you like. But I +shall be back in a minute, and you must be ready in five. Here, inspector, +you’d better keep this while I am gone.” +</p> + +<p> +And I was left alone with that dangerous criminal! Raffles nipped my arm as he +handed me the revolver, but I got small comfort out of that. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Sea-green Incorruptible?’” inquired Lord Ernest as we +stood face to face. +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t corrupt me,” I replied through naked teeth. +</p> + +<p> +“Then come into my room. I’ll lead the way. Think you can hit me if +I misbehave?” +</p> + +<p> +I put the bed between us without a second’s delay. My prisoner flung a +suit-case upon it, and tossed things into it with a dejected air; suddenly, as +he was fitting them in, without raising his head (which I was watching), his +right hand closed over the barrel with which I covered him. +</p> + +<p> +“You’d better not shoot,” he said, a knee upon his side of +the bed; “if you do it may be as bad for you as it will be for me!” +</p> + +<p> +I tried to wrest the revolver from him. +</p> + +<p> +“I will if you force me,” I hissed. +</p> + +<p> +“You’d better not,” he repeated, smiling; and now I saw that +if I did I should only shoot into the bed or my own legs. His hand was on the +top of mine, bending it down, and the revolver with it. The strength of it was +as the strength of ten of mine; and now both his knees were on the bed; and +suddenly I saw his other hand, doubled into a fist, coming up slowly over the +suit-case. +</p> + +<p> +“Help!” I called feebly. +</p> + +<p> +“Help, forsooth! I begin to believe <i>you are</i> from the Yard,” +he said—and his upper-cut came with the “Yard.” It caught me +under the chin. +</p> + +<p> +It lifted me off my legs. I have a dim recollection of the crash that I made in +falling. +</p> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p> +Raffles was standing over me when I recovered consciousness. I lay stretched +upon the bed across which that blackguard Belville had struck his knavish blow. +The suit-case was on the floor, but its dastardly owner had disappeared. +</p> + +<p> +“Is he gone?” was my first faint question. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank God you’re not, anyway!” replied Raffles, with what +struck me then as mere flippancy. I managed to raise myself upon one elbow. +</p> + +<p> +“I meant Lord Ernest Belville,” said I, with dignity. “Are +you quite sure that he’s cleared out?” +</p> + +<p> +Raffles waved a hand towards the window, which stood wide open to the summer +stars. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course,” said he, “and by the route I intended him to +take; he’s gone by the iron-ladder, as I hoped he would. What on earth +should we have done with him? My poor, dear Bunny, I thought you’d take a +bribe! But it’s really more convincing as it is, and just as well for +Lord Ernest to be convinced for the time being.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are you sure he is?” I questioned, as I found a rather shaky pair +of legs. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course!” cried Raffles again, in the tone to make one blush for +the least misgiving on the point. “Not that it matters one bit,” he +added, airily, “for we have him either way; and when he does tumble to +it, as he may any minute, he won’t dare to open his mouth.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then the sooner we clear out the better,” said I, but I looked +askance at the open window, for my head was spinning still. +</p> + +<p> +“When you feel up to it,” returned Raffles, “we shall +<i>stroll</i> out, and I shall do myself the honor of ringing for the lift. The +force of habit is too strong in you, Bunny. I shall shut the window and leave +everything exactly as we found it. Lord Ernest will probably tumble before he +is badly missed; and then he may come back to put salt on us; but I should like +to know what he can do even if he succeeds! Come, Bunny, pull yourself +together, and you’ll be a different man when you’re in the open +air.” +</p> + +<p> +And for a while I felt one, such was my relief at getting out of those infernal +mansions with unfettered wrists; this we managed easily enough; but once more +Raffles’s performance of a small part was no less perfect than his more +ambitious work upstairs, and something of the successful artist’s elation +possessed him as we walked arm-in-arm across St. James’s Park. It was +long since I had known him so pleased with himself, and only too long since he +had had such reason. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think I ever had a brighter idea in my life,” he +said; “never thought of it till he was in the next room; never dreamt of +its coming off so ideally even then, and didn’t much care, because we had +him all ways up. I’m only sorry you let him knock you out. I was waiting +outside the door all the time, and it made me sick to hear it. But I once broke +my own head, Bunny, if you remember, and not in half such an excellent +cause!” +</p> + +<p> +Raffles touched all his pockets in his turn, the pockets that contained a small +fortune apiece, and he smiled in my face as we crossed the lighted avenues of +the Mall. Next moment he was hailing a hansom—for I suppose I was still +pretty pale—and not a word would he let me speak until we had alighted as +near as was prudent to the flat. +</p> + +<p> +“What a brute I’ve been, Bunny!” he whispered then, +“but you take half the swag, old boy, and right well you’ve earned +it. No, we’ll go in by the wrong door and over the roof; it’s too +late for old Theobald to be still at the play, and too early for him to be +safely in his cups.” +</p> + +<p> +So we climbed the many stairs with cat-like stealth, and like cats crept out +upon the grimy leads. But to-night they were no blacker than their canopy of +sky; not a chimney-stack stood out against the starless night; one had to feel +one’s way in order to avoid tripping over the low parapets of the +L-shaped wells that ran from roof to basement to light the inner rooms. One of +these wells was spanned by a flimsy bridge with iron handrails that felt warm +to the touch as Raffles led the way across! A hotter and a closer night I have +never known. +</p> + +<p> +“The flat will be like an oven,” I grumbled, at the head of our own +staircase. +</p> + +<p> +“Then we won’t go down,” said Raffles, promptly; +“we’ll slack it up here for a bit instead. No, Bunny, you stay +where you are! I’ll fetch you a drink and a deck-chair, and you +shan’t come down till you feel more fit.” +</p> + +<p> +And I let him have his way, I will not say as usual, for I had even less than +my normal power of resistance that night. That villainous upper-cut! My head +still sang and throbbed, as I seated myself on one of the aforesaid parapets, +and buried it in my hot hands. Nor was the night one to dispel a headache; +there was distinct thunder in the air. Thus I sat in a heap, and brooded over +my misadventure, a pretty figure of a subordinate villain, until the step came +for which I waited; and it never struck me that it came from the wrong +direction. +</p> + +<p> +“You have been quick,” said I, simply. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” hissed a voice I recognized; “and you’ve got to +be quicker still! Here, out with your wrists; no, one at a time; and if you +utter a syllable you’re a dead man.” +</p> + +<p> +It was Lord Ernest Belville; his close-cropped, iron-gray moustache gleamed +through the darkness, drawn up over his set teeth. In his hand glittered a pair +of handcuffs, and before I knew it one had snapped its jaws about my right +wrist. +</p> + +<p> +“Now come this way,” said Lord Ernest, showing me a revolver also, +“and wait for your friend. And, recollect, a single syllable of warning +will be your death!” +</p> + +<p> +With that the ruffian led me to the very bridge I had just crossed at +Raffles’s heels, and handcuffed me to the iron rail midway across the +chasm. It no longer felt warm to my touch, but icy as the blood in all my +veins. +</p> + +<p> +So this high-born hypocrite had beaten us at our game and his, and Raffles had +met his match at last! That was the most intolerable thought, that Raffles +should be down in the flat on my account, and that I could not warn him of his +impending fate; for how was it possible without making such an outcry as should +bring the mansions about our ears? And there I shivered on that wretched plank, +chained like Andromeda to the rock, with a black infinity above and below; and +before my eyes, now grown familiar with the peculiar darkness, stood Lord +Ernest Belville, waiting for Raffles to emerge with full hands and unsuspecting +heart! Taken so horribly unawares, even Raffles must fall an easy prey to a +desperado in resource and courage scarcely second to himself, but one whom he +had fatally underrated from the beginning. Not that I paused to think how the +thing had happened; my one concern was for what was to happen next. +</p> + +<p> +And what did happen was worse than my worst foreboding, for first a light came +flickering into the sort of companion-hatch at the head of the stairs, and +finally Raffles—in his shirt-sleeves! He was not only carrying a candle +to put the finishing touch to him as a target; he had dispensed with coat and +waistcoat downstairs, and was at once full-handed and unarmed. +</p> + +<p> +“Where are you, old chap?” he cried, softly, himself blinded by the +light he carried; and he advanced a couple of steps towards Belville. +“This isn’t you, is it?” +</p> + +<p> +And Raffles stopped, his candle held on high, a folding chair under the other +arm. +</p> + +<p> +“No, I am not your friend,” replied Lord Ernest, easily; “but +kindly remain standing exactly where you are, and don’t lower that candle +an inch, unless you want your brains blown into the street.” +</p> + +<p> +Raffles said never a word, but for a moment did as he was bid; and the unshaken +flame of the candle was testimony alike to the stillness of the night and to +the finest set of nerves in Europe. Then, to my horror, he coolly stooped, +placing candle and chair on the leads, and his hands in his pockets, as though +it were but a popgun that covered him. +</p> + +<p> +“Why didn’t you shoot?” he asked insolently as he rose. +“Frightened of the noise? I should be, too, with an old-pattern machine +like that. All very well for service in the field—but on the house-tops +at dead of night!” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall shoot, however,” replied Lord Ernest, as quietly in his +turn, and with less insolence, “and chance the noise, unless you +instantly restore my property. I am glad you don’t dispute the last +word,” he continued after a slight pause. “There is no keener honor +than that which subsists, or ought to subsist, among thieves; and I need hardly +say that I soon spotted you as one of the fraternity. Not in the beginning, +mind you! For the moment I did think you were one of these smart detectives +jumped to life from some sixpenny magazine; but to preserve the illusion you +ought to provide yourself with a worthier lieutenant. It was he who gave your +show away,” chuckled the wretch, dropping for a moment the affected style +of speech which seemed intended to enhance our humiliation; “smart +detectives don’t go about with little innocents to assist them. You +needn’t be anxious about him, by the way; it wasn’t necessary to +pitch him into the street; he is to be seen though not heard, if you look in +the right direction. Nor must you put all the blame upon your friend; it was +not he, but you, who made so sure that I had got out by the window. You see, I +was in my bathroom all the time—with the door open.” +</p> + +<p> +“The bathroom, eh?” Raffles echoed with professional interest. +“And you followed us on foot across the park?” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course.” +</p> + +<p> +“And then in a cab?” +</p> + +<p> +“And afterwards on foot once more.” +</p> + +<p> +“The simplest skeleton would let you in down below.” +</p> + +<p> +I saw the lower half of Lord Ernest’s face grinning in the light of the +candle set between them on the ground. +</p> + +<p> +“You follow every move,” said he; “there can be no doubt you +are one of the fraternity; and I shouldn’t wonder if we had formed our +style upon the same model. Ever know A. J. Raffles?” +</p> + +<p> +The abrupt question took my breath away; but Raffles himself did not lose an +instant over his answer. +</p> + +<p> +“Intimately,” said he. +</p> + +<p> +“That accounts for you, then,” laughed Lord Ernest, “as it +does for me, though I never had the honor of the master’s acquaintance. +Nor is it for me to say which is the worthier disciple. Perhaps, however, now +that your friend is handcuffed in mid-air, and you yourself are at my mercy, +you will concede me some little temporary advantage?” +</p> + +<p> +And his face split in another grin from the cropped moustache downward, as I +saw no longer by candlelight but by a flash of lightning which tore the sky in +two before Raffles could reply. +</p> + +<p> +“You have the bulge at present,” admitted Raffles; “but you +have still to lay hands upon your, or our, ill-gotten goods. To shoot me is not +necessarily to do so; to bring either one of us to a violent end is only to +court a yet more violent and infinitely more disgraceful one for yourself. +Family considerations alone should rule that risk out of your game. Now, an +hour or two ago, when the exact opposite—” +</p> + +<p> +The remainder of Raffles’s speech was drowned from my ears by the belated +crash of thunder which the lightning had foretold. So loud, however, was the +crash when it came, that the storm was evidently approaching us at a high +velocity; yet as the last echo rumbled away, I heard Raffles talking as though +he had never stopped. +</p> + +<p> +“You offered us a share,” he was saying; “unless you mean to +murder us both in cold blood, it will be worth your while to repeat that offer. +We should be dangerous enemies; you had far better make the best of us as +friends.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lead the way down to your flat,” said Lord Ernest, with a flourish +of his service revolver, “and perhaps we may talk about it. It is for me +to make the terms, I imagine, and in the first place I am not going to get wet +to the skin up here.” +</p> + +<p> +The rain was beginning in great drops, even as he spoke, and by a second flash +of lightning I saw Raffles pointing to me. +</p> + +<p> +“But what about my friend?” said he. +</p> + +<p> +And then came the second peal. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, <i>he’s</i> all right,” the great brute replied; +“do him good! You don’t catch me letting myself in for two to +one!” +</p> + +<p> +“You will find it equally difficult,” rejoined Raffles, “to +induce me to leave my friend to the mercy of a night like this. He has not +recovered from the blow you struck him in your own rooms. I am not such a fool +as to blame you for that, but you are a worse sportsman than I take you for if +you think of leaving him where he is. If he stays, however, so do I.” +</p> + +<p> +And, just as it ceased, Raffles’s voice seemed distinctly nearer to me; +but in the darkness and the rain, which was now as heavy as hail, I could see +nothing clearly. The rain had already extinguished the candle. I heard an oath +from Belville, a laugh from Raffles, and for a second that was all. Raffles was +coming to me, and the other could not even see to fire; that was all I knew in +the pitchy interval of invisible rain before the next crash and the next flash. +</p> + +<p> +And then! +</p> + +<p> +This time they came together, and not till my dying hour shall I forget the +sight that the lightning lit and the thunder applauded. Raffles was on one of +the parapets of the gulf that my foot-bridge spanned, and in the sudden +illumination he stepped across it as one might across a garden path. The width +was scarcely greater, but the depth! In the sudden flare I saw to the concrete +bottom of the well, and it looked no larger than the hollow of my hand. Raffles +was laughing in my ear; he had the iron railing fast; it was between us, but +his foothold was as secure as mine. Lord Ernest Belville, on the contrary, was +the fifth of a second late for the light, and half a foot short in his spring. +Something struck our plank bridge so hard as to set it quivering like a +harp-string; there was half a gasp and half a sob in mid-air beneath our feet; +and then a sound far below that I prefer not to describe. I am not sure that I +could hit upon the perfect simile; it is more than enough for me that I can +hear it still. And with that sickening sound came the loudest clap of thunder +yet, and a great white glare that showed us our enemy’s body far below, +with one white hand spread like a starfish, but the head of him mercifully +twisted underneath. +</p> + +<p> +“It was all his own fault, Bunny. Poor devil! May he and all of us be +forgiven; but pull yourself together for your own sake. Well, you can’t +fall; stay where you are a minute.” +</p> + +<p> +I remember the uproar of the elements while Raffles was gone; no other sound +mingled with it; not the opening of a single window, not the uplifting of a +single voice. Then came Raffles with soap and water, and the gyve was wheedled +from one wrist, as you withdraw a ring for which the finger has grown too +large. Of the rest, I only remember shivering till morning in a pitch-dark +flat, whose invalid occupier was for once the nurse, and I his patient. +</p> + +<p> +And that is the true ending of the episode in which we two set ourselves to +catch one of our own kidney, albeit in another place I have shirked the whole +truth. It is not a grateful task to show Raffles as completely at fault as he +really was on that occasion; nor do I derive any subtle satisfaction from +recounting my own twofold humiliation, or from having assisted never so +indirectly in the death of a not uncongenial sinner. The truth, however, has +after all a merit of its own, and the great kinsfolk of poor Lord Ernest have +but little to lose by its divulgence. It would seem that they knew more of the +real character of the apostle of Rational Drink than was known at Exeter Hall. +The tragedy was indeed hushed up, as tragedies only are when they occur in such +circles. But the rumor that did get abroad, as to the class of enterprise which +the poor scamp was pursuing when he met his death, cannot be too soon exploded, +since it breathed upon the fair fame of some of the most respectable flats in +Kensington. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap06"></a>AN OLD FLAME</h2> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p> +The square shall be nameless, but if you drive due west from Piccadilly the +cab-man will eventually find it on his left, and he ought to thank you for two +shillings. It is not a fashionable square, but there are few with a finer +garden, while the studios on the south side lend distinction of another sort. +The houses, however, are small and dingy, and about the last to attract the +expert practitioner in search of a crib. Heaven knows it was with no such +thought I trailed Raffles thither, one unlucky evening at the latter end of +that same season, when Dr. Theobald had at last insisted upon the bath-chair +which I had foreseen in the beginning. Trees whispered in the green garden +aforesaid, and the cool, smooth lawns looked so inviting that I wondered +whether some philanthropic resident could not be induced to lend us the key. +But Raffles would not listen to the suggestion, when I stopped to make it, and +what was worse, I found him looking wistfully at the little houses instead. +</p> + +<p> +“Such balconies, Bunny! A leg up, and there you would be!” +</p> + +<p> +I expressed a conviction that there would be nothing worth taking in the +square, but took care to have him under way again as I spoke. +</p> + +<p> +“I daresay you’re right,” sighed Raffles. “Rings and +watches, I suppose, but it would be hard luck to take them from people who live +in houses like these. I don’t know, though. Here’s one with an +extra story. Stop, Bunny; if you don’t stop I’ll hold on to the +railings! This is a good house; look at the knocker and the electric bell. +They’ve had that put in. There’s some money here, my rabbit! I dare +bet there’s a silver-table in the drawing-room; and the windows are wide +open. Electric light, too, by Jove!” +</p> + +<p> +Since stop I must, I had done so on the other side of the road, in the shadow +of the leafy palings, and as Raffles spoke the ground floor windows opposite +had flown alight, showing as pretty a little dinner-table as one could wish to +see, with a man at his wine at the far end, and the back of a lady in evening +dress toward us. It was like a lantern-picture thrown upon a screen. There were +only the pair of them, but the table was brilliant with silver and gay with +flowers, and the maid waited with the indefinable air of a good servant. It +certainly seemed a good house. +</p> + +<p> +“She’s going to let down the blind!” whispered Raffles, in +high excitement. “No, confound them, they’ve told her not to. Mark +down her necklace, Bunny, and invoice his stud. What a brute he looks! But I +like the table, and that’s her show. She has the taste; but he must have +money. See the festive picture over the sideboard? Looks to me like a Jacques +Saillard. But that silver-table would be good enough for me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Get on,” said I. “You’re in a bath-chair.” +</p> + +<p> +“But the whole square’s at dinner! We should have the ball at our +feet. It wouldn’t take two twos!” +</p> + +<p> +“With those blinds up, and the cook in the kitchen underneath?” +</p> + +<p> +He nodded, leaning forward in the chair, his hands upon the wraps about his +legs. +</p> + +<p> +“You must be mad,” said I, and got back to my handles with the +word, but when I tugged the chair ran light. +</p> + +<p> +“Keep an eye on the rug,” came in a whisper from the middle of the +road; and there stood my invalid, his pale face in a quiver of pure mischief, +yet set with his insane resolve. “I’m only going to see whether +that woman has a silver-table—” +</p> + +<p> +“We don’t want it—” +</p> + +<p> +“It won’t take a minute—” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s madness, madness—” +</p> + +<p> +“Then don’t you wait!” +</p> + +<p> +It was like him to leave me with that, and this time I had taken him at his +last word, had not my own given me an idea. Mad I had called him, and mad I +could declare him upon oath if necessary. It was not as though the thing had +happened far from home. They could learn all about us at the nearest mansions. +I referred them to Dr. Theobald; this was a Mr. Maturin, one of his patients, +and I was his keeper, and he had never given me the slip before. I heard myself +making these explanations on the doorstep, and pointing to the deserted +bath-chair as the proof, while the pretty parlor maid ran for the police. It +would be a more serious matter for me than for my charge. I should lose my +place. No, he had never done such a thing before, and I would answer for it +that he never should again. +</p> + +<p> +I saw myself conducting Raffles back to his chair, with a firm hand and a stern +tongue. I heard him thanking me in whispers on the way home. It would be the +first tight place I had ever got him out of, and I was quite anxious for him to +get into it, so sure was I of every move. My whole position had altered in the +few seconds that it took me to follow this illuminating train of ideas; it was +now so strong that I could watch Raffles without much anxiety. And he was worth +watching. +</p> + +<p> +He had stepped boldly but softly to the front door, and there he was still +waiting, ready to ring if the door opened or a face appeared in the area, and +doubtless to pretend that he had rung already. But he had not to ring at all; +and suddenly I saw his foot in the letter-box, his left hand on the lintel +overhead. It was thrilling, even to a hardened accomplice with an explanation +up his sleeve! A tight grip with that left hand of his, as he leant backward +with all his weight upon those five fingers; a right arm stretched outward and +upward to its last inch; and the base of the low, projecting balcony was safely +caught. +</p> + +<p> +I looked down and took breath. The maid was removing the crumbs in the lighted +room, and the square was empty as before. What a blessing it was the end of the +season! Many of the houses remained in darkness. I looked up again, and Raffles +was drawing his left leg over the balcony railing. In another moment he had +disappeared through one of the French windows which opened upon the balcony, +and in yet another he had switched on the electric light within. This was bad +enough, for now I, at least, could see everything he did; but the crowning +folly was still to come. There was no point in it; the mad thing was done for +my benefit, as I knew at once and he afterward confessed; but the lunatic +reappeared on the balcony, bowing like a mountebank—in his crape mask! +</p> + +<p> +I set off with the empty chair, but I came back. I could not desert old +Raffles, even when I would, but must try to explain away his mask as well, if +he had not the sense to take it off in time. It would be difficult, but +burglaries are not usually committed from a bath-chair, and for the rest I put +my faith in Dr. Theobald. Meanwhile Raffles had at least withdrawn from the +balcony, and now I could only see his head as he peered into a cabinet at the +other side of the room. It was like the opera of <i>Aïda</i>, in which two +scenes are enacted simultaneously, one in the dungeon below, the other in the +temple above. In the same fashion my attention now became divided between the +picture of Raffles moving stealthily about the upper room, and that of the +husband and wife at table underneath. And all at once, as the man replenished +his glass with a shrug of the shoulders, the woman pushed back her chair and +sailed to the door. +</p> + +<p> +Raffles was standing before the fireplace upstairs. He had taken one of the +framed photographs from the chimney-piece, and was scanning it at suicidal +length through the eye-holes in the hideous mask which he still wore. He would +need it after all. The lady had left the room below, opening and shutting the +door for herself; the man was filling his glass once more. I would have +shrieked my warning to Raffles, so fatally engrossed overhead, but at this +moment (of all others) a constable (of all men) was marching sedately down our +side of the square. There was nothing for it but to turn a melancholy eye upon +the bath-chair, and to ask the constable the time. I was evidently to be kept +there all night, I remarked, and only realized with the words that they +disposed of my other explanations before they were uttered. It was a horrible +moment for such a discovery. Fortunately the enemy was on the pavement, from +which he could scarcely have seen more than the drawing-room ceiling, had he +looked; but he was not many houses distant when a door opened and a woman +gasped so that I heard both across the road. And never shall I forget the +subsequent tableaux in the lighted room behind the low balcony and the French +windows. +</p> + +<p> +Raffles stood confronted by a dark and handsome woman whose profile, as I saw +it first in the electric light, is cut like a cameo in my memory. It had the +undeviating line of brow and nose, the short upper lip, the perfect chin, that +are united in marble oftener than in the flesh; and like marble she stood, or +rather like some beautiful pale bronze; for that was her coloring, and she lost +none of it that I could see, neither trembled; but her bosom rose and fell, and +that was all. So she stood without flinching before a masked ruffian, who, I +felt, would be the first to appreciate her courage; to me it was so superb that +I could think of it in this way even then, and marvel how Raffles himself could +stand unabashed before so brave a figure. He had not to do so long. The woman +scorned him, and he stood unmoved, a framed photograph still in his hand. Then, +with a quick, determined movement she turned, not to the door or to the bell, +but to the open window by which Raffles had entered; and this with that +accursed policeman still in view. So far no word had passed between the pair. +But at this point Raffles said something, I could not hear what, but at the +sound of his voice the woman wheeled. And Raffles was looking humbly in her +face, the crape mask snatched from his own. +</p> + +<p> +“Arthur!” she cried; and that might have been heard in the middle +of the square garden. +</p> + +<p> +Then they stood gazing at each other, neither unmoved any more, and while they +stood the street-door opened and banged. It was her husband leaving the house, +a fine figure of a man, but a dissipated face, and a step even now +distinguished by the extreme caution which precedes unsteadiness. He broke the +spell. His wife came to the balcony, then looked back into the room, and yet +again along the road, and this time I saw her face. It was the face of one +glancing indeed from Hyperion to a satyr. And then I saw the rings flash, as +her hand fell gently upon Raffles’s arm. +</p> + +<p> +They disappeared from that window. Their heads showed for an instant in the +next. Then they dipped out of sight, and an inner ceiling flashed out under a +new light; they had gone into the back drawing-room, beyond my ken. The maid +came up with coffee, her mistress hastily met her at the door, and once more +disappeared. The square was as quiet as ever. I remained some minutes where I +was. Now and then I thought I heard their voices in the back drawing-room. I +was seldom sure. +</p> + +<p> +My state of mind may be imagined by those readers who take an interest in my +personal psychology. It does not amuse me to look back upon it. But at length I +had the sense to put myself in Raffles’s place. He had been recognized at +last, he had come to life. Only one person knew as yet, but that person was a +woman, and a woman who had once been fond of him, if the human face could +speak. Would she keep his secret? Would he tell her where he lived? It was +terrible to think we were such neighbors, and with the thought that it was +terrible came a little enlightenment as to what could still be done for the +best. He would not tell her where he lived. I knew him too well for that. He +would run for it when he could, and the bath-chair and I must not be there to +give him away. I dragged the infernal vehicle round the nearer corner. Then I +waited—there could be no harm in that—and at last he came. +</p> + +<p> +He was walking briskly, so I was right, and he had not played the invalid to +her; yet I heard him cry out with pleasure as he turned the corner, and he +flung himself into the chair with a long-drawn sigh that did me good. +</p> + +<p> +“Well done, Bunny—well done! I am on my way to Earl’s Court, +she’s capable of following me, but she won’t look for me in a +bath-chair. Home, home, home, and not another word till we get there!” +</p> + +<p> +Capable of following him? She overtook us before we were past the studios on +the south side of the square, the woman herself, in a hooded opera-cloak. But +she never gave us a glance, and we saw her turn safely in the right direction +for Earl’s Court, and the wrong one for our humble mansions. Raffles +thanked his gods in a voice that trembled, and five minutes later we were in +the flat. Then for once it was Raffles who filled the tumblers and found the +cigarettes, and for once (and once only in all my knowledge of him) did he +drain his glass at a draught. +</p> + +<p> +“You didn’t see the balcony scene?” he asked at length; and +they were his first words since the woman passed us on his track. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you mean when she came in?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, when I came down.” +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“I hope nobody else saw it,” said Raffles devoutly. “I +don’t say that Romeo and Juliet were brother and sister to us. But you +might have said so, Bunny!” +</p> + +<p> +He was staring at the carpet with as wry a face as lover ever wore. +</p> + +<p> +“An old flame?” said I, gently. +</p> + +<p> +“A married woman,” he groaned. +</p> + +<p> +“So I gathered.” +</p> + +<p> +“But she always was one, Bunny,” said he, ruefully. +“That’s the trouble. It makes all the difference in the +world!” +</p> + +<p> +I saw the difference, but said I did not see how it could make any now. He had +eluded the lady, after all; had we not seen her off upon a scent as false as +scent could be? There was occasion for redoubled caution in the future, but +none for immediate anxiety. I quoted the bedside Theobald, but Raffles did not +smile. His eyes had been downcast all this time, and now, when he raised them, +I perceived that my comfort had been administered to deaf ears. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know who she is?” said he. +</p> + +<p> +“Not from Eve.” +</p> + +<p> +“Jacques Saillard,” he said, as though now I must know. +</p> + +<p> +But the name left me cold and stolid. I had heard it, but that was all. It was +lamentable ignorance, I am aware, but I had specialized in Letters at the +expense of Art. +</p> + +<p> +“You must know her pictures,” said Raffles, patiently; “but I +suppose you thought she was a man. They would appeal to you, Bunny; that +festive piece over the sideboard was her work. Sometimes they risk her at the +Academy, sometimes they fight shy. She has one of those studios in the same +square; they used to live up near Lord’s.” +</p> + +<p> +My mind was busy brightening a dim memory of nymphs reflected in woody pools. +“Of course!” I exclaimed, and added something about “a clever +woman.” Raffles rose at the phrase. +</p> + +<p> +“A clever woman!” he echoed, scornfully; “if she were only +that I should feel safe as houses. Clever women can’t forget their +cleverness, they carry it as badly as a boy does his wine, and are about as +dangerous. I don’t call Jacques Saillard clever outside her art, but +neither do I call her a woman at all. She does man’s work over a +man’s name, has the will of any ten men I ever knew, and I don’t +mind telling you that I fear her more than any person on God’s earth. I +broke with her once,” said Raffles, grimly, “but I know her. If I +had been asked to name the one person in London by whom I was keenest +<i>not</i> to be bowled out, I should have named Jacques Saillard.” +</p> + +<p> +That he had never before named her to me was as characteristic as the reticence +with which Raffles spoke of their past relations, and even of their +conversation in the back drawing-room that evening. +</p> + +<p> +It was a question of principle with him, and one that I like to remember. +“Never give a woman away, Bunny,” he used to say; and he said it +again to-night, but with a heavy cloud upon him, as though his chivalry was +sorely tried. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s all right,” said I, “if you’re not going +to be given away yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s just it, Bunny! That’s just—” +</p> + +<p> +The words were out of him, it was too late to recall them. I had hit the nail +upon the head. +</p> + +<p> +“So she threatened you,” I said, “did she?” +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t say so,” he replied, coldly. +</p> + +<p> +“And she is mated with a clown!” I pursued. +</p> + +<p> +“How she ever married him,” he admitted, “is a mystery to +me.” +</p> + +<p> +“It always is,” said I, the wise man for once, and rather enjoying +the role. +</p> + +<p> +“Southern blood?” +</p> + +<p> +“Spanish.” +</p> + +<p> +“She’ll be pestering you to run off with her, old chap,” said +I. +</p> + +<p> +Raffles was pacing the room. He stopped in his stride for half a second. So she +had begun pestering him already! It is wonderful how acute any fool can be in +the affairs of his friend. But Raffles resumed his walk without a syllable, and +I retreated to safer ground. +</p> + +<p> +“So you sent her to Earl’s Court,” I mused aloud; and at last +he smiled. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll be interested to hear, Bunny,” said he, “that I +am now living in Seven Dials, and Bill Sikes couldn’t hold a farthing dip +to me. Bless you, she had my old police record at her fingers’ ends, but +it was fit to frame compared with the one I gave her. I had sunk as low as they +dig. I divided my nights between the open parks and a thieves’ kitchen in +Seven Dials. If I was decently dressed it was because I had stolen the suit +down the Thames Valley beat the night before last. I was on my way back when +first that sleepy square, and then her open window, proved too much for me. You +should have heard me beg her to let me push on to the devil in my own way; +there I spread myself, for I meant every word; but I swore the final stage +would be a six-foot drop.” +</p> + +<p> +“You did lay it on,” said I. +</p> + +<p> +“It was necessary, and that had its effect. She let me go. But at the +last moment she said she didn’t believe I was so black as I painted +myself, and then there was the balcony scene you missed.” +</p> + +<p> +So that was all. I could not help telling him that he had got out of it better +than he deserved for ever getting in. Next moment I regretted the remark. +</p> + +<p> +“If I have got out of it,” said Raffles, doubtfully. “We are +dreadfully near neighbors, and I can’t move in a minute, with old +Theobald taking a grave view of my case. I suppose I had better lie low, and +thank the gods again for putting her off the scent for the time being.” +</p> + +<p> +No doubt our conversation was carried beyond this point, but it certainly was +not many minutes later, nor had we left the subject, when the electric bell +thrilled us both to a sudden silence. +</p> + +<p> +“The doctor?” I queried, hope fighting with my horror. +</p> + +<p> +“It was a single ring.” +</p> + +<p> +“The last post?” +</p> + +<p> +“You know he knocks, and it’s long past his time.” +</p> + +<p> +The electric bell rang again, but now as though it never would stop. +</p> + +<p> +“You go, Bunny,” said Raffles, with decision. His eyes were +sparkling. His smile was firm. +</p> + +<p> +“What am I to say?” +</p> + +<p> +“If it’s the lady let her in.” +</p> + +<p> +It was the lady, still in her evening cloak, with her fine dark head +half-hidden by the hood, and an engaging contempt of appearances upon her angry +face. She was even handsomer than I had thought, and her beauty of a bolder +type, but she was also angrier than I had anticipated when I came so readily to +the door. The passage into which it opened was an exceedingly narrow one, as I +have often said, but I never dreamt of barring this woman’s way, though +not a word did she stoop to say to me. I was only too glad to flatten myself +against the wall, as the rustling fury strode past me into the lighted room +with the open door. +</p> + +<p> +“So this is your thieves’ kitchen!” she cried, in +high-pitched scorn. +</p> + +<p> +I was on the threshold myself, and Raffles glanced towards me with raised +eyebrows. +</p> + +<p> +“I have certainly had better quarters in my day,” said he, +“but you need not call them absurd names before my man.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then send your ‘man’ about his business,” said Jacques +Saillard, with an unpleasant stress upon the word indicated. +</p> + +<p> +But when the door was shut I heard Raffles assuring her that I knew nothing, +that he was a real invalid overcome by a sudden mad temptation, and all he had +told her of his life a lie to hide his whereabouts, but all he was telling her +now she could prove for herself without leaving that building. It seemed, +however, that she had proved it already by going first to the porter below +stairs. Yet I do not think she cared one atom which story was the truth. +</p> + +<p> +“So you thought I could pass you in your chair,” she said, +“or ever in this world again, without hearing from my heart that it was +you!” +</p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p> +“Bunny,” said Raffles, “I’m awfully sorry, old chap, +but you’ve got to go.” +</p> + +<p> +It was some weeks since the first untimely visitation of Jacques Saillard, but +there had been many others at all hours of the day, while Raffles had been +induced to pay at least one to her studio in the neighboring square. These +intrusions he had endured at first with an air of humorous resignation which +imposed upon me less than he imagined. The woman meant well, he said, after +all, and could be trusted to keep his secret loyally. It was plain to me, +however, that Raffles did not trust her, and that his pretence upon the point +was a deliberate pose to conceal the extent to which she had him in her power. +Otherwise there would have been little point in hiding anything from the one +person in possession of the cardinal secret of his identity. +</p> + +<p> +But Raffles thought it worth his while to hoodwink Jacques Saillard in the +subsidiary matter of his health, in which Dr. Theobald lent him unwitting +assistance, and, as we have seen, to impress upon her that I was actually his +attendant, and as ignorant of his past as the doctor himself. “So +you’re all right, Bunny,” he had assured me; “she thinks you +knew nothing the other night. I told you she wasn’t a clever woman +outside her work. But hasn’t she a will!” I told Raffles it was +very considerate of him to keep me out of it, but that it seemed to me like +tying up the bag when the cat had escaped. His reply was an admission that one +must be on the defensive with such a woman and in such a case. Soon after this, +Raffles, looking far from well, fell back upon his own last line of defence, +namely, his bed; and now, as always in the end, I could see some sense in his +subtleties, since it was comparatively easy for me to turn even Jacques +Saillard from the door, with Dr. Theobald’s explicit injunctions, and +with my own honesty unquestioned. So for a day we had peace once more. Then +came letters, then the doctor again and again, and finally my dismissal in the +incredible words which have necessitated these explanations. +</p> + +<p> +“Go?” I echoed. “Go where?” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s that ass Theobald,” said Raffles. “He +insists.” +</p> + +<p> +“On my going altogether?” +</p> + +<p> +He nodded. +</p> + +<p> +“And you mean to let him have his way?” +</p> + +<p> +I had no language for my mortification and disgust, though neither was as yet +quite so great as my surprise. I had foreseen almost every conceivable +consequence of the mad act which brought all this trouble to pass, but a +voluntary division between Raffles and me had certainly never entered my +calculations. Nor could I think that it had occurred to him before our +egregious doctor’s last visit, this very morning. Raffles had looked +irritated as he broke the news to me from his pillow, and now there was some +sympathy in the way he sat up in bed, as though he felt the thing himself. +</p> + +<p> +“I am obliged to give in to the fellow,” said he. “He’s +saving me from my friend, and I’m bound to humor him. But I can tell you +that we’ve been arguing about you for the last half hour, Bunny. It was +no use; the idiot has had his knife in you from the first; and he +wouldn’t see me through on any other conditions.” +</p> + +<p> +“So he is going to see you through, is he?” +</p> + +<p> +“It tots up to that,” said Raffles, looking at me rather hard. +“At all events he has come to my rescue for the time being, and +it’s for me to manage the rest. You don’t know what it has been, +Bunny, these last few weeks; and gallantry forbids that I should tell you even +now. But would you rather elope against your will, or have your continued +existence made known to the world in general and the police in particular? That +is practically the problem which I have had to solve, and the temporary +solution was to fall ill. As a matter of fact, I am ill; and now what do you +think? I owe it to you to tell you, Bunny, though it goes against the grain. +She would take me ‘to the dear, warm underworld, where the sun really +shines,’ and she would ‘nurse me back to life and love!’ The +artistic temperament is a fearsome thing, Bunny, in a woman with the +devil’s own will!” +</p> + +<p> +Raffles tore up the letter from which he had read these piquant extracts, and +lay back on the pillows with the tired air of the veritable invalid which he +seemed able to assume at will. But for once he did look as though bed was the +best place for him; and I used the fact as an argument for my own retention in +defiance of Dr. Theobald. The town was full of typhoid, I said, and certainly +that autumnal scourge was in the air. Did he want me to leave him at the very +moment when he might be sickening for a serious illness? +</p> + +<p> +“You know I don’t, my good fellow,” said Raffles, wearily; +“but Theobald does, and I can’t afford to go against him now. Not +that I really care what happens to me now that that woman knows I’m in +the land of the living; she’ll let it out, to a dead certainty, and at +the best there’ll be a hue and cry, which is the very thing I have +escaped all these years. Now, what I want you to do is to go and take some +quiet place somewhere, and then let me know, so that I may have a port in the +storm when it breaks.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now you’re talking!” I cried, recovering my spirits. +“I thought you meant to go and drop a fellow altogether!” +</p> + +<p> +“Exactly the sort of thing you would think,” rejoined Raffles, with +a contempt that was welcome enough after my late alarm. “No, my dear +rabbit, what you’ve got to do is to make a new burrow for us both. Try +down the Thames, in some quiet nook that a literary man would naturally select. +I’ve often thought that more use might be made of a boat, while the +family are at dinner, than there ever has been yet. If Raffles is to come to +life, old chap, he shall go a-Raffling for all he’s worth! There’s +something to be done with a bicycle, too. Try Ham Common or Roehampton, or some +such sleepy hollow a trifle off the line; and say you’re expecting your +brother from the colonies.” +</p> + +<p> +Into this arrangement I entered without the slightest hesitation, for we had +funds enough to carry it out on a comfortable scale, and Raffles placed a +sufficient share at my disposal for the nonce. Moreover, I for one was only too +glad to seek fresh fields and pastures new—a phrase which I determined to +interpret literally in my choice of fresh surroundings. I was tired of our +submerged life in the poky little flat, especially now that we had money enough +for better things. I myself of late had dark dealings with the receivers, with +the result that poor Lord Ernest Belville’s successes were now indeed +ours. Subsequent complications had been the more galling on that account, while +the wanton way in which they had been created was the most irritating +reflection of all. But it had brought its own punishment upon Raffles, and I +fancied the lesson would prove salutary when we again settled down. +</p> + +<p> +“If ever we do, Bunny!” said he, as I took his hand and told him +how I was already looking forward to the time. +</p> + +<p> +“But of course we will!” I cried, concealing the resentment at +leaving him which his tone and his appearance renewed in my breast. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not so sure of it,” he said, gloomily. “I’m +in somebody’s clutches, and I’ve got to get out of them +first.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll sit tight until you do.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” he said, “if you don’t see me in ten days you +never will.” +</p> + +<p> +“Only ten days?” I echoed. “That’s nothing at +all.” +</p> + +<p> +“A lot may happen in ten days,” replied Raffles, in the same +depressing tone, so very depressing in him; and with that he held out his hand +a second time, and dropped mine suddenly after as sudden a pressure for +farewell. +</p> + +<p> +I left the flat in considerable dejection after all, unable to decide whether +Raffles was really ill, or only worried as I knew him to be. And at the foot of +the stairs the author of my dismissal, that confounded Theobald, flung open his +door and waylaid me. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you going?” he demanded. +</p> + +<p> +The traps in my hands proclaimed that I was, but I dropped them at his feet to +have it out with him then and there. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” I answered fiercely, “thanks to you!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, my good fellow,” he said, his full-blooded face lightening +and softening at the same time, as though a load were off his mind, +“it’s no pleasure to me to deprive any man of his billet, but you +never were a nurse, and you know that as well as I do.” +</p> + +<p> +I began to wonder what he meant, and how much he did know, and my speculations +kept me silent. “But come in here a moment,” he continued, just as +I decided that he knew nothing at all. And, leading me into his minute +consulting-room, Dr. Theobald solemnly presented me with a sovereign by way of +compensation, which I pocketed as solemnly, and with as much gratitude as if I +had not fifty of them distributed over my person as it was. The good fellow had +quite forgotten my social status, about which he himself had been so particular +at our earliest interview; but he had never accustomed himself to treat me as a +gentleman, and I do not suppose he had been improving his memory by the tall +tumbler which I saw him poke behind a photograph as we entered. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s one thing I should like to know before I go,” said +I, turning suddenly on the doctor’s mat, “and that is whether Mr. +Maturin is really ill or not!” +</p> + +<p> +I meant, of course, at the present moment, but Dr. Theobald braced himself like +a recruit at the drill-sergeant’s voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course he is,” he snapped—“so ill as to need a +nurse who can nurse, by way of a change.” +</p> + +<p> +With that his door shut in my face, and I had to go my way, in the dark as to +whether he had mistaken my meaning, and was telling me a lie, or not. +</p> + +<p> +But for my misgivings upon this point I might have extracted some very genuine +enjoyment out of the next few days. I had decent clothes to my back, with +money, as I say, in most of the pockets, and more freedom to spend it than was +possible in the constant society of a man whose personal liberty depended on a +universal supposition that he was dead. Raffles was as bold as ever, and I as +fond of him, but whereas he would run any risk in a professional exploit, there +were many innocent recreations still open to me which would have been sheer +madness in him. He could not even watch a match, from the sixpenny seats, at +Lord’s cricket-ground, where the Gentlemen were every year in a worse way +without him. He never travelled by rail, and dining out was a risk only to be +run with some ulterior object in view. In fact, much as it had changed, Raffles +could no longer show his face with perfect impunity in any quarter or at any +hour. Moreover, after the lesson he had now learnt, I foresaw increased caution +on his part in this respect. But I myself was under no such perpetual +disadvantage, and, while what was good enough for Raffles was quite good enough +for me so long as we were together, I saw no harm in profiting by the present +opportunity of “doing myself well.” +</p> + +<p> +Such were my reflections on the way to Richmond in a hansom cab. Richmond had +struck us both as the best centre of operations in search of the suburban +retreat which Raffles wanted, and by road, in a well-appointed, well-selected +hansom, was certainly the most agreeable way of getting there. In a week or ten +days Raffles was to write to me at the Richmond post-office, but for at least a +week I should be “on my own.” It was not an unpleasant sensation as +I leant back in the comfortable hansom, and rather to one side, in order to +have a good look at myself in the bevelled mirror that is almost as great an +improvement in these vehicles as the rubber tires. Really I was not an +ill-looking youth, if one may call one’s self such at the age of thirty. +I could lay no claim either to the striking cast of countenance or to the +peculiar charm of expression which made the face of Raffles like no other in +the world. But this very distinction was in itself a danger, for its impression +was indelible, whereas I might still have been mistaken for a hundred other +young fellows at large in London. Incredible as it may appear to the moralists, +I had sustained no external hallmark by my term of imprisonment, and I am vain +enough to believe that the evil which I did had not a separate existence in my +face. This afternoon, indeed, I was struck by the purity of my fresh +complexion, and rather depressed by the general innocence of the visage which +peered into mine from the little mirror. My straw-colored moustache, grown in +the flat after a protracted holiday, again preserved the most disappointing +dimensions, and was still invisible in certain lights without wax. So far from +discerning the desperate criminal who has “done time” once, and +deserved it over and over again, the superior but superficial observer might +have imagined that he detected a certain element of folly in my face. +</p> + +<p> +At all events it was not the face to shut the doors of a first-class hotel +against me, without accidental evidence of a more explicit kind, and it was +with no little satisfaction that I directed the man to drive to the Star and +Garter. I also told him to go through Richmond Park, though he warned me that +it would add considerably to the distance and his fare. It was autumn, and it +struck me that the tints would be fine. And I had learnt from Raffles to +appreciate such things, even amid the excitement of an audacious enterprise. +</p> + +<p> +If I dwell upon my appreciation of this occasion it is because, like most +pleasures, it was exceedingly short-lived. I was very comfortable at the Star +and Garter, which was so empty that I had a room worthy of a prince, where I +could enjoy the finest of all views (in patriotic opinion) every morning while +I shaved. I walked many miles through the noble park, over the commons of Ham +and Wimbledon, and one day as far as that of Esher, where I was forcibly +reminded of a service we once rendered to a distinguished resident in this +delightful locality. But it was on Ham Common, one of the places which Raffles +had mentioned as specially desirable, that I actually found an almost ideal +retreat. This was a cottage where I heard, on inquiry, that rooms were to be +let in the summer. The landlady, a motherly body, of visible excellence, was +surprised indeed at receiving an application for the winter months; but I have +generally found that the title of “author,” claimed with an air, +explains every little innocent irregularity of conduct or appearance, and even +requires something of the kind to carry conviction to the lay intelligence. The +present case was one in point, and when I said that I could only write in a +room facing north, on mutton chops and milk, with a cold ham in the wardrobe in +case of nocturnal inspiration, to which I was liable, my literary character was +established beyond dispute. I secured the rooms, paid a month’s rent in +advance at my own request, and moped in them dreadfully until the week was up +and Raffles due any day. I explained that the inspiration would not come, and +asked abruptly if the mutton was New Zealand. +</p> + +<p> +Thrice had I made fruitless inquiries at the Richmond post-office; but on the +tenth day I was in and out almost every hour. Not a word was there for me up to +the last post at night. Home I trudged to Ham with horrible forebodings, and +back again to Richmond after breakfast next morning. Still there was nothing. I +could bear it no more. At ten minutes to eleven I was climbing the station +stairs at Earl’s Court. +</p> + +<p> +It was a wretched morning there, a weeping mist shrouding the long, straight +street, and clinging to one’s face in clammy caresses. I felt how much +better it was down at Ham, as I turned into our side street, and saw the flats +looming like mountains, the chimney-pots hidden in the mist. At our entrance +stood a nebulous conveyance, that I took at first for a tradesman’s van; +to my horror it proved to be a hearse; and all at once the white breath ceased +upon my lips. +</p> + +<p> +I had looked up at our windows and the blinds were down! +</p> + +<p> +I rushed within. The doctor’s door stood open. I neither knocked nor +rang, but found him in his consulting-room with red eyes and a blotchy face. +Otherwise he was in solemn black from head to heel. +</p> + +<p> +“Who is dead?” I burst out. “Who is dead?” +</p> + +<p> +The red eyes looked redder than ever as Dr. Theobald opened them at the +unwarrantable sight of me; and he was terribly slow in answering. But in the +end he did answer, and did not kick me out as he evidently had a mind. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Maturin,” he said, and sighed like a beaten man. +</p> + +<p> +I said nothing. It was no surprise to me. I had known it all these minutes. +Nay, I had dreaded this from the first, had divined it at the last, though to +the last also I had refused to entertain my own conviction. Raffles dead! A +real invalid after all! Raffles dead, and on the point of burial! +</p> + +<p> +“What did he die of?” I asked, unconsciously drawing on that fund +of grim self-control which the weakest of us seem to hold in reserve for real +calamity. +</p> + +<p> +“Typhoid,” he answered. “Kensington is full of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“He was sickening for it when I left, and you knew it, and could get rid +of me then!” +</p> + +<p> +“My good fellow, I was obliged to have a more experienced nurse for that +very reason.” +</p> + +<p> +The doctor’s tone was so conciliatory that I remembered in an instant +what a humbug the man was, and became suddenly possessed with the vague +conviction that he was imposing upon me now. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you sure it was typhoid at all?” I cried fiercely to his face. +“Are you sure it wasn’t suicide—or murder?” +</p> + +<p> +I confess that I can see little point in this speech as I write it down, but it +was what I said in a burst of grief and of wild suspicion; nor was it without +effect upon Dr. Theobald, who turned bright scarlet from his well-brushed hair +to his immaculate collar. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you want me to throw you out into the street?” he cried; and +all at once I remembered that I had come to Raffles as a perfect stranger, and +for his sake might as well preserve that character to the last. +</p> + +<p> +“I beg your pardon,” I said, brokenly. “He was so good to +me—I became so attached to him. You forget I am originally of his +class.” +</p> + +<p> +“I did forget it,” replied Theobald, looking relieved at my new +tone, “and I beg <i>your</i> pardon for doing so. Hush! They are bringing +him down. I must have a drink before we start, and you’d better join +me.” +</p> + +<p> +There was no pretence about his drink this time, and a pretty stiff one it was, +but I fancy my own must have run it hard. In my case it cast a merciful haze +over much of the next hour, which I can truthfully describe as one of the most +painful of my whole existence. I can have known very little of what I was +doing. I only remember finding myself in a hansom, suddenly wondering why it +was going so slowly, and once more awaking to the truth. But it was to the +truth itself more than to the liquor that I must have owed my dazed condition. +My next recollection is of looking down into the open grave, in a sudden +passionate anxiety to see the name for myself. It was not the name of my +friend, of course, but it was the one under which he had passed for many +months. +</p> + +<p> +I was still stupefied by a sense of inconceivable loss, and had not raised my +eyes from that which was slowly forcing me to realize what had happened, when +there was a rustle at my elbow, and a shower of hothouse flowers passed before +them, falling like huge snowflakes where my gaze had rested. I looked up, and +at my side stood a majestic figure in deep mourning. The face was carefully +veiled, but I was too close not to recognize the masterful beauty whom the +world knew as Jacques Saillard. I had no sympathy with her; on the contrary, my +blood boiled with the vague conviction that in some way she was responsible for +this death. Yet she was the only woman present—there were not a half a +dozen of us altogether—and her flowers were the only flowers. +</p> + +<p> +The melancholy ceremony was over, and Jacques Saillard had departed in a +funeral brougham, evidently hired for the occasion. I had watched her drive +away, and the sight of my own cabman, making signs to me through the fog, had +suddenly reminded me that I had bidden him to wait. I was the last to leave, +and had turned my back upon the grave-diggers, already at their final task, +when a hand fell lightly but firmly upon my shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t want to make a scene in a cemetery,” said a voice, +in a not unkindly, almost confidential whisper. “Will you get into your +own cab and come quietly?” +</p> + +<p> +“Who on earth are you?” I exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +I now remembered having seen the fellow hovering about during the funeral, and +subconsciously taking him for the undertaker’s head man. He had certainly +that appearance, and even now I could scarcely believe that he was anything +else. +</p> + +<p> +“My name won’t help you,” he said, pityingly. “But you +will guess where I come from when I tell you I have a warrant for your +arrest.” +</p> + +<p> +My sensations at this announcement may not be believed, but I solemnly declare +that I have seldom experienced so fierce a satisfaction. Here was a new +excitement in which to drown my grief; here was something to think about; and I +should be spared the intolerable experience of a solitary return to the little +place at Ham. It was as though I had lost a limb and some one had struck me so +hard in the face that the greater agony was forgotten. I got into the hansom +without a word, my captor following at my heels, and giving his own directions +to the cabman before taking his seat. The word “station” was the +only one I caught, and I wondered whether it was to be Bow Street again. My +companion’s next words, however, or rather the tone in which he uttered +them, destroyed my capacity for idle speculation. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Maturin!” said he. “Mr. Maturin indeed!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said I, “what about him?” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you think we don’t know who he was?” +</p> + +<p> +“Who was he?” I asked, defiantly. +</p> + +<p> +“You ought to know,” said he. “You got locked up through him +the other time, too. His favorite name was Raffles then.” +</p> + +<p> +“It was his real name,” I said, indignantly. “And he has been +dead for years.” +</p> + +<p> +My captor simply chuckled. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s at the bottom of the sea, I tell you!” +</p> + +<p> +But I do not know why I should have told him with such spirit, for what could +it matter to Raffles now? I did not think; instinct was still stronger than +reason, and, fresh from his funeral, I had taken up the cudgels for my dead +friend as though he were still alive. Next moment I saw this for myself, and my +tears came nearer the surface than they had been yet; but the fellow at my side +laughed outright. +</p> + +<p> +“Shall I tell you something else?” said he. +</p> + +<p> +“As you like.” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s not even at the bottom of that grave! He’s no more dead +than you or I, and a sham burial is his latest piece of villainy!” +</p> + +<p> +I doubt whether I could have spoken if I had tried. I did not try. I had no use +for speech. I did not even ask him if he was sure, I was so sure myself. It was +all as plain to me as riddles usually are when one has the answer. The +doctor’s alarms, his unscrupulous venality, the simulated illness, my own +dismissal, each fitted in its obvious place, and not even the last had power as +yet to mar my joy in the one central fact to which all the rest were as tapers +to the sun. +</p> + +<p> +“He is alive!” I cried. “Nothing else matters—he is +alive!” +</p> + +<p> +At last I did ask whether they had got him too; but thankful as I was for the +greater knowledge, I confess that I did not much care what answer I received. +Already I was figuring out how much we might each get, and how old we should be +when we came out. But my companion tilted his hat to the back of his head, at +the same time putting his face close to mine, and compelling my scrutiny. And +my answer, as you have already guessed, was the face of Raffles himself, +superbly disguised (but less superbly than his voice), and yet so thinly that I +should have known him in a trice had I not been too miserable in the beginning +to give him a second glance. +</p> + +<p> +Jacques Saillard had made his life impossible, and this was the one escape. +Raffles had bought the doctor for a thousand pounds, and the doctor had bought +a “nurse” of his own kidney, on his own account; me, for some +reason, he would not trust; he had insisted upon my dismissal as an essential +preliminary to his part in the conspiracy. Here the details were half-humorous, +half-grewsome, each in turn as Raffles told me the story. At one period he had +been very daringly drugged indeed, and, in his own words, “as dead as a +man need be”; but he had left strict instructions that nobody but the +nurse and “my devoted physician” should “lay a finger on +me” afterwards; and by virtue of this proviso a library of books (largely +acquired for the occasion) had been impiously interred at Kensal Green. Raffles +had definitely undertaken not to trust me with the secret, and, but for my +untoward appearance at the funeral (which he had attended for his own final +satisfaction), I was assured and am convinced that he would have kept his +promise to the letter. In explaining this he gave me the one explanation I +desired, and in another moment we turned into Praed Street, Paddington. +</p> + +<p> +“And I thought you said Bow Street!” said I. “Are you coming +straight down to Richmond with me?” +</p> + +<p> +“I may as well,” said Raffles, “though I did mean to get my +kit first, so as to start in fair and square as the long-lost brother from the +bush. That’s why I hadn’t written. The function was a day later +than I calculated. I was going to write to-night.” +</p> + +<p> +“But what are we to do?” said I, hesitating when he had paid the +cab. “I have been playing the colonies for all they are worth!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I’ve lost my luggage,” said he, “or a wave came +into my cabin and spoilt every stitch, or I had nothing fit to bring ashore. +We’ll settle that in the train.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap07"></a>THE WRONG HOUSE</h2> + +<p> +My brother Ralph, who now lived with me on the edge of Ham Common, had come +home from Australia with a curious affection of the eyes, due to long exposure +to the glare out there, and necessitating the use of clouded spectacles in the +open air. He had not the rich complexion of the typical colonist, being indeed +peculiarly pale, but it appeared that he had been confined to his berth for the +greater part of the voyage, while his prematurely gray hair was sufficient +proof that the rigors of bush life had at last undermined an originally tough +constitution. Our landlady, who spoilt my brother from the first, was much +concerned on his behalf, and wished to call in the local doctor; but Ralph said +dreadful things about the profession, and quite frightened the good woman by +arbitrarily forbidding her ever to let a doctor inside her door. I had to +apologize to her for the painful prejudices and violent language of +“these colonists,” but the old soul was easily mollified. She had +fallen in love with my brother at first sight, and she never could do too much +for him. It was owing to our landlady that I took to calling him Ralph, for the +first time in our lives, on her beginning to speak of and to him as “Mr. +Raffles.” +</p> + +<p> +“This won’t do,” said he to me. “It’s a name that +sticks.” +</p> + +<p> +“It must be my fault! She must have heard it from me,” said I +self-reproachfully. +</p> + +<p> +“You must tell her it’s the short for Ralph.” +</p> + +<p> +“But it’s longer.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s the short,” said he; “and you’ve got to +tell her so.” +</p> + +<p> +Henceforth I heard as much of “Mr. Ralph,” his likes and dislikes, +what he would fancy and what he would not, and oh, what a dear gentleman he +was, that I often remembered to say “Ralph, old chap,” myself. +</p> + +<p> +It was an ideal cottage, as I said when I found it, and in it our delicate man +became rapidly robust. Not that the air was also ideal, for, when it was not +raining, we had the same faithful mist from November to March. But it was +something to Ralph to get any air at all, other than night-air, and the bicycle +did the rest. We taught ourselves, and may I never forget our earlier rides, +through and through Richmond Park when the afternoons were shortest, upon the +incomparable Ripley Road when we gave a day to it. Raffles rode a Beeston +Humber, a Royal Sunbeam was good enough for me, but he insisted on our both +having Dunlop tires. +</p> + +<p> +“They seem the most popular brand. I had my eye on the road all the way +from Ripley to Cobham, and there were more Dunlop marks than any other kind. +Bless you, yes, they all leave their special tracks, and we don’t want +ours to be extra special; the Dunlop’s like a rattlesnake, and the Palmer +leaves telegraph-wires, but surely the serpent is more in our line.” +</p> + +<p> +That was the winter when there were so many burglaries in the Thames Valley +from Richmond upward. It was said that the thieves used bicycles in every case, +but what is not said? They were sometimes on foot to my knowledge, and we took +a great interest in the series, or rather sequence of successful crimes. +Raffles would often get his devoted old lady to read him the latest local +accounts, while I was busy with my writing (much I wrote) in my own room. We +even rode out by night ourselves, to see if we could not get on the tracks of +the thieves, and never did we fail to find hot coffee on the hob for our +return. We had indeed fallen upon our feet. Also, the misty nights might have +been made for the thieves. But their success was not so consistent, and never +so enormous as people said, especially the sufferers, who lost more valuables +than they had ever been known to possess. Failure was often the caitiffs’ +portion, and disaster once; owing, ironically enough, to that very mist which +should have served them. But as I am going to tell the story with some +particularity, and perhaps some gusto, you will see why who read. +</p> + +<p> +The right house stood on high ground near the river, with quite a drive (in at +one gate and out at the other) sweeping past the steps. Between the two gates +was a half-moon of shrubs, to the left of the steps a conservatory, and to +their right the walk leading to the tradesmen’s entrance and the back +premises; here also was the pantry window, of which more anon. The right house +was the residence of an opulent stockbroker who wore a heavy watch-chain and +seemed fair game. There would have been two objections to it had I been the +stockbroker. The house was one of a row, though a goodly row, and an +army-crammer had established himself next door. There is a type of such +institutions in the suburbs; the youths go about in knickerbockers, smoking +pipes, except on Saturday nights, when they lead each other home from the last +train. It was none of our business to spy upon these boys, but their manners +and customs fell within the field of observation. And we did not choose the +night upon which the whole row was likely to be kept awake. +</p> + +<p> +The night that we did choose was as misty as even the Thames Valley is capable +of making them. Raffles smeared vaseline upon the plated parts of his Beeston +Humber before starting, and our dear landlady cosseted us both, and prayed we +might see nothing of the nasty burglars, not denying as the reward would be +very handy to them that got it, to say nothing of the honor and glory. We had +promised her a liberal perquisite in the event of our success, but she must not +give other cyclists our idea by mentioning it to a soul. It was about midnight +when we cycled through Kingston to Surbiton, having trundled our machines +across Ham Fields, mournful in the mist as those by Acheron, and so over +Teddington Bridge. +</p> + +<p> +I often wonder why the pantry window is the vulnerable point of nine houses out +of ten. This house of ours was almost the tenth, for the window in question had +bars of sorts, but not the right sort. The only bars that Raffles allowed to +beat him were the kind that are let into the stone outside; those fixed within +are merely screwed to the woodwork, and you can unscrew as many as necessary if +you take the trouble and have the time. Barred windows are usually devoid of +other fasteners worthy the name; this one was no exception to that foolish +rule, and a push with the pen-knife did its business. I am giving householders +some valuable hints, and perhaps deserving a good mark from the critics. These, +in any case, are the points that I would see to, were I a rich stockbroker in a +riverside suburb. In giving good advice, however, I should not have omitted to +say that we had left our machines in the semi-circular shrubbery in front, or +that Raffles had most ingeniously fitted our lamps with dark slides, which +enabled us to leave them burning. +</p> + +<p> +It proved sufficient to unscrew the bars at the bottom only, and then to wrench +them to either side. Neither of us had grown stout with advancing years, and in +a few minutes we both had wormed through into the sink, and thence to the +floor. It was not an absolutely noiseless process, but once in the pantry we +were mice, and no longer blind mice. There was a gas-bracket, but we did not +meddle with that. Raffles went armed these nights with a better light than gas; +if it were not immoral, I might recommend a dark-lantern which was more or less +his patent. It was that handy invention, the electric torch, fitted by Raffles +with a dark hood to fulfil the functions of a slide. I had held it through the +bars while he undid the screws, and now he held it to the keyhole, in which a +key was turned upon the other side. +</p> + +<p> +There was a pause for consideration, and in the pause we put on our masks. It +was never known that these Thames Valley robberies were all committed by +miscreants decked in the livery of crime, but that was because until this night +we had never even shown our masks. It was a point upon which Raffles had +insisted on all feasible occasions since his furtive return to the world. +To-night it twice nearly lost us everything—but you shall hear. +</p> + +<p> +There is a forceps for turning keys from the wrong side of the door, but the +implement is not so easy of manipulation as it might be. Raffles for one +preferred a sharp knife and the corner of the panel. You go through the panel +because that is thinnest, of course in the corner nearest the key, and you use +a knife when you can, because it makes least noise. But it does take minutes, +and even I can remember shifting the electric torch from one hand to the other +before the aperture was large enough to receive the hand and wrist of Raffles. +</p> + +<p> +He had at such times a motto of which I might have made earlier use, but the +fact is that I have only once before described a downright burglary in which I +assisted, and that without knowing it at the time. The most solemn student of +these annals cannot affirm that he has cut through many doors in our company, +since (what was to me) the maiden effort to which I allude. I, however, have +cracked only too many a crib in conjunction with A. J. Raffles, and at the +crucial moment he would whisper “Victory or Wormwood Scrubbs, +Bunny!” or instead of Wormwood Scrubbs it might be Portland Bill. This +time it was neither one nor the other, for with that very word +“victory” upon his lips, they whitened and parted with the first +taste of defeat. +</p> + +<p> +“My hand’s held!” gasped Raffles, and the white of his eyes +showed all round the iris, a rarer thing than you may think. +</p> + +<p> +At the same moment I heard the shuffling feet and the low, excited young voices +on the other side of the door, and a faint light shone round Raffles’s +wrist. +</p> + +<p> +“Well done, Beefy!” +</p> + +<p> +“Hang on to him!” +</p> + +<p> +“Good old Beefy!” +</p> + +<p> +“Beefy’s got him!” +</p> + +<p> +“So have I—so have I!” +</p> + +<p> +And Raffles caught my arm with his one free hand. “They’ve got me +tight,” he whispered. “I’m done.” +</p> + +<p> +“Blaze through the door,” I urged, and might have done it had I +been armed. But I never was. It was Raffles who monopolized that risk. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t—it’s the boys—the wrong house!” he +whispered. “Curse the fog—it’s done me. But you get out, +Bunny, while you can; never mind me; it’s my turn, old chap.” +</p> + +<p> +His one hand tightened in affectionate farewell. I put the electric torch in it +before I went, trembling in every inch, but without a word. +</p> + +<p> +Get out! His turn! Yes, I would get out, but only to come in again, for it was +my turn—mine—not his. Would Raffles leave me held by a hand through +a hole in a door? What he would have done in my place was the thing for me to +do now. I began by diving head-first through the pantry window and coming to +earth upon all fours. But even as I stood up, and brushed the gravel from the +palms of my hands and the knees of my knickerbockers, I had no notion what to +do next. And yet I was halfway to the front door before I remembered the vile +crape mask upon my face, and tore it off as the door flew open and my feet were +on the steps. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s into the next garden,” I cried to a bevy of pyjamas +with bare feet and young faces at either end of them. +</p> + +<p> +“Who? Who?” said they, giving way before me. +</p> + +<p> +“Some fellow who came through one of your windows head-first.” +</p> + +<p> +“The other Johnny, the other Johnny,” the cherubs chorused. +</p> + +<p> +“Biking past—saw the light—why, what have you there?” +</p> + +<p> +Of course it was Raffles’s hand that they had, but now I was in the hall +among them. A red-faced barrel of a boy did all the holding, one hand round the +wrist, the other palm to palm, and his knees braced up against the panel. +Another was rendering ostentatious but ineffectual aid, and three or four +others danced about in their pyjamas. After all, they were not more than four +to one. I had raised my voice, so that Raffles might hear me and take heart, +and now I raised it again. Yet to this day I cannot account for my inspiration, +that proved nothing less. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t talk so loud,” they were crying below their breath; +“don’t wake ’em upstairs, this is our show.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then I see you’ve got one of them,” said I, as desired. +“Well, if you want the other you can have him, too. I believe he’s +hurt himself.” +</p> + +<p> +“After him, after him!” they exclaimed as one. +</p> + +<p> +“But I think he got over the wall—” +</p> + +<p> +“Come on, you chaps, come on!” +</p> + +<p> +And there was a soft stampede to the hall door. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t all desert me, I say!” gasped the red-faced hero who +held Raffles prisoner. +</p> + +<p> +“We must have them both, Beefy!” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s all very well—” +</p> + +<p> +“Look here,” I interposed, “I’ll stay by you. +I’ve a friend outside, I’ll get him too.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thanks awfully,” said the valiant Beefy. +</p> + +<p> +The hall was empty now. My heart beat high. +</p> + +<p> +“How did you hear them?” I inquired, my eye running over him. +</p> + +<p> +“We were down having drinks—game o’ Nap—in +there.” +</p> + +<p> +Beefy jerked his great head toward an open door, and the tail of my eye caught +the glint of glasses in the firelight, but the rest of it was otherwise +engaged. +</p> + +<p> +“Let me relieve you,” I said, trembling. +</p> + +<p> +“No, I’m all right.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then I must insist.” +</p> + +<p> +And before he could answer I had him round the neck with such a will that not a +gurgle passed my fingers, for they were almost buried in his hot, smooth flesh. +Oh, I am not proud of it; the act was as vile as act could be; but I was not +going to see Raffles taken, my one desire was to be the saving of him, and I +tremble even now to think to what lengths I might have gone for its fulfilment. +As it was, I squeezed and tugged until one strong hand gave way after the other +and came feeling round for me, but feebly because they had held on so long. And +what do you suppose was happening at the same moment? The pinched white hand of +Raffles, reddening with returning blood, and with a clot of blood upon the +wrist, was craning upward and turning the key in the lock without a +moment’s loss. +</p> + +<p> +“Steady on, Bunny!” +</p> + +<p> +And I saw that Beefy’s ears were blue; but Raffles was feeling in his +pockets as he spoke. “Now let him breathe,” said he, clapping his +handkerchief over the poor youth’s mouth. An empty vial was in his other +hand, and the first few stertorous breaths that the poor boy took were the end +of him for the time being. Oh, but it was villainous, my part especially, for +he must have been far gone to go the rest of the way so readily. I began by +saying I was not proud of this deed, but its dastardly character has come home +to me more than ever with the penance of writing it out. I see in myself, at +least my then self, things that I never saw quite so clearly before. Yet let me +be quite sure that I would not do the same again. I had not the smallest desire +to throttle this innocent lad (nor did I), but only to extricate Raffles from +the most hopeless position he was ever in; and after all it was better than a +blow from behind. On the whole, I will not alter a word, nor whine about the +thing any more. +</p> + +<p> +We lifted the plucky fellow into Raffles’s place in the pantry, locked +the door on him, and put the key through the panel. Now was the moment for +thinking of ourselves, and again that infernal mask which Raffles swore by came +near the undoing of us both. We had reached the steps when we were hailed by a +voice, not from without but from within, and I had just time to tear the +accursed thing from Raffles’s face before he turned. +</p> + +<p> +A stout man with a blonde moustache was on the stairs, in his pyjamas like the +boys. +</p> + +<p> +“What are you doing here?” said he. +</p> + +<p> +“There has been an attempt upon your house,” said I, still +spokesman for the night, and still on the wings of inspiration. +</p> + +<p> +“Your sons—” +</p> + +<p> +“My pupils.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed. Well, they heard it, drove off the thieves, and have given +chase.” +</p> + +<p> +“And where do you come in?” inquired the stout man, descending. +</p> + +<p> +“We were bicycling past, and I actually saw one fellow come head-first +through your pantry window. I think he got over the wall.” +</p> + +<p> +Here a breathless boy returned. +</p> + +<p> +“Can’t see anything of him,” he gasped. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s true, then,” remarked the crammer. +</p> + +<p> +“Look at that door,” said I. +</p> + +<p> +But unfortunately the breathless boy looked also, and now he was being joined +by others equally short of wind. +</p> + +<p> +“Where’s Beefy?” he screamed. “What on earth’s +happened to Beefy?” +</p> + +<p> +“My good boys,” exclaimed the crammer, “will one of you be +kind enough to tell me what you’ve been doing, and what these gentlemen +have been doing for you? Come in all, before you get your death. I see lights +in the class-room, and more than lights. Can these be signs of a +carouse?” +</p> + +<p> +“A very innocent one, sir,” said a well set-up youth with more +moustache than I have yet. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Olphert, boys will be boys. Suppose you tell me what happened, +before we come to recriminations.” +</p> + +<p> +The bad old proverb was my first warning. I caught two of the youths exchanging +glances under raised eyebrows. Yet their stout, easy-going mentor had given me +such a reassuring glance of side-long humor, as between man of the world and +man of the world, that it was difficult to suspect him of suspicion. I was +nevertheless itching to be gone. +</p> + +<p> +Young Olphert told his story with engaging candor. It was true that they had +come down for an hour’s Nap and cigarettes; well, and there was no +denying that there was whiskey in the glasses. The boys were now all back in +their class-room, I think entirely for the sake of warmth; but Raffles and I +were in knickerbockers and Norfolk jackets, and very naturally remained +without, while the army-crammer (who wore bedroom slippers) stood on the +threshold, with an eye each way. The more I saw of the man the better I liked +and the more I feared him. His chief annoyance thus far was that they had not +called him when they heard the noise, that they had dreamt of leaving him out +of the fun. But he seemed more hurt than angry about that. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, sir,” concluded Olphert, “we left old Beefy Smith +hanging on to his hand, and this gentleman with him, so perhaps he can tell us +what happened next?” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish I could,” I cried with all their eyes upon me, for I had +had time to think. “Some of you must have heard me say I’d fetch my +friend in from the road?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I did,” piped an innocent from within. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, and when I came back with him things were exactly as you see them +now. Evidently the man’s strength was too much for the boy’s; but +whether he ran upstairs or outside I know no more than you do.” +</p> + +<p> +“It wasn’t like that boy to run either way,” said the +crammer, cocking a clear blue eye on me. +</p> + +<p> +“But if he gave chase!” +</p> + +<p> +“It wasn’t like him even to let go.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t believe Beefy ever would,” put in Olphert. +“That’s why we gave him the billet.” +</p> + +<p> +“He may have followed him through the pantry window,” I suggested +wildly. +</p> + +<p> +“But the door’s shut,” put in a boy. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll have a look at it,” said the crammer. +</p> + +<p> +And the key no longer in the lock, and the insensible youth within! The key +would be missed, the door kicked in; nay, with the man’s eye still upon +me, I thought I could smell the chloroform. +</p> + +<p> +I thought I could hear a moan, and prepared for either any moment. And how he +did stare! I have detested blue eyes ever since, and blonde moustaches, and the +whole stout easy-going type that is not such a fool as it looks. I had brazened +it out with the boys, but the first grown man was too many for me, and the +blood ran out of my heart as though there was no Raffles at my back. Indeed, I +had forgotten him. I had so longed to put this thing through by myself! Even in +my extremity it was almost a disappointment to me when his dear, cool voice +fell like a delicious draught upon my ears. But its effect upon the others is +more interesting to recall. Until now the crammer had the centre of the stage, +but at this point Raffles usurped a place which was always his at will. People +would wait for what he had to say, as these people waited now for the simplest +and most natural thing in the world. +</p> + +<p> +“One moment!” he had begun. +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” said the crammer, relieving me of his eyes at last. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t want to lose any of the fun—” +</p> + +<p> +“Nor must you,” said the crammer, with emphasis. +</p> + +<p> +“But we’ve left our bikes outside, and mine’s a Beeston +Humber,” continued Raffles. “If you don’t mind, we’ll +bring ’em in before these fellows get away on them.” +</p> + +<p> +And out he went without a look to see the effect of his words, I after him with +a determined imitation of his self-control. But I would have given something to +turn round. I believe that for one moment the shrewd instructor was taken in, +but as I reached the steps I heard him asking his pupils whether any of them +had seen any bicycles outside. +</p> + +<p> +That moment, however, made the difference. We were in the shrubbery, Raffles +with his electric torch drawn and blazing, when we heard the kicking at the +pantry door, and in the drive with our bicycles before man and boys poured +pell-mell down the steps. +</p> + +<p> +We rushed our machines to the nearer gate, for both were shut, and we got +through and swung it home behind us in the nick of time. Even I could mount +before they could reopen the gate, which Raffles held against them for half an +instant with unnecessary gallantry. But he would see me in front of him, and so +it fell to me to lead the way. +</p> + +<p> +Now, I have said that it was a very misty night (hence the whole thing), and +also that these houses were on a hill. But they were not nearly on the top of +the hill, and I did what I firmly believe that almost everybody would have done +in my place. Raffles, indeed, said he would have done it himself, but that was +his generosity, and he was the one man who would not. What I did was to turn in +the opposite direction to the other gate, where we might so easily have been +cut off, and to pedal for my life—up-hill! +</p> + +<p> +“My God!” I shouted when I found it out. +</p> + +<p> +“Can you turn in your own length?” asked Raffles, following +loyally. +</p> + +<p> +“Not certain.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then stick to it. You couldn’t help it. But it’s the devil +of a hill!” +</p> + +<p> +“And here they come!” +</p> + +<p> +“Let them,” said Raffles, and brandished his electric torch, our +only light as yet. +</p> + +<p> +A hill seems endless in the dark, for you cannot see the end, and with the +patter of bare feet gaining on us, I thought this one could have no end at all. +Of course the boys could charge up it quicker than we could pedal, but I even +heard the voice of their stout instructor growing louder through the mist. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, to think I’ve let you in for this!” I groaned, my head +over the handle-bars, every ounce of my weight first on one foot and then on +the other. I glanced at Raffles, and in the white light of his torch he was +doing it all with his ankles, exactly as though he had been riding in a +Gymkhana. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s the most sporting chase I was ever in,” said he. +</p> + +<p> +“All my fault!” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear Bunny, I wouldn’t have missed it for the world!” +</p> + +<p> +Nor would he forge ahead of me, though he could have done so in a moment, he +who from his boyhood had done everything of the kind so much better than +anybody else. No, he must ride a wheel’s length behind me, and now we +could not only hear the boys running, but breathing also. And then of a sudden +I saw Raffles on my right striking with his torch; a face flew out of the +darkness to meet the thick glass bulb with the glowing wire enclosed; it was +the face of the boy Olphert, with his enviable moustache, but it vanished with +the crash of glass, and the naked wire thickened to the eye like a tuning-fork +struck red-hot. +</p> + +<p> +I saw no more of that. One of them had crept up on my side also; as I looked, +hearing him pant, he was grabbing at my left handle, and I nearly sent Raffles +into the hedge by the sharp turn I took to the right. His wheel’s length +saved him. But my boy could run, was overhauling me again, seemed certain of me +this time, when all at once the Sunbeam ran easily; every ounce of my weight +with either foot once more, and I was over the crest of the hill, the gray road +reeling out from under me as I felt for my brake. I looked back at Raffles. He +had put up his feet. I screwed my head round still further, and there were the +boys in their pyjamas, their hands upon their knees, like so many +wicket-keepers, and a big man shaking his fist. There was a lamp-post on the +hill-top, and that was the last I saw. +</p> + +<p> +We sailed down to the river, then on through Thames Ditton as far as Esher +Station, when we turned sharp to the right, and from the dark stretch by Imber +Court came to light in Molesey, and were soon pedalling like gentlemen of +leisure through Bushey Park, our lights turned up, the broken torch put out and +away. The big gates had long been shut, but you can manoeuvre a bicycle through +the others. We had no further adventures on the way home, and our coffee was +still warm upon the hob. +</p> + +<p> +“But I think it’s an occasion for Sullivans,” said Raffles, +who now kept them for such. “By all my gods, Bunny, it’s been the +most sporting night we ever had in our lives! And do you know which was the +most sporting part of it?” +</p> + +<p> +“That up-hill ride?” +</p> + +<p> +“I wasn’t thinking of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Turning your torch into a truncheon?” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear Bunny! A gallant lad—I hated hitting him.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know,” I said. “The way you got us out of the +house!” +</p> + +<p> +“No, Bunny,” said Raffles, blowing rings. “It came before +that, you sinner, and you know it!” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t mean anything I did?” said I, self-consciously, +for I began to see that this was what he did mean. And now at latest it will +also be seen why this story has been told with undue and inexcusable gusto; +there is none other like it for me to tell; it is my one ewe-lamb in all these +annals. But Raffles had a ruder name for it. +</p> + +<p> +“It was the Apotheosis of the Bunny,” said he, but in a tone I +never shall forget. +</p> + +<p> +“I hardly knew what I was doing or saying,” I said. “The +whole thing was a fluke.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then,” said Raffles, “it was the kind of fluke I always +trusted you to make when runs were wanted.” +</p> + +<p> +And he held out his dear old hand. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap08"></a>THE KNEES OF THE GODS</h2> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p> +“The worst of this war,” said Raffles, “is the way it puts a +fellow off his work.” +</p> + +<p> +It was, of course, the winter before last, and we had done nothing dreadful +since the early autumn. Undoubtedly the war was the cause. Not that we were +among the earlier victims of the fever. I took disgracefully little interest in +the Negotiations, while the Ultimatum appealed to Raffles as a sporting +flutter. Then we gave the whole thing till Christmas. We still missed the +cricket in the papers. But one russet afternoon we were in Richmond, and a +terrible type was shouting himself hoarse with “’Eavy British +lorsses—orful slorter o’ the Bo-wers! Orful slorter! Orful slorter! +’Eavy British lorsses!” I thought the terrible type had invented +it, but Raffles gave him more than he asked, and then I held the bicycle while +he tried to pronounce Eland’s Laagte. We were never again without our +sheaf of evening papers, and Raffles ordered three morning ones, and I gave up +mine in spite of its literary page. We became strategists. We knew exactly what +Buller was to do on landing, and, still better, what the other Generals should +have done. Our map was the best that could be bought, with flags that deserved +a better fate than standing still. Raffles woke me to hear <i>The Absent-Minded +Beggar</i> on the morning it appeared; he was one of the first substantial +subscribers to the fund. By this time our dear landlady was more excited than +we. To our enthusiasm for Thomas she added a personal bitterness against the +Wild Boars, as she persisted in calling them, each time as though it were the +first. I could linger over our landlady’s attitude in the whole matter. +That was her only joke about it, and the true humorist never smiled at it +herself. But you had only to say a syllable for a venerable gentleman, declared +by her to be at the bottom of it all, to hear what she could do to him if she +caught him. She could put him in a cage and go on tour with him, and make him +howl and dance for his food like a debased bear before a fresh audience every +day. Yet a more kind-hearted woman I have never known. The war did not uplift +our landlady as it did her lodgers. +</p> + +<p> +But presently it ceased to have that precise effect upon us. Bad was being made +worse and worse; and then came more than Englishmen could endure in that black +week across which the names of three African villages are written forever in +letters of blood. “All three pegs,” groaned Raffles on the last +morning of the week; “neck-and-crop, neck-and-crop!” It was his +first word of cricket since the beginning of the war. +</p> + +<p> +We were both depressed. Old school-fellows had fallen, and I know Raffles +envied them; he spoke so wistfully of such an end. To cheer him up I proposed +to break into one of the many more or less royal residences in our +neighborhood; a tough crib was what he needed; but I will not trouble you with +what he said to me. There was less crime in England that winter than for years +past; there was none at all in Raffles. And yet there were those who could +denounce the war! +</p> + +<p> +So we went on for a few of those dark days, Raffles very glum and grim, till +one fine morning the Yeomanry idea put new heart into us all. It struck me at +once as the glorious scheme it was to prove, but it did not hit me where it hit +others. I was not a fox-hunter, and the gentlemen of England would scarcely +have owned me as one of them. The case of Raffles was in that respect still +more hopeless (he who had even played for them at Lord’s), and he seemed +to feel it. He would not speak to me all the morning; in the afternoon he went +for a walk alone. It was another man who came home, flourishing a small bottle +packed in white paper. +</p> + +<p> +“Bunny,” said he, “I never did lift my elbow; it’s the +one vice I never had. It has taken me all these years to find my tipple, Bunny; +but here it is, my panacea, my elixir, my magic philtre!” +</p> + +<p> +I thought he had been at it on the road, and asked him the name of the stuff. +</p> + +<p> +“Look and see, Bunny.” +</p> + +<p> +And if it wasn’t a bottle of ladies’ hair-dye, warranted to change +any shade into the once fashionable yellow within a given number of +applications! +</p> + +<p> +“What on earth,” said I, “are you going to do with +this?” +</p> + +<p> +“Dye for my country,” he cried, swelling. “Dulce et decorum +est, Bunny, my boy!” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you mean that you are going to the front?” +</p> + +<p> +“If I can without coming to it.” +</p> + +<p> +I looked at him as he stood in the firelight, straight as a dart, spare but +wiry, alert, laughing, flushed from his wintry walk; and as I looked, all the +years that I had known him, and more besides, slipped from him in my eyes. I +saw him captain of the eleven at school. I saw him running with the muddy ball +on days like this, running round the other fifteen as a sheep-dog round a flock +of sheep. He had his cap on still, and but for the gray hairs +underneath—but here I lost him in a sudden mist. It was not sorrow at his +going, for I did not mean to let him go alone. It was enthusiasm, admiration, +affection, and also, I believe, a sudden regret that he had not always appealed +to that part of my nature to which he was appealing now. It was a little thrill +of penitence. Enough of it. +</p> + +<p> +“I think it great of you,” I said, and at first that was all. +</p> + +<p> +How he laughed at me! He had had his innings; there was no better way of +getting out. He had scored off an African millionaire, the Players, a +Queensland Legislator, the Camorra, the late Lord Ernest Belville, and again +and again off Scotland Yard. What more could one man do in one lifetime? And at +the worst it was the death to die: no bed, no doctor, no temperature—and +Raffles stopped himself. +</p> + +<p> +“No pinioning, no white cap,” he added, “if you like that +better.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t like any of it,” I cried, cordially; +“you’ve simply got to come back.” +</p> + +<p> +“To what?” he asked, a strange look on him. And I +wondered—for one instant—whether my little thrill had gone through +him. He was not a man of little thrills. +</p> + +<p> +Then for a minute I was in misery. Of course I wanted to go too—he shook +my hand without a word—but how could I? They would never have me, a +branded jailbird, in the Imperial Yeomanry! Raffles burst out laughing; he had +been looking very hard at me for about three seconds. +</p> + +<p> +“You rabbit,” he cried, “even to think of it! We might as +well offer ourselves to the Metropolitan Police Force. No, Bunny, we go out to +the Cape on our own, and that’s where we enlist. One of these regiments +of irregular horse is the thing for us; you spent part of your pretty penny on +horse-flesh, I believe, and you remember how I rode in the bush! We’re +the very men for them, Bunny, and they won’t ask to see our birthmarks +out there. I don’t think even my hoary locks would put them off, but it +would be too conspicuous in the ranks.” +</p> + +<p> +Our landlady first wept on hearing our determination, and then longed to have +the pulling of certain whiskers (with the tongs, and they should be red-hot); +but from that day, and for as many as were left to us, the good soul made more +of us than ever. Not that she was at all surprised; dear brave gentlemen who +could look for burglars on their bicycles at dead of night, it was only what +you might expect of them, bless their lion hearts. I wanted to wink at Raffles, +but he would not catch my eye. He was a ginger-headed Raffles by the end of +January, and it was extraordinary what a difference it made. His most elaborate +disguises had not been more effectual than this simple expedient, and, with +khaki to complete the subdual of his individuality, he had every hope of +escaping recognition in the field. The man he dreaded was the officer he had +known in old days; there were ever so many of him at the Front; and it was to +minimize this risk that we went out second-class at the beginning of February. +</p> + +<p> +It was a weeping day, a day in a shroud, cold as clay, yet for that very reason +an ideal day upon which to leave England for the sunny Front. Yet my heart was +heavy as I looked my last at her; it was heavy as the raw, thick air, until +Raffles came and leant upon the rail at my side. +</p> + +<p> +“I know what you are thinking, and you’ve got to stop,” said +he. “It’s on the knees of the gods, Bunny, whether we do or we +don’t, and thinking won’t make us see over their shoulders.” +</p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p> +Now I made as bad a soldier (except at heart) as Raffles made a good one, and I +could not say a harder thing of myself. My ignorance of matters military was up +to that time unfathomable, and is still profound. I was always a fool with +horses, though I did not think so at one time, and I had never been any good +with a gun. The average Tommy may be my intellectual inferior, but he must know +some part of his work better than I ever knew any of mine. I never even learnt +to be killed. I do not mean that I ever ran away. The South African Field Force +might have been strengthened if I had. +</p> + +<p> +The foregoing remarks do not express a pose affected out of superiority to the +usual spirit of the conquering hero, for no man was keener on the war than I, +before I went to it. But one can only write with gusto of events (like that +little affair at Surbiton) in which one has acquitted oneself without +discredit, and I cannot say that of my part in the war, of which I now loathe +the thought for other reasons. The battlefield was no place for me, and neither +was the camp. My ineptitude made me the butt of the looting, cursing, +swash-buckling lot who formed the very irregular squadron which we joined; and +it would have gone hard with me but for Raffles, who was soon the darling devil +of them all, but never more loyally my friend. Your fireside fire-eater does +not think of these things. He imagines all the fighting to be with the enemy. +He will probably be horrified to hear that men can detest each other as +cordially in khaki as in any other wear, and with a virulence seldom inspired +by the bearded dead-shot in the opposite trench. To the fireside fire-eater, +therefore (for you have seen me one myself), I dedicate the story of Corporal +Connal, Captain Bellingham, the General, Raffles, and myself. +</p> + +<p> +I must be vague, for obvious reasons. The troop is fighting as I write; you +will soon hear why I am not; but neither is Raffles, nor Corporal Connal. They +are fighting as well as ever, those other hard-living, harder-dying sons of all +soils; but I am not going to say where it was that we fought with them. I +believe that no body of men of equal size has done half so much heroic work. +But they had got themselves a bad name off the field, so to speak; and I am not +going to make it worse by saddling them before the world with Raffles and +myself, and that ruffian Connal. +</p> + +<p> +The fellow was a mongrel type, a Glasgow Irishman by birth and upbringing, but +he had been in South Africa for years, and he certainly knew the country very +well. This circumstance, coupled with the fact that he was a very handy man +with horses, as all colonists are, had procured him the first small step from +the ranks which facilitates bullying if a man be a bully by nature, and is +physically fitted to be a successful one. Connal was a hulking ruffian, and in +me had ideal game. The brute was offensive to me from the hour I joined. The +details are of no importance, but I stood up to him at first in words, and +finally for a few seconds on my feet. Then I went down like an ox, and Raffles +came out of his tent. Their fight lasted twenty minutes, and Raffles was +marked, but the net result was dreadfully conventional, for the bully was a +bully no more. +</p> + +<p> +But I began gradually to suspect that he was something worse. All this time we +were fighting every day, or so it seems when I look back. Never a great +engagement, and yet never a day when we were wholly out of touch with the +enemy. I had thus several opportunities of watching the other enemy under fire, +and had almost convinced myself of the systematic harmlessness of his own +shooting, when a more glaring incident occurred. +</p> + +<p> +One night three troops of our squadron were ordered to a certain point whither +they had patrolled the previous week; but our own particular troop was to stay +behind, and in charge of no other than the villanous corporal, both our officer +and sergeant having gone into hospital with enteric. Our detention, however, +was very temporary, and Connal would seem to have received the usual vague +orders to proceed in the early morning to the place where the other three +companies had camped. It appeared that we were to form an escort to two +squadron-wagons containing kits, provisions, and ammunition. +</p> + +<p> +Before daylight Connal had reported his departure to the commanding officer, +and we passed the outposts at gray dawn. Now, though I was perhaps the least +observant person in the troop, I was not the least wideawake where Corporal +Connal was concerned, and it struck me at once that we were heading in the +wrong direction. My reasons are not material, but as a matter of fact our last +week’s patrol had pushed its khaki tentacles both east and west; and +eastward they had met with resistance so determined as to compel them to +retire; yet it was eastward that we were travelling now. I at once spurred +alongside Raffles, as he rode, bronzed and bearded, with warworn wideawake +over eyes grown keen as a hawk’s, and a cutty-pipe sticking straight out +from his front teeth. I can see him now, so gaunt and grim and debonair, yet +already with much of the nonsense gone out of him, though I thought he only +smiled on my misgivings. +</p> + +<p> +“Did he get the instructions, Bunny, or did we? Very well, then; give the +devil a chance.” +</p> + +<p> +There was nothing further to be said, but I felt more crushed than convinced; +so we jogged along into broad daylight, until Raffles himself gave a whistle of +surprise. +</p> + +<p> +“A white flag, Bunny, by all my gods!” +</p> + +<p> +I could not see it; he had the longest sight in all our squadron; but in a +little the fluttering emblem, which had gained such a sinister significance in +most of our eyes, was patent even to mine. A little longer, and the shaggy Boer +was in our midst upon his shaggy pony, with a half-scared, half-incredulous +look in his deep-set eyes. He was on his way to our lines with some missive, +and had little enough to say to us, though frivolous and flippant questions +were showered upon him from most saddles. +</p> + +<p> +“Any Boers over there?” asked one, pointing in the direction in +which we were still heading. +</p> + +<p> +“Shut up!” interjected Raffles in crisp rebuke. +</p> + +<p> +The Boer looked stolid but sinister. +</p> + +<p> +“Any of our chaps?” added another. +</p> + +<p> +The Boer rode on with an open grin. +</p> + +<p> +And the incredible conclusion of the matter was that we were actually within +their lines in another hour; saw them as large as life within a mile and a half +on either side of us; and must every man of us have been taken prisoner had not +every man but Connal refused to go one inch further, and had not the Boers +themselves obviously suspected some subtle ruse as the only conceivable +explanation of so madcap a manoeuvre. They allowed us to retire without firing +a shot; and retire you may be sure we did, the Kaffirs flogging their teams in +a fury of fear, and our precious corporal sullen but defiant. +</p> + +<p> +I have said this was the conclusion of the matter, and I blush to repeat that +it practically was. Connal was indeed wheeled up before the colonel, but his +instructions were not written instructions, and he lied his way out with equal +hardihood and tact. +</p> + +<p> +“You said ‘over there,’ sir,” he stoutly reiterated; +and the vagueness with which such orders were undoubtedly given was the saving +of him for the time being. +</p> + +<p> +I need not tell you how indignant I felt, for one. +</p> + +<p> +“The fellow is a spy!” I said to Raffles, with no nursery oath, as +we strolled within the lines that night. +</p> + +<p> +He merely smiled in my face. +</p> + +<p> +“And have you only just found it out, Bunny? I have known it almost ever +since we joined; but this morning I did think we had him on toast.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s disgraceful that we had not,” cried I. “He ought +to have been shot like a dog.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not so loud, Bunny, though I quite agree; but I don’t regret what +has happened as much as you do. Not that I am less bloodthirsty than you are in +this case, but a good deal more so! Bunny, I’m mad-keen on bowling him +out with my own unaided hand—though I may ask you to take the wicket. +Meanwhile, don’t wear all your animosity upon your sleeve; the fellow has +friends who still believe in him; and there is no need for you to be more +openly his enemy than you were before.” +</p> + +<p> +Well, I can only vow that I did my best to follow this sound advice; but who +but a Raffles can control his every look? It was never my forte, as you know, +yet to this day I cannot conceive what I did to excite the treacherous +corporal’s suspicions. He was clever enough, however, not to betray them, +and lucky enough to turn the tables on us, as you shall hear. +</p> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p> +Bloemfontein had fallen since our arrival, but there was plenty of fight in the +Free Staters still, and I will not deny that it was these gentry who were +showing us the sport for which our corps came in. Constant skirmishing was our +portion, with now and then an action that you would know at least by name, did +I feel free to mention them. But I do not, and indeed it is better so. I have +not to describe the war even as I saw it, I am thankful to say, but only the +martial story of us two and those others of whom you wot. Corporal Connal was +the dangerous blackguard you have seen. Captain Bellingham is best known for +his position in the batting averages a year or two ago, and for his subsequent +failure to obtain a place in any of the five Test Matches. But I only think of +him as the officer who recognized Raffles. +</p> + +<p> +We had taken a village, making quite a little name for it and for ourselves, +and in the village our division was reinforced by a fresh brigade of the +Imperial troops. It was a day of rest, our first for weeks, but Raffles and I +spent no small part of it in seeking high and low for a worthy means of +quenching the kind of thirst which used to beset Yeomen and others who had left +good cellars for the veldt. The old knack came back to us both, though I +believe that I alone was conscious of it at the time; and we were leaving the +house, splendidly supplied, when we almost ran into the arms of an infantry +officer, with a scowl upon his red-hot face, and an eye-glass flaming at us in +the sun. +</p> + +<p> +“Peter Bellingham!” gasped Raffles under his breath, and then we +saluted and tried to pass on, with the bottles ringing like church-bells under +our khaki. But Captain Bellingham was a hard man. +</p> + +<p> +“What have you men been doin’?” drawled he. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing, sir,” we protested, like innocence with an injury. +</p> + +<p> +“Lootin’ ’s forbidden,” said he. “You had better +let me see those bottles.” +</p> + +<p> +“We are done,” whispered Raffles, and straightway we made a +sideboard of the stoop across which he had crept at so inopportune a moment. I +had not the heart to raise my eyes again, yet it was many moments before the +officer broke silence. +</p> + +<p> +“Uam Var!” he murmured reverentially at last. “And Long John +of Ben Nevis! The first drop that’s been discovered in the whole +psalm-singing show! What lot do you two belong to?” +</p> + +<p> +I answered. +</p> + +<p> +“I must have your names.” +</p> + +<p> +In my agitation I gave my real one. Raffles had turned away, as though in +heart-broken contemplation of our lost loot. I saw the officer studying his +half-profile with an alarming face. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s <i>your</i> name?” he rapped out at last. +</p> + +<p> +But his strange, low voice said plainly that he knew, and Raffles faced him +with the monosyllable of confession and assent. I did not count the seconds +until the next word, but it was Captain Bellingham who uttered it at last. +</p> + +<p> +“I thought you were dead.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now you see I am not.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you are at your old games!” +</p> + +<p> +“I am not,” cried Raffles, and his tone was new to me. I have +seldom heard one more indignant. “Yes,” he continued, “this +is loot, and the wrong ’un will out. That’s what you’re +thinking, Peter—I beg your pardon—sir. But he isn’t let out +in the field! We’re playing the game as much as you are, +old—sir.” +</p> + +<p> +The plural number caused the captain to toss me a contemptuous look. “Is +this the fellah who was taken when you swam for it?” he inquired, +relapsing into his drawl. Raffles said I was, and with that took a passionate +oath upon our absolute rectitude as volunteers. There could be no doubting him; +but the officer’s eyes went back at the bottles on the stoop. +</p> + +<p> +“But look at those,” said he; and as he looked himself the light +eye melted in his fiery face. “And I’ve got Sparklets in my +tent,” he sighed. “You make it in a minute!” +</p> + +<p> +Not a word from Raffles, and none, you may be sure, from me. Then suddenly +Bellingham told me where his tent was, and, adding that our case was one for +serious consideration, strode in its direction without another word until some +sunlit paces separated us. +</p> + +<p> +“You can bring that stuff with you,” he then flung over a +shoulder-strap, “and I advise you to put it where you had it +before.” +</p> + +<p> +A trooper saluted him some yards further on, and looked evilly at us as we +followed with our loot. It was Corporal Connal of ours, and the thought of him +takes my mind off the certainly gallant captain who only that day had joined +our division with the reinforcements. I could not stand the man myself. He +added soda-water to our whiskey in his tent, and would only keep a couple of +bottles when we came away. Softened by the spirit, to which disuse made us all +a little sensitive, our officer was soon convinced of the honest part that we +were playing for once, and for fifty minutes of the hour we spent with him he +and Raffles talked cricket without a break. On parting they even shook hands; +that was Long John in the captain’s head; but the snob never addressed a +syllable to me. +</p> + +<p> +And now to the gallows-bird who was still corporal of our troop: it was not +long before Raffles was to have his wish and the traitor’s wicket. We had +resumed our advance, or rather our humble part in the great surrounding +movement then taking place, and were under pretty heavy fire once more, when +Connal was shot in the hand. It was a curious casualty in more than one +respect, and nobody seems to have seen it happen. Though a flesh wound, it was +a bloody one, and that may be why the surgeon did not at once detect those +features which afterwards convinced him that the injury had been +self-inflicted. It was the right hand, and until it healed the man could be of +no further use in the firing line; nor was the case serious enough for +admission to a crowded field-hospital; and Connal himself offered his services +as custodian of a number of our horses which we were keeping out of +harm’s way in a donga. They had come there in the following manner: That +morning we had been heliographed to reinforce the C.M.R., only to find that the +enemy had the range to a nicety when we reached the spot. There were trenches +for us men, but no place of safety for our horses nearer than this long and +narrow donga which ran from within our lines towards those of the Boers. So +some of us galloped them thither, six-in-hand, amid the whine of shrapnel and +the whistle of shot. I remember the man next me being killed by a shell with +all his team, and the tangle of flying harness, torn horseflesh, and crimson +khaki, that we left behind us on the veldt; also that a small red flag, +ludicrously like those used to indicate a putting-green, marked the single +sloping entrance to the otherwise precipitous donga, which I for one was duly +thankful to reach alive. +</p> + +<p> +The same evening Connal, with a few other light casualties to assist him, took +over the charge for which he had volunteered and for which he was so admirably +fitted by his knowledge of horses and his general experience of the country; +nevertheless, he managed to lose three or four fine chargers in the course of +the first night; and, early in the second, Raffles shook me out of a heavy +slumber in the trenches where we had been firing all day. +</p> + +<p> +“I have found the spot, Bunny,” he whispered; “we ought to +out him before the night is over.” +</p> + +<p> +“Connal?” +</p> + +<p> +Raffles nodded. +</p> + +<p> +“You know what happened to some of his horses last night? Well, he let +them go himself.” +</p> + +<p> +“Never!” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m as certain of it,” said Raffles, “as though +I’d seen him do it; and if he does it again I shall see him. I can even +tell you how it happened. Connal insisted on having one end of the donga to +himself, and of course his end is the one nearest the Boers. Well, then, he +tells the other fellows to go to sleep at their end—I have it direct from +one of them—and you bet they don’t need a second invitation. The +rest I hope to see to-night.” +</p> + +<p> +“It seems almost incredible,” said I. +</p> + +<p> +“Not more so than the Light Horseman’s dodge of poisoning the +troughs; that happened at Ladysmith before Christmas; and two kind friends did +for that blackguard what you and I are going to do for this one, and a +firing-party did the rest. Brutes! A mounted man’s worth a file on foot +in this country, and well they know it. But this beauty goes one better than +the poison; that was wilful waste; but I’ll eat my wideawake if our loss +last night wasn’t the enemy’s double gain! What we’ve got to +do, Bunny, is to catch him in the act. It may mean watching him all night, but +was ever game so well worth the candle?” +</p> + +<p> +One may say in passing that, at this particular point of contact, the enemy +were in superior force, and for once in a mood as aggressive as our own. They +were led with a dash, and handled with a skill, which did not always +characterize their commanders at this stage of the war. Their position was very +similar to ours, and indeed we were to spend the whole of next day in trying +with an equal will to turn each other out. The result will scarcely be +forgotten by those who recognize the occasion from these remarks. Meanwhile it +was the eve of battle (most evenings were), and there was that villain with the +horses in the donga, and here were we two upon his track. +</p> + +<p> +Raffles’s plan was to reconnoitre the place, and then take up a position +from which we could watch our man and pounce upon him if he gave us cause. The +spot that we eventually chose and stealthily occupied was behind some bushes +through which we could see down into the donga; there were the precious horses; +and there sure enough was our wounded corporal, sitting smoking in his cloak, +some glimmering thing in his lap. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s his revolver, and it’s a Mauser,” whispered +Raffles. “He shan’t have a chance of using it on us; either we must +be on him before he knows we are anywhere near, or simply report. It’s +easily proved once we are sure; but I should like to have the taking of him +too.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a setting moon. Shadows were sharp and black. The man smoked +steadily, and the hungry horses did what I never saw horses do before; they +stood and nibbled at each other’s tails. I was used to sleeping in the +open, under the jewelled dome that seems so much vaster and grander in these +wide spaces of the earth. I lay listening to the horses, and to the myriad +small strange voices of the veldt, to which I cannot even now put a name, while +Raffles watched. “One head is better than two,” he said, +“when you don’t want it to be seen.” We were to take watch +and watch about, however, and the other might sleep if he could; it was not my +fault that I did nothing else; it was Raffles who could trust nobody but +himself. Nor was there any time for recriminations when he did rouse me in the +end. +</p> + +<p> +But a moment ago, as it seemed to me, I had been gazing upward at the stars and +listening to the dear, minute sounds of peace; and in another the great gray +slate was clean, and every bone of me set in plaster of Paris, and sniping +beginning between pickets with the day. It was an occasional crack, not a +constant crackle, but the whistle of a bullet as it passed us by, or a tiny +transitory flame for the one bit of detail on a blue hill-side, was an +unpleasant warning that we two on ours were a target in ourselves. But Raffles +paid no attention to their fire; he was pointing downward through the bushes to +where Corporal Connal stood with his back to us, shooing a last charger out of +the mouth of the donga towards the Boer trenches. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s his third,” whispered Raffles, “but it’s +the first I’ve seen distinctly, for he waited for the blind spot before +the dawn. It’s enough to land him, I fancy, but we mustn’t lose +time. Are you ready for a creep?” +</p> + +<p> +I stretched myself, and said I was; but I devoutly wished it was not quite so +early in the morning. +</p> + +<p> +“Like cats, then, till he hears, and then into him for all we’re +worth. He’s stowed his iron safe away, but he mustn’t have time +even to feel for it. You take his left arm, Bunny, and hang on to that like a +ferret, and I’ll do the rest. Ready? Then now!” +</p> + +<p> +And in less time than it would take to tell, we were over the lip of the donga +and had fallen upon the fellow before he could turn his head; nevertheless, for +a few instants he fought like a wild beast, striking, kicking, and swinging me +off my feet as I obeyed my instructions to the letter, and stuck to his left +like a leech. But he soon gave that up, panting and blaspheming, demanded +explanations in his hybrid tongue that had half a brogue and half a burr. What +were we doing? What had he done? Raffles at his back, with his right wrist +twisted round and pinned into the small of it, soon told him that, and I think +the words must have been the first intimation that he had as to who his +assailants were. +</p> + +<p> +“So it’s you two!” he cried, and a light broke over him. He +was no longer trying to shake us off, and now he dropped his curses also, and +stood chuckling to himself instead. “Well,” he went on, +“you’re bloody liars both, but I know something else that you are, +so you’d better let go.” +</p> + +<p> +A coldness ran through me, and I never saw Raffles so taken aback. His grip +must have relaxed for a fraction of time, for our captive broke out in a fresh +and desperate struggle, but now we pinned him tighter than ever, and soon I saw +him turning green and yellow with the pain. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re breaking my wrist!” he yelled at last. +</p> + +<p> +“Then stand still and tell us who we are.” +</p> + +<p> +And he stood still and told us our real names. But Raffles insisted on hearing +how he had found us out, and smiled as though he had known what was coming when +it came. I was dumbfounded. +</p> + +<p> +The accursed hound had followed us that evening to Captain Bellingham’s +tent, and his undoubted cleverness in his own profession of spy had done the +rest. +</p> + +<p> +“And now you’d better let me go,” said the master of the +situation, as I for one could not help regarding him. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll see you damned,” said Raffles, savagely. +</p> + +<p> +“Then you’re damned and done for yourself, my cocky criminal. +Raffles the burglar! Raffles the society thief! Not dead after all, but +’live and ’listed. Send him home and give him fourteen years, and +won’t he like ’em, that’s all!” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall have the pleasure of hearing you shot first,” retorted +Raffles, through his teeth, “and that alone will make them bearable. Come +on, Bunny, let’s drive the swine along and get it over.” +</p> + +<p> +And drive him we did, he cursing, cajoling, struggling, gloating, and +blubbering by turns. But Raffles never wavered for an instant, though his face +was tragic, and it went to my heart, where that look stays still. I remember at +the time, though I never let my hold relax, there was a moment when I added my +entreaties to those of our prisoner. Raffles did not even reply to me. But I +was thinking of him, I swear. I was thinking of that gray set face that I never +saw before or after. +</p> + +<p> +“Your story will be tested,” said the commanding officer, when +Connal had been marched to the guard-tent. “Is there any truth in +his?” +</p> + +<p> +“It is perfectly true, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“And the notorious Raffles has been alive all these years, and you are +really he?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“And what are you doing at the front?” +</p> + +<p> +Somehow I thought that Raffles was going to smile, but the grim set of his +mouth never altered, neither was there any change in the ashy pallor which had +come over him in the donga when Connal mouthed his name. It was only his eyes +that lighted up at the last question. +</p> + +<p> +“I am fighting, sir,” said he, as simply as any subaltern in the +army. +</p> + +<p> +The commanding officer inclined a grizzled head perceptibly, and no more. He +was not one of any school, our General; he had his own ways, and we loved both +him and them; and I believe that he loved the rough but gallant corps that bore +his name. He once told us that he knew something about most of us, and there +were things that Raffles had done of which he must have heard. But he only +moved his grizzled head. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you know he was going to give you away?” he asked at length, +with a jerk of it toward the guard-tent. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you thought it worth while, did you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought it necessary, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +The General paused, drumming on his table, making up his mind. Then his chin +came up with the decision that we loved in him. +</p> + +<p> +“I shall sift all this,” said he. “An officer’s name +was mentioned, and I shall see him myself. Meanwhile you had better go +on—fighting.” +</p> + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p> +Corporal Connal paid the penalty of his crime before the sun was far above the +hill held by the enemy. There was abundance of circumstantial evidence against +him, besides the direct testimony of Raffles and myself, and the wretch was +shot at last with little ceremony and less shrift. And that was the one good +thing that happened on the day that broke upon us hiding behind the bushes +overlooking the donga; by noon it was my own turn. +</p> + +<p> +I have avoided speaking of my wound before I need, and from the preceding pages +you would not gather that I am more or less lame for life. You will soon see +now why I was in no hurry to recall the incident. I used to think of a wound +received in one’s country’s service as the proudest trophy a man +could acquire. But the sight of mine depresses me every morning of my life; it +was due for one thing to my own slow eye for cover, in taking which (to +aggravate my case) our hardy little corps happened to excel. +</p> + +<p> +The bullet went clean through my thigh, drilling the bone, but happily missing +the sciatic nerve; thus the mere pain was less than it might have been, but of +course I went over in a light-brown heap. We were advancing on our stomachs to +take the hill, and thus extend our position, and it was at this point that the +fire became too heavy for us, so that for hours (in the event) we moved neither +forward nor back. But it was not a minute before Raffles came to me through the +whistling scud, and in another I was on my back behind a shallow rock, with him +kneeling over me and unrolling my bandage in the teeth of that murderous fire. +It was on the knees of the gods, he said, when I begged him to bend lower, but +for the moment I thought his tone as changed as his face had been earlier in +the morning. To oblige me, however, he took more care; and, when he had done +all that one comrade could for another, he did avail himself of the cover he +had found for me. So there we lay together on the veldt, under blinding sun and +withering fire, and I suppose it is the veldt that I should describe, as it +swims and flickers before wounded eyes. I shut mine to bring it back, but all +that comes is the keen brown face of Raffles, still a shade paler than its +wont; now bending to sight and fire; now peering to see results, brows raised, +eyes widened; anon turning to me with the word to set my tight lips grinning. +He was talking all the time, but for my sake, and I knew it. Can you wonder +that I could not see an inch beyond him? He was the battle to me then; he is +the whole war to me as I look back now. +</p> + +<p> +“Feel equal to a cigarette? It will buck you up, Bunny. No, that one in +the silver paper, I’ve hoarded it for this. Here’s a light; and so +Bunny takes the Sullivan! All honor to the sporting rabbit!” +</p> + +<p> +“At least I went over like one,” said I, sending the only clouds +into the blue, and chiefly wishing for their longer endurance. I was as hot as +a cinder from my head to one foot; the other leg was ceasing to belong to me. +</p> + +<p> +“Wait a bit,” says Raffles, puckering; “there’s a gray +felt hat at deep long-on, and I want to add it to the bag for vengeance.... +Wait—yes—no, no luck! I must pitch ’em up a bit more. Hallo! +Magazine empty. How goes the Sullivan, Bunny? Rum to be smoking one on the +veldt with a hole in your leg!” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s doing me good,” I said, and I believe it was. But +Raffles lay looking at me as he lightened his bandolier. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you remember,” he said softly, “the day we first began to +think about the war? I can see the pink, misty river light, and feel the first +bite there was in the air when one stood about; don’t you wish we had +either here! ‘Orful slorter, orful slorter;’ that fellow’s +face, I see it too; and here we have the thing he cried. Can you believe +it’s only six months ago?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” I sighed, enjoying the thought of that afternoon less than +he did; “yes, we were slow to catch fire at first.” +</p> + +<p> +“Too slow,” he said quickly. +</p> + +<p> +“But when we did catch,” I went on, wishing we never had, “we +soon burnt up.” +</p> + +<p> +“And then went out,” laughed Raffles gayly. He was loaded up again. +“Another over at the gray felt hat,” said he; “by Jove, +though, I believe he’s having an over at me!” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish you’d be careful,” I urged. “I heard it +too.” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear Bunny, it’s on the knees you wot of. If anything’s +down in the specifications surely that is. Besides—that was +nearer!” +</p> + +<p> +“To you?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, to him. Poor devil, he has his specifications too; it’s +comforting to think that.... I can’t see where that one pitched; it may +have been a wide; and it’s very nearly the end of the over again. Feeling +worse, Bunny?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I’ve only closed my eyes. Go on talking.” +</p> + +<p> +“It was I who let you in for this,” he said, at his bandolier +again. +</p> + +<p> +“No, I’m glad I came out.” +</p> + +<p> +And I believe I still was, in a way; for it <i>was</i> rather fine to be +wounded, just then, with the pain growing less; but the sensation was not to +last me many minutes, and I can truthfully say that I have never felt it since. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, but you haven’t had such a good time as I have!” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps not.” +</p> + +<p> +Had his voice vibrated, or had I imagined it? Pain-waves and loss of blood were +playing tricks with my senses; now they were quite dull, and my leg alive and +throbbing; now I had no leg at all, but more than all my ordinary senses in +every other part of me. And the devil’s orchestra was playing all the +time, and all around me, on every class of fiendish instrument, which you have +been made to hear for yourselves in every newspaper. Yet all that I heard was +Raffles talking. +</p> + +<p> +“I have had a good time, Bunny.” +</p> + +<p> +Yes, his voice was sad; but that was all; the vibration must have been in me. +</p> + +<p> +“I know you have, old chap,” said I. +</p> + +<p> +“I am grateful to the General for giving me to-day. It may be the last. +Then I can only say it’s been the best—by Jove!” +</p> + +<p> +“What is it?” +</p> + +<p> +And I opened my eyes. His were shining. I can see them now. +</p> + +<p> +“Got him—got the hat! No, I’m hanged if I have; at least he +wasn’t in it. The crafty cuss, he must have stuck it up on purpose. +Another over ... scoring’s slow.... I wonder if he’s sportsman +enough to take a hint? His hat-trick’s foolish. Will he show his face if +I show mine?” +</p> + +<p> +I lay with closed ears and eyes. My leg had come to life again, and the rest of +me was numb. +</p> + +<p> +“Bunny!” +</p> + +<p> +His voice sounded higher. He must have been sitting upright. +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” +</p> + +<p> +But it was not well with me; that was all I thought as my lips made the word. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s not only been the best time I ever had, old Bunny, but +I’m not half sure—” +</p> + +<p> +Of what I can but guess; the sentence was not finished, and never could be in +this world. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RAFFLES ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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