"Have you dumped it overboard?"
"That's a question I shan't condescend to answer."
He turned on his heel, and at subsequent intervals I saw him making the
most of his last afternoon with the inevitable Miss Werner. I remember
that she looked both cool and smart in quite a simple affair of brown
holland, which toned well with her complexion, and was cleverly
relieved with touches of scarlet. I quite admired her that afternoon,
for her eyes were really very good, and so were her teeth, yet I had
never admired her more directly in my own despite. For I passed them
again and again in order to get a word with Raffles, to tell him I knew
there was danger in the wind; but he would not so much as catch my eye.
So at last I gave it up. And I saw him next in the captain's cabin.
They had summoned him first; he had gone in smiling; and smiling I
found him when they summoned me. The state-room was spacious, as
befitted that of a commander. Mackenzie sat on the settee, his beard
in front of him on the polished table; but a revolver lay in front of
the captain; and, when I had entered, the chief officer, who had
summoned me, shut the door and put his back to it. Von Heumann
completed the party, his fingers busy with his mustache.
Raffles greeted me.
"This is a great joke!" he cried. "You remember the pearl you were so
keen about, Bunny, the emperor's pearl, the pearl money wouldn't buy?
It seems it was entrusted to our little friend here, to take out to
Canoodle Dum, and the poor little chap's gone and lost it; ergo, as
we're Britishers, they think we've got it!"
"But I know ye have," put in Mackenzie, nodding to his beard.
"You will recognize that loyal and patriotic voice," said Raffles.
"Mon, 'tis our auld acquaintance Mackenzie, o' Scoteland Yarrd an'
Scoteland itsel'!"
"Dat is enough," cried the captain. "Have you submid to be searge, or
do I vorce you?"
"What you will," said Raffles, "but it will do you no harm to give us
fair play first. You accuse us of breaking into Captain von Heumann's
state-room during the small hours of this morning, and abstracting from
it this confounded pearl. Well, I can prove that I was in my own room
all night long, and I have no doubt my friend can prove the same."
"Most certainly I can," said I indignantly. "The ship's boys can bear
witness to that."
Mackenzie laughed, and shook his head at his reflection in the polished
mahogany.
"That was ver clever," said he, "and like enough it would ha' served ye
had I not stepped aboard. But I've just had a look at they
ventilators, and I think I know how ye worrked it. Anyway, captain, it
makes no matter. I'll just be clappin' the derbies on these young
sparks, an' then--"
"By what right?" roared Raffles, in a ringing voice, and I never saw
his face in such a blaze. "Search us if you like; search every scrap
and stitch we possess; but you dare to lay a finger on us without a
warrant!"
"I wouldna' dare," said Mackenzie, as he fumbled in his breast pocket,
and Raffles dived his hand into his own. "Haud his wrist!" shouted the
Scotchman; and the huge Colt that had been with us many a night, but
had never been fired in my hearing, clattered on the table and was
raked in by the captain.
"All right," said Raffles savagely to the mate. "You can let go now. I
won't try it again. Now, Mackenzie, let's see your warrant!"
"Ye'll no mishandle it?"
"What good would that do me? Let me see it," said Raffles,
peremptorily, and the detective obeyed. Raffles raised his eyebrows as
he perused the document; his mouth hardened, but suddenly relaxed; and
it was with a smile and a shrug that he returned the paper.
"Wull that do for ye?" inquired Mackenzie.
"It may. I congratulate you, Mackenzie; it's a strong hand, at any
rate. Two burglaries and the Melrose necklace, Bunny!" And he turned
to me with a rueful smile.
"An' all easy to prove," said the Scotchman, pocketing the warrant.
"I've one o' these for you," he added, nodding to me, "only not such a
long one."
"To think," said the captain reproachfully, "that my shib should be
made a den of thiefs! It shall be a very disagreeable madder, I have
been obliged to pud you both in irons until we get to Nables."
"Surely not!" exclaimed Raffles. "Mackenzie, intercede with him; don't
give your countrymen away before all hands! Captain, we can't escape;
surely you could hush it up for the night? Look here, here's
everything I have in my pockets; you empty yours, too, Bunny, and they
shall strip us stark if they suspect we've weapons up our sleeves. All
I ask is that we are allowed to get out of this without gyves upon our
wrists!"
"Webbons you may not have," said the captain; "but wad aboud der bearl
dat you were sdealing?"
"You shall have it!" cried Raffles. "You shall have it this minute if
you guarantee no public indignity on board!"
"That I'll see to," said Mackenzie, "as long as you behave yourselves.
There now, where is't?"
"On the table under your nose."
My eyes fell with the rest, but no pearl was there; only the contents
of our pockets--our watches, pocket-books, pencils, penknives,
cigarette cases--lay on the shiny table along with the revolvers
already mentioned.
"Ye're humbuggin' us," said Mackenzie. "What's the use?"
"I'm doing nothing of the sort," laughed Raffles. "I'm testing you.
Where's the harm?"
"It's here, joke apart?"
"On that table, by all my gods."
Mackenzie opened the cigarette cases and shook each particular
cigarette. Thereupon Raffles prayed to be allowed to smoke one, and,
when his prayer was heard, observed that the pearl had been on the
table much longer than the cigarettes. Mackenzie promptly caught up
the Colt and opened the chamber in the butt.
"Not there, not there," said Raffles; "but you're getting hot. Try the
cartridges."
Mackenzie emptied them into his palm, and shook each one at his ear
without result.
"Oh, give them to me!"
And, in an instant, Raffles had found the right one, had bitten out the
bullet, and placed the emperor's pearl with a flourish in the centre of
the table.
"After that you will perhaps show me such little consideration as is in
your power. Captain, I have been a bit of a villain, as you see, and
as such I am ready and willing to lie in irons all night if you deem it
requisite for the safety of the ship. All I ask is that you do me one
favor first."
"That shall debend on wad der vafour has been."
"Captain, I've done a worse thing aboard your ship than any of you
know. I have become engaged to be married, and I want to say good-by!"
I suppose we were all equally amazed; but the only one to express his
amazement was von Heumann, whose deep-chested German oath was almost
his first contribution to the proceedings. He was not slow to follow
it, however, with a vigorous protest against the proposed farewell; but
he was overruled, and the masterful prisoner had his way. He was to
have five minutes with the girl, while the captain and Mackenzie stood
within range (but not earshot), with their revolvers behind their
backs. As we were moving from the cabin, in a body, he stopped and
gripped my hand.
"So I've let you in at last, Bunny--at last and after all! If you
knew how sorry I am.... But you won't get much--I don't see why you
should get anything at all. Can you forgive me? This may be for years,
and it may be for ever, you know! You were a good pal always when it
came to the scratch; some day or other you mayn't be so sorry to
remember you were a good pal at the last!"
There was a meaning in his eye that I understood; and my teeth were
set, and my nerve strung ready, as I wrung that strong and cunning hand
for the last time in my life.
How that last scene stays with me, and will stay to my death! How I
see every detail, every shadow on the sunlit deck! We were among the
islands that dot the course from Genoa to Naples; that was Elba falling
back on our starboard quarter, that purple patch with the hot sun
setting over it. The captain's cabin opened to starboard, and the
starboard promenade deck, sheeted with sunshine and scored with shadow,
was deserted, but for the group of which I was one, and for the pale,
slim, brown figure further aft with Raffles. Engaged? I could not
believe it, cannot to this day. Yet there they stood together, and we
did not hear a word; there they stood out against the sunset, and the
long, dazzling highway of sunlit sea that sparkled from Elba to the
Uhlan's plates; and their shadows reached almost to our feet.
Suddenly--an instant--and the thing was done--a thing I have never
known whether to admire or to detest. He caught her--he kissed her
before us all--then flung her from him so that she almost fell. It was
that action which foretold the next. The mate sprang after him, and I
sprang after the mate.
Raffles was on the rail, but only just.
"Hold him, Bunny!" he cried. "Hold him tight!"
And, as I obeyed that last behest with all my might, without a thought
of what I was doing, save that he bade me do it, I saw his hands shoot
up and his head bob down, and his lithe, spare body cut the sunset as
cleanly and precisely as though he had plunged at his leisure from a
diver's board!
* * * * *
Of what followed on deck I can tell you nothing, for I was not there.
Nor can my final punishment, my long imprisonment, my everlasting
disgrace, concern or profit you, beyond the interest and advantage to
be gleaned from the knowledge that I at least had my deserts. But one
thing I must set down, believe it who will--one more thing only and I
am done.
It was into a second-class cabin, on the starboard side, that I was
promptly thrust in irons, and the door locked upon me as though I were
another Raffles. Meanwhile a boat was lowered, and the sea scoured to
no purpose, as is doubtless on record elsewhere. But either the
setting sun, flashing over the waves, must have blinded all eyes, or
else mine were victims of a strange illusion.
For the boat was back, the screw throbbing, and the prisoner peering
through his porthole across the sunlit waters that he believed had
closed for ever over his comrade's head. Suddenly the sun sank behind
the Island of Elba, the lane of dancing sunlight was instantaneously
quenched and swallowed in the trackless waste, and in the middle
distance, already miles astern, either my sight deceived me or a black
speck bobbed amid the gray. The bugle had blown for dinner: it may well
be that all save myself had ceased to strain an eye. And now I lost
what I had found, now it rose, now sank, and now I gave it up utterly.
Yet anon it would rise again, a mere mote dancing in the dim gray
distance, drifting towards a purple island, beneath a fading western
sky, streaked with dead gold and cerise. And night fell before I knew
whether it was a human head or not.