would never live to guess what it is. It's one of the reasons why I
went in for this seedy kit. I follow cabs. Yes, Bunny, I turn out
about dusk and meet the expresses at Euston or King's Cross; that is,
of course, I loaf outside and pick my cab, and often run my three or
four miles for a bob or less. And it not only keeps you in the very
pink: if you're good they let you carry the trunks upstairs; and I've
taken notes from the inside of more than one commodious residence
which will come in useful in the autumn. In fact, Bunny, what with
these new Rowton houses, my beard, and my otherwise well-spent
holiday, I hope to have quite a good autumn season before the erratic
Raffles turns up in town."
I felt it high time to wedge in a word about my own far less
satisfactory affairs. But it was not necessary for me to recount half
my troubles. Raffles could be as full of himself as many a worse man,
and I did not like his society the less for these human outpourings.
They had rather the effect of putting me on better terms with myself,
through bringing him down to my level for the time being. But his
egoism was not even skin-deep; it was rather a cloak, which Raffles
could cast off quicker than any man I ever knew, as he did not fail to
show me now.
"Why, Bunny, this is the very thing!" he cried. "You must come and
stay with me, and we'll lie low side by side. Only remember it really
is a Rest Cure. I want to keep literally as quiet as I was without
you. What do you say to forming ourselves at once into a practically
Silent Order? You agree? Very well, then, here's the street and that's
the house."
It was ever such a quiet little street, turning out of one of those
which climb right over the pleasant hill. One side was monopolized by
the garden wall of an ugly but enviable mansion standing in its own
ground; opposite were a solid file of smaller but taller houses; on
neither side were there many windows alight, nor a solitary soul on
the pavement or in the road. Raffles led the way to one of the small
tall houses. It stood immediately behind a lamp-post, and I could not
but notice that a love-lock of Virginia creeper was trailing almost to
the step, and that the bow-window on the ground floor was closely
shuttered. Raffles admitted himself with his latch-key, and I squeezed
past him into a very narrow hall. I did not hear him shut the door,
but we were no longer in the lamplight, and he pushed softly past me
in his turn.
"I'll get a light," he muttered as he went; but to let him pass I had
leaned against some electric switches, and while his back was turned I
tried one of these without thinking. In an instant hall and staircase
were flooded with light; in another Raffles was upon me in a fury, and
all was dark once more. He had not said a word, but I heard him
breathing through his teeth.
Nor was there anything to tell me now. The mere flash of electric
light upon a hall of chaos and uncarpeted stairs, and on the face of
Raffles as he sprang to switch it off, had been enough even for me.
"So this is how you have taken the house," said I in his own
undertone. "'Taken' is good; 'taken' is beautiful!"
"Did you think I'd done it through an agent?" he snarled. "Upon my
word, Bunny, I did you the credit of supposing you saw the joke all
the time!"
"Why shouldn't you take a house," I asked, "and pay for it?"
"Why should I," he retorted, "within three miles of the Albany?
Besides, I should have had no peace; and I meant every word I said
about my Rest Cure."
"You are actually staying in a house where you've broken in to steal?"
"Not to steal, Bunny! I haven't stolen a thing. But staying here I
certainly am, and having the most complete rest a busy man could
wish."
"There'll be no rest for me!"
Raffles laughed as he struck a match. I had followed him into what
would have been the back drawing-room in the ordinary little London
house; the inspector of prisons had converted it into a separate study
by filling the folding doors with book-shelves, which I scanned at
once for the congenial works of which Raffles had spoken. I was not
able to carry my examination very far. Raffles had lighted a candle,
stuck (by its own grease) in the crown of an opera hat, which he
opened the moment the wick caught. The light thus struck the ceiling
in an oval shaft, which left the rest of the room almost as dark as
it had been before.
"Sorry, Bunny!" said Raffles, sitting on one pedestal of a desk from
which the top had been removed, and setting his makeshift lantern on
the other. "In broad daylight, when it can't be spotted from the
outside, you shall have as much artificial light as you like. If you
want to do some writing, that's the top of the desk on end against the
mantlepiece. You'll never have a better chance so far as interruption
goes. But no midnight oil or electricity! You observe that their last
care was to fix up these shutters; they appear to have taken the top
off the desk to get at 'em without standing on it; but the beastly
things wouldn't go all the way up, and the strip they leave would give
us away to the backs of the other houses if we lit up after dark. Mind
that telephone! If you touch the receiver they will know at the
exchange that the house is not empty, and I wouldn't put it past the
colonel to have told them exactly how long he was going to be away.
He's pretty particular: look at the strips of paper to keep the dust
off his precious books!"
"Is he a colonel?" I asked, perceiving that Raffles referred to the
absentee householder.
"Of sappers," he replied, "and a V.C. into the bargain, confound him!
Got it at Rorke's Drift; prison governor or inspector ever since;
favorite recreation, what do you think? Revolver shooting! You can
read all about him in his own _Who's Who_. A devil of a chap to
tackle, Bunny, when he's at home!"
"And where is he now?" I asked uneasily. "And do you know he isn't on
his way home?"
"Switzerland," replied Raffles, chuckling; "he wrote one too many
labels, and was considerate enough to leave it behind for our
guidance. Well, no one ever comes back from Switzerland at the
beginning of September, you know; and nobody ever thinks of coming
back before the servants. When they turn up they won't get in. I keep
the latch jammed, but the servants will think it's jammed itself, and
while they're gone for the lock-smith we shall walk out like
gentlemen--if we haven't done so already."
"As you walked in, I suppose?"
Raffles shook his head in the dim light to which my sight was growing
inured.
"No, Bunny, I regret to say I came in through the dormer window. They
were painting next door but one. I never did like ladder work, but it
takes less time than in picking a lock in the broad light of a street
lamp."
"So they left you a latch-key as well as everything else!"
"No, Bunny. I was just able to make that for myself. I am playing at
'Robinson Crusoe,' not 'The Swiss Family Robinson.' And now, my dear
Friday, if you will kindly take off those boots, we can explore the
island before we turn in for the night."
The stairs were very steep and narrow, and they creaked alarmingly as
Raffles led the way up, with the single candle in the crown of the
colonel's hat. He blew it out before we reached the half-landing,
where a naked window stared upon the backs of the houses in the next
road, but lit it again at the drawing-room door. I just peeped in upon
a semi-grand swathed in white and a row of water colors mounted in
gold. An excellent bathroom broke our journey to the second floor.
"I'll have one to-night," said I, taking heart of a luxury unknown in
my last sordid sanctuary.
"You'll do no such thing," snapped Raffles. "Have the goodness to
remember that our island is one of a group inhabited by hostile
tribes. You can fill the bath quietly if you try, but it empties under
the study window, and makes the very devil of a noise about it. No,
Bunny, I bale out every drop and pour it away through the scullery
sink, so you will kindly consult me before you turn a tap. Here's your
room; hold the light outside while I draw the curtains; it's the old
chap's dressing-room. Now you can bring the glim. How's that for a
jolly wardrobe? And look at his coats on their cross-trees inside:
dapper old dog, shouldn't you say? Mark the boots on the shelf above,
and the little brass rail for his ties! Didn't I tell you he was
particular? And wouldn't he simply love to catch us at his kit?"
"Let's only hope it would give him an apoplexy," said I shuddering.
"I shouldn't build on it," replied Raffles. "That's a big man's
trouble, and neither you nor I could get into the old chap's clothes.
But come into the best bedroom, Bunny. You won't think me selfish if I
don't give it up to you? Look at this, my boy, look at this! It's the
only one I use in all the house."
I had followed him into a good room, with ample windows closely
curtained, and he had switched on the light in a hanging lamp at the
bedside. The rays fell from a thick green funnel in a plateful of
strong light upon a table deep in books. I noticed several volumes of
the "Invasion of the Crimea."
"That's where I rest the body and exercise the brain," said Raffles.
"I have long wanted to read my Kinglake from A to Z, and I manage
about a volume a night. There's a style for you, Bunny! I love the
punctilious thoroughness of the whole thing; one can understand its
appeal to our careful colonel. His name, did you say? Crutchley,
Bunny--Colonel Crutchley, R.E., V.C."
"We'd put his valor to the test!" said I, feeling more valiant myself
after our tour of inspection.
"Not so loud on the stairs," whispered Raffles. "There's only one door
between us and----"
Raffles stood still at my feet, and well he might! A deafening double
knock had resounded through the empty house; and to add to the utter
horror of the moment, Raffles instantly blew out the light. I heard my
heart pounding. Neither of us breathed. We were on our way down to the
first landing, and for a moment we stood like mice; then Raffles
heaved a deep sigh, and in the depths I heard the gate swing home.
"Only the postman, Bunny! He will come now and again, though they have
obviously left instructions at the post-office. I hope the old colonel
will let them have it when he gets back. I confess it gave me a
turn."
"Turn!" I gasped. "I must have a drink, if I die for it."
"My dear Bunny, that's no part of my Rest Cure."
"Then good-by! I can't stand it; feel my forehead; listen to my heart!
Crusoe found a footprint, but he never heard a double-knock at the
street door!"
"'Better live in the midst of alarms,'" quoted Raffles, "'than dwell
in this horrible place.' I must confess we get it both ways, Bunny.
Yet I've nothing but tea in the house."
"And where do you make that? Aren't you afraid of smoke?"
"There's a gas-stove in the dining-room."
"But surely to goodness," I cried, "there's a cellar lower down!"
"My dear, good Bunny," said Raffles, "I've told you already that I
didn't come in here on business. I came in for the Cure. Not a penny
will these people be the worse, except for their washing and their
electric light, and I mean to leave enough to cover both items."
"Then," said I, "since Brutus is such a very honorable man, we will
borrow a bottle from the cellar, and replace it before we go."
Raffles slapped me softly on the back, and I knew that I had gained
my point. It was often the case when I had the presence of heart and
mind to stand up to him. But never was little victory of mine quite so
grateful as this. Certainly it was a very small cellar, indeed a mere
cupboard under the kitchen stairs, with a most ridiculous lock. Nor
was this cupboard overstocked with wine. But I made out a jar of
whiskey, a shelf of Zeltinger, another of claret, and a short one at
the top which presented a little battery of golden-leafed necks and
corks. Raffles set his hand no lower. He examined the labels while I
held folded hat and naked light.
"Mumm, '84!" he whispered. "G. H. Mumm, and A.D. 1884! I am no
wine-bibber, Bunny, as you know, but I hope you appreciate the
specifications as I do. It looks to me like the only bottle, the last
of its case, and it does seem a bit of a shame; but more shame for the
miser who hoards in his cellar what was meant for mankind! Come,
Bunny, lead the way. This baby is worth nursing. It would break my
heart if anything happened to it now!"
So we celebrated my first night in the furnished house; and I slept
beyond belief, slept as I never was to sleep there again. But it was
strange to hear the milkman in the early morning, and the postman
knocking his way along the street an hour later, and to be passed over
by one destroying angel after another. I had come down early enough,
and watched through the drawing-room blind the cleansing of all the
steps in the street but ours. Yet Raffles had evidently been up some
time; the house seemed far purer than overnight as though he had
managed to air it room by room; and from the one with the gas-stove
there came a frizzling sound that fattened the heart.
I only would I had the pen to do justice to the week I spent in-doors
on Campden Hill! It might make amusing reading; the reality for me was
far removed from the realm of amusement. Not that I was denied many a
laugh of suppressed heartiness when Raffles and I were together. But
half our time we very literally saw nothing of each other. I need not
say whose fault that was. He would be quiet; he was in ridiculous and
offensive earnest about his egregious Cure. Kinglake he would read by
the hour together, day and night, by the hanging lamp, lying upstairs
on the best bed. There was daylight enough for me in the drawing-room
below; and there I would sit immersed in criminous tomes weakly
fascinated until I shivered and shook in my stocking soles. Often I
longed to do something hysterically desperate, to rouse Raffles and
bring the street about our ears; once I did bring him about mine by
striking a single note on the piano, with the soft pedal down. His
neglect of me seemed wanton at the time. I have long realized that he
was only wise to maintain silence at the expense of perilous
amenities, and as fully justified in those secret and solitary sorties
which made bad blood in my veins. He was far cleverer than I at
getting in and out; but even had I been his match for stealth and
wariness, my company would have doubled every risk. I admit now that
he treated me with quite as much sympathy as common caution would
permit. But at the time I took it so badly as to plan a small revenge.
What with his flourishing beard and the increasing shabbiness of the
only suit he had brought with him to the house, there was no denying
that Raffles had now the advantage of a permanent disguise. That was
another of his excuses for leaving me as he did, and it was the one I
was determined to remove. On a morning, therefore, when I awoke to
find him flown again, I proceeded to execute a plan which I had
already matured in my mind. Colonel Crutchley was a married man; there
were no signs of children in the house; on the other hand, there was
much evidence that the wife was a woman of fashion. Her dresses
overflowed the wardrobe and her room; large, flat, cardboard boxes
were to be found in every corner of the upper floors. She was a tall
woman; I was not too tall a man. Like Raffles, I had not shaved on
Campden Hill. That morning, however, I did my best with a very fair
razor which the colonel had left behind in my room; then I turned out
the lady's wardrobe and the cardboard boxes, and took my choice.
I have fair hair, and at the time it was rather long. With a pair of
Mrs. Crutchley's tongs and a discarded hair-net, I was able to produce
an almost immodest fringe. A big black hat with a wintry feather
completed a headdress as unseasonable as my skating skirt and feather
boa; of course, the good lady had all her summer frocks away with her
in Switzerland. This was all the more annoying from the fact that we
were having a very warm September; so I was not sorry to hear Raffles
return as I was busy adding a layer of powder to my heated
countenance. I listened a moment on the landing, but as he went into
the study I determined to complete my toilet in every detail. My idea
was first to give him the fright he deserved, and secondly to show him
that I was quite as fit to move abroad as he. It was, however, I
confess, a pair of the colonel's gloves that I was buttoning as I
slipped down to the study even more quietly than usual. The electric
light was on, as it generally was by day, and under it stood as
formidable a figure as ever I encountered in my life of crime.
Imagine a thin but extremely wiry man, past middle age, brown and
bloodless as any crabapple, but as coolly truculent and as casually
alert as Raffles at his worst. It was, it could only be, the
fire-eating and prison-inspecting colonel himself! He was ready for
me, a revolver in his hand, taken, as I could see, from one of those
locked drawers in the pedestal desk with which Raffles had refused to
tamper; the drawer was open, and a bunch of keys depended from the
lock. A grim smile crumpled up the parchment face, so that one eye was
puckered out of sight; the other was propped open by an eyeglass,
which, however, dangled on its string when I appeared.
"A woman, begad!" the warrior exclaimed. "And where's the man, you
scarlet hussy?"
Not a word could I utter. But, in my horror and my amazement, I have
no sort of doubt that I acted the part I had assumed in a manner I
never should have approached in happier circumstances.
[Illustration: It was the fire-eating and prison-inspecting colonel
himself. He was ready for me, a revolver in his hand.]
"Come, come, my lass," cried the old oak veteran, "I'm not going to
put a bullet through you, you know! You tell me all about it, and
it'll do you more good than harm. There, I'll put the nasty thing away
and--God bless me, if the brazen wench hasn't squeezed into the wife's
kit!"
A squeeze it happened to have been, and in my emotion it felt more of
one than ever; but his sudden discovery had not heightened the
veteran's animosity against me. On the contrary, I caught a glint of
humor through his gleaming glass, and he proceeded to pocket his
revolver like the gentleman he was.
"Well, well, it's lucky I looked in," he continued. "I only came round
on the off-chance of letters, but if I hadn't you'd have had another
week in clover. Begad, though, I saw your hand-writing the moment I'd
got my nose inside! Now just be sensible and tell me where your good
man is."
I had no man. I was alone, had broken in alone. There was not a soul
in the affair (much less the house) except myself. So much I stuttered
out in tones too hoarse to betray me on the spot. But the old man of
the world shook a hard old head.
"Quite right not to give away your pal," said he. "But I'm not one of
the marines, my dear, and you mustn't expect me to swallow all that.
Well, if you won't say, you won't, and we must just send for those who
will."
In a flash I saw his fell design. The telephone directory lay open on
one of the pedestals. He must have been consulting it when he heard me
on the stairs; he had another look at it now; and that gave me my
opportunity. With a presence of mind rare enough in me to excuse the
boast, I flung myself upon the instrument in the corner and hurled it
to the ground with all my might. I was myself sent spinning into the
opposite corner at the same instant. But the instrument happened to be
a standard of the more elaborate pattern, and I flattered myself that
I had put the delicate engine out of action for the day.
Not that my adversary took the trouble to ascertain. He was looking at
me strangely in the electric light, standing intently on his guard,
his right hand in the pocket where he had dropped his revolver. And
I--I hardly knew it--but I caught up the first thing handy for
self-defence, and was brandishing the bottle which Raffles and I had
emptied in honor of my arrival on this fatal scene.
"Be shot if I don't believe you're the man himself!" cried the
colonel, shaking an armed fist in my face. "You young wolf in sheep's
clothing! Been at my wine, of course! Put down that bottle; down with
it this instant, or I'll drill a tunnel through your middle. I thought
so! Begad, sir, you shall pay for this! Don't you give me an excuse
for potting you now, or I'll jump at the chance! My last bottle of
'84--you miserable blackguard--you unutterable beast!"
He had browbeaten me into his own chair in his own corner; he was
standing over me, empty bottle in one hand, revolver in the other, and
murder itself in the purple puckers of his raging face. His language I
will not even pretend to indicate: his skinny throat swelled and
trembled with the monstrous volleys. He could smile at my appearance
in his wife's clothes; he would have had my blood for the last bottle
of his best champagne. His eyes were not hidden now; they needed no
eyeglass to prop them open; large with fury, they started from the
livid mask. I watched nothing else. I could not understand why they
should start out as they did. I did not try. I say I watched nothing
else--until I saw the face of Raffles over the unfortunate officer's
shoulder.
Raffles had crept in unheard while our altercation was at its height,
had watched his opportunity, and stolen on his man unobserved by
either of us. While my own attention was completely engrossed, he had
seized the colonel's pistol-hand and twisted it behind the colonel's
back until his eyes bulged out as I have endeavored to describe. But
the fighting man had some fight in him still; and scarcely had I
grasped the situation when he hit out venomously behind with the
bottle, which was smashed to bits on Raffles's shin. Then I threw my
strength into the scale; and before many minutes we had our officer
gagged and bound in his chair. But it was not one of our bloodless
victories. Raffles had been cut to the bone by the broken glass; his
leg bled wherever he limped; and the fierce eyes of the bound man
followed the wet trail with gleams of sinister satisfaction.
I thought I had never seen a man better bound or better gagged. But
the humanity seemed to have run out of Raffles with his blood. He tore
up tablecloths, he cut down blind-cords, he brought the dust-sheets
from the drawing-room, and multiplied every bond. The unfortunate
man's legs were lashed to the legs of his chair, his arms to its arms,
his thighs and back fairly welded to the leather. Either end of his
own ruler protruded from his bulging cheeks--the middle was hidden by
his moustache--and the gag kept in place by remorseless lashings at
the back of his head. It was a spectacle I could not bear to
contemplate at length, while from the first I found myself physically
unable to face the ferocious gaze of those implacable eyes. But
Raffles only laughed at my squeamishness, and flung a dust-sheet over
man and chair; and the stark outline drove me from the room.
It was Raffles at his worst, Raffles as I never knew him before or
after--a Raffles mad with pain and rage, and desperate as any other
criminal in the land. Yet he had struck no brutal blow, he had uttered
no disgraceful taunt, and probably not inflicted a tithe of the pain
he had himself to bear. It is true that he was flagrantly in the
wrong, his victim as laudably in the right. Nevertheless, granting the
original sin of the situation, and given this unforeseen development,
even I failed to see how Raffles could have combined greater humanity
with any regard for our joint safety; and had his barbarities ended
here, I for one should not have considered them an extraordinary
aggravation of an otherwise minor offence. But in the broad daylight
of the bathroom, which had a ground-glass window but no blind, I saw
at once the serious nature of his wound and of its effect upon the
man.
"It will maim me for a month," said he; "and if the V.C. comes out
alive, the wound he gave may be identified with the wound I've got."
The V.C.! There, indeed, was an aggravation to one illogical mind. But
to cast a moment's doubt upon the certainty of his coming out alive!
"Of course he'll come out," said I. "We must make up our minds to
that."
"Did he tell you he was expecting the servants or his wife? If so, of
course we must hurry up."
"No, Raffles, I'm afraid he's not expecting anybody. He told me, if he
hadn't looked in for letters, we should have had the place to
ourselves another week. That's the worst of it."
Raffles smiled as he secured a regular puttee of dust-sheeting. No
blood was coming through.
"I don't agree, Bunny," said he. "It's quite the best of it, if you
ask me."
"What, that he should die the death?"
"Why not?"
And Raffles stared me out with a hard and merciless light in his clear
blue eyes--a light that chilled the blood.