“Yes, Bunny, it was the very devil of a swim; but I defy you to sink in
the Mediterranean. That sunset saved me. The sea was on fire. I hardly
swam under water at all, but went all I knew for the sun itself; when
it set I must have been a mile away; until it did I was the invisible
man. I figured on that, and only hope it wasn’t set down as a case of
suicide. I shall get outed quite soon enough, Bunny, but I’d rather be
dropped by the hangman than throw my own wicket away.”
“Oh, my dear old chap, to think of having you by the hand again! I feel
as though we were both aboard that German liner, and all that’s
happened since a nightmare. I thought that time was the last!”
“It looked rather like it, Bunny. It was taking all the risks, and
hitting at everything. But the game came off, and some day I’ll tell
you how.”
“Oh, I’m in no hurry to hear. It’s enough for me to see you lying
there. I don’t want to know how you came there, or why, though I fear
you must be pretty bad. I must have a good look at you before I let you
speak another word!”
I raised one of the blinds, I sat upon the bed, and I had that look. It
left me all unable to conjecture his true state of health, but quite
certain in my own mind that my dear Raffles was not and never would be
the man that he had been. He had aged twenty years; he looked fifty at
the very least. His hair was white; there was no trick about that; and
his face was another white. The lines about the corners of the eyes and
mouth were both many and deep. On the other hand, the eyes themselves
were alight and alert as ever; they were still keen and gray and
gleaming, like finely tempered steel. Even the mouth, with a cigarette
to close it, was the mouth of Raffles and no other: strong and
unscrupulous as the man himself. It was only the physical strength
which appeared to have departed; but that was quite sufficient to make
my heart bleed for the dear rascal who had cost me every tie I valued
but the tie between us two.
“Think I look much older?” he asked at length.
“A bit,” I admitted. “But it is chiefly your hair.”
“Whereby hangs a tale for when we’ve talked ourselves out, though I
have often thought it was that long swim that started it. Still, the
Island of Elba is a rummy show, I can assure you. And Naples is a
rummier!”
“You went there after all?”
“Rather! It’s the European paradise for such as our noble selves. But
there’s no place that’s a patch on little London as a non-conductor of
heat; it never need get too hot for a fellow here; if it does it’s his
own fault. It’s the kind of wicket you don’t get out on, unless you get
yourself out. So here I am again, and have been for the last six weeks.
And I mean to have another knock.”
“But surely, old fellow, you’re not awfully fit, are you?”
“Fit? My dear Bunny, I’m dead—I’m at the bottom of the sea—and don’t
you forget it for a minute.”
“But are you all right, or are you not?”
“No, I’m half-poisoned by Theobald’s prescriptions and putrid
cigarettes, and as weak as a cat from lying in bed.”
“Then why on earth lie in bed, Raffles?”
“Because it’s better than lying in gaol, as I am afraid _you_ know, my
poor dear fellow. I tell you I am dead; and my one terror is of coming
to life again by accident. Can’t you see? I simply dare not show my
nose out of doors—by day. You have no idea of the number of perfectly
innocent things a dead man daren’t do. I can’t even smoke Sullivans,
because no one man was ever so partial to them as I was in my lifetime,
and you never know when you may start a clew.”
“What brought you to these mansions?”
“I fancied a flat, and a man recommended these on the boat; such a good
chap, Bunny; he was my reference when it came to signing the lease. You
see I landed on a stretcher—most pathetic case—old Australian without a
friend in old country—ordered Engadine as last chance—no go—not an
earthly—sentimental wish to die in London—that’s the history of Mr.
Maturin. If it doesn’t hit you hard, Bunny, you’re the first. But it
hit friend Theobald hardest of all. I’m an income to him. I believe
he’s going to marry on me.”
“Does he guess there’s nothing wrong?”
“Knows, bless you! But he doesn’t know I know he knows, and there isn’t
a disease in the dictionary that he hasn’t treated me for since he’s
had me in hand. To do him justice, I believe he thinks me a
hypochondriac of the first water; but that young man will go far if he
keeps on the wicket. He has spent half his nights up here, at guineas
apiece.”
“Guineas must be plentiful, old chap!”
“They have been, Bunny. I can’t say more. But I don’t see why they
shouldn’t be again.”
I was not going to inquire where the guineas came from. As if I cared!
But I did ask old Raffles how in the world he had got upon my tracks;
and thereby drew the sort of smile with which old gentlemen rub their
hands, and old ladies nod their noses. Raffles merely produced a
perfect oval of blue smoke before replying.
“I was waiting for you to ask that, Bunny; it’s a long time since I did
anything upon which I plume myself more. Of course, in the first place,
I spotted you at once by these prison articles; they were not signed,
but the fist was the fist of my sitting rabbit!”
“But who gave you my address?”
“I wheedled it out of your excellent editor; called on him at dead of
night, when I occasionally go afield like other ghosts, and wept it out
of him in five minutes. I was your only relative; your name was not
your own name; if he insisted I would give him mine. He didn’t insist,
Bunny, and I danced down his stairs with your address in my pocket.”
“Last night?”
“No, last week.”
“And so the advertisement was yours, as well as the telegram!”
I had, of course, forgotten both in the high excitement of the hour, or
I should scarcely have announced my belated discovery with such an air.
As it was I made Raffles look at me as I had known him look before, and
the droop of his eyelids began to sting.
“Why all this subtlety?” I petulantly exclaimed. “Why couldn’t you come
straight away to me in a cab?”
He did not inform me that I was hopeless as ever. He did not address me
as his good rabbit.
He was silent for a time, and then spoke in a tone which made me
ashamed of mine.
“You see, there are two or three of me now, Bunny: one’s at the bottom
of the Mediterranean, and one’s an old Australian desirous of dying in
the old country, but in no immediate danger of dying anywhere. The old
Australian doesn’t know a soul in town; he’s got to be consistent, or
he’s done. This sitter Theobald is his only friend, and has seen rather
too much of him; ordinary dust won’t do for his eyes. Begin to see? To
pick you out of a crowd, that was the game; to let old Theobald help to
pick you, better still! To start with, he was dead against my having
anybody at all; wanted me all to himself, naturally; but anything
rather than kill the goose! So he is to have a fiver a week while he
keeps me alive, and he’s going to be married next month. That’s a pity
in some ways, but a good thing in others; he will want more money than
he foresees, and he may always be of use to us at a pinch. Meanwhile he
eats out of my hand.”
I complimented Raffles on the mere composition of his telegram, with
half the characteristics of my distinguished kinsman squeezed into a
dozen odd words; and let him know how the old ruffian had really
treated me. Raffles was not surprised; we had dined together at my
relative’s in the old days, and filed for reference a professional
valuation of his household gods. I now learnt that the telegram had
been posted, with the hour marked for its despatch, at the pillar
nearest Vere Street, on the night before the advertisement was due to
appear in the _Daily Mail_. This also had been carefully prearranged;
and Raffles’s only fear had been lest it might be held over despite his
explicit instructions, and so drive me to the doctor for an explanation
of his telegram. But the adverse chances had been weeded out and weeded
out to the irreducible minimum of risk.
His greatest risk, according to Raffles, lay nearest home: bedridden
invalid that he was supposed to be, his nightly terror was of running
into Theobald’s arms in the immediate neighborhood of the flat. But
Raffles had characteristic methods of minimizing even that danger, of
which something anon; meanwhile he recounted more than one of his
nocturnal adventures, all, however, of a singularly innocent type; and
one thing I noticed while he talked. His room was the first as you
entered the flat. The long inner wall divided the room not merely from
the passage but from the outer landing as well. Thus every step upon
the bare stone stairs could be heard by Raffles where he lay; and he
would never speak while one was ascending, until it had passed his
door. The afternoon brought more than one applicant for the post which
it was my duty to tell them that I had already obtained. Between three
and four, however, Raffles, suddenly looking at his watch, packed me
off in a hurry to the other end of London for my things.
“I’m afraid you must be famishing, Bunny. It’s a fact that I eat very
little, and that at odd hours, but I ought not to have forgotten you.
Get yourself a snack outside, but not a square meal if you can resist
one. We’ve got to celebrate this day this night!”
“To-night?” I cried.
“To-night at eleven, and Kellner’s the place. You may well open your
eyes, but we didn’t go there much, if you remember, and the staff seems
changed. Anyway we’ll risk it for once. I was in last night, talking
like a stage American, and supper’s ordered for eleven sharp.”
“You made as sure of me as all that!”
“There was no harm in ordering supper. We shall have it in a private
room, but you may as well dress if you’ve got the duds.”
“They’re at my only forgiving relative’s.”
“How much will get them out, and square you up, and bring you back bag
and baggage in good time?”