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diff --git a/9806-8.txt b/9806-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 8a5ebde..0000000 --- a/9806-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,8079 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mr. Justice Raffles, by E. W. Hornung - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere 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 www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: Mr. Justice Raffles - -Author: E. W. Hornung - -Posting Date: December 8, 2011 [EBook #9806] -Release Date: February, 2006 -First Posted: October 19, 2003 - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MR. JUSTICE RAFFLES *** - - - - -Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan and PG -Distributed Proofreaders - - - - - - - - - - - MR. JUSTICE RAFFLES - - BY E.W. HORNUNG - - 1909 - - - - -CONTENTS - - -Chapter - - - I. An Inaugural Banquet - - II. "His Own Familiar Friend" - - III. Council of War - - IV. "Our Mr. Shylock" - - V. Thin Air - - VI. Camilla Belsize - - VII. In Which We Fail to Score - - VIII. The State of the Case - - IX. A Triple Alliance - - X. "My Raffles Right or Wrong" - - XI. A Dash in the Dark - - XII. A Midsummer Night's Dream - - XIII. Knocked Out - - XIV. Corpus Delicti - - XV. Trial by Raffles - - XVI. Watch and Ward - - XVII. A Secret Service - - XVIII. The Death of a Sinner - - XIX. Apologia - - - - -Mr. Justice Raffles - - - - -CHAPTER I - -An Inaugural Banquet - - -Raffles had vanished from the face of the town, and even I had no -conception of his whereabouts until he cabled to me to meet the 7.31 at -Charing Cross next night. That was on the Tuesday before the 'Varsity -match, or a full fortnight after his mysterious disappearance. The -telegram was from Carlsbad, of all places for Raffles of all men! Of -course there was only one thing that could possibly have taken so rare a -specimen of physical fitness to any such pernicious spot. But to my -horror he emerged from the train, on the Wednesday evening, a cadaverous -caricature of the splendid person I had gone to meet. - -"Not a word, my dear Bunny, till I have bitten British beef!" said he, -in tones as hollow as his cheeks. "No, I'm not going to stop to clear -my baggage now. You can do that for me to-morrow, Bunny, like a dear -good pal." - -"Any time you like," said I, giving him my arm. "But where shall we dine? -Kellner's? Neapolo's? The Carlton or the Club?" - -But Raffles shook his head at one and all. - -"I don't want to dine at all," he said. "I know what I want!" - -And he led the way from the station, stopping once to gloat over the -sunset across Trafalgar Square, and again to inhale the tarry scent of -the warm wood-paving, which was perfume to his nostrils as the din of its -traffic was music to his ears, before we came to one of those political -palaces which permit themselves to be included in the list of ordinary -clubs. Raffles, to my surprise, walked in as though the marble hall -belonged to him, and as straight as might be to the grill-room where -white-capped cooks were making things hiss upon a silver grill. He did -not consult me as to what we were to have. He had made up his mind about -that in the train. But he chose the fillet steaks himself, he insisted on -seeing the kidneys, and had a word to say about the fried potatoes, and -the Welsh rarebit that was to follow. And all this was as -uncharacteristic of the normal Raffles (who was least fastidious at the -table) as the sigh with which he dropped into the chair opposite mine, -and crossed his arms upon the cloth. - -"I didn't know you were a member of this place," said I, feeling really -rather shocked at the discovery, but also that it was a safer subject for -me to open than that of his late mysterious movements. - -"There are a good many things you don't know about me, Bunny," said he -wearily. "Did you know I was in Carlsbad, for instance?" - -"Of course I didn't." - -"Yet you remember the last time we sat down together?" - -"You mean that night we had supper at the Savoy?" - -"It's only three weeks ago, Bunny." - -"It seems months to me." - -"And years to me!" cried Raffles. "But surely you remember that lost -tribesman at the next table, with the nose like the village pump, and the -wife with the emerald necklace?" - -"I should think I did," said I; "you mean the great Dan Levy, otherwise -Mr. Shylock? Why, you told me all about him, A. J." - -"Did I? Then you may possibly recollect that the Shylocks were off to -Carlsbad the very next day. It was the old man's last orgy before his -annual cure, and he let the whole room know it. Ah, Bunny, I can -sympathise with the poor brute now!" - -"But what on earth took you there, old fellow?" - -"Can you ask? Have you forgotten how you saw the emeralds under their -table when they'd gone, and how _I_ forgot myself and ran after them with -the best necklace I'd handled since the days of Lady Melrose?" - -I shook my head, partly in answer to his question, but partly also over a -piece of perversity which still rankled in my recollection. But now I was -prepared for something even more perverse. - -"You were quite right," continued Raffles, recalling my recriminations at -the time; "it was a rotten thing to do. It was also the action of a -tactless idiot, since anybody could have seen that a heavy necklace like -that couldn't have dropped off without the wearer's knowledge." - -"You don't mean to say she dropped it on purpose?" I exclaimed with more -interest, for I suddenly foresaw the remainder of his tale. - -"I do," said Raffles. "The poor old pet did it deliberately when stooping -to pick up something else; and all to get it stolen and delay their trip -to Carlsbad, where her swab of a husband makes her do the cure with him." - -I said I always felt that we had failed to fulfil an obvious destiny in -the matter of those emeralds; and there was something touching in the way -Raffles now sided with me against himself. - -"But I saw it the moment I had yanked them up," said he, "and heard that -fat swine curse his wife for dropping them. He told her she'd done it on -purpose, too; he hit the nail on the head all right; but it was her poor -head, and that showed me my unworthy impulse in its true light, Bunny. I -didn't need your reproaches to make me realise what a skunk I'd been all -round. I saw that the necklace was morally yours, and there was one clear -call for me to restore it to you by hook, crook, or barrel. I left for -Carlsbad as soon after its wrongful owners as prudence permitted." - -"Admirable!" said I, overjoyed to find old Raffles by no means in such -bad form as he looked. "But not to have taken me with you, A. J., that's -the unkind cut I can't forgive." - -"My dear Bunny, you couldn't have borne it," said Raffles solemnly. "The -cure would have killed you; look what it's done to me." - -"Don't tell me you went through with it!" I rallied him. - -"Of course I did, Bunny. I played the game like a prayer-book." - -"But why, in the name of all that's wanton?" - -"You don't know Carlsbad, or you wouldn't ask. The place is squirming -with spies and humbugs. If I had broken the rules one of the prize -humbugs laid down for me I should have been spotted in a tick by a spy, -and bowled out myself for a spy and a humbug rolled into one. Oh, Bunny, -if old man Dante were alive to-day I should commend him to that sink of -salubrity for the redraw material of another and a worse Inferno!" - -The steaks had arrived, smoking hot, with a kidney apiece and lashings of -fried potatoes. And for a divine interval (as it must have been to him) -Raffles's only words were to the waiter, and referred to successive -tankards of bitter, with the superfluous rider that the man who said we -couldn't drink beer was a liar. But indeed I never could myself, and only -achieved the impossible in this case out of sheer sympathy with Raffles. -And eventually I had my reward, in such a recital of malignant privation -as I cannot trust myself to set down in any words but his. - -"No, Bunny, you couldn't have borne it for half a week; you'd have looked -like that all the time!" quoth Raffles. I suppose my face had fallen (as -it does too easily) at his aspersion on my endurance. "Cheer up, my man; -that's better," he went on, as I did my best. "But it was no smiling -matter out there. No one does smile after the first week; your sense of -humour is the first thing the cure eradicates. There was a hunting man at -my hotel, getting his weight down to ride a special thoroughbred, and no -doubt a cheery dog at home; but, poor devil, he hadn't much chance of -good cheer there! Miles and miles on his poor feet before breakfast; -mud-poultices all the morning; and not the semblance of a drink all day, -except some aerated muck called Gieshübler. He was allowed to lap that up -an hour after meals, when his tongue would be hanging out of his mouth. -We went to the same weighing machine at cock-crow, and though he looked -quite good-natured once when I caught him asleep in his chair, I have -known him tear up his weight ticket when he had gained an ounce or two -instead of losing one or two pounds. We began by taking our walks -together, but his conversation used to get so physically introspective -that one couldn't get in a word about one's own works edgeways." - -"But there was nothing wrong with your works," I reminded Raffles; he -shook his head as one who was not so sure. - -"Perhaps not at first, but the cure soon sees to that! I closed in like a -concertina, Bunny, and I only hope I shall be able to pull out like one. -You see, it's the custom of the accursed place for one to telephone for -a doctor the moment one arrives. I consulted the hunting man, who of -course recommended his own in order to make sure of a companion on the -rack. The old arch-humbug was down upon me in ten minutes, examining me -from crown to heel, and made the most unblushing report upon my general -condition. He said I had a liver! I'll swear I hadn't before I went to -Carlsbad, but I shouldn't be a bit surprised if I'd brought one back." - -And he tipped his tankard with a solemn face, before falling to work upon -the Welsh rarebit which had just arrived. - -"It looks like gold, and it's golden eating," said poor old Raffles. "I -only wish that sly dog of a doctor could see me at it! He had the nerve -to make me write out my own health-warrant, and it was so like my friend -the hunting man's that it dispelled his settled gloom for the whole of -that evening. We used to begin our drinking day at the same well of -German damnably defiled, and we paced the same colonnade to the blare of -the same well-fed band. That wasn't a joke, Bunny; it's not a thing to -joke about; mud-poultices and dry meals, with teetotal poisons in -between, were to be my portion too. You stiffen your lip at that, eh, -Bunny? I told you that you never would or could have stood it; but it was -the only game to play for the Emerald Stakes. It kept one above suspicion -all the time. And then I didn't mind that part as much as you would, or -as my hunting pal did; he was driven to fainting at the doctor's place -one day, in the forlorn hope of a toothful of brandy to bring him round. -But all he got was a glass of cheap Marsala." - -"But did you win those stakes after all?" - -"Of course I did, Bunny," said Raffles below his breath, and with a look -that I remembered later. "But the waiters are listening as it is, and -I'll tell you the rest some other time. I suppose you know what brought -me back so soon?" - -"Hadn't you finished your cure?" - -"Not by three good days. I had the satisfaction of a row royal with the -Lord High Humbug to account for my hurried departure. But, as a matter of -fact, if Teddy Garland hadn't got his Blue at the eleventh hour I should -be at Carlsbad still." - -E.M. Garland (Eton and Trinity) was the Cambridge wicketkeeper, and one -of the many young cricketers who owed a good deal to Raffles. They had -made friends in some country-house week, and foregathered afterward in -town, where the young fellow's father had a house at which Raffles -became a constant guest. I am afraid I was a little prejudiced both -against the father, a retired brewer whom I had never met, and the son -whom I did meet once or twice at the Albany. Yet I could quite understand -the mutual attraction between Raffles and this much younger man; indeed -he was a mere boy, but like so many of his school he seemed to have a -knowledge of the world beyond his years, and withal such a spontaneous -spring of sweetness and charm as neither knowledge nor experience could -sensibly pollute. And yet I had a shrewd suspicion that wild oats had -been somewhat freely sown, and that it was Raffles who had stepped in and -taken the sower in hand, and turned him into the stuff of which Blues are -made. At least I knew that no one could be sounder friend or saner -counsellor to any young fellow in need of either. And many there must be -to bear me out in their hearts; but they did not know their Raffles as I -knew mine; and if they say that was why they thought so much of him, let -them have patience, and at last they shall hear something that need not -make them think the less. - -"I couldn't let poor Teddy keep at Lord's," explained Raffles, "and me -not there to egg him on! You see, Bunny, I taught him a thing or two in -those little matches we played together last August. I take a fatherly -interest in the child." - -"You must have done him a lot of good," I suggested, "in every way." - -Raffles looked up from his bill and asked me what I meant. I saw he was -not pleased with my remark, but I was not going back on it. - -"Well, I should imagine you had straightened him out a bit, if you ask -me." - -"I didn't ask you, Bunny, that's just the point!" said Raffles. And I -watched him tip the waiter without the least _arrière-pensée_ on -either side. - -"After all," said I, on our way down the marble stair, "you have told me -a good deal about the lad. I remember once hearing you say he had a lot -of debts, for example." - -"So I was afraid," replied Raffles, frankly; "and between ourselves, I -offered to finance him before I went abroad. Teddy wouldn't hear of it; -that hot young blood of his was up at the thought, though he was -perfectly delightful in what he said. So don't jump to rotten -conclusions, Bunny, but stroll up to the Albany and have a drink." - -And when we had reclaimed our hats and coats, and lit our Sullivans in -the hall, out we marched as though I were now part-owner of the place -with Raffles. - -"That," said I, to effect a thorough change of conversation, -since I felt at one with all the world, "is certainly the finest -grill in Europe." - -"That's why we went there, Bunny." - -"But must I say I was rather surprised to find you a member of a place -where you tip the waiter and take a ticket for your hat!" - -I was not surprised, however, to hear Raffles defend his own -caravanserai. - -"I would go a step further," he remarked, "and make every member show his -badge as they do at Lord's." - -"But surely the porter knows the members by sight?" - -"Not he! There are far too many thousands of them." - -"I should have thought he must." - -"And I know he doesn't." - -"Well, you ought to know, A.J., since you're a member yourself." - -"On the contrary, my dear Bunny, I happen to know because I never was -one!" - - - - -CHAPTER II - -"His Own Familiar Friend" - - -How we laughed as we turned into Whitehall! I began to feel I had been -wrong about Raffles after all, and that enhanced my mirth. Surely this -was the old gay rascal, and it was by some uncanny feat of his stupendous -will that he had appeared so haggard on the platform. In the London -lamplight that he loved so well, under a starry sky of an almost -theatrical blue, he looked another man already. If such a change was due -to a few draughts of bitter beer and a few ounces of fillet steak, then I -felt I was the brewers' friend and the vegetarians' foe for life. -Nevertheless I could detect a serious side to my companion's mood, -especially when he spoke once more of Teddy Garland, and told me that he -had cabled to him also before leaving Carlsbad. And I could not help -wondering, with a discreditable pang, whether his intercourse with that -honest lad could have bred in Raffles a remorse for his own misdeeds, -such as I myself had often tried, but always failed, to produce. - -So we came to the Albany in sober frame, for all our recent levity, -thinking at least no evil for once in our lawless lives. And there was -our good friend Barraclough, the porter, to salute and welcome us in the -courtyard. - -"There's a gen'leman writing you a letter upstairs," said he to Raffles. -"It's Mr. Garland, sir, so I took him up." - -"Teddy!" cried Raffles, and took the stairs two at a time. - -I followed rather heavily. It was not jealousy, but I did feel rather -critical of this mushroom intimacy. So I followed up, feeling that the -evening was spoilt for me--and God knows I was right! Not till my dying -day shall I forget the tableau that awaited me in those familiar rooms. I -see it now as plainly as I see the problem picture of the year, which -lies in wait for one in all the illustrated papers; indeed, it was a -problem picture itself in flesh and blood. - -Raffles had opened his door as only Raffles could open doors, with the -boyish thought of giving the other boy a fright; and young Garland had -very naturally started up from the bureau, where he was writing, at the -sudden clap of his own name behind him. But that was the last of his -natural actions. He did not advance to grasp Raffles by the hand; there -was no answering smile of welcome on the fresh young face which used to -remind me of the Phoebus in Guido's Aurora, with its healthy pink and -bronze, and its hazel eye like clear amber. The pink faded before our -gaze, the bronze turned a sickly sallow; and there stood Teddy Garland as -if glued to the bureau behind him, clutching its edge with all his might. -I can see his knuckles gleaming like ivory under the back of each -sunburnt hand. - -"What is it? What are you hiding?" demanded Raffles. His love for the lad -had rung out in his first greeting; his puzzled voice was still jocular -and genial, but the other's attitude soon strangled that. All this time I -had been standing in vague horror on the threshold; now Raffles beckoned -me in and switched on more light. It fell full upon a ghastly and a -guilty face, that yet stared bravely in the glare. Raffles locked the -door behind us, put the key in his pocket, and strode over to the desk. - -No need to report their first broken syllables: enough that it was no -note young Garland was writing, but a cheque which he was laboriously -copying into Raffles's cheque-book, from an old cheque abstracted from a -pass-book with A. J. RAFFLES in gilt capitals upon its brown leather -back. Raffles had only that year opened a banking account, and I -remembered his telling me how thoroughly he meant to disregard the -instructions on his cheque-book by always leaving it about to advertise -the fact. And this was the result. A glance convicted his friend of -criminal intent: a sheet of notepaper lay covered with trial signatures. -Yet Raffles could turn and look with infinite pity upon the miserable -youth who was still looking defiantly on him. - -"My poor chap!" was all he said. - -And at that the broken boy found the tongue of a hoarse and -quavering old man. - -"Won't you hand me over and be done with it?" he croaked. "Must you -torture me yourself?" - -It was all I could do to refrain from putting in my word, and telling the -fellow it was not for him to ask questions. Raffles merely inquired -whether he had thought it all out before. - -"God knows I hadn't, A. J.! I came up to write you a note, I swear I -did," said Garland with a sudden sob. - -"No need to swear it," returned Raffles, actually smiling. "Your word's -quite good enough for me." - -"God bless you for that, after this!" the other choked, in terrible -disorder now. - -"It was pretty obvious," said Raffles reassuringly. - -"Was it? Are you sure? You do remember offering me a cheque last month, -and my refusing it?" - -"Why, of course I do!" cried Raffles, with such spontaneous heartiness -that I could see he had never thought of it since mentioning the matter -to me at our meal. What I could not see was any reason for such -conspicuous relief, or the extenuating quality of a circumstance which -seemed to me rather to aggravate the offence. - -"I have regretted that refusal ever since," young Garland continued very -simply. "It was a mistake at the time, but this week of all weeks it's -been a tragedy. Money I must have; I'll tell you why directly. When I got -your wire last night it seemed as though my wretched prayers had been -answered. I was going to someone else this morning, but I made up my mind -to wait for you instead. You were the one I really could turn to, and yet -I refused your great offer a month ago. But you said you would be back -to-night; and you weren't here when I came. I telephoned and found that -the train had come in all right, and that there wasn't another until the -morning. Tomorrow morning's my limit, and to-morrow's the match." He -stopped as he saw what Raffles was doing. "Don't, Raffles, I don't -deserve it!" he added in fresh distress. - -But Raffles had unlocked the tantalus and found a syphon in the -corner cupboard, and it was a very yellow bumper that he handed to -the guilty youth. - -"Drink some," he said, "or I won't listen to another word." - -"I'm going to be ruined before the match begins. I am!" the poor fellow -insisted, turning to me when Raffles shook his head. "And it'll break my -father's heart, and--and--" - -I thought he had worse still to tell us, he broke off in such despair; -but either he changed his mind, or the current of his thoughts set inward -in spite of him, for when he spoke again it was to offer us both a -further explanation of his conduct. - -"I only came up to leave a line for Raffles," he said to me, "in case he -did get back in time. It was the porter himself who fixed me up at that -bureau. He'll tell you how many times I had called before. And then I saw -before my nose in one pigeon-hole your cheque-book, Raffles, and your -pass-book bulging with old cheques." - -"And as I wasn't back to write one for you," said Raffles, "you wrote it -for me. And quite right, too!" - -"Don't laugh at me!" cried the boy, his lost colour rushing back. And he -looked at me again as though my long face hurt him less than the -sprightly sympathy of his friend. - -"I'm not laughing, Teddy," replied Raffles kindly. "I was never more -serious in my life. It was playing the friend to come to me at all in -your fix, but it was the act of a real good pal to draw on me behind my -back rather than let me feel I'd ruined you by not turning up in time. -You may shake your head as hard as you like, but I never was paid a -higher compliment." - -And the consummate casuist went on working a congenial vein until a less -miserable sinner might have been persuaded that he had done nothing -really dishonourable; but young Garland had the grace neither to make nor -to accept any excuse for his own conduct. I never heard a man more down -upon himself, or confession of error couched in stronger terms; and yet -there was something so sincere and ingenuous in his remorse, something -that Raffles and I had lost so long ago, that in our hearts I am sure we -took his follies more seriously than our own crimes. But foolish he -indeed had been, if not criminally foolish as he said. It was the old -story of the prodigal son of an indulgent father. There had been, as I -suspected, a certain amount of youthful riot which the influence of -Raffles had already quelled; but there had also been much reckless -extravagance, of which Raffles naturally knew less, since your scapegrace -is constitutionally quicker to confess himself as such than as a fool. -Suffice it that this one had thrown himself on his father's generosity, -only to find that the father himself was in financial straits. - -"What!" cried Raffles, "with that house on his hands?" - -"I knew it would surprise you," said Teddy Garland. "I can't understand -it myself; he gave me no particulars, but the mere fact was enough for -me. I simply couldn't tell my father everything after that. He wrote me a -cheque for all I did own up to, but I could see it was such a tooth that -I swore I'd never come on him to pay another farthing. And I never will!" - -The boy took a sip from his glass, for his voice had faltered, and then -he paused to light another cigarette, because the last had gone out -between his fingers. So sensitive and yet so desperate was the blonde -young face, with the creased forehead and the nervous mouth, that I saw -Raffles look another way until the match was blown out. - -"But at the time I might have done worse, and did," said Teddy, "a -thousand times! I went to the Jews. That's the whole trouble. There were -more debts--debts of honour--and to square up I went to the Jews. It was -only a matter of two or three hundred to start with; but you may know, -though I didn't, what a snowball the smallest sum becomes in the hands of -those devils. I borrowed three hundred and signed a promissory note for -four hundred and fifty-six." - -"Only fifty per cent!" said Raffles. "You got off cheap if the percentage -was per annum." - -"Wait a bit! It was by way of being even more reasonable than that. The -four hundred and fifty-six was repayable in monthly instalments of twenty -quid, and I kept them up religiously until the sixth payment fell due. -That was soon after Christmas, when one's always hard up, and for the -first time I was a day or two late--not more, mind you; yet what do you -suppose happened? My cheque was returned, and the whole blessed balance -demanded on the nail!" - -Raffles was following intently, with that complete concentration which -was a signal force in his equipment. His face no longer changed at -anything he heard; it was as strenuously attentive as that of any judge -upon the bench. Never had I clearer vision of the man he might have been -but for the kink in his nature which had made him what he was. - -"The promissory note was for four-fifty-six," said he, "and this sudden -demand was for the lot less the hundred you had paid?" - -"That's it." - -"What did you do?" I asked, not to seem behind Raffles in my grasp -of the case. - -"Told them to take my instalment or go to blazes for the rest!" - -"And they?" - -"Absolutely drop the whole thing until this very week, and then come down -on me for--what do you suppose?" - -"Getting on for a thousand," said Raffles after a moment's thought. - -"Nonsense!" I cried. Garland looked astonished too. - -"Raffles knows all about it," said he. "Seven hundred was the actual -figure. I needn't tell you I have given the bounders a wide berth since -the day I raised the wind; but I went and had it out with them over this. -And half the seven hundred is for default interest, I'll trouble you, -from the beginning of January down to date!" - -"Had you agreed to that?" - -"Not to my recollection, but there it was as plain as a pikestaff on my -promissory note. A halfpenny in the shilling per week over and above -everything else when the original interest wasn't forthcoming." - -"Printed or written on your note of hand?" - -"Printed--printed small, I needn't tell you--but quite large enough for -me to read when I signed the cursed bond. In fact I believe I did read -it; but a halfpenny a week! Who could ever believe it would mount up like -that? But it does; it's right enough, and the long and short of it is -that unless I pay up by twelve o'clock to-morrow the governor's to be -called in to say whether he'll pay up for me or see me made a bankrupt -under his nose. Twelve o'clock, when the match begins! Of course they -know that, and are trading on it. Only this evening I had the most -insolent ultimatum, saying it was my 'dead and last chance.'" - -"So then you came round here?" - -"I was coming in any case. I wish I'd shot myself first!" - -"My dear fellow, it was doing me proud; don't let us lose our sense of -proportion, Teddy." - -But young Garland had his face upon his hand, and once more he was the -miserable man who had begun brokenly to unfold the history of his shame. -The unconscious animation produced by the mere unloading of his heart, -the natural boyish slang with which his tale had been freely garnished, -had faded from his face, had died upon his lips. Once more he was a soul -in torments of despair and degradation; and yet once more did the absence -of the abject in man and manner redeem him from the depths of either. In -these moments of reaction he was pitiful, but not contemptible, much less -unlovable. Indeed, I could see the qualities that had won the heart of -Raffles as I had never seen them before. There is a native nobility not -to be destroyed by a single descent into the ignoble, an essential -honesty too bright and brilliant to be dimmed by incidental dishonour; -and both remained to the younger man, in the eyes of the other two, who -were even then determining to preserve in him all that they themselves -had lost. The thought came naturally enough to me. And yet I may well -have derived it from a face that for once was easy to read, a clear-cut -face that had never looked so sharp in profile, or, to my knowledge, half -so gentle in expression. - -"And what about these Jews?" asked Raffles at length. - -"There's really only one." - -"Are we to guess his name?" - -"No, I don't mind telling you. It's Dan Levy." - -"Of course it is!" cried Raffles with a nod for me. "Our Mr. Shylock in -all his glory!" - -Teddy snatched his face from his hands. - -"You don't know him, do you?" - -"I might almost say I know him at home," said Raffles. "But as a matter -of fact I met him abroad." - -Teddy was on his feet. - -"But do you know him well enough--" - -"Certainly. I'll see him in the morning. But I ought to have the receipts -for the various instalments you have paid, and perhaps that letter saying -it was your last chance." - -"Here they all are," said Garland, producing a bulky envelope. "But of -course I'll come with you--" - -"Of course you'll do nothing of the kind, Teddy! I won't have your eye -put out for the match by that old ruffian, and I'm not going to let you -sit up all night either. Where are you staying, my man?" - -"Nowhere yet. I left my kit at the club. I was going out home if I'd -caught you early enough." - -"Stout fellow! You stay here." - -"My dear old man, I couldn't think of it," said Teddy gratefully. - -"My dear young man, I don't care whether you think of it or not. Here you -stay, and moreover you turn in at once. I can fix you up with all you -want, and Barraclough shall bring your kit round before you're awake." - -"But you haven't got a bed, Raffles?" - -"You shall have mine. I hardly ever go to bed--do I, Bunny?" - -"I've seldom seen you there," said I. - -"But you were travelling all last night?" - -"And straight through till this evening, and I sleep all the time in a -train," said Raffles. "I hardly opened an eye all day; if I turned in -to-night I shouldn't get a wink." - -"Well, I shan't either," said the other hopelessly. "I've forgotten how -to sleep!" - -"Wait till I learn you!" said Raffles, and went into the inner room and -lit it up. - -"I'm terribly sorry about it all," whispered young Garland, turning to me -as though we were old friends now. - -"And I'm sorry for you," said I from my heart. "I know what it is." - -Garland was still staring when Raffles returned with a tiny bottle from -which he was shaking little round black things into his left palm. - -"Clean sheets yawning for you, Teddy," said he. "And now take two of -these, and one more spot of whisky, and you'll be asleep in ten minutes." - -"What are they?" - -"Somnol. The latest thing out, and quite the best." - -"But won't they give me a frightful head?" - -"Not a bit of it; you'll be as right as rain ten minutes after you wake -up. And you needn't leave this before eleven to-morrow morning, because -you don't want a knock at the nets, do you?" - -"I ought to have one," said Teddy seriously. But Raffles laughed -him to scorn. - -"They're not playing you for runs, my man, and I shouldn't run any risks -with those hands. Remember all the chances they're going to lap up -to-morrow, and all the byes they've not got to let!" - -And Raffles had administered his opiate before the patient knew much more -about it; next minute he was shaking hands with me, and the minute after -that Raffles went in to put out his light. He was gone some little time; -and I remember leaning out of the window in order not to overhear the -conversation in the next room. The night was nearly as fine as ever. The -starry ceiling over the Albany Courtyard was only less beautifully blue -than when Raffles and I had come in a couple of hours ago. The traffic in -Piccadilly came as crisply to the ear as on a winter's night of hard -frost. It was a night of wine, and sparkling wine, and the day at Lord's -must surely be a day of nectar. I could not help wondering whether any -man had ever played in the University match with such a load upon his -soul as E.M. Garland was taking to his forced slumbers; and then whether -any heavy-laden soul had ever hit upon two such brother confessors as -Raffles and myself! - - - - -CHAPTER III - -Council of War - - -Raffles was humming a snatch of something too choice for me to recognise -when I drew in my head from the glorious night. The folding-doors were -shut, and the grandfather's clock on one side of them made it almost -midnight. Raffles would not stop his tune for me, but he pointed to the -syphon and decanter, and I replenished my glass. He had a glass beside -him also, which was less usual, but he did not sit down beside his glass; -he was far too fidgety for that; even bothering about a pair of pictures -which had changed places under some zealous hand in his absence, or -rather two of Mr. Hollyer's fine renderings of Watts and Burne-Jones of -which I had never seen Raffles take the slightest notice before. But it -seemed that they must hang where he had hung them, and for once I saw -them hanging straight. The books had also suffered from good intentions; -he gave them up with a shrug. Archives and arcana he tested or examined, -and so a good many minutes passed without a word. But when he stole back -into the inner room, after waiting a little at the folding-doors, there -was still some faint strain upon his lips; it was only when he returned, -shutting the door none too quietly behind him, that he stopped humming -and spoke out with a grimmer face than he had worn all night. - -"That boy's in a bigger hole than he thinks. But we must pull him out -between us before play begins. It's one clear call for us, Bunny!" - -"Is it a bigger hole than you thought?" I asked, thinking myself of the -conversation which I had managed not to overhear. - -"I don't say that, Bunny, though I never should have dreamt of his old -father being in one too. I own I can't understand that. They live in a -regular country house in the middle of Kensington, and there are only the -two of them. But I've given Teddy my word not to go to the old man for -the money, so it's no use talking about it." - -But apparently it was what they had been talking about behind the -folding-doors; it only surprised me to see how much Raffles took -it to heart. - -"So you have made up your mind to raise the money elsewhere?" - -"Before that lad in there opens his eyes." - -"Is he asleep already?" - -"Like the dead," said Raffles, dropping into his chair and drinking -thoughtfully; "and so he will be till we wake him up. It's a ticklish -experiment, Bunny, but even a splitting head for the first hour's play is -better than a sleepless night; I've tried both, so I ought to know. I -shouldn't even wonder if he did himself more than justice to-morrow; one -often does when just less than fit; it takes off that dangerous edge of -over-keenness which so often cuts one's own throat." - -"But what do you think of it all, A.J.?" - -"Not so much worse than I let him think I thought." - -"But you must have been amazed?" - -"I am past amazement at the worst thing the best of us ever does, and -contrariwise of course. Your rich man proves a pauper, and your honest -man plays the knave; we're all of us capable of every damned thing. But -let us thank our stars and Teddy's that we got back just when we did." - -"Why at that moment?" - -Raffles produced the unfinished cheque, shook his head over it, and sent -it fluttering across to me. - -"Was there ever such a childish attempt? They'd have kept him in the bank -while they sent for the police. If ever you want to play this game, -Bunny, you must let me coach you up a bit." - -"But it was never one of your games, A.J.!" - -"Only incidentally once or twice; it never appealed to me," said Raffles, -sending expanding circlets of smoke to crown the girls on the Golden -Stair that was no longer tilted in a leaning tower. "No, Bunny, an -occasional _exeat_ at school is my modest record as a forger, though I -admit that augured ill. Do you remember how I left my cheque-book about -on purpose for what's happened? To be sinned against instead of sinning, -in all the papers, would have set one up as an honest man for life. I -thought, God forgive me, of poor old Barraclough or somebody of that -kind. And to think it should be 'the friend in whom my soul confided'! -Not that I ever did confide in him, Bunny, much as I love this lad." - -Despite the tense of that last statement, it was the old Raffles who was -speaking now, the incisively cynical old Raffles that I still knew the -best, the Raffles of the impudent quotations and jaunty _jeux d'esprit_. -This Raffles only meant half he said--but had generally done the other -half! I met his mood by reminding him (out of his own _Whitaker_) that -the sun rose at 3.51, in case he thought of breaking in anywhere that -night. I had the honour of making Raffles smile. - -"I did think of it, Bunny," said he. "But there's only one crib that we -could crack in decency for this money; and our Mr. Shylock's is not the -sort of city that Caesar himself would have taken _ex itinere_. It's a -case for the _testudo_ and all the rest of it. You must remember that -I've been there, Bunny; at least I've visited his 'moving tent,' if one -may jump from an ancient to an 'Ancient and Modern.' And if that was as -impregnable as I found it, his permanent citadel must be perched upon the -very rock of defence!" - -"You must tell me about that, Raffles," said I, tiring a little of his -kaleidoscopic metaphors. Let him be as allusive as he liked when there -was no risky work on hand, and I was his lucky and delighted audience -till all hours of the night or morning. But for a deed of darkness I -wanted fewer fireworks, a steadier light from his intellectual -lantern. And yet these were the very moments that inspired his -pyrotechnic displays. - -"Oh, I shall tell you all right," said Raffles. "But just now the next -few hours are of more importance than the last few weeks. Of course -Shylock's the man for our money; but knowing our tribesmen as I do, I -think we had better begin by borrowing it like simple Christians." - -"Then we have it to pay back again." - -"And that's the psychological moment for raiding our 'miser's sunless -coffers'--if he happens to have any. It will give us time to find out." - -"But he doesn't keep open office all night," I objected. - -"But he opens at nine o'clock in the morning," said Raffles, "to catch -the early stockbroker who would rather be bled than hammered." - -"Who told you that?" - -"Our Mrs. Shylock." - -"You must have made great friends with her?" - -"More in pity than for the sake of secrets." - -"But you went where the secrets were?" - -"And she gave them away wholesale." - -"She would," I said, "to you." - -"She told me a lot about the impending libel action." - -"Shylock _v. Fact?_" - -"Yes; it's coming on before the vacation, you know." - -"So I saw in some paper." - -"But you know what it's all about, Bunny?" - -"No, I don't." - -"Another old rascal, the Maharajah of Hathipur, and his perfectly -fabulous debts. It seems he's been in our Mr. Shylock's clutches for -years, but instead of taking his pound of flesh he's always increasing -the amount. Of course that's the whole duty of money-lenders, but now -they say the figure runs well into six. No one has any sympathy with that -old heathen; he's said to have been a pal of Nana's before the Mutiny, -and in it up to the neck he only saved by turning against his own lot in -time; in any case it's the pot and the kettle so far as moral colour is -concerned. But I believe it's an actual fact that syndicates have been -formed to buy up the black man's debts and take a reasonable interest, -only the dirty white man always gets to windward of the syndicate. -They're on the point of bringing it off, when old Levy inveigles the -nigger into some new Oriental extravagance. _Fact_ has exposed the whole -thing, and printed blackmailing letters which Shylock swears are -forgeries. That's both their cases in a philippine! The leeches told the -Jew he must do his Carlsbad this year before the case came on; and the -tremendous amount it's going to cost may account for his dunning old -clients the moment he gets back." - -"Then why should he lend to you?" - -"I'm a new client, Bunny; that makes all the difference. Then we were -very good pals out there." - -"But you and Mrs. Shylock were better still?" - -"Unbeknowns, Bunny! She used to tell me her troubles when I lent her an -arm and took due care to look a martyr; my hunting friend had coarse -metaphors about heavy-weights and the knacker's yard." - -"And yet you came away with the poor soul's necklace?" - -Raffles was tapping the chronic cigarette on the table at his elbow; he -stood up to light it, as one does stand up to make the dramatic -announcements of one's life, and he spoke through the flame of the match -as it rose and fell between his puffs. - -"No--Bunny--I did not!" - -"But you told me you won the Emerald Stakes!" I cried, jumping up -in my turn. - -"So I did, Bunny, but I gave them back again." - -"You gave yourself away to her, as she'd given him away to you?" - -"Don't be a fool, Bunny," said Raffles, subsiding into his chair. "I -can't tell you the whole thing now, but here are the main heads. They're -at the Savoy Hotel, in Carlsbad I mean. I go to Pupp's. We meet. They -stare. I come out of my British shell as the humble hero of the affair at -the other Savoy. I crab my hotel. They swear by theirs. I go to see their -rooms. I wait till I can get the very same thing immediately overhead on -the second floor--where I can even hear the old swine cursing her from -under his mud-poultice! Both suites have balconies that might have been -made for me. Need I go on?" - -"I wonder you weren't suspected." - -"There's no end to your capacity for wonder, Bunny. I took some sweet old -rags with me on purpose, carefully packed inside a decent suit, and I had -the luck to pick up a foul old German cap that some peasant had cast off -in the woods. I only meant to leave it on them like a card; as it -was--well, I was waiting for the best barber in the place to open his -shop next morning." - -"What had happened?" - -"A whole actful of unrehearsed effects; that's why I think twice before -taking on old Shylock again. I admire him, Bunny, as a steely foeman. I -look forward to another game with him on his own ground. But I must find -out the pace of the wicket before I put myself on." - -"I suppose you had tea with them, and all that sort of thing?" - -"Gieshübler!" said Raffles with a shudder. "But I made it last as long as -tea, and thought I had located the little green lamps before I took my -leave. There was a japanned despatch box in one corner. 'That's the -Emerald Isle,' I thought, 'I'll soon have it out of the sea. The old man -won't trust 'em to the old lady after what happened in town,' I needn't -tell you I knew they were there somewhere; he made her wear them even at -the tragic travesty of a Carlsbad hotel dinner." - -Raffles was forgetting to be laconic now. I believe he had forgotten -the lad in the next room, and everything else but the breathless battle -that he was fighting over again for my benefit. He told me how he -waited for a dark night, and then slid down from his sitting-room -balcony to the one below. And my emeralds were not in the japanned box -after all; and just as he had assured himself of the fact, the -folding-doors opened "as it might be these," and there stood Dan Levy -"in a suit of swagger silk pyjamas." - -"They gave me a sudden respect for him," continued Raffles; "it struck -me, for the first time, that mud baths mightn't be the only ones he ever -took. His face was as evil as ever, but he was utterly unarmed, and I was -not; and yet there he stood and abused me like a pickpocket, as if there -was no chance of my firing, and he didn't care whether I did or not. So I -stuck my revolver nearly in his face, and pulled the hammer up and up. -Good God, Bunny, if I had pulled too hard! But that made him blink a bit, -and I was jolly glad to let it down again. 'Out with those emeralds,' -says I in low German mugged up in case of need. Of course you realise -that I was absolutely unrecognisable, a low blackguard with a blackened -face. 'I don't know what you mean,' says he, 'and I'm damned if I care.' -'_Das halsband_, says I, which means the necklace. 'Go to hell,' says he. -But I struck myself and shook my head and then my fist at him and nodded. -He laughed in my face; and upon my soul we were at a deadlock. So I -pointed to the clock and held up one finger. 'I've one minute to live, -old girl,' says he through the doors, 'if this rotter has the guts to -shoot, and I don't think he has. Why the hell don't you get out the other -way and alarm the 'ouse?' And that raised the siege, Bunny. In comes the -old woman, as plucky as he was, and shoves the necklace into my left -hand. I longed to refuse it. I didn't dare. And the old beast took her -and shook her like a rat, until I covered him again, and swore in German -that if he showed himself on the balcony for the next two minutes he'd be -_ein toter Englander_! That was the other bit I'd got off pat; it was -meant to mean 'a dead Englishman.' And I left the fine old girl clinging -on to him, instead of him to her!" - -I emptied my lungs and my glass too. Raffles took a sip himself. - -"But the rope was fixed to _your_ balcony, A.J.?" - -"But I began by fixing the other end to theirs, and the moment I was -safely up I undid my end and dropped it clear to the ground. They found -it dangling all right when out they rushed together. Of course I'd picked -the right ball in the way of nights; it was bone-dry as well as -pitch-dark, and in five minutes I was helping the rest of the hotel to -search for impossible footprints on the gravel, and to stamp out any -there might conceivably have been." - -"So nobody ever suspected you?" - -"Not a soul, I can safely say; I was the first my victims bored with the -whole yarn." - -"Then why return the swag? It's an old trick of yours, Raffles, but in a -case like this, with a pig like that, I confess I don't see the point." - -"You forget the poor old lady, Bunny. She had a dog's life before; after -that the beans he gave her weren't even fit for a dog. I loved her for -her pluck in standing up to him; it beat his hollow in standing up to me; -there was only one reward for her, and it was in my gift." - -"But how on earth did you manage that?" - -"Not by public presentation, Bunny, nor yet by taking the old dame into -my confidence _more cuniculi!"_ - -"I suppose you returned the necklace anonymously?" - -"As a low-down German burglar would be sure to do! No, Bunny, I planted -it in the woods where I knew it would be found. And then I had to watch -lest it was found by the wrong sort. But luckily Mr. Shylock had sprung a -substantial reward, and all came right in the end. He sent his doctor to -blazes, and had a buck feed and lashings on the night it was recovered. -The hunting man and I were invited to the thanksgiving spread; but I -wouldn't budge from the diet, and he was ashamed to unless I did. It made -a coolness between us, and now I doubt if we shall ever have that -enormous dinner we used to talk about to celebrate our return from a -living tomb." - -But I was not interested in that shadowy fox-hunter. "Dan Levy's a -formidable brute to tackle," said I at length, and none too buoyantly. - -"That's a very true observation, Bunny; it's also exactly why I so looked -forward to tackling him. It ought to be the kind of conflict that the -halfpenny press have learnt to call Homeric." - -"Are you thinking of to-morrow, or of when it comes to robbing Peter to -pay Peter?" - -"Excellent, Bunny!" cried Raffles, as though I had made a shot worthy of -his willow. "How the small hours brighten us up!" He drew the curtains -and displayed a window like a child's slate with the sashes ruled across -it. "You perceive how we have tired the stars with talking, and cleaned -them from the sky! The mellifluous Heraclitus can have been no sitter up -o' nights, or his pal wouldn't have boasted about tiring the sun by our -methods. What a lot the two old pets must have missed!" - -"You haven't answered my question," said I resignedly. "Nor have you told -me how you propose to go to work to raise this money in the first -instance." - -"If you like to light another Sullivan," said Raffles, "and mix yourself -another very small and final one, I can tell you now, Bunny." - -And tell me he did. - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -"Our Mr. Shylock" - - -I have often wondered in what pause or phase of our conversation Raffles -hit upon the plan which we duly carried out; for we had been talking -incessantly, since his arrival about eight o'clock at night, until two in -the morning. Yet that which we discussed between two and three was what -we actually did between nine and ten, with the single exception -necessitated by an altogether unforeseen development, of which the less -said the better until the proper time. The foresight and imagination of a -Raffles are obviously apt to outstrip his spoken words; but even in the -course of speech his ideas would crystallise, quite palpably to the -listener, and the sentence that began by throwing out a shadowy idea -would culminate in a definite project, as the image comes into focus -under the lens, and with as much detail into the bargain. - -Suffice it that after a long night of it at the Albany, and but a bath -and a cup of tea at my own flat, I found Raffles waiting for me in -Piccadilly, and down we went together to the jaws of Jermyn Street. There -we nodded, and I was proceeding down the hill when I turned on my heel as -though I had forgotten something, and entered Jermyn Street not fifty -yards behind Raffles. I had no thought of catching him up. But it so -happened that I was in his wake in time to witness a first _contretemps_ -which did not amount to much at the time; this was merely the violent -exit of another of Dan Levy's early callers into the very arms of -Raffles. There was a heated apology, accepted with courteous composure, -and followed by an excited outpouring which I did not come near enough to -overhear. It was delivered by a little man in an aureole of indigo hair, -who brushed his great sombrero violently as he spoke and Raffles -listened. I could see from their manner that the collision which had just -occurred was not the subject under discussion; but I failed to -distinguish a word, though I listened outside a hatter's until Raffles -had gone in and his new acquaintance had passed me with blazing eyes and -a volley of husky vows in broken English. - -"Another of Mr. Shylock's victims," thought I; and indeed he might have -been bleeding internally from the loss of his pound of flesh; at any rate -there was bloodshed in his eyes. - -I stood a long time outside that hatter's window, and finally went in to -choose a cap. But the light is wicked in those narrow shops, and this -necessitated my carrying several caps to the broad daylight of the -threshold to gauge their shades, and incidentally to achieve a swift -survey of the street. Then they crowned me with an ingenious apparatus -like a typewriter, to get the exact shape and measure of my skull, for I -had intimated that I had no desire to dress it anywhere else for the -future. All this must have taken up the most of twenty minutes, yet after -getting as far as Mr. Shylock's I remembered that I required what one's -hatter (and no one else) calls a "boater," and back I went to order one -in addition to the cap. And as the next tack fetches the buoy, so my next -perambulation (in which, however, I was thinking seriously of a new -bowler) brought me face to face with Raffles once more. - -We shouted and shook hands; our encounter had taken place almost under -the money-lender's windows, and it was so un-English in its cordiality -that between our slaps and grasps Raffles managed deftly to insert a -stout packet in my breast pocket. I cannot think the most critical -pedestrian could have seen it done. But streets have as many eyes as -Argus, and some of them are always on one. - -"They had to send to the bank for it," whispered Raffles. "It barely -passed through their hands. But don't you let Shylock spot his own -envelope!" - -In another second he was saying something very different that anybody -might have heard, and in yet another he was hustling me across Shylock's -threshold. "I'll take you up and introduce you," he cried aloud. "You -couldn't come to a better man, my dear fellow--he's the only honest one -in Europe. Is Mr. Levy disengaged?" - -A stunted young gentleman, who spoke as though he had a hare-lip or was -in liquor, neither calamity having really befallen him, said that he -thought so, but would see, which he proceeded to do through a telephone, -after shifting the indicator from "Through" to "Private." He slid off his -stool at once, and another youth, of similar appearance and still more -similar peculiarity of speech, who entered in a hurry at that moment, was -told to hold on while he showed the gentlemen up-stairs. There were other -clerks behind the mahogany bulwark, and we heard the newcomer greeting -them hoarsely as we climbed up into the presence. - -Dan Levy, as I must try to call him when Raffles is not varnishing my -tale, looked a very big man at his enormous desk, but by no means so -elephantine as at the tiny table in the Savoy Restaurant a month -earlier. His privations had not only reduced his bulk to the naked eye, -but made him look ten years younger. He wore the habiliments of a -gentleman; even as he sat at his desk his well-cut coat and well-tied tie -filled me with that inconsequent respect which the silk pyjamas had -engendered in Raffles. But the great face that greeted us with a shrewd -and rather scornful geniality impressed me yet more powerfully. In its -massive features and its craggy contour it displayed the frank pugnacity -of the pugilist rather than the low cunning of the traditional usurer; -and the nose in particular, while of far healthier appearance than when I -had seen it first and last, was both dominant and menacing in its -immensity. It was a comfort to turn from this formidable countenance to -that of Raffles, who had entered with his own serene unconscious -confidence, and now introduced us with that inimitable air of -light-hearted authority which stamped him in all shades of society. - -"'Appy to meet you, sir. I hope you're well?" said Mr. Levy, dropping one -aspirate but putting in the next with care. "Take a seat, sir, please." - -But I kept my legs, though I felt them near to trembling, and, diving a -hand into a breast pocket, I began working the contents out of the -envelope that Raffles had given me, while I spoke out in a tone -sufficiently rehearsed at the Albany overnight. - -"I'm not so sure about the happiness," said I. "I mean about its lasting, -Mr. Levy. I come from my friend, Mr. Edward Garland." - -"I thought you came to borrow money!" interposed Raffles with much -indignation. The moneylender was watching me with bright eyes and lips I -could no longer see. - -"I never said so," I rapped out at Raffles; and I thought I saw approval -and encouragement behind his stare like truth at the bottom of the well. - -"Who _is_ the little biter?" the money-lender inquired of him with -delightful insolence. - -"An old friend of mine," replied Raffles, in an injured tone that made a -convincing end of the old friendship. "I thought he was hard up, or I -never should have brought him in to introduce to you." - -"I didn't ask you for your introduction, Raffles," said I offensively. "I -simply met you coming out as I was coming in. I thought you damned -officious, if you ask me!" - -Whereupon, with an Anglo-Saxon threat of subsequent violence to my -person, Raffles flung open the door to leave us to our interview. This -was exactly as it had been rehearsed. But Dan Levy called Raffles back. -And that was exactly as we had hoped. - -"Gentlemen, gentlemen!" said the Jew. "Please don't make a cockpit of my -office, gentlemen; and pray, Mr. Raffles, don't leave me to the mercies -of your very dangerous friend." - -"You can be two to one if you like," I gasped valiantly. "_I_ -don't care." - -And my chest heaved in accordance with my stage instructions, as also -with a realism to which it was a relief to give full play. - -"Come now," said Levy. "What did Mr. Garland send you about?" - -"You know well enough," said I: "his debt to you." - -"Don't be rude about it," said Levy. "What about the debt?" - -"It's a damned disgrace!" said I. - -"I quite agree," he chuckled. "It ought to 'ave been settled months ago." - -"Months ago?" I echoed. "It's only twelve months since he borrowed three -hundred pounds from you, and now you're sticking him for seven!" - -"I am," said Levy, opening uncompromising lips that entirely disappeared -again next instant. - -"He borrows three hundred for a year at the outside, and you blackmail -him for eight hundred when the year's up." - -"You said 'seven' just now," interrupted Raffles, but in the voice of a -man who was getting a fright. - -"You also said 'blackmailing,'" added Dan Levy portentously. "Do you want -to be thrown downstairs?" - -"Do _you_ deny the figures?" I retorted. - -"No, I don't; have you got his repayment cards?" - -"Yes, here in my hands, and they shan't leave them. You see, you're not -aware," I added severely, as I turned to Raffles, "that this young fellow -has already paid up one hundred in instalments; that's what makes the -eight; and all this is what'll happen to you if you've been fool enough -to get into the same boat." - -The money-lender had borne with me longer than either of us had expected -that he would; but now he wheeled back his chair and stood up, a pillar -of peril and a mouthful of oaths. - -"Is that all you've come to say?" he thundered. "If so, you young devil, -out you go!" - -"No, it isn't," said I, spreading out a document attached to the cards of -receipt which Raffles had obtained from Teddy Garland; these I had -managed to extract without anything else from the inner pocket in which I -had been trying to empty out Raffles's envelope. "Here," I continued, "is -a letter, written only yesterday, by you to Mr. Garland, in which you -say, among other very insolent things: 'This is final, and absolutely no -excuses of any kind will be tolerated or accepted. You have given ten -times more trouble than your custom is worth, and I shall be glad to get -rid of you. So you had better pay up before twelve o'clock to-morrow, as -you may depend that the above threats will be carried out to the very -letter, and steps will be taken to carry them into effect at that hour. -This is your dead and last chance, and the last time I will write you on -the subject.'" - -"So it is," said Levy with an oath. "This is a very bad case, Mr. -Raffles." - -"I agree," said I. "And may I ask if you propose to 'get rid' of Mr. -Garland by making him 'pay up' in full?" - -"Before twelve o'clock to-day," said Dan Levy, with a snap of his -prize-fighting jaws. - -"Eight hundred, first and last, for the three hundred he borrowed a -year ago?" - -"That's it." - -"Surely that's very hard on the boy," I said, reaching the conciliatory -stage by degrees on which Raffles paid me many compliments later; but at -the time he remarked, "I should say it was his own fault." - -"Of course it is, Mr. Raffles," cried the moneylender, taking a more -conciliatory tone himself. "It was my money; it was my three 'undred -golden sovereigns; and you can sell what's yours for what it'll fetch, -can't you?" - -"Obviously," said Raffles. - -"Very well, then, money's like anything else; if you haven't got it, and -can't beg or earn it, you've got to buy it at a price. I sell my money, -that's all. And I've a right to sell it at a fancy price if I can get a -fancy price for it. A man may be a fool to pay my figure; that depends -'ow much he wants the money at the time, and it's his affair, not mine. -Your gay young friend was all right if he hadn't defaulted, but a -defaulter deserves to pay through the nose, and be damned to him. It -wasn't me let your friend in; he let in himself, with his eyes open. Mr. -Garland knew very well what I was charging him, and what I shouldn't -'esitate to charge over and above if he gave me half a chance. Why should -I? Wasn't it in the bond? What do you all think I run my show for? It's -business, Mr. Raffles, not robbery, my dear sir. All business is -robbery, if you come to that. But you'll find mine is all above-board and -in the bond." - -"A very admirable exposition," said Raffles weightily. - -"Not that it applies to you, Mr. Raffles," the other was adroit enough to -add. "Mr. Garland was no friend of mine, and he was a fool, whereas I -hope I may say that you're the one and not the other." - -"Then it comes to this," said I, "that you mean him to pay up in full -this morning?" - -"By noon, and it's just gone ten." - -"The whole seven hundred pounds?" - -"Sterling," said Mr. Levy "No cheques entertained." - -"Then," said I, with an air of final defeat, "there's nothing for it but -to follow my instructions and pay you now on the nail!" - -I did not look at Levy, but I heard the sudden intake of his breath at -the sight of my bank-notes, and I felt its baleful exhalation on my -forehead as I stooped and began counting them out upon his desk. I had -made some progress before he addressed me in terms of protest. There was -almost a tremor in his voice. I had no call to be so hasty; it looked as -though I had been playing a game with him. Why couldn't I tell him I had -the money with me all the time? The question was asked with a sudden -oath, because I had gone on counting it out regardless of his overtures. -I took as little notice of his anger. - -"And now, Mr. Levy," I concluded, "may I ask you to return me Mr. -Garland's promissory note?" - -"Yes, you may ask and you shall receive!" he snarled, and opened his safe -so violently that the keys fell out. Raffles replaced them with exemplary -promptitude while the note of hand was being found. - -The evil little document was in my possession at last. Levy roared down -the tube, and the young man of the imperfect diction duly appeared. - -"Take that young biter," cried Levy, "and throw him into the street. Call -up Moses to lend you a 'and." - -But the first murderer stood nonplussed, looking from Raffles to me, and -finally inquiring which biter his master meant. - -"That one!" bellowed the money-lender, shaking a lethal fist at me. "Mr. -Raffles is a friend o' mine." - -"But 'e'th a friend of 'ith too," lisped the young man. "Thimeon Markth -come acroth the thtreet to tell me tho. He thaw them thake handth -outthide our plathe, after he'd theen 'em arm-in-arm in Piccadilly, 'an -he come in to thay tho in cathe--" - -But the youth of limited articulation was not allowed to finish his -explanation; he was grasped by the scruff of the neck and kicked and -shaken out of the room, and his collar flung after him. I heard him -blubbering on the stairs as Levy locked the door and put the key in his -pocket. But I did not hear Raffles slip into the swivel chair behind -the desk, or know that he had done so until the usurer and I turned -round together. - -"Out of that!" blustered Levy. - -But Raffles tilted the chair back on its spring and laughed softly -in his face. - -"Not if I know it," said he. "If you don't open the door in about one -minute I shall require this telephone of yours to ring up the police." - -"The police, eh?" said Levy, with a sinister recovery of self-control. -"You'd better leave that to me, you precious pair of swindlers!" - -"Besides," continued Raffles, "of course you keep an _argumentum ad -hominem_ in one of these drawers. Ah, here it is, and just as well in my -hands as in yours!" - -He had opened the top drawer in the right-hand pedestal, and taken -therefrom a big bulldog revolver; it was the work of few moments to empty -its five chambers, and hand the pistol by its barrel to the owner. - -"Curse you!" hissed the latter, hurling it into the fender with a fearful -clatter. "But you'll pay for this, my fine gentlemen; this isn't sharp -practice, but criminal fraud." - -"The burden of proof," said Raffles, "lies with you. Meanwhile, will you -be good enough to open that door instead of looking as sick as a cold -mud-poultice?" - -The money-lender had, indeed, turned as grey as his hair; and his -eyebrows, which were black and looked dyed, stood out like smears of ink. -Nevertheless, the simile which Raffles had employed with his own -unfortunate facility was more picturesque than discreet. I saw it set Mr. -Shylock thinking. Luckily, the evil of the day was sufficient for it and -him; but so far from complying, he set his back to the locked door and -swore a sweet oath never to budge. - -"Oh, very well!" resumed Raffles, and the receiver was at his ear without -more ado. "Is that the Exchange? Give me nine-two-double-three Gerrard, -will you?" - -"It's fraud," reiterated Levy. "And you know it." - -"It's nothing of the sort, and _you_ know it," murmured Raffles, with -the proper pre-occupation of the man at the telephone. - -"You lent the money," I added. "That's your business. It's nothing to do -with you what he chooses to do with it." - -"He's a cursed swindler," hissed Levy. "And you're his damned decoy!" - -I was not sorry to see Raffles's face light up across the desk. - -"Is that Howson, Anstruther and Martin?--they're only my solicitors, Mr. -Levy.... Put me through to Mr. Martin, please.... That you, Charlie? ... -You might come in a cab to Jermyn Street--I forget the number--Dan -Levy's, the money-lender's--thanks, old chap! ... Wait a bit, Charlie--a -constable...." - -But Dan Levy had unlocked his door and flung it open. - -"There you are, you scoundrels! But we'll meet again, my fine -swell-mobsmen!" - -Raffles was frowning at the telephone. - -"I've been cut off," said he. "Wait a bit! Clear call for you, Mr. Levy, -I believe!" - -And they changed places, without exchanging another word until Raffles -and I were on the stairs. - -"Why, the 'phone's not even _through!_" yelled the money-lender, -rushing out. - -"But _we_ are, Mr. Levy!" cried Raffles. And down we ran into the street. - - - - -CHAPTER V - -Thin Air - - -Raffles hailed a passing hansom, and had bundled me in before I realised -that he was not coming with me. - -"Drive down to the club for Teddy's cricket-bag," said he; "we'll make -him get straight into flannels to save time. Order breakfast for three in -half-an-hour precisely, and I'll tell him everything before you're back." - -His eyes were shining with the prospect as I drove away, not sorry to -escape the scene of that young man's awakening to better fortune than he -deserved. For in my heart I could not quite forgive the act in which -Raffles and I had caught him overnight. Raffles might make as light of it -as he pleased; it was impossible for another to take his affectionately -lenient view, not of the moral question involved, but of the breach of -faith between friend and friend. My own feeling in the matter, however, -if a little jaundiced, was not so strong as to prevent me from gloating -over the victory in which I had just assisted. I thought of the notorious -extortioner who had fallen to our unscrupulous but not indictable wiles; -and my heart tinkled with the hansom bell. I thought of the good that we -had done for once, of the undoubted wrong we had contrived to right by a -species of justifiable chicanery. And I forgot all about the youth whose -battle we had fought and won, until I found myself ordering his -breakfast, and having his cricket-bag taken out to my cab. - -Raffles was waiting for me in the Albany courtyard. I thought he was -frowning at the sky, which was not what it had been earlier in the -morning, until I remembered how little time there was to lose. - -"Haven't you seen anything of him?" he cried as I jumped out. - -"Of whom, Raffles?" - -"Teddy, of course!" - -"Teddy Garland? Has he gone out?" - -"Before I got in," said Raffles, grimly. "I wonder where the devil he -is!" - -He had paid the cabman and taken down the bag himself. I followed him up -to his rooms. - -"But what's the meaning of it, Raffles?" - -"That's what I want to know." - -"Could he have gone out for a paper?" - -"They were all here before I went. I left them on his bed." - -"Or for a shave?" - -"That's more likely; but he's been out nearly an hour." - -"But you can't have been gone much longer yourself, Raffles, and I -understood you left him fast asleep?" - -"That's the worst of it, Bunny. He must have been shamming. Barraclough -saw him go out ten minutes after me." - -"Could you have disturbed him when you went?" - -Raffles shook his head. - -"I never shut a door more carefully in my life. I made row enough when I -came back, Bunny, on purpose to wake him up, and I can tell you it gave -me a turn when there wasn't a sound from in there! He'd shut all the -doors after him; it was a second or two before I had the pluck to open -them. I thought something horrible had happened!" - -"You don't think so still?" - -"I don't know what to think," said Raffles, gloomily; "nothing has panned -out as I thought it would. You must remember that we have given ourselves -away to Dan Levy, whatever else we have done, and without doubt set up -the enemy of our lives in the very next street. It's close quarters, -Bunny; we shall have an expert eye upon us for some time to come. But I -should rather enjoy that than otherwise, if only Teddy hadn't bolted in -this rotten way." - -Never had I known Raffles in so pessimistic a mood. I did not share his -sombre view of either matter, though I confined my remarks to the one -that seemed to weigh most heavily on his mind. - -"A guinea to a gooseberry," I wagered, "that you find your man safe and -sound at Lord's." - -"I rang them up ten minutes ago," said Raffles. "They hadn't heard of him -then; besides, here's his cricket-bag." - -"He may have been at the club when I fetched it away--I never asked." - -"I did, Bunny. I rang them up as well, just after you had left." - -"Then what about his father's house?" - -"That's our one chance," said Raffles. "They're not on the telephone, but -now that you're here I've a good mind to drive out and see if Teddy's -there. You know what a state he was in last night, and you know how a -thing can seem worse when you wake and remember it than it did at the -time it happened. I begin to hope he's gone straight to old Garland with -the whole story; in that case he's bound to come back for his kit; and by -Jove, Bunny, there's a step upon the stairs!" - -We had left the doors open behind us, and a step it was, ascending -hastily enough to our floor. But it was not the step of a very young man, -and Raffles was the first to recognise the fact; his face fell as we -looked at each other for a single moment of suspense; in another he was -out of the room, and I heard him greeting Mr. Garland on the landing. - -"Then you haven't brought Teddy with you?" I heard Raffles add. - -"Do you mean to say he isn't here?" replied so pleasant a voice--in -accents of such acute dismay--that Mr. Garland had my sympathy -before we met. - -"He has been," said Raffles, "and I'm expecting him back every minute. -Won't you come in and wait, Mr. Garland?" - -The pleasant voice made an exclamation of premature relief; the pair -entered, and I was introduced to the last person I should have suspected -of being a retired brewer at all, much less of squandering his money in -retirement as suggested by his son. I was prepared for a conventional -embodiment of reckless prosperity, for a pseudo-military type in louder -purple and finer linen than the real thing. I shook hands instead with a -gentle, elderly man, whose kindly eyes beamed bravely amid careworn -furrows, and whose slightly diffident yet wholly cordial address won my -heart outright. - -"So you've lost no time in welcoming the wanderer!" said he. "You're -nearly as bad as my boy, who was quite bent on seeing Raffles last night -or first thing this morning. He told me he should stay the night in town -if necessary, and he evidently has." - -There was still a trace of anxiety in the father's manner, but there was -also a twinkle in his eyes, which kindled with genial fires as Raffles -gave a perfectly truthful account of the young man's movements (as -distinct from his words and deeds) overnight. - -"And what do you think of his great news?" asked Mr. Garland. "Was it a -surprise to you, Raffles?" - -Raffles shook his head with a rather weary smile, and I sat up in my -chair. What great news was this? - -"This son of mine has just got engaged," explained Mr. Garland for my -benefit. "And as a matter of fact it's his engagement that brings me -here; you gentlemen mustn't think I want to keep an eagle eye upon him; -but Miss Belsize has just wired to say she is coming up early to go with -us to the match, instead of meeting at Lord's, and I thought she would be -so disappointed not to find Teddy, especially as they are bound to see -very little of each other all day." - -I for my part was wondering why I had not heard of Miss Belsize or this -engagement from Raffles. He must himself have heard of it last thing at -night in the next room, while I was star-gazing here at the open window. -Yet in all the small hours he had never told me of a circumstance which -extenuated young Garland's conduct if it did nothing else. Even now it -was not from Raffles that I received either word or look of explanation. -But his face had suddenly lit up. - -"May I ask," he exclaimed, "if the telegram was to Teddy or to you, -Mr. Garland?" - -"It was addressed to Teddy, but of course I opened it in his absence." - -"Could it have been an answer to an invitation or suggestion of his?" - -"Very easily. They had lunch together yesterday, and Camilla might have -had to consult Lady Laura." - -"Then that's the whole thing!" cried Raffles. "Teddy was on his way home -while you were on yours into town! How did you come?" - -"In the brougham." - -"Through the Park?" - -"Yes." - -"While he was in a hansom in Knightsbridge or Kensington Gore! That's -how you missed him," said Raffles confidently. "If you drive straight -back you'll be in time to take him on to Lord's." - -Mr. Garland begged us both to drive back with him; and we thought we -might; we decided that we would, and were all three under way in about a -minute. Yet it was considerably after eleven when we bowled through -Kensington to a house that I had never seen before, a house since swept -away by the flowing tide of flats, but I can still see every stone and -slate of it as clearly as on that summer morning more than ten years ago. -It stood just off the thoroughfare, in grounds of its own out of all -keeping with their metropolitan environment; they ran from one -side-street to another, and further back than we could see. Vivid lawn -and towering tree, brilliant beds and crystal vineries, struck one more -forcibly (and favourably) than the mullioned and turreted mansion of a -house. And yet a double stream of omnibuses rattled incessantly within a -few yards of the steps on which the three of us soon stood nonplussed. - -Mr. Edward had not been seen or heard of at the house. Neither had Miss -Belsize arrived; that was the one consolatory feature. - -"Come into the library," said Mr. Garland; and when we were among his -books, which were somewhat beautifully bound and cased in glass, he -turned to Raffles and added hoarsely: "There's something in all this I -haven't been told, and I insist on knowing what it is." - -"But you know as much as I do," protested Raffles. "I went out leaving -Teddy asleep and came back to find him flown." - -"What time was that?" - -"Between nine and half-past when I went out. I was away nearly an hour." - -"Why leave him asleep at that time of morning?" - -"I wanted him to have every minute he could get. We had been sitting up -rather late." - -"But why, Raffles? What could you have to talk about all night when you -were tired and it was Teddy's business to keep fresh for to-day? Why, -after all, should he want to see you the moment you got back? He's not -the first young fellow who's got rather suddenly engaged to a charming -girl; is he in any trouble about it, Raffles?" - -"About his engagement--not that I'm aware." - -"Then he is in some trouble?" - -"He was, Mr. Garland," answered Raffles. "I give you my word that he -isn't now." - -Mr. Garland grasped the back of a chair. - -"Was it some money trouble, Raffles? Of course, if my boy has given you -his confidence, I have no right simply as his father--" - -"It is hardly that, sir," said Raffles, gently; "it is I who have no -right to give him away. But if you don't mind leaving it at that, Mr. -Garland, there is perhaps no harm in my saying that it _was_ about some -little temporary embarrassment that Teddy was so anxious to see me." - -"And you helped him?" cried the poor man, plainly torn between gratitude -and humiliation. - -"Not out of my pocket," replied Raffles, smiling. "The matter was not so -serious as Teddy thought; it only required adjustment." - -"God bless you, Raffles!" murmured Mr. Garland, with a catch in his -voice. "I won't ask for a single detail. My poor boy went to the right -man; he knew better than to come to me. Like father, like son!" he -muttered to himself, and dropped into the chair he had been handling, and -bent his head over his folded arms. - -He seemed to have forgotten the untoward effect of Teddy's disappearance -in the peculiar humiliation of its first cause. Raffles took out his -watch, and held up the dial for me to see. It was after the half-hour -now; but at this moment a servant entered with a missive, and the master -recovered his self-control. - -"This'll be from Teddy!" he cried, fumbling with his glasses. "No; it's -for him, and by special messenger. I'd better open it. I don't suppose -it's Miss Belsize again." - -"Miss Belsize is in the drawing-room, sir," said the man. "She said you -were not to be disturbed." - -"Oh, tell her we shan't be long," said Mr. Garland, with a new strain of -trouble in his tone. "Listen to this--listen to this," he went on before -the door was shut: "'What has happened? Lost toss. Whipham plays if you -don't turn up in time.--J. S.'" - -"Jack Studley," said Raffles, "the Cambridge skipper." - -"I know! I know! And Whipham's reserve man, isn't he?" - -"And another wicket-keeper, worse luck!" exclaimed Raffles. "If he turns -out and takes a single ball, and Teddy is only one over late, it will -still be too late for him to play." - -"Then it's too late already," said Mr. Garland, sinking back into his -chair with a groan. - -"But that note from Studley may have been half-an-hour on the way." - -"No, Raffles, it's not an ordinary note; it's a message telephoned -straight from Lord's--probably within the last few minutes--to a -messenger office not a hundred yards from this door!" - -Mr. Garland sat staring miserably at the carpet; he was beginning to look -ill with perplexity and suspense. Raffles himself, who had turned his -back upon us with a shrug of acquiescence in the inevitable, was a -monument of discomfiture as he stood gazing through a glass door into the -adjoining conservatory. There was no actual window in the library, but -this door was a single sheet of plate-glass into which a man might well -have walked, and I can still see Raffles in full-length silhouette upon a -panel of palms and tree-ferns. I see the silhouette grow tall and -straight again before my eyes, the door open, and Raffles listening with -an alert lift of the head. I, too, hear something, an elfin hiss, a fairy -fusillade, and then the sudden laugh with which Raffles rejoined us in -the body of the room. - -"It's raining!" he cried, waving a hand above his head. "Have you a -barometer, Mr. Garland?" - -"That's an aneroid under the lamp-bracket." - -"How often do you set the indicator?" - -"Last thing every night. I remember it was between Fair and Change when I -went to bed. It made me anxious." - -"It may make you thankful now. It's between Change and Rain this -morning. And the rain's begun, and while there's rain there's hope!" - -In a twinkling Raffles had regained all his own irresistible buoyancy and -assurance. But the older man was not capable of so prompt a recovery. - -"Something has happened to my boy!" - -"But not necessarily anything terrible." - -"If I knew what, Raffles--if only I knew what!" - -Raffles eyed the pale and twitching face with sidelong solicitude. He -himself had the confident expression which always gave me confidence; the -rattle on the conservatory roof was growing louder every minute. - -"I intend to find out," said he; "and if the rain goes on long enough, -we may still see Teddy playing when it stops. But I shall want your -help, sir." - -"I am ready to go with you anywhere, Raffles." - -"You can only help me, Mr. Garland, by staying where you are." - -"Where I am?" - -"In the house all day," said Raffles firmly. "It is absolutely essential -to my idea." - -"And that is, Raffles?" - -"To save Teddy's face, in the first instance. I shall drive straight up -to Lord's, in your brougham if I may. I know Studley rather well; he -shall keep Teddy's place open till the last possible moment." - -"But how shall you account for his absence?" I asked. - -"I shall account for it all right," said Raffles darkly. "I can save his -face for the time being, at all events at Lord's." - -"But that's the only place that matters," said I. - -"On the contrary, Bunny, this very house matters even more as long as -Miss Belsize is here. You forget that they're engaged, and that she's in -the next room now." - -"Good God!" whispered Mr. Garland. "I had forgotten that myself." - -"She is the last who must know of this affair," said Raffles, with, I -thought, undue authority. "And you are the only one who can keep it from -her, sir." - -"I?" - -"Miss Belsize mustn't go up to Lord's this morning. She would only spoil -her things, and you may tell her from me that there would be no play for -an hour after this, even if it stopped this minute, which it won't. -Meanwhile let her think that Teddy's weatherbound with the rest of them -in the pavilion; but she mustn't come until you hear from me again; and -the best way to keep her here is to stay with her yourself." - -"And when may I expect to hear?" asked Mr. Garland as Raffles held -out his hand. - -"Let me see. I shall be at Lord's in less than twenty minutes; another -five or ten should polish off Studley; and then I shall barricade myself -in the telephone-box and ring up every hospital in town! You see, it may -be an accident after all, though I don't think so. You won't hear from -me on the point unless it is; the fewer messengers flying about the -better, if you agree with me as to the wisdom of keeping the matter dark -at this end." - -"Oh, yes, I agree with you, Raffles; but it will be a terribly hard -task for me!" - -"It will, indeed, Mr. Garland. Yet no news is always good news, and I -promise to come straight to you the moment I have news of any kind." - -With that they shook hands, our host with an obvious reluctance that -turned to a less understandable dismay as I also prepared to take my -leave of him. - -"What!" cried he, "am I to be left quite alone to hoodwink that poor girl -and hide my own anxiety?" - -"There's no reason why you should come, Bunny," said Raffles to me. "If -either of them is a one-man job, it's mine." - -Our host said no more, but he looked at me so wistfully that I could not -but offer to stay with him if he wished it; and when at length the -drawing-room door had closed upon him and his son's _fiancee_, I took an -umbrella from the stand and saw Raffles through the providential downpour -into the brougham. - -"I'm sorry, Bunny," he muttered between the butler in the porch and the -coachman on the box. "This sort of thing is neither in my line nor yours, -but it serves us right for straying from the path of candid crime. We -should have opened a safe for that seven hundred." - -"But what do you really think is at the bottom of this extraordinary -disappearance?" - -"Some madness or other, I'm afraid; but if that boy is still in the land -of the living, I shall have him before the sun goes down on his -insanity." - -"And what about this engagement of his?" I pursued. "Do you -disapprove of it?" - -"Why on earth should I?" asked Raffles, rather sharply, as he plunged -from under my umbrella into the brougham. - -"Because you never told me when he told you," I replied. "Is the girl -beneath him?" - -Raffles looked at me inscrutably with his clear blue eyes. - -"You'd better find out for yourself," said he. "Tell the coachman to -hurry up to Lord's--and pray that this rain may last!" - - - - -CHAPTER VI - -Camilla Belsize - - -It would be hard to find a better refuge on a rainy day than the -amphibious retreat described by Raffles as a "country house in -Kensington." There was a good square hall, full of the club comforts so -welcome in a home, such as magazines and cigarettes, and a fire when the -rain set in. The usual rooms opened off the hall, and the library was not -the only one that led on into the conservatory; the drawing-room was -another, in which I heard voices as I lit a cigarette among the palms and -tree-ferns. It struck me that poor Mr. Garland was finding it hard work -to propitiate the lady whom Raffles had deemed unworthy of mention -overnight. But I own I was in no hurry to take over the invidious task. -To me it need prove nothing more; to him, anguish; but I could not help -feeling that even as matters stood I was quite sufficiently embroiled in -these people's affairs. Their name had been little more than a name to me -until the last few hours. Only yesterday I might have hesitated to nod to -Teddy Garland at the club, so seldom had we met. Yet here was I helping -Raffles to keep the worst about the son from the father's knowledge, and -on the point of helping that father to keep what might easily prove worse -still from his daughter-in-law to be. And all the time there was the -worst of all to be hidden from everybody concerning Raffles and me! - -Meanwhile I explored a system of flower-houses and vineries that ran out -from the conservatory in a continuous chain--each link with its own -temperature and its individual scent--and not a pane but rattled and -streamed beneath the timely torrent. It was in a fernery where a playing -fountain added its tuneful drop to the noisy deluge that the voices of -the drawing-room sounded suddenly at my elbow, and I was introduced to -Miss Belsize before I could recover from my surprise. My foolish face -must have made her smile in spite of herself, for I did not see quite the -same smile again all day; but it made me her admirer on the spot, and I -really think she warmed to me for amusing her even for a moment. - -So we began rather well; and that was a mercy in the light of poor Mr. -Garland's cynically prompt departure; but we did not go on quite as well -as we had begun. I do not say that Miss Belsize was in a bad temper, but -emphatically she was not pleased, and I for one had the utmost sympathy -with her displeasure. She was simply but exquisitely dressed, with -unostentatious touches of Cambridge blue and a picture hat that really -was a picture. Yet on a perfect stranger in a humid rockery she was -wasting what had been meant for mankind at Lord's. The only consolation I -could suggest was that by this time Lord's would be more humid still. - -"And so there's something to be said for being bored to tears under -shelter, Miss Belsize." Miss Belsize did not deny that she was bored. - -"But there's plenty of shelter there," said she. - -"Packed with draggled dresses and squelching shoes! You might swim for it -before they admitted you to that Pavilion, you know." - -"But if the ground's under water, how can they play to-day?" - -"They can't, Miss Belsize, I don't mind betting." - -That was a rash remark. - -"Then why doesn't Teddy come back?" - -"Oh, well, you know," I hedged, "you can never be quite absolutely sure. -It might clear up. They're bound to give it a chance until the afternoon. -And the players can't leave till stumps are drawn." - -"I should have thought Teddy could have come home to lunch," said Miss -Belsize, "even if he had to go back afterwards." - -"I shouldn't wonder if he did come," said I, conceiving the bare -possibility: "and A.J. with him." - -"Do you mean Mr. Raffles?" - -"Yes, Miss Belsize; he's the only A.J. that counts!" - -Camilla Belsize turned slightly in the basket-chair to which she had -confided her delicate frock, and our eyes met almost for the first time. -Certainly we had not exchanged so long a look before, for she had been -watching the torpid goldfish in the rockery pool, and I admiring her bold -profile and the querulous poise of a fine head as I tried to argue her -out of all desire for Lord's. Suddenly our eyes met, as I say, and hers -dazzled me; they were soft and yet brilliant, tender and yet cynical, -calmly reckless, audaciously sentimental--all that and more as I see them -now on looking back; but at the time I was merely dazzled. - -"So you and Mr. Raffles are great friends?" said Miss Belsize, harking -back to a remark of Mr. Garland's in introducing us. - -"Rather!" I replied. - -"Are you as great a friend of his as Teddy is?" - -I liked that, but simply said I was an older friend. "Raffles and I were -at school together," I added loftily. - -"Really? I should have thought he was before your time." - -"No, only senior to me. I happened to be his fag." - -"And what sort of a schoolboy was Mr. Raffles?" inquired Miss Belsize, -not by any means in the tone of a devotee. But I reflected that her own -devotion was bespoke, and not improbably tainted with some little -jealousy of Raffles. - -"He was the most Admirable Crichton who was ever at the school," said I: -"captain of the eleven, the fastest man in the fifteen, athletic -champion, and an ornament of the Upper Sixth." - -"And you worshipped him, I suppose?" - -"Absolutely." - -My companion had been taking renewed interest in the goldfish; now she -looked at me again with the cynical light full on in her eyes. - -"You must be rather disappointed in him now!" - -"Disappointed! Why?" I asked with much outward amusement. But I was -beginning to feel uncomfortable. - -"Of course I don't know much about him," remarked Miss Belsize as though -she cared less. - -"But does anybody know anything of Mr. Raffles except as a cricketer?" - -"I do," said I, with injudicious alacrity. - -"Well," said Miss Belsize, "what else is he?" - -"The best fellow in the world, among other things." - -"But what other things?" - -"Ask Teddy!" I said unluckily. - -"I have," replied Miss Belsize. "But Teddy doesn't know. He often -wonders how Mr. Raffles can afford to play so much cricket without doing -any work." - -"Does he, indeed!" - -"Many people do." - -"And what do they say about him?" - -Miss Belsize hesitated, watching me for a moment and the goldfish rather -longer. The rain sounded louder, and the fountain as though it had been -turned on again, before she answered: - -"More than their prayers, no doubt!" - -"Do you mean," I almost gasped, "as to the way Raffles gets his living?" - -"Yes." - -"You might tell me the kind of things they say, Miss Belsize!" - -"But if there's no truth in them?" - -"I'll soon tell you if there is or not." - -"But suppose I don't care either way?" said Miss Belsize with a -brilliant smile. - -"Then I care so much that I should be extremely grateful to you." - -"Mind, I don't believe it myself, Mr. Manders." - -"You don't believe--" - -"That Mr. Raffles lives by his wits and--his cricket!" - -I jumped to my feet. - -"Is that all they say about him?" I cried. - -"Isn't it enough?" asked Miss Belsize, astonished in her turn at my -demeanour. - -"Oh, quite enough, quite enough!" said I. "It's only the most -scandalously unfair and utterly untrue report that ever got -about--that's all!" - -This heavy irony was, of course, intended to convey the impression that -one's first explosion of relief had been equally ironical. But I was to -discover that Camilla Belsize was never easily deceived; it was -unpleasantly apparent in her bold eyes before she opened her firm mouth. - -"Yet you seemed to expect something worse," she said at length. - -"What could be worse?" I asked, my back against the wall of my own -indiscretion. "Why, a man like A.J. Raffles would rather be any mortal -thing than a paid amateur!" - -"But you haven't told me what he _is_, Mr. Manders." - -"And you haven't told me, Miss Belsize, why you're so interested in A. J. -after all!" I retorted, getting home for once, and sitting down again on -the strength of it. - -But Miss Belsize was my superior to the last; in the single moment of my -ascendency she made me blush for it and for myself. She would be quite -frank with me: my friend Mr. Raffles did interest her rather more than -she cared to say. It was because Teddy thought so much of him, that was -the only reason, and her one excuse for all inquisitive questions and -censorious remarks. I must have thought her very rude; but now I knew. -Mr. Raffles had been such a friend to Teddy; sometimes she wondered -whether he was quite a good friend; and there I had "the whole thing in a -nutshell." - -I had indeed! And I knew the nut, and had tasted its bitter kernel too -often to make any mistake about it. Jealousy was its other name. But I -did not care how jealous Miss Belsize became of Raffles as long as -jealousy did not beget suspicion; and my mind was not entirely relieved -on that point. - -We dropped the whole subject, however, with some abruptness; and the -rest of our conversation in the rockery, and in the steaming orchid-house -and further vineries which we proceeded to explore together, was quite -refreshingly tame. Yet I think it was on this desultory tour, to the -still incessant accompaniment of rain on the glasshouses, that Camilla's -mother took shape in my mind as the Lady Laura Belsize, an apparently -impecunious widow reduced to "semi-detachment down the river" and -suburban neighbours whose manners and customs my companion hit off with -vivacious intolerance. She told me how she had shocked them by smoking -cigarettes in the back garden, and pronounced a gratuitous conviction -that I of all people would have been no less scandalised! That was in the -uttermost vinery, and in another minute two Sullivans were in full blast -under the vines. I remember discovering that the great brand was not -unfamiliar to Miss Belsize, and even gathering that it was Raffles -himself who had made it known to her. Raffles, whom she did not "know -much about," or consider "quite a good friend" for Teddy Garland! - -I was becoming curious to see this antagonistic pair together; but it was -the middle of the afternoon before Raffles reappeared, though Mr. Garland -told me he had received an optimistic note from him by special messenger -earlier in the day. I felt I might have been told a little more, -considering the intimate part I was already playing as a stranger in a -strange house. But I was only too thankful to find that Raffles had so -far infected our host with his confidence as to tide us through luncheon -with far fewer embarrassments than before; nor did Mr. Garland desert us -again until the butler with a visitor's card brought about his abrupt -departure from the conservatory. - -Then my troubles began afresh. It stopped raining at last; if Miss -Belsize could have had her way we should all have started for Lord's that -minute. I took her into the garden to show her the state of the lawns, -coldly scintillant with standing water and rimmed by regular canals. -Lord's would be like them, only fifty times worse; play had no doubt been -abandoned on that quagmire for the day. Miss Belsize was not so sure -about that; why should we not drive over and find out? I said that was -the surest way of missing Teddy. She said a hansom would take us there -and back in a half-an-hour. I gained time disputing that statement, but -said if we went at all I was sure Mr. Garland would want to go with us, -and that in his own brougham. All this on the crown of a sloppy path, and -when Miss Belsize asked me how many more times I was going to change my -ground, I could not help looking at her absurd shoes sinking into the -softened gravel, and saying I thought it was for her to do that. Miss -Belsize took my advice to the extent of turning upon a submerged heel, -though with none too complimentary a smile; and then it was that I saw -what I had been curious to see all day. Raffles was coming down the path -towards us. And I saw Miss Belsize hesitate and stiffen before shaking -hands with him. - -"They've given it up as a bad job at last," said he. "I've just come from -Lord's, and Teddy won't be very long." - -"Why didn't you bring him with you?" asked Miss Belsize pertinently. - -"Well, I thought you ought to know the worst at once," said Raffles, -rather lamely for him; "and then a man playing in a 'Varsity match is -never quite his own master, you know. Still, he oughtn't to keep you -waiting much longer." - -It was perhaps unfortunately put; at any rate Miss Belsize took it -pretty plainly amiss, and I saw her colour rise as she declared she had -been waiting in the hope of seeing some cricket. Since that was at an -end she must be thinking of getting home, and would just say good-bye to -Mr. Garland. This sudden decision took me as much by surprise as I -believe it took Miss Belsize herself; but having announced her -intention, however hot-headedly, she proceeded to action by way of the -conservatory and the library door, while Raffles and I went through into -the hall the other way. - -"I'm afraid I've put my foot in it," said he to me. "But it's just as -well, since I needn't tell you there's no sign of Teddy up at Lord's." - -"Have you been there all day?" I asked him under my breath. - -"Except when I went to the office of this rag," replied Raffles, -brandishing an evening paper that ill deserved his epithet. "See what -they say about Teddy here." - -And I held my breath while Raffles showed me a stupendous statement in -the stop-press column: it was to the effect that E.M. Garland (Eton and -Trinity) might be unable to keep wicket for Cambridge after all, "owing -to the serious illness of his father." - -"His father!" I exclaimed. "Why, his father's closeted with somebody or -other at this very moment behind the door you're looking at!" - -"I know, Bunny. I've seen him." - -"But what an extraordinary fabrication to get into a decent paper! I -don't wonder you went to the office about it." - -"You'll wonder still less when I tell you I have an old pal on the -staff." - -"Of course you made him take it straight out?" - -"On the contrary, Bunny, I persuaded him to put it in!" - -And Raffles chuckled in my face as I have known him chuckle over many a -more felonious--but less incomprehensible--exploit. - -"Didn't you see, Bunny, how bad the poor old boy looked in his library -this morning? That gave me my idea; the fiction is at least founded on -fact. I wonder you don't see the point; as a matter of fact, there are -two points, just as there were two jobs I took on this morning; one was -to find Teddy, and the other was to save his face at Lord's. Well, I -haven't actually found him yet; but if he's in the land of the living he -will see this statement, and when he does see it even you may guess what -he will do! Meanwhile, there's nothing but sympathy for him at Lord's. -Studley couldn't have been nicer; a place will be kept for Teddy up to -the eleventh hour to-morrow. And if that isn't killing two birds with one -stone, Bunny, may I never perform the feat!" - -"But what will old Garland say, A. J.?" - -"He has already said, Bunny. I told him what I was doing in a note -before lunch, and the moment I arrived just now he came out to hear what -I had done. He doesn't mind what I do so long as I find Teddy and save -his face before the world at large and Miss Belsize in particular. Look -out, Bunny--here she is!" - -The excitement in his whisper was not characteristic of Raffles, but it -was less remarkable than the change in Camilla Belsize as she entered the -hall through the drawing-room as we had done before her. For one moment I -suspected her of eavesdropping; then I saw that all traces of personal -pique had vanished from her face, and that some anxiety for another had -taken its place. She came up to Raffles and me as though she had forgiven -both of us our trespasses of two or three minutes ago. - -"I didn't go into the library after all," she said, looking askance at -the library door. "I am afraid Mr. Garland is having a trying interview -with somebody. I had just a glimpse of the man's face as I hesitated, and -I thought I recognised him." - -"Who was it?" I asked, for I myself had wondered who the rather -mysterious visitor might be for whom Mr. Garland had deserted us so -abruptly in the conservatory, and with whom he was still conferring in -the hour of so many issues. - -"I believe it's a dreadful man I know by sight down the river," said -Miss Belsize; and hardly had she spoke before the library door opened -and out came the dreadful man in the portentous person of Dan Levy, the -usurer of European notoriety, our victim of the morning and our certain -enemy for life. - - - - -CHAPTER VII - -In Which We Fail to Score - - -Mr. Levy sailed in with frock-coat flying, shiny hat in hand; he was -evidently prepared for us, and Raffles for once behaved as though we -were prepared for Mr. Levy. Of myself I cannot speak. I was ready for a -terrific scene. But Raffles was magnificent, and to do our enemy justice -he was quite as good; they faced each other with a nod and a smile of -mutual suavity, shot with underlying animosity on the one side and -delightful defiance on the other. Not a word was said or a tone employed -to betray the true situation between the three of us; for I took my cue -from the two protagonists just in time to preserve the triple truce. -Meanwhile Mr. Garland, obviously distressed as he was, and really ill as -he looked, was not the least successful of us in hiding his emotions; -for having expressed a grim satisfaction in the coincidence of our all -knowing each other, he added that he supposed Miss Belsize was an -exception, and presented Mr. Levy forthwith as though he were an -ordinary guest. - -"You must find a better exception than this young lady!" cried that -worthy with a certain _aplomb_. "I know you very well by sight, Miss -Belsize, and your mother, Lady Laura, into the bargain." - -"Really?" said Miss Belsize, without returning the compliment at -her command. - -"The bargain!" muttered Raffles to me with sly irony. The echo was not -meant for Levy's ears, but it reached them nevertheless, and was taken up -with adroit urbanity. - -"I didn't mean to use a trade term," explained the Jew, "though -bargains, I confess, are somewhat in my line; and I don't often get the -worst of one, Mr. Raffles; when I do, the other fellow usually lives to -repent it." - -It was said with a laugh for the lady's benefit, but with a gleam of the -eyes for ours. Raffles answered the laugh with a much heartier one; the -look he ignored. I saw Miss Belsize beginning to watch the pair, and only -interrupted by the arrival of the tea-tray, over which Mr. Garland begged -her to preside. Mr. Garland seemed to have an anxious eye upon us all in -turn; at Raffles he looked wistfully as though burning to get him to -himself for further consultation; but the fact that he refrained from -doing so, coupled with a grimly punctilious manner towards the -money-lender, gave the impression that his son's whereabouts was no -longer the sole anxiety. - -"And yet," remarked Miss Belsize, as we formed a group about her in the -firelight, "you seem to have met your match the other day, Mr. Levy?" - -"Where was that, Miss Belsize?" - -"Somewhere on the Continent, wasn't it? It got into the newspapers, I -know, but I forget the name of the place." - -"Do you mean when my wife and I were robbed at Carlsbad?" - -I was holding my breath now as I had not held it all day. Raffles was -merely smiling into his teacup as one who knew all about the affair. - -"Carlsbad it was!" certified Miss Belsize, as though it mattered. "I -remember now." - -"I don't call that meeting your match," said the money-lender. "An -unarmed man with a frightened wife at his elbow is no match for a -desperate criminal with a loaded revolver." - -"Was it as bad as all that?" whispered Camilla Belsize. - -Up to this point one had felt her to be forcing the unlucky topic with -the best of intentions towards us all; now she was interested in the -episode for its own sake, and eager for more details than Mr. Levy had a -mind to impart. - -"It makes a good tale, I know," said he, "but I shall prefer telling -it when they've got the man. If you want to know any more, Miss -Belsize, you'd better ask Mr. Raffles; 'e was in our hotel, and came -in for all the excitement. But it was just a trifle too exciting for -me and my wife." - -"Raffles at Carlsbad?" exclaimed Mr. Garland. - -Miss Belsize only stared. - -"Yes," said Raffles. "That's where I had the pleasure of meeting -Mr. Levy." - -"Didn't you know he was there?" inquired the money-lender of our host. -And he looked sharply at Raffles as Mr. Garland replied that this was the -first he had heard of it. - -"But it's the first we've seen of each other, sir," said Raffles, -"except those few minutes this morning. And I told you I only got back -last night." - -"But you never told me you had been at Carlsbad, Raffles!" - -"It's a sore subject, you see," said Raffles, with a sigh and a laugh. -"Isn't it, Mr. Levy?" - -"You seem to find it so," replied the moneylender. - -They were standing face to face in the firelight, each with a shoulder -against the massive chimney-piece; and Camilla Belsize was still staring -at them both from her place behind the tea-tray; and I was watching the -three of them by turns from the other side of the hall. - -"But you're the fittest man I know. Raffles," pursued old Garland with -terrible tact. "What on earth were you doing at a place like Carlsbad?" - -"The cure," said Raffles. "There's nothing else to do there--is there, -Mr. Levy?" - -Levy replied with his eyes on Raffles: - -"Unless you've got to cope with a _swell mobsman_ who steals your -wife's jewels and then gets in such a funk that he practically gives -them back again!" - -The emphasised term was the one that Dan Levy had applied to Raffles and -myself in his own office that very morning. - -"Did he give them back again?" asked Camilla Belsize, breaking her -silence on an eager note. - -Raffles turned to her at once. - -"The jewels were found buried in the woods," said he. "Out there -everybody thought the thief had simply hidden them. But no doubt Mr. Levy -has the better information." - -Mr. Levy smiled sardonically in the firelight. And it was at this point I -followed the example of Miss Belsize and put in my one belated word. - -"I shouldn't have thought there was such a thing as a swell mob in the -wilds of Austria," said I. - -"There isn't," admitted the money-lender readily. "But your true mobsman -knows his whole blooming Continent as well as Piccadilly Circus. His -'ead-quarters are in London, but a week's journey at an hour's notice is -nothing to him if the swag looks worth it. Mrs. Levy's necklace was -actually taken at Carlsbad, for instance, but the odds are that it was -marked down at some London theatre--or restaurant, eh, Mr. Raffles?" - -"I'm afraid I can't offer an expert opinion," said Raffles very merrily -as their eyes met. "But if the man was an Englishman and knew that you -were one, why didn't he bully you in the vulgar tongue?" - -"Who told you he didn't?" cried Levy, with a sudden grin that left no -doubt about the thought behind it. To me that thought had been obvious -from its birth within the last few minutes; but this expression of it was -as obvious a mistake. - -"Who told me anything about it," retorted Raffles, "except yourself and -Mrs. Levy? Your gospels clashed a little here and there; but both agreed -that the fellow threatened you in German as well as with a revolver." - -"We thought it was German," rejoined Levy, with dexterity. "It might -'ave been 'Industani or 'Eathen Chinee for all I know! But there was no -error about the revolver. I can see it covering me, and his shooting eye -looking along the barrel into mine--as plainly as I'm looking into yours -now, Mr. Raffles." - -Raffles laughed outright. - -"I hope I'm a pleasanter spectacle, Mr. Levy? I remember your telling me -that the other fellow looked the most colossal cut-throat." - -"So he did," said Levy; "he looked a good deal worse than he need to have -done. His face was blackened and disguised, but his teeth were as white -as yours are." - -"Any other little point in common?" - -"I had a good look at the hand that pointed the revolver." - -Raffles held out his hands. - -"Better have a good look at mine." - -"His were as black as his face, but even yours are no smoother or -better kept." - -"Well, I hope you'll clap the bracelets on them yet, Mr. Levy." - -"You'll get your wish, I promise you, Mr. Raffles." - -"You don't mean to say you've spotted your man?" cried A.J. airily. - -"I've got my eye on him!" replied Dan Levy, looking Raffles through -and through. - -"And won't you tell us who he is?" asked Raffles, returning that deadly -look with smiling interest, but answering a tone as deadly in one that -maintained the note of persiflage in spite of Daniel Levy. - -For Levy alone had changed the key with his last words; to that point I -declare the whole passage might have gone for banter before the keenest -eyes and the sharpest ears in Europe. I alone could know what a duel the -two men were fighting behind their smiles. I alone could follow the finer -shades, the mutual play of glance and gesture, the subtle tide of covert -battle. So now I saw Levy debating with himself as to whether he should -accept this impudent challenge and denounce Raffles there and then. I saw -him hesitate, saw him reflect. The crafty, coarse, emphatic face was -easily read; and when it suddenly lit up with a baleful light, I felt we -might be on our guard against something more malign than mere reckless -denunciation. - -"Yes!" whispered a voice I hardly recognised. "Won't you tell us -who it was?" - -"Not yet," replied Levy, still looking Raffles full in the eyes. "But I -know all about him now!" - -I looked at Miss Belsize; she it was who had spoken, her pale face set, -her pale lips trembling. I remembered her many questions about Raffles -during the morning. And I began to wonder whether after all I was the -only entirely understanding witness of what had passed here in the -firelit hall. - -Mr. Garland, at any rate, had no inkling of the truth. Yet even in that -kindly face there was a vague indignation and distress, though it passed -almost as our eyes met. Into his there had come a sudden light; he sprang -up as one alike rejuvenated and transfigured; there was a quick step in -the porch, and next instant the truant Teddy was in our midst. - -Mr. Garland met him with outstretched hand but not a question or a -syllable of surprise; it was Teddy who uttered the cry of joy, who stood -gazing at his father and raining questions upon him as though they had -the hall to themselves. What was all this in the evening papers? Who had -put it in? Was there any truth in it at all? - -"None, Teddy," said Mr. Garland, with some bitterness; "my health was -never better in my life." - -"Then I can't understand it," cried the son, with savage simplicity. "I -suppose it's some rotten practical joke; if so, I would give something to -lay hands on the joker!" - -His father was still the only one of us he seemed to see, or could bring -himself to face in his distress. Not that young Garland had the -appearance of one who had been through fresh vicissitudes; on the -contrary, he looked both trimmer and ruddier than overnight; and in his -sudden fit of passionate indignation, twice the man that one remembered -so humiliated and abased. - -Raffles came forward from the fireside. - -"There are some of us," said he, "who won't be so hard on the beggar -for bringing you back from Lord's at last! You must remember that I'm -the only one here who has been up there at all, or seen anything of -you all day." - -Their eyes met; and for one moment I thought that Teddy Garland was going -to repudiate this cool _suggestio falsi_, and tell us all where he had -really been; but that was now impossible without giving Raffles away, and -then there was his Camilla in evident ignorance of the disappearance -which he had expected to find common property. The double circumstance -was too strong for him; he took her hand with a confused apology which -was not even necessary. Anybody could see that the boy had burst among us -with eyes for his father only, and thoughts of nothing but the report -about his health; as for Miss Belsize, she looked as though she liked him -the better for it, or it may have been for an excitability rare in him -and rarely becoming. His pink face burnt like a flame. His eyes were -brilliant; they met mine at last, and I was warmly greeted; but their -friendly light burst into a blaze of wrath as almost simultaneously they -fell upon his bugbear in the background. - -"So you've kept your threat, Mr. Levy!" said young Garland, quietly -enough once he had found his voice. - -"I generally do," remarked the money-lender, with a malevolent laugh. - -"His threat!" cried Mr. Garland sharply. "What are you talking -about, Teddy?" - -"I will tell you," said the young man. "And you, too!" he added almost -harshly, as Camilla Belsize rose as though about to withdraw. "You may as -well know what I am--while there's time. I got into debt--I borrowed from -this man." - -"You borrowed from him?" - -It was Mr. Garland speaking in a voice hard to recognise, with an -emphasis harder still to understand; and as he spoke he glared at Levy -with new loathing and abhorrence. - -"Yes," said Teddy; "he had been pestering me with his beastly circulars -every week of my first year at Cambridge. He even wrote to me in his own -fist. It was as though he knew something about me and meant getting me in -his clutches; and he got me all right in the end, and bled me to the last -drop as I deserved. I don't complain so far as I'm concerned. It serves -me right. But I did mean to get through without coming to you again, -father! I was fool enough to tell him so the other day; that was when he -threatened to come to you himself. But I didn't think he was such a brute -as to come to-day!" - -"Or such a fool?" suggested Raffles, as he put a piece of paper into -Teddy's hands. - -It was his own original promissory note, the one we had recovered from -Dan Levy in the morning. Teddy glanced at it, clutched Raffles by the -hand, and went up to the money-lender as though he meant to take him by -the throat before us all. - -"Does this mean that we're square?" he asked hoarsely. - -"It means that you are," replied Dan Levy. - -"In fact it amounts to your receipt for every penny I ever owed you?" - -"Every penny that you owed me, certainly." - -"Yet you must come to my father all the same; you must have it both -ways--your money and your spite as well!" - -"Put it that way if you like," said Levy, with a shrug of his massive -shoulders. "It isn't the case, but what does that matter so long as -you're 'appy?" - -"No," said Teddy through his teeth; "nothing matters now that I've come -back in time." - -"In time for what?" - -"To turn you out of the house if you don't clear out this instant!" - -The great gross man looked upon his athletic young opponent, and folded -his arms with a guttural chuckle. - -"So you mean to chuck me out, do you?" - -"By all my gods, if you make me, Mr. Levy! Here's your hat; there's the -door; and never you dare to set foot in this house again." - -The money-lender took his shiny topper, gave it a meditative polish with -his sleeve, and actually went as bidden to the threshold of the porch; -but I saw the suppression of a grin beneath the pendulous nose, a cunning -twinkle in the inscrutable eyes, and it did not astonish me when the -fellow turned to deliver a Parthian shot. I was only surprised at the -harmless character of the shot. - -"May I ask whose house it is?" were his words, in themselves notable -chiefly for the aspirates of undue deliberation. - -"Not mine, I know; but I'm the son of the house," returned Teddy -truculently, "and out you go!" - -"Are you so sure that it's even your father's house?" inquired Levy with -the deadly suavity of which he was capable when he liked. A groan from -Mr. Garland confirmed the doubt implied in the words. - -"The whole place is his," declared the son, with a sort of nervous -scorn--"freehold and everything." - -"The whole place happens to be _mine_--'freehold and everything!'" -replied Levy, spitting his iced poison in separate syllables. "And as for -clearing out, that'll be your job, and I've given you a week to do it -in--the two of you!" - -He stood a moment in the open doorway, towering in his triumph, glaring -on us all in turn, but at Raffles longest and last of all. - -"And you needn't think you're going to save the old man," came with -a passionate hiss, "like you did the son--_because I know all about -you now_!" - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - -The State of the Case - - -Of course I made all decent haste from the distressing scene, and of -course Raffles stayed behind at the solicitation of his unhappy friends. -I was sorry to desert him in view of one aspect of the case; but I was -not sorry to dine quietly at the club after the alarms and excitements -of that disastrous day. The strain had been the greater after sitting up -all night, and I for one could barely realise all that had happened in -the twenty-four hours. It seemed incredible that the same midsummer -night and day should have seen the return of Raffles and our orgy at the -club to which neither of us belonged; the dramatic douche that saluted -us at the Albany; the confessions and conferences of the night, the -overthrow of the money-lender in the morning; and then the untimely -disappearance of Teddy Garland, my day of it at his father's house, and -the rain and the ruse that saved the passing situation, only to -aggravate the crowning catastrophe of the money-lender's triumph over -Raffles and all his friends. - -Already a bewildering sequence to look back upon; but it is in the -nature of a retrospect to reverse the order of things, and it was the new -risk run by Raffles that now loomed largest in my mind, and Levy's last -word of warning to him that rang the loudest in my ears. The apparently -complete ruin of the Garlands was still a profound mystery to me. But no -mere mystery can hold the mind against impending peril; and I was less -exercised to account for the downfall of these poor people than in -wondering whether it would be followed by that of their friend and mine. -Had his Carlsbad crime really found him out? Had Levy only refrained from -downright denunciation of Raffles in order to denounce him more -effectually to the police? These were the doubts that dogged me at my -dinner, and on through the evening until Raffles himself appeared in my -corner of the smoking-room, with as brisk a step and as buoyant a -countenance as though the whole world and he were one. - -"My dear Bunny! I've never given the matter another thought," said he in -answer to my nervous queries, "and why the deuce should Dan Levy? He has -scored us off quite handsomely as it is; he's not such a fool as to put -himself in the wrong by stating what he couldn't possibly prove. They -wouldn't listen to him at Scotland Yard; it's not their job, in the -first place. And even if it were, no one knows better than our Mr. -Shylock that he hasn't a shred of evidence against me." - -"Still," said I, "he happens to have hit upon the truth, and that's half -the battle in a criminal charge." - -"Then it's a battle I should love to fight, if the odds weren't all on -Number One! What happens, after all? He recovers his property--he's not a -pin the worse off--but because he has a row with me about something else -he thinks he can identify me with the Teutonic thief! But not in his -heart, Bunny; he's not such a fool as that. Dan Levy's no fool at all, -but the most magnificent knave I've been up against yet. If you want to -hear all about his tactics, come round to the Albany and I'll open your -eyes for you." - -His own were radiant with light and life, though he could not have closed -them since his arrival at Charing Cross the night before. But midnight -was his hour. Raffles was at his best when the stars of the firmament are -at theirs; not at Lord's in the light of day, but at dead of night in the -historic chambers to which we now repaired. Certainly he had a congenial -subject in the celebrated Daniel, "a villain after my own black heart, -Bunny! A foeman worthy of Excalibur itself." - -And how he longed for the fierce joy of further combat for a bigger -stake! But the stake was big enough for even Raffles to shake a hopeless -head over it. And his face grew grave as he passed from the fascinating -prowess of his enemy to the pitiful position of his friends. - -"They said I might tell you, Bunny, but the figures must keep until I -have them in black and white. I've promised to see if there really isn't -a forlorn hope of getting these poor Garlands out of the spider's web. -But there isn't, Bunny, I don't mind telling you." - -"What I can't understand," said I, "is how father and son seem to have -walked into the same parlour--and the father a business man!" - -"Just what he never was," replied Raffles; "that's at the bottom of the -whole thing. He was born into a big business, but he wasn't born a -business man. So his partners were jolly glad to buy him out some years -ago; and then it was that poor old Garland lashed out into the place -where you spent the day, Bunny. It has been his ruin. The price was -pretty stiff to start with; you might have a house in most squares and -quite a good place in the country for what you've got to pay for a cross -between the two. But the mixture was exactly what attracted these good -people; for it was not only in Mrs. Garland's time, but it seems she was -the first to set her heart upon the place. So she was the first to leave -it for a better world--poor soul--before the glass was on the last -vinery. And the poor old boy was left to pay the shot alone." - -"I wonder he didn't get rid of the whole show," said I, "after that." - -"I've no doubt he felt like it, Bunny, but you don't get rid of a place -like that in five minutes; it's neither fish nor flesh; the ordinary -house-hunter, with the money to spend, wants to be nearer in or further -out. On the other hand there was a good reason for holding on. That part -of Kensington is being gradually rebuilt; old Garland had bought the -freehold, and sooner or later it was safe to sell at a handsome profit -for building sites. That was the one excuse for his dip; it was really a -fine investment, or would have been if he had left more margin for upkeep -and living expenses. As it was he soon found himself a bit of a beggar on -horseback. And instead of selling his horse at a sacrifice, he put him at -a fence that's brought down many a better rider." - -"What was that?" - -"South Africans!" replied Raffles succinctly. "Piles were changing hands -over them at the time, and poor old Garland began with a lucky dip -himself; that finished him off. There's no tiger like an old tiger that -never tasted blood before. Our respected brewer became a reckless -gambler, lashed at everything, and in due course omitted to cover his -losses. They were big enough to ruin him, without being enormous. -Thousands were wanted at almost a moment's notice; no time to fix up an -honest mortgage; it was a case of pay, fail, or borrow through the nose! -And old Garland took ten thousand of the best from Dan Levy--and had -another dip!" - -"And lost again?" - -"And lost again, and borrowed again, this time on the security of his -house; and the long and short of it is that he and every stick, brick and -branch he is supposed to possess have been in Dan Levy's hands for months -and years." - -"On a sort of mortgage?" - -"On a perfectly nice and normal mortgage so far as interest went, only -with a power to call in the money after six months. But old Garland is -being bled to the heart for iniquitous interest on the first ten -thousand, and of course he can't meet the call for another fifteen when -it comes; but he thinks it's all right because Levy doesn't press for the -dibs. Of course it's all wrong from that moment. Levy has the right to -take possession whenever he jolly well likes; but it doesn't suit him to -have the place empty on his hands, it might depreciate a rising property, -and so poor old Garland is deliberately lulled into a false sense of -security. And there's no saying how long that state of things might have -lasted if we hadn't taken a rise out of old Shylock this morning." - -"Then it's our fault, A.J.?" - -"It's mine," said Raffles remorsefully. "The idea, I believe, was -altogether mine, Bunny; that's why I'd give my bowing hand to take the -old ruffian at his word, and save the governor as we did the boy!" - -"But how _do_ you account for his getting them both into his toils?" I -asked. "What was the point of lending heavily to the son when the father -already owed more than he could pay?" - -"There are so many points," said Raffles. "They love you to owe more than -you can pay; it's not their principal that they care about nearly so much -as your interest; what they hate is to lose you when once they've got -you. In this case Levy would see how frightfully keen poor old Garland -was about his boy--to do him properly and, above all, not to let him see -what an effort it's become. Levy would find out something about the boy; -that he's getting hard up himself, that he's bound to discover the old -man's secret, and capable of making trouble and spoiling things when he -does. 'Better give him the same sort of secret of his own to keep,' says -Levy, 'then they'll both hold their tongues, and I'll have one of 'em -under each thumb till all's blue.' So he goes for Teddy till he gets him, -and finances father and son in watertight compartments until this libel -case comes along and does make things look a bit blue for once. Not blue -enough, mind you, to compel the sale of a big rising property at a -sacrifice; but the sort of thing to make a man squeeze his small -creditors all round, while still nursing his top class. So you see how it -all fits in. They say the old blackguard is briefing Mr. Attorney -himself; that along with all the rest to scale, will run him into -thousands even if he wins his case." - -"May he lose it!" said I, drinking devoutly, while Raffles lit the -inevitable Egyptian. I gathered that this plausible exposition of Mr. -Levy's tactics had some foundation in the disclosures of his hapless -friends; but his ready grasp of an alien subject was highly -characteristic of Raffles. I said I supposed Miss Belsize had not -remained to hear the whole humiliating story, but Raffles replied briefly -that she had. By putting the words into his mouth, I now learnt that she -had taken the whole trouble as finely as I should somehow have expected -from those fearless eyes of hers; that Teddy had offered to release her -on the spot, and that Camilla Belsize had refused to be released; but -when I applauded her spirit, Raffles was ostentatiously irresponsive. -Nothing, indeed, could have been more marked than the contrast between -his reluctance to discuss Miss Belsize and the captious gusto with which -she had discussed him. But in each case the inference was that there was -no love lost between the pair; and in each case I could not help -wondering why. - -There was, however, another subject upon which Raffles exercised a much -more vexatious reserve. Had I been more sympathetically interested in -Teddy Garland, no doubt I should have sought an earlier explanation of -his sensational disappearance, instead of leaving it to the last. My -interest in the escapade, however, was considerably quickened by the -prompt refusal of Raffles to tell me a word about it. - -"No, Bunny," said he, "I'm not going to give the boy away. His father -knows, and I know--and that's enough." - -"Was it your paragraph in the papers that brought him back?" - -Raffles paused, cigarette between fingers, in a leonine perambulation of -his cage; and his smile was a sufficient affirmative. - -"I mustn't talk about it, really, Bunny," was his actual reply. "It -wouldn't be fair." - -"I don't think it's conspicuously fair on me," I retorted, "to set me to -cover up your pal's tracks, to give me a lie like that to act all day, -and then not to take one into the secret when he does turn up. I call it -trading on a fellow's good-nature--not that I care a curse!" - -"Then that's all right, Bunny," said Raffles genially. "If you cared I -should feel bound to apologise to you for the very rotten way you've been -treated all round; as it is I give you my word not to take you in with me -if I have another dip at Dan Levy." - -"But you're not seriously thinking of it, Raffles?" - -"I am if I see half a chance of squaring him short of wilful murder." - -"You mean a chance of settling his account against the Garlands?" - -"To say nothing of my own account against Dan Levy! I'm spoiling for -another round with that sportsman, Bunny, for its own sake quite apart -from these poor pals of mine." - -"And you really think the game would be worth a candle that might fire -the secret mine of your life and blow your character to blazes?" - -One could not fraternise with Raffles without contracting a certain -facility in fluent and florid metaphor; and this parody of his lighter -manner drew a smile from my model. But it was the bleak smile of a man -thinking of other things, and I thought he nodded rather sadly. He was -standing by the open window; he turned and leant out as I had done that -interminable twenty-four hours ago; and I longed to know his thoughts, -to guess what it was that I knew he had not told me, that I could not -divine for myself. There was something behind his mask of gay -pugnacity; nay, there was something behind the good Garlands and their -culpably commonplace misfortunes. They were the pretext. But could they -be the Cause? - -The night was as still as the night before. In another moment a flash -might have enlightened me. But, in the complete cessation of sound in -the room, I suddenly heard one, soft and stealthy but quite distinct, -outside the door. - - - - -CHAPTER IX - -A Triple Alliance - - -It was the intermittent sound of cautious movements, the creak of a sole -not repeated for a great many seconds, the all but inaudible passing of a -hand over the unseen side of the door leading into the lobby. It may be -that I imagined more than I actually heard of the last detail; -nevertheless I was as sure of what was happening as though the door had -been plate-glass. Yet there was the outer door between lobby and landing -and that I distinctly remembered Raffles shutting behind him when we -entered. Unable to attract his attention now, and never sorry to be the -one to take the other by surprise, I listened without breathing until -assurance was doubly sure, then bounded out of my chair without a word. -And there was a resounding knock at the inner door, even as I flung it -open upon a special evening edition of Mr. Daniel Levy, a resplendent -figure with a great stud blazing in a frilled shirt, white waistcoat and -gloves, opera-hat and cigar, and all the other insignia of a nocturnal -vulgarian about town. - -"May I come in?" said he with unctuous affability. - -"May you!" I took it upon myself to shout. "I like that, seeing that you -came in long ago! I heard you all right--you were listening at the -door--probably looking through the keyhole--and you only knocked when I -jumped up to open it!" - -"My dear Bunny!" exclaimed Raffles, a reproving hand upon my shoulder. -And he bade the unbidden guest a jovial welcome. - -"But the outer door was shut," I expostulated. "He must have forced it or -else picked the lock." - -"Why not, Bunny? Love isn't the only thing that laughs at locksmiths," -remarked Raffles with exasperating geniality. - -"Neither are swell mobsmen!" cried Dan Levy, not more ironically than -Raffles, only with a heavier type of irony. - -Raffles conducted him to a chair. Levy stepped behind it and grasped the -back as though prepared to break the furniture on our heads if necessary. -Raffles offered him a drink; it was declined with a crafty grin that made -no secret of a base suspicion. - -"I don't drink with the swell mob," said the money-lender. - -"My dear Mr. Levy," returned Raffles, "you're the very man I wanted to -see, and nobody could possibly be more welcome in my humble quarters; -but that's the fourth time to-day I've heard you make use of an obsolete -expression. You know as well as I do that the slap-bang-here-we-are-again -type of work is a thing of the past. Where are the jolly dogs of the old -song now?" - -"'Ere at the Albany!" said Levy. "Here in your rooms, Mr. A.J. Raffles." - -"Well, Bunny," said Raffles, "I suppose we must both plead guilty to a -hair of the jolly dog that bit him--eh?" - -"You know what I mean," our visitor ground out through his teeth. "You're -cracksmen, magsmen, mobsmen, the two of you; so you may as well both own -up to it." - -"Cracksmen? Magsmen? Mobsmen?" repeated Raffles, with his head on one -side. "What does the kind gentleman mean, Bunny? Wait! I have -it--thieves! Common thieves!" - -And he laughed loud and long in the moneylender's face and mine. - -"You may laugh," said Levy. "I'm too old a bird for your chaff; the -only wonder is I didn't spot you right off when we were abroad." He -grinned malevolently. "Shall I tell you when I did tumble to it--Mr. -Ananias J. Raffles?" - -"Daniel in the liars' den," murmured Raffles, wiping the tears from his -eyes. "Oh, yes, do tell us anything you like; this is the best -entertainment we've had for a long time, isn't it, Bunny?" - -"Chalks!" said I. - -"I thought of it this morning," proceeded the money-lender, with a -grim contempt for all our raillery, "when you played your pretty trick -upon me, so glib and smooth, and up to every move, the pair of you! -One borrowing the money, and the other paying me back in my very own -actual coin!" - -"Well," said I, "there was no crime in that." - -"Oh, yes, there was," replied Levy, with a wide wise grin; "there was the -one crime you two ought to know better than ever to commit, if you call -yourselves what I called you just now. The crime that you committed was -the crime of being found out; but for that I should never have suspected -friend Ananias of that other job at Carlsbad; no, not even when I saw his -friends so surprised to hear that he'd been out there--a strapping young -chap like 'im! Yes," cried the money-lender, lifting the chair and -jobbing it down on the floor; "this morning was when I thought of it, but -this afternoon was when I jolly well knew." - -Raffles was no longer smiling; his eyes were like points of steel, his -lips like a steel trap. - -"I saw what you thought," said he, disdainfully. "And you still -seriously think I took your wife's necklace and hid it in the woods?" - -"I know you did." - -"Then what the devil are you doing here alone?" cried Raffles. "Why -didn't you bring along a couple of good men and true from Scotland -Yard? Here I am, Mr. Levy, entirely at your service. Why don't you give -me in charge?" - -Levy chuckled consumedly--ventriloquously--behind his three gold buttons -and his one diamond stud. - -"P'r'aps I'm not such a bad sort as you think," said he. "An' p'r'aps you -two gentlemen are not such bad sorts as _I_ thought." - -"Gentlemen once more, eh?" said Raffles. "Isn't that rather a quick -recovery for swell magsmen, or whatever we were a minute ago?" - -"P'r'aps I never really thought you quite so bad as all that, Mr. -Raffles." - -"Perhaps you never really thought I took the necklace, Mr. Levy?" - -"I know you took it," returned Levy, his new tone of crafty conciliation -softening to a semblance of downright apology. "But I believe you did put -it back where you knew it'd be found. And I begin to think you only took -it for a bit o' fun!" - -"If he took it at all," said I. "Which is absurd." - -"I only wish I had!" exclaimed Raffles, with gratuitous audacity. "I -agree with you, Mr. Levy, it would have been more like a bit of fun than -anything that came my way on the human rubbish-heap we were both -inhabiting for our sins." - -"The kind of fun that appeals to you?" suggested Levy, with a very -shrewd glance. - -"It would," said Raffles, "I feel sure." - -"'Ow would you care for another bit o' fun like it, Mr. Raffles?" - -"Don't say 'another,' please." - -"Well, would you like to try your 'and at the game again?" - -"Not 'again,' Mr. Levy; and my 'prentice' hand, if you don't mind." - -"I beg pardon; my mistake," said Levy, with becoming gravity. - -"How would I like to try my prentice hand on picking and stealing for the -pure fun of the thing? Is that it, Mr. Levy?" - -Raffles was magnificent now; but so was the other in his own way. And -once more I could but admire the tact with which Levy had discarded his -favourite cudgels, and the surprising play that he was making with the -buttoned foil. - -"It'd be more picking than stealing," said he. "Tricky picking too, -Raffles, but innocent enough even for an amatoor." - -"I thank you, Mr. Levy. So you have a definite case in mind?" - -"I have--a case of recovering a man's own property." - -"You being the man, Mr. Levy?" - -"I being the man, Mr. Raffles." - -"Bunny, I begin to see why he didn't bring the police with him!" - -I affected to have seen it for some time; thereupon our friend the enemy -protested that in no circumstances could he have taken such a course. By -the searchlight of the present he might have detected things which had -entirely escaped his notice in the past--incriminating things--things -that would put together into a Case. But, after all, what evidence had he -against Raffles as yet? Mr. Levy himself propounded the question with -unflinching candour. He might inform the Metropolitan Police of his -strong suspicions; and they might communicate with the Austrian police, -and evidence beyond the belated evidence of his own senses be duly -forthcoming; but nothing could be done at once, and if Raffles cared to -endorse his theory of the practical joke, by owning up to that and -nothing more, then, so far as Mr. Levy was concerned, nothing should ever -be done at all. - -"Except this little innocent recovery of your own property," suggested -Raffles. "I suppose that's the condition?" - -"Condition's not the word I should have employed," said Levy, with a -shrug. - -"Preliminary, then?" - -"Indemnity is more the idea. You put me to a lot of trouble by -abstracting Mrs. Levy's jewels for your own amusement--" - -"So you assert, Mr. Levy." - -"Well, I may be wrong; that remains to be seen--or not--as you decide," -rejoined the Jew, lifting his mask for the moment. "At all events you -admit that it's the sort of adventure you would like to try. And so I ask -you to amuse yourself by abstracting something else of mine that 'appens -to have got into the wrong hands; then, I say, we shall be quits." - -"Well," said Raffles, "there's no harm in our hearing what sort of -property it is, and where you think it's to be found." - -The usurer leant forward in his chair; he had long been sitting in the -one which at first he had seemed inclined to wield as a defensive weapon. -We all drew together into a smaller triangle. And I found our visitor -looking specially hard at me for the first time. - -"I've seen you, too, before to-day," said he. "I thought I had, after -you'd gone this morning, and when we met in the afternoon I made sure. It -was at the Savoy when me and my wife were dining there and you gentlemen -were at the next table." There was a crafty twinkle in his eye, but the -natural allusion to the necklace was not made. "I suppose," he continued, -"you are partners in--amusement? Otherwise I should insist on speaking to -Mr. Raffles alone." - -"Bunny and I are one," said Raffles airily. - -"Though two to one--numerically speaking," remarked Levy, with a -disparaging eye on me. "However, if you're both in the job, so much the -more chance of bringing it off, I daresay. But you'll never 'ave to -'andle a lighter swag, gentlemen!" - -"More jewellery?" inquired Raffles, as one thoroughly enjoying the joke. - -"No--lighter than that--a letter!" - -"One little letter?" - -"That's all." - -"Of your own writing, Mr. Levy?" - -"No, sir!" thundered the money-lender, just when I could have sworn his -lips were framing an affirmative. - -"I see; it was written to you, not by you." - -"Wrong again, Raffles!" - -"Then how can the letter be your property, my dear Mr. Levy?" - -There was a pause. The money-lender was at visible grips with some new -difficulty. I watched his heavy but not unhandsome face, and timed the -moment of mastery by the sudden light in his crafty eyes. - -"They think it was written by me," said he. "It's a forgery, -written on my office paper; if that isn't my property, I should -like to know what is?" - -"It certainly ought to be," returned Raffles, sympathetically. "Of course -you're speaking of the crucial letter in your case against _Fact_?" - -"I am," said Levy, rather startled; "but 'ow did you know I was?" - -"I am naturally interested in the case." - -"And you've read about it in the papers; they've had a fat sight too much -to say about it, with the whole case still _sub judice_." - -"I read the original articles in _Fact_" said Raffles. - -"And the letters I'm supposed to have written?" - -"Yes; there was only one of them that struck me as being slap in the -wind's eye." - -"That's the one I want." - -"If it's genuine, Mr. Levy, it might easily form the basis of a more -serious sort of case." - -"But it isn't genuine." - -"Nor would you be the first plaintiff in the High Court of Justice," -pursued Raffles, blowing soft grey rings into the upper air, "who has -been rather rudely transformed into the defendant at the Old Bailey." - -"But it isn't genuine, I'm telling you!" cried Dan Levy with a curse. - -"Then what in the world do you want with the letter? Let the prosecution -love and cherish it, and trump it up in court for all it's worth; the -less it is worth, the more certain to explode and blow their case to -bits. A palpable forgery in the hands of Mr. Attorney!" cried Raffles, -with a wink at me. "It'll be the best fun of its kind since the late -lamented Mr. Pigott; my dear Bunny, we must both be there." - -Mr. Levy's uneasiness was a sight for timid eyes. He had presented his -case to us naked and unashamed; already he was in our hands more surely -than Raffles was in his. But Raffles was the last person to betray his -sense of an advantage a second too soon: he merely gave me another -wink. The usurer was frowning at the carpet. Suddenly he sprang up and -burst out in a bitter tirade upon the popular and even the judicial -prejudice against his own beneficent calling. No money-lender would -ever get justice in a British court of law; easier for the camel to -thread the needle's eye. That flagrant forgery would be accepted at -sight by our vaunted British jury. The only chance was to abstract it -before the case came on. - -"But if it can be proved to be a forgery," urged Raffles, "nothing could -possibly turn the tables on the other side with such complete and -instantaneous effect." - -"I've told you what I reckon my only chance," said Levy fiercely. "Let me -remind you that it's yours as well!" - -"If you talk like that," said Raffles, "I shan't consider it." - -"You won't in any case, I should hope," said I. - -"Oh, yes, I might; but not if he talks like that." - -Levy stopped talking quite like that. - -"Will you do it, Mr. Raffles, or will you not?" - -"Abstract the--forgery?" - -"Yes." - -"Where from?" - -"Wherever it may be; their solicitors' safe, I suppose." - -"Who are the solicitors to _Fact_?" - -"Burroughs and Burroughs." - -"Of Gray's Inn Square?" - -"That's right." - -"The strongest firm in England for a criminal case," said Raffles, with a -grimace at me. "Their strong-room is probably the strongest strong-room!" - -"I said it was a tricky job," rejoined the moneylender. - -Raffles looked more than dubious. - -"Big game for a first shoot, eh, Bunny?" - -"Too big by half." - -"And you merely wish to have their letter--withdrawn, Mr. Levy?" - -"That's the way to put it." - -And the diamond stud sparkled again as it heaved upon the billows of an -intestine chuckle. - -"Withdrawn--and nothing more?" - -"That'll be good enough for me, Mr. Raffles." - -"Even though they miss it the very next morning?" - -"Let them miss it." - -Raffles joined his finger-tips judicially, and shook his head in -serene dissent. - -"It would do you more harm than good, Mr. Levy. I should be inclined to -go one better--if I went into the thing at all," he added, with so much -point that I was thankful to think he was beginning to decide against it. - -"What improvement do you suggest?" inquired Dan Levy, who had evidently -no such premonition. - -"I should take a sheet of your paper with me, and forge the forgery!" -said Raffles, a light in his eye and a gusto in his voice that I knew -only too well. "But I shouldn't do my work as perfectly as--the other -cove--did his. My effort would look the same as yours--_his_--until Mr. -Attorney fixed it with his eyeglass in open court. And then the bottom -would be out of the defence in five minutes!" - -Dan Levy came straight over to Raffles--quivering like a jelly--beaming -at every pore. - -"Shake!" he cried. "I always knew you were a man after my own heart, but -I didn't know you were a man of genius until this minute." - -"It's no use my shaking," replied Raffles, the tips of his sensitive -fingers still together, "until I make up my mind to take on the job. And -I'm a very long way from doing that yet, Mr. Levy." - -I breathed again. - -"But you must, my dear friend, you simply must!" said Levy, in a new tone -of pure persuasion. I was sorry he forgot to threaten instead. Perhaps it -was not forgetfulness; perhaps he was beginning to know his Raffles as I -knew mine; if so, I was sorrier still. - -"It's a case of _quid pro quo_," said Raffles calmly. "You can't expect -me to break out into downright crime--however technical the actual -offence--unless you make it worth my while." - -Levy became the man I wanted him to be again. "I fancy it's worth your -while not to hear anything more about Carlsbad," said he, though still -with less of the old manner than I could have wished. - -"What!" cried Raffles, "when you own yourself that you've no evidence -against me there?" - -"Evidence is to be got that may mean five years to you; don't you make -any mistake about that." - -"Whereas the evidence of this particular letter against yourself has, on -your own showing, already been obtained! It's as you like, of course," -added Raffles, getting up with a shrug. "But if the Old Bailey sees us -both, Mr. Levy, I'll back my chance against yours--and your sentence -against mine!" - -Raffles helped himself to a drink, after a quizzical look at his guest, -decanter in hand; the usurer snatched it from him and splashed out half a -tumbler. Certainly he was beginning to know his Raffles perilously well. - -"There, damn you!" said he, blinking into an empty glass. "I trust you -further than I'd trust any other young blood of your kidney; name your -price, and you shall earn it if you can." - -"You may think it a rather long one, Mr. Levy." - -"Never mind; you say what you want." - -"Leave that money of yours on the mortgage with Mr. Garland; forgive -him his other debt as you hope to be forgiven; and either that letter -shall be in your hands, or I'll be in the hands of the police, before a -week is up!" - -Spoken from man to man with equal austerity and resolution, yet in a -voice persuasive and conciliatory rather than arbitrary or dictatorial, -the mere form and manner of this quixotic undertaking thrilled all my -fibres in defiance of its sense. It was like the blare of bugles in a -dubious cause; one's blood responded before one's brain; and but for -Raffles, little as his friends were to me, and much as I repudiated his -sacrifices on their behalf, that very minute I might have led the first -assault on their oppressor. In a sudden fury the savage had hurled his -empty tumbler into the fireplace, and followed the crash with such a -volley of abuse as I have seldom heard from human brute. - -"I'm surprised at you, Mr. Levy," said Raffles, contemptuously; "if we -copied your tactics we should throw you through that open window!" - -And I stood by for my share in the deed. - -"Yes! I know it'd pay you to break my neck," retorted Levy. "You'd rather -swing than do time, wouldn't you?" - -"And you prefer the other alternative," said Raffles, "to loosing your -grip upon a man who's done you no harm whatever! In interest alone he's -almost repaid all you lent him in the first instance; you've first-class -security for the rest; yet you must ruin him to revenge yourself upon us. -On us, mark you! It's against us you've got your grievance, not against -old Garland or his son. You've lost sight of that fact. That little trick -this morning was our doing entirely. Why don't you take it out of us? Why -refuse a fair offer to spite people who have done you no harm?" - -"It's not a fair offer," growled Levy. "I made you the fair offer." - -But his rage had moderated; he was beginning to listen to Raffles and to -reason, with however ill a grace. It was the very moment which Raffles -was the very man to improve. - -"Mr. Levy," said he, "do you suppose I care whether you hold your tongue -or not on a matter of mere suspicion, which you can't support by a grain -of evidence? You lose a piece of jewellery abroad; you recover it intact; -and after many days you get the bright idea that I'm the culprit because -I happen to have been staying in your hotel at the time. It never -occurred to you there or then, though you interviewed the gentleman face -to face, as you were constantly interviewing me. But as soon as I borrow -some money from you, here in London in the ordinary way, you say I must -be the man who borrowed Mrs. Levy's necklace in that extraordinary way at -Carlsbad! I should say it to the marines, Mr. Levy, if I were you; -they're the only force that are likely to listen to you." - -"I do say it, all the same; and what's more you don't deny it. If you -weren't the man you wouldn't be so ready for another game like it now." - -"Ready for it?" cried Raffles, more than ready for an undeniable point. -"I'm always your man for a new sensation, Mr. Levy, and for years I've -taken an academic interest in the very fine art of burglary; isn't that -so, Bunny?" - -"I've often heard you say so," I replied without mishap. - -"In these piping times," continued Raffles, "it's about the one exciting -and romantic career open to us. If it were not so infernally dishonest I -should have half a mind to follow it myself. And here you come and put -up a crib for me to crack in the best interests of equity and justice; -not to enrich the wicked cracksman, but to restore his rightful property -to the honest financier; a sort of teetotal felony--the very ginger-ale -of crime! Is that a beverage to refuse--a chance to miss--a temptation to -resist? Yet the risks are just as great as if it were a fine old fruity -felony; you can't expect me to run them for nothing, or even for their -own exciting sake. You know my terms, Mr. Levy; if you don't accept them, -it's already two in the morning, and I should like to get to bed before -it's light." - -"And if I did accept them?" said Levy, after a considerable pause. - -"The letter to which you attach such importance would most probably be in -your possession by the beginning of next week." - -"And I should have to take my hands off a nice little property that has -tumbled into them?" - -"Only for a time," said Raffles. "On the other hand, you would be -permanently out of danger of figuring in the dock on a charge of -blackmail. And you know your profession isn't popular in the courts, Mr. -Levy; it's in nearly as bad odour as the crime of blackmail!" - -A singular docility had descended like a mantle upon Daniel Levy: no -uncommon reaction in the case of very passionate men, and yet in this -case ominous, sinister, and completely unconvincing so far as I -personally was concerned. I longed to tell Raffles what I thought, to put -him on his guard against his obvious superior in low cunning. But Raffles -would not even catch my eye. And already he looked insanely pleased with -himself and his apparent advantage. - -"Will you give me until to-morrow morning?" said Levy, taking up his hat. - -"If you mean the morning; by eleven I must be at Lord's." - -"Say ten o'clock in Jermyn Street?" - -"It's a strange bargain, Mr. Levy. I should prefer to clinch it out of -earshot of your clerks." - -"Then I will come here." - -"I shall be ready for you at ten." - -"And alone?" - -There was a sidelong glance at me with the proviso. - -"You shall search the premises yourself and seal up all the doors." - -"Meanwhile," said Levy, putting on his hat, "I shall think about it, but -that's all. I haven't agreed yet, Mr. Raffles; don't you make too sure -that I ever shall. I shall think about it--but don't you make too sure." - -He was gone like a lamb, this wild beast of five minutes back. Raffles -showed him out, and down into the courtyard, and out again into -Piccadilly. There was no question but that he was gone for good; back -came Raffles, rubbing his hands for joy. - -"A fine night, Bunny! A finer day to follow! But a nice, slow, -wicket-keeper's wicket if ever Teddy had one in his life!" - -I came to my point with all vehemence. - -"Confound Teddy!" I cried from my heart. "I should have thought you had -run risks enough for his sake as it was!" - -"How do you know it's for his sake--or anybody's?" asked Raffles, quite -hotly. "Do you suppose I want to be beaten by a brute like Levy, Garlands -or no Garlands? Besides, there's far less risk in what I mean to do than -in what I've been doing; at all events it's in my line." - -"It's not in your line," I retorted, "to strike a bargain with a swine -who won't dream of keeping his side." - -"I shall make him," said Raffles. "If he won't do what I want he shan't -have what he wants." - -"But how could you trust him to keep his word?" - -"His word!" cried Raffles, in ironical echo. "We shall have to carry -matters far beyond his word, of course; deeds, not words, Bunny, and the -deeds properly prepared by solicitors and executed by Dan Levy before he -lays a finger on his own blackmailing letter. You remember old Mother -Hubbard in our house at school? He's a little solicitor somewhere in the -City; he'll throw the whole thing into legal shape for us, and ask no -questions and tell no tales. You leave Mr. Shylock to me and Mother, and -we'll bring him up to the scratch as he ought to go." - -There was no arguing with Raffles in such a mood; argue I did, but he -paid no attention to what I said. He had unlocked a drawer in the bureau, -and taken out a map that I had never seen before. I looked over his -shoulder as he spread it out in the light of his reading-lamp. And it was -a map of London capriciously sprinkled with wheels and asterisks of red -ink; there was a finished wheel in Bond Street, another in Half-Moon -Street, one on the site of Thornaby House, Park Lane, and others as -remote as St. John's Wood and Peter Street, Campden Hill; the asterisks -were fewer, and I have less reason to remember their latitude and -longitude. - -"What's this, A.J.?" I asked. "It looks exactly like a war-map." - -"It is one, Bunny," said he; "it's the map of one man's war against the -ordered forces of society. The spokes are only the scenes of future -operations, but each finished wheel marks the field of some past -engagement, in which you have usually been the one man's one and only -accomplice." - -And he stooped and drew the neatest of blood-red asterisks at the -southern extremity of Gray's Inn Square. - - - - -CHAPTER X - -"My Raffles Right or Wrong" - - -The historic sward had just been cleared for action when Raffles and I -met at Lord's next day. I blush to own I had been knave and fool enough -to suggest that he should smuggle me into the pavilion; but perhaps the -only laws of man that Raffles really respected were those of the M.C.C., -and it was in Block B. that he joined me a minute or so before eleven. -The sun was as strong and the sky as blue as though the disastrous day -before had been just such another. But its tropical shower-bath had left -the London air as cleanly and as clear as crystal; the neutral tints of -every day were splashes of vivid colour, the waiting umpires animated -snow-men, the heap of sawdust at either end a pyramid of powdered gold -upon an emerald ground. And in the expectant hush before the appearance -of the fielding side, I still recall the Yorkshire accent of the Surrey -Poet, hawking his latest lyric on some "Great Stand by Mr. Webbe and Mr. -Stoddart," and incidentally assuring the crowd that Cambridge was going -to win because everybody said Oxford would. - -"Just in time," said Raffles, as he sat down and the Cambridge men -emerged from the pavilion, capped and sashed in varying shades of light -blue. The captain's colours were bleached by service; but the -wicket-keeper's were the newest and the bluest of the lot, and as a male -historian I shrink from saying how well they suited him. - -"Teddy Garland looks as though nothing had happened," was what I said at -the time, as I peered through my binocular at the padded figure with the -pink face and the gigantic gloves. - -"That's because he knows there's a chance of nothing more happening," was -the reply. "I've seen him and his poor old governor up here since I saw -Dan Levy." - -I eagerly inquired as to the upshot of the earlier interview, but Raffles -looked as though he had not heard. The Oxford captain had come out to -open the innings with a player less known to fame; the first ball of the -match hurtled down the pitch, and the Oxford captain left it severely -alone. Teddy took it charmingly, and almost with the same movement the -ball was back in the bowler's hands. - -"_He's_ all right!" muttered Raffles with a long breath. "So is our Mr. -Shylock, Bunny; we fixed things up in no time after all. But the worst of -it is I shall only be able to stop--" - -He broke off, mouth open as it might have been mine. A ball had been -driven hard to extra cover, and quite well fielded; another had been -taken by Teddy as competently as the first, but not returned to the -bowler. The Oxford captain had played at it, and we heard something even -in Block B. - -"How's that?" came almost simultaneously in Teddy's ringing voice. Up -went the umpire's finger, and down came Raffles's hand upon my thigh. - -"He's caught him, Bunny!" he cried in my ear above the Cambridge cheers. -"The best bat on either side, and Teddy's outed him third ball!" He -stopped to watch the defeated captain's slow return, the demonstration on -the pitch in Teddy's honour; then he touched me on the arm and dropped -his voice. "He's forgotten all his troubles now, Bunny, if you like; -nothing's going to worry him till lunch, unless he misses a sitting -chance. And he won't, you'll see; a good start means even more behind the -sticks than in front of 'em." - -Raffles was quite right. Another wicket fell cheaply in another way; then -came a long spell of plucky cricket, a stand not masterly but dogged and -judicious, in which many a ball outside the off-stump was allowed to pass -unmolested, and a few were unfortunate in just beating the edge of the -bat. On the tricky wicket Teddy's work was cut out for him, and -beautifully he did it. It was a treat to see his lithe form crouching -behind the bails, to rise next instant with the rising ball; his great -gloves were always in the right place, always adhesive. Once only he held -them up prematurely, and a fine ball brushed the wicket on its way for -four byes; it was his sole error all the morning. Raffles sat enchanted; -so in truth did I; but between the overs I endeavoured to obtain -particulars of his latest parley with Dan Levy, and once or twice -extracted a stray detail. - -"The old sinner has a place on the river, Bunny, though I have my -suspicions of a second establishment nearer town. But I'm to find him at -his lawful home all the next few nights, and sitting up for me till two -in the morning." - -"Then you're going to Gray's Inn Square this week?" - -"I'm going there this morning for a peep at the crib; there's no time to -be lost, but on the other hand there's a devil of a lot to learn. I say, -Bunny, there's going to be another change of bowling; the fast stuff, -too, by Jove!" - -A massive youth had taken the ball at the top end, and the wicket-keeper -was retiring to a more respectful distance behind the stumps. - -"You'll let me know when it's to be?" I whispered, but Raffles only -answered, "I wonder Jack Studley didn't wait till there was more of a -crust on the mud pie. That tripe's no use without a fast wicket!" - -The technical slang of the modern cricket-field is ever a weariness; at -the moment it was something worse, and I resigned myself to the silent -contemplation of as wild an over as ever was bowled at Lord's. A shocking -thing to the off was sent skipping past point for four. "Tripe!" muttered -Raffles to himself. A very good one went over the bails and thud into -Garland's gloves like a round-shot. "Well bowled!" said Raffles with less -reserve. Another delivery was merely ignored, both at the wicket and at -my side, and then came a high full-pitch to leg which the batsman hit -hard but very late. It was a hit that might have smashed the pavilion -palings. But it never reached them; it stuck in Teddy's left glove -instead, and none of us knew it till we saw him staggering towards -long-leg, and tossing up the ball as he recovered balance. - -"That's the worst ball that ever took a wicket in this match!" vowed a -reverend veteran as the din died down. - -"And the best catch!" cried Raffles. "Come on, Bunny; that's my _nunc -dimittis_ for the day. There would be nothing to compare with it if I -could stop to see every ball bowled, and I mustn't see another." - -"But why?" I asked, as I followed Raffles into the press behind the -carriages. - -"I've already told you why," said he. - -I got as close to him as one could in that crowd. - -"You're not thinking of doing it to-night, A.J.?" - -"I don't know." - -"But you'll let _me_ know?" - -"Not if I can help it, Bunny; didn't I promise not to drag you any -further through this particular mire?" - -"But if _I_ can help _you_?" I whispered, after a momentary separation in -the throng. - -"Oh! if I can't get on without you," said Raffles, not nicely, "I'll let -you know fast enough. But do drop the subject now; here come old Garland -and Camilla Belsize!" - -They did not see us quite so soon as we saw them, and for a moment one -felt a spy; but it was an interesting moment even to a person smarting -from a snub. The ruined man looked haggard, ill, unfit to be about, the -very embodiment of the newspaper report concerning him. But the spirit -beamed through the shrinking flesh, the poor old fellow was alight with -pride and love, exultant in spite of himself and his misfortunes. He had -seen his boy's great catch; he had heard the cheers, he would hear them -till his dying hour. Camilla Belsize had also seen and heard, but not -with the same exquisite appreciation. Cricket was a game to her, it was -not that quintessence and epitome of life it would seem to be to some of -its devotees; and real life was pressing so heavily upon her that the -trivial consolation which had banished her companion's load could not -lighten hers. So at least I thought as they approached, the man so worn -and radiant, the girl so pensive for all her glorious youth and beauty: -his was the old head bowed with sorrow, his also the simpler and the -younger heart. - -"That catch will console me for a lot," I heard him say quite heartily to -Raffles. But Camilla's comment was altogether perfunctory; indeed, I -wondered that so sophisticated a person did not affect some little -enthusiasm. She seemed more interested, however, in the crowd than in the -cricket. And that was usual enough. - -Raffles was already saying he must go, with an explanatory murmur to Mr. -Garland, who clasped his hand with a suddenly clouded countenance. But -Miss Belsize only bowed, and scarcely took her eyes off a couple of -outwardly inferior men, who had attracted my attention through hers, -until they also passed out of the ground. - -Mr. Garland was on tip-toes watching the game again with mercurial -ardour. - -"Mr. Manders will look after me," she said to him, "won't you, Mr. -Manders?" I made some suitable asseveration, and she added: "Mr. -Garland's a member, you know, and dying to go into the Pavilion." - -"Only just to hear what they think of Teddy," the poor old boy confessed; -and when we had arranged where to meet in the interval, away he hurried -with his keen, worn face. - -Miss Belsize turned to me the moment he was gone. - -"I want to speak to you, Mr. Manders," she said quickly but without -embarrassment. "Where can we talk?" - -"And watch as well?" I suggested, thinking of the young man at his best -behind the sticks. - -"I want to speak to you first," she said, "where we shan't be overheard. -It's about Mr. Raffles!" added Miss Belsize as she met my stare. - -About Raffles again! About Raffles, after all that she had learnt the -day before! I did not enjoy the prospect as I led the way past the -ivy-mantled tennis-court of those days to the practice-ground, turned for -the nonce into a tented lawn. - -"And what about Raffles?" I asked as we struck out for ourselves across -the grass. - -"I'm afraid he's in some danger," replied Miss Belsize. And she stopped -in her walk and confronted me as frankly as though we had the animated -scene to ourselves. - -"Danger!" I repeated, guiltily enough, no doubt. "What makes you think -that, Miss Belsize?" - -My companion hesitated for the first time. - -"You won't tell him I told you, Mr. Manders?" - -"Not if you don't want me to," said I, taken aback more by her manner -than by the request itself. - -"You promise me that?" - -"Certainly." - -"Then tell me, did you notice two men who passed close to us just after -we had all met?" - -"There are so many men to notice," said I to gain time. - -"But these were not the sort one expects to see here to-day." - -"Did they wear bowlers and short coats?" - -"You did notice them!" - -"Only because I saw you watching them," said I, recalling the -whole scene. - -"They wanted watching," rejoined Miss Belsize dryly. "They followed Mr. -Raffles out of the ground!" - -"So they did!" I reflected aloud in my alarm. - -"They were following you both when you met us." - -"The dickens they were! Was that the first you saw of them?" - -"No; the first time was over there at the nets before play began. I -noticed those two men behind Teddy's net. They were not watching him; -that called my attention to them. It's my belief they were lying in wait -for Mr. Raffles; at any rate, when he came they moved away. But they -followed us afterwards across the ground." - -"You are sure of that?" - -"I looked round to see," said Miss Belsize, avoiding my eyes for the -first time. - -"Did you think the men--detectives?" - -And I forced a laugh. - -"I was afraid they might be, Mr. Manders, though I have never seen one -off the stage." - -"Still," I pursued, with painfully sustained amusement, "you were -ready to find A.J. Raffles being shadowed here at Lord's of all places -in the world?" - -"I was ready for anything, anywhere," said Miss Belsize, "after all I -heard yesterday afternoon." - -"You mean about poor Mr. Garland and his affairs?" - -It was an ingenuously disingenuous suggestion; it brought my companion's -eyes back to mine, with something of the scorn that I deserved. - -"No, Mr. Manders, I meant after what we all heard between Mr. Levy -and Mr. Raffles; and you knew very well what I meant," added Miss -Belsize severely. - -"But surely you didn't take all that seriously?" said I, without denying -the just impeachment. - -"How could I help it? The insinuation was serious enough, in all -conscience!" exclaimed Camilla Belsize. - -"That is," said I, since she was not to be wilfully misunderstood, "that -poor old Raffles had something to do with this jewel robbery at -Carlsbad?" - -"If it was a robbery." - -She winced at the word. - -"Do you mean it might have been a trick?" said I, recalling the victim's -own make-believe at the Albany. And not only did Camilla appear to -embrace that theory with open arms; she had the nerve to pretend that it -really was what she had meant. - -"Obviously!" says she, with an impromptu superiority worthy of Raffles -himself. "I wonder you never thought of that, Mr. Manders, when you know -what a trick you both played Mr. Levy only yesterday. Mr. Raffles himself -told us all about that; and I'm very grateful to you both; you must know -I am--for Teddy's sake," added Miss Belsize, with one quick remorseful -glance towards the great arena. "Still it only shows what Mr. Raffles -is--and--and it's what I meant when we were talking about him yesterday." - -"I don't remember," said I, remembering fast enough. - -"In the rockery," she reminded me. "When you asked what people said about -him, and I said that about living on his wits." - -"And being a paid amateur!" - -"But the other was the worst." - -"I'm not so sure," said I. "But his wits wouldn't carry him very far if -he only took necklaces and put them back again." - -"But it was all a joke," she reminded us both with a bit of a start. -"It must have been a joke, if Mr. Raffles did it at all. And it would -be dreadful if anything happened to him because of a wretched -practical joke!" - -There was no mistake about her feeling now; she really felt that it would -be "dreadful if anything happened" to the man whom yesterday she had -seemed both to dislike and to distrust. Her voice vibrated with anxiety. -A bright film covered the fine eyes, and they were finer than ever as -they continued to face me unashamed; but I was fool enough to speak my -mind, and at that they flashed themselves dry. - -"I thought you didn't like him?" had been my remark, and "Who says I do?" -was hers. "But he has done a lot for Teddy," she went on, "and never more -than yesterday," with her hand for an instant on my arm, "when you helped -him! I am dreadfully sorry for Mr. Garland, sorrier than I am for poor -Teddy. But Mr. Raffles is more than sorry. I know he means to do what he -can. He seems to think there must be something wrong; he spoke of -bringing that brute to reason--if not to justice. It would be too -dreadful if such a creature could turn the tables on Mr. Raffles by -trumping up any charge against him!" - -There was an absolute echo of my own tone in "trumping up any charge," -and I thought the echo sounded even more insincere. But at least it -showed me where we were. Miss Belsize was not deceived; she only wanted -me to think she was. Miss Belsize had divined what I knew, but neither -of us would admit to the other that the charge against Raffles would be -true enough. - -"But why should these men follow him?" said I, really wondering why they -should. "If there were anything definite against old Raffles, don't you -think he would be arrested?" - -"Oh! I don't know," was the slightly irritable answer. "I only think he -should be warned that he is being followed." - -"Whatever he has done?" I ventured. - -"Yes!" said she. "Whatever he has done--after what he did for Teddy -yesterday!" - -"You want me to warn him?" - -"Yes--but not from me!" - -"And suppose he really did take Mrs. Levy's necklace?" - -"That's just what we are supposing." - -"But suppose it wasn't for a joke at all?" - -I spoke as one playfully plumbing the abysmally absurd; what I did desire -to sound was the loyalty of this new, unexpected, and still captious -ally. And I thought myself strangely successful at the first cast; for -Miss Belsize looked me in the face as I was looking her, and I trusted -her before she spoke. - -"Well, after yesterday," she said, "I should warn him all the same!" - -"You would back your Raffles right or wrong?" I murmured, perceiving that -Camilla Belsize was, after all, like all the rest of us. - -"Against a vulgar extortioner, most decidedly!" she returned, without -repudiating the possessive pronoun. "It doesn't follow that I think -anything of him--apart from what you did between you for Teddy -yesterday." - -We had continued our stroll some time ago, and now it was I who stood -still. I looked at my watch. It still wanted some minutes to the -luncheon interval. - -"If Raffles took a cab to his rooms," I said, "he must be nearly there -and I must telephone to him." - -"Is there a call-office on the ground?" - -"Only in the pavilion, I believe, for the use of the members." - -"Then you must go to the nearest one outside." - -"And what about you?" - -Miss Belsize brightened with her smile of perfect and unconscious -independence. - -"Oh, I shall be all right," she said. "I know where to find Mr. Garland, -even if I don't pick up an escort on the way." - -But it was she who escorted me to the tall turnstile nearest -Wellington Road. - -"And you do see why I want to put Mr. Raffles on his guard?" she said -pointedly as we shook hands. "It's only because you and he have done so -much for Teddy!" - -And because she did not end by reminding me of my promise, I was all the -more reluctantly determined to keep it to the letter, even though Raffles -should think as ill as ever of one who was at least beginning to think -better of him. - - - - -CHAPTER XI - -A Dash in the Dark - - -In a few lines which I found waiting for me at the club, and have -somewhat imprudently preserved, Raffles professes to have known he was -being shadowed even before we met at Lord's: "but it was no use talking -about it until the foe were in the cart." He goes on to explain the -simple means by which he reduced the gentlemen in billycocks to the pitch -of discomfiture implied in his metaphor. He had taken a hansom to the -Burlington Gardens entrance to the Albany, and kept it waiting while he -went in and changed his clothes; then he had sent Barraclough to pay off -the cab, and himself marched out into Piccadilly, what time the billycock -brims were still shading watchful eyes in Burlington Gardens. There, to -be sure, I myself had spotted one of the precious pair when I drove up -after vain exertions at the call-office outside Lord's; but by that time -his confederate was on guard at the Piccadilly end, and Raffles had not -only shown a clean pair of wings, but left the poor brutes to watch an -empty cage. He dismisses them not unfairly with the epithet -"amateurish." Thus I was the more surprised, but not the less relieved, -to learn that he was "running down into the country for the weekend, to -be out of their way"; but he would be back on the Monday night, "to keep -an engagement you wot of, Bunny. And if you like you may meet me under -the clock at Waterloo (in flannel kit and tennis-shoes for choice) at the -witching hour of twelve sharp." - -If I liked! I had a premature drink in honour of an invitation more -gratifying to my vanity than any compliment old Raffles had paid me yet; -for I could still hear his ironical undertaking to let me know if he -could not do without me, and there was obviously no irony in this -delightfully early intimation of that very flattering fact. It altered my -whole view of the case. I might disapprove of the risks Raffles was -running for his other friends, but the more I was allowed to share in -them the less critical I was inclined to be. Besides I was myself clearly -implicated in the issue as between my own friend and the common enemy; it -was no more palatable to me than it was to Raffles, to be beaten by Dan -Levy after our initial victory over him. So I drank like a man to his -destruction, and subsequently stole forth to spy upon his foolish -myrmidons, who flattered themselves that they were spying on Raffles. The -imbeciles were at it still! The one hanging about Burlington Gardens -looked unutterably bored, but with his blots of whisker and his grimy -jowl, as flagrant a detective officer as ever I saw, even if he had not -so considerately dressed the part. The other bruiser was an equally -distinctive type, with a formidable fighting face and a chest like a -barrel; but in Piccadilly he seemed to me less occupied in taking notice -than in avoiding it. In innocuous futility one could scarcely excel the -other; and between them they raised my spirits to the zenith. - -I spent the rest of the afternoon at their own game, dogging Miss Belsize -about Lord's until at last I had an opportunity of informing her that -Raffles was quite safe. It may be that I made my report with too much -gusto when my chance came; at any rate, it was only the fact that -appeared to interest Miss Belsize; the details, over which I gloated, -seemed to inspire in her a repugnance consistent with the prejudice she -had displayed against Raffles yesterday, but not with her grateful -solicitude on his behalf as revealed to me that very morning. I could -only feel that gratitude was the beginning and the end of her new regard -for him. Raffles had never fascinated this young girl as he did the rest -of us; ordinarily engaged to an ordinary man, she was proof against the -glamour that dazzled us. Nay, though she would not admit it even to me -his friend, though like Levy she pretended to embrace the theory of the -practical joke, making it the pretext for her anxiety, I felt more -certain than ever that she now guessed, and had long suspected, what -manner of man Raffles really was, and that her natural antipathy was -greater even than before. Still more certain was I that she would never -betray him by word or deed; that, whatever harm might come of his present -proceedings, it would not be through Camilla Belsize. - -But I was now determined to do my own utmost to minimise the dangers, to -be a real help to Raffles in the act of altruistic depravity to which he -had committed himself, and not merely a fifth wheel to his dashing -chariot. Accordingly I went into solemn training for the event before us: -a Turkish bath on the Saturday, a quiet Sunday between Mount Street and -the club, and most of Monday lying like a log in cold-blooded preparation -for the night's work. And when night fell I took it upon me to -reconnoitre the ground myself before meeting Raffles at Waterloo. - -Another cool and starry evening seemed to have tempted all the town and -his wife into the streets. The great streams of traffic were busier than -ever, the backwaters emptier, and Gray's Inn a basin drained to the last -dreg of visible humanity. In one moment I passed through gateway and -alley from the voices and lights of Holborn into a perfectly deserted -square of bare ground and bright stars. The contrast was altogether -startling, for I had never been there before; but for the same reason I -had already lost my bearings, believing myself to be in Gray's Inn Square -when I was only in South Square, Gray's Inn. Here I entered upon a -hopeless search for the offices of Burroughs and Burroughs. Door after -door had I tried in vain, and was beginning to realise my mistake, when a -stray molecule of the population drifted in from Holborn as I had done, -but with the quick step of the man who knows his way. I darted from a -doorway to inquire mine, but he was across the square before I could cut -him off, and as he passed through the rays of a lamp beside a second -archway, I fell back thanking Providence and Raffles for my rubber soles. -The man had neither seen nor heard me, but at the last moment I had -recognised him as the burlier of the two blockheads who had shadowed -Raffles three days before. - -He passed under the arch without looking round. I flattened myself -against the wall on my side of the arch; and in so standing I was all -but eye-witness of a sudden encounter in the square beyond. - -The quick steps stopped, and there was a "Here you are!" on one side, -and a "Well! Where is he?" on the other, both very eager and below -the breath. - -"On the job," whispered the first voice. "Up to the neck!" - -"When did 'e go in?" - -"Nearly an hour ago; when I sent the messenger." - -"Which way?" - -"Up through number seventeen." - -"Next door, eh?" - -"That's right." - -"Over the roof?" - -"Can't say; he's left no tracks. I been up to see." - -"I suppose there's the usual ladder and trapdoor?" - -"Yes, but the ladder's hanging in its proper place. He couldn't have put -it back there, could he?" - -The other grunted; presently he expressed a doubt whether Raffles (and it -thrilled me to hear the very name) had succeeded in breaking into the -lawyer's office at all. The first man on the scene, however, was quite -sure of it--and so was I. - -"And we've got to hang about," grumbled the newcomer, "till he comes -out again?" - -"That's it. We can't miss him. He must come back into the square or -through into the gardens, and if he does that he'll have to come over -these here railings into Field Court. We got him either way, and there's -a step just here where we can sit and see both ways as though it had been -made for us. You come and try ... a door into the old hall ..." - -That was all I heard distinctly; first their footsteps, and then the few -extra yards, made the rest unintelligible. But I had heard enough. "The -usual ladder and trap-door!" Those blessed words alone might prove worth -their weight in great letters of solid gold. - -Now I could breathe again; now I relaxed my body and turned my head, and -peered through the arch with impunity, and along the whole western side -of Gray's Inn Square, with its dusky fringe of plane-trees and its vivid -line of lamps, its strip of pavement, and its wall of many-windowed -houses under one unbroken roof. Dim lights smouldered in the column of -landing windows over every door; otherwise there was no break in the -blackness of that gaunt façade. Yet in some dark room or other behind -those walls I seemed to see Raffles at work as plainly as I had just -heard our natural enemies plotting his destruction. I saw him at a safe. -I saw him at a desk. I saw him leaving everything as he had found it, -only to steal down and out into the very arms of the law. And I felt that -even that desperate _dénouement_ was little more than he deserved for -letting me think myself accessory before the fact, when all the time he -meant me to have nothing whatever to do with it! Well, I should have -everything to do with it now; if Raffles was to be saved from the -consequences of his own insanity, I and I alone must save him. It was the -chance of my life to show him my real worth. And yet the difficulty of -the thing might have daunted Raffles himself. - -I knew what to do if only I could gain the house which he had made the -base of his own operations; at least I knew what to attempt, and what -Raffles had done I might do. So far the wily couple within earshot had -helped me out of their own mouths. But they were only just round the -corner that hid them from my view; stray words still reached me; and they -knew me by sight, would recognise me at a glance, might pounce upon me as -I passed. Unless-- - -_I_ had it! - -The crowd in Holborn seemed strange and unreal as I jostled in its midst -once more. I was out of it in a moment, however, and into a 'bus, and out -of the 'bus in a couple of minutes by my watch. One more minute and I was -seeing how far back I could sit in a hansom bound for Gray's Inn Square. - -"I forget the number," I had told the cabman, "but it's three or four -doors beyond Burroughs and Burroughs, the solicitors." - -The gate into Holborn had to be opened for me, but the gate-keeper had -not seen me on my previous entrance and exit afoot through the postern. -It was when we drove under the further arch into the actual square that I -pressed my head hard against the back of the hansom, and turned my face -towards Field Court. The enemy might have abandoned their position, they -might meet me face to face as I landed on the pavement; that was my risk, -and I ran it without disaster. We passed the only house with an outer -door to it in the square (now there is none), and on the plate beside it -I read BURROUGHS AND BURROUGHS with a thrill. Up went my stick; my -shilling (with a peculiarly superfluous sixpence for luck) I thrust -through the trap with the other hand; and I was across the pavement, and -on the stairs four clear doors beyond the lawyer's office, before the -driver had begun to turn his horse. - -They were broad bare stairs, with great office doors right and left on -every landing, and in the middle the landing window looking out into the -square. I waited well within the window on the first floor; and as my -hansom drove out under the arch, the light of its near lamp flashed -across two figures lounging on the steps of that entrance to the hall; -but there was no stopping or challenging the cabman, no sound at all but -those of hoofs and bell, and soon only that of my own heart beating as I -fled up the rest of the stairs in my rubber soles. - -Near the top I paused to thank my kindly stars; sure enough there was a -long step-ladder hanging on a great nail over the last half-landing, and -a square trap-door right over the landing proper! I ran up just to see -the names on the two top doors; one was evidently that of some -pettifogging firm of solicitors, while the other bespoke a private -resident, whom I judged to be out of town by the congestion of postal -matter that met my fingers in his letter-box. Neither had any terrors for -me. The step-ladder was unhooked without another moment's hesitation. -Care alone was necessary to place it in position without making a noise; -then up I went, and up went the trapdoor next, without mishap or -hindrance until I tried to stand up in the loft, and caught my head a -crack against the tiles instead. - -This was disconcerting in more ways than one, for I could not leave the -ladder where it was, and it was nearly twice my height. I struck a match -and lit up a sufficient perspective of lumber and cobwebs to reassure me. -The loft was long enough, and the trap-door plumb under the apex of the -roof, whereas I had stepped sideways off the ladder. It was to be got up, -and I got it up, though not by any means as silently as I could have -wished. I knelt and listened at the open trap-door for a good minute -before closing it with great caution, a squeak and a scuttle in the loft -itself being the only sign that I had disturbed a living creature. - -There was a grimy dormer window, not looking down into the square, but -leading like a companion hatchway into a valley of once red tiles, now -stained blue-black in the starlight. It was great to stand upright here -in the pure night air out of sight of man or beast. Smokeless -chimney-stacks deleted whole pages of stars, but put me more in mind of -pollards rising out of these rigid valleys, and sprouting with telephone -wires that interlaced for foliage. The valley I was in ended fore and -aft in a similar slope to that at either side; the length of it -doubtless tallied with the frontage of a single house; and when I had -clambered over the southern extremity into a precisely similar valley I -saw that this must be the case. I had entered the fourth house beyond -Burroughs and Burroughs's, or was it the fifth? I threaded three -valleys, and then I knew. - -In all three there had been dormer windows on either hand, that on the -square side leading into the loft; the other, or others, forming a sort -of skylight to some top-floor room. Suddenly I struck one of these -standing very wide open, and trod upon a rope's end curled like a snake -on the leads. I stooped down, and at a touch I knew that I had hold of -Raffles's favourite Manila, which united a silken flexibility with the -strength of any hawser. It was tied to the window-post, and it dangled -into a room in which there was a dull red glow of fire: an inhabited room -if ever I put my nose in one! My body must follow, however, where Raffles -had led the way; and when it did I came to ground sooner than I expected -on something less secure. The dying firelight, struggling through the -bars of a kitchen range, showed my tennis-shoes in the middle of the -kitchen table. A cat was stretching itself on the hearth-rug as I made a -step of a wooden chair, and came down like a cat myself. - -I found the kitchen door, found a passage so dark that the window at the -end hung like a picture slashed across the middle. Yet it only looked -into the square, for I peered out when I had crept along the passage, and -even thought I both heard and saw the enemy at their old post. But I was -in another enemy's country now; at every step I stopped to listen for the -thud of feet bounding out of bed. Hearing nothing, I had the temerity at -last to strike a match upon my trousers, and by its light I found the -outer door. This was not bolted nor yet shut; it was merely ajar, and so -I left it. - -The rooms opposite appeared to be an empty set; those on the second and -first floors were only partially shut off by swing doors leading to -different departments of the mighty offices of Burroughs and Burroughs. -There were no lights upon these landings, and I gathered my information -by means of successive matches, whose tell-tale ends I carefully -concealed about my person, and from copious legends painted on the walls. -Thus I had little difficulty in groping my way to the private offices of -Sir John Burroughs, head of the celebrated firm; but I looked in vain for -a layer of light under any of the massive mahogany doors with which this -portion of the premises was glorified. Then I began softly trying doors -that proved to be locked. Only one yielded to my hand; and when it was a -few inches open, all was still black; but the next few brought me to the -end of my quest, and the close of my solitary adventures. - - - - -CHAPTER XII - -A Midsummer Night's Work - - -The dense and total darkness was broken in one place, and one only, by a -plateful of light proceeding from a tiny bulb of incandescence in its -centre. This blinding atom of white heat lit up a hand hardly moving, a -pen continually poised, over a disc of snowy paper; and on the other -side, something that lay handy on the table, reflecting the light in its -plated parts. It was Raffles at his latest deviltry. He had not heard me, -and he could not see; but for that matter he never looked up from his -task. Sometimes his face bent over it, and I could watch its absolute -concentration. The brow was furrowed, and the mouth pursed, yet there was -a hint of the same quiet and wary smile with which Raffles would bowl an -over or drill holes in a door. - -I stood for some moments fascinated, entranced, before creeping in to -warn him of my presence in a whisper. But this time he heard my step, -snatched up electric torch and glittering revolver, and covered me with -the one in the other's light. - -"A.J.!" I gasped. - -"Bunny!" he exclaimed in equal amazement and displeasure. "What the devil -do you mean by this?" - -"You're in danger," I whispered. "I came to warn you!" - -"Danger? I'm never out of it. But how did you know where to find me, and -how on God's earth did _you_ get here?" - -"I'll tell you some other time. You know those two brutes you dodged the -other day?" - -"I ought to." - -"They're waiting below for you at this very moment." - -Raffles peered a few moments through the handful of white light between -our faces. - -"Let them wait!" said he, and replaced the torch upon the table and put -down his revolver for his pen. - -"They're detectives!" I urged. - -"Are they, Bunny?" - -"What else could they be?" - -"What, indeed!" murmured Raffles, as he fell to work again with bent head -and deliberate pen. - -"You gave them the slip on Friday, but they must have known your game and -lain in wait for you here, one or other of them, ever since. It's my -belief Dan Levy put them up to it, and the yarn about the letter was just -to tempt you into this trap and get you caught in the act. He didn't want -a copy one bit; for God's sake, don't stop to finish it now!" - -"I don't agree with you," said Raffles without looking up, "and I don't -do things by halves, Your precious detectives must have patience, Bunny, -and so must you." He held his watch to the bulb. "In about twenty minutes -there'll be real danger, but we couldn't be safer in our beds for the -next ten. So perhaps you'll let me finish without further interruption, -or else get out by yourself as you came in." - -I turned away from Raffles and his light, and blundered back to the -landing. The blood boiled in my veins. Here had I fought and groped my -way to his side, through difficulties it might have taxed even him to -surmount, as one man swims ashore with a rope from the wreck, at the same -mortal risk, with the same humane purpose. And not a word of thanks, not -one syllable of congratulation, but "get out by yourself as you came in!" -I had more than half a mind to get out, and for good; nay, as I stood and -listened on the landing, I could have found it in my outraged heart to -welcome those very sleuthhounds from the square, with a cordon of police -behind them. - -Yet my boiling blood ran cold when warm breath smote my cheek and a hand -my shoulder at one and the same awful moment. - -"Raffles!" I cried in a strangled voice. - -"Hush, Bunny!" he chuckled in my ear. "Didn't you know who it was?" - -"I never heard you; why did you steal on me like that?" - -"You see you're not the only one who can do it, Bunny! I own it would -have served me right if you'd brought the square about our ears." - -"Have you finished in there?" I asked gruffly. - -"Rather!" - -"Then you'd better hurry up and put everything as you found it." - -"It's all done, Bunny; red tape tied on such a perfect forgery that -the crux will be to prove it is one; safe locked up, and every paper -in its place." - -"I never heard a sound." - -"I never made one," said Raffles, leading me upstairs by the arm. "You -see how you put me on my mettle, Bunny, old boy!" - -I said no more till we reached the self-contained flat at the top of the -house; then I begged Raffles to be quiet in a lower whisper than his own. - -"Why, Bunny? Do you think there are people inside?" - -"Aren't there?" I cried aloud in my relief. - -"You flatter me, Bunny!" laughed Raffles, as we groped our way in. "This -is where they keep their John Bulldog, a magnificent figure of a -commissionaire with the V.C. itself on his manly bosom. Catch me come -when he was at home; one of us would have had to die, and it would have -been a shame either way. Poor pussy, then, poor puss!" - -We had reached the kitchen and the cat was rubbing itself against -Raffles's legs. - -"But how on earth did you get rid of him for the night?" - -"Made friends with him when I called on Friday; didn't I tell you I had -an appointment with the bloated head of this notorious firm when I -cleared out of Lord's? I'm about to strengthen his already unrivalled -list of clients; you shall hear all about that later. We had another -interview this afternoon, when I asked my V.C. if he ever went to the -theatre; you see he had spotted Tom Fool, and told me he never had a -chance of getting to Lord's. So I got him tickets for 'Rosemary' instead, -but of course I swore they had just been given to me and I couldn't use -them. You should have seen how the hero beamed! So that's where he is, -he and his wife--or was, until the curtain went down." - -"Good Lord, Raffles, is the piece over?" - -"Nearly ten minutes ago, but it'll take 'em all that unless they come -home in a cab." - -And Raffles had been sitting before the fire, on the kitchen table, -encouraging the cat, when this formidable V.C. and his wife must be -coming every instant nearer Gray's Inn Square! - -"Why, my dear Bunny, I should back myself to swarm up and out without -making a sound or leaving a sign, if I heard our hero's key in the lock -this moment. After you, Bunny." - -I climbed up with trembling knees, Raffles holding the rope taut to make -it easier. Once more I stood upright under the stars and the telephone -wires, and leaned against a chimney-stack to wait for Raffles. But before -I saw him, before I even heard his unnecessarily noiseless movements, I -heard something else that sent a chill all through me. - -It was not the sound of a key in the lock. It was something far worse -than that. It was the sound of voices on the roof, and of footsteps -drawing nearer through the very next valley of leads and tiles. - -I was crouching on the leads outside the dormer window as Raffles -climbed into sight within. - -"They're after us up here!" I whispered in his face. "On the next roof! I -hear them!" - -Up came Raffles with his hands upon the sill, then with his knees between -his hands, and so out on all-fours into the narrow rivulet of lead -between the sloping tiles. Out of the opposite slope, a yard or two on, -rose a stout stack of masonry, a many-headed monster with a chimney-pot -on each, and a full supply of wires for whiskers. Behind this Gorgon of -the house-tops Raffles hustled me without a word, and himself took -shelter as the muffled voices on the next roof grew more distinct. They -were the voices that I had overheard already in the square, the voices -but not the tones. The tones--the words--were those of an enemy divided -against itself. - -"And now we've gone and come too far!" grumbled the one who had been last -to arrive upon the scene below. - -"We did that," the other muttered, "the moment we came in after 'em. We -should've stopped where we were." - -"With that other cove driving up and going in without ever showing a -glim?" - -Raffles nudged me, and I saw what I had done. But the weakling of the -pair still defended the position he had reluctantly abandoned on _terra -firma_; he was all for returning while there was time; and there were -fragments of the broken argument that were beginning to puzzle me when a -soft oath from the man in front proclaimed the discovery of the open -window and the rope. - -"We got 'em," he whispered, stagily, "like rats in a trap!" - -"You forget what it is we've got to get." - -"Well, we must first catch our man, mustn't we? And how d'ye know his pal -hasn't gone in to warn him where we were? If he has, and we'd stopped -there, they'd do us easy." - -"They may do us easier down there in the dark," replied the other, with a -palpable shiver. "They'll hear us and lie in wait. In the dark! We shan't -have a dog's chance." - -"All right! You get out of it and save your skin. I'd rather work alone -than with a blessed funk!" - -The situation was identical with many a one in the past between Raffles -and me. The poor brute in my part resented the charge against his courage -as warmly as I had always done. He was merely for the better part of -valour, and how right he was Raffles and I only knew. I hoped the lesson -was not lost upon Raffles. Dialogue and action alike resembled one of -our own performances far more than ordinary police methods as we knew -them. We heard the squeeze of the leader's clothes and the rattle of his -buttons over the window ledge. "It's like old times," we heard him -mutter; and before many moments the weakling was impulsively whispering -down to know if he should follow. - -I felt for that fellow at every stage of his unwilling proceedings. I was -to feel for him still more. Raffles had stepped down like a cat from -behind our cover; grasping an angle of the stack with either hand, I put -my head round after him. The wretched player of my old part was on his -haunches at the window, stooping forward, more in than out. I saw Raffles -grinning in the starlight, saw his foot poised and the other poor devil -disappear. Then a dull bump, then a double crash and such a cursing as -left no doubt that the second fellow had fallen plumb on top of the -first. Also from his language I fancied he would survive the fall. - -But Raffles took no peep at his handiwork; hardly had the rope whipped -out at my feet than he had untied the other end. - -"Like lamplighters, Bunny!" - -And back we went helter-skelter along the valleys of lead and over the -hills of tile.... The noise in the kitchen died away as we put a roof or -two between us and that of Burroughs and Burroughs. - -"This is where I came out," I called to Raffles as he passed the place. -"There's a ladder here where I left it in the loft!" - -"No time for ladders!" cried Raffles over his shoulder, and not for some -moments did he stop in his stride. Nor was it I who stopped him then; it -was a sudden hubbub somewhere behind us, somewhere below; the blowing of -a police whistle, and the sound of many footsteps in the square. - -"That's for us!" I gasped. "The ladder! The ladder!" - -"Ladder be damned!" returned Raffles, roughly. "It isn't for us at all; -it's my pal the V.C. who has come home and bottled the other blighters." - -"Thinking they're thieves?" - -"Thinking any rot you like! Our course is over the rest of the roofs on -this side, over the whole lot at the top end, and, if possible, down the -last staircase in the corner. Then we only have to show ourselves in the -square for a tick before we're out by way of Verulam Buildings." - -"Is there another gate there?" I asked as he scampered on with me -after him. - -"Yes; but it's closed and the porter leaves at twelve, and it must be -jolly near that now. Wait, Bunny! Some one or other is sure to be looking -out of the top windows across the square; they'll see us if we take our -fences too freely!" - -We had come to one of the transverse tile-slopes, which hitherto we had -run boldly up and down in our helpful and noiseless rubber soles; now, -not to show ourselves against the stars, to a stray pair of eyes on some -other high level, we crept up on all fours and rolled over at full -length. It added considerably to our time over more than a whole side of -the square. Meanwhile the police whistles had stopped, but the company in -the square had swollen audibly. - -It seemed an age, but I suppose it was not many minutes, before we came -to the last of the dormer windows, looking into the last vale of tiles in -the north-east angle of the square. Something gleamed in the starlight, -there was a sharp little sound of splitting wood, and Raffles led me on -hands and knees into just such a loft as I had entered before by ladder. -His electric torch discovered the trapdoor at a gleam. Raffles opened it -and let down the rope, only to whisk it up again so smartly that it -struck my face like a whiplash. - -A door had opened on the top landing. We listened over the open -trap-door, and knew that another stood listening on the invisible -threshold underneath; then we saw him running downstairs, and my heart -leapt for he never once looked up. I can see him still, foreshortened by -our bird's-eye view into a Turkish fez and a fringe of white hair and red -neck, a billow of dressing-gown, and bare heels peeping out of bedroom -slippers at every step that we could follow; but no face all the way -down, because he was a bent old boy who never looked like looking up. - -Raffles threw his rope aside, gave me his hand instead, and dropped me on -the landing like a feather, dropping after me without a moment's pause. -In fact, the old fellow with the fez could hardly have completed his -descent of the stairs when we began ours. Yet through the landing window -we saw him charging diagonally across the square, shouting and -gesticulating in his flight to the gathering crowd near the far corner. - -"He spotted us, Bunny!" exclaimed Raffles, after listening an instant -in the entrance. "Stick to me like my shadow, and do every blessed -thing I do." - -Out he dived, I after him, and round to the left with the speed of -lightning, but apparently not without the lightning's attribute of -attracting attention to itself. There was a hullabaloo across the square -behind us, and I looked round to see the crowd there breaking in our -direction, as I rushed after Raffles under an arch and up the alley in -front of Verulam Buildings. - -It was striking midnight as we made our sprint along this alley, and at -the far end the porter was preparing to depart, but he waited to let us -through the gate into Gray's Inn Road, and not until he had done so can -the hounds have entered the straight. We did not hear them till the gate -had clanged behind us, nor had it opened again before we were high and -dry in a hansom. - -"King's Cross!" roared Raffles for all the street to hear; but before we -reached Clerkenwell Road he said he meant Waterloo, and round we went to -the right along the tram-lines. I was too breathless to ask questions, -and Raffles offered no explanations until he had lit a Sullivan. "That -little bit of wrong way may lose us our train," he said as he puffed the -first cloud. "But it'll shoot the whole field to King's Cross as sure as -scent is scent; and if we do catch our train, Bunny, we shall have it to -ourselves as far as this pack is concerned. Hurrah! Blackfriar's Bridge -and a good five minutes to go!" - -"You're going straight down to Levy's with the letter?" - -"Yes; that's why I wanted you to meet me under the clock at twelve." - -"But why in tennis-shoes?" I asked, recalling the injunctions in his -note, and the meaning that I had naturally read into them. - -"I thought we might possibly finish the night on the river," replied -Raffles, darkly. "I think so still." - -"And _I_ thought you meant me to lend you a hand in Gray's Inn!" - -Raffles laughed. - -"The less you think, my dear old Bunny, the better it always is! -To-night, for example, you have performed prodigies on my account; your -unselfish audacity has only been equalled by your resource; but, my dear -fellow, it was a sadly unnecessary effort." - -"Unnecessary to tell you those brutes were waiting for you down below?" - -"Quite, Bunny. I saw one of them and let him see me. I knew he'd send off -for his pal." - -"Then I don't understand your tactics or theirs." - -"Mine were to walk out the very way we did, you and I. They would never -have seen me from the opposite corner of the square, or dreamt of going -in after me if they hadn't spotted your getting in before them to put me -on my guard. The place would have been left exactly as I found it, and -those two numskulls as much in the lurch as I left them last week outside -the Albany." - -"Perhaps they were beginning to fear that," said I, "and meant ferreting -for you in any case if you didn't show up." - -"Not they," said Raffles. "One of them was against it as it was; it -wasn't their job at all." - -"Not to take you in the act if they could?" - -"No; their job was to take the letter from me as soon as I got back to -earth. That was all. I happen to know. Those were their instructions from -old Levy." - -"Levy!" - -"Did it never occur to you that I was being dogged by his creatures?" - -"His creatures, Raffles?" - -"He set them to shadow me from the hour of our interview on Saturday -morning. Their instructions were to bag the letter from me as soon as I -got it, but to let me go free to the devil!" - -"How can you know, A.J.?" - -"My dear Bunny, where do you suppose I've been spending the week-end? Did -you think I'd go in with a sly dog like old Shylock without watching him -and finding out his real game? I should have thought it hardly necessary -to tell you I've been down the river all the time; down the river," -added Raffles, chuckling, "in a Canadian canoe and a torpedo beard! I was -cruising near the foot of the old brute's garden on Friday evening when -one of the precious pair came down to tell him they had let me slip -already. I landed and heard the whole thing through the window of the -room where we shall find him to-night. It was Levy who set them to watch -the crib since they'd lost the cracksman; he was good enough to reiterate -all his orders for my benefit. You will hear me take him through them -when we get down there, so it's no use going over the same ground twice." - -"Funny orders for a couple of Scotland Yard detectives!" was my puzzled -comment as Raffles produced an inordinate cab-fare. - -"Scotland Yard?" said he. "My good Bunny, those were no limbs of the law; -they're old thieves set to catch a thief, and they've been caught -themselves for their pains!" - -Of course they were! Every detail of their appearance and their behaviour -confirmed the statement in the flash that brought them all before my -mind! And I had never thought of it, never but dreamt that we were doing -battle with the archenemies of our class. But there was no time for -further reflection, nor had I recovered breath enough for another word, -when the hansom clattered up the cobbles into Waterloo Station. And our -last sprint of that athletic night ended in a simultaneous leap into -separate carriages as the platform slid away from the 12:10 train. - - - - -CHAPTER XIII - -Knocked Out - - -But it was hardly likely to be the last excitement of the night, as I saw -for myself before Raffles joined me at Vauxhall. An arch-traitor like -Daniel Levy might at least be trusted to play the game out with loaded -dice; no single sportsman could compete against his callous machinations; -and that was obviously where I was coming in. I only wished I had not -come in before! I saw now the harm that I had done by my rash proceedings -in Gray's Inn, the extra risk entailed already and a worse one still -impending. If the wretches who had shadowed him were really Levy's -mercenaries, and if they really had been taken in their own trap, their -first measure of self-defence would be the denunciation of Raffles to the -real police. Such at least was my idea, and Raffles himself made light -enough of it; he thought they could not expose him without dragging in -Levy, who had probably made it worth their while not to do that on any -consideration. His magnanimity in the matter, which he flatly refused to -take as seriously as I did, made it difficult for me to press old -Raffles, as I otherwise might have done, for an outline of those further -plans in which I hoped to atone for my blunders by being of some use to -him after all. His nonchalant manner convinced me that they were -cut-and-dried; but I was left perhaps deservedly in the dark as to the -details. I merely gathered that he had brought down some document for -Levy to sign in execution of the verbal agreement made between them in -town; not until that agreement was completed by his signature was the -harpy to receive the precious epistle he pretended never to have written. -Raffles, in fine, had the air of a man who has the game in his hands, who -is none the less prepared for foul play on the other side, and by no -means perturbed at the prospect. - -We left the train at a sweet-smelling platform, on which the lights were -being extinguished as we turned into a quiet road where bats flew over -our heads between the lamp-posts, and a policeman was passing a disc of -light over a jerry-built abuse of the name of Queen Anne. Our way led -through quieter roads of larger houses standing further back, until at -last we came to the enemy's gates. They were wooden gates without a -lodge, yet the house set well beyond them, on the river's brim, was a -mansion of considerable size and still greater peculiarity. It was really -two houses, large and small, connected by a spine of white posts and -joists and glimmering glass. In the more substantial building no lights -were to be seen from the gates, but in the annex a large French window -made a lighted square at right angles with the river and the road. We had -set foot in the gravel drive; with a long line of poplars down one side, -and on the other a wide lawn dotted with cedars and small shrubs, when -Raffles strode among these with a smothered exclamation, and a wild -figure started from the ground. - -"What are you doing here?" demanded Raffles, with all the righteous -austerity of a law-abiding citizen. - -"Nutting, sare!" replied an alien tongue, a gleam of good teeth in the -shadow of his great soft hat. "I been see Mistare Le-vie in ze 'ouse, on -ze beezness, shentlemen." - -"Seen him, have you? Then if I were you I should make a decent -departure," said Raffles, "by the gate--" to which he pointed with -increased severity of tone and bearing. - -The weird figure uncovered a shaggy head of hair, made us a grotesque bow -with his right hand melodramatically buried in the folds of a voluminous -cape, and stalked off in the starlight with much dignity. But we heard -him running in the road before the gate had clicked behind him. - -"Isn't that the fellow we saw in Jermyn Street last Thursday?" I asked -Raffles in a whisper. - -"That's the chap," he whispered back. "I wonder if he spotted us, Bunny? -Levy's treated him scandalously, of course; it all came out in a torrent -the other morning. I only hope he hasn't been serving Dan Levy as Jack -Rutter served old Baird! I could swear that was a weapon of sorts he'd -got under his cloak." - -And as we stood together under the stars, listening to the last of the -runaway footfalls, I recalled the killing of another and a less notorious -usurer by a man we both knew, and had even helped to shield from the -consequences of his crime. Yet the memory of our terrible discovery on -that occasion had not the effect of making me shrink from such another -now; nor could I echo the hope of Raffles in my heart of hearts. If Dan -Levy also had come to a bad end--well, it was no more than he deserved, -if only for his treachery to Raffles, and, at any rate, it would put a -stop to our plunging from bad to worse in an adventure of which the -sequel might well be worst of all. I do not say that I was wicked enough -absolutely to desire the death of this sinner for our benefit; but I saw -the benefit at least as plainly as the awful possibility, and it was not -with unalloyed relief that I beheld a great figure stride through the -lighted windows at our nearer approach. - -Though his back was to the light before I saw his face, and the whole man -might have been hacked out of ebony, it was every inch the living Levy -who stood peering in our direction, one hand hollowed at an ear, the -other shading both eyes. - -"Is that you, boys?" he croaked in sepulchral salute. - -"It depends which boys you mean," replied Raffles, marching into the zone -of light. "There are so many of us about to-night!" - -Levy's arms dropped at his sides, and I heard him mutter "Raffles!" with -a malediction. Next moment he was inquiring whether we had come down -alone, yet peering past us into the velvet night for his answer. - -"I brought our friend Bunny," said Raffles, "but that's all." - -"Then what do you mean by saying there are so many of you about?" - -"I was thinking of the gentleman who was here just before us." - -"Here just before you? Why, I haven't seen a soul since my 'ousehold -went to bed." - -"But we met the fellow just this minute within your gates: a little -foreign devil with a head like a mop and the cloak of an operatic -conspirator." - -"That beggar!" cried Levy, flying into a high state of excitement on the -spot. "That blessed little beggar on my tracks down here! I've 'ad him -thrown out of the office in Jermyn Street; he's threatened me by letter -and telegram; so now he thinks he'll come and try it on in person down -'ere. Seen me, eh? I wish I'd seen '_im_! I'm ready for biters like that, -gentlemen. I'm not to be caught on the 'op down here!" - -And a plated revolver twinkled and flashed in the electric light as Levy -drew it from his hip pocket and flourished it in our faces; he would have -gone prowling through the grounds with it if Raffles had not assured him -that the foreign foe had fled on our arrival. As it was the pistol was -not put back in his pocket when Levy at length conducted us indoors; he -placed it on an occasional table beside the glass that he drained on -entering; and forthwith set his back to a fire which seemed in keeping -with the advanced hour, and doubly welcome in an apartment so vast that -the billiard table was a mere item at one end, and sundry trophies of -travel and the chase a far more striking and unforeseen feature. - -"Why, that's a better grisly than the one at Lord's!" exclaimed Raffles, -pausing to admire a glorious fellow near the door, while I mixed myself -the drink he had declined. - -"Yes," said Levy, "the man that shot all this lot used to go about saying -he'd shoot _me_ at one time; but I need 'ardly tell you he gave it up as -a bad job, and went an' did what some folks call a worse instead. He -didn't get much show 'ere, _I_ can tell you; that little foreign snipe -won't either, nor yet any other carrion that think they want my blood. -I'd empty this shooter o' mine into their in'ards as soon as look at 'em, -I don't give a curse who they are! Just as well I wasn't brought up to -your profession, eh, Raffles?" - -"I don't quite follow you, Mr. Levy." - -"Oh yes you do!" said the money-lender, with his gastric chuckle. "How've -you got on with that little bit o' burgling?" - -And I saw him screw up his bright eyes, and glance through the open -windows into the outer darkness, as though there was still a hope in his -mind that we had not come down alone. I formed the impression that Levy -had returned by a fairly late train himself, for he was in morning dress, -in dusty boots, and there was an abundant supply of sandwiches on the -table with the drinks. But he seemed to have confined his own attentions -to the bottle, and I liked to think that the sandwiches had been cut for -the two emissaries for whom he was welcome to look out for all night. - -"How did you get on?" he repeated when he had given them up for -the present. - -"For a first attempt," replied Raffles, without a twinkle, "I don't think -I've done so badly." - -"Ah! I keep forgetting you're a young beginner," said Levy, catching the -old note in his turn. - -"A beginner who's scarcely likely to go on, Mr. Levy, if all cribs are as -easy to crack as that lawyers' office of yours in Gray's Inn Square." - -"As easy?" - -Raffles recollected his pose. - -"It was enormous fun," said he. "Of course one couldn't know that -there would be no hitch. There was an exciting moment towards the end. -I have to thank you for quite a new thrill of sorts. But, my dear Mr. -Levy, it was as easy as ringing the bell and being shown in; it only -took rather longer." - -"What about the caretaker?" asked the usurer, with a curiosity no longer -to be concealed. - -"He obliged me by taking his wife to the theatre." - -"At your expense?" - -"No, Mr. Levy, the item will be debited to you in due course." - -"So you got in without any difficulty?" - -"Over the roof." - -"And then?" - -"I hit upon the right room." - -"And then, Raffles?" - -"I opened the right safe." - -"Go on, man!" - -But the man was only going on at his own rate, and the more Levy pressed -him, the greater his apparent reluctance to go on at all. - -"Well, I found the letter all right. Oh, yes, I made a copy of it. Was it -a good copy? Almost too good, if you ask me." Thus Raffles under -increasing pressure. - -"Well? Well? You left that one there, I suppose? What happened next?" - -There was no longer any masking the moneylender's eagerness to extract -the _dénouement_ of Raffles's adventure; that it required extracting must -have seemed a sufficient earnest of the ultimate misadventure so craftily -plotted by Levy himself. His great nose glowed with the imminence of -victory. His strong lips loosened their habitual hold upon each other, -and there was an impressionist daub of yellow fang between. The brilliant -little eyes were reduced to sparkling pinheads of malevolent glee. This -was not the fighting face I knew better and despised less, it was the -living epitome of low cunning and foul play. - -"The next thing that happened," said Raffles, in his most leisurely -manner, "was the descent of Bunny like a bolt from the blue." - -"Had he gone in with you?" - -"No; he came in after me as bold as blazes to say that a couple of -common, low detectives were waiting for me down below in the square!" - -"That was very kind of 'im," snarled Levy, pouring a murderous fire upon -my person from his little black eyes. - -"Kind!" cried Raffles. "It saved the whole show." - -"It did, did it?" - -"I had time to dodge the limbs of the law by getting out another way, and -never letting them know that I had got out at all." - -"Then you left them there?" - -"In their glory!" said Raffles, radiant in his own. - -Though I must confess I could not see them at the time, there were -excellent reasons for not stating there and then the delicious plight in -which we had really left Levy's myrmidons. I myself would have driven -home our triumph and his treachery by throwing our winning cards upon the -table and simultaneously exposing his false play. But Raffles was right, -and I should have been wrong, as I was soon enough to see for myself. - -"And you came away, I suppose," suggested the money-lender, ironically, -"with my original letter in your pocket?" - -"Oh, no, I didn't," replied Raffles, with a reproving shake of the head. - -"I thought not!" cried Levy in a gust of exultation. - -"I came away," said Raffles, "if you'll pardon the correction, with the -letter you never dreamt of writing, Mr. Levy!" - -The Jew turned a deeper shade of yellow; but he had the wisdom and the -self-control otherwise to ignore the point against him. "You'd better let -me see it," said he, and flung out his open hand with a gesture of -authority which it took a Raffles to resist. - -Levy was still standing with his back to the fire, and I was at his feet -in a saddle-bag chair, with my yellow beaker on the table at my elbow. -But Raffles remained aloof upon his legs, and he withdrew still further -from the fire as he unfolded a large sheet of office paper, stamped with -the notorious address in Jermyn Street, and displayed it on high like a -phylactery. - -"You may see, by all means, Mr. Levy," said Raffles, with a slight but -sufficient emphasis on his verb. - -"But I'm not to touch--is that it?" - -"I'm afraid I must ask you to look first," said Raffles, smiling. "I -should suggest, however, that you exercise the same caution in showing me -that part of your _quid pro quo_ which you have doubtless in readiness; -the other part is in my pocket ready for you to sign; and after that, the -three little papers can change hands simultaneously." - -Nothing could have excelled the firmness of this intimation, except the -exggravating delicacy with which it was conveyed. I saw Levy clench and -unclench his great fists, and his canine jaw working protuberantly as he -ground his teeth. But not a word escaped him, and I was admiring the -monster's self-control when of a sudden he swooped upon the table at my -side, completely filled his empty glass with neat whiskey, and, -spluttering and blinking from an enormous gulp, made a lurch for Raffles -with his drink in one hand and his plated pistol in the other. - -"Now I'll have a look," he hiccoughed, "an' a good look, unless you want -a lump of lead in your liver!" - -Raffles awaited his uncertain advance with a contemptuous smile. - -"You're not such a fool as all that, Mr. Levy, drunk or sober," said he; -but his eye was on the waving weapon, and so was mine; and I was -wondering how a man could have got so very suddenly drunk, when the -nobbler of crude spirit was hurled with most sober aim, glass and all, -full in the face of Raffles, and the letter plucked from his grasp and -flung upon the fire, while Raffles was still reeling in his blindness, -and before I had struggled to my feet. - -Raffles, for the moment, was absolutely blinded; as I say, his face was -streaming with blood and whiskey, and the prince of traitors already -crowing over his vile handiwork. But that was only for a moment, too; the -blackguard had been fool enough to turn his back on me; and, first -jumping upon my chair, I sprang upon him like any leopard, and brought -him down with my ten fingers in his neck, and such a crack on the parquet -with his skull as left it a deadweight on my hands. I remember the -rasping of his bristles as I disengaged my fingers and let the leaden -head fall back; it fell sideways now, and if it had but looked less dead -I believe I should have stamped the life out of the reptile on the spot. - -I know that I rose exultant from my deed.... - - - - -CHAPTER XIV - -Corpus Delicti - - -Raffles was still stamping and staggering with his knuckles in his eyes, -and I heard him saying, "The letter, Bunny, the letter!" in a way that -made me realise all at once that he had been saying nothing else since -the moment of the foul assault. It was too late now and must have been -from the first; a few filmy scraps of blackened paper, stirring on the -hearth, were all that remained of the letter by which Levy had set such -store, for which Raffles had risked so much. - -"He's burnt it," said I. "He was too quick for me." - -"And he's nearly burnt my eyes out," returned Raffles, rubbing them -again. "He was too quick for us both." - -"Not altogether," said I, grimly. "I believe I've cracked his skull and -finished him off!" - -Raffles rubbed and rubbed until his bloodshot eyes were blinking out of a -blood-stained face into that of the fallen man. He found and felt the -pulse in a wrist like a ship's cable. - -"No, Bunny, there's some life in him yet! Run out and see if there are -any lights in the other part of the house." - -When I came back Raffles was listening at the door leading into the long -glass passage. - -"Not a light!" said I. - -"Nor a sound," he whispered. "We're in better luck than we might have -been; even his revolver didn't go off." Raffles extracted it from under -the prostrate body. "It might just as easily have gone off and shot him, -or one of us." And he put the pistol in his own pocket. - -"But have I killed him, Raffles?" - -"Not yet, Bunny." - -"But do you think he's going to die?" - -I was overcome by reaction now; my knees knocked together, my teeth -chattered in my head; nor could I look any longer upon the great body -sprawling prone, or the insensate head twisted sideways on the -parquet floor. - -"He's all right," said Raffles, when he had knelt and felt and listened -again. I whimpered a pious but inconsistent ejaculation. Raffles sat back -on his heels, and meditatively wiped a smear of his own blood from the -polished floor. "You'd better leave him to me," he said, looking and -getting up with sudden decision. - -"But what am I to do?" - -"Go down to the boathouse and wait in the boat." - -"Where is the boathouse?" - -"You can't miss it if you follow the lawn down to the water's edge. -There's a door on this side; if it isn't open, force it with this." - -And he passed me his pocket jimmy as naturally as another would have -handed over a bunch of keys. - -"And what then?" - -"You'll find yourself on the top step leading down to the water; stand -tight, and lash out all round until you find a windlass. Wind that -windlass as gingerly as though it were a watch with a weak heart; you -will be raising a kind of portcullis at the other end of the boathouse, -but if you're heard doing it at dead of night we may have to run or swim -for it. Raise the thing just high enough to let us under in the boat, and -then lie low on board till I come." - -Reluctant to leave that ghastly form upon the floor, but now stricken -helpless in its presence, I was softer wax than ever in the hands of -Raffles, and soon found myself alone in the dew upon an errand in which I -neither saw nor sought for any point. Enough that Raffles had given me -something to do for our salvation; what part he had assigned to himself, -what he was about indoors already, and the nature of his ultimate design, -were questions quite beyond me for the moment. I did not worry about -them. Had I killed my man? That was the one thing that mattered to me, -and I frankly doubt whether even it mattered at the time so supremely as -it seemed to have mattered now. Away from the _corpus delicti_, my horror -was already less of the deed than of the consequences, and I had quite a -level view of those. What I had done was barely even manslaughter at the -worst. But at the best the man was not dead. Raffles was bringing him to -life again. Alive or dead, I could trust him to Raffles, and go about my -own part of the business, as indeed I did in a kind of torpor of the -normal sensibilities. - -Not much do I remember of that dreamy interval, until the dream became -the nightmare that was still in store. The river ran like a broad road -under the stars, with hardly a glimmer and not a floating thing upon it. -The boathouse stood at the foot of a file of poplars, and I only found it -by stooping low and getting everything over my own height against the -stars. The door was not locked; but the darkness within was such that I -could not see my own hand as it wound the windlass inch by inch. Between -the slow ticking of the cogs I listened jealously for foreign sounds, and -heard at length a gentle dripping across the breadth of the boathouse; -that was the last of the "portcullis," as Raffles called it, rising out -of the river; indeed, I could now see the difference in the stretch of -stream underneath, for the open end of the boathouse was much less dark -than mine; and when the faint band of reflected starlight had broadened -as I thought enough, I ceased winding and groped my way down the steps -into the boat. - -But inaction at such a crisis was an intolerable state, and the last -thing I wanted was time to think. With nothing more to do I must needs -wonder what I was doing in the boat, and then what Raffles could want -with the boat if it was true that Levy was not seriously hurt. I could -see the strategic value of my position if we had been robbing the house, -but Raffles was not out for robbery this time; and I did not believe he -would suddenly change his mind. Could it be that he had never been quite -confident of the recovery of Levy, but had sent me to prepare this means -of escape from the scene of a tragedy? I cannot have been long in the -boat, for my thwart was still rocking under me, when this suspicion shot -me ashore in a cold sweat. In my haste I went into the river up to one -knee, and ran across the lawn with that boot squelching. Raffles came out -of the lighted room to meet me, and as he stood like Levy against the -electric glare, the first thing I noticed was that he was wearing an -overcoat that did not belong to him, and that the pockets of this -overcoat were bulging grotesquely. But it was the last thing I remembered -in the horror that was to come. - -Levy was lying where I had left him, only straighter, and with a cushion -under his head, as though he were not merely dead, but laid out in his -clothes where he had fallen. - -"I was just coming for you, Bunny," whispered Raffles before I could find -my voice. "I want you to take hold of his boots." - -"His boots!" I gasped, taking Raffles by the sleeve instead. "What on -earth for?" - -"To carry him down to the boat!" - -"But is he--is he still--" - -"Alive?" Raffles was smiling as though I amused him mightily. "Rather, -Bunny! Too full of life to be left, I can tell you; but it'll be daylight -if we stop for explanations now. Are you going to lend a hand, or am I to -drag him through the dew myself?" - -I lent every fibre, and Raffles raised the lifeless trunk, I suppose by -the armpits, and led the way backward into the night, after switching off -the lights within. But the first stage of our revolting journey was a -very short one. We deposited our poor burden as charily as possible on -the gravel, and I watched over it for some of the longest minutes of my -life, while Raffles shut and fastened all the windows, left the room as -Levy himself might have left it, and finally found his way out by one of -the doors. And all the while not a movement or a sound came from the -senseless clay at my feet; but once, when I bent over him, the smell of -whiskey was curiously vital and reassuring. - -We started off again, Raffles with every muscle on the strain, I with -every nerve; this time we staggered across the lawn without a rest, -but at the boathouse we put him down in the dew, until I took off my -coat and we got him lying on that while we debated about the -boathouse, its darkness, and its steps. The combination beat us on a -moment's consideration; and again I was the one to stay, and watch, -and listen to my own heart beating; and then to the water bubbling at -the prow and dripping from the blades as Raffles sculled round to the -edge of the lawn. - -I need dwell no more upon the difficulty and the horror of getting that -inanimate mass on board; both were bad enough, but candour compels me to -admit that the difficulty dwarfed all else until at last we overcame it. -How near we were to swamping our craft, and making sure of our victim by -drowning, I still shudder to remember; but I think it must have prevented -me from shuddering over more remote possibilities at the time. It was a -time, if ever there was one, to trust in Raffles and keep one's powder -dry; and to that extent I may say I played the game. But it was his game, -not mine, and its very object was unknown to me. Never, in fact, had I -followed my inveterate leader quite so implicitly, so blindly, or with -such reckless excitement. And yet, if the worst did happen and our mute -passenger was never to open his eyes again, it seemed to me that we were -well on the road to turn manslaughter into murder in the eyes of any -British jury: the road that might easily lead to destruction at the -hangman's hands. - -But a more immediate menace seemed only to have awaited the actual moment -of embarkation, when, as we were pushing off, the rhythmical plash and -swish of a paddle fell suddenly upon our ears, and we clutched the bank -while a canoe shot down-stream within a length of us. Luckily the night -was as dark as ever, and all we saw of the paddler was a white shirt -fluttering as it passed. But there lay Levy with his heavy head between -my shins in the stern-sheets, with his waistcoat open, and _his_ white -shirt catching what light there was as greedily as the other; and his -white face as conspicuous to my guilty mind as though we had rubbed it -with phosphorus. Nor was I the only one to lay this last peril to heart. -Raffles sat silent for several minutes on his thwart; and when he did dip -his sculls it was to muffle his strokes so that even I could scarcely -hear them, and to keep peering behind him down the Stygian stream. - -So long had we been getting under way that nothing surprised me more -than the extreme brevity of our actual voyage. Not many houses and -gardens had slipped behind us on the Middlesex shore, when we turned -into an inlet running under the very windows of a house so near the -river itself that even I might have thrown a stone from any one of them -into Surrey. The inlet was empty and ill-smelling; there was a crazy -landing-stage, and the many windows overlooking us had the black gloss -of empty darkness within. Seen by starlight with a troubled eye, the -house had one salient feature in the shape of a square tower, which -stood out from the facade fronting the river, and rose to nearly twice -the height of the main roof. But this curious excrescence only added to -the forbidding character of as gloomy a mansion as one could wish to -approach by stealth at dead of night. - -"What's this place?" I whispered as Raffles made fast to a post. - -"An unoccupied house, Bunny." - -"Do you mean to occupy it?" - -"I mean our passenger to do so--if we can land him alive or dead!" - -"Hush, Raffles!" - -"It's a case of heels first, this time--" - -"Shut up!" - -Raffles was kneeling on the landing-stage--luckily on a level with our -rowlocks--and reaching down into the boat. - -"Give me his heels," he muttered; "you can look after his business end. -You needn't be afraid of waking the old hound, nor yet hurting him." - -"I'm not," I whispered, though mere words had never made my blood run -colder. "You don't understand me. Listen to that!" - -And as Raffles knelt on the landing-stage, and I crouched in the boat, -with something desperately like a dead man stretched between us, there -was a swish and a dip outside the inlet, and a flutter of white on the -river beyond. - -"Another narrow squeak!" he muttered with grim levity when the sound had -died away. "I wonder who it is paddling his own canoe at dead of night?" - -"I'm wondering how much he saw." - -"Nothing," said Raffles, as though there could be no two opinions on the -point. "What did we see to swear to between a sweater and a -pocket-handkerchief? Only something white, and we were looking out, and -it's far darker in here than out there on the main stream. But it'll -soon be getting light, and we really may be seen unless we land our big -fish first." - -And without more ado he dragged the lifeless Levy ashore by the heels, -while I alternately grasped the landing-stage to steady the boat, and did -my best to protect the limp members and the leaden head from actual -injury. All my efforts could not avert a few hard knocks, however, and -these were sustained with such a horrifying insensibility of body and -limb, that my worst suspicions were renewed before I crawled ashore -myself, and remained kneeling over the prostrate form. - -"Are you certain, Raffles?" I began, and could not finish the -awful question. - -"That he's alive?" said Raffles. "Rather, Bunny, and he'll be kicking -below the belt again in a few more hours!" - -"A few more _hours_, A.J.?" - -"I give him four or five." - -"Then it's concussion of the brain!" - -"It's the brain all right," said Raffles. "But for 'concussion' I should -say 'coma,' if I were you." - -"What have I done!" I murmured, shaking my head over the poor old brute. - -"You?" said Raffles. "Less than you think, perhaps!" - -"But the man's never moved a muscle." - -"Oh, yes, he has, Bunny!" - -"When?" - -"I'll tell you at the next stage," said Raffles. "Up with his heels and -come this way." - -And we trailed across a lawn so woefully neglected that the big body -sagging between us, though it cleared the ground by several inches, swept -the dew from the rank growth until we got it propped up on some steps at -the base of the tower, and Raffles ran up to open the door. More steps -there were within, stone steps allowing so little room for one foot and -so much for the other as to suggest a spiral staircase from top to bottom -of the tower. So it turned out to be; but there were landings -communicating with the house, and on the first of them we laid our man -and sat down to rest. - -"How I love a silent, uncomplaining, stone staircase!" sighed the now -quite invisible Raffles. "So of course we find one thrown away upon an -empty house. Are you there, Bunny?" - -"Rather! Are you quite sure nobody else is here?" I asked, for he was -scarcely troubling to lower his voice. - -"Only Levy, and he won't count till all hours." - -"I'm waiting to hear how you know." - -"Have a Sullivan, first." - -"Are we as safe as all that?" - -"If we're careful to make an ash-tray of our own pockets," said Raffles, -and I heard him tapping his cigarette in the dark. I refused to run any -risks. Next moment his match revealed him sitting at the bottom of one -flight, and me at the top of the flight below; either spiral was lost in -shadow; and all I saw besides was a cloud of smoke from the blood-stained -lips of Raffles, more clouds of cobwebs, and Levy's boots lying over on -their uppers, almost in my lap. Raffles called my attention to them -before he blew out his match. - -"He hasn't turned his toes up yet, you see! It's a hog's sleep, but not -by any means his last." - -"Did you mean just now that he woke up while I was in the boathouse?" - -"Almost as soon as your back was turned, Bunny--if you call it waking up. -You had knocked him out, you know, but only for a few minutes." - -"Do you mean to tell me that he was none the worse?" - -"Very little, Bunny." - -My feeble heart jumped about in my body. - -"Then what knocked him out again, A.J.?" - -"I did." - -"In the same way?" - -"No, Bunny, he asked for a drink and I gave him one." - -"A doctored drink!" I whispered with some horror; it was refreshing to -feel once more horrified at some act not one's own. - -"So to speak," said Raffles, with a gesture that I followed by the red -end of his cigarette; "I certainly touched it up a bit, but I always -meant to touch up his liquor if the beggar went back on his word. He did -a good deal worse--for the second time of asking--and you did better than -I ever knew you do before, Bunny! I simply carried on the good work. Our -friend is full of a judicious blend of his own whiskey and the stuff poor -Teddy had the other night. And when he does come to his senses I believe -we shall find him damned sensible." - -"And if he isn't, I suppose you'll keep him here until he is?" - -"I shall hold him up to ransom," said Raffles, "at the top of this ruddy -tower, until he pays through both nostrils for the privilege of climbing -down alive." - -"You mean until he stands by his side of your bargain?" said I, only -hoping that was his meaning, but not without other apprehensions which -Raffles speedily confirmed. - -"And the rest!" he replied, significantly. "You don't suppose the skunk's -going to get off as lightly as if he'd played the game, do you? I've got -one of my own to play now, Bunny, and I mean to play it for all I'm -worth. I thought it would come to this!" - -In fact, he had foreseen treachery from the first, and the desperate -device of kidnapping the traitor proved to have been as deliberate a move -as Raffles had ever planned to meet a probable contingency. He had -brought down a pair of handcuffs as well as a sufficient supply of -Somnol. My own deed of violence was the one entirely unforeseen effect, -and Raffles vowed it had been a help. But when I inquired whether he had -ever been over this empty house before, an irritable jerk of his -cigarette end foretold the answer. - -"My good Bunny, is this a time for rotten questions? Of course I've been -over the whole place; didn't I tell you I'd been spending the week-end in -these parts? I got an order to view the place, and have bribed the -gardener not to let anybody else see over it till I've made up my mind. -The gardener's cottage is on the other side of the main road, which runs -flush with the front of the house; there's a splendid garden on that -side, but it takes him all his time to keep it up, so he's given up -bothering about this bit here. He only sets foot in the house to show -people over; his wife comes in sometimes to open the downstairs windows; -the ones upstairs are never shut. So you perceive we shall be fairly free -from interruption at the top of this tower, especially when I tell you -that it finishes in a room as sound-proof as old Carlyle's crow's-nest in -Cheyne Row." - -It flashed across me that another great man of letters had made his local -habitation if not his name in this part of the Thames Valley; and when I -asked if this was that celebrity's house, Raffles seemed surprised that -I had not recognised it as such in the dark. He said it would never let -again, as the place was far too good for its position, which was now much -too near London. He also told me that the idea of holding Dan Levy up to -ransom had occurred to him when he found himself being followed about -town by Levy's "mamelukes," and saw what a traitor he had to cope with. - -"And I hope you like the idea, Bunny," he added, "because I was never -caught kidnapping before, and in all London there wasn't a bigger man -to kidnap." - -"I love it," said I (and it was true enough of the abstract idea), "but -don't you think he's just a bit too big? Won't the country ring with his -disappearance?" - -"My dear Bunny, nobody will dream he's disappeared!" said Raffles, -confidently. "I know the habits of the beast; didn't I tell you he ran -another show somewhere? Nobody seems to know where, but when he isn't -here, that's where he's supposed to be, and when he's there he cuts town -for days on end. I suppose you never noticed I've been wearing an -overcoat all this time, Bunny?" - -"Oh, yes, I did," said I. "Of course it's one of his?" - -"The very one he'd have worn to-night, and his soft hat from the same -peg is in one of the pockets; their absence won't look as if he'd come -out feet first, will it, Bunny? I thought his stick might be in the way, -so instead of bringing it too, I stowed it away behind his books. But -these things will serve a second turn when we see our way to letting him -go again like a gentleman." - -The red end of the Sullivan went out sizzling between a moistened thumb -and finger, and no doubt Raffles put it carefully in his pocket as he -rose to resume the ascent. It was still perfectly dark on the tower -stairs; but by the time we reached the sanctum at the top we could see -each other's outlines against certain ovals of wild grey sky and dying -stars. For there was a window more like a porthole in three of the four -walls; in the fourth wall was a cavity like a ship's bunk, into which we -lifted our still unconscious prisoner as gently as we might. Nor was that -the last that was done for him, now that some slight amends were -possible. From an invisible locker Raffles produced bundles of thin, -coarse stuff, one of which he placed as a pillow under the sleeper's -head, while the other was shaken out into a covering for his body. - -"And you asked me if I'd ever been over the place!" said Raffles, -putting a third bundle in my hands. "Why, I slept up here last night, -just to see if it was all as quiet as it looked; these were my -bed-clothes, and I want you to follow my example." - -"I go to sleep?" I cried. "I couldn't and wouldn't for a thousand -pounds, Raffles!" - -"Oh, yes, you could!" said Raffles, and as he spoke there was a horrible -explosion in the tower. Upon my word, I thought one of us was shot, until -there came the smaller sounds of froth pattering on the floor and liquor -bubbling from a bottle. - -"Champagne!" I exclaimed, when he had handed me the metal cap of a flask, -and I had taken a sip. "Did you hide that up here as well?" - -"I hid nothing up here except myself," returned Raffles, laughing. "This -is one of a couple of pints from the cellarette in Levy's billiard den; -take your will of it, Bunny, and perhaps the old man may have the other -when he's a good boy. I fancy we shall find it a stronger card than it -looks. Meanwhile let sleeping dogs lie and lying dogs sleep! And you'd be -far more use to me later, Bunny, if only you'd try to do the same." - -I was beginning to feel that I might try, for Raffles was filling up the -metal cup every minute, and also plying me with sandwiches from Levy's -table, brought hence (with the champagne) in Levy's overcoat pocket. It -was still pleasing to reflect that they had been originally intended for -the rival bravos of Gray's Inn. But another idea that did occur to me, I -dismissed at the time, and so justly that I would disabuse any other -suspicious mind of it without delay. Dear old Raffles was scarcely more -skilful and audacious as amateur cracksman than as amateur anaesthetist, -nor was he ever averse from the practice of his uncanny genius at either -game. But, sleepy as I soon found myself at the close of our very long -night's work, I had no subsequent reason to suppose that Raffles had -given _me_ drop or morsel of anything but sandwiches and champagne. - -So I rolled myself up on the locker, just as things were beginning to -take visible shape even without the tower windows behind them, and I was -almost dropping off to sleep when a sudden anxiety smote my mind. - -"What about the boat?" I asked. - -There was no answer. - -"Raffles!" I cried. "What are you going to do about the beggar's boat?" - -"You go to sleep," came the sharp reply, "and leave the boat to me." - -And I fancied from his voice that Raffles also had lain him down, but on -the floor. - - - - -CHAPTER XV - -Trial by Raffles - - -When I awoke it was dazzling daylight in the tower, and the little scene -was quite a surprise to me. It had felt far larger in the dark. I suppose -the floor-space was about twelve feet square, but it was contracted on -one side by the well and banisters of a wooden staircase from the room -below, on another by the ship's bunk, and opposite that by the locker on -which I lay. Moreover, the four walls, or rather the four triangles of -roof, sloped so sharply to the apex of the tower as to leave an inner -margin in which few grown persons could have stood upright. The port-hole -windows were shrouded with rags of cobweb spotted with dead flies. They -had evidently not been opened for years; it was even more depressingly -obvious that we must not open them. One was thankful for such modicum of -comparatively pure air as came up the open stair from the floor below; -but in the freshness of the morning one trembled to anticipate the -atmosphere of this stale and stuffy eyrie through the heat of a summer's -day. And yet neither the size nor the scent of the place, nor any other -merely scenic feature, was half so disturbing or fantastic as the -appearance of my two companions. - -Raffles, not quite at the top of the stairs, but near enough to loll over -the banisters, and Levy, cumbering the ship's bunk, were indeed startling -figures to an eye still dim with sleep. Raffles had an ugly cut from the -left nostril to the corner of the mouth; he had washed the blood from his -face, but the dark and angry streak remained to heighten his unusual -pallor. Levy looked crumpled and debauched, flabbily and feebly senile, -yet with his vital forces making a last flicker in his fiery eyes. He was -grotesquely swathed in scarlet bunting, from which his doubled fists -protruded in handcuffs; a bit of thin rope attached the handcuffs to a -peg on which his coat and hat were also hanging, and a longer bit was -taken round the banisters from the other end of the bunting, which I now -perceived to be a tattered and torn Red Ensign. This led to the discovery -that I myself had been sleeping in the Union Jack, and it brought my eyes -back to the ghastly face of Raffles, who was already smiling at mine. - -"Enjoyed your night under canvas, Bunny? Then you might get up and -present your colours to the prisoner in the bunk. You needn't be -frightened of him, Bunny; he's such a devilish tough customer that I've -had to clap him in irons, as you see. Yet he can't say I haven't given -him rope enough; he's got lashings of rope--eh, Bunny?" - -"That's right!" said Levy, with a bitter snarl. "Get a man down by foul -play, and then wipe your boots on him! I'd stick it like a lamb if only -you'd give me that drink." - -And then it was, as I got to my feet, and shook myself free from the -folds of the Union Jack, that I saw the unopened pint of champagne -standing against the banisters in full view of the bunk. I confess I eyed -it wistfully myself; but Raffles was adamant alike to friend and foe, and -merely beckoned me to follow him down the wooden stair, without answering -Levy at all. I certainly thought it a risk to leave that worthy unwatched -for a moment, but it was scarcely for more. The room below was fitted -with a bath and a lavatory basin, which Raffles pointed out to me without -going all the way down himself. At the same time he handed me a stale -remnant of the sandwiches removed with Levy from his house. - -"I'm afraid you'll have to wash these down at that tap," said he. "The -poor devil has finished what you left at daybreak, besides making a hole -in my flask; but he can't or won't eat a bite, and if only he stands his -trial and takes his sentence like a man, I think he might have the other -pint to his own infernal cheek." - -"Trial and sentence!" I exclaimed. "I thought you were going to hold him -up to ransom?" - -"Not without a fair trial, my dear Bunny," said Raffles in the accents of -reproof. "We must hear what the old swab has to say for himself, when -he's heard what I've got to say to him. So you stick your head under the -tap when you've had your snack, Bunny; it won't come up to the swim I had -after I'd taken the boat back, when you and Shylock were fast asleep, but -it's all you've time for if you want to hear me open my case." - -And open it he did before himself, as judge and counsel in one, sitting -on the locker as on the bench, the very moment I reappeared in court. - -"Prisoner in the bunk, before we formulate the charge against you we had -better deal with your last request for drink, made in the same breath as -a preposterous complaint about foul play. The request has been made and -granted more than once already this morning. This time it's refused. -Drink has been your undoing, prisoner in the bunk; it is drink that -necessitates your annual purification at Carlsbad, and yet within a week -of that chastening experience you come before me without knowing where -you are or how you got here." - -"That wasn't the whisky," muttered Levy with a tortured brow. "That -was something else, which you'll hear more about; foul play it was, -and you'll pay for it yet. There's not a headache in a hogshead of -my whisky." - -"Well," resumed Raffles, "your champagne is on the same high level, and -here's a pint of the best which you can open for yourself if only you -show your sense before I've done with you. But you won't advance that -little millennium by talking about foul play as though it were all on one -side and the foulest of the foul not on yours. You will only retard the -business of the court. You are indicted with extortion and sharp practice -in all your dealings, with cheating and misleading your customers, -attempting to cheat and betray your friends, and breaking all the rules -of civilised crime. You are not invited to plead either way, because this -court would not attach the slightest value to your plea; but presently -you will get an opportunity of addressing the court in mitigation of your -sentence. Or, if you like," continued Raffles, with a wink at me, "you -may be represented by counsel. My learned friend here, I'm sure, will be -proud to undertake your defence as a 'docker'; or--perhaps I should say a -'bunker,' Mr. Bunny?" - -And Raffles laughed as coyly as a real judge at a real judicial joke, -whereupon I joined in so uproariously as to find myself degraded from the -position of leading counsel to that of the general public in a single -flash from the judge's eye. - -"If I hear any more laughter," said Raffles, "I shall clear the court. -It's perfectly monstrous that people should come here to a court of -justice and behave as though they were at a theatre." - -Levy had been reclining with his yellow face twisted and his red eyes -shut; but now these burst open as with flames, and the dry lips spat a -hearty curse at the judge upon the locker. - -"Take care!" said Raffles. "Contempt of court won't do you any good, -you know!" - -"And what good will all this foolery do you? Say what you've got to say -against me, and be damned to you!" - -"I fear you're confusing our functions sadly," said Raffles, with a -compassionate shake of the head. "But so far as your first exhortation -goes, I shall endeavour to take you at your word. You are a money-lender -trading, among other places, in Jermyn Street, St. James's, under the -style and title of Daniel Levy." - -"It 'appens to be my name." - -"That I can well believe," rejoined Raffles; "and if I may say so, Mr. -Levy, I respect you for it. You don't call yourself MacGregor or -Montgomery. You don't sail under false colours at all. You fly the skull -and crossbones of Daniel Levy, and it's one of the points that -distinguish you from the ruck of money-lenders and put you in a class by -yourself. Unfortunately, the other points are not so creditable. If you -are more brazen than most you are also more unscrupulous; if you fly at -higher game, you descend to lower dodges. You may be the biggest man -alive at your job; you are certainly the biggest villain." - -"But I'm up against a bigger now," said Levy, shifting his position and -closing his crimson eyes. - -"Possibly," said Raffles, as he produced a long envelope and unfolded a -sheet of foolscap; "but permit me to remind you of a few of your own -proven villainies before you take any more shots at mine. Last year you -had three of your great bargains set aside by the law as hard and -unconscionable; but every year you have these cases, and at best the -terms are modified in favour of your wretched client. But it's only the -exception who will face the music of the law-courts and the Press, and -you figure on the general run. You prefer people like the Lincolnshire -vicar you hounded into an asylum the year before last. You cherish the -memory of the seven poor devils that you drove to suicide between 1890 -and 1894; that sort pay the uttermost farthing before the debt to nature! -You set great store by the impoverished gentry and nobility who have you -to stay with them when the worst comes to the worst, and secure a respite -in exchange for introductions to their pals. No fish is too large for -your net, and none is too small, from his highness of Hathipur to that -poor little builder at Bromley, who cut the throats--" - -"Stop it!" cried Levy, in a lather of impotent rage. - -"By all means," said Raffles, restoring the paper to its envelope. "It's -an ugly little load for one man's soul, I admit; but you must see it was -about time somebody beat you at your own beastly game." - -"It's a pack of blithering lies," retorted Levy, "and you haven't beaten -me yet. Stick to facts within your own knowledge, and then tell me if -your precious Garlands haven't brought their troubles on themselves?" - -"Certainly they have," said Raffles. "But it isn't your treatment of the -Garlands that has brought you to this pretty pass." - -"What is it, then?" - -"Your treatment of me, Mr. Levy." - -"A cursed crook like you!" - -"A party to a pretty definite bargain, however, and a discredited person -only so far as that bargain is concerned." - -"And the rest!" said the money-lender, jeering feebly. "I know more about -you than you guess." - -"I should have put it the other way round," replied Raffles, smiling. -"But we are both forgetting ourselves, prisoner in the bunk. Kindly note -that your trial is resumed, and further contempt will not be allowed to -go unpurged. You referred a moment ago to my unfortunate friends; you say -they were the engineers of their own misfortunes. That might be said of -all who ever put themselves in your clutches. You squeeze them as hard as -the law will let you, and in this case I don't see how the law is to -interfere. So I interfere myself--in the first instance as disastrously -as you please." - -"You did so!" exclaimed Levy, with a flicker of his inflamed eyes. "You -brought things to a head; that's all _you_ did." - -"On the contrary, you and I came to an agreement which still holds good," -said Raffles, significantly. "You are to return me a certain note of hand -for thirteen thousand and odd pounds, taken in exchange for a loan of ten -thousand, and you are also to give an understanding to leave another -fifteen thousand of yours on mortgage for another year at least, instead -of foreclosing, as you threatened and had a right to do this week. That -was your side of the bargain." - -"Well," said Levy, "and when did I go back on it?" - -"My side," continued Raffles, ignoring the interpolation, "was to get you -by hook or crook a certain letter which you say you never wrote. As a -matter of fact it was only to be got by crook--" - -"Aha!" - -"I got hold of it, nevertheless. I brought it to you at your house last -night. And you instantly destroyed it after as foul an attack as one man -ever made upon another!" - -Raffles had risen in his wrath, was towering over the prostrate prisoner, -forgetful of the mock trial, dead even to the humour which he himself had -infused into a sufficiently lurid situation, but quite terribly alive to -the act of treachery and violence which had brought that situation about. -And I must say that Levy looked no less alive to his own enormity; he -quailed in his bonds with a guilty fearfulness strange to witness in so -truculent a brute; and it was with something near a quaver that his voice -came next. - -"I know that was wrong," the poor devil owned. "I'm very sorry for it, -I'm sure! But you wouldn't trust me with my own property, and that and -the drink together made me mad." - -"So you acknowledge the alcoholic influence at last?" - -"Oh, yes! I must have been as drunk as an owl." - -"You know you've been suggesting that we drugged you?" - -"Not seriously, Mr. Raffles. I knew the old stale taste too well. It must -have been the best part of a bottle I had before you got down." - -"In your anxiety to see me safe and sound?" - -"That's it--with the letter." - -"You never dreamt of playing me false until I hesitated to let you -handle it?" - -"Never for one moment, my dear Raffles!" - -Raffles was still standing up to his last inch under the apex of the -tower, his head and shoulders the butt of a climbing sunbeam full of -fretful motes. I could not see his expression from the banisters, -but only its effect upon Dan Levy, who first held up his manacled -hands in hypocritical protestation, and then dropped them as though -it were a bad job. - -"Then why," said Raffles, "did you have me watched almost from the moment -that we parted company at the Albany last Friday morning?" - -"_I_ have you watched!" exclaimed the other in real horror. "Why should -I? It must have been the police." - -"It was not the police, though the blackguards did their best to look as -if they were. I happen to be too familiar with both classes to be -deceived. Your fellows were waiting for me up at Lord's, but I had no -difficulty in shaking them off when I got back to the Albany. They gave -me no further trouble until last night, when they got on my tracks at -Gray's Inn in the guise of the two common, low detectives whom I believe -I have already mentioned to you." - -"You said you left them there in their glory." - -"It was glorious from my point of view rather than theirs." - -Levy struggled into a less recumbent posture. - -"And what makes you think," said he, "that I set this watch upon you?" - -"I don't think," returned Raffles. "I know." - -"And how the devil do you know?" - -Raffles answered with a slow smile, and a still slower shake of the head: -"You really mustn't ask me to give everybody away, Mr. Levy!" - -The money-lender swore an oath of sheer incredulous surprise, but checked -himself at that and tried one more poser. - -"And what do you suppose was my object in having you watched, if it -wasn't to ensure your safety?" - -"It might have been to make doubly sure of the letter, and to cut down -expenses at the same swoop, by knocking me on the head and abstracting -the treasure from my person. It was a jolly cunning idea--prisoner in -the bunk! I shouldn't be upset about it just because it didn't come off. -My compliments especially on making up your varlets in the quite -colourable image of the true detective. If they had fallen upon me, and -it had been a case of my liberty or your letter, you know well enough -which I should let go." - -But Levy had fallen back upon his pillow of folded flag, and the Red -Ensign over him bubbled and heaved with his impotent paroxysms. - -"They told you! They must have told you!" he ground out through his -teeth. "The traitors--the blasted traitors!" - -"It's a catching complaint, you see, Mr. Levy," said Raffles, -"especially when one's elders and betters themselves succumb to it." - -"But they're such liars!" cried Levy, shifting his ground again. "Don't -you see what liars they are? I did set them to watch you, but for your -own good, as I've just been telling you. I was so afraid something might -'appen to you; they were there to see that nothing did. Now do you spot -their game? I'd got to take the skunks into the secret, more or less, an' -they've played it double on us both. Meant bagging the letter from you to -blackmail me with it; that's what they meant! Of course, when they failed -to bring it off, they'd pitch any yarn to you. But that was their game -all right. You must see for yourself it could never have been mine, -Raffles, and--and let me out o' this, like a good feller!" - -"Is this your defence?" asked Raffles as he resumed his seat on the -judicial locker. - -"Isn't it your own?" the other asked in his turn, with an eager removal -of all resentment from his manner. "'Aven't we both been got at by those -two jackets? Of course I was sorry ever to 'ave trusted 'em an inch, and -you were quite right to serve me as you did if what they'd been telling -you 'ad been the truth; but, now you see it was all a pack of lies it's -surely about time to stop treating me like a mad dog." - -"Then you really mean to stand by your side of the original arrangement?" - -"Always did," declared our captive; "never 'ad the slightest intention of -doing anything else." - -"Then where's the first thing you promised me in fair exchange for what -you destroyed last night? Where's Mr. Garland's note of hand?" - -"In my pocket-book, and that's in my pocket." - -"In case the worst comes to the worst," murmured Raffles in sly -commentary, and with a sidelong glance at me. - -"What's that? Don't you believe me? I'll 'and it over this minute, if -only you'll take these damned things off my wrists. There's no excuse for -'em now, you know!" - -Raffles shook his head. - -"I'd rather not trust myself within reach of your raw fists yet, -prisoner. But my marshal will produce the note from your person if -it's there." - -It was there, in a swollen pocket-book which I replaced otherwise intact -while Raffles compared the signature on the note of hand with samples -which he had brought with him for the purpose. - -"It's genuine enough," said Levy, with a sudden snarl and a lethal look -that I intercepted at close quarters. - -"So I perceive," said Raffles. "And now I require an equally genuine -signature to this little document which is also a part of your bond." - -The little document turned out to be a veritable Deed, engrossed on -parchment, embossed with a ten-shilling stamp, and duly calling itself an -INDENTURE, in fourteenth century capitals. So much I saw as I held it up -for the prisoner to read over. The illegally legal instrument is still in -existence, with its unpunctuated jargon about "hereditaments" and "fee -simple," its "and whereas the said Daniel Levy" in every other line, and -its eventual plain provision for "the said sum of £15,000 to remain -charged upon the security of the hereditaments in the said recited -Indenture ... until the expiration of one year computed from--" that -summer's day in that empty tower! The whole thing had been properly and -innocently prepared by old Mother Hubbard, the "little solicitor" whom -Raffles had mentioned as having been in our house at school, from a copy -of the original mortgage deed supplied in equal innocence by Mr. Garland. -I sometimes wonder what those worthy citizens would have said, if they -had dreamt for a moment under what conditions of acute duress their deed -was to be signed! - -Signed it was, however, and with less demur than might have been expected -of so inveterate a fighter as Dan Levy. But his one remaining course was -obviously the line of least resistance; no other would square with his -ingenious repudiation of the charge of treachery to Raffles, much less -with his repeated protestations that he had always intended to perform -his part of their agreement. It was to his immediate interest to convince -us of his good faith, and up to this point he might well have thought he -had succeeded in so doing. Raffles had concealed his full knowledge of -the creature's duplicity, had enjoyed leading him on from lie to lie, and -I had enjoyed listening almost as much as I now delighted in the dilemma -in which Levy had landed himself; for either he must sign and look -pleasant, or else abandon his innocent posture altogether; and so he -looked as pleasant as he could, and signed in his handcuffs, with but the -shadow of a fight for their immediate removal. - -"And now," said Levy, when I had duly witnessed his signature, "I think -I've about earned that little drop of my own champagne." - -"Not quite yet," replied Raffles, in a tone like thin ice. "We are only -at the point we should have reached the moment I arrived at your house -last night; you have now done under compulsion what you had agreed to do -of your own free will then." - -Levy lay back in the bunk, plunged in billows of incongruous bunting, -with fallen jaw and fiery eyes, an equal blend of anger and alarm. "But I -told you I wasn't myself last night," he whined. "I've said I was very -sorry for all I done, but can't 'ardly remember doing. I say it again -from the bottom of my 'eart." - -"I've no doubt you do," said Raffles. "But what you did after our -arrival was nothing to what you had already done; it was only the last -of those acts of treachery for which you are still on your -trial--prisoner in the bunk!" - -"But I thought I'd explained all the rest?" cried the prisoner, in a -palsy of impotent rage and disappointment. - -"You have," said Raffles, "in the sense of making your perfidy even -plainer than it was before. Come, Mr. Levy! I know every move you've -made, and the game's been up longer than you think; you won't score a -point by telling lies that contradict each other and aggravate your -guilt. Have you nothing better to say why the sentence of the court -should not be passed upon you?" - -A sullen silence was broken by a more precise and staccato repetition -of the question. And then to my amazement, I beheld the gross lower -lip of Levy actually trembling, and a distressing flicker of the -inflamed eyelids. - -"I felt you'd swindled me," he quavered out "And I thought--I'd -swindle--you." - -"Bravo!" cried Raffles. "That's the first honest thing you've said; let -me tell you, for your encouragement, that it reduces your punishment by -twenty-five per cent. You will, nevertheless, pay a fine of fifteen -hundred pounds for your latest little effort in low treason." - -Though not unprepared for some such ultimatum, I must own I heard it with -dismay. On all sorts of grounds, some of them as unworthy as itself, this -last demand failed to meet with my approval; and I determined to -expostulate with Raffles before it was too late. Meanwhile I hid my -feelings as best I could, and admired the spirit with which Dan Levy -expressed his. - -"I'll see you damned first!" he cried. "It's blackmail!" - -"Guineas," said Raffles, "for contempt of court." - -And more to my surprise than ever, not a little indeed to my secret -disappointment, our captive speedily collapsed again, whimpering, -moaning, gnashing his teeth, and clutching at the Red Ensign, with closed -eyes and distorted face, so much as though he were about to have a fit -that I caught up the half-bottle of champagne, and began removing the -wire at a nod from Raffles. - -"Don't cut the string just yet," he added, however, with an eye on -Levy--who instantly opened his. - -"I'll pay up!" he whispered, feebly yet eagerly. "It serves me right. I -promise I'll pay up!" - -"Good!" said Raffles. "Here's your own cheque-book from your own room, -and here's my fountain pen." - -"You won't take my word?" - -"It's quite enough to have to take your cheque; it should have been -hard cash." - -"So it shall be, Raffles, if you come up with me to my office!" - -"I dare say." - -"To my bank, then!" - -"I prefer to go alone. You will kindly make it an open cheque payable -to bearer." - -The fountain pen was poised over the chequebook, but only because I had -placed it in Levy's fingers, and was holding the cheque-book under them. - -"And what if I refuse?" he demanded, with a last flash of his -native spirit. - -"We shall say good-bye, and give you until to-night." - -"All day to call for help in!" muttered Levy, all but to himself. - -"Do you happen to know where you are?" Raffles asked him. - -"No, but I can find out." - -"If you knew already you would also know that you might call till you -were black in the face; but to keep you in blissful ignorance you will be -bound a good deal more securely than you are at present. And to spare -your poor voice you will also be very thoroughly gagged." - -Levy took remarkably little notice of either threat or gibe. - -"And if I give in and sign?" said he, after a pause. - -"You will remain exactly as you are, with one of us to keep you company, -while the other goes up to town to cash your cheque. You can't expect me -to give you a chance of stopping it, you know." - -This, again, struck me as a hard condition, if only prudent when one came -to think of it from our point of view; still, it took even me by -surprise, and I expected Levy to fling away the pen in disgust. He -balanced it, however, as though also weighing the two alternatives very -carefully in his mind, and during his deliberations his bloodshot eyes -wandered from Raffles to me and back again to Raffles. In a word, the -latest prospect appeared to disturb Mr. Levy less than, for obvious -reasons, it did me. Certainly for him it was the lesser of the two evils, -and as such he seemed to accept it when he finally wrote out the cheque -for fifteen hundred guineas (Raffles insisting on these), and signed it -firmly before sinking back as though exhausted by the effort. - -Raffles was as good as his word about the champagne now: dram by dram -he poured the whole pint into the cup belonging to his flask, and dram -by dram our prisoner tossed it off, but with closed eyes, like a -delirious invalid, and towards the end, with a head so heavy that -Raffles had to raise it from the rolled flag, though foul talons still -came twitching out for more. It was an unlovely process, I will -confess; but what was a pint, as Raffles said? At any rate I could bear -him out that these potations had not been hocussed, and Raffles -whispered the same for the flask which he handed me with Levy's -revolver at the head of the wooden stairs. - -"I'm coming down," said I, "for a word with you in the room below." - -Raffles looked at me with open eyes, then more narrowly at the red lids -of Levy, and finally at his own watch. - -"Very well, Bunny, but I must cut and run for my train in about a minute. -There's a 9.24 which would get me to the bank before eleven, and back -here by one or two." - -"Why go to the bank at all?" I asked him point-blank in the lower room. - -"To cash his cheque before he has a chance of stopping it. Would you like -to go instead of me, Bunny?" - -"No, thank you!" - -"Well, don't get hot about it; you've got the better billet of the two." - -"The softer one, perhaps." - -"Infinitely, Bunny, with the old bird full of his own champagne, and his -own revolver in your pocket or your hand! The worst he can do is to -start yelling out, and I really do believe that not a soul would hear -him if he did. The gardeners are always at work on the other side of the -main road. A passing boatload is the only danger, and I doubt if even -they would hear." - -"My billet's all right," said I, valiantly. "It's yours that -worries me." - -"Mine!" cried Raffles, with an almost merry laugh. "My dear, good Bunny, -you may make your mind easy about my little bit! Of course, it'll take -some doing at the bank. I don't say it's a straight part there. But trust -me to play it on my head." - -"Raffles," I said, in a low voice that may have trembled, "it's not a -part for you to play at all! I don't mean the little bit at the bank. I -mean this whole blackmailing part of the business. It's not like you, -Raffles. It spoils the whole thing!" - -I had got it off my chest without a hitch. But so far Raffles had not -discouraged me. There was a look on his face which even made me think -that he agreed with me in his heart. Both hardened as he thought it over. - -"It's Levy who's spoilt the whole thing," he rejoined obdurately in -the end. "He's been playing me false all the time, and he's got to -pay for it." - -"But you never meant to make anything out of him, A.J.!" - -"Well, I do now, and I've told you why. Why shouldn't I?" - -"Because it's not your game!" I cried, with all the eager persuasion in -my power. "Because it's the sort of thing Dan Levy would do -himself--it's _his_ game, all right--it simply drags you down to his -level--" - -But there he stopped me with a look, and not the kind of look I often had -from Raffles, It was no new feat of mine to make him angry, scornful, -bitterly cynical or sarcastic. This, however, was a look of pain and even -shame, as though he had suddenly seen himself in a new and peculiarly -unlovely light. - -"Down to it!" he exclaimed, with an irony that was not for me. "As though -there could be a much lower level than mine! Do you know, Bunny, I -sometimes think my moral sense is ahead of yours?" - -I could have laughed outright; but the humour that was the salt of him -seemed suddenly to have gone out of Raffles. - -"I know what I am," said he, "but I'm afraid you're getting a hopeless -villain-worshipper!" - -"It's not the villain I care about," I answered, meaning every word. -"It's the sportsman behind the villain, as you know perfectly well." - -"I know the villain behind the sportsman rather better," replied Raffles, -laughing when I least expected it. "But you're by way of forgetting his -existence altogether. I shouldn't wonder if some day you wrote me up -into a heavy hero, Bunny, and made me turn in my quicklime! Let this -remind you what I always was and shall be to the end." - -And he took my hand, as I fondly hoped in surrender to my appeal to those -better feelings which I knew I had for once succeeded in quickening -within him. - -But it was only to bid me a mischievous goodbye, ere he ran down the -spiral stair, leaving me to listen till I lost his feathery foot-falls in -the base of the tower, and then to mount guard over my tethered, -handcuffed, somnolent, and yet always formidable prisoner at the top. - - - - -CHAPTER XVI - -Watch and Ward - - -I well remember, as I set reluctant foot upon the wooden stair, taking a -last and somewhat lingering look at the dust and dirt of the lower -chamber, as one who knew not what might happen before he saw it again. -The stain as of red rust in the lavatory basin, the gritty deposit in the -bath, the verdigris on all the taps, the foul opacity of the windows, are -among the trivialities that somehow stamped themselves upon my mind. One -of the windows was open at the top, had been so long open that the -aperture was curtained with cobwebs at each extremity, but in between I -got quite a poignant picture of the Thames as I went upstairs. It was -only a sinuous perspective of sunlit ripples twinkling between wooded -gardens and open meadows, a fisherman or two upon the tow-path, a canoe -in mid-stream, a gaunt church crowning all against the sky. But inset in -such surroundings it was like a flash from a magic-lantern in a -coal-cellar. And very loth was I to exchange that sunny peep for an -indefinite prospect of my prisoner's person at close quarters. - -Yet the first stage of my vigil proved such a sinecure as to give me -some confidence for all the rest. Dan Levy opened neither his lips nor -his eyes at my approach, but lay on his back with the Red Ensign drawn -up to his chin, and the peaceful countenance of profound oblivion. I -remember taking a good look at him, and thinking that his face improved -remarkably in repose, that in death he might look fine. The forehead was -higher and broader than I had realised, the thick lips were firm enough -now, but the closing of the crafty little eyes was the greatest gain of -all. On the whole, not only a better but a stronger face than it had -been all the morning, a more formidable face by far. But the man had -fallen asleep in his bonds, and forgotten them; he would wake up abject -enough; if not, I had the means to reduce him to docility. Meanwhile, I -was in no hurry to show my power, but stole on tiptoe to the locker, and -took my seat by inches. - -Levy did not move a muscle. No sound escaped him either, and somehow or -other I should have expected him to snore; indeed, it might have come as -a relief, for the silence of the tower soon got upon my nerves. It was -not a complete silence; that was (and always is) the worst of it. The -wooden stairs creaked more than once; there were little rattlings, faint -and distant, as of a dried leaf or a loose window, in the bowels of the -house; and though nothing came of any of these noises, except a fresh -period of tension on my part, they made the skin act on my forehead every -time. Then I remember a real anxiety over a blue-bottle, that must have -come in through the open window just below, for suddenly it buzzed into -my ken and looked like attacking Levy on the spot. Somehow I slew it with -less noise than the brute itself was making; and not until after that -breathless achievement did I realise how anxious I was to keep my -prisoner asleep. Yet I had the revolver, and he lay handcuffed and bound -down! It was in the next long silence that I became sensitive to another -sound which indeed I had heard at intervals already, only to dismiss it -from my mind as one of the signs of extraneous life which were bound to -penetrate even to the top of my tower. It was a slow and regular beat, as -of a sledge-hammer in a distant forge, or some sort of machinery only -audible when there was absolutely nothing else to be heard. It could -hardly be near at hand, for I could not hear it properly unless I held my -breath. Then, however, it was always there, a sound that never ceased or -altered, so that in the end I sat and listened to it and nothing else. I -was not even looking at Levy when he asked me if I knew what it was. - -His voice was quiet and civil enough, but it undoubtedly made me jump, -and that brought a malicious twinkle into the little eyes that looked as -though they had been studying me at their leisure. They were perhaps less -violently bloodshot than before, the massive features calm and strong as -they had been in slumber or its artful counterfeit. - -"I thought you were asleep?" I snapped, and knew better for certain -before he spoke. - -"You see, that pint o' pop did me prouder than intended," he explained. -"It's made a new man o' me, you'll be sorry to 'ear." - -I should have been sorrier to believe it, but I did not say so, or -anything else just then. The dull and distant beat came back to the ear. -And Levy again inquired if I knew what it was. - -"Do you?" I demanded. - -"Rather!" he replied, with cheerful certitude. "It's the clock, of -course." - -"What clock?" - -"The one on the tower, a bit lower down, facing the road." - -"How do _you_ know?" I demanded, with uneasy credulity. - -"My good young man," said Dan Levy, "I know the face of that clock as -well as I know the inside of this tower." - -"Then you do know where you are!" I cried, in such surprise that Levy -grinned in a way that ill became a captive. - -"Why," said he, "I sold the last tenant up, and nearly took the 'ouse -myself instead o' the place I got. It was what first attracted me to the -neighhour'ood." - -"Why couldn't you tell us the truth before?" I demanded, but my warmth -merely broadened his grin. - -"Why should I? It sometimes pays to seem more at a loss than you are." - -"It won't in this case," said I through my teeth. But for all my -austerity, and all his bonds, the prisoner continued to regard me with -quiet but most disquieting amusement. - -"I'm not so sure of that," he observed at length. "It rather paid, to my -way of thinking, when Raffles went off to cash my cheque, and left you to -keep an eye on me." - -"Oh, did it!" said I, with pregnant emphasis, and my right hand found -comfort in my jacket pocket, on the butt of the old brute's own weapon. - -"I only mean," he rejoined, in a more conciliatory voice, "that you -strike me as being more open to reason than your flash friend." - -I said nothing to that. - -"On the other 'and," continued Levy, still more deliberately, as though -he really was comparing us in his mind; "on the other _hand_" stooping to -pick up what he had dropped, "you don't take so many risks. Raffles takes -so many that he's bound to land you both in the jug some day, if he -hasn't done it this time. I believe he has, myself. But it's no use -hollering before you're out o' the wood." - -I agreed, with more confidence than I felt. - -"Yet I wonder he never thought of it," my prisoner went on as if -to himself. - -"Thought of what?" - -"Only the clock. He must've seen it before, if you never did; you don't -tell me this little bit o' kidnapping was a sudden idea! It's all been -thought out and the ground gone over, and the clock seen, as I say. Seen -going. Yet it never strikes our flash friend that a going clock's got to -be wound up once a week, and it might be as well to find out which day!" - -"How do you know he didn't?" - -"Because this 'appens to be the day!" - -And Levy lay back in the bunk with the internal chuckle that I was -beginning to know so well, but had little thought to hear from him in his -present predicament. It galled me the more because I felt that Raffles -would certainly not have heard it in my place. But at least I had the -satisfaction of flatly and profanely refusing to believe the prisoner's -statement. - -"That be blowed for a bluff!" was more or less what I said. "It's too -much of a coincidence to be anything else." - -"The odds are only six to one against it," said Levy, indifferently. "One -of you takes them with his eyes open. It seems rather a pity that the -other should feel bound to follow him to certain ruin. But I suppose you -know your own business best." - -"At all events," I boasted, "I know better than to be bluffed by the most -obvious lie I ever heard in my life. You tell me how you know about the -man coming to wind the clock, and I may listen to you." - -"I know because I know the man; little Scotchman he is, nothing to run -away from--though he looks as hard as nails--what there is of him," said -Levy, in a circumstantial and impartial flow that could not but carry -some conviction. "He comes over from Kingston every Tuesday on his bike; -some time before lunch he comes, and sees to my own clocks on the same -trip. That's how I know. But you needn't believe me if you don't like." - -"And where exactly does he come to wind this clock? I see nothing that -can possibly have to do with it up here." - -"No," said Levy; "he comes no higher than the floor below." I seemed to -remember a kind of cupboard at the head of the spiral stair. "But that's -near enough." - -"You mean that we shall hear him?" - -"And he us!" added Levy, with unmistakable determination. - -"Look here, Mr. Levy," said I, showing him his own revolver, "if we do -hear anybody, I shall hold this to your head, and if he does hear us I -shall blow out your beastly brains!" - -The mere feeling that I was, perhaps, the last person capable of any such -deed enabled me to grind out this shocking threat in a voice worthy of -it, and with a face, I hoped, not less in keeping. It was all the more -mortifying when Dan Levy treated my tragedy as farce; in fact, if -anything could have made me as bad as my word, it would have been the -guttural laugh with which he greeted it. - -"Excuse me," said he, dabbing his red eyes with the edge of the red -bunting, "but the thought of your letting that thing off in order to -preserve silence--why, it's as droll as your whole attempt to play the -cold-blooded villain--_you_!" - -"I shall play him to some purpose," I hissed, "if you drive me to it. I -laid you out last night, remember, and for two pins I'll do the same -thing again this morning. So now you know." - -"That wasn't in cold blood," said Levy, rolling his head from side to -side; "that was when the lot of us were brawling in our cups. I don't -count that. You're in a false position, my dear sir. I don't mean last -night or this morning--though I can see that you're no brigand or -blackmailer at bottom--and I shouldn't wonder if you never forgave -Raffles for letting you in for this partic'lar part of this partic'lar -job. But that isn't what I mean. You've got in with a villain, but you -ain't one yourself; that's where you're in the false position. He's -the magsman, you're only the swell. _I_ can see that. But the judge -won't. You'll both get served the same, and in your case it'll be a -thousand shames!" - -He had propped himself on one elbow, and was speaking eagerly, -persuasively, with almost a fatherly solicitude; yet I felt that both his -words and their effect on me were being weighed and measured with -meticulous discretion. And I encouraged him with a countenance as -deliberately rueful and depressed, to an end which had only occurred to -me with the significance of his altered tone. - -"I can't help it," I muttered. "I must go through with the whole -thing now." - -"Why must you?" demanded Levy. "You've been led into a job that's none of -your business, on be'alf of folks who're no friends of yours, and the -job's developed into a serious crime, and the crime's going to be found -out before you're an hour older. Why go through with it to certain quod?" - -"There's nothing else for it," I answered, with a sulky resignation, -though my pulse was quick with eagerness for what I felt was coming. - -And then it came. - -"Why not get out of the whole thing," suggested Levy, boldly, "before -it's too late?" - -"How can I?" said I, to lead him on with a more explicit proposition. - -"By first releasing me, and then clearing out yourself!" - -I looked at him as though this was certainly an idea, as though I were -actually considering it in spite of myself and Raffles; and his eagerness -fed upon my apparent indecision. He held up his fettered hands, begging -and cajoling me to remove his handcuffs, and I, instead of telling him it -was not in my power to do so until Raffles returned, pretended to -hesitate on quite different grounds. - -"It's all very well," I said, "but are you going to make it worth -my while?" - -"Certainly!" cried he. "Give me my chequebook out of my own pocket, where -you were good enough to stow it before that blackguard left, and I'll -write you one cheque for a hundred now, and another for another hundred -before I leave this tower." - -"You really will?" I temporised. - -"I swear it!" he asseverated; and I still believe he might have kept his -word about that. But now I knew where he _had_ been lying to me, and now -was the time to let him know I knew it. - -"Two hundred pounds," said I, "for the liberty you are bound to get for -nothing, as you yourself have pointed out, when the man turns up to wind -the clock? A couple of hundred to save less than a couple of hours?" - -Levy changed colour as he saw his mistake, and his eyes flashed with -sudden fury; otherwise his self-command was only less admirable than his -presence of mind. - -"It wasn't to save time," said he; "it was to save my face in the -neighbourhood. The well-known money-lender found bound and handcuffed in -an empty house! It means the first laugh at my expense, whoever has the -last laugh. But you're quite right; it wasn't worth two hundred golden -sovereigns. Let them laugh! At any rate you and your flash friend'll be -laughing on the wrong side of your mouths before the day's out. So that's -all there is to it, and you'd better start screwing up your courage if -you want to do me in! I did mean to give you another chance in life--but -by God I wouldn't now if you were to go down on your knees for one!" - -Considering that he was bound and I was free, that I was armed and he -defenceless, there was perhaps more humour than the prisoner saw in his -picture of me upon my knees to him. Not that I saw it all at once myself. -I was too busy wondering whether there could be anything in his -clock-winding story after all. Certainly it was inconsistent with the big -bribe offered for his immediate freedom; but it was with something more -than mere adroitness that the money-lender had reconciled the two things. -In his place I should have been no less anxious to keep my humiliating -experience a secret from the world; with his means I could conceive -myself prepared to pay as dearly for such secrecy. On the other hand, if -his idea was to stop the huge cheque already given to Raffles, then there -was indeed no time to be lost, and the only wonder was that Levy should -have waited so long before making overtures to me. - -Raffles had now been gone a very long time, as it seemed to me, but my -watch had run down, and the clock on the tower did not strike. Why they -kept it going at all was a mystery to me; but now that Dan Levy was lying -still again, with set teeth and inexorable eyes, I heard it beating out -the seconds more than ever like a distant sledgehammer, and sixty of -these I counted up into a minute of such portentous duration that what -had seemed many hours to me might easily have been less than one. I only -knew that the sun, which had begun by pouring in at one port-hole and out -at the other, which had bathed the prisoner in his bunk about the time of -his trial by Raffles, now crowned me with fire if I sat upon the locker, -and made its varnish sticky if I did not. The atmosphere of the place was -fast becoming unendurable in its unwholesome heat and sour stagnation. I -sat in my shirt-sleeves at the top of the stairs, where one got such air -as entered by the open window below. Levy had kicked off his covering of -scarlet bunting, with a sudden oath which must have been the only sound -within the tower for an hour at least; all the rest of the time he lay -with fettered fists clenched upon his breast, with fierce eyes fixed upon -the top of the bunk, and something about the whole man that I was forced -to watch, something indomitable and intensely alert, a curious suggestion -of smouldering fires on the point of leaping into flame. - -I feared this man in my heart of hearts. I may as well admit it frankly. -It was not that he was twice my size, for I had the like advantage in -point of years; it was not that I had any reason to distrust the -strength of his bonds or the efficacy of the weapon in my possession. It -was a question of personality, not of material advantage or -disadvantage, or of physical fear at all. It was simply the spirit of -the man that dominated mine. I felt that my mere flesh and blood would -at any moment give a good account of his, as well they might with the -odds that were on my side. Yet that did not lessen the sense of subtle -and essential inferiority, which grew upon my nerves with almost every -minute of that endless morning, and made me long for the relief of -physical contest even on equal terms. I could have set the old ruffian -free, and thrown his revolver out of the window, and then said to him, -"Come on! Your weight against my age, and may the devil take the worse -man!" Instead, I must sit glaring at him to mask my qualms. And after -much thinking about the kind of conflict that could never be, in the end -came one of a less heroic but not less desperate type, before there was -time to think at all. - -Levy had raised his head, ever so little, but yet enough for my -vigilance. I saw him listening. I listened too. And down below in the -core of the tower I heard, or thought I heard, a step like a feather, and -then after some moments another. But I had spent those moments in gazing -instinctively down the stair; it was the least rattle of the handcuffs -that brought my eyes like lightning back to the bunk; and there was Levy -with hollow palms about his mouth, and his mouth wide open for the roar -that my own palms stifled in his throat. - -Indeed, I had leapt upon him once more like a fiend, and for an instant I -enjoyed a shameful advantage; it can hardly have lasted longer. The brute -first bit me through the hand, so that I carry his mark to this day; -then, with his own hands, he took me by the throat, and I thought that my -last moments were come. He squeezed so hard that I thought my windpipe -must burst, thought my eyes must leave their sockets. It was the grip of -a gorilla, and it was accompanied by a spate of curses and the grin of a -devil incarnate. All my dreams of equal combat had not prepared me for -superhuman power on his part, such utter impotence on mine. I tried to -wrench myself from his murderous clasp, and was nearly felled by the top -of the bunk. I hurled myself out sideways, and out he came after me, -tearing down the peg to which his handcuffs were tethered; that only gave -him the better grip upon my throat, and he never relaxed it for an -instant, scrambling to his feet when I staggered to mine, for by them -alone was he fast now to the banisters. - -Meanwhile I was feeling in an empty pocket for his revolver, which had -fallen out as we struggled on the floor. I saw it there now with my -starting eyeballs, kicked about by our shuffling feet. I tried to make a -dive for it, but Levy had seen it also, and he kicked it through the -banisters without relaxing his murderous hold. I could have sworn -afterwards that I heard the weapon fall with a clatter on the wooden -stairs. But what I still remember hearing most distinctly (and feeling -hot upon my face) is the stertorous breathing that was unbroken by a -single syllable after the first few seconds. - -It was a brutal encounter, not short and sharp like the one over-night, -but horribly protracted. Nor was all the brutality by any means on one -side; neither will I pretend that I was getting much more than my deserts -in the defeat that threatened to end in my extinction. Not for an instant -had my enemy loosened his deadly clutch, and now he had me penned against -the banisters, and my one hope was that they would give way before our -united weight, and precipitate us both into the room below. That would be -better than being slowly throttled, even if it were only a better death. -Other chance there was none, and I was actually trying to fling myself -over, beating the air with both hands wildly, when one of them closed -upon the butt of the revolver that I thought had been kicked into the -room below! - -I was too far gone to realise that a miracle had happened--to be so much -as puzzled by it then. But I was not too far gone to use that revolver, -and to use it as I would have done on cool reflection. I thrust it under -my opponent's armpit, and I fired through into space. The report was -deafening. It did its work. Levy let go of me, and staggered back as -though I had really shot him. And that instant I was brandishing his -weapon in his face. - -"You tried to shoot me! You tried to shoot me!" he gasped twice over -through a livid mask. - -"No, I didn't!" I panted. "I tried to frighten you, and I jolly well -succeeded! But I'll shoot you like a dog if you don't get back to your -kennel and lie down." - -He sat and gasped upon the side of the bunk. There was no more fight in -him. His very lips were blue. I put the pistol back in my pocket, and -retracted my threat in a sudden panic. - -"There! It's your own fault if you so much as see it again," I promised -him, in a breathless disorder only second to his own. - -"But you jolly nearly strangled me. And now we're a pretty pair!" - -His hands grasped the edge of the bunk, and he leant his weight on them, -breathing very hard. It might have been an attack of asthma, or it might -have been a more serious seizure, but it was a case for stimulants if -ever I saw one, and in the nick of time I remembered the flask that -Raffles had left with me. It was the work of a very few seconds to pour -out a goodly ration, and of but another for Daniel Levy to toss off the -raw spirit like water. He was begging for more before I had helped -myself. And more I gave him in the end; for it was no small relief to me -to watch the leaden hue disappearing from the flabby face, and the -laboured breathing gradually subside, even if it meant a renewal of our -desperate hostilities. - -But all that was at an end; the man was shaken to the core by his -perfectly legitimate attempt at my destruction. He looked dreadfully old -and hideous as he got bodily back into the bunk of his own accord. There, -when I had yielded to his further importunities, and the flask was empty, -he fell at length into a sleep as genuine as the last was not; and I was -still watching over the poor devil, keeping the flies off him, and -sometimes fanning him with a flag, less perhaps from humane motives than -to keep him quiet as long as possible, when Raffles returned to light up -the tableau like a sinister sunbeam. - -Raffles had had his own adventures in town, and I soon had reason to feel -thankful that I had not gone up instead of him. It seemed he had foreseen -from the first the possibility of trouble at the bank over a large and -absolutely open cheque. So he had gone first to the Chelsea studio in -which he played the painter who never painted but kept a whole wardrobe -of disguises for the models he never hired. Thence he had issued on this -occasion in the living image of a well-known military man about town who -was also well known to be a client of Dan Levy's. Raffles said the -cashier stared at him, but the cheque was cashed without a word. The -unfortunate part of it was that in returning to his cab he had -encountered an acquaintance both of his own and of the spendthrift -soldier, and had been greeted evidently in the latter capacity. - -"It was a jolly difficult little moment, Bunny. I had to say there was -some mistake, and I had to remember to say it in a manner equally unlike -my own and the other beggar's! But all's well that ends well; and if -you'll do exactly what I tell you I think we may flatter ourselves that a -happy issue is at last in sight." - -"What am I to do now?" I asked with some misgiving. - -"Clear out of this, Bunny, and wait for me in town. You've done jolly -well, old fellow, and so have I in my own department of the game. -Everything's in order, down to those fifteen hundred guineas which are -now concealed about my person in as hard cash as I can carry. I've seen -old Garland and given him back his promissory note myself, with Levy's -undertaking about the mortgage. It was a pretty trying interview, as you -can understand; but I couldn't help wondering what the poor old boy would -say if he dreamt what sort of pressure I've been applying on his behalf! -Well, it's all over now except our several exits from the surreptitious -stage. I can't make mine without our sleeping partner, but you would -really simplify matters, Bunny, by not waiting for us." - -There was a good deal to be said for such a course, though it went not a -little against my grain. Raffles had changed his clothes and had a bath -in town, to say nothing of his luncheon. I was by this time indescribably -dirty and dishevelled, besides feeling fairly famished now that mental -relief allowed a thought for one's lower man. Raffles had foreseen my -plight, and had actually prepared a way of escape for me by the front -door in broad daylight. I need not recapitulate the elaborate story he -had told the caretaking gardener across the road; but he had borrowed the -gardener's keys as a probable purchaser of the property, who had to meet -his builder and a business friend at the house during the course of the -afternoon. I was to be the builder, and in that capacity to give the -gardener an ingenious message calculated to leave Raffles and Levy in -uninterrupted possession until my return. And of course I was never to -return at all. - -The whole thing seemed to me a super-subtle means to a far simpler end -than the one we had achieved by stealth in the dead of the previous -night. But it was Raffles all over and I ultimately acquiesced, on the -understanding that we were to meet again in the Albany at seven o'clock, -preparatory to dining somewhere in final celebration of the whole affair. - -But much was to happen before seven o'clock, and it began happening. I -shook the dust of that derelict tower from my feet; for one of them trod -on something at the darkest point of the descent; and the thing went -tinkling down ahead on its own account, until it lay shimmering in the -light on a lower landing, where I picked it up. - -Now I had not said much to Raffles about my hitherto inexplicable -experience with the revolver, when I thought it had gone through the -banisters, but found it afterwards in my hand. Raffles said it would not -have gone through, that I must have been all but over the banisters -myself when I grasped the butt as it protruded through them on the level -of the floor. This he said (like many another thing) as though it made an -end of the matter. But it was not the end of the matter in my own mind; -and now I could have told him what the explanation was, or at least to -what conclusion I had jumped. I had half a mind to climb all the way up -again on purpose to put him in the wrong upon the point. Then I -remembered how anxious he had seemed to get rid of me, and for other -reasons also I decided to let him wait a bit for his surprise. - -Meanwhile my own plans were altered, and when I had delivered my -egregious message to the gardener across the road, I sought the nearest -shops on my way to the nearest station; and at one of the shops I got me -a clean collar, at another a tooth-brush; and all I did at the station -was to utilise my purchases in the course of such scanty toilet as the -lavatory accommodation would permit. - -A few minutes later I was inquiring my way to a house which it took me -another twenty or twenty-five to find. - - - - -CHAPTER XVII - -A Secret Service - - -This house also was on the river, but it was very small bricks-and-mortar -compared with the other two. One of a semi-detached couple built close to -the road, with narrow strips of garden to the river's brim, its dingy -stucco front and its green Venetian blinds conveyed no conceivable -attraction beyond that of a situation more likely to prove a drawback -three seasons out of the four. The wooden gate had not swung home behind -me before I was at the top of a somewhat dirty flight of steps, -contemplating blistered paint and ground glass fit for a bathroom window, -and listening to the last reverberations of an obsolete type of bell. -There was indeed something oppressively and yet prettily Victorian about -the riparian retreat to which Lady Laura Belsize had retired in her -impoverished widowhood. - -It was not for Lady Laura that I asked, however, but for Miss Belsize, -and the almost slatternly maid really couldn't say whether Miss Belsize -was in or whether she wasn't. She might be in the garden, or she might -be on the river. Would I step inside and wait a minute? I would and did, -but it was more minutes than one that I was kept languishing in an -interior as dingy as the outside of the house. I had time to take the -whole thing in. There were massive remnants of deservedly unfashionable -furniture. The sofa I can still see in my mind's eye, and the steel -fire-irons, and the crystal chandelier. An aged and gigantic Broadwood -occupied nearly half the room; and in a cheap frame thereon, inviting all -sorts of comparisons and contrasts, stood a full-length portrait of -Camilla Belsize resplendent in contemporary court kit. - -I was still studying that frankly barbaric paraphernalia--the feather, -the necklace, the coiled train--and wondering what noble kinsman had come -to the rescue for the great occasion, and why Camilla should have looked -so bored with her finery, when the door opened and she herself -entered--not even very smartly dressed--and looking anything but bored, -although I say it. - -But she did seem astonished, anxious, indignant, reproachful, and to my -mind still more nervous and distressed, though this hardly showed through -the loopholes of her pride. And as for her white serge coat and skirt, -they looked as though they had seen considerable service on the river, -and I immediately perceived that one of the large enamel buttons was -missing from the coat. - -Up to that moment, I may now confess, I had been suffering from no slight -nervous anxiety of my own. But all qualms were lost in sheer excitement -when I spoke. - -"You may well wonder at this intrusion," I began. "But I thought this -must be yours, Miss Belsize." - -And from my waistcoat pocket I produced the missing button of enamel. - -"Where did you find it?" inquired Miss Belsize, with an admirably slight -increase of astonishment in voice and look. "And how did you know it was -mine?" came quickly in the next breath. - -"I didn't know," I answered. "I guessed. It was the shot of my life!" - -"But you don't say where you found it?" - -"In an empty house not far from here." - -She had held her breath; now I felt it like the lightest zephyr. And -quite unconsciously I had retained the enamel button. - -"Well, Mr. Manders? I'm very much obliged to you. But may I have it -back again?" - -I returned her property. We had been staring at each other all the time. -I stared still harder as she repeated her perfunctory thanks. - -"So it was you!" I said, and was sorry to see her looking purposely -puzzled at that, but thankful when the reckless light outshone all the -rest in those chameleon eyes of hers. - -"Who did you think it was?" she asked me with a frosty little smile. - -"I didn't know if it was anybody at all. I didn't know what to think," -said I, quite candidly. "I simply found his pistol in my hand." - -"Whose pistol?" - -"Dan Levy's." - -"Good!" she said grimly. "That makes it all the better." - -"You saved my life." - -"I thought you had taken his--and I'd collaborated!" - -There was not a tremor in her voice; it was cautious, eager, daring, -intense, but absolutely her own voice now. - -"No," I said, "I didn't shoot the fellow, but I made him think I had." - -"You made me think so too, until I heard what you said to him." - -"Yet you never made a sound yourself." - -"I should think not! I made myself scarce instead." - -"But, Miss Belsize, I shall go perfectly mad if you don't tell me how you -happened to be there at all!" - -"Don't you think it's for you to tell me that about yourself -and--all of you?" - -"Oh, I don't mind which of us fires first!" said I, excitedly. - -"Then I will," she said at once, and took me to the dreadful sofa at the -inner end of the room, and sat down as though it were the most ordinary -experience she had to relate. Nor could I believe the things that had -really happened, and all so recently, as we talked them over in that -commonplace environment of faded gentility. There was a window behind us, -overlooking the ribbon of lawn and the cord of gravel, and the bunch of -willows that hedged them from the Thames. It all looked unreal to me, -unreal in its very realism as the scene of our incredible conversation. - -"You know what happened the other afternoon--I mean the day they -couldn't play," began Miss Belsize, "because you were there; and though -you didn't stay to hear all that came out afterwards, I expect you know -everything now. Mr. Raffles would be sure to tell you; in fact, I heard -poor dear Mr. Garland give him leave. It's a dreadful story from every -point of view. Nobody comes out of it with flying colours, but what nice -person could cope with a horrid money-lender? Mr. Raffles, perhaps--if -you call him nice!" - -I said that was about the worst thing I called him. I mentioned some of -the other things. Miss Belsize listened to them with exemplary patience. - -"Well," she resumed, "he was quite nice about this. I will say that for -him. He said he knew Mr. Levy pretty well, and would see what could be -done. But he spoke like an executioner who was going to see what could be -done with the condemned man! And all the time I was wondering what had -been done already at Carlsbad--what exactly that horrid creature meant -when he was talking _at_ Mr. Raffles before us all. Well, of course, I -knew what he meant us to think he meant; but was there, could there be, -anything in it?" - -Miss Belsize looked at me as though she expected an answer, only to stop -me the moment I opened my mouth to speak. - -"I don't want to know, Mr. Manders! Of course you know all about Mr. -Raffles"--there was a touch of feeling in this--"but it's nothing to me, -though in this case I should certainly have been on his side. You said -yourself that it could only have been a practical joke, if there was -anything in it at all, and so I tried to think in spite of those horrid -men who were following him about at Lord's, even in spite of the way he -vanished with them after him. But he never came near the match -again--though he had travelled all the way from Carlsbad to see it! Why -had he ever been there? What had he really done there? And what could he -possibly do to rescue anybody from Mr. Levy, if he himself was already in -Levy's power?" - -"You don't know Raffles," said I, promptly enough this time. "He never -was in any man's power for many minutes. I would back him to save the -most desperate situation you could devise." - -"You mean by some desperate deed? That's what I feared," declared Miss -Belsize, rather strenuously. "Something really had happened at Carlsbad; -something worse was by way of happening next. For Teddy's sake," she -whispered, "and his poor father's!" - -I agreed that old Raffles stuck at nothing for his friends, and Miss -Belsize again said that was what she had feared. Her tone had completely -altered about Raffles, as well it might. I thought it would have broken -with gratitude when she spoke of the unlucky father and son. - -"And I was right!" she exclaimed, with that other kind of feeling to -which I found it harder to put a name. "I came home miserable from the -match on Saturday--" - -"Though Teddy had done so well!" I was fool enough to interject. - -"I couldn't help thinking about Mr. Raffles," replied Camilla, with a -flash of her frank eyes, "and wondering, and wondering, what had -happened. And then on Sunday I saw him on the river." - -"He didn't tell me." - -"He didn't know I recognised him; he was disguised--absolutely!" said -Camilla Belsize under her breath. "But he couldn't disguise himself from -me," she added as though glorying in her perspicacity. - -"Did you tell him so, Miss Belsize?" - -"Not I, indeed! I didn't speak to him; it was no business of mine. But -there he was, at the bottom of Mr. Levy's garden, having a good look at -the boathouse when nobody was about. Why? What could his object be? And -why disguise himself? I thought of the affair at Carlsbad, and I felt -certain that something of the kind was going to happen again!" - -"Well?" - -"What could I do? Should I do anything at all? Was it any business of -mine? You may imagine the way I cross-questioned myself, and you may -imagine the crooked answers I got! I won't bore you with the psychology -of the thing; it's pretty obvious after all. It was not so much a case -of doing the best as of knowing the worst. All day yesterday there were -no developments of any sort, and there was no sign of Mr. Raffles; -nothing had happened in the night, or we should have heard of it; but -that made me all the more certain that something or other would happen -last night. The week's grace was nearly up--you know what I mean--their -last week at their own house. If anything was to be done, it was about -time, and I knew Mr. Raffles was going to do something. I wanted to know -what--that was all." - -"Quite right, too!" I murmured. But I doubt if Miss Belsize heard me; she -was in no need of my encouragement or my approval. The old light--her own -light--the reckless light--was burning away in her brilliant eyes! - -"The night before," she went on, "I hardly slept a wink; last night I -preferred not to go to bed at all. I told you I sometimes did weird -things that astonished the natives of these suburban shores. Well, last -night, if it wasn't early this morning, I made my weirdest effort yet. I -have a canoe, you know; just now I almost live in it. Last night I went -out unbeknowns after midnight, partly to reassure myself, partly--I beg -your pardon, Mr. Manders?" - -"I didn't speak." - -"Your face shouted!" - -"I'd rather you went on." - -"But if you know what I'm going to say?" - -Of course I knew, but I dragged it from her none the less. The nebulous -white-shirted figure in the canoe, that had skimmed past Dan Levy's -frontage as we were trying to get him aboard his own pleasure-boat, and -again past the empty house when we were in the act of disembarking him -there, that figure was the trim and slim one now at my side. She had seen -us--searched for us--each time. Our voices she had heard and recognised; -only our actions, or rather that midnight deed of ours, had she -misinterpreted. She would not admit it to me, but I still believe she -feared it was a dead body that we had shipped at dead of night to hide -away in that desolate tower. - -Yet I cannot think she thought it in her heart. I rather fancy (what she -indeed averred) that some vague inkling of the truth flashed across her -at least as often as that monstrous hypothesis. But know she must; -therefore, after boldly ascertaining that nothing was known of the -master's whereabouts at Levy's house, but that no uneasiness was -entertained on his account, this young woman, true to the audacity which -I had seen in her eyes from the first, had taken the still bolder step of -landing on the rank lawn and entering the empty tower to discover its -secret, for herself. Her stealthy step upon the spiral stair had been the -signal for my mortal struggle with Dan Levy. She had heard the whole, and -even seen a little of that; in fact, she had gathered enough from Levy's -horrible imprecations to form later a rough but not incorrect impression -of the situation between him and Raffles and me. As for the moneylender's -language, it was with a welcome gleam of humour that Miss Belsize assured -me she had "gone too straight to hounds" in her time to be as completely -paralysed by it as her mother's neighbours might have been. And as for -the revolver, it had fallen at her feet, and first she thought I was -going to follow it over the banisters, and before she could think again -she had restored the weapon to my wildly clutching hand! - -"But when you fired I felt a murderess," she said. "So you see I -misjudged you for the second time." - -If I am conveying a dash of flippancy in our talk, let me earnestly -declare that it was hardly even a dash. It was but a wry and rueful -humour on the girl's part, and that only towards the end, but I can -promise my worst critic that I was never less facetious in my life. I -was thinking in my heavy way that I had never looked into such eyes as -these, so bold, so sad, so merry with it all! I was thinking that I had -never listened to such a voice, or come across recklessness and -sentiment so harmonised, save also in her eyes! I was thinking that -there never was a girl to touch Camilla Belsize, or a man either except -A. J. Raffles! And yet-- - -And yet it was over Raffles that she took all the wind from my sails, -exactly as she had done at Lord's, only now she did it at parting, and -sent me off into the dusk a slightly puzzled and exceedingly -exasperated man. - -"Of course," said Camilla at her garden gate, "of course you won't repeat -a word of what I've told you, Mr. Manders?" - -"You mean about your adventures last night and to-day?" said I, somewhat -taken aback. - -"I mean every single thing we've talked about!" was her sweeping reply. -"Not a syllable must go an inch further; otherwise I shall be very sorry -I ever spoke to you." - -As though she had come and confided in me of her own accord! But I -passed that, even if I noticed it at the time. - -"I won't tell a soul, of course," I said, and fidgeted. "That -is--except--I suppose you don't mind--" - -"I do! There must be no exceptions." - -"Not even old Raffles?" - -"Mr. Raffles least of all!" cried Camilla Belsize, with almost a forked -flash from those masterful eyes. "Mr. Raffles is the last person in the -world who must ever know a single thing." - -"Not even that it was you who absolutely saved the situation for him and -me?" I asked, wistfully; for I much wanted these two to think better of -each other; and it had begun to look as though I had my wish, so far as -Camilla was concerned, while I had only to tell Raffles everything to -make him her slave for life. But now she was adamant on the point, -adamant heated in some hidden flame. - -"It's rather hard lines on me, Mr. Manders, if because I go and get -excited, and twist off a button in my excitement, as I suppose I must -have done--unless it's a judgment on me--it's rather hard lines if you -give me away when I never should have given myself away to you!" - -This was unkind. It was still more unfair in view of the former passage -between us to the same tune. I was evidently getting no credit for my -very irksome fidelity. I helped myself to some at once. - -"You gave yourself away to me at Lord's all right," said I, cheerfully. -"And I never let out a word of that." - -"Not even to Mr. Raffles?" she asked, with a quick unguarded intonation -that was almost wistful. - -"Not a word," was my reply. "Raffles has no idea you noticed anything, -much less how keen you were for me to warn him." - -Miss Belsize looked at me a moment with civil war in her splendid eyes. -Then something won--I think it was only her pride--and she was holding -out her hand. - -"He must never know a word of this either," said she, firmly as at first. -"And I hope you'll forgive me for not trusting you quite as I always -shall for the future." - -"I'll forgive you everything, Miss Belsize, except your dislike of dear -old Raffles!" - -I had spoken quite earnestly, keeping her hand; she drew it away as I -made my point. - -"I don't dislike him," she answered in a strange tone; but with a -stranger stress she added, "I don't _like_ him either." - -And even then I could not see what the verb should have been, or why -Miss Belsize should turn away so quickly in the end, and snatch her eyes -away quicker still. - -I saw them, and thought of her, all the way back to the station, but not -an inch further. So I need no sympathy on that score. If I did, it would -have been just the same that July evening, for I saw somebody else and -had something else to think about from the moment I set foot upon the -platform. It was the wrong platform. I was about to cross by the bridge -when a down train came rattling in, and out jumped a man I knew by sight -before it stopped. - -The man was Mackenzie, the incorrigibly Scotch detective whom we had met -at Milchester Abbey, who I always thought had kept an eye on Raffles ever -since. He was across the platform before the train pulled up, and I did -what Raffles would have done in my place. I ran after him. - -"Ye ken Dan Levy's hoose by the river?" I heard him babble to his -cabman, with wilful breadth of speech. "Then drive there, mon, like the -deevil himsel'!" - - - - -CHAPTER XVIII - -The Death of a Sinner - - -What was I to do? I knew what Raffles would have done; he would have -outstripped Mackenzie in his descent upon the moneylender, beaten the cab -on foot most probably, and dared Dan Levy to denounce him to the -detective. I could see a delicious situation, and Raffles conducting it -inimitably to a triumphant issue. But I was not Raffles, and what was -more I was due already at his chambers in the Albany. I must have been -talking to Miss Belsize by the hour together; to my horror I found it -close upon seven by the station clock; and it was some minutes past when -I plunged into the first up train. Waterloo was reached before eight, but -I was a good hour late at the Albany, and Raffles let me know it in his -shirt-sleeves from the window. - -"I thought you were dead, Bunny!" he muttered down as though he wished I -were. I scaled his staircase at two or three bounds, and began all about -Mackenzie in the lobby. - -"So soon!" says Raffles, with a mere lift of the eyebrows. "Well, thank -God, I was ready for him again." - -I now saw that Raffles was not dressing, though he had changed his -clothes, and this surprised me for all my breathless preoccupation. But I -had the reason at a glance through the folding-doors into his bedroom. -The bed was cumbered with clothes and an open suit-case. A Gladstone bag -stood strapped and bulging; a travelling rug lay ready for rolling up, -and Raffles himself looked out of training in his travelling tweeds. - -"Going away?" I ejaculated. - -"Rather!" said he, folding a smoking jacket. "Isn't it about time after -what you've told me?" - -"But you were packing before you knew!" - -"Then for God's sake go and do the same yourself!" he cried, "and don't -ask questions now. I was beginning to pack enough for us both, but you'll -have time to shove in a shirt and collar of your own if you jump straight -into a hansom. I'll take the tickets, and we'll meet on the platform at -five to nine." - -"What platform, Raffles?" - -"Charing Cross. Continental train." - -"But where the deuce do you think of going?" - -"Australia, if you like! We'll discuss it in our flight across Europe." - -"Our flight!" I repeated. "What has happened since I left you, Raffles?" - -"Look here, Bunny, you go and pack!" was all my answer from a savage -face, as I was fairly driven to the door. "Do you realise that you were -due here one golden hour ago, and have I asked what happened to you? Then -don't you ask rotten questions that there's no time to answer. I'll tell -you everything in the train, Bunny." - -And my name at the end in a different voice, and his hand for an instant -on my shoulder as I passed out, were my only consolation for his truly -terrifying behaviour, my only comfort and reassurance of any kind, until -we really were off by the night mail from Charing Cross. - -Raffles was himself again by that time, I was thankful to find, nor did -he betray that dread or expectation of pursuit which would have tallied -with his previous manner. He merely looked relieved when the Embankment -lights ran right and left in our wake. I remember one of his remarks, -that they made the finest necklace in the world when all was said, and -another that Big Ben was the Koh-i-noor of the London lights. But he had -also a quizzical eye upon the paper bag from which I was endeavouring to -make a meal at last. And more than once he wagged his head with a -humorous admixture of reproof and sympathy; for with shamefaced -admissions and downcast pauses I was allowing him to suppose I had been -drinking at some riverside public-house instead of hurrying up to town, -but that the _rencontre_ with Mackenzie had served to sober me. - -"Poor Bunny! We won't pursue the matter any further; but I do know where -we both should have been between seven and eight. It was as nice a little -dinner as I ever ordered in my life. And to think that we never turned up -to eat a bite of it!" - -"Didn't _you_?" I queried, and my sense of guilt deepened to remorse as -Raffles shook his head. - -"No fear, Bunny! I wanted to see you safe and sound. That was what made -me so stuffy when you did turn up." - -Loud were my lamentations, and earnest my entreaties to Raffles to share -the contents of my paper bag; but not he. To replace such a feast as he -had ordered with sandwiches and hard-boiled eggs would be worse than -going healthily hungry for once; it was all very well for me who knew not -what I had missed. Not that Raffles was hungry by his own accounts; he -had merely fancied a little dinner, more after my heart than his, for -our last on British soil. - -This, and the way he said it, brought me back to the heart of things; for -beneath his frothy phrases I felt that the wine of life was bitter to his -taste. His gayety now afforded no truer criterion to his real feelings -than had his petulance at the Albany. What had happened since our parting -in that fatal tower, to make this wild flight necessary without my news, -and whither in all earnest were we to fly? - -"Oh, nothing!" said Raffles, in unsatisfactory answer to my first -question. "I thought you would have seen that we couldn't clear out too -soon after restoring poor Shylock, like our brethren in the song, 'to his -friends and his relations.'" - -"But I thought you had something else for him to sign?" - -"So I had, Bunny." - -"What was that?" - -"A plain statement of all he had suborned me to do for him, and what he -had given me for doing it," said Raffles, as he lit a Sullivan from his -last easeful. "One might almost call it a receipt for the letter I stole -and he destroyed." - -"And did he sign that?" - -"I insisted on it for our protection." - -"Then we are protected, and yet we cut and run?" - -Raffles shrugged his shoulders as we hurtled between the lighted -platforms of Herne Hill. - -"There's no immunity from a clever cove like that, Bunny, unless you send -him to another world or put the thick of this one between you. He may -hold his tongue about the last twenty-four hours--I believe he will--but -that needn't prevent him from setting old Mackenzie to watch us day and -night. So we are not going to stay to be watched. We are starting off -round the world for a change. Before we get very far Mr. Shylock may be -in the jug himself; that accursed letter won't be the only incriminating -thing against him, you take my word. Then we can come back trailing -clouds of glory, and blowing clouds of Sullivan. Then we can have our -_secondes noces_--meaning second knocks, Bunny, and more power to our -elbows when we get them!" - -But I was not convinced. There was something else at the bottom of this -sudden impulse and its inconceivably sudden execution. Why had he never -told me of this plan? Well, because it had never become one until after -the morning's work at Levy's bank, in itself a reason for being out of -the way, as I myself admitted. But he would have told me if only I had -turned up at seven: he had never meant to give me time for much packing, -added Raffles, as he was anxious that neither of us should leave the -impression that we had gone far afield. - -I thought this was childish, and treating me like a child, to which, -however, I was used; but more than ever did I feel that Raffles was not -being frank with me, that he for one was making good his escape from -something or somebody besides Dan Levy. And in the end he admitted that -this was so. But we had not dashed through Sitting-bourne and Faversham -before I wormed my way to about the last discovery that I expected to -make concerning A. J. Raffles. - -"What an inquisitor you are, Bunny!" said he, putting down an evening -paper that he had only just taken up. "Can't you see that this whole show -has been no ordinary one for me? I've been fighting for a crowd I rather -love. Their battle has got on my nerves as none of my own ever did; and -now it's won I honestly funk their gratitude as much as anything." - -That was another hard saying to swallow; and yet, as Raffles said it, I -knew it to be true. He was looking me full in the face in the ample -light of the first-class compartment, which we of course had to -ourselves. Some softening influence seemed to have been at work upon -him; he looked resolute as ever, but full of regret, than which nothing -was rarer in A.J. - -"I suppose," said I, "that poor old Garland has treated you to a pretty -good dose already?" - -"Yes, Bunny; that he has." - -"And well he may, and well may Teddy and Camilla Belsize!" - -"But I couldn't do with it from them," said Raffles, with quite a bitter -little laugh. "Teddy wasn't there, of course; he's up north for that -rotten match the team play nowadays against Liverpool. But the game's -fizzling, he'll be home to-morrow, and I simply can't face him and his -Camilla. He'll be a married man before we see him again," added Raffles, -getting hold of his evening paper once more. - -"Is that to come off so soon?" - -"The sooner the better," said Raffles, strangely. - -"You're not quite happy about it," said I, with execrable tact, I know, -and yet deliberately, because his view of this marriage had always -puzzled me. - -"I'm happy as long as they are," responded Raffles, not without a laugh -at his own meritorious sentiment. "I only wish," he sighed, "that they -were both absolutely worthy of each other!" - -"And you don't think they are?" - -"No, I don't." - -"You think such a lot of young Garland?" - -"I'm very fond of him, Bunny." - -"But you see his faults?" - -"I've always seen them; they're not full-fathom-five like mine!" - -"Yet you think she's not good enough for him?" - -"Not good enough--she?" and he stopped himself at that. But his voice -was enough for me; the unspoken antithesis was stronger than words -could have made it. Scales fell from my eyes. "Where on earth did you -get that idea?" - -"I thought it was yours, A.J." - -"But why?" - -"You seemed to disapprove of the engagement from the first." - -"So I did, after what poor Teddy had been up to in his extremity! I may -as well be honest about that now. It was all right in a pal of ours, -Bunny, but all wrong in the man who dreamt of marrying Camilla Belsize." - -"Yet you have just been moving heaven and hell to make it possible for -them to marry after all!" - -Raffles made another attempt upon his paper. I marvel now that he let me -catechise him as I was doing. But the truth had just dawned upon me, and -I simply had to see it whole as the risen sun, whereas Raffles seemed -under no such passionate necessity to keep it to himself. - -"Teddy's all right," said he, inconsistently. "He'll never try anything -of the kind again; he's had a lesson for life. Besides, I don't often -take my hand from the plough, as you ought to know. Bunny. It was I who -brought those two together. But it was none of my mundane business to put -them asunder again." - -"It was you who brought them together?" I repeated insidiously. - -"More or less, Bunny. It was at some cricket week, if it wasn't two weeks -running; they were pals already, but she and I were greater pals before -the first week was over." - -"And yet you didn't cut him out!" - -"My dear Bunny, I should hope not." - -"But you might have done, A.J.; don't tell me you couldn't if -you'd tried." - -Raffles played with his paper without replying. He was no coxcomb. But -neither would he ape an alien humility. - -"It wouldn't have been the game, Bunny--won or lost--Teddy or no Teddy: -And yet," he added, with pensive candour, "we were getting on like a -semi-detached house on fire! I burnt my fingers, I don't mind telling -you; if I hadn't been what I am, Bunny, I might have taken my courage in -all ten of 'em, and 'put it to the touch, to win or lose it all.'" - -"I wish you had," I whispered, as he studied his paper upside down. - -"Why, Bunny? What rot you do talk!" he cried, but only with the skin-deep -irritation of a half-hearted displeasure. - -"She's the only woman I ever met," I went on unguardedly, "who was your -mate at heart--in pluck--in temperament!" - -"How the devil do you know?" cried Raffles, off his own guard now, and -staring in my guilty face. - -But I have never denied that I could emulate his presence of mind -upon occasion. - -"You forget what a lot we saw of each other last Thursday in the rain." - -"Did she talk about me then?" - -"A little." - -"Had she her knife in me, Bunny?" - -"Well--yes--a little!" - -Raffles smiled stoically: it was a smile of duty done and odds -well damned. - -"Up to the hilt, Bunny, up to the hilt is what you mean. I stuck it in -for her. It's easily done, and it needed doing, for my sake if not for -hers. Sooner or later I should have choked her off, so the sooner the -better. You play them false, you cut a dance, you let them down over -something that doesn't matter, and they'll never give you a dog's chance -over anything that does! I got her to write and never answered. What do -you think of that for a cavalier swine? I said I'd call before I went -abroad, and only wired to say sorry I couldn't. I don't say it would or -could have been all right otherwise; but you see it was all right for -Teddy before I got back! Which was as it was to be. She would hardly look -at me at first last week; but, Bunny, she wasn't above looking when that -old Shylock was playing at giving me away before them all. She looked at -him, and she looked at me, and I've got one of the looks she gave him, -and another that she never meant me to see, bottled in my blackguard -heart forever!" - -Raffles looked dim to me across the narrow compartment; but there was -no nonsense in his look or voice. I longed to tell him all I knew, all -that she had said to me and he had unwittingly interpreted; that she -loved him, as now at last I knew she did; but I had given her my word, -and after all it was a word to keep for both their sakes as well as -for its own. - -"You were made for each other, you two!" - -That was all I said, and Raffles only laughed. - -"All the more reason to hook it round the world, Bunny, before there's a -dog's chance of our meeting again." - -He opened his paper the proper way up at last. The train rushed on with -flying sparks, and flying lights along the line. We were getting nearer -Dover now. My next brilliant remark was that I could "smell the sea." -Raffles let it pass; he had been talking of the close-of-play scores in -the stop-press column, and I thought he was studying them rather -silently. Or perhaps he was not studying them at all, but still thinking -of Camilla Belsize, and the look from those brave bright eyes that she -had never meant him to see. Then, suddenly, I perceived that his forehead -was glistening white and wet in the lamplight. - -"What is it, Raffles? What's the matter?" - -He reversed his paper with a shaky hand, and thrust it upon me without a -word, merely pointing out four or five ill-printed lines of latest news. -This was the item that danced before my eyes: - -TRAGIC DEATH OF FAMOUS MONEYLENDER - -Mr. Daniel Levy, the financier, reported shot dead at front gates of his -residence in Thames Valley at 5.30 this afternoon, by unknown man who -made good his escape. - -I looked up into a ghastly face. - -"It was half-past five when I left him, Bunny!" - -"You left him--" - -I could not ask it. But the ghastly face had given me a ghastlier -thought. - -"As well as you are, Bunny!" so Raffles completed my sentence. "Do you -think I'd leave him for dead at his own gates?" - -Of course I denied the thought; but it had come to haunt me none the -less; for if I had sailed so near such a deed, what about Raffles under -equal provocation? And what such motive for the very flight that we were -making with but a moment's preparation? It all fitted in, except the face -and voice of Raffles as they had been while he was speaking of Camilla -Belsize; but again, the fatal act would indeed have made him feel that he -had lost her, and loosened his tongue upon his loss as something had done -without doubt; and as for voice and face, there was no longer in either -any lack of the mad excitement of the hunted man. - -"But what were you doing at his gates, A.J.?" - -"I saw him home. It was on my way. Why not?" - -"And you say you left him at half-past five?" - -"I swear it. I looked at my watch, thinking of my train, and my watch is -plumb right." - -"And you heard no shot as you went on?" - -"No--I was hurrying. I even ran. I must have been seen running! And now -I'm like Charley's Aunt," he went on with his sardonic laugh, "and bound -to stick to it until they catch me by the leg. Now you know what -Mackenzie was doing down there! The old hound may be on my track already. -There's no going back now." - -"Not for an innocent man?" - -"Not for such dubious innocence as mine, Bunny! Remember all we've been -up to with poor old Levy for the last twenty-four hours." - -He paused, remembering everything himself, as I could see; and the human -compassion in his face should have been sufficient answer to my vile -misgivings. But there was contrition in his look as well, and that was a -much rarer sign in Raffles. Rarer still was a glance of alarm almost akin -to panic, alike without precedent in my experience of my friend and -beyond belief in my reading of his character. But through all there -peeped a conscious enjoyment of these new sensations, a very zest in the -novelty of fear, which I knew to be at once signally characteristic, and -yet compatible either with his story or with my own base dread. - -"Nobody need ever know about that," said I, with the certainty that -nobody ever would know through the one other who knew already. But -Raffles threw cold water upon that poor little flicker of confidence and -good hope. - -"It's bound to come out, Bunny. They'll start accounting for his last -hours on earth, and they'll stick ominously in the first five minutes -working backwards. Then I am described as bolting from the scene, then -identified with myself, then found to have fled the country! Then -Carlsbad, then our first row with him, then yesterday's big cheque; my -heavy double finds he was impersonated at the bank; it all comes out bit -by bit, and if I'm caught it means that dingy Old Bailey dock on the -capital charge!" - -"Then I'll be with you," said I, "as accessory before and after the fact. -That's one thing!" - -"No, no, Bunny! You must shake me off and get back to town. I'll push -you out as we slow down through the streets of Dover, and you can put -up for the night at the Lord Warden. That's the sort of public place -for the likes of us to lie low in, Bunny. Don't forget all my rules -when I'm gone." - -"You're not going without me, A.J." - -"Not even if I did it, Bunny?" - -"No; less than ever then!" - -Raffles leant across and took my hand. There was a flash of mischief in -his eyes, but a very tender light as well. - -"It makes me almost wish I were what I do believe you thought I was," -said he, "to see you stick to me all the same! But it's about time that -we were making the lights of Dover," he added, beating an abrupt retreat -from sentiment, even to the length of getting up and looking out as we -clattered through a country station. His head was in again before the -platform was left behind, a pale face peering into mine, real panic -flaring in those altered eyes, like blue lights at sea. "My God, Bunny!" -cried Raffles. "I believe Dover's as far as I shall ever get!" - -"Why? What's the matter now?" - -"A head sticking out of the next compartment but one!" - -"Mackenzie's?" - -"Yes!" - -I had seen it in his face. - -"After us already?" - -"God knows! Not necessarily; they watch the ports after a big murder." - -"Swagger detectives from Scotland Yard?" - -Raffles did not answer; he had something else to do. Already he was -turning his pockets inside out. A false beard rolled off the seat. - -"That's for you," he said as I picked it up. "I'll finish making you up." -He was busy on himself in one of the oblong mirrors, kneeling on the -cushions to be near his work. "If it's a scent at all it must be a pretty -hot one, Bunny, to have landed him in the very train and coach! But it -mayn't be as bad as it looked at first sight. He can't have much to go -upon yet. If he's only going to shadow us while they find out more at -home, we shall give him the slip all right." - -"Do you think he saw you?" - -"Looking out? No, thank goodness, he was looking toward Dover too." - -"But before we started?" - -"No, Bunny, I don't believe he came aboard before Cannon Street. I -remember hearing a bit of a fuss there. But our blinds were down, -thank God!" - -They were all down now, but by our decreasing speed I felt that we were -already gliding over level crossings to the admiration of belated -townsfolk waiting at the gates. Raffles turned from his mirror, and I -from mine, simultaneously; and even to my initiated eye it was not -Raffles at all, but another noble scamp who even in those days before the -war was the observed of all observers about town. - -"It's ever so much better than anonymous disguises," said Raffles, as he -went to work upon me with his pocket make-up box and his lightning -touch. "I was always rather like him, and I tried him on yesterday with -such success at the bank that I certainly can't do better to-night. As -for you, Bunny, if you slouch your hat and stick your beard in your bread -basket, you ought to pass for a poor relation or a disreputable dun. But -here we are, my lad, and now for Meester Mackenzie o' Scoteland Yarrd!" - -The gaunt detective was in fact the first person we beheld upon the pier -platform; raw-boned, stiff-jointed, and more than middle-aged, he must -nevertheless have jumped out once again before the train stopped, and -that almost on top of a diminutive telegraph boy, who was waiting while -the old hound read his telegram with one eye and watched emerging -passengers with both. Whether we should have passed him unobserved I -cannot say. We could but have tried; but Raffles preferred to grasp the -nettle and salute Mackenzie with a pleasant nod. - -"Good evening, my lord!" says the Scotchman with a canny smirk. - -"I can guess why you're down here," says Raffles, actually producing a -palpable Sullivan under the nose of the law. - -"Is that a fact?" inquires the other, oiling the rebuff with -deferential grin. - -"And I mustn't stand between you and poor Dan Levy's murderer," adds -my lord, nodding finally, when Mackenzie steps after him to my -horror. But it is only to show Raffles his telegram. And he does not -follow us on board. - -Neither did our disguises accompany our countenances across the Channel. -It was at dead of night on the upper deck (whence all but us had fled) -that Raffles showed me how to doff my beard and still look as though I -had merely buttoned it inside my overcoat; meanwhile his own moustachios -and imperial were disappearing by discreet degrees; and at last he told -me why, though not by any means without pressing. - -"I'm only afraid you'll want to turn straight back from Calais, Bunny!" - -"Oh, no, I shan't." - -"You'll come with me round the world, so to speak?" - -"To its uttermost ends, A. J.!" - -"You do know now who it really is that I don't want to see again -just yet?" - -"Yes. I know. Now tell me what Mackenzie told you." - -"It was all in the wire he showed me," said Raffles. "The wire was to say -that the murderer of Dan Levy had given himself up to the police!" - -Profane expletives flew from my lips; those of much holier men might -have been no less unguardedly emphatic in the self-same circumstances. - -"But who was it?" - -"I could have told you all along if you hadn't suspected me." - -"It wasn't a suspicion, Raffles. It was never more than a dread, and I -didn't even dread it in my heart of hearts. Do tell me now." - -Raffles watched the red end of a ruined Sullivan make a fine trajectory -as it flew to leeward between sea and stars. - -"It was that poor unlucky little alien who was waiting for him the other -morning in Jermyn Street, and again last night near his own garden gate. -That's where he got him in the end. But it wasn't a shooting case at all, -Bunny; that's why I never heard anything. It was a case of stabbing in -accordance with the best traditions of the Latin races." - -"God forgive both poor devils!" said I at last. - -"And other two," said Raffles, "who have rather more to be forgiven." - - - - -CHAPTER XIX - -Apologia - - -On one of the worst days of last year, to wit the first day of the Eton -and Harrow match, I had turned into the Hamman, in Jermyn Street, as the -best available asylum for wet boots that might no longer enter any club. -Mine had been removed by a little pinchbeck oriental in the outer courts, -and I wandered within unpleasantly conscious of a hole in one sock, to -find myself by no means the only obvious refugee from the rain. The bath -was in fact inconveniently crowded. But at length I found a divan to suit -me in an upstairs alcove. I had the choice indeed of more than one; but -in spite of my antecedents I am fastidious about my cooling companions in -a Turkish bath, and it was by no accident that I hung my clothes opposite -to a newer morning coat and a pair of trousers more decisively creased -than my own. - -But the coincidence in pickle was no less remarkable. In ensuing stages -of physical devastation one had dim glimpses of a not unfamiliar, -reddish countenance; but with the increment of years it has been my lot -to contract short sight as well as incipient obesity, and in the hot -rooms my glasses lose their grip upon my nose. So it was not until I lay -swathed upon my divan that I recognised E.M. Garland in the fine -fresh-faced owner of the nice clothes opposite mine. A tawny moustache -rather spoilt him as Phoebus, and there was a hint of old gold about the -shaven jaw and chin; but I never saw better looks of the unintellectual -order; and the amber eye was as clear as ever, the great strong -wicket-keeper's hand unexpectedly hearty, when recognition dawned on -Teddy in his turn. - -He spoke of Raffles without hesitation or reserve, and of me and my -Raffles writings as though there was nothing reprehensible in one or the -other, displaying indeed a flattering knowledge of those pious memorials. - -"But of course I take them with a grain of salt," said Teddy Garland; -"you don't make me believe you were either of you such desperate dogs -as all that. I can't see you climbing ropes or squirming through -scullery windows--even for the fun of the thing!" he added with -somewhat tardy tact. - -It is certainly rather hard to credit now. I felt that after all there -was something to be said for being too fat at forty, and that Teddy -Garland had said it excellently. - -"Now," he continued, "if only you would give us the row between Raffles -and Dan Levy, I mean the whole battle royal that A.J. fought and won for -me and my poor father, that would be something like! The world would see -the sort of chap he really was." - -"I am afraid it would have to see the sort of chaps we all were just -then," said I, as I still think with exemplary delicacy; but Teddy lay -silent and florid for some time. These athletes have their vanity. But -this one rose superior to his. - -"Manders," said he, leaving his divan and coming and sitting on the edge -of mine, "you have my free leave to give me and mine away to the four -winds, if you will tell the truth about that duel, and what Raffles did -for the lot of us!" - -"Perhaps he did more than you ever knew." - -"Put it all in." - -"It was a longer duel than you think. He once called it a guerilla duel." - -"Then make a book of it." - -"But I've written my last word about the old boy." - -"Then by George I've a good mind to write it myself!" - -This was an awful threat. Happily he lacked the materials, and so I told -him. "I haven't got them all myself," I added, only to be politely but -openly disbelieved. "I don't know where you were," said I, "all that -first day of the match, when it rained." - -Garland was beginning to smile when the surprise of my statement got home -and changed his face. - -"Do you mean to say A.J. never told you?" he cried, still incredulously. - -"No; he wouldn't give you away." - -"Not even to you--his pal?" - -"No. I was naturally curious on the point. But he refused to tell me." - -"What a chap!" murmured Teddy, with a tender enthusiasm that made me love -him. "What a friend for a fellow! Well, Manders, if you don't write all -this I certainly shall. So I may as well tell you where I was." - -"I must say it would interest me to know." - -My companion resumed his smile where he had left it off. "I wonder if you -would ever guess?" he speculated, looking down into my face. - -"I don't suppose I should." - -"No more do I; not in a month of Sundays; for I spent that day on the -very sofa I was on a minute ago!" - -I looked at the striped divan opposite. I looked at Teddy Garland -sitting on mine. His smile was a little wry with the remnant of his -bygone shame; he hurried on before I could find a word. - -"You remember that drug I had? Somnol I think it was. That was a risky -game to play with any head but one's own; still A. J. was right in -thinking I should have been worse without any sleep at all. I should," -said Teddy, "but I should have rolled up at Lord's! The beastly stuff put -me asleep all right, but it didn't keep me asleep long enough! I was -awake before four, heard you both talking in the next room, remembered -everything in a flash! But for that flash I should have dropped off again -in a minute; but if you remember all I had to remember, Manders, you -won't wonder that I lay madly awake all the rest of the night. My head -was rotten with sleep, but my heart was in such hell as I couldn't -describe to you if I tried." - -"I've been there," said I, briefly. - -"Well, then, you can imagine my frightful thoughts. Suicide was one; but -to get out of that came first, to get away without looking either of you -in the face in broad daylight. So I shammed sleep when Raffles looked in, -and when you both went out I dressed in five minutes and slunk out too. -I had no idea where I was going. I don't remember what brought me down -into this street. It may have been my debt to Dan Levy. All I remember is -finding myself opposite this place, my head splitting, and the sudden -idea that a bath might freshen me up and couldn't make me worse. I -remembered A.J. telling me he had once taken six wickets after one. So in -I came. I had my bath, and some tea and toast in the hot-rooms; we were -all to have a late breakfast together, if you recollect. I felt I should -be in plenty of time for that and Lord's--if only I hadn't boiled all the -cricket out of me. So I came up here and lay down there. But what I -hadn't boiled out was that beastly drug. It got back on me like a -boomerang. I closed my eyes for a minute--and it was well on in the -afternoon when I awoke!" - -Here Teddy interrupted himself to order whiskies and soda of a -metropolitan Bashi-Bazouk who happened to pass along the gallery; and to -go stumbling over to his pockets, in his swaddling towels, for cigarettes -and matches. And the rest of his discourse was less coherent. - -"Then I did feel it was a toss-up between my razor and a charge of shot! -I had no idea it was raining; if you look up at that coloured skylight, -you can't say if it's raining now. There's another sort of hatchway on -top of it. Then you hear that fountain tinkling all the time; you don't -hear any rain, do you?--It was after three, but I lay till nearly four -simply cursing my luck; there was no hurry then. At last I wondered what -the papers had to say about me--who was playing in my place, who'd won -the toss and all the rest of it. So I had the nerve to send out for one, -and what should I see? 'No play at Lord's'--and sudden illness of my poor -old father! You know the rest, Manders, because in less than twenty -minutes after that we met." - -"And I remember thinking how fit you looked," said I. "It was the -bath, of course, and the sleep on top of it. But I wonder they let you -sleep so long." - -"How could they know what I'd been up to?" said Teddy. "I mightn't have -had any sleep for a week; it was their business to let me be. But to -think of the rain coming on and saving me--for even Raffles couldn't have -done it without the rain. That was the great slice of luck--while I was -lying right there! And that's why I like to lie there still--for luck -rather than remembrance!" - -The drinks came; we smoked and sipped. I regretted to find that Teddy was -no longer faithful to the only old cigarette. But his loyalty to Raffles -won my heart as he had never won it in his youth. - -"Give us away to your heart's content," said he; "but give the dear old -devil his due at last." - -"But who exactly do you mean by 'us'?" - -"My father not so much, perhaps, because he's dead and gone; but self and -wife as much as ever you like." - -"Are you sure Mrs. Garland won't mind?" - -"Mind! It was for her he did it all; didn't you know that?" - -I didn't know Teddy knew it, and I began to think him a finer fellow than -I had supposed. - -"Am I to say all I know about that too?" I asked. - -"Rather! Camilla and I will both be delighted--so long as you change our -names--for we both loved him!" said Teddy Garland. - -I wonder if they both forgive me for taking him entirely at his word? - - - - - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Mr. Justice Raffles, by E. W. Hornung - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MR. 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