I had not seen Raffles for a month or more, and I was sadly in need of
his advice. My life was being made a burden to me by a wretch who had
obtained a bill of sale over the furniture in Mount Street, and it was
only by living elsewhere that I could keep the vulpine villain from my
door. This cost ready money, and my balance at the bank was sorely in
need of another lift from Raffles. Yet, had he been in my shoes, he
could not have vanished more effectually than he had done, both from
the face of the town and from the ken of all who knew him.
It was late in August; he never played first-class cricket after July,
when, a scholastic understudy took his place in the Middlesex eleven.
And in vain did I scour my _Field_ and my _Sportsman_ for the country-house
matches with which he wilfully preferred to wind up the season; the
matches were there, but never the magic name of A. J. Raffles. Nothing
was known of him at the Albany; he had left no instructions about his
letters, either there or at the club. I began to fear that some evil
had overtaken him. I scanned the features of captured criminals in the
illustrated Sunday papers; on each occasion I breathed again; nor was
anything worthy of Raffles going on. I will not deny that I was less
anxious on his account than on my own. But it was a double relief to
me when he gave a first characteristic sign of life.
I had called at the Albany for the fiftieth time, and returned to
Piccadilly in my usual despair, when a street sloucher sidled up to me
in furtive fashion and inquired if my name was what it is.
"'Cause this 'ere's for you," he rejoined to my affirmative, and with
that I felt a crumpled note in my palm.
It was from Raffles. I smoothed out the twisted scrap of paper, and on
it were just a couple of lines in pencil:
"Meet me in Holland Walk at dark to-night. Walk up and down till I
come. A. J. R."
That was all! Not another syllable after all these weeks, and the few
words scribbled in a wild caricature of his scholarly and dainty hand!
I was no longer to be alarmed by this sort of thing; it was all so like
the Raffles I loved least; and to add to my indignation, when at length
I looked up from the mysterious missive, the equally mysterious
messenger had disappeared in a manner worthy of the whole affair. He
was, however, the first creature I espied under the tattered trees of
Holland Walk that evening.
"Seen 'im yet?" he inquired confidentially, blowing a vile cloud from
his horrid pipe.
"No, I haven't; and I want to know where you've seen him," I replied
sternly. "Why did you run away like that the moment you had given me
his note?"
"Orders, orders," was the reply. "I ain't such a juggins as to go agen
a toff as makes it worf while to do as I'm bid an' 'old me tongue."
"And who may you be?" I asked jealously. "And what are you to Mr.
Raffles?"
"You silly ass, Bunny, don't tell all Kensington that I'm in town!"
replied my tatterdemalion, shooting up and smoothing out into a merely
shabby Raffles. "Here, take my arm--I'm not so beastly as I look. But
neither am I in town, nor in England, nor yet on the face of the earth,
for all that's known of me to a single soul but you."
"Then where are you," I asked, "between ourselves?"
"I've taken a house near here for the holidays, where I'm going in for
a Rest Cure of my own description. Why? Oh, for lots of reasons, my
dear Bunny; among others, I have long had a wish to grow my own beard;
under the next lamppost you will agree that it's training on very
nicely. Then, you mayn't know it, but there's a canny man at Scotland
Yard who has had a quiet eye on me longer than I like. I thought it
about time to have an eye on him, and I stared him in the face outside
the Albany this very morning. That was when I saw you go in, and
scribbled a line to give you when you came out. If he had caught us
talking he would have spotted me at once."
"So you are lying low out here!"
"I prefer to call it my Rest Cure," returned Raffles, "and it's really
nothing else. I've got a furnished house at a time when no one else
would have dreamed of taking one in town; and my very neighbors don't
know I'm there, though I'm bound to say there are hardly any of them at
home. I don't keep a servant, and do everything for myself. It's the
next best fun to a desert island. Not that I make much work, for I'm
really resting, but I haven't done so much solid reading for years.
Rather a joke, Bunny: the man whose house I've taken is one of her
Majesty's inspectors of prisons, and his study's a storehouse of
criminology. It has been quite amusing to lie on one's back and have a
good look at one's self as others fondly imagine they see one."
"But surely you get some exercise?" I asked; for he was leading me at a
good rate through the leafy byways of Campden Hill; and his step was
as springy and as light as ever.
"The best exercise I ever had in my life," said Raffles; "and you 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 up-stairs; 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 lamppost, 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 hail 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 locksmith 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 up-stairs
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.
"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 handwriting 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.
"If it's a choice between his life and our liberty, you're entitled to
your decision and I'm entitled to mine, and I took it before I bound
him as I did," said Raffles. "I'm only sorry I took so much trouble if
you're going to stay behind and put him in the way of releasing himself
before he gives up the ghost. Perhaps you will go and think it over
while I wash my bags and dry 'em at the gas stove. It will take me at
least an hour, which will just give me time to finish the last volume
of Kinglake."
Long before he was ready to go, however, I was waiting in the hall,
clothed indeed, but not in a mind which I care to recall. Once or
twice I peered into the dining-room where Raffles sat before the stove,
without letting him hear me. He, too, was ready for the street at a
moment's notice; but a steam ascended from his left leg, as he sat
immersed in his red volume. Into the study I never went again; but
Raffles did, to restore to its proper shelf this and every other book
he had taken out and so destroy that clew to the manner of man who had
made himself at home in the house. On his last visit I heard him whisk
off the dust-sheet; then he waited a minute; and when he came out it
was to lead the way into the open air as though the accursed house
belonged to him.
"We shall be seen," I whispered at his heels. "Raffles, Raffles,
there's a policeman at the corner!"
"I know him intimately," replied Raffles, turning, however, the other
way. "He accosted me on Monday, when I explained that I was an old
soldier of the colonel's regiment, who came in every few days to air
the place and send on any odd letters. You see, I have always carried
one or two about me, redirected to that address in Switzerland, and
when I showed them to him it was all right. But after that it was no
use listening at the letter-box for a clear coast, was it?"
I did not answer; there was too much to exasperate in these prodigies
of cunning which he could never trouble to tell me at the time. And I
knew why he had kept his latest feats to himself: unwilling to trust me
outside the house, he had systematically exaggerated the dangers of his
own walks abroad; and when to these injuries he added the insult of a
patronizing compliment on my late disguise, I again made no reply.
"What's the good of your coming with me?" he asked, when I had followed
him across the main stream of Notting Hill.
"We may as well sink or swim together," I answered sullenly.
"Yes? Well, I'm going to swim into the provinces, have a shave on the
way, buy a new kit piecemeal, including a cricket-bag (which I really
want), and come limping back to the Albany with the same old strain in
my bowling leg. I needn't add that I have been playing country-house
cricket for the last month under an alias; it's the only decent way to
do it when one's county has need of one. That's my itinerary, Bunny,
but I really can't see why you should come with me."
"We may as well swing together!" I growled.
"As you will, my dear fellow," replied Raffles. "But I begin to dread
your company on the drop!"
I shall hold my pen on that provincial tour. Not that I joined Raffles
in any of the little enterprises with which he beguiled the breaks in
our journey; our last deed in London was far too great a weight upon my
soul. I could see that gallant officer in his chair, see him at every
hour of the day and night, now with his indomitable eyes meeting mine
ferociously, now a stark outline underneath a sheet. The vision
darkened my day and gave me sleepless nights. I was with our victim in
all his agony; my mind would only leave him for that gallows of which
Raffles had said true things in jest. No, I could not face so vile a
death lightly, but I could meet it, somehow, better than I could endure
a guilty suspense. In the watches of the second night I made up my
mind to meet it halfway, that very morning, while still there might be
time to save the life that we had left in jeopardy. And I got up early
to tell Raffles of my resolve.
His room in the hotel where we were staying was littered with clothes
and luggage new enough for any bridegroom; I lifted the locked
cricket-bag, and found it heavier than a cricket-bag has any right to
be. But in the bed Raffles was sleeping like an infant, his shaven
self once more. And when I shook him he awoke with a smile.
"Going to confess, eh, Bunny? Well, wait a bit; the local police won't
thank you for knocking them up at this hour. And I bought a late
edition which you ought to see; that must be it on the floor. You have
a look in the stop-press column, Bunny."