"But who are they, Raffles, and where's their house? There's no such
club on the list in Whitaker."
"The Criminologists, my dear Bunny, are too few for a local habitation,
and too select to tell their name in Gath. They are merely so many
solemn students of contemporary crime, who meet and dine periodically
at each other's clubs or houses."
"But why in the world should they ask us to dine with them?"
And I brandished the invitation which had brought me hotfoot to the
Albany: it was from the Right Hon. the Earl of Thornaby, K.G.; and it
requested the honor of my company at dinner, at Thornaby House, Park
Lane, to meet the members of the Criminologists' Club. That in itself
was a disturbing compliment: judge then of my dismay on learning that
Raffles had been invited too!
"They have got it into their heads," said he, "that the gladiatorial
element is the curse of most modern sport. They tremble especially for
the professional gladiator. And they want to know whether my
experience tallies with their theory."
"So they say!"
"They quote the case of a league player, _sus per coll_., and any number
of suicides. It really is rather in my public line."
"In yours, if you like, but not in mine," said I. "No, Raffles,
they've got their eye on us both, and mean to put us under the
microscope, or they never would have pitched on _me_."
Raffles smiled on my perturbation.
"I almost wish you were right, Bunny! It would be even better fun than
I mean to make it as it is. But it may console you to hear that it was
I who gave them your name. I told them you were a far keener
criminologist than myself. I am delighted to hear they have taken my
hint, and that we are to meet at their gruesome board."
"If I accept," said I, with the austerity he deserved.
"If you don't," rejoined Raffles, "you will miss some sport after both
our hearts. Think of it, Bunny! These fellows meet to wallow in all
the latest crimes; we wallow with them as though we knew more about it
than themselves. Perhaps we don't, for few criminologists have a soul
above murder; and I quite expect to have the privilege of lifting the
discussion into our own higher walk. They shall give their morbid
minds to the fine art of burgling, for a change; and while we're about
it, Bunny, we may as well extract their opinion of our noble selves.
As authors, as collaborators, we will sit with the flower of our
critics, and find our own level in the expert eye. It will be a piquant
experience, if not an invaluable one; if we are sailing too near the
wind, we are sure to hear about it, and can trim our yards accordingly.
Moreover, we shall get a very good dinner into the bargain, or our
noble host will belie a European reputation."
"Do you know him?" I asked.
"We have a pavilion acquaintance, when it suits my lord," replied
Raffles, chuckling. "But I know all about him. He was president one
year of the M.C.C., and we never had a better. He knows the game,
though I believe he never played cricket in his life. But then he
knows most things, and has never done any of them. He has never even
married, and never opened his lips in the House of Lords. Yet they say
there is no better brain in the August assembly, and he certainly made
us a wonderful speech last time the Australians were over. He has read
everything and (to his credit in these days) never written a line. All
round he is a whale for theory and a sprat for practice--but he looks
quite capable of both at crime!"
I now longed to behold this remarkable peer, in the flesh, and with the
greater curiosity since another of the things which he evidently never
did was to have his photograph published for the benefit of the vulgar.
I told Raffles that I would dine with him at Lord Thornaby's, and he
nodded as though I had not hesitated for a moment. I see now how deftly
he had disposed of my reluctance. No doubt he had thought it all out
before: his little speeches look sufficiently premeditated as I set
them down at the dictates of an excellent memory. Let it, however, be
borne in mind that Raffles did not talk exactly like a Raffles book: he
said the things, but he did not say them in so many consecutive
breaths. They were punctuated by puffs from his eternal cigarette, and
the punctuation was often in the nature of a line of asterisks, while
he took a silent turn up and down his room. Nor was he ever more
deliberate than when he seemed most nonchalant and spontaneous. I came
to see it in the end. But these were early days, in which he was more
plausible to me than I can hope to render him to another human being.
And I saw a good deal of Raffles just then; it was, in fact, the one
period at which I can remember his coming round to see me more
frequently than I went round to him. Of course he would come at his
own odd hours, often just as one was dressing to go out and dine, and I
can even remember finding him there when I returned, for I had long
since given him a key of the flat. It was the inhospitable month of
February, and I can recall more than one cosy evening when we discussed
anything and everything but our own malpractices; indeed, there were
none to discuss just then. Raffles, on the contrary, was showing
himself with some industry in the most respectable society, and by his
advice I used the club more than ever.
"There is nothing like it at this time of year," said he. "In the
summer I have my cricket to provide me with decent employment in the
sight of men. Keep yourself before the public from morning to night,
and they'll never think of you in the still small hours."
Our behavior, in fine, had so long been irreproachable that I rose
without misgiving on the morning of Lord Thornaby's dinner to the other
Criminologists and guests. My chief anxiety was to arrive under the
ægis of my brilliant friend, and I had begged him to pick me up on his
way; but at five minutes to the appointed hour there was no sign of
Raffles or his cab. We were bidden at a quarter to eight for eight
o'clock, so after all I had to hurry off alone.
Fortunately, Thornaby House is almost at the end of my street that was;
and it seemed to me another fortunate circumstance that the house stood
back, as it did and does, in its own august courtyard; for, as I was
about to knock, a hansom came twinkling in behind me, and I drew back,
hoping it was Raffles at the last moment. It was not, and I knew it in
time to melt from the porch, and wait yet another minute in the
shadows, since others were as late as I. And out jumped these others,
chattering in stage whispers as they paid their cab.
"Thornaby has a bet about it with Freddy Vereker, who can't come, I
hear. Of course, it won't be lost or won to-night. But the dear man
thinks he's been invited as a cricketer!"
"I don't believe he's the other thing," said a voice as brusque as the
first was bland. "I believe it's all bunkum. I wish I didn't, but I
do!"
"I think you'll find it's more than that," rejoined the other, as the
doors opened and swallowed the pair.
I flung out limp hands and smote the air. Raffles bidden to what he
had well called this "gruesome board," not as a cricketer but, clearly,
as a suspected criminal! Raffles wrong all the time, and I right for
once in my original apprehension! And still no Raffles in sight--no
Raffles to warn--no Raffles, and the clocks striking eight!
Well may I shirk the psychology of such a moment, for my belief is that
the striking clocks struck out all power of thought and feeling, and
that I played my poor part the better for that blessed surcease of
intellectual sensation. On the other hand, I was never more alive to
the purely objective impressions of any hour of my existence, and of
them the memory is startling to this day. I hear my mad knock at the
double doors; they fly open in the middle, and it is like some
sumptuous and solemn rite. A long slice of silken-legged lackey is
seen on either hand; a very prelate of a butler bows a benediction from
the sanctuary steps. I breathe more freely when I reach a book-lined
library where a mere handful of men do not overflow the Persian rug
before the fire. One of them is Raffles, who is talking to a large man
with the brow of a demi-god and the eyes and jowl of a degenerate
bulldog. And this is our noble host.
Lord Thornaby stared at me with inscrutable stolidity as we shook
hands, and at once handed me over to a tall, ungainly man whom he
addressed as Ernest, but whose surname I never learned. Ernest in turn
introduced me, with a shy and clumsy courtesy, to the two remaining
guests. They were the pair who had driven up in the hansom; one turned
out to be Kingsmill, Q.C.; the other I knew at a glance from his
photographs as Parrington, the backwoods novelist. They were admirable
foils to each other, the barrister being plump and dapper, with a
Napoleonic cast of countenance, and the author one of the shaggiest
dogs I have ever seen in evening-clothes. Neither took much stock of
me, but both had an eye on Raffles as I exchanged a few words with each
in turn. Dinner, however, was immediately announced, and the six of us
had soon taken our places round a brilliant little table stranded in a
great dark room.
I had not been prepared for so small a party, and at first I felt
relieved. If the worst came to the worst, I was fool enough to say in
my heart, they were but two to one. But I was soon sighing for that
safety which the adage associates with numbers. We were far too few
for the confidential duologue with one's neighbor in which I, at least,
would have taken refuge from the perils of a general conversation. And
the general conversation soon resolved itself into an attack, so subtly
concerted and so artistically delivered that I could not conceive how
Raffles should ever know it for an attack, and that against himself, or
how to warn him of his peril. But to this day I am not convinced that I
also was honored by the suspicions of the club; it may have been so,
and they may have ignored me for the bigger game.
It was Lord Thornaby himself who fired the first shot, over the very
sherry. He had Raffles on his right hand, and the backwoodsman of
letters on his left. Raffles was hemmed in by the law on his right,
while I sat between Parrington and Ernest, who took the foot of the
table, and seemed a sort of feudatory cadet of the noble house. But it
was the motley lot of us that my lord addressed, as he sat back
blinking his baggy eyes.
"Mr. Raffles," said he, "has been telling me about that poor fellow who
suffered the extreme penalty last March. A great end, gentlemen, a
great end! It is true that he had been unfortunate enough to strike a
jugular vein, but his own end should take its place among the most
glorious traditions of the gallows. You tell them Mr. Raffles: it will
be as new to my friends as it is to me."
"I tell the tale as I heard it last time I played at Trent Bridge; it
was never in the papers, I believe," said Raffles gravely. "You may
remember the tremendous excitement over the Test Matches out in
Australia at the time: it seems that the result of the crucial game was
expected on the condemned man's last day on earth, and he couldn't rest
until he knew it. We pulled it off, if you recollect, and he said it
would make him swing happy."
"Tell 'em what else he said!" cried Lord Thornaby, rubbing his podgy
hands.
"The chaplain remonstrated with him on his excitement over a game at
such a time, and the convict is said to have replied: 'Why, it's the
first thing they'll ask me at the other end of the drop!'"
The story was new even to me, but I had no time to appreciate its
points. My concern was to watch its effect upon the other members of
the party. Ernest, on my left, doubled up with laughter, and tittered
and shook for several minutes. My other neighbor, more impressionable
by temperament, winced first, and then worked himself into a state of
enthusiasm which culminated in an assault upon his shirt-cuff with a
joiner's pencil. Kingsmill, Q.C., beaming tranquilly on Raffles,
seemed the one least impressed, until he spoke.
"I am glad to hear that," he remarked in a high bland voice. "I
thought that man would die game."
"Did you know anything about him, then?" inquired Lord Thornaby.
"I led for the Crown," replied the barrister, with a twinkle. "You
might almost say that I measured the poor man's neck."
The point must have been quite unpremeditated; it was not the less
effective for that. Lord Thornaby looked askance at the callous silk.
It was some moments before Ernest tittered and Parrington felt for his
pencil; and in the interim I had made short work of my hock, though it
was Johannisberger. As for Raffles, one had but to see his horror to
feel how completely he was off his guard.
"In itself, I have heard, it was not a sympathetic case?" was the
remark with which he broke the general silence.
"Not a bit."
"That must have been a comfort to you," said Raffles dryly.
"It would have been to me," vowed our author, while the barrister
merely smiled. "I should have been very sorry to have had a hand in
hanging Peckham and Solomons the other day."
"Why Peckham and Solomons?" inquired my lord.
"They never meant to kill that old lady."
"But they strangled her in her bed with her own pillow-case!"
"I don't care," said the uncouth scribe. "They didn't break in for
that. They never thought of scragging her. The foolish old person
would make a noise, and one of them tied too tight. I call it jolly
bad luck on them."
"On quiet, harmless, well-behaved thieves," added Lord Thornaby, "in
the unobtrusive exercise of their humble avocation."
And, as he turned to Raffles with his puffy smile, I knew that we had
reached that part of the programme which had undergone rehearsal: it
had been perfectly timed to arrive with the champagne, and I was not
afraid to signify my appreciation of that small mercy. But Raffles
laughed so quickly at his lordship's humor, and yet with such a natural
restraint, as to leave no doubt that he had taken kindly to my own old
part, and was playing the innocent inimitably in his turn, by reason of
his very innocence. It was a poetic judgment on old Raffles, and in my
momentary enjoyment of the novel situation I was able to enjoy some of
the good things of this rich man's table. The saddle of mutton more
than justified its place in the menu; but it had not spoiled me for my
wing of pheasant, and I was even looking forward to a sweet, when a
further remark from the literary light recalled me from the table to
its talk.
"But, I suppose," said he to Kingsmill, "it's 'many a burglar you've
restored to his friends and his relations'?"
"Let us say many a poor fellow who has been charged with burglary,"
replied the cheery Q.C. "It's not quite the same thing, you know, nor
is 'many' the most accurate word. I never touch criminal work in town."
"It's the only kind I should care about," said the novelist, eating
jelly with a spoon.
"I quite agree with you," our host chimed in. "And of all the
criminals one might be called upon to defend, give me the enterprising
burglar."
"It must be the breeziest branch of the business," remarked Raffles,
while I held my breath.
But his touch was as light as gossamer, and his artless manner a
triumph of even his incomparable art. Raffles was alive to the danger
at last. I saw him refuse more champagne, even as I drained my glass
again. But it was not the same danger to us both. Raffles had no
reason to feel surprise or alarm at such a turn in a conversation
frankly devoted to criminology; it must have been as inevitable to him
as it was sinister to me, with my fortuitous knowledge of the
suspicions that were entertained. And there was little to put him on
his guard in the touch of his adversaries, which was only less light
than his own.
"I am not very fond of Mr. Sikes," announced the barrister, like a man
who had got his cue.
"But he was prehistoric," rejoined my lord. "A lot of blood has flowed
under the razor since the days of Sweet William."
"True; we have had Peace," said Parrington, and launched out into such
glowing details of that criminal's last moments that I began to hope
the diversion might prove permanent. But Lord Thornaby was not to be
denied.
"William and Charles are both dead monarchs," said he. "The reigning
king in their department is the fellow who gutted poor Danby's place in
Bond Street."
There was a guilty silence on the part of the three conspirators--for I
had long since persuaded myself that Ernest was not in their
secret--and then my blood froze.
"I know him well," said Raffles, looking up.
Lord Thornaby stared at him in consternation. The smile on the
Napoleonic countenance of the barrister looked forced and frozen for
the first time during the evening. Our author, who was nibbling cheese
from a knife, left a bead of blood upon his beard. The futile Ernest
alone met the occasion with a hearty titter.
"What!" cried my lord. "You know the thief?"
"I wish I did," rejoined Raffles, chuckling. "No, Lord Thornaby, I
only meant the jeweller, Danby. I go to him when I want a wedding
present."