"Do you think he's on Crawshay's track?"
"I don't know. I'll find out."
And before I could remonstrate he had wheeled me round; when I found my
voice he merely laughed, and whispered that the bold course was the
safe one every time.
"But it's madness--"
"Not it. Shut up! Is that YOU, Mr. Mackenzie?"
The detective turned about and scrutinized us keenly; and through the
gaslit mist I noticed that his hair was grizzled at the temples, and
his face still cadaverous, from the wound that had nearly been his
death.
"Ye have the advantage o' me, sirs," said he.
"I hope you're fit again," said my companion. "My name is Raffles, and
we met at Milchester last year."
"Is that a fact?" cried the Scotchman, with quite a start. "Yes, now I
remember your face, and yours too, sir. Ay, yon was a bad business,
but it ended vera well, an' that's the main thing."
His native caution had returned to him. Raffles pinched my arm.
"Yes, it ended splendidly, but for you," said he. "But what about this
escape of the leader of the gang, that fellow Crawshay? What do you
think of that, eh?"
"I havena the parteeculars," replied the Scot.
"Good!" cried Raffles. "I was only afraid you might be on his tracks
once more!"
Mackenzie shook his head with a dry smile, and wished us good evening
as an invisible window was thrown up, and a whistle blown softly
through the fog.
"We must see this out," whispered Raffles. "Nothing more natural than a
little curiosity on our part. After him, quick!"
And we followed the detective into another entrance on the same side as
that from which we had emerged, the left-hand side on one's way to
Piccadilly; quite openly we followed him, and at the foot of the stairs
met one of the porters of the place. Raffles asked him what was wrong.
"Nothing, sir," said the fellow glibly.
"Rot!" said Raffles. "That was Mackenzie, the detective. I've just
been speaking to him. What's he here for? Come on, my good fellow; we
won't give you away, if you've instructions not to tell."
The man looked quaintly wistful, the temptation of an audience hot upon
him; a door shut upstairs, and he fell.
"It's like this," he whispered. "This afternoon a gen'leman comes
arfter rooms, and I sent him to the orfice; one of the clurks, 'e goes
round with 'im an' shows 'im the empties, an' the gen'leman's partic'ly
struck on the set the coppers is up in now. So he sends the clurk to
fetch the manager, as there was one or two things he wished to speak
about; an' when they come back, blowed if the gent isn't gone! Beg yer
pardon, sir, but he's clean disappeared off the face o' the premises!"
And the porter looked at us with shining eyes.
"Well?" said Raffles.
"Well, sir, they looked about, an' looked about, an' at larst they give
him up for a bad job; thought he'd changed his mind an' didn't want to
tip the clurk; so they shut up the place an' come away. An' that's all
till about 'alf an hour ago, when I takes the manager his extry-speshul
Star; in about ten minutes he comes running out with a note, an' sends
me with it to Scotland Yard in a hansom. An' that's all I know,
sir--straight. The coppers is up there now, and the tec, and the
manager, and they think their gent is about the place somewhere still.
Least, I reckon that's their idea; but who he is, or what they want him
for, I dunno."
"Jolly interesting!" said Raffles. "I'm going up to inquire. Come on,
Bunny; there should be some fun."
"Beg yer pardon, Mr. Raffles, but you won't say nothing about me?"
"Not I; you're a good fellow. I won't forget it if this leads to
sport. Sport!" he whispered as we reached the landing. "It looks like
precious poor sport for you and me, Bunny!"
"What are you going to do?"
"I don't know. There's no time to think. This, to start with."
And he thundered on the shut door; a policeman opened it. Raffles
strode past him with the air of a chief commissioner, and I followed
before the man had recovered from his astonishment. The bare boards
rang under us; in the bedroom we found a knot of officers stooping over
the window-ledge with a constable's lantern. Mackenzie was the first
to stand upright, and he greeted us with a glare.
"May I ask what you gentlemen want?" said he.
"We want to lend a hand," said Raffles briskly. "We lent one once
before, and it was my friend here who took over from you the fellow who
split on all the rest, and held him tightly. Surely that entitles him,
at all events, to see any fun that's going? As for myself, well, it's
true I only helped to carry you to the house; but for old acquaintance
I do hope, my dear Mr. Mackenzie, that you will permit us to share such
sport as there may be. I myself can only stop a few minutes, in any
case."
"Then ye'll not see much," growled the detective, "for he's not up
here. Constable, go you and stand at the foot o' the stairs, and let
no other body come up on any conseederation; these gentlemen may be
able to help us after all."
"That's kind of you, Mackenzie!" cried Raffles warmly. "But what is it
all? I questioned a porter I met coming down, but could get nothing
out of him, except that somebody had been to see these rooms and not
since been seen himself."
"He's a man we want," said Mackenzie. "He's concealed himself
somewhere about these premises, or I'm vera much mistaken. D'ye reside
in the Albany, Mr. Raffles?"
"I do."
"Will your rooms be near these?"
"On the next staircase but one."
"Ye'll just have left them?"
"Just."
"Been in all the afternoon, likely?"
"Not all."
"Then I may have to search your rooms, sir. I am prepared to search
every room in the Albany! Our man seems to have gone for the leads;
but unless he's left more marks outside than in, or we find him up
there, I shall have the entire building to ransack."
"I will leave you my key," said Raffles at once. "I am dining out, but
I'll leave it with the officer down below."
I caught my breath in mute amazement. What was the meaning of this
insane promise? It was wilful, gratuitous, suicidal; it made me catch
at his sleeve in open horror and disgust; but, with a word of thanks,
Mackenzie had returned to his window-sill, and we sauntered unwatched
through the folding-doors into the adjoining room. Here the window
looked down into the courtyard; it was still open; and as we gazed out
in apparent idleness, Raffles reassured me.
"It's all right, Bunny; you do what I tell you and leave the rest to
me. It's a tight corner, but I don't despair. What you've got to do
is to stick to these chaps, especially if they search my rooms; they
mustn't poke about more than necessary, and they won't if you're there."
"But where will you be? You're never going to leave me to be landed
alone?"
"If I do, it will be to turn up trumps at the right moment. Besides,
there are such things as windows, and Crawshay's the man to take his
risks. You must trust me, Bunny; you've known me long enough."
"Are you going now?"
"There's no time to lose. Stick to them, old chap; don't let them
suspect YOU, whatever else you do." His hand lay an instant on my
shoulder; then he left me at the window, and recrossed the room.
"I've got to go now," I heard him say; "but my friend will stay and see
this through, and I'll leave the gas on in my rooms, and my key with
the constable downstairs. Good luck, Mackenzie; only wish I could
stay."
"Good-by, sir," came in a preoccupied voice, "and many thanks."
Mackenzie was still busy at his window, and I remained at mine, a prey
to mingled fear and wrath, for all my knowledge of Raffles and of his
infinite resource. By this time I felt that I knew more or less what
he would do in any given emergency; at least I could conjecture a
characteristic course of equal cunning and audacity. He would return
to his rooms, put Crawshay on his guard, and--stow him away? No--there
were such things as windows. Then why was Raffles going to desert us
all? I thought of many things--lastly of a cab. These bedroom windows
looked into a narrow side-street; they were not very high; from them a
man might drop on to the roof of a cab--even as it passed--and be
driven away even under the noses of the police! I pictured Raffles
driving that cab, unrecognizable in the foggy night; the vision came to
me as he passed under the window, tucking up the collar of his great
driving-coat on the way to his rooms; it was still with me when he
passed again on his way back, and stopped to hand the constable his key.
"We're on his track," said a voice behind me. "He's got up on the
leads, sure enough, though how he managed it from yon window is a
myst'ry to me. We're going to lock up here and try what like it is
from the attics. So you'd better come with us if you've a mind."
The top floor at the Albany, as elsewhere, is devoted to the
servants--a congeries of little kitchens and cubicles, used by many as
lumber-rooms--by Raffles among the many. The annex in this case was,
of course, empty as the rooms below; and that was lucky, for we filled
it, what with the manager, who now joined us, and another tenant whom
he brought with him to Mackenzie's undisguised annoyance.
"Better let in all Piccadilly at a crown a head," said he. "Here, my
man, out you go on the roof to make one less, and have your truncheon
handy."
We crowded to the little window, which Mackenzie took care to fill; and
a minute yielded no sound but the crunch and slither of constabulary
boots upon sooty slates. Then came a shout.
"What now?" cried Mackenzie.
"A rope," we heard, "hanging from the spout by a hook!"
"Sirs," purred Mackenzie, "yon's how he got up from below! He would do
it with one o' they telescope sticks, an' I never thocht o't! How long
a rope, my lad?"
"Quite short. I've got it."
"Did it hang over a window? Ask him that!" cried the manager. "He can
see by leaning over the parapet."