It was half-past ten when we left the flat, in an interval of silence
on the noisy stairs. The silence was unbroken by our wary feet. Yet for
me a surprise was in store upon the very landing. Instead of going
downstairs, Raffles led me up two flights, and so out upon a perfectly
flat roof.
“There are two entrances to these mansions,” he explained between stars
and chimney-stacks: “one to our staircase, and another round the
corner. But there’s only one porter, and he lives on the basement
underneath us, and affects the door nearest home. We miss him by using
the wrong stairs, and we run less risk of old Theobald. I got the tip
from the postmen, who come up one way and down the other. Now, follow
me, and look out!”
There was indeed some necessity for caution, for each half of the
building had its L-shaped well dropping sheer to the base, the parapets
so low that one might easily have tripped over them into eternity.
However, we were soon upon the second staircase, which opened on the
roof like the first. And twenty minutes of the next twenty-five we
spent in an admirable hansom, skimming east.
“Not much change in the old hole, Bunny. More of these magic-lantern
advertisements ... and absolutely the worst bit of taste in town,
though it’s saying something, in that equestrian statue with the gilt
stirrups and fixings; why don’t they black the buffer’s boots and his
horse’s hoofs while they are about it? ... More bicyclists, of course.
That was just beginning, if you remember. It might have been useful to
us.... And there’s the old club, getting put into a crate for the
Jubilee; by Jove, Bunny, we ought to be there. I wouldn’t lean forward
in Piccadilly, old chap. If you’re seen I’m thought of, and we shall
have to be jolly careful at Kellner’s.... Ah, there it is! Did I tell
you I was a low-down stage Yankee at Kellner’s? You’d better be
another, while the waiter’s in the room.”
We had the little room upstairs; and on the very threshold I, even I,
who knew my Raffles of old, was taken horribly aback. The table was
laid for three. I called his attention to it in a whisper.
“Why, yep!” came through his nose. “Say, boy, the lady, she’s not
comin’, but you leave that tackle where ’tis. If I’m liable to pay, I
guess I’ll have all there is to it.”
I have never been in America, and the American public is the last on
earth that I desire to insult; but idiom and intonation alike would
have imposed upon my inexperience. I had to look at Raffles to make
sure that it was he who spoke, and I had my own reasons for looking
hard.
“Who on earth was the lady?” I inquired aghast at the first
opportunity.
“She isn’t on earth. They don’t like wasting this room on two, that’s
all. Bunny—my Bunny—here’s to us both!”
And we clinked glasses swimming with the liquid gold of Steinberg,
1868; but of the rare delights of that supper I can scarcely trust
myself to write. It was no mere meal, it was no coarse orgy, but a
little feast for the fastidious gods, not unworthy of Lucullus at his
worst. And I who had bolted my skilly at Wormwood Scrubbs, and
tightened my belt in a Holloway attic, it was I who sat down to this
ineffable repast! Where the courses were few, but each a triumph of its
kind, it would be invidious to single out any one dish; but the Jambon
de Westphalie au Champagne tempts me sorely. And then the champagne
that we drank, not the quantity but the quality! Well, it was Pol
Roger, ’84, and quite good enough for me; but even so it was not more
dry, nor did it sparkle more, than the merry rascal who had dragged me
thus far to the devil, but should lead me dancing the rest of the way.
I was beginning to tell him so. I had done my honest best since my
reappearance in the world; but the world had done its worst by me. A
further antithesis and my final intention were both upon my tongue when
the waiter with the Château Margaux cut me short; for he was the bearer
of more than that great wine; bringing also a card upon a silver tray.
“Show him up,” said Raffles, laconically.
“And who is this?” I cried when the man was gone. Raffles reached
across the table and gripped my arm in a vice. His eyes were steel
points fixed on mine.
“Bunny, stand by me,” said he in the old irresistible voice, a voice
both stern and winning. “Stand by me, Bunny—if there’s a row!”
And there was time for nothing more, the door flying open, and a dapper
person entering with a bow; a frock-coat on his back, gold pince-nez on
his nose; a shiny hat in one hand, and a black bag in the other.
“Good-evening, gentlemen,” said he, at home and smiling.
“Sit down,” drawled Raffles in casual response. “Say, let me introduce
you to Mr. Ezra B. Martin, of Shicawgo. Mr. Martin is my future
brother-in-law. This is Mr. Robinson, Ezra, manager to Sparks &
Company, the cellerbrated joolers on Re-gent Street.”
I pricked up my ears, but contented myself with a nod. I altogether
distrusted my ability to live up to my new name and address.
“I figured on Miss Martin bein’ right here, too,” continued Raffles,
“but I regret to say she’s not feelin’ so good. We light out for Parrus
on the 9 A. M. train to-morrer mornin’, and she guessed she’d be too
dead. Sorry to disappoint you, Mr. Robinson; but you’ll see I’m
advertisin’ your wares.”
Raffles held his right hand under the electric light, and a diamond
ring flashed upon his little finger. I could have sworn it was not
there five minutes before.
The tradesman had a disappointed face, but for a moment it brightened
as he expatiated on the value of that ring and on the price his people
had accepted for it. I was invited to guess the figure, but I shook a
discreet head. I have seldom been more taciturn in my life.
“Forty-five pounds,” cried the jeweller; “and it would be cheap at
fifty guineas.”
“That’s right,” assented Raffles. “That’d be dead cheap, I allow. But
then, my boy, you gotten ready cash, and don’t you forget it.”
I do not dwell upon my own mystification in all this. I merely pause to
state that I was keenly enjoying that very element. Nothing could have
been more typical of Raffles and the past. It was only my own attitude
that was changed.
It appeared that the mythical lady, my sister, had just become engaged
to Raffles, who seemed all anxiety to pin her down with gifts of price.
I could not quite gather whose gift to whom was the diamond ring; but
it had evidently been paid for; and I voyaged to the moon, wondering
when and how. I was recalled to this planet by a deluge of gems from
the jeweller’s bag. They lay alight in their cases like the electric
lamps above. We all three put our heads together over them, myself
without the slightest clew as to what was coming, but not unprepared
for violent crime. One does not do eighteen months for nothing.
“Right away,” Raffles was saying. “We’ll choose for her, and you’ll
change anything she don’t like. Is that the idea?”
“That was my suggestion, sir.”
“Then come on, Ezra. I guess you know Sadie’s taste. You help me
choose.”
And we chose—lord! What did we not choose? There was her ring, a
diamond half-hoop. It cost £95, and there was no attempt to get it for
£90. Then there was a diamond necklet—two hundred guineas, but pounds
accepted. That was to be the gift of the bridegroom. The wedding was
evidently imminent. It behooved me to play a brotherly part. I
therefore rose to the occasion; calculated she would like a diamond
star (£116), but reckoned it was more than I could afford; and
sustained a vicious kick under the table for either verb. I was afraid
to open my mouth on finally obtaining the star for the round hundred.
And then the fat fell in the fire; for pay we could not; though a
remittance (said Raffles) was “overdo from Noo York.”
“But I don’t know you, gentlemen,” the jeweller exclaimed. “I haven’t
even the name of your hotel!”
“I told you we was stoppin’ with friends,” said Raffles, who was not
angry, though thwarted and crushed. “But that’s right, sir! Oh, that’s
dead right, and I’m the last man to ask you to take Quixotic risks. I’m
tryin’ to figure a way out. Yes, _sir_, that’s what I’m tryin’ to do.”
“I wish you could, sir,” the jeweller said, with feeling. “It isn’t as
if we hadn’t seen the color of your money. But certain rules I’m sworn
to observe; it isn’t as if I was in business for myself; and—you say
you start for Paris in the morning!”
“On the 9 A. M. train,” mused Raffles; “and I’ve heard no-end yarns
about the joolers’ stores in Parrus. But that ain’t fair; don’t you
take no notice o’ that. I’m tryin’ to figure a way out. Yes, _sir!_”
He was smoking cigarettes out of a twenty-five box; the tradesman and I
had cigars. Raffles sat frowning with a pregnant eye, and it was only
too clear to me that his plans had miscarried. I could not help
thinking, however, that they deserved to do so, if he had counted upon
buying credit for all but £400 by a single payment of some ten per
cent. That again seemed unworthy of Raffles, and I, for my part, still
sat prepared to spring any moment at our visitor’s throat.
“We could mail you the money from Parrus,” drawled Raffles at length.
“But how should we know you’d hold up your end of the string, and mail
us the same articles we’ve selected to-night?”
The visitor stiffened in his chair. The name of his firm should be
sufficient guarantee for that.
“I guess I’m no better acquainted with their name than they are with
mine,” remarked Raffles, laughing. “See here, though! I got a scheme.
You pack ’em in this!”
He turned the cigarettes out of the tin box, while the jeweller and I
joined wondering eyes.
“Pack ’em in this,” repeated Raffles, “the three things we want, and
never mind the boxes; you can pack ’em in cotton-wool. Then we’ll ring
for string and sealing wax, seal up the lot right here, and you can
take ’em away in your grip. Within three days we’ll have our
remittance, and mail you the money, and you’ll mail us this darned box
with my seal unbroken! It’s no use you lookin’ so sick, Mr. Jooler; you
won’t trust us any, and yet we’re goin’ to trust you some. Ring the
bell, Ezra, and we’ll see if they’ve gotten any sealing-wax and
string.”
They had; and the thing was done. The tradesman did not like it; the
precaution was absolutely unnecessary; but since he was taking all his
goods away with him, the sold with the unsold, his sentimental
objections soon fell to the ground. He packed necklet, ring, and star,
with his own hands, in cotton-wool; and the cigarette-box held them so
easily that at the last moment, when the box was closed, and the string
ready, Raffles very nearly added a diamond bee-brooch at £51 10s. This
temptation, however, he ultimately overcame, to the other’s chagrin.
The cigarette-box was tied up, and the string sealed, oddly enough,
with the diamond of the ring that had been bought and paid for.
“I’ll chance you having another ring in the store the dead spit of
mine,” laughed Raffles, as he relinquished the box, and it disappeared
into the tradesman’s bag. “And now, Mr. Robinson, I hope you’ll
appreciate my true hospitality in not offering you any thing to drink
while business was in progress. That’s Château Margaux, sir, and I
should judge it’s what you’d call an eighteen-carat article.”
In the cab which we took to the vicinity of the flat, I was instantly
snubbed for asking questions which the driver might easily overhear,
and took the repulse just a little to heart. I could make neither head
nor tail of Raffles’s dealings with the man from Regent Street, and was
naturally inquisitive as to the meaning of it all. But I held my tongue
until we had regained the flat in the cautious manner of our exit, and
even there until Raffles rallied me with a hand on either shoulder and
an old smile upon his face.
“You rabbit!” said he. “Why couldn’t you wait till we got home?”
“Why couldn’t you tell me what you were going to do?” I retorted as of
yore.
“Because your dear old phiz is still worth its weight in innocence, and
because you never could act for nuts! You looked as puzzled as the
other poor devil; but you wouldn’t if you had known what my game really
was.”
“And pray what was it?”
“That,” said Raffles, and he smacked the cigarette-box down upon the
mantelpiece. It was not tied. It was not sealed. It flew open from the
force of the impact. And the diamond ring that cost £95, the necklet
for £200, and my flaming star at another £100, all three lay safe and
snug in the jeweller’s own cotton-wool!
“Duplicate boxes!” I cried.
“Duplicate boxes, my brainy Bunny. One was already packed and weighted,
and in my pocket. I don’t know whether you noticed me weighing the
three things together in my hand? I know that neither of you saw me
change the boxes, for I did it when I was nearest buying the bee-brooch
at the end, and you were too puzzled, and the other Johnny too keen. It
was the cheapest shot in the game; the dear ones were sending old
Theobald to Southampton on a fool’s errand yesterday afternoon, and
showing one’s own nose down Regent Street in broad daylight while he
was gone; but some things are worth paying for, and certain risks one
must always take. Nice boxes, aren’t they? I only wished they contained
a better cigarette; but a notorious brand was essential; a box of
Sullivans would have brought me to life to-morrow.”
“But they oughtn’t to open it to-morrow.”
“Nor will they, as a matter of fact. Meanwhile, Bunny, I may call upon
you to dispose of the boodle.”
“I’m on for any mortal thing!”
My voice rang true, I swear, but it was the way of Raffles to take the
evidence of as many senses as possible. I felt the cold steel of his
eyes through mine and through my brain. But what he saw seemed to
satisfy him no less than what he heard, for his hand found my hand, and
pressed it with a fervor foreign to the man.
“I know you are, and I knew you would be. Only remember, Bunny, it’s my
turn next to pay the shot!”
You shall hear how he paid it when the time came.