"A Queensland legislator of the name of Craggs--the Hon. John Montagu
Craggs, M.L.C., to give him his full title. Not that we knew anything
about him on Tuesday last; we didn't even know for certain that young
Debenham had stolen the picture. But he had gone down for money on the
Monday evening, had been refused, and it was plain enough that he had
helped himself in this way; he had threatened revenge, and this was it.
Indeed, when I hunted him up in town on the Tuesday night, he confessed
as much in the most brazen manner imaginable. But he wouldn't tell me
who was the purchaser, and finding out took the rest of the week; but I
did find out, and a nice time I've had of it ever since! Backwards and
forwards between Esher and the Métropole, where the Queenslander is
staying, sometimes twice a day; threats, offers, prayers, entreaties,
not one of them a bit of good!"
"But," said Raffles, "surely it's a clear case? The sale was illegal;
you can pay him back his money and force him to give the picture up."
"Exactly; but not without an action and a public scandal, and that my
client declines to face. He would rather lose even his picture than
have the whole thing get into the papers; he has disowned his son, but
he will not disgrace him; yet his picture he must have by hook or
crook, and there's the rub! I am to get it back by fair means or foul.
He gives me carte blanche in the matter, and, I verily believe, would
throw in a blank check if asked. He offered one to the Queenslander,
but Craggs simply tore it in two; the one old boy is as much a
character as the other, and between the two of them I'm at my wits'
end."
"So you put that advertisement in the paper?" said Raffles, in the dry
tones he had adopted throughout the interview.
"As a last resort. I did."
"And you wish us to STEAL this picture?"
It was magnificently said; the lawyer flushed from his hair to his
collar.
"I knew you were not the men!" he groaned. "I never thought of men of
your stamp! But it's not stealing," he exclaimed heatedly; "it's
recovering stolen property. Besides, Sir Bernard will pay him his five
thousand as soon as he has the picture; and, you'll see, old Craggs
will be just as loath to let it come out as Sir Bernard himself. No,
no--it's an enterprise, an adventure, if you like--but not stealing."
"You yourself mentioned the law," murmured Raffles.
"And the risk," I added.
"We pay for that," he said once more.
"But not enough," said Raffles, shaking his head. "My good sir,
consider what it means to us. You spoke of those clubs; we should not
only get kicked out of them, but put in prison like common burglars!
It's true we're hard up, but it simply isn't worth it at the price.
Double your stakes, and I for one am your man."
Addenbrooke wavered.
"Do you think you could bring it off?"
"We could try."
"But you have no--"
"Experience? Well, hardly!"
"And you would really run the risk for four thousand pounds?"
Raffles looked at me. I nodded.
"We would," said he, "and blow the odds!"
"It's more than I can ask my client to pay," said Addenbrooke, growing
firm.
"Then it's more than you can expect us to risk."
"You are in earnest?"
"God wot!"
"Say three thousand if you succeed!"
"Four is our figure, Mr. Addenbrooke."
"Then I think it should be nothing if you fail."
"Doubles or quits?" cried Raffles. "Well, that's sporting. Done!"
Addenbrooke opened his lips, half rose, then sat back in his chair, and
looked long and shrewdly at Raffles--never once at me.
"I know your bowling," said he reflectively. "I go up to Lord's
whenever I want an hour's real rest, and I've seen you bowl again and
again--yes, and take the best wickets in England on a plumb pitch. I
don't forget the last Gentleman and Players; I was there. You're up to
every trick--every one ... I'm inclined to think that if anybody could
bowl out this old Australian ... Damme, I believe you're my very man!"
The bargain was clinched at the Café Royal, where Bennett Addenbrooke
insisted on playing host at an extravagant luncheon. I remember that
he took his whack of champagne with the nervous freedom of a man at
high pressure, and have no doubt I kept him in countenance by an equal
indulgence; but Raffles, ever an exemplar in such matters, was more
abstemious even than his wont, and very poor company to boot. I can
see him now, his eyes in his plate--thinking--thinking. I can see the
solicitor glancing from him to me in an apprehension of which I did my
best to disabuse him by reassuring looks. At the close Raffles
apologized for his preoccupation, called for an A.B.C. time-table, and
announced his intention of catching the 3.2 to Esher.
"You must excuse me, Mr. Addenbrooke," said he, "but I have my own
idea, and for the moment I should much prefer to keep it to myself. It
may end in fizzle, so I would rather not speak about it to either of
you just yet. But speak to Sir Bernard I must, so will you write me
one line to him on your card? Of course, if you wish, you must come
down with me and hear what I say; but I really don't see much point in
it."
And as usual Raffles had his way, though Bennett Addenbrooke showed
some temper when he was gone, and I myself shared his annoyance to no
small extent. I could only tell him that it was in the nature of
Raffles to be self-willed and secretive, but that no man of my
acquaintance had half his audacity and determination; that I for my
part would trust him through and through, and let him gang his own gait
every time. More I dared not say, even to remove those chill
misgivings with which I knew that the lawyer went his way.
That day I saw no more of Raffles, but a telegram reached me when I was
dressing for dinner:
"Be in your rooms to-morrow from noon and keep rest of day clear,
Raffles."
It had been sent off from Waterloo at 6.42.
So Raffles was back in town; at an earlier stage of our relations I
should have hunted him up then and there, but now I knew better. His
telegram meant that he had no desire for my society that night or the
following forenoon; that when he wanted me I should see him soon enough.
And see him I did, towards one o'clock next day. I was watching for him
from my window in Mount Street, when he drove up furiously in a hansom,
and jumped out without a word to the man. I met him next minute at the
lift gates, and he fairly pushed me back into my rooms.
"Five minutes, Bunny!" he cried. "Not a moment more."
And he tore off his coat before flinging himself into the nearest chair.
"I'm fairly on the rush," he panted; "having the very devil of a time!
Not a word till I tell you all I've done. I settled my plan of
campaign yesterday at lunch. The first thing was to get in with this
man Craggs; you can't break into a place like the Métropole, it's got
to be done from the inside. Problem one, how to get at the fellow.
Only one sort of pretext would do--it must be something to do with this
blessed picture, so that I might see where he'd got it and all that.
Well, I couldn't go and ask to see it out of curiosity, and I couldn't
go as a second representative of the other old chap, and it was
thinking how I could go that made me such a bear at lunch. But I saw
my way before we got up. If I could only lay hold of a copy of the
picture I might ask leave to go and compare it with the original. So
down I went to Esher to find out if there was a copy in existence, and
was at Broom Hall for one hour and a half yesterday afternoon. There
was no copy there, but they must exist, for Sir Bernard himself
(there's 'copy' THERE!) has allowed a couple to be made since the
picture has been in his possession. He hunted up the painters'
addresses, and the rest of the evening I spent in hunting up the
painters themselves; but their work had been done on commission; one
copy had gone out of the country, and I'm still on the track of the
other."
"Then you haven't seen Craggs yet?"
"Seen him and made friends with him, and if possible he's the funnier
old cuss of the two; but you should study 'em both. I took the bull by
the horns this morning, went in and lied like Ananias, and it was just
as well I did--the old ruffian sails for Australia by to-morrow's boat.
I told him a man wanted to sell me a copy of the celebrated Infanta
Maria Teresa of Velasquez, that I'd been down to the supposed owner of
the picture, only to find that he had just sold it to him. You should
have seen his face when I told him that! He grinned all round his
wicked old head. 'Did OLD Debenham admit the sale?' says he; and when
I said he had he chuckled to himself for about five minutes. He was so
pleased that he did just what I hoped he would do; he showed me the
great picture--luckily it isn't by any means a large one--also the case
he's got it in. It's an iron map-case in which he brought over the
plans of his land in Brisbane; he wants to know who would suspect it of
containing an Old Master, too? But he's had it fitted with a new
Chubb's lock, and I managed to take an interest in the key while he was
gloating over the canvas. I had the wax in the palm of my hand, and I
shall make my duplicate this afternoon."
Raffles looked at his watch and jumped up saying he had given me a
minute too much.
"By the way," he added, "you've got to dine with him at the Métropole
to-night!"
"I?"
"Yes; don't look so scared. Both of us are invited--I swore you were
dining with me. I accepted for us both; but I sha'n't be there."
His clear eye was upon me, bright with meaning and with mischief.
I implored him to tell me what his meaning was.
"You will dine in his private sitting-room," said Raffles; "it adjoins
his bedroom. You must keep him sitting as long as possible, Bunny, and
talking all the time!"
In a flash I saw his plan.
"You're going for the picture while we're at dinner?"
"I am."
"If he hears you?"
"He sha'n't."
"But if he does!"
And I fairly trembled at the thought.
"If he does," said Raffles, "there will be a collision, that's all.
Revolver would be out of place in the Métropole, but I shall certainly
take a life-preserver."
"But it's ghastly!" I cried. "To sit and talk to an utter stranger and
to know that you're at work in the next room!"
"Two thousand apiece," said Raffles, quietly.
"Upon my soul I believe I shall give it away!"
"Not you, Bunny. I know you better than you know yourself."
He put on his coat and his hat.
"What time have I to be there?" I asked him, with a groan.
"Quarter to eight. There will be a telegram from me saying I can't
turn up. He's a terror to talk, you'll have no difficulty in keeping
the ball rolling; but head him off his picture for all you're worth.
If he offers to show it to you, say you must go. He locked up the case
elaborately this afternoon, and there's no earthly reason why he should
unlock it again in this hemisphere."
"Where shall I find you when I get away?"
"I shall be down at Esher. I hope to catch the 9.55."
"But surely I can see you again this afternoon?" I cried in a ferment,
for his hand was on the door. "I'm not half coached up yet! I know I
shall make a mess of it!"
"Not you," he said again, "but _I_ shall if I waste any more time.
I've got a deuce of a lot of rushing about to do yet. You won't find
me at my rooms. Why not come down to Esher yourself by the last train?
That's it--down you come with the latest news! I'll tell old Debenham
to expect you: he shall give us both a bed. By Jove! he won't be able
to do us too well if he's got his picture."
"If!" I groaned as he nodded his adieu; and he left me limp with
apprehension, sick with fear, in a perfectly pitiable condition of pure
stage-fright.
For, after all, I had only to act my part; unless Raffles failed where
he never did fail, unless Raffles the neat and noiseless was for once
clumsy and inept, all I had to do was indeed to "smile and smile and be
a villain." I practiced that smile half the afternoon. I rehearsed
putative parts in hypothetical conversations. I got up stories. I
dipped in a book on Queensland at the club. And at last it was 7.45,
and I was making my bow to a somewhat elderly man with a small bald
head and a retreating brow.
"So you're Mr. Raffles's friend?" said he, overhauling me rather rudely
with his light small eyes. "Seen anything of him? Expected him early
to show me something, but he's never come."
No more, evidently, had his telegram, and my troubles were beginning
early. I said I had not seen Raffles since one o'clock, telling the
truth with unction while I could; even as we spoke there came a knock
at the door; it was the telegram at last, and, after reading it
himself, the Queenslander handed it to me.
"Called out of town!" he grumbled. "Sudden illness of near relative!
What near relatives has he got?"
I knew of none, and for an instant I quailed before the perils of
invention; then I replied that I had never met any of his people, and
again felt fortified by my veracity.
"Thought you were bosom pals?" said he, with (as I imagined) a gleam of
suspicion in his crafty little eyes.
"Only in town," said I. "I've never been to his place."
"Well," he growled, "I suppose it can't be helped. Don't know why he
couldn't come and have his dinner first. Like to see the death-bed I'D
go to without MY dinner; it's a full-skin billet, if you ask me. Well,
must just dine without him, and he'll have to buy his pig in a poke
after all. Mind touching that bell? Suppose you know what he came to
see me about? Sorry I sha'n't see him again, for his own sake. I
liked Raffles--took to him amazingly. He's a cynic. Like cynics. One
myself. Rank bad form of his mother or his aunt, and I hope she will
go and kick the bucket."
I connect these specimens of his conversation, though they were
doubtless detached at the time, and interspersed with remarks of mine
here and there. They filled the interval until dinner was served, and
they gave me an impression of the man which his every subsequent
utterance confirmed. It was an impression which did away with all
remorse for my treacherous presence at his table. He was that terrible
type, the Silly Cynic, his aim a caustic commentary on all things and
all men, his achievement mere vulgar irreverence and unintelligent
scorn. Ill-bred and ill-informed, he had (on his own showing) fluked
into fortune on a rise in land; yet cunning he possessed, as well as
malice, and he chuckled till he choked over the misfortunes of less
astute speculators in the same boom. Even now I cannot feel much
compunction for my behavior by the Hon. J. M. Craggs, M.L.C.
But never shall I forget the private agonies of the situation, the
listening to my host with one ear and for Raffles with the other! Once
I heard him--though the rooms were not divided by the old-fashioned
folding-doors, and though the door that did divide them was not only
shut but richly curtained, I could have sworn I heard him once. I
spilt my wine and laughed at the top of my voice at some coarse sally
of my host's. And I heard nothing more, though my ears were on the
strain. But later, to my horror, when the waiter had finally withdrawn,
Craggs himself sprang up and rushed to his bedroom without a word. I
sat like stone till he returned.
"Thought I heard a door go," he said. "Must have been mistaken ...
imagination ... gave me quite a turn. Raffles tell you priceless
treasure I got in there?"
It was the picture at last; up to this point I had kept him to
Queensland and the making of his pile. I tried to get him back there
now, but in vain. He was reminded of his great ill-gotten possession.
I said that Raffles had just mentioned it, and that set him off. With
the confidential garrulity of a man who has dined too well, he plunged
into his darling topic, and I looked past him at the clock. It was
only a quarter to ten.
In common decency I could not go yet. So there I sat (we were still at
port) and learnt what had originally fired my host's ambition to
possess what he was pleased to call a "real, genuine, twin-screw,
double-funnelled, copper-bottomed Old Master"; it was to "go one
better" than some rival legislator of pictorial proclivities. But even
an epitome of his monologue would be so much weariness; suffice it that
it ended inevitably in the invitation I had dreaded all the evening.
"But you must see it. Next room. This way."
"Isn't it packed up?" I inquired hastily.
"Lock and key. That's all."
"Pray don't trouble," I urged.
"Trouble be hanged!" said he. "Come along."
And all at once I saw that to resist him further would be to heap
suspicion upon myself against the moment of impending discovery. I
therefore followed him into his bedroom without further protest, and
suffered him first to show me the iron map-case which stood in one
corner; he took a crafty pride in this receptacle, and I thought he
would never cease descanting on its innocent appearance and its Chubb's
lock. It seemed an interminable age before the key was in the latter.
Then the ward clicked, and my pulse stood still.
"By Jove!" I cried next instant.
The canvas was in its place among the maps!
"Thought it would knock you," said Craggs, drawing it out and unrolling
it for my benefit. "Grand thing, ain't it? Wouldn't think it had been
painted two hundred and thirty years? It has, though, MY word! Old
Johnson's face will be a treat when he sees it; won't go bragging about
HIS pictures much more. Why, this one's worth all the pictures in
Colony o' Queensland put together. Worth fifty thousand pounds, my
boy--and I got it for five!"
He dug me in the ribs, and seemed in the mood for further confidences.
My appearance checked him, and he rubbed his hands.
"If you take it like that," he chuckled, "how will old Johnson take it?
Go out and hang himself to his own picture-rods, I hope!"
Heaven knows what I contrived to say at last. Struck speechless first
by my relief, I continued silent from a very different cause. A new
tangle of emotions tied my tongue. Raffles had failed--Raffles had
failed! Could I not succeed? Was it too late? Was there no way?
"So long," he said, taking a last look at the canvas before he rolled
it up--"so long till we get to Brisbane."
The flutter I was in as he closed the case!
"For the last time," he went on, as his keys jingled back into his
pocket. "It goes straight into the strong-room on board."
For the last time! If I could but send him out to Australia with only
its legitimate contents in his precious map-case! If I could but
succeed where Raffles had failed!
We returned to the other room. I have no notion how long he talked, or
what about. Whiskey and soda-water became the order of the hour. I
scarcely touched it, but he drank copiously, and before eleven I left
him incoherent. And the last train for Esher was the 11.50 out of
Waterloo.
I took a hansom to my rooms. I was back at the hotel in thirteen
minutes. I walked upstairs. The corridor was empty; I stood an instant
on the sitting-room threshold, heard a snore within, and admitted
myself softly with my gentleman's own key, which it had been a very
simple matter to take away with me.
Craggs never moved; he was stretched on the sofa fast asleep. But not
fast enough for me. I saturated my handkerchief with the chloroform I
had brought, and laid it gently over his mouth. Two or three stertorous
breaths, and the man was a log.