"Say what you like, my dear fellow, if it really isn't you and I that
Mackenzie's after."
"Well, then, it isn't, and it couldn't be, and nobody but a born Bunny
would suppose for a moment that it was! Do you seriously think he
would sit there and knowingly watch his man playing pool under his
nose? Well, he might; he's a cool hand, Mackenzie; but I'm not cool
enough to win a pool under such conditions. At least I don't think I
am; it would be interesting to see. The situation wasn't free from
strain as it was, though I knew he wasn't thinking of us. Crowley told
me all about it after dinner, you see, and then I'd seen one of the men
for myself this afternoon. You thought it was a detective who made me
turn tail at that inn. I really don't know why I didn't tell you at
the time, but it was just the opposite. That loud, red-faced brute is
one of the cleverest thieves in London, and I once had a drink with him
and our mutual fence. I was an Eastender from tongue to toe at the
moment, but you will understand that I don't run unnecessary risks of
recognition by a brute like that."
"He's not alone, I hear."
"By no means; there's at least one other man with him; and it's
suggested that there may be an accomplice here in the house."
"Did Lord Crowley tell you so?"
"Crowley and the champagne between them. In confidence, of course,
just as your girl told you; but even in confidence he never let on
about Mackenzie. He told me there was a detective in the background,
but that was all. Putting him up as a guest is evidently their big
secret, to be kept from the other guests because it might offend them,
but more particularly from the servants whom he's here to watch.
That's my reading of the situation, Bunny, and you will agree with me
that it's infinitely more interesting than we could have imagined it
would prove."
"But infinitely more difficult for us," said I, with a sigh of
pusillanimous relief. "Our hands are tied for this week, at all
events."
"Not necessarily, my dear Bunny, though I admit that the chances are
against us. Yet I'm not so sure of that either. There are all sorts
of possibilities in these three-cornered combinations. Set A to watch
B, and he won't have an eye left for C. That's the obvious theory, but
then Mackenzie's a very big A. I should be sorry to have any boodle
about me with that man in the house. Yet it would be great to nip in
between A and B and score off them both at once! It would be worth a
risk, Bunny, to do that; it would be worth risking something merely to
take on old hands like B and his men at their own old game! Eh, Bunny?
That would be something like a match. Gentlemen and Players at single
wicket, by Jove!"
His eyes were brighter than I had known them for many a day. They
shone with the perverted enthusiasm which was roused in him only by the
contemplation of some new audacity. He kicked off his shoes and began
pacing his room with noiseless rapidity; not since the night of the Old
Bohemian dinner to Reuben Rosenthall had Raffles exhibited such
excitement in my presence; and I was not sorry at the moment to be
reminded of the fiasco to which that banquet had been the prelude.
"My dear A. J.," said I in his very own tone, "you're far too fond of
the uphill game; you will eventually fall a victim to the sporting
spirit and nothing else. Take a lesson from our last escape, and fly
lower as you value our skins. Study the house as much as you like, but
do--not--go and shove your head into Mackenzie's mouth!"
My wealth of metaphor brought him to a stand-still, with his cigarette
between his fingers and a grin beneath his shining eyes.
"You're quite right, Bunny. I won't. I really won't. Yet--you saw
old Lady Melrose's necklace? I've been wanting it for years! But I'm
not going to play the fool; honor bright, I'm not; yet--by Jove!--to
get to windward of the professors and Mackenzie too! It would be a
great game, Bunny, it would be a great game!"
"Well, you mustn't play it this week."
"No, no, I won't. But I wonder how the professors think of going to
work? That's what one wants to know. I wonder if they've really got
an accomplice in the house? How I wish I knew their game! But it's
all right, Bunny; don't you be jealous; it shall be as you wish."
And with that assurance I went off to my own room, and so to bed with
an incredibly light heart. I had still enough of the honest man in me
to welcome the postponement of our actual felonies, to dread their
performance, to deplore their necessity: which is merely another way of
stating the too patent fact that I was an incomparably weaker man than
Raffles, while every whit as wicked. I had, however, one rather strong
point. I possessed the gift of dismissing unpleasant considerations,
not intimately connected with the passing moment, entirely from my mind.
Through the exercise of this faculty I had lately been living my
frivolous life in town with as much ignoble enjoyment as I had derived
from it the year before; and similarly, here at Milchester, in the
long-dreaded cricket-week, I had after all a quite excellent time.
It is true that there were other factors in this pleasing
disappointment. In the first place, mirabile dictu, there were one or
two even greater duffers than I on the Abbey cricket-field. Indeed,
quite early in the week, when it was of most value to me, I gained
considerable kudos for a lucky catch; a ball, of which I had merely
heard the hum, stuck fast in my hand, which Lord Amersteth himself
grasped in public congratulation. This happy accident was not to be
undone even by me, and, as nothing succeeds like success, and the
constant encouragement of the one great cricketer on the field was in
itself an immense stimulus, I actually made a run or two in my very
next innings. Miss Melhuish said pretty things to me that night at the
great ball in honor of Viscount Crowley's majority; she also told me
that was the night on which the robbers would assuredly make their
raid, and was full of arch tremors when we sat out in the garden,
though the entire premises were illuminated all night long. Meanwhile
the quiet Scotchman took countless photographs by day, which he
developed by night in a dark room admirably situated in the servants'
part of the house; and it is my firm belief that only two of his
fellow-guests knew Mr. Clephane of Dundee for Inspector Mackenzie of
Scotland Yard.
The week was to end with a trumpery match on the Saturday, which two or
three of us intended abandoning early in order to return to town that
night. The match, however, was never played. In the small hours of
the Saturday morning a tragedy took place at Milchester Abbey.
Let me tell of the thing as I saw and heard it. My room opened upon
the central gallery, and was not even on the same floor as that on
which Raffles--and I think all the other men--were quartered. I had
been put, in fact, into the dressing-room of one of the grand suites,
and my too near neighbors were old Lady Melrose and my host and
hostess. Now, by the Friday evening the actual festivities were at an
end, and, for the first time that week, I must have been sound asleep
since midnight, when all at once I found myself sitting up breathless.
A heavy thud had come against my door, and now I heard hard breathing
and the dull stamp of muffled feet.
"I've got ye," muttered a voice. "It's no use struggling."
It was the Scotch detective, and a new fear turned me cold. There was
no reply, but the hard breathing grew harder still, and the muffled
feet beat the floor to a quicker measure. In sudden panic I sprang out
of bed and flung open my door. A light burnt low on the landing, and by
it I could see Mackenzie swaying and staggering in a silent tussle with
some powerful adversary.
"Hold this man!" he cried, as I appeared. "Hold the rascal!"
But I stood like a fool until the pair of them backed into me, when,
with a deep breath I flung myself on the fellow, whose face I had seen
at last. He was one of the footmen who waited at table; and no sooner
had I pinned him than the detective loosed his hold.
"Hang on to him," he cried. "There's more of 'em below."
And he went leaping down the stairs, as other doors opened and Lord
Amersteth and his son appeared simultaneously in their pyjamas. At
that my man ceased struggling; but I was still holding him when Crowley
turned up the gas.
"What the devil's all this?" asked Lord Amersteth, blinking. "Who was
that ran downstairs?"
"Mac--Clephane!" said I hastily.
"Aha!" said he, turning to the footman. "So you're the scoundrel, are
you? Well done! Well done! Where was he caught?"