"What about the Test Match?" cried my asthmatic, shooting forward in
his chair.
"I can tell you that," said I. "We went in first--"
"Oh, I know all about that," he interrupted. "I've seen the miserable
score up to lunch. How many did we scrape altogether?"
"We're scraping them still."
"No! How many?"
"Over two hundred for seven wickets."
"Who made the stand?"
"Raffles, for one. He was 62 not out at close of play!"
And the note of admiration rang in my voice, though I tried in my
self-consciousness to keep it out. But young Medlicott's enthusiasm
proved an ample cloak for mine; it was he who might have been the
personal friend of Raffles; and in his delight he chuckled till he
puffed and blew again.
"Good old Raffles!" he panted in every pause. "After being chosen
last, and as a bowler-man! That's the cricketer for me, sir; by Jove,
we must have another drink in his honor! Funny thing, asthma; your
liquor affects your head no more than it does a man with a snake-bite;
but it eases everything else, and sees you through. Doctors will tell
you so, but you've got to ask 'em first; they're no good for asthma!
I've only known one who could stop an attack, and he knocked me
sideways with nitrite of amyl. Funny complaint in other ways; raises
your spirits, if anything. You can't look beyond the next breath.
Nothing else worries you. Well, well, here's luck to A. J. Raffles,
and may he get his century in the morning!"
And he struggled to his feet for the toast; but I drank it sitting
down. I felt unreasonably wroth with Raffles, for coming into the
conversation as he had done--for taking centuries in Test Matches as he
was doing, without bothering his head about me. A failure would have
been in better taste; it would have shown at least some imagination,
some anxiety on one's account I did not reflect that even Raffles could
scarcely be expected to picture me in my cups with the son of the house
that I had come to rob; chatting with him, ministering to him; admiring
his cheery courage, and honestly attempting to lighten his load! Truly
it was an infernal position: how could I rob him or his after this?
And yet I had thrust myself into it; and Raffles would never, never
understand!
Even that was not the worst. I was not quite sure that young Medlicott
was sure of me. I had feared this from the beginning, and now (over
the second glass that could not possibly affect a man in his condition)
he practically admitted as much to me. Asthma was such a funny thing
(he insisted) that it would not worry him a bit to discover that I had
come to take the presents instead of to take care of them! I showed a
sufficiently faint appreciation of the jest. And it was presently
punished as it deserved, by the most violent paroxysm that had seized
the sufferer yet: the fight for breath became faster and more furious,
and the former weapons of no more avail. I prepared a cigarette, but
the poor brute was too breathless to inhale. I poured out yet more
whiskey, but he put it from him with a gesture.
"Amyl--get me amyl!" he gasped. "The tin on the table by my bed."
I rushed into his room, and returned with a little tin of tiny
cylinders done up like miniature crackers in scraps of calico; the
spent youth broke one in his handkerchief, in which he immediately
buried his face. I watched him closely as a subtle odor reached my
nostrils; and it was like the miracle of oil upon the billows. His
shoulders rested from long travail; the stertorous gasping died away to
a quick but natural respiration; and in the sudden cessation of the
cruel contest, an uncanny stillness fell upon the scene. Meanwhile the
hidden face had flushed to the ears, and, when at length it was raised
to mine, its crimson calm was as incongruous as an optical illusion.
"It takes the blood from the heart," he murmured, "and clears the whole
show for the moment. If it only lasted! But you can't take two
without a doctor; one's quite enough to make you smell the brimstone...
I say, what's up? You're listening to something! If it's the policeman
we'll have a word with him."
It was not the policeman; it was no out-door sound that I had caught in
the sudden cessation of the bout for breath. It was a noise, a
footstep, in the room below us. I went to the window and leaned out:
right underneath, in the conservatory, was the faintest glimmer of a
light in the adjoining room.
"One of the rooms where the presents are!" whispered Medlicott at my
elbow. And as we withdrew together, I looked him in the face as I had
not done all night.
I looked him in the face like an honest man, for a miracle was to make
me one once more. My knot was cut--my course inevitable. Mine, after
all, to prevent the very thing that I had come to do! My gorge had long
since risen at the deed; the unforeseen circumstances had rendered it
impossible from the first; but now I could afford to recognize the
impossibility, and to think of Raffles and the asthmatic alike without
a qualm. I could play the game by them both, for it was one and the
same game. I could preserve thieves' honor, and yet regain some shred
of that which I had forfeited as a man!
So I thought as we stood face to face, our ears straining for the least
movement below, our eyes locked in a common anxiety. Another muffled
foot-fall--felt rather than heard--and we exchanged grim nods of
simultaneous excitement. But by this time Medlicott was as helpless as
he had been before; the flush had faded from his face, and his
breathing alone would have spoiled everything. In dumb show I had to
order him to stay where he was, to leave my man to me. And then it was
that in a gusty whisper, with the same shrewd look that had
disconcerted me more than once during our vigil, young Medlicott froze
and fired my blood by turns.
"I've been unjust to you," he said, with his right hand in his
dressing-gown pocket. "I thought for a bit--never mind what I
thought--I soon saw I was wrong. But--I've had this thing in my pocket
all the time!"
And he would have thrust his revolver upon me as a peace-offering, but
I would not even take his hand, as I tapped the life-preserver in my
pocket, and crept out to earn his honest grip or to fall in the
attempt. On the landing I drew Raffles's little weapon, slipped my
right wrist through the leathern loop, and held it in readiness over my
right shoulder. Then, down-stairs I stole, as Raffles himself had
taught me, close to the wall, where the planks are nailed. Nor had I
made a sound, to my knowledge; for a door was open, and a light was
burning, and the light did not flicker as I approached the door. I
clenched my teeth and pushed it open; and here was the veriest villain
waiting for me, his little lantern held aloft.
"You blackguard!" I cried, and with a single thwack I felled the
ruffian to the floor.
There was no question of a foul blow. He had been just as ready to
pounce on me; it was simply my luck to have got the first blow home.
Yet a fellow-feeling touched me with remorse, as I stood over the
senseless body, sprawling prone, and perceived that I had struck an
unarmed man. The lantern only had fallen from his hands; it lay on one
side, smoking horribly; and a something in the reek caused me to set it
up in haste and turn the body over with both hands.
Shall I ever forget the incredulous horror of that moment?
It was Raffles himself!
How it was possible, I did not pause to ask myself; if one man on earth
could annihilate space and time, it was the man lying senseless at my
feet; and that was Raffles, without an instant's doubt. He was in
villainous guise, which I knew of old, now that I knew the unhappy
wearer. His face was grimy, and dexterously plastered with a growth of
reddish hair; his clothes were those in which he had followed cabs from
the London termini; his boots were muffled in thick socks; and I had
laid him low with a bloody scalp that filled my cup of horror. I
groaned aloud as I knelt over him and felt his heart. And I was
answered by a bronchial whistle from the door.
"Jolly well done!" cheered my asthmatical friend. "I heard the whole
thing--only hope my mother didn't. We must keep it from her if we can."
I could have cursed the creature's mother from my full heart; yet even
with my hand on that of Raffles, as I felt his feeble pulse, I told
myself that this served him right. Even had I brained him, the fault
had been his, not mine. And it was a characteristic, an inveterate
fault, that galled me for all my anguish: to trust and yet distrust me
to the end, to race through England in the night, to spy upon me at his
work--to do it himself after all!
"Is he dead?" wheezed the asthmatic coolly.
"Not he," I answered, with an indignation that I dared not show.
"You must have hit him pretty hard," pursued young Medlicott, "but I
suppose it was a case of getting first knock. And a good job you got
it, if this was his," he added, picking up the murderous little
life-preserver which poor Raffles had provided for his own destruction.
"Look here," I answered, sitting back on my heels. "He isn't dead, Mr.
Medlicott, and I don't know how long he'll be as much as stunned. He's
a powerful brute, and you're not fit to lend a hand. But that
policeman of yours can't be far away. Do you think you could struggle
out and look for him?"
"I suppose I am a bit better than I was," he replied doubtfully. "The
excitement seems to have done me good. If you like to leave me on
guard with my revolver, I'll undertake that he doesn't escape me."