pity you weren't awake to appreciate the scene. It was more edifying
than the one I found. You never caught _me_ asleep in my chair,
Bunny!"
He thought I had merely fallen asleep in my chair! He could not see
that I had been sitting up for him all night long! The hint of a
temperance homily, on top of all I had borne, and from Raffles of all
mortal men, tried my temper to its last limit--but a flash of late
enlightenment enabled me just to keep it.
"Where did you hide?" I asked grimly.
"At the Yard itself."
"So I gather; but whereabouts at the Yard?"
"Can you ask, Bunny?"
"I am asking."
"It's where I once hid before."
"You don't mean in the chest?"
"I do."
Our eyes met for a minute.
"You may have ended up there," I conceded. "But where did you go first
when you slipped out behind my back, and how the devil did you know
where to go?"
"I never did slip out," said Raffles, "behind your back. I slipped
in."
"Into the chest?"
"Exactly."
I burst out laughing in his face.
"My dear fellow, I saw all these things on the lid just afterward. Not
one of them was moved. I watched that detective show them to his
friends.
"And I heard him."
"But not from the inside of the chest!"
"From the inside of the chest, Bunny. Don't look like that--it's
foolish. Try to recall a few words that went before, between the idiot
in the collar and me. Don't you remember my asking him if there was
anything in the chest?"
"Yes."
"One had to be sure it was empty, you see. Then I asked if there was a
backdoor to the chest as well as a skylight."
"I remember."
"I suppose you thought all that meant nothing?"
"I didn't look for a meaning."
"You wouldn't; it would never occur to you that I might want to find
out whether anybody at the Yard had found out that there _was_
something precisely in the nature of a sidedoor--it isn't a
backdoor--to that chest. Well, there is one; there was one soon after
I took the chest back from your rooms to mine, in the good old days.
You push one of the handles down--which no one ever does--and the
whole of that end opens like the front of a doll's house. I saw that
was what I ought to have done at first: it's so much simpler than the
trap at the top; and one likes to get a thing perfect for its own
sake. Besides, the trick had not been spotted at the bank, and I
thought I might bring it off again some day; meanwhile, in one's
bedroom, with lots of things on top, what a port in a sudden squall!"
I asked why I had never heard of the improvement before, not so much
at the time it was made, but in these later days, when there were
fewer secrets between us, and this one could avail him no more. But I
did not put the question out of pique. I put it out of sheer obstinate
incredulity. And Raffles looked at me without replying, until I read
the explanation in his look.
"I see," I said. "You used to get into it to hide from me!"
"My dear Bunny, I am not always a very genial man," he answered; "but
when you let me have a key of your rooms I could not very well refuse
you one of mine, although I picked your pocket of it in the end. I
will only say that when I had no wish to see you, Bunny, I must have
been quite unfit for human society, and it was the act of a friend to
deny you mine. I don't think it happened more than once or twice. You
can afford to forgive a fellow after all these years!"
"That, yes," I replied bitterly; "but not this, Raffles."
"Why not? I really hadn't made up my mind to do what I did. I had
merely thought of it. It was that smart officer in the same room that
made me do it without thinking twice."
"And we never even heard you!" I murmured, in a voice of involuntary
admiration which vexed me with myself. "But we might just as well!" I
was as quick to add in my former tone.
"Why, Bunny?"
"We shall be traced in no time through our ticket of admission."
"Did they collect it?"
"No; but you heard how very few are issued."
"Exactly. They sometimes go weeks on end without a regular visitor. It
was I who extracted that piece of information, Bunny, and I did
nothing rash until I had. Don't you see that with any luck it will be
two or three weeks before they are likely to discover their loss?"
I was beginning to see.
"And then, pray, how are they going to bring it home to us? Why should
they even suspect us, Bunny? I left early; that's all I did. You took
my departure admirably; you couldn't have said more or less if I had
coached you myself. I relied on you, Bunny, and you never more
completely justified my confidence. The sad thing is that you have
ceased to rely on me. Do you really think that I would leave the place
in such a state that the first person who came in with a duster would
see that there had been a robbery?"
I denied the thought with all energy, though it perished only as I
spoke.
"Have you forgotten the duster that was over these things, Bunny? Have
you forgotten all the other revolvers and life-preservers that there
were to choose from? I chose most carefully, and I replaced my relics
with a mixed assortment of other people's which really look just as
well. The rope-ladder that now supplants mine is, of course, no patch
upon it, but coiled up on the chest it really looks much the same. To
be sure, there was no second velvet bag; but I replaced my stick with
another quite like it, and I even found an empty cartridge to
understudy the setting of the Polynesian pearl. You see the sort of
fellow they have to show people round: do you think he's the kind to
see the difference next time, or to connect it with us if he does? One
left much the same things, lying much as he left them, under a
dust-sheet which is only taken off for the benefit of the curious, who
often don't turn up for weeks on end."
I admitted that we might be safe for three or four weeks. Raffles held
out his hand.
"Then let us be friends about it, Bunny, and smoke the cigarette of
Sullivan and peace! A lot may happen in three or four weeks; and what
should you say if this turned out to be the last as well as the least
of all my crimes? I must own that it seems to me their natural and
fitting end, though I might have stopped more characteristically than
with a mere crime of sentiment. No, I make no promises, Bunny; now I
have got these things, I may be unable to resist using them once
more. But with this war one gets all the excitement one requires--and
rather more than usual may happen in three or four weeks!"
Was he thinking even then of volunteering for the front? Had he
already set his heart on the one chance of some atonement for his
life--nay, on the very death he was to die? I never knew, and shall
never know. Yet his words were strangely prophetic, even to the three
or four weeks in which those events happened that imperilled the
fabric of our empire, and rallied her sons from the four winds to
fight beneath her banner on the veldt. It all seems very ancient
history now. But I remember nothing better or more vividly than the
last words of Raffles upon his last crime, unless it be the pressure
of his hand as he said them, or the rather sad twinkle in his tired
eyes.
The Last Word
The last of all these tales of Raffles is from a fresher and a sweeter
pen. I give it exactly as it came to me, in a letter which meant more
to me than it can possibly mean to any other reader. And yet, it may
stand for something with those for whom these pale reflections have a
tithe of the charm that the real man had for me; and it is to leave
such persons thinking yet a little better of him (and not wasting
another thought on me) that I am permitted to retail the very last
word about their hero and mine.
The letter was my first healing after a chance encounter and a
sleepless night; and I print every word of it except the last.
"39 CAMPDEN GROVE COURT, W.,
"June 28, 1900.
"DEAR HARRY: You may have wondered at the very few words I
could find to say to you when we met so strangely yesterday.
I did not mean to be unkind. I was grieved to see you so
cruelly hurt and lame. I could not grieve when at last I
made you tell me how it happened. I honor and envy every man
of you--every name in those dreadful lists that fill the
papers every day. But I knew about Mr. Raffles, and I did not
know about you, and there was something I longed to tell you
about him, something I could not tell you in a minute in the
street, or indeed by word of mouth at all. That is why I
asked you for your address.
"You said I spoke as if I had known Mr. Raffles. Of course I
have often seen him playing cricket, and heard about him and
you. But I only once met him, and that was the night after
you and I met last. I have always supposed that you knew all
about our meeting. Yesterday I could see that you knew
nothing. So I have made up my mind to tell you every word.
"That night--I mean the next night--they were all going out
to several places, but I stayed behind at Palace Gardens. I
had gone up to the drawing-room after dinner, and was just
putting on the lights, when in walked Mr. Raffles from the
balcony. I knew him at once, because I happened to have
watched him make his hundred at Lord's only the day before.
He seemed surprised that no one had told me he was there, but
the whole thing was such a surprise that I hardly thought of
that. I am afraid I must say that it was not a very pleasant
surprise. I felt instinctively that he had come from you, and
I confess that for the moment it made me very angry indeed.
Then in a breath he assured me that you knew nothing of his
coming, that you would never have allowed him to come, but
that he had taken it upon himself as your intimate friend and
one who would be mine as well. (I said that I would tell you
every word.)
"Well, we stood looking at each other for some time, and I
was never more convinced of anybody's straightness and
sincerity; but he was straight and sincere with me, and true
to you that night, whatever he may have been before and
after. So I asked him why he had come, and what had happened;
and he said it was not what had happened, but what might
happen next; so I asked him if he was thinking of you, and he
just nodded, and told me that I knew very well what you had
done. But I began to wonder whether Mr. Raffles himself knew,
and I tried to get him to tell me what you had done, and he
said I knew as well as he did that you were one of the two
men who had come to the house the night before. I took some
time to answer. I was quite mystified by his manner. At last
I asked him how he knew. I can hear his answer now.
"'Because I was the other man,' he said quite quietly;
'because I led him blindfold into the whole business, and
would rather pay the shot than see poor Bunny suffer for it.'
"Those were his words, but as he said them he made their
meaning clear by going over to the bell, and waiting with his
finger ready to ring for whatever assistance or protection I
desired. Of course I would not let him ring at all; in fact,
at first I refused to believe him. Then he led me out into
the balcony, and showed me exactly how he had got up and in.
He had broken in for the second night running, and all to
tell me that the first night he had brought you with him on
false pretences. He had to tell me a great deal more before I
could quite believe him. But before he went (as he had come)
I was the one woman in the world who knew that A. J. Raffles,
the great cricketer, and the so-called 'amateur cracksman' of
equal notoriety, were one and the same person.
"He had told me his secret, thrown himself on my mercy, and
put his liberty if not his life in my hands, but all for your
sake, Harry, to right you in my eyes at his own expense. And
yesterday I could see that you knew nothing whatever about
it, that your friend had died without telling you of his act
of real and yet vain self-sacrifice! Harry, I can only say
that now I understand your friendship, and the dreadful
lengths to which it carried you. How many in your place would
not have gone as far for such a friend? Since that night, at
any rate, I for one have understood. It has grieved me more
than I can tell you, Harry, but I have always understood.
"He spoke to me quite simply and frankly of his life. It was
wonderful to me then that he should speak of it as he did,
and still more wonderful that I should sit and listen to him
as I did. But I have often thought about it since, and have
long ceased to wonder at myself. There was an absolute
magnetism about Mr. Raffles which neither you nor I could
resist. He had the strength of personality which is a
different thing from strength of character; but when you meet
both kinds together, they carry the ordinary mortal off his
or her feet. You must not imagine you are the only one who
would have served and followed him as you did. When he told
me it was all a game to him, and the one game he knew that
was always exciting, always full of danger and of drama, I
could just then have found it in my heart to try the game
myself! Not that he treated me to any ingenious sophistries
or paradoxical perversities. It was just his natural charm
and humor, and a touch of sadness with it all, that appealed
to something deeper than one's reason and one's sense of
right. Glamour, I suppose, is the word. Yet there was far
more in him than that. There were depths, which called to
depths; and you will not misunderstand me when I say I think
it touched him that a woman should listen to him as I did,
and in such circumstances. I know that it touched me to think
of such a life so spent, and that I came to myself and
implored him to give it all up. I don't think I went on my
knees over it. But I am afraid I did cry; and that was the
end. He pretended not to notice anything, and then in an
instant he froze everything with a flippancy which jarred
horribly at the time, but has ever since touched me more than
all the rest. I remember that I wanted to shake hands at the
end. But Mr. Raffles only shook his head, and for one instant
his face was as sad as it was gallant and gay all the rest of
the time. Then he went as he had come, in his own dreadful
way, and not a soul in the house knew that he had been. And
even you were never told!
"I didn't mean to write all this about your own friend, whom
you knew so much better yourself, yet you see that even you
did not know how nobly he tried to undo the wrong he had done
you; and now I think I know why he kept it to himself. It is
fearfully late--or early--I seem to have been writing all
night--and I will explain the matter in the fewest words. I
promised Mr. Raffles that I would write to you, Harry, and
see you if I could. Well, I did write, and I did mean to see
you, but I never had an answer to what I wrote. It was only
one line, and I have long known you never received it. I
could not bring myself to write more, and even those few
words were merely slipped into one of the books which you had
given me. Years afterward these books, with my name in them,
must have been found in your rooms; at any rate they were
returned to me by somebody; and you could never have opened
them, for there was my line where I had left it. Of course
you had never seen it, and that was all my fault. But it was
too late to write again. Mr. Raffles was supposed to have
been drowned, and everything was known about you both. But I
still kept my own independent knowledge to myself; to this
day, no one else knows that you were one of the two in Palace
Gardens; and I still blame myself more than you may think for
nearly everything that has happened since.
"You said yesterday that your going to the war and getting
wounded wiped out nothing that had gone before. I hope you
are not growing morbid about the past. It is not for me to
condone it, and yet I know that Mr. Raffles was what he was
because he loved danger and adventure, and that you were what
you were because you loved Mr. Raffles. But, even admitting
it was all as bad as bad could be, he is dead, and you are
punished. The world forgives, if it does not forget. You are
young enough to live everything down. Your part in the war
will help you in more ways than one. You were always fond of
writing. You have now enough to write about for a literary
lifetime. You must make a new name for yourself. You must
Harry, and you will!
"I suppose you know that my aunt, Lady Melrose, died some
years ago? She was the best friend I had in the world, and it
is thanks to her that I am living my own life now in the one
way after my own heart. This is a new block of flats, one of
those where they do everything for you; and though mine is
tiny, it is more than all I shall ever want. One does just
exactly what one likes--and you must blame that habit for all
that is least conventional in what I have said. Yet I should
like you to understand why it is that I have said so much,
and, indeed, left nothing unsaid. It is because I want never
to have to say or hear another word about _anything_ that is
past and over. You may answer that I run no risk!
Nevertheless, if you did care to come and see me some day as
an old friend, we might find one or two new points of
contact, for I am rather trying to write myself! You might
almost guess as much from this letter; it is long enough for
anything; but, Harry, if it makes you realize that one of
your oldest friends is glad to have seen you, and will be
gladder still to see you again, and to talk of anything and
everything _except the past_, I shall cease to be ashamed
even of its length!
"And so good-by for the present from
"____"
I omit her name and nothing else. Did I not say in the beginning that
it should never be sullied by association with mine? And yet--and
yet--even as I write I have a hope in my heart of hearts which is not
quite consistent with that sentiment. It is as faint a hope as man
ever had, and yet its audacity makes the pen tremble in my fingers.
But, if it be ever realized, I shall owe more than I could deserve in
a century of atonement to one who atoned more nobly than I ever can.
And to think that to the end I never heard one word of it from
Raffles!
THE END
* * * * *