"You'll be seen from that skylight!" cried Raffles in a warning
undertone.
"No, I won't. I can't see it myself. But here's the
lightning-conductor, where it always was."
"How thick," asked Raffles, as I drew in and rejoined him.
"Rather thicker than a lead-pencil."
"They sometimes bear you," said Raffles, slipping on a pair of white
kid gloves, and stuffing his handkerchief into the palm of one. "The
difficulty is to keep a grip; but I've been up and down them before
to-night. And it's our only chance. I'll go first, Bunny: you watch
me, and do exactly as I do if I get down all right."
"But if you don't?"
"If I don't," whispered Raffles, as he wormed through the window feet
foremost, "I'm afraid you'll have to face the music where you are, and
I shall have the best of it down in Acheron!"
And he slid out of reach without another word, leaving me to shudder
alike at his levity and his peril; nor could I follow him very far by
the wan light of the April stars; but I saw his forearms resting a
moment in the spout that ran around the tower, between bricks and
slates, on the level of the floor; and I had another dim glimpse of him
lower still, on the eaves over the very room that we had ransacked.
Thence the conductor ran straight to earth in an angle of the façade.
And since it had borne him thus far without mishap, I felt that Raffles
was as good as down. But I had neither his muscles nor his nerves, and
my head swam as I mounted to the window and prepared to creep out
backward in my turn.
So it was that at the last moment I had my first unobstructed view of
the little old tower of other days. Raffles was out of the way; the
bit of candle was still burning on the floor, and in its dim light the
familiar haunt was cruelly like itself of innocent memory. A lesser
ladder still ascended to a tinier trap-door in the apex of the tower;
the fixed seats looked to me to be wearing their old, old coat of
grained varnish; nay the varnish had its ancient smell, and the very
vanes outside creaked their message to my ears. I remembered whole
days that I had spent, whole books that I had read, here in this
favorite fastness of my boyhood. The dirty little place, with the
dormer window in each of its four sloping sides, became a gallery hung
with poignant pictures of the past. And here was I leaving it with my
life in my hands and my pockets full of stolen jewels! A superstition
seized me. Suppose the conductor came down with me ... suppose I
slipped ... and was picked up dead, with the proceeds of my shameful
crime upon me, under the very windows
...where the sun
Came peeping in at dawn...
I hardly remember what I did or left undone. I only know that nothing
broke, that somehow I kept my hold, and that in the end the wire ran
red-hot through my palms so that both were torn and bleeding when I
stood panting beside Raffles in the flower-beds. There was no time for
thinking then. Already there was a fresh commotion in-doors; the tidal
wave of excitement which had swept all before it to the upper regions
was subsiding in as swift a rush downstairs; and I raced after Raffles
along the edge of the drive without daring to look behind.
We came out by the opposite gate to that by which we had stolen in.
Sharp to the right ran the private lane behind the stables and sharp to
the right dashed Raffles, instead of straight along the open road. It
was not the course I should have chosen, but I followed Raffles without
a murmur, only too thankful that he had assumed the lead at last.
Already the stables were lit up like a chandelier; there was a staccato
rattle of horseshoes in the stable yard, and the great gates were
opening as we skimmed past in the nick of time. In another minute we
were skulking in the shadow of the kitchen-garden wall while the
high-road rang with the dying tattoo of galloping hoofs.
"That's for the police," said Raffles, waiting for me. "But the fun's
only beginning in the stables. Hear the uproar, and see the lights!
In another minute they'll be turning out the hunters for the last run
of the season!"
"We mustn't give them one, Raffles!"
"Of course we mustn't; but that means stopping where we are."
"We can't do that!"
"If they're wise they'll send a man to every railway station within ten
miles and draw every cover inside the radius. I can only think of one
that's not likely to occur to them."
"What's that?"
"The other side of this wall. How big is the garden, Bunny?"
"Six or seven acres."
"Well, you must take me to another of your old haunts, where we can lie
low till morning."
"And then?"
"Sufficient for the night, Bunny! The first thing is to find a burrow.
What are those trees at the end of this lane?"
"St. Leonard's Forest."
"Magnificent! They'll scour every inch of that before they come back
to their own garden. Come, Bunny, give me a leg up, and I'll pull you
after me in two ticks!"
There was indeed nothing better to be done; and, much as I loathed and
dreaded entering the place again, I had already thought of a second
sanctuary of old days, which might as well be put to the base uses of
this disgraceful night. In a far corner of the garden, over a hundred
yards from the house, a little ornamental lake had been dug within my
own memory; its shores were shelving lawn and steep banks of
rhododendrons; and among the rhododendrons nestled a tiny boathouse
which had been my childish joy. It was half a dock for the dingy in
which one plowed these miniature waters and half a bathing-box for
those who preferred their morning tub among the goldfish. I could not
think of a safer asylum than this, if we must spend the night upon the
premises; and Raffles agreed with me when I had led him by sheltering
shrubbery and perilous lawn to the diminutive _châlet_ between the
rhododendrons and the water.
But what a night it was! The little bathing-box had two doors, one to
the water, the other to the path. To hear all that could be heard, it
was necessary to keep both doors open, and quite imperative not to
talk. The damp night air of April filled the place, and crept through
our evening clothes and light overcoats into the very marrow; the
mental torture of the situation was renewed and multiplied in my brain;
and all the time one's ears were pricked for footsteps on the path
between the rhododendrons. The only sounds we could at first identify
came one and all from the stables. Yet there the excitement subsided
sooner than we had expected, and it was Raffles himself who breathed a
doubt as to whether they were turning out the hunters after all. On
the other hand, we heard wheels in the drive not long after midnight;
and Raffles, who was beginning to scout among the shrubberies, stole
back to tell me that the guests were departing, and being sped, with an
unimpaired conviviality which he failed to understand. I said I could
not understand it either, but suggested the general influence of
liquor, and expressed my envy of their state. I had drawn my knees up
to my chin, on the bench where one used to dry one's self after
bathing, and there I sat in a seeming stolidity at utter variance with
my inward temper. I heard Raffles creep forth again and I let him go
without a word. I never doubted that he would be back again in a
minute, and so let many minutes elapse before I realized his continued
absence, and finally crept out myself to look for him.
Even then I only supposed that he had posted himself outside in some
more commanding position. I took a catlike stride and breathed his
name. There was no answer. I ventured further, till I could overlook
the lawns: they lay like clean slates in the starlight: there was no
sign of living thing nearer than the house, which was still lit up, but
quiet enough now. Was it a cunning and deliberate quiet assumed as a
snare? Had they caught Raffles, and were they waiting for me? I
returned to the boat-house in an agony of fear and indignation. It was
fear for the long hours that I sat there waiting for him; it was
indignation when at last I heard his stealthy step upon the gravel. I
would not go out to meet him. I sat where I was while the stealthy
step came nearer, nearer; and there I was sitting when the door opened,
and a huge man in riding-clothes stood before me in the steely dawn.
I leaped to my feet, and the huge man clapped me playfully on the
shoulder.
"Sorry I've been so long, Bunny, but we should never have got away as
we were; this riding-suit makes a new man of me, on top of my own, and
here's a youth's kit that should do you down to the ground."
"So you broke into the house again!"
"I was obliged to, Bunny; but I had to watch the lights out one by one,
and give them a good hour after that I went through that dressing room
at my leisure this time; the only difficulty was to spot the son's
quarters at the back of the house; but I overcame it, as you see, in
the end. I only hope they'll fit, Bunny. Give me your patent
leathers, and I'll fill them with stones and sink them in the pond.
I'm doing the same with mine. Here's a brown pair apiece, and we
mustn't let the grass grow under them if we're to get to the station in
time for the early train while the coast's still clear."
The early train leaves the station in question at 6.20 A.M.; and that
fine spring morning there was a police officer in a peaked cap to see
it off; but he was too busy peering into the compartments for a pair of
very swell mobsmen that he took no notice of the huge man in
riding-clothes, who was obviously intoxicated, or the more
insignificant but not less horsy character who had him in hand. The
early train is due at Victoria at 8.28, but these worthies left it at
Clapham Junction, and changed cabs more than once between Battersea and
Piccadilly, and a few of their garments in each four-wheeler. It was
barely nine o'clock when they sat together in the Albany, and might
have been recognized once more as Raffles and myself.
"And now," said Raffles, "before we do anything else, let us turn out
those little cases that we hadn't time to open when we took them. I
mean the ones I handed to you, Bunny. I had a look into mine in the
garden, and I'm sorry to say there was nothing in them. The lady must
have been wearing their proper contents."
Raffles held out his hand for the substantial leather cases which I had
produced at his request. But that was the extent of my compliance;
instead of handing them over, I looked boldly into the eyes that seemed
to have discerned my wretched secret at one glance.
"It is no use my giving them to you," I said. "They are empty also."
"When did you look into them?"
"In the tower."
"Well, let me see for myself."
"As you like."
"My dear Bunny, this one must have contained the necklace you boasted
about."
"Very likely."
"And this one the tiara."
"I dare say."
"Yet she was wearing neither, as you prophesied, and as we both saw for
ourselves."