II

I do not ask to set foot aboard a finer steamship than the Uhlan of the

Norddeutscher Lloyd, to meet a kindlier gentleman than her commander,

or better fellows than his officers. This much at least let me have

the grace to admit. I hated the voyage. It was no fault of anybody

connected with the ship; it was no fault of the weather, which was

monotonously ideal. Not even in my own heart did the reason reside;

conscience and I were divorced at last, and the decree made absolute.

With my scruples had fled all fear, and I was ready to revel between

bright skies and sparkling sea with the light-hearted detachment of

Raffles himself. It was Raffles himself who prevented me, but not

Raffles alone. It was Raffles and that Colonial minx on her way home

from school.

What he could see in her--but that begs the question. Of course he saw

no more than I did, but to annoy me, or perhaps to punish me for my

long defection, he must turn his back on me and devote himself to this

chit from Southampton to the Mediterranean. They were always together.

It was too absurd. After breakfast they would begin, and go on until

eleven or twelve at night; there was no intervening hour at which you

might not hear her nasal laugh, or his quiet voice talking soft

nonsense into her ear. Of course it was nonsense! Is it conceivable

that a man like Raffles, with his knowledge of the world, and his

experience of women (a side of his character upon which I have

purposely never touched, for it deserves another volume); is it

credible, I ask, that such a man could find anything but nonsense to

talk by the day together to a giddy young schoolgirl? I would not be

unfair for the world. I think I have admitted that the young person

had points. Her eyes, I suppose, were really fine, and certainly

the shape of the little brown face was charming, so far as mere

contour can charm. I admit also more audacity than I cared about,

with enviable health, mettle, and vitality. I may not have occasion

to report any of this young lady's speeches (they would scarcely

bear it), and am therefore the more anxious to describe her without

injustice. I confess to some little prejudice against her. I resented

her success with Raffles, of whom, in consequence, I saw less and

less each day. It is a mean thing to have to confess, but there

must have been something not unlike jealousy rankling within me.

Jealousy there was in another quarter--crude, rampant, undignified

jealousy. Captain von Heumann would twirl his mustaches into twin

spires, shoot his white cuffs over his rings, and stare at me

insolently through his rimless eyeglasses; we ought to have consoled

each other, but we never exchanged a syllable. The captain had a

murderous scar across one of his cheeks, a present from Heidelberg, and

I used to think how he must long to have Raffles there to serve the

same. It was not as though von Heumann never had his innings. Raffles

let him go in several times a day, for the malicious pleasure of

bowling him out as he was "getting set"; those were his words when I

taxed him disingenuously with obnoxious conduct towards a German on a

German boat.

"You'll make yourself disliked on board!"

"By von Heumann merely."

"But is that wise when he's the man we've got to diddle?"

"The wisest thing I ever did. To have chummed up with him would have

been fatal--the common dodge."

I was consoled, encouraged, almost content. I had feared Raffles was

neglecting things, and I told him so in a burst. Here we were near

Gibraltar, and not a word since the Solent. He shook his head with a

smile.

"Plenty of time, Bunny, plenty of time. We can do nothing before we

get to Genoa, and that won't be till Sunday night. The voyage is still

young, and so are we; let's make the most of things while we can."

It was after dinner on the promenade deck, and as Raffles spoke he

glanced sharply fore and aft, leaving me next moment with a step full

of purpose. I retired to the smoking-room, to smoke and read in a

corner, and to watch von Heumann, who very soon came to drink beer and

to sulk in another.

Few travellers tempt the Red Sea at midsummer; the Uhlan was very empty

indeed. She had, however, but a limited supply of cabins on the

promenade deck, and there was just that excuse for my sharing Raffles's

room. I could have had one to myself downstairs, but I must be up

above. Raffles had insisted that I should insist on the point. So we

were together, I think, without suspicion, though also without any

object that I could see.

On the Sunday afternoon I was asleep in my berth, the lower one, when

the curtains were shaken by Raffles, who was in his shirt-sleeves on

the settee.

"Achilles sulking in his bunk!"

"What else is there to do?" I asked him as I stretched and yawned. I

noted, however, the good-humor of his tone, and did my best to catch it.

"I have found something else, Bunny."

"I daresay!"

"You misunderstand me. The whipper-snapper's making his century this

afternoon. I've had other fish to fry."

I swung my legs over the side of my berth and sat forward, as he was

sitting, all attention. The inner door, a grating, was shut and

bolted, and curtained like the open porthole.

"We shall be at Genoa before sunset," continued Raffles. "It's the

place where the deed's got to be done."

"So you still mean to do it?"

"Did I ever say I didn't?"

"You have said so little either way."

"Advisedly so, my dear Bunny; why spoil a pleasure trip by talking

unnecessary shop? But now the time has come. It must be done at Genoa

or not at all."

"On land?"

"No, on board, to-morrow night. To-night would do, but to-morrow is

better, in case of mishap. If we were forced to use violence we could

get away by the earliest train, and nothing be known till the ship was

sailing and von Heumann found dead or drugged--"

"Not dead!" I exclaimed.

"Of course not," assented Raffles, "or there would be no need for us to

bolt; but if we should have to bolt, Tuesday morning is our time, when

this ship has got to sail, whatever happens. But I don't anticipate

any violence. Violence is a confession of terrible incompetence. In

all these years how many blows have you known me to strike? Not one, I

believe; but I have been quite ready to kill my man every time, if the

worst came to the worst."

I asked him how he proposed to enter von Heumann's state-room

unobserved, and even through the curtained gloom of ours his face

lighted up.

"Climb into my bunk, Bunny, and you shall see."

I did so, but could see nothing. Raffles reached across me and tapped

the ventilator, a sort of trapdoor in the wall above his bed, some

eighteen inches long and half that height. It opened outwards into the

ventilating shaft.

"That," said he, "is our door to fortune. Open it if you like; you

won't see much, because it doesn't open far; but loosening a couple of

screws will set that all right. The shaft, as you may see, is more or

less bottomless; you pass under it whenever you go to your bath, and

the top is a skylight on the bridge. That's why this thing has to be

done while we're at Genoa, because they keep no watch on the bridge in

port. The ventilator opposite ours is von Heumann's. It again will

only mean a couple of screws, and there's a beam to stand on while you

work."

"But if anybody should look up from below?"

"It's extremely unlikely that anybody will be astir below, so unlikely

that we can afford to chance it. No, I can't have you there to make

sure. The great point is that neither of us should be seen from the

time we turn in. A couple of ship's boys do sentry-go on these decks,

and they shall be our witnesses; by Jove, it'll be the biggest mystery

that ever was made!"

"If von Heumann doesn't resist."

"Resist! He won't get the chance. He drinks too much beer to sleep

light, and nothing is so easy as to chloroform a heavy sleeper; you've

even done it yourself on an occasion of which it's perhaps unfair to

remind you. Von Heumann will be past sensation almost as soon as I get

my hand through his ventilator. I shall crawl in over his body, Bunny,

my boy!"

"And I?"

"You will hand me what I want and hold the fort in case of accidents,

and generally lend me the moral support you've made me require. It's a

luxury, Bunny, but I found it devilish difficult to do without it after

you turned pi!"

He said that Von Heumann was certain to sleep with a bolted door, which

he, of course, would leave unbolted, and spoke of other ways of laying

a false scent while rifling the cabin. Not that Raffles anticipated a

tiresome search. The pearl would be about von Heumann's person; in

fact, Raffles knew exactly where and in what he kept it. Naturally I

asked how he could have come by such knowledge, and his answer led up

to a momentary unpleasantness.

"It's a very old story, Bunny. I really forget in what Book it comes;

I'm only sure of the Testament. But Samson was the unlucky hero, and

one Delilah the heroine."

And he looked so knowing that I could not be in a moment's doubt as to

his meaning.

"So the fair Australian has been playing Delilah?" said I.

"In a very harmless, innocent sort of way."

"She got his mission out of him?"

"Yes, I've forced him to score all the points he could, and that was

his great stroke, as I hoped it would be. He has even shown Amy the

pearl."

"Amy, eh! and she promptly told you?"

"Nothing of the kind. What makes you think so? I had the greatest

trouble in getting it out of her."

His tone should have been a sufficient warning to me. I had not the

tact to take it as such. At last I knew the meaning of his furious

flirtation, and stood wagging my head and shaking my finger, blinded to

his frowns by my own enlightenment.

"Wily worm!" said I. "Now I see through it all; how dense I've been!"

"Sure you're not still?"

"No; now I understand what has beaten me all the week. I simply

couldn't fathom what you saw in that little girl. I never dreamt it

was part of the game."

"So you think it was that and nothing more?"

"You deep old dog--of course I do!"

"You didn't know she was the daughter of a wealthy squatter?"

"There are wealthy women by the dozen who would marry you to-morrow."

"It doesn't occur to you that I might like to draw stumps, start clean,

and live happily ever after--in the bush?"

"With that voice? It certainly does not!"

"Bunny!" he cried, so fiercely that I braced myself for a blow.

But no more followed.

"Do you think you would live happily?" I made bold to ask him.

"God knows!" he answered. And with that he left me, to marvel at his

look and tone, and, more than ever, at the insufficiently exciting

cause.