A Thief In The Night reservations, and as an earnest I shall make no further secret of the greatest

wrong that even Raffles ever did me.

By I pick my words with care and pain, loyal as I still would be to my friend,

E. W. Hornung and yet remembering as I must those Ides of March when he led me
blindfold into temptation and crime. That was an ugly office, if you will. It was
a moral bagatelle to the treacherous trick he was to play me a few weeks
List Of Chapters: later. The second offence, on the other hand, was to prove the less serious
Chapter 1………………………………………Out of Paradise of the two against society, and might in itself have been published to the
Chapter 2………………………………………The Chest of Silver
world years ago. There have been private reasons for my reticence. The
Chapter 3………………………………………The Rest Cure
Chapter 4………………………………………The Criminologists' Club affair was not only too intimately mine, and too discreditable to Raffles. One
Chapter 5………………………………………The Field of Phillipi other was involved in it, one dearer to me than Raffles himself, one whose
Chapter 6………………………………………A Bad Night name shall not even now be sullied by association with ours.
Chapter 7………………………………………A Trap to Catch a Cracksman
Chapter 8………………………………………The Spoils of Sacrilege Suffice it that I had been engaged to her before that mad March deed. True,
Chapter 9………………………………………The Raffles Relics her people called it "an understanding," and frowned even upon that, as well they
Chapter 10…………………………………….The Last Word
might. But their authority was not direct; we bowed to it as an act of politic grace;
between us, all was well but my unworthiness. That may be gauged when I
Chapter 1 confess that this was how the matter stood on the night I gave a worthless check
Out of Paradise for my losses at baccarat, and afterward turned to Raffles in my need. Even after
that I saw her sometimes. But I let her guess that there was more upon my soul
If I must tell more tales of Raffles, I can but back to our earliest days than she must ever share, and at last I had written to end it all. I remember that
together, and fill in the blanks left by discretion in existing annals. In so doing week so well! It was the close of such a May as we had never had since, and I
I may indeed fill some small part of an infinitely greater blank, across which was too miserable even to follow the heavy scoring in the papers. Raffles was the
you may conceive me to have stretched my canvas for the first frank portrait only man who could get a wicket up at Lord's, and I never once went to see him
of my friend. The whole truth cannot harm him now. I shall paint in every play. Against Yorkshire, however, he helped himself to a hundred runs as well;
wart. Raffles was a villain, when all is written; it is no service to his memory and that brought Raffles round to me, on his way home to the Albany.
to glaze the fact; yet I have done so myself before to-day. I have omitted
"We must dine and celebrate the rare event," said he. "A century takes it
whole heinous episodes. I have dwelt unduly on the redeeming side. And
out of one at my time of life; and you, Bunny, you look quite as much in need
this I may do again, blinded even as I write by the gallant glamour that made
of your end of a worthy bottle. Suppose we make it the Caf‚ Royal, and eight
my villain more to me than any hero. But at least there shall be no more
sharp? I'll be there first to fix up the table and the wine."

-1-
 And at the Caf‚ Royal I incontinently told him of the trouble I was in. It I recoiled from the open cigarette-case that he proffered as he spoke.
was the first he had ever heard of my affair, and I told him all, though not Our eyes met; and in his there was that starry twinkle of mirth and mischief,
before our bottle had been succeeded by a pint of the same exemplary that sunny beam of audacious devilment, which had been my undoing two
brand. Raffles heard me out with grave attention. His sympathy was the months before, which was to undo me as often as he chose until the
more grateful for the tactful brevity with which it was indicated rather than chapter's end. Yet for once I withstood its glamour; for once I turned aside
expressed. He only wished that I had told him of this complication in the that luminous glance with front of steel. There was no need for Raffles to
beginning; as I had not, he agreed with me that the only course was a candid voice his plans. I read them all between the strong lines of his smiling, eager
and complete renunciation. It was not as though my divinity had a penny of face. And I pushed back my chair in the equal eagerness of my own resolve.
her own, or I could earn an honest one. I had explained to Raffles that she
"Not if I know it!" said I. "A house I've dined in - a house I've seen her in
was an orphan, who spent most of her time with an aristocratic aunt in the
- a house where she stays by the month together! Don't put it into words,
country, and the remainder under the repressive roof of a pompous politician
Raffles, or I'll get up and go."
in Palace Gardens. The aunt had, I believed, still a sneaking softness for me,
but her illustrious brother had set his face against me from the first. "You mustn't do that before the coffee and liqueur," said Raffles
laughing. "Have a small Sullivan first: it's the royal road to a cigar. And now
"Hector Carruthers!" murmured Raffles, repeating the detested name
let me observe that your scruples would do you honor if old Carruthers still
with his clear, cold eye on mine. "I suppose you haven't seen much of him?"
lived in the house in question."
"Not a thing for ages," I replied. "I was at the house two or three days
"Do you mean to say he doesn't?"
last year, but they've neither asked me since nor been at home to me when
I've called. The old beast seems a judge of men." Raffles struck a match, and handed it first to me. "I mean to say, my
dear Bunny, that Palace Gardens knows the very name no more. You began
And I laughed bitterly in my glass.
by telling me you had heard nothing of these people all this year. That's quite
"Nice house?" said Raffles, glancing at himself in his silver cigarette- enough to account for our little misunderstanding. I was thinking of the
case. house, and you were thinking of the people in the house."
"Top shelf," said I. "You know the houses in Palace Gardens, don't "But who are they, Raffles? Who has taken the house, if old Carruthers
you?" has moved, and how do you know that it is still worth a visit?"
"Not so well as I should like to know them, Bunny." "In answer to your first question - Lord Lochmaben," replied Raffles,
blowing bracelets of smoke toward the ceiling. "You look as though you had
"Well, it's about the most palatial of the lot. The old ruffian is as rich as
never heard of him; but as the cricket and racing are the only part of your
Croesus. It's a country-place in town."
paper that you condescend to read, you can't be expected to keep track of
"What about the window-fastenings?" asked Raffles casually. all the peers created in your time. Your other question is not worth
answering. How do you suppose that I know these things? It's my business
-2-
to get to know them, and that's all there is to it. As a matter of fact, Lady It was one of his sayings when bent upon his worst. I looked at him
Lochmaben has just as good diamonds as Mrs. Carruthers ever had; and the aghast. Our cigars were just in blast, yet already he was signalling for his bill.
chances are that she keeps them where Mrs. Carruthers kept hers, if you It was impossible to remonstrate with him until we were both outside in the
could enlighten me on that point." street.
As it happened, I could, since I knew from his niece that it was one on "I'm coming with you," said I, running my arm through his.
which Mr. Carruthers had been a faddist in his time. He had made quite a
"Nonsense, Bunny!"
study of the cracksman's craft, in a resolve to circumvent it with his own. I
remembered myself how the ground-floor windows were elaborately bolted "Why is it nonsense? I know every inch of the ground, and since the
and shuttered, and how the doors of all the rooms opening upon the square house has changed hands I have no compunction. Besides, 'I have been
inner hall were fitted with extra Yale locks, at an unlikely height, not to be there' in the other sense as well: once a thief, you know! In for a penny, in for
discovered by one within the room. It had been the butler's business to turn a pound!"
and to collect all these keys before retiring for the night. But the key of the It was ever my mood when the blood was up. But my old friend failed to
safe in the study was supposed to be in the jealous keeping of the master of appreciate the characteristic as he usually did. We crossed Regent Street in
the house himself. That safe was in its turn so ingeniously hidden that I silence. I had to catch his sleeve to keep a hand in his inhospitable arm.
never should have found it for myself. I well remember how one who showed
"I really think you had better stay away," said Raffles as we reached the
it to me (in the innocence of her heart) laughed as she assured me that even
other curb. "I've no use for you this time."
her little trinkets were solemnly locked up in it every night. It had been let into
the wall behind one end of the book-case, expressly to preserve the barbaric "Yet I thought I had been so useful up to now?"
splendor of Mrs. Carruthers; without a doubt these Lochmabens would use it "That may be, Bunny, but I tell you frankly I don't want you to-night."
for the same purpose; and in the altered circumstances I had no hesitation in
giving Raffles all the information he desired. I even drew him a rough plan of "Yet I know the ground and you don't! I tell you what," said I: "I'll come
the ground-floor on the back of my menu-card. just to show you the ropes, and I won't take a pennyweight of the swag."

"It was rather clever of you to notice the kind of locks on the inner Such was the teasing fashion in which he invariably prevailed upon me;
doors," he remarked as he put it in his pocket. "I suppose you don't it was delightful to note how it caused him to yield in his turn. But Raffles had
remember if it was a Yale on the front door as well?" the grace to give in with a laugh, whereas I too often lost my temper with my
point.
"It was not," I was able to answer quite promptly. "I happen to know
because I once had the key when - when we went to a theatre together." "You little rabbit!" he chuckled. "You shall have your share, whether you
come or not; but, seriously, don't you think you might remember the girl?"
"Thank you, old chap," said Raffles sympathetically. "That's all I shall
want from you, Bunny, my boy. There's no night like to-night!" "What's the use?" I groaned. "You agree there is nothing for it but to
give her up. I am glad to say that for myself before I asked you, and wrote to
-3-
tell her so on Sunday. Now it's Wednesday, and she hasn't answered by line and half the surprises that Raffles sprung on me were doubtless due to his
or sign. It's waiting for one word from her that's driving me mad." early recognition of the fact.
"Perhaps you wrote to Palace Gardens?" On this occasion I fell swiftly and hopelessly out of love with the
prospect I had so gratuitously embraced. It was not only my repugnance to
"No, I sent it to the country. There's been time for an answer, wherever
enter that house in that way, which grew upon my better judgment as the
she may be."
artificial enthusiasm of the evening evaporated from my veins. Strong as that
We had reached the Albany, and halted with one accord at the Piccadilly repugnance became, I had an even stronger feeling that we were embarking
portico, red cigar to red cigar. on an important enterprise far too much upon the spur of the moment. The
"You wouldn't like to go and see if the answer's in your rooms?" he latter qualm I had the temerity to confess to Raffles; nor have I often loved
asked. him more than when he freely admitted it to be the most natural feeling in the
world. He assured me, however, that he had had my Lady Lochmaben and
"No. What's the good? Where's the point in giving her up if I'm going to
her jewels in his mind for several months; he had sat behind them at first
straighten out when it's too late? It is too late, I have given her up, and I am
nights; and long ago determined what to take or to reject; in fine, he had only
coming with you!"
been waiting for those topographical details which it had been my chance
The hand that bowled the most puzzling ball in England (once it found privilege to supply. I now learned that he had numerous houses in a similar
its length) descended on my shoulder with surprising promptitude. state upon his list; something or other was wanting in each case in order to
"Very well, Bunny! That's finished; but your blood be on your own pate if complete his plans. In that of the Bond Street jeweller it was a trusty
evil comes of it. Meanwhile we can't do better than turn in here till you have accomplice; in the present instance, a more intimate knowledge of the
finished your cigar as it deserves, and topped up with such a cup of tea as house. And lastly, this was a Wednesday night, when the tired legislator gets
you must learn to like if you hope to get on in your new profession. And when early to his bed.
the hours are small enough, Bunny, my boy, I don't mind admitting I shall be How I wish I could make the whole world see and hear him, and smell
very glad to have you with me." the smoke of his beloved Sullivan, as he took me into these, the secrets of
I have a vivid memory of the interim in his rooms. I think it must have his infamous trade! Neither look nor language would betray the infamy. As a
been the first and last of its kind that I was called upon to sustain with so mere talker, I shall never listen to the like of Raffles on this side of the sod;
much knowledge of what lay before me. I passed the time with one restless and his talk was seldom garnished by an oath, never in my remembrance by
eye upon the clock, and the other on the Tantalus which Raffles ruthlessly the unclean word. Then he looked like a man who had dressed to dine out,
declined to unlock. He admitted that it was like waiting with one's pads on; not like one who had long since dined; for his curly hair, though longer that
and in my slender experience of the game of which he was a world's master, another's, was never untidy in its length; and these were the days when it
that was an ordeal not to be endured without a general quaking of the inner was still as black as ink. Nor were there many lines as yet upon the smooth
man. I was, on the other hand, all right when I got to the metaphorical wicket; and mobile face; and its frame was still that dear den of disorder and good

-4-
taste, with the carved book-case, the dresser and chests of still older oak, "True. You might be useful to me there. But I still don't like leading you
and the Wattses and Rossettis hung anyhow on the walls. in where it isn't absolutely necessary, Bunny."
It must have been one o'clock before we drove in a hansom as far as "Then let me lead you, I answered, and forthwith marched across the
Kensington Church, instead of getting down at the gates of our private road broad, secluded road, with the great houses standing back on either side in
to ruin. Constitutionally shy of the direct approach, Raffles was further their ample gardens, as though the one opposite belonged to me. I thought
deterred by a ball in full swing at the Empress Rooms, whence potential Raffles had stayed behind, for I never heard him at my heels, yet there he
witnesses were pouring between dances into the cool deserted street. was when I turned round at the gate.
Instead he led me a little way up Church Street, and so through the narrow
"I must teach you the step," he whispered, shaking his head. "You
passage into Palace Gardens. He knew the house as well as I did. We made
shouldn't use your heel at all. Here's a grass border for you: walk it as you
our first survey from the other side of the road. And the house was not quite
would the plank! Gravel makes a noise, and flower-beds tell a tale. Wait - I
in darkness; there was a dim light over the door, a brighter one in the
must carry you across this."
stables, which stood still farther back from the road.
It was the sweep of the drive, and in the dim light from above the door,
"That's a bit of a bore," said Raffles. "The ladies have been out
the soft gravel, ploughed into ridges by the night's wheels, threatened an
somewhere - trust them to spoil the show! They would get to bed before the
alarm at every step. Yet Raffles, with me in his arms, crossed the zone of
stable folk, but insomnia is the curse of their sex and our profession.
peril softly as the pard.
Somebody's not home yet; that will be the son of the house; but he's a
beauty, who may not come home at all." "Shoes in your pocket - that's the beauty of pumps!" he whispered on
the step; his light bunch tinkled faintly; a couple of keys he stooped and tried,
"Another Alick Carruthers," I murmured, recalling the one I liked least of
with the touch of a humane dentist; the third let us into the porch. And as we
all the household, as I remembered it
stood together on the mat, as he was gradually closing the door, a clock
"They might be brothers," rejoined Raffles, who knew all the loose fish within chimed a half-hour in fashion so thrillingly familiar to me that I caught
about town. "Well, I'm not sure that I shall want you after all, Bunny." Raffles by the arm. My half-hours of happiness had flown to just such
chimes! I looked wildly about me in the dim light. Hat-stand and oak settee
"Why not?"
belonged equally to my past. And Raffles was smiling in my face as he held
"If the front door's only on the latch, and you're right about the lock, I the door wide for my escape.
shall walk in as though I were the son of the house myself."
"You told me a lie!" I gasped in whispers.
And he jingled the skeleton bunch that he carried on a chain as honest
"I did nothing of the sort," he replied. "The furniture's the furniture of
men carry their latchkeys.
Hector Carruthers; but the house is the house of Lord Lochmaben. Look
"You forget the inner doors and the safe." here!"

-5-
 He had stooped, and was smoothing out the discarded envelope of a The study-door was at right angles to the lowest flight, and just to the
telegram. "Lord Lochmaben," I read in pencil by the dim light; and the case right of one alighting in the hall. It was thus impossible for us to see who it
was plain to me on the spot. My friends had let their house, furnished, as was until the person was close abreast of us; but by the rustle of the gown
anybody but Raffles would have explained to me in the beginning. we knew that it was one of the ladies, and dressed just as she had come
from theatre or ball. Insensibly I drew back as the candle swam into our field
"All right," I said. "Shut the door."
of vision: it had not traversed many inches when a hand was clapped firmly
And he not only shut it without a sound, but drew a bolt that might have but silently across my mouth.
been sheathed in rubber.
I could forgive Raffles for that, at any rate! In another breath I should
In another minute we were at work upon the study-door, I with the tiny have cried aloud: for the girl with the candle, the girl in her ball-dress, at
lantern and the bottle of rock-oil, he with the brace and the largest bit. The dead of night, the girl with the letter for the post, was the last girl on God's
Yale lock he had given up at a glance. It was placed high up in the door, feet wide earth whom I should have chosen thus to encounter - a midnight
above the handle, and the chain of holes with which Raffles had soon intruder in the very house where I had been reluctantly received on her
surrounded it were bored on a level with his eyes. Yet the clock in the hall account!
chimed again, and two ringing strokes resounded through the silent house
I forgot Raffles. I forgot the new and unforgivable grudge I had against
before we gained admittance to the room.
him now. I forgot his very hand across my mouth, even before he paid me
Raffle's next care was to muffle the bell on the shuttered window (with a the compliment of removing it. There was the only girl in all the world: I had
silk handkerchief from the hat-stand) and to prepare an emergency exit by eyes and brains for no one and for nothing else. She had neither seen nor
opening first the shutters and then the window itself. Luckily it was a still heard us, had looked neither to the right hand nor the left. But a small oak
night, and very little wind came in to embarrass us. He then began table stood on the opposite side of the hall; it was to this table that she went.
operations on the safe, revealed by me behind its folding screen of books, On it was one of those boxes in which one puts one's letters for the post; and
while I stood sentry on the threshold. I may have stood there for a dozen she stooped to read by her candle the times at which this box was cleared.
minutes, listening to the loud hall clock and to the gentle dentistry of Raffles
The loud clock ticked and ticked. She was standing at her full height
in the mouth of the safe behind me, when a third sound thrilled my every
now, her candle on the table, her letter in both hands, and in her downcast
nerve. It was the equally cautious opening of a door in the gallery overhead.
face a sweet and pitiful perplexity that drew the tears to my eyes. Through a
I moistened my lips to whisper a word of warning to Raffles. But his ears film I saw her open the envelope so lately sealed and read her letter once
had been as quick as mine, and something longer. His lantern darkened as I more, as though she would have altered it a little at the last. It was too late
turned my head; next moment I felt his breath upon the back of my neck. It for that; but of a sudden she plucked a rose from her bosom, and was
was now too late even for a whisper, and quite out of the question to close pressing it in with her letter when I groaned aloud.
the mutilated door. There we could only stand, I on the threshold, Raffles at
How could I help it? The letter was for me: of that I was as sure as
my elbow, while one carrying a candle crept down the stairs.
though I had been looking over her shoulder. She was as true as tempered
-6-
steel; there were not two of us to whom she wrote and sent roses at dead of Doors were already opening overhead, voices calling, voices answering,
night. It was her one chance of writing to me. None would know that she had the alarm running like wildfire from room to room. Soft feet pattered in the
written. And she cared enough to soften the reproaches I had richly earned, gallery and down the stairs about my very ears. I do not know what made me
with a red rose warm from her own warm heart. And there, and there was I, a put on my own shoes as I heard them, but I think that I was ready and even
common thief who had broken in to steal! Yet I was unaware that I had longing to walk out and give myself up. I need not say what and who it was
uttered a sound until she looked up, startled, and the hands behind me that alone restrained me. I heard her name. I heard them crying to her as
pinned me where I stood. though she had fainted. I recognized the detested voice of my bete noir,
Alick Carruthers, thick as might be expected of the dissipated dog, yet daring
I think she must have seen us, even in the dim light of the solitary
to stutter out her name. And then I heard, without catching, her low reply; it
candle. Yet not a sound escaped her as she peered courageously in our
was in answer to the somewhat stern questioning of quite another voice; and
direction; neither did one of us move; but the hall clock went on and on,
from what followed I knew that she had never fainted at all.
every tick like the beat of a drum to bring the house about our ears, until a
minute must have passed as in some breathless dream. And then came the "Upstairs, miss, did he? Are you sure?"
awakening - with such a knocking and a ringing at the front door as brought
I did not hear her answer. I conceive her as simply pointing up the stairs.
all three of us to our senses on the spot.
In any case, about my very ears once more, there now followed such a
"The son of the house!" whispered Raffles in my ear, as he dragged me patter and tramp of bare and booted feet as renewed in me a base fear for
back to the window he had left open for our escape. But as he leaped out my own skin. But voices and feet passed over my head, went up and up,
first a sharp cry stopped me at the sill. "Get back! Get back! We're trapped!" higher and higher; and I was wondering whether or not to make a dash for it,
he cried; and in the single second that I stood there, I saw him fell one officer when one light pair came running down again, and in very despair I marched
to the ground, and dart across the lawn with another at his heels. A third out to meet my preserver, looking as little as I could like the abject thing I felt.
came running up to the window. What could I do but double back into the
"Be quick!" she cried in a harsh whisper, and pointed peremptorily to the
house? And there in the hall I met my lost love face to face.
porch.
Till that moment she had not recognized me. I ran to catch her as she all
But I stood stubbornly before her, my heart hardened by her hardness,
but fell. And my touch repelled her into life, so that she shook me off, and
and perversely indifferent to all else. And as I stood I saw the letter she had
stood gasping: "You, of all men! You, of all men!" until I could bear it no
written, in the hand with which she pointed, crushed into a ball.
more, but broke again for the study-window. "Not that way - not that way!"
she cried in an agony at that. Her hands were upon me now. "In there, in "Quickly!" She stamped her foot. "Quickly - if you ever cared!"
there," she whispered, pointing and pulling me to a mere cupboard under the This in a whisper, without bitterness, without contempt, but with a
stairs, where hats and coats were hung; and it was she who shut the door on sudden wild entreaty that breathed upon the dying embers of my poor
me with a sob. manhood. I drew myself together for the last time in her sight. I turned, and

-7-
left her as she wished - for her sake, not for mine. And as I went I heard her up with me then; as it was I pulled off my coat the moment I was round the
tearing her letter into little pieces, and the little pieces falling on the floor. corner, and took a ticket for it at the Empress Rooms."
Then I remembered Raffles, and could have killed him for what he had "I suppose you had one for the dance that was going on," I growled. Nor
done. Doubtless by this time he was safe and snug in the Albany: what did would it have been a coincidence for Raffles to have had a ticket for that or
my fate matter to him? Never mind; this should be the end between him and any other entertainment of the London season.
me as well; it was the end of everything, this dark night's work! I would go
"I never asked what the dance was," he returned. "I merely took the
and tell him so. I would jump into a cab and drive there and then to his
opportunity of revising my toilet, and getting rid of that rather distinctive
accursed rooms. But first I must escape from the trap in which he had been
overcoat, which I shall call for now. They're not too particular at such stages
so ready to leave me. And on the very steps I drew back in despair. They
of such proceedings, but I've no doubt I should have seen someone I knew if
were searching the shrubberies between the drive and the road; a
I had none right in. I might even have had a turn, if only I had been less
policeman's lantern kept flashing in and out among the laurels, while a young
uneasy about you, Bunny."
man in evening-clothes directed him from the gravel sweep. It was this
young man whom I must dodge, but at my first step in the gravel he wheeled "It was like you to come back to help me out," said I. "But to lie to me,
round, and it was Raffles himself. and to inveigle me with your lies into that house of all houses - that was not
like you, Raffles - and I never shall forgive it or you!"
"Hulloa!" he cried. "So you've come up to join the dance as well! Had a
look inside, have you? You'll be better employed in helping to draw the cover Raffles took my arm again. We were near the High Street gates of
in front here. It's all right, officer - only another gentleman from the Empress Palace Gardens, and I was too miserable to resist an advance which I meant
Rooms." never to give him an opportunity to repeat.

And we made a brave show of assisting in the futile search, until the "Come, come, Bunny, there wasn't much inveigling about it," said he. "I
arrival of more police, and a broad hint from an irritable sergeant, gave us an did my level best to leave you behind, but you wouldn't listen to me."
excellent excuse for going off arm-in-arm. But it was Raffles who had thrust "If you had told me the truth I should have listened fast enough," I
his arm through mine. I shook him off as we left the scene of shame behind. retorted. "But what's the use of talking? You can boast of your own
"My dear Bunny!" he exclaimed. "Do you know what brought me back?" adventures after you bolted. You don't care what happened to me."

I answered savagely that I neither knew nor cared. "I cared so much that I came back to see."

"I had the very devil of a squeak for it," he went on. "I did the hurdles "You might have spared yourself the trouble! The wrong had been done.
over two or three garden-walls, but so did the flyer who was on my tracks, Raffles - Raffles - don't you know who she was?"
and he drove me back into the straight and down to High Street like any It was my hand that gripped his arm once more.
lamplighter. If he had only had the breath to sing out it would have been all
"I guessed," he answered, gravely enough even for me.

-8-
 "It was she who saved me, not you," I said. "And that is the bitterest part "'What is the truth?"
of all!"
"I as good as told you, Bunny, again and again."
Yet I told him that part with a strange sad pride in her whom I had lost -
"Then tell me now."
through him - forever. As I ended we turned into High Street; in the prevailing
stillness, the faint strains of the band reached us from the Empress Rooms; "If you read your paper there would be no need; but if you want to know,
and I hailed a crawling hansom as Raffles turned that way. old Carruthers headed the list of the Birthday Honors, and Lord Lochmaben
is the title of his choice."
"Bunny," said he, "it's no use saying I'm sorry. Sorrow adds insult in a
case like this - if ever there was or will be such another! Only believe me, And this miserable quibble was not a lie! My lip curled, I turned my back
Bunny, when I swear to you that I had not the smallest shadow of a without a word, and drove home to my Mount Street flat in a new fury of
suspicion that she was in the house." savage scorn. Not a lie, indeed! It was the one that is half a truth, the
meanest lie of all, and the very last to which I could have dreamt that Raffles
And in my heart of hearts I did believe him; but I could not bring myself
would stoop. So far there had been a degree of honor between us, if only of
to say the words.
the kind understood to obtain between thief and thief. Now all that was at an
"You told me yourself that you had written to her in the country," he end. Raffles had cheated me. Raffles had completed the ruin of my life. I was
pursued. done with Raffles, as she who shall not be named was done with me.
"And that letter!" I rejoined, in a fresh wave of bitterness: "that letter she And yet, even while I blamed him most bitterly, and utterly abominated
had written at dead of night, and stolen down to post, it was the one I have his deceitful deed, I could not but admit in my heart that the result was put of
been waiting for all these days! I should have got it to-morrow. Now I shall all proportion to the intent: he had never dreamt of doing me this injury, or
never get it, never hear from her again, nor have another chance in this indeed any injury at all. Intrinsically the deceit had been quite venial, the
world or in the next. I don't say it was all your fault. You no more knew that reason for it obviously the reason that Raffles had given me. It was quite true
she was there than I did. But you told me a deliberate lie about her people, that he had spoken of this Lochmaben peerage as a new creation, and of the
and that I never shall forgive." heir to it in a fashion only applicable to Alick Carruthers. He had given me
hints, which I had been too dense to take, and he had certainly made more
I spoke as vehemently as I could under my breath. The hansom was
than one attempt to deter me from accompanying him on this fatal emprise;
waiting at the curb.
had he been more explicit, I might have made it my business to deter him. I
"I can say no more than I have said," returned Raffles with a shrug. "Lie could not say in my heart that Raffles had failed to satisfy such honor as I
or no lie, I didn't tell it to bring you with me, but to get you to give me certain might reasonably expect to subsist between us. Yet it seems to me to require
information without feeling a beast about it. But, as a matter of fact, it was no a superhuman sanity always and unerringly to separate cause from effect,
lie about old Hector Carruthers and Lord Lochmaben, and anybody but you achievement from intent. And I, for one, was never quite able to do so in this
would have guessed the truth." case.

-9-
 I could not be accused of neglecting my newspaper during the next few "Did you ever hear from her, Bunny?" he asked.
wretched days. I read every word that I could find about the attempted jewel-
"In a way," I answered. "We won't talk about it, if you don't mind,
robbery in Palace Gardens, and the reports afforded me my sole comfort. In
Raffles."
the first place, it was only an attempted robbery; nothing had been taken,
after all. And then - and then - the one member of the household who had "That sort of way!" he exclaimed. He seemed both surprised and
come nearest to a personal encounter with either of us was unable to furnish disappointed.
any description of the man - had even expressed a doubt as to the likelihood "Yes," I said, "that sort of way. It's finished. What did you expect?"
of identification in the event of an arrest!
"I don't know," said Raffles. "I only thought that the girl who went so far
I will not say with what mingled feelings I read and dwelt on that to get a fellow out of a tight place might go a little farther to keep him from
announcement It kept a certain faint glow alive within me until the morning getting into another."
brought me back the only presents I had ever made her. They were books;
"I don't see why she should," said I, honestly enough, yet with the
jewellery had been tabooed by the authorities. And the books came back
irritation of a less just feeling deep down in my inmost consciousness.
without a word, though the parcel was directed in her hand.
"Yet you did hear from her?" he persisted.
I had made up my mind not to go near Raffles again, but in my heart I
already regretted my resolve. I had forfeited love, I had sacrificed honor, and "She sent me back my poor presents, without a word," I said, "if you call
now I must deliberately alienate myself from the one being whose society that hearing."
might yet be some recompense for all that I had lost. The situation was I could not bring myself to own to Raffles that I had given her only
aggravated by the state of my exchequer. I expected an ultimatum from my books. He asked if I was sure that she had sent them back herself; and that
banker by every post. Yet this influence was nothing to the other. It was was his last question. My answer was enough for him. And to this day I
Raffles I loved. It was not the dark life we led together, still less its base cannot say whether it was more in relief than in regret that he laid a hand
rewards; it was the man himself, his gayety, his humor, his dazzling audacity, upon my shoulder.
his incomparable courage and resource. And a very horror of turning to him
again in mere need of greed set the seal on my first angry resolution. But the "So you are out of Paradise after all!" said Raffles. "I was not sure, or I
anger was soon gone out of me, and when at length Raffles bridged the gap should have come round before. Well, Bunny, if they don't want you there,
by coming to me, I rose to greet him almost with a shout. there's a little Inferno in the Albany where you will be as welcome as ever

He came as though nothing had happened; and, indeed, not very many And still, with all the magic mischief of his smile, there was that touch of
days had passed, though they might have been months to me. Yet I fancied sadness which I was yet to read aright.
the gaze that watched me through our smoke a trifle less sunny than it had
been before. And it was a relief to me when he came with few preliminaries
Chapter 2
to the inevitable point.
- 10 -
 The Chest Of Silver "That remains to be seen," was the measured reply; "and I for one have
not set naked eye on the fellow since I saw him off through that window and
Like all the tribe of which I held him head, Raffles professed the liveliest left myself for dead on this very spot. In fact, I imagined him comfortably
disdain for unwieldy plunder of any description; it might be old Sheffield, or it back in jail."
might be solid silver or gold, but if the thing was not to be concealed about
"Not old Crawshay!" said I. "He's far too good a man to be taken twice. I
the person, he would none whatever of it. Unlike the rest of us, however, in
should call him the very prince of professional cracksmen."
this as in all else, Raffles would not infrequently allow the acquisitive spirit of
the mere collector to silence the dictates of professional prudence. The old "Should you?" said Raffles coldly, with as cold an eye looking into mine.
oak chests, and even the mahogany wine-cooler, for which he had doubtless "Then you had better prepare to repel princes when I'm gone."
paid like an honest citizen, were thus immovable with pieces of crested plate, "But gone where?" I asked, finding a corner for my hat and coat, and
which he had neither the temerity to use nor the hardihood to melt or sell. He helping myself to the comforts of the venerable dresser which was one of our
could but gloat over them behind locked doors, as I used to tell him, and at friend's greatest treasures. "Where is it you are off to, and why are you
last one afternoon I caught him at it. It was in the year after that of my taking this herd of white elephants with you?"
novitiate, a halcyon period at the Albany, when Raffles left no crib
Raffles bestowed the cachet of his smile on my description of his motley
uncracked, and I played second-murderer every time. I had called in
plate. He joined me in one of his favorite cigarettes, only shaking a superior
response to a telegram in which he stated that he was going out of town, and
head at his own decanter.
must say good-by to me before he went. And I could only think that he was
inspired by the same impulse toward the bronzed salvers and the tarnished "One question at a time, Bunny," said he. "In the first place, I am going
teapots with which I found him surrounded, until my eyes lit upon the to have these rooms freshened up with a potful of paint, the electric light, and
enormous silver-chest into which he was fitting them one by one. the telephone you've been at me about so long."

"Allow me, Bunny! I shall take the liberty of locking both doors behind "Good!" I cried. "Then we shall be able to talk to each other day and
you and putting the key in my pocket," said Raffles, when he had let me in. night!"
"Not that I mean to take you prisoner, my dear fellow; but there are those of "And get overheard and run in for our pains? I shall wait till you are run
us who can turn keys from the outside, though it was never an in, I think," said Raffles cruelly. "But the rest's a necessity: not that I love new
accomplishment of mine." paint or am pining for electric light, but for reasons which I will just breathe in
"Not Crawshay again?" I cried, standing still in my hat. your private ear, Bunny. You must not try to take them too seriously; but the
fact is, there is just the least bit of a twitter against me in this rookery of an
Raffles regarded me with that tantalizing smile of his which might mean
Albany. It must have been started by that tame old bird, Policeman
nothing, yet which often meant so much; and in a flash I was convinced that
Mackenzie; it isn't very bad as yet, but it needn't be that to reach my ears.
our most jealous enemy and dangerous rival, the doyen of an older school,
Well, it was open to me either to clear out altogether, and so confirm
had paid him yet another visit.
- 11 -
whatever happened to be in the air, or to go off for a time, under some "But when will the chest be ready for me I merely asked, as I stuffed the
arrangement which would give the authorities ample excuse for overhauling notes into my cigarette case. "And how are we to get it out of this, in banking
every inch of my rooms. Which would you have done, Bunny?" hours, without attracting any amount of attention at this end?"
"Cleared out, while I could!" said I devoutly. Raffles gave me an approving nod.
"So I should have thought," rejoined Raffles. "Yet you see the merit of "I'm glad to see you spot the crux so quickly, Bunny. I have thought of
my plan. I shall leave every mortal thing unlocked." your taking it round to your place first, under cloud of night; but we are bound
to be seen even so, and on the whole it would look far less suspicious in
"Except that," said I, kicking the huge oak case with the iron bands and
broad daylight. It will take you some twelve or fifteen minutes to drive to your
clamps, and the baize lining fast disappearing under heavy packages
bank in a growler, so if you are here with one at a quarter to ten to-morrow
bearing the shapes of urns and candelabra.
morning, that will exactly meet the case. But you must have a hansom this
"That," replied Raffles, "is neither to go with me nor to remain here." minute if you mean to prepare the way with those notes this afternoon!"
"Then what do you propose to do with it?" It was only too like the Raffles of those days to dismiss a subject and
"You have your banking account, and your banker," he went on. This myself in the same breath, with a sudden nod, and a brief grasp of the hand
was perfectly true, though it was Raffles alone who had kept the one open, he was already holding out for mine. I had a great mind to take another of his
and enabled me to propitiate the other in moments of emergency. cigarettes instead, for there were one or two points on which he had carefully
omitted to enlighten me. Thus, I had still to learn the bare direction of his
"Well?"
journey; and it was all that I could do to drag it from him as I stood buttoning
"Well, pay in this bundle of notes this afternoon, and say you have had a my coat and gloves.
great week at Liverpool and Lincoln; then ask them if they can do with your
"Scotland," he vouchsafed at last.
silver while you run over to Paris for a merry Easter. I should tell them it's
rather heavy - a lot of old family stuff that you've a good mind to leave with "At Easter," I remarked.
them till you marry and settle down." "To learn the language," he explained. "I have no tongue but my own,
I winced at this, but consented to the rest after a moment's you see, but I try to make up for it by cultivating every shade of that. Some of
consideration. After all, and for more reasons that I need enumerate, it was a them have come in useful even to your knowledge, Bunny: what price my
plausible tale enough. And Raffles had no banker; it was quite impossible for Cockney that night in St. John's Wood? I can keep up my end in stage Irish,
him to explain, across any single counter, the large sums of hard cash which real Devonshire, very fair Norfolk, and three distinct Yorkshire dialects. But
did sometimes fall into his hands; and it might well be that he had nursed my my good Galloway Scots might be better, and I mean to make it so."
small account in view of the very quandary which had now arisen. On all "You still haven't told me where to write to you."
grounds, it was impossible for me to refuse him, and I am still glad to
"I'll write to you first, Bunny."
remember that my assent was given, on the whole, ungrudgingly.
- 12 -
 "At least let me see you off," I urged at the door. "I promise not to look at I could have rent my garments in mortification and annoyance with
your ticket if you tell me the train!" myself and Raffles. It was as much his fault as mine. But for his indecent
haste in getting rid of me, his characteristic abruptness at the end, there
"The eleven-fifty from Euston."
would have been no misunderstanding or mistake.
"Then I'll be with you by quarter to ten."
"Any other message?" I inquired morosely.
And I left him without further parley, reading his impatience in his face.
"Only about the box, sir. Mr. Raffles said as you was goin' to take
Everything, to be sure, seemed clear enough without that fuller discussion
chawge of it time he's away, and I've a friend ready to lend a 'and in getting it
which I loved and Raffles hated. Yet I thought we might at least have dined
on the cab. It's a rare 'eavy 'un, but Mr. Raffles an' me could lift it all right
together, and in my heart I felt just the least bit hurt, until it occurred to me as
between us, so I dessay me an' my friend can."
I drove to count the notes in my cigarette case. Resentment was impossible
after that. The sum ran well into three figures, and it was plain that Raffles For my own part, I must confess that its weight concerned me less than
meant me to have a good time in his absence. So I told his lie with unction at the vast size of that infernal chest, as I drove with it past club and park at ten
my bank, and made due arrangements for the reception of his chest next o'clock in the morning. Sit as far back as I might in the four-wheeler, I could
morning. Then I repaired to our club, hoping he would drop in, and that we conceal neither myself nor my connection with the huge iron-clamped case
might dine together after all. In that I was disappointed. It was nothing, upon the roof: in my heated imagination its wood was glass through which all
however, to the disappointment awaiting me at the Albany, when I arrived in the world could see the guilty contents. Once an officious constable held up
my four-wheeler at the appointed hour next morning. the traffic at our approach, and for a moment I put a blood-curdling
construction upon the simple ceremony. Low boys shouted after us - or if it
"Mr. Raffles 'as gawn, sir," said the porter, with a note of reproach in his
was not after us, I thought it was - and that their cry was "Stop thief!" Enough
confidential undertone. The man was a favorite with Raffles, who used him
said of one of the most unpleasant cab-drives I ever had in my life. Horresco
and tipped him with consummate tact, and he knew me only less well.
referens.
"Gone!" I echoed aghast. "Where on earth to?"
At the bank, however, thanks to the foresight and liberality of Raffles, all
"Scotland, sir." was smooth water. I paid my cabman handsomely, gave a florin to the stout
"Already?" fellow in livery whom he helped with the chest, and could have pressed gold
upon the genial clerk who laughed like a gentleman at my jokes about the
"By the eleven-fifty last night"
Liverpool winners and the latest betting on the Family Plate. I was only
"Last night! I thought he meant eleven-fifty this morning!" disconcerted when he informed me that the bank gave no receipts for
"He knew you did, sir, when you never came, and he told me to tell you deposits of this nature. I am now aware that few London banks do. But it is
there was no such train." pleasing to believe that at the time I looked - what I felt - as though all I
valued upon earth were in jeopardy.

- 13 -
 I should have got through the rest of that day happily enough, such was To remove that vile box from the bank, on top of another cab, with no
the load off my mind and hands, but for an extraordinary and most stronger pretext and no further instructions, was not to be thought of for a
disconcerting note received late at night from Raffles himself. He was a man moment. Yet I did think of it, for hours. I was always anxious to do my part by
who telegraphed freely, but seldom wrote a letter. Sometimes, however, he Raffles; he had done more than his by me, not once or twice, to-day or
sent a scribbled line by special messenger; and overnight, evidently in the yesterday, but again and again from the very first. I need not state the
train, he had scribbled this one to post in the small hours at Crewe: obvious reasons I had for fighting shy of the personal custody of his
accursed chest. Yet he had run worse risks for me, and I wanted him to learn
"'Ware Prince of Professors! He was in the offing when I left. If
that he, too, could depend on a devotion not unworthy of his own.
slightest cause for uneasiness about bank, withdraw at once and
keep in own rooms Like good chap, In my dilemma I did what I have often done when at a loss for light and
leading. I took hardly any lunch, but went to Northumberland Avenue and
"A. J. R.
had a Turkish bath instead. I know nothing so cleansing to mind as well as
"P. 8. - Other reasons, as you shall hear." body, nothing better calculated to put the finest possible edge on such
There was a nice nightcap for a puzzled head! I had made rather an judgment as one may happen to possess. Even Raffles, without an ounce to
evening of it, what with increase of funds and decrease of anxiety, but this lose or a nerve to soothe, used to own a sensuous appreciation of the peace
cryptic admonition spoiled the remainder of my night. It had arrived by a late of mind and person to be gained in this fashion when all others failed. For
post, and I only wished that I had left it all night in my letter-box. What me, the fun began before the boots were off one's feet; the muffled footfalls,
exactly did it mean? And what exactly must I do? These were questions that the thin sound of the fountain, even the spent swathed forms upon the
confronted me with fresh force in the morning. couches, and the whole clean, warm, idle atmosphere, were so much
unction to my simpler soul. The half-hour in the hot-rooms I used to count but
The news of Crawshay did not surprise me. I was quite sure that Raffles
a strenuous step to a divine lassitude of limb and accompanying exaltation of
had been given good reason to bear him in mind before his journey, even if
intellect. And yet - and yet - it was in the hottest room of all, in a temperature
he had not again beheld the ruffian in the flesh. That ruffian and that journey
of 270ø Fahrenheit, that the bolt fell from the Pall Mall Gazette which I had
might be more intimately connected than I had yet supposed. Raffles never
bought outside the bath.
told me all. Yet the solid fact held good - held better than ever - that I had
seen his plunder safely planted in my bank. Crawshay himself could not I was turning over the hot, crisp pages, and positively revelling in my
follow it there. I was certain he had not followed my cab: in the acute self- fiery furnace, when the following headlines and leaded paragraphs leapt to
consciousness induced by that abominable drive, I should have known it in my eye with the force of a veritable blow:
my bones if he had. I thought of the porter's friend who had helped me with
BANK ROBBERS IN THE WEST END -
the chest. No, I remember him as well as I remembered Crawshay; they
DARING AND MYSTERIOUS CRIME
were quite different types.

- 14 -
 An audacious burglary and dastardly assault have been his warning had come too late: he should have wired to me at once not to
committed on the premises of the City and Suburban Bank in take the box to the bank at all. He was a madman ever to have invested in
Sloane Street, W. From the details so far to hand, the so obvious and obtrusive a receptacle for treasure. It would serve Raffles
robbery appears to have been deliberately planned and right if that and no other was the box which had been broken into by the
adroitly executed in the early hours of this morning. thieves.
A night watchman named Fawcett states that between one Yet, when I considered the character of his treasure, I fairly shuddered
and two o'clock he heard a slight noise in the neighborhood in my sweat. It was a hoard of criminal relics. Suppose his chest had indeed
of the lower strong-room, used as a repository for the plate been rifled, and emptied of every silver thing but one; that one remaining
and other possessions of various customers of the bank. piece of silver, seen of men, was quite enough to cast Raffles into the outer
Going down to investigate, he was instantly attacked by a darkness of penal servitude! And Crawshay was capable of it - of perceiving
powerful ruffian, who succeeded in felling him to the ground the insidious revenge - of taking it without compunction or remorse.
before an alarm could be raised.
There was only one course for me. I must follow my instructions to the
Fawcett is unable to furnish any description of his assailant letter and recover the chest at all hazards, or be taken myself in the attempt.
or assailants, but is of opinion that more than one were If only Raffles had left me some address, to which I could have wired some
engaged in the commission of the crime. When the word of warning! But it was no use thinking of that; for the rest there was
unfortunate man recovered consciousness, no trace of the time enough up to four o'clock, and as yet it was not three. I determined to
thieves remained, with the exception of a single candle go through with my bath and make the most of it. Might it not be my last for
which had been left burning on the flags of the corridor. The years?
strong-room, however, had been opened, and it is feared the
But I was past enjoying even a Turkish bath. I had not the patience for a
raid on the chests of plate and other valuables may prove to
proper shampoo, or sufficient spirit for the plunge. I weighed myself
have been only too successful, in view of the Easter exodus,
automatically, for that was a matter near my heart; but I forgot to give my
which the thieves had evidently taken into account. The
man his sixpence until the reproachful intonation of his adieu recalled me to
ordinary banking chambers were not even visited; entry and
myself. And my couch in the cooling gallery - my favorite couch, in my
exit are believed to have been effected through the coal
favorite corner, which I had secured with gusto on coming in - it was a bed of
cellar, which is also situated in the basement. Up to the
thorns, with hideous visions of a plank-bed to follow!
present the police have effected no arrest.
I ought to be able to add that I heard the burglary discussed on adjacent
I sat practically paralyzed by this appalling news; and I swear that, even
couches before I left I certainly listened for it, and was rather disappointed
in that incredible temperature, it was a cold perspiration in which I sweltered
more than once when I had held my breath in vain. But this is the
from head to heel. Crawshay, of course! Crawshay once more upon the track
unvarnished record of an odious hour, and it passed without further
of Raffles and his ill-gotten gains! And once more I blamed Raffles himself:
aggravation from without; only, as I drove to Sloane Street, the news was on
- 15 -
all the posters, and on one I read of "a clew" which spelt for me a doom I have been 'at it with others all. the afternoon,' but I shall make this worth
was grimly resolved to share. their while."
Already there was something in the nature of a "run" up on the Sloane I did not mind driving through the streets with the thing this time. My
Street branch of the City and Suburban. A cab drove away with a chest of present relief was too overwhelming as yet to admit of pangs and fears for
reasonable dimensions as mine drove up, while in the bank itself a lady was the immediate future. No summer sun had ever shone more brightly than
making a painful scene. As for the genial clerk who had roared at my jokes that rather watery one of early April. There was a green-and-gold dust of
the day before, he was mercifully in no mood for any more, but, on the buds and shoots on the trees as we passed the park. I felt greater things
contrary, quite rude to me at sight. sprouting in my heart. Hansoms passed with schoolboys just home for the
Easter holidays, four-wheelers outward bound, with bicycles and
"I've been expecting you all the afternoon," said he. "You needn't look so
perambulators atop; none that rode in them were half so happy as I, with the
pale."
great load on my cab, but the greater one off my heart.
"Is it safe?"
At Mount Street it just went into the lift; that was a stroke of luck; and the
"That Noah's Ark of yours? Yes, so I hear; they'd just got to it when they lift-man and I between us carried it into my flat. It seemed a featherweight to
were interrupted, and they never went back again." me now. I felt a Samson in the exaltation of that hour. And I will not say what
"Then it wasn't even opened?" my first act was when I found myself alone with my white elephant in the
middle of the room; enough that the siphon was still doing its work when the
"Only just begun on, I believe."
glass slipped through my fingers to the floor.
"Thank God!"
"Bunny!"
"You may; we don't," growled the clerk. "The manager says he believes
It was Raffles. Yet for a moment I looked about me quite in vain. He was
your chest was at the bottom of it all."
not at the window; he was not at the open door. And yet Raffles it had been,
"How could it be?" I asked uneasily. or at all. events his voice, and that bubbling over with fun and satisfaction, be
"By being seen on the cab a mile off, and followed," said the clerk. his body where it might. In the end I dropped my eyes, and there was his
living face in the middle of the lid of the chest, like that of the saint upon its
"Does the manager want to see me?" I asked boldly. charger.
"Not unless you want to see him," was the blunt reply. "He's been at it But Raffles was alive, Raffles was laughing as though his vocal cords
with others all. the afternoon, and they haven't all. got off as cheap as you." would snap - there was neither tragedy nor illusion in the apparition of
"Then my silver shall not embarrass you any longer," said I grandly. "I Raffles. A life-size Jack-in-the-box, he had thrust his head through a lid
meant to leave it if it was all. right, but after all. you have said I certainly shall within the lid, cut by himself between the two iron bands that ran round the
not. Let your man or men bring up the chest at once. I dare say they also chest like the straps of a portmanteau. He must have been busy at it when I

- 16 -
found him pretending to pack, if not far into that night, for it was a very given myself up? Yes, I'll have a peg for once; the beauty of all. laws is in the
perfect piece of work; and even as I stared without a word, and he crouched breaking, even of the kind we make unto ourselves."
laughing in my face, an arm came squeezing out, keys in hand; one was
I had a Sullivan for him, too; and in another minute he was spread out
turned in either of the two great padlocks, the whole lid lifted, and out
on my sofa, stretching his cramped limbs with infinite gusto, a cigarette
stepped Raffles like the conjurer he was.
between his fingers, a yellow bumper at hand on the chest of his triumph and
"So you were the burglar!" I exclaimed at last. "Well, I am just as glad I my tribulation.
didn't know."
"Never mind when it occurred to me, Bunny; as a matter of fact, it was
He had wrung my hand already, but at this he fairly mangled it in his. only the other day, when I had decided to go away for the real reasons I
have already given you. I may have made more of them to you than I do in
"You dear little brick," he cried, "that's the one thing of all. things I
my own mind, but at all. events they exist. And I really did want the
longed to hear you say! How could you have behaved as you've done if you
telephone and the electric light."
had known? How could any living man? How could you have acted, as the
polar star of all. the stages could not have acted in your place? Remember "But where did you stow the silver before you went?"
that I have heard a lot, and as good as seen as much as I've heard. Bunny, I
"Nowhere; it was my luggage - a portmanteau, cricket-bag, and suit-
don't know where you were greatest: at the Albany, here, or at your bank!"
case full of very little else - and by the same token I left the lot at Euston, and
"I don't know where I was most miserable," I rejoined, beginning to see one of us must fetch them this evening."
the matter in a less perfervid light. "I know you don't credit me with much
"I can do that," said I. "But did you really go all. the way to Crewe?"
finesse, but I would undertake to be in the secret and to do quite as well; the
only difference would be in my own peace of mind, which, of course, doesn't "Didn't you get my note? I went all. the way to Crewe to post you those
count." few lines, my dear Bunny! It's no use taking trouble if you don't take trouble
enough; I wanted you to show the proper set of faces at the bank and
But Raffles wagged away with his most charming and disarming smile;
elsewhere, and I know you did. Besides, there was an up-train four minutes
he was in old clothes, rather tattered and torn, and more than a little grimy as
after mine got in. I simply posted my letter in Crewe station, and changed
to the face and hands, but, on the surface, wonderfully little the worse for his
from one train to the other."
experience. And, as I say, his smile was the smile of the Raffles I loved best.
"At two in the morning!"
"You would have done your damnedest, Bunny! There is no limit to your
heroism; but you forget the human equation in the pluckiest of the plucky. I "Nearer three, Bunny. It was after seven when I slung in with the Daily
couldn't afford to forget it, Bunny; I couldn't afford to give a point away. Don't Mail. The milk had beaten me by a short can. But even so I had two very
talk as though I hadn't trusted you! I trusted my very life to your loyal good hours before you were due."
tenacity. What do you suppose would have happened to me if you had let "And to think," I murmured, "how you deceived me there!"
me rip in that strong-room? Do you think I would ever have crept out and
- 17 -
 "With your own assistance," said Raffles laughing. "If you had looked it "I know it wasn't, Bunny," he said regretfully. "But things like that, as the
up you would have seen there was no such train in the morning, and I never poet will tell you, are really inseparable from victories like mine. It had taken
said there was. But I meant you to be deceived, Bunny, and I won't say I me a couple of hours to break out of that strong-room; I was devoting a third
didn't - it was all. for the sake of the side! Well, when you carted me away to the harmless task of simulating the appearance of having broken in; and it
with such laudable despatch, I had rather an uncomfortable half-hour, but was then I heard the fellow's stealthy step. Some might have stood their
that was all. just then. I had my candle, I had matches, and lots to read. It ground and killed him; more would have bolted into a worse corner than they
was quite nice in that strong-room until a very unpleasant incident occurred." were in already. I left my candle where it was, crept to meet the poor devil,
flattened myself against the wall, and let him have it as he passed. I
"Do tell me, my dear fellow!"
acknowledge the foul blow, but here's evidence that it was mercifully struck.
"I must have another Sullivan - thank you - and a match. The unpleasant The victim has already told his tale."
incident was steps outside and a key in the lock! I was disporting myself on
As he drained his glass, but shook his head when I wished to replenish
the lid of the trunk at the time. I had barely time to knock out my light and slip
it, Raffles showed me the flask which he had carried in his pocket: it was still
down behind it. Luckily it was only another box of sorts; a jewel-case, to be
nearly full; and I found that he had otherwise provisioned himself over the
more precise; you shall see the contents in a moment. The Easter exodus
holidays. On either Easter Day or Bank Holiday, had I failed him, it had been
has done me even better than I dared to hope."
his intention to make the best escape he could. But the risk must have been
His words reminded me of the Pall Mall Gazette, which I had brought in enormous, and it filled my glowing skin to think that he had not relied on me
my pocket from the Turkish bath. I fished it out, all. wrinkled and bloated by in vain.
the heat of the hottest room, and handed it to Raffles with my thumb upon
As for his gleanings from such jewel-cases as were spending the Easter
the leaded paragraphs.
recess in the strong-room of my bank, without going into rhapsodies or even
"Delightful!" said he when he had read them. "More thieves than one, particulars on the point,) I may mention that they realized enough for me to
and the coal-cellar of all. places as a way in! I certainly tried to give it that join Raffles on his deferred holiday in Scotland, besides enabling him to play
appearance. I left enough candle-grease there to make those coals burn more regularly for Middlesex in the ensuing summer than had been the case
bravely. But it looked up into a blind backyard, Bunny, and a boy of eight for several seasons. In fine, this particular exploit entirely justified itself in my
couldn't have squeezed through the trap. Long may that theory keep them eyes, in spite of the superfluous (but invariable) secretiveness which I could
happy at Scotland Yard!" seldom help resenting in my heart I never thought less of it than in the
"But what about the fellow you knocked out?" I asked. "That was not like present instance; and my one mild reproach was on the subject of the
you, Raffles." phantom Crawshay.

Raffles blew pensive rings as he lay back on my sofa, his black hair "You let me think he was in the air again," I said. "But it wouldn't surprise
tumbled on the cushion, his pale profile as clear and sharp against the light me to find that you had never heard of him since the day of his escape
as though slashed out with the scissors. through your window."
- 18 -
 "I never even thought of him, Bunny, until you came to see me the day features of captured criminals in the illustrated Sunday papers; on each
before yesterday, and put him into my head with your first words. The whole occasion I breathed again; nor was anything worthy of Raffles going on. I will
point was to make you as genuinely anxious about the plate as you must not deny that I was less anxious on his account than on my own. But it was a
have seemed all. along the line." double relief to me when he gave a first characteristic sign of life.
"Of course I see your point," I rejoined; "but mine is that you labored it. I had called at the Albany for the fiftieth time, and returned to Piccadilly
You needn't have written me a downright lie about the fellow." in my usual despair, when a street sloucher sidled up to me in furtive fashion
and inquired if my name was what it is.
"Nor did I, Bunny."
"'Cause this 'ere's for you," he rejoined to my affirmative, and with that I
"Not about the 'prince of professors' being 'in the offing' when you left?"
felt a crumpled note in my palm.
"My dear Bunny, but so he was!" cried Raffles. "Time was when I was
It was from Raffles. I smoothed out the twisted scrap of paper, and on it
none too pure an amateur. But after this I take leave to consider myself a
were just a couple of lines in pencil:
professor of the professors. And I should like to see one more capable of
skippering their side!" "Meet me in Holland Walk at dark to-night. Walk up and down till I come.
A. J. R."
Chapter 3
The Rest Cure That was all.! Not another syllable after all. these weeks, and the few
I had not seen Raffles for a month or more, and I was sadly in need of words scribbled in a wild caricature of his scholarly and dainty hand! I was no
his advice. My life was being made a burden to me by a wretch who had longer to be alarmed by this sort of thing; it was all. so like the Raffles I loved
obtained a bill of sale over the furniture in Mount Street, and it was only by least; and to add to my indignation, when at length I looked up from the
living elsewhere that I could keep the vulpine villain from my door. This cost mysterious missive, the equally mysterious messenger had disappeared in a
ready money, and my balance at the bank was sorely in need of another lift manner worthy of the whole affair. He was, however, the first creature I
from Raffles. Yet, had he been in my shoes, he could not have vanished espied under the tattered trees of Holland Walk that evening.
more effectually than he had done, both from the face of the town and from
"Seen 'im yet?" he inquired confidentially, blowing a vile cloud from his
the ken of all. who knew him.
horrid pipe.
It was late in August; he never played first-class cricket after July, when,
"No, I haven't; and I want to know where you've seen him," I replied
a scholastic understudy took his place in the Middlesex eleven. And in vain
sternly. "Why did you run away like that the moment you had given me his
did I scour my Field and my Sportsman for the country-house matches with
note?"
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 "Orders, orders," was the reply. "I ain't such a juggins as to go agen a
Albany; he had left no instructions about his letters, either there or at the toff as makes it worf while to do as I'm bid an' 'old me tongue."
club. I began to fear that some evil had overtaken him. I scanned the
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 "And who may you be?" I asked jealously. "And what are you to Mr. "But surely you get some exercise?" I asked; for he was leading me at a
Raffles?" good rate through the leafy byways of Camp den Hill; and his step was as
springy and as light as ever.
"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 "The best exercise I ever had in my life," said Raffles; "and you would
Raffles. "Here, take my arm - I'm not so beastly as I look. But neither am I in never live to guess what it is. It's one of the reasons why I went in for this
town, nor in England, nor yet on the face of the earth, for all. that's known of seedy kit. I follow cabs. Yes, Bunny, I turn out about dusk and meet the
me to a single soul but you." 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
"Then where are you," I asked, "between ourselves?"
only keeps you in the very pink: if you're good they let you carry the trunks
"I've taken a house near here for the holidays, where I'm going in for a up-stairs; and I've taken notes from the inside of more than one commodious
Rest Cure of my own description. Why? Oh, for lots of reasons, my dear residence which will come in useful in the autumn. In fact, Bunny, what with
Bunny; among others, I have long had a wish to grow my own beard; under these new Rowton houses, my beard, and my otherwise well-spent holiday, I
the next lamppost you will agree that it's training on very nicely. Then, you hope to have quite a good autumn season before the erratic Raffles turns up
mayn't know it, but there's a canny man at Scotland Yard who has had a in town."
quiet eye on me longer than I like. I thought it about time to have an eye on
I felt it high time to wedge in a word about my own far less satisfactory
him, and I stared him in the face outside the Albany this very morning. That
affairs. But it was not necessary for me to recount half my troubles. Raffles
was when I saw you go in, and scribbled a line to give you when you came
could be as full of himself as many a worse man, and I did not like his society
out. If he had caught us talking he would have spotted me at once."
the less for these human outpourings. They had rather the effect of putting
"So you are lying low out here!" me on better terms with myself, through bringing him down to my level for
"I prefer to call it my Rest Cure," returned Raffles, "and it's really nothing the time being. But his egoism was not even skin-deep; it was rather a cloak,
else. I've got a furnished house at a time when no one else would have which Raffles could cast off quicker than any man I ever knew, as he did not
dreamed of taking one in town; and my very neighbors don't know I'm there, fail to show me now.
though I'm bound to say there are hardly any of them at home. I don't keep a "Why, Bunny, this is the very thing!" he cried. "You must come and stay
servant, and do everything for myself. It's the next best fun to a desert island. with me, and we'll lie low side by side. Only remember it really is a Rest
Not that I make much work, for I'm really resting, but I haven't done so much Cure. I want to keep literally as quiet as I was without you. What do you say
solid reading for years. Rather a joke, Bunny: the man whose house I've to forming ourselves at once into a practically Silent Order? You agree? Very
taken is one of her Majesty's inspectors of prisons, and his study's a well, then, here's the street and that's the house."
storehouse of criminology. It has been quite amusing to lie on one's back
It was ever such a quiet little street, turning out of one of those which
and have a good look at one's self as others fondly imagine they see one."
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
- 20 -
were a solid file of smaller but taller houses; on neither side were there many Raffles laughed as he struck a match. I had followed him into what
windows alight, nor a solitary soul on the pavement or in the road. Raffles led would have been the back drawing-room in the ordinary little London house;
the way to one of the small tall houses. It stood immediately behind a the inspector of prisons had converted it into a separate study by filling the
lamppost, and I could not but notice that a love-lock of Virginia creeper was folding doors with book-shelves, which I scanned at once for the congenial
trailing almost to the step, and that the bow-window on the ground floor was works of which Raffles had spoken. I was not able to carry my examination
closely shuttered. Raffles admitted himself with his latch-key, and I squeezed very far. Raffles had lighted a candle, stuck (by its own grease) in the crown
past him into a very narrow hall. I did not hear him shut the door, but we of an opera hat, which he opened the moment the wick caught. The light
were no longer in the lamplight, and he pushed softly past me in his turn. thus struck the ceiling in an oval shaft, which left the rest of the room almost
as dark as it had been before.
"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 "Sorry, Bunny!" said Raffles, sitting on one pedestal of a desk from
these without thinking. In an instant hall and staircase were flooded with which the top had been removed, and setting his makeshift lantern on the
light; in another Raffles was upon me in a fury, and, all. was dark once more. other. "In broad daylight, when it can't be spotted from the outside, you shall
He had not said a word, but I heard him breathing through his teeth. 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
Nor was there anything to tell me now. The mere flash of electric light
better chance so far as interruption goes. But no midnight oil or electricity!
upon a hail of chaos and uncarpeted stairs, and on the face of Raffles as he
You observe that their last care was to fix up these shutters; they appear to
sprang to switch it off, had been enough even for me.
have taken the top off the desk to get at 'em without standing on it; but the
"So this is how you have taken the house," said I in his own undertone. beastly things wouldn't go all. the way up, and the strip they leave would give
"'Taken' is good; 'taken' is beautiful!" us away to the backs of the other houses if we lit up after dark. Mind that
"Did you think I'd done it through an agent?" he snarled. "Upon my word, telephone! If you touch the receiver they will know at the exchange that the
Bunny, I did you the credit of supposing you saw the joke all. the time!" 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
"Why shouldn't you take a house," I asked, "and pay for it?"
strips of paper to keep the dust off his precious books!"
"Why should I," he retorted, "within three miles of the Albany? Besides, I
"Is he a colonel?" I asked, perceiving that Raffles referred to the
should have had no peace; and I meant every word I said about my Rest
absentee householder.
Cure."
"Of sappers," he replied, "and a V.C. into the bargain, confound him! Got
"You are actually staying in a house where you've broken in to steal?"
it at Rorke's Drift; prison governor or inspector ever since; favorite recreation,
"Not to steal, Bunny! I haven't stolen a thing. But staying here I certainly what do you think? Revolver shooting! You can read all. about him in his own
am, and having the most complete rest a busy man could wish." Who's Who. A devil of a chap to tackle, Bunny, when he's at home!"
"There'll be no rest for me!"
- 21 -
 "And where is he now?" I asked uneasily. And do you know he isn't on "I'll have one to-night," said I, taking heart of a luxury unknown in my last
his way home?" sordid sanctuary.
"Switzerland," replied Raffles, chuckling; "he wrote one too many labels, "You'll do no such thing," snapped Raffles. "Have the goodness to
and was considerate enough to leave it behind for our guidance. Well, no remember that our island is one of a group inhabited by hostile tribes. You
one ever comes back from Switzerland at the beginning of September, you can fill the bath quietly if you try, but it empties under the study window, and
know; and nobody ever thinks of coming back before the servants. When makes the very devil of a noise about it. No, Bunny, I bale out every drop
they turn up they won't get in. I keep the latch jammed, but the servants will and pour it away through the scullery sink, so you will kindly consult me
think it's jammed itself, and while they're gone for the locksmith we shall walk before you turn a tap. Here's your room; hold the light outside while I draw
out like gentlemen - if we haven't done so already." 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
"As you walked in, I suppose?"
inside: dapper old dog, shouldn't you say? Mark the boots on the shelf
Raffles shook his head in the dim light to which my sight was growing above, and the little brass rail for his ties! Didn't I tell you he was particular?
inured. And wouldn't he simply love to catch us at his kit?"
"No, Bunny, I regret to say I came in through the dormer window. They "Let's only hope it would give him an apoplexy," said I shuddering.
were painting next door but one. I never did like ladder work, but it takes less
"I shouldn't build on it," replied Raffles. "That's a big man's trouble, and
time than in picking a lock in the broad light of a street lamp."
neither you nor I could get into the old chap's clothes. But come into the best
"So they left you a latch-key as well as everything else!" bedroom, Bunny. You won't think me selfish if I don't give it up to you? Look
"No, Bunny. I was just able to make that for myself. I am playing at at this, my boy, look at this! It's the only one I use in all. the house."
'Robinson Crusoe,' not 'The Swiss Family Robinson.' And now, my dear I had followed him into a good room, with ample windows closely
Friday, if you will kindly take off those boots, we can explore the island curtained, and he had switched on the light in a hanging lamp at the bedside.
before we turn in for the night." The rays fell from a thick green funnel in a plateful of strong light upon a
The stairs were very steep and narrow, and they creaked alarmingly as table deep in books. I noticed several volumes of the "Invasion of the
Raffles led the way up, with the single candle in the crown of the colonel's Crimea."
hat. He blew it out before we reached the half-landing, where a naked "That's where I rest the body and exercise the brain," said Raffles. "I
window stared upon the backs of the houses in the next road, but lit it again have long wanted to read my Kinglake from A to Z, and I manage about a
at the drawing-room door. I just peeped in upon a semi-grand swathed in volume a night. There's a style for you, Bunny! I love the punctilious
white and a row of water colors mounted in gold. An excellent bathroom thoroughness of the whole thing; one can understand its appeal to our
broke our journey to the second floor. careful colonel. His name, did you say? Crutchley, Bunny - Colonel
Crutchley, R.E., V.C."

- 22 -
 "We'd put his valor to the test!" said I, feeling more valiant myself after people be the worse, except for their washing and their electric light, and I
our tour of inspection. mean to leave enough to cover both items."
"Not so loud on the stairs," whispered Raffles. "There's only one door "Then," said I, "since Brutus is such a very honorable man, we will
between us and - " borrow a bottle from the cellar, and replace it before we go."
Raffles stood still at my feet, and well he might! A deafening double Raffles slapped me softly on the back, and I knew that I had gained my
knock had resounded through the empty house; and to add to the utter point. It was often the case when I had the presence of heart and mind to
horror of the moment, Raffles instantly blew out the light. I heard my heart stand up to him. But never was little victory of mine quite so grateful as this.
pounding. Neither of us breathed. We were on our way down to the first Certainly it was a very small cellar, indeed a mere cupboard under the
landing, and for a moment we stood like mice; then Raffles heaved a deep kitchen stairs, with a most ridiculous lock. Nor was this cupboard
sigh, and in the depths I heard the gate swing home. 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
"Only the postman, Bunny! He will come now and again, though they
golden-leafed necks and corks. Raffles set his hand no lower. He examined
have obviously left instructions at the post-office. I hope the old colonel will
the labels while I held folded hat and naked light.
let them have it when he gets back. I confess it gave me a turn."
"Mumm, '84!" he whispered. "G. H. Mumm, and A.D. 1884! I am no
"Turn!" I gasped. "I must have a drink, if I die for it."
wine-bibber, Bunny, as you know, but I hope you appreciate the
"My dear Bunny, that's no part of my Rest Cure." specifications as I do. It looks to me like the only bottle, the last of its case,
"Then good-by! I can't stand it; feel my forehead; listen to my heart! and it does seem a bit of a shame; but more shame for the miser who hoards
Crusoe found a footprint, but he never heard a double-knock at the street in his cellar what was meant for mankind! Come, Bunny, lead the way. This
door!" baby is worth nursing. It would break my heart if anything happened to it
now!"
"'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 So we celebrated my first night in the furnished house; and I slept
but tea in the house." 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
"And where do you make that? Aren't you afraid of smoke?"
along the street an hour later, and to be passed over by one destroying
"There's a gas-stove in the dining-room." angel after another. I had come down early enough, and watched through
"But surely to goodness," I cried, "there's a cellar lower down!" 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
"My dear, good Bunny," said Raffles, "I've told you already that I didn't than overnight as though he had managed to air it room by room; and from
come in here on business. I came in for the Cure. Not a penny will these the one with the gas-stove there came a frizzling sound that fattened the
heart.
- 23 -
 I only would I had the pen to do justice to the week I spent in-doors on shaved on Campden Hill. That morning, however, I did my best with a very
Campden Hill! It might make amusing reading; the reality for me was far fair razor which the colonel had left behind in my room; then I turned out the
removed from the realm of amusement. Not that I was denied many a laugh lady's wardrobe and the cardboard boxes, and took my choice.
of suppressed heartiness when Raffles and I were together. But half our time
I have fair hair, and at the time it was rather long. With a pair of Mrs.
we very literally saw nothing of each other. I need not say whose fault that
Crutchley's tongs and a discarded hair-net, I was able to produce an almost
was. He would be quiet; he was in ridiculous and offensive earnest about his
immodest fringe. A big black hat with a wintry feather completed a headdress
egregious Cure. Kinglake he would read by the hour together, day and night,
as unseasonable as my skating skirt and feather boa; of course, the good
by the hanging lamp, lying up-stairs on the best bed. There was daylight
lady had all. her summer frocks away with her in Switzerland. This was all.
enough for me in the drawing-room below; and there I would sit immersed in
the more annoying from the fact that we were having a very warm
criminous tomes weakly fascinated until I shivered and shook in my stocking
September; so I was not sorry to hear Raffles return as I was busy adding a
soles. Often I longed to do something hysterically desperate, to rouse Raffles
layer of powder to my heated countenance. I listened a moment on the
and bring the street about our ears; once I did bring him about mine by
landing, but as he went into the study I determined to complete my toilet in
striking a single note on the piano, with the soft pedal down. His neglect of
every detail. My idea was first to give him the fright he deserved, and
me seemed wanton at the time. I have long realized that he was only wise to
secondly to show him that I was quite as fit to move abroad as he. It was,
maintain silence at the expense of perilous amenities, and as fully justified in
however, I confess, a pair of the colonel's gloves that I was buttoning as I
those secret and solitary sorties which made bad blood in my veins. He was
slipped down to the study even more quietly than usual. The electric light
far cleverer than I at getting in and out; but even had I been his match for
was on, as it generally was by day, and under it stood as formidable a figure
stealth and wariness, my company would have doubled every risk. I admit
as ever I encountered in my life of crime.
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. 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
What with his flourishing beard and the increasing shabbiness of the
Raffles at his worst. It was, it could only be, the fire-eating and prison-
only suit he had brought with him to the house, there was no denying that
inspecting colonel himself! He was ready for me, a revolver in his hand,
Raffles had now the advantage of a permanent disguise. That was another
taken, as I could see, from one of those locked drawers in the pedestal desk
of his excuses for leaving me as he did, and it was the one I was determined
with which Raffles had refused to tamper; the drawer was open, and a bunch
to remove. On a morning, therefore, when I awoke to find him flown again, I
of keys depended from the lock. A grim smile crumpled up the parchment
proceeded to execute a plan which I had already matured in my mind.
face, so that one eye was puckered out of sight; the other was propped open
Colonel Crutchley was a married man; there were no signs of children in the
by an eyeglass, which, however, dangled on its string when I appeared.
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; "A woman, begad!" the warrior exclaimed. "And where's the man, you
large, flat, cardboard boxes were to be found in every corner of the upper scarlet hussy?"
floors. She was a tall woman; I was not too tall a man. Like Raffles, I had not
- 24 -
 Not a word could I utter. But, in my horror and my amazement, I have no instant. But the instrument happened to be a standard of the more elaborate
sort of doubt that I acted the part I had assumed in a manner I never should pattern, and I flattered myself that I had put the delicate engine out of action
have approached in happier circumstances. for the day.
"Come, come, my lass," cried the old oak veteran, "I'm not going to put a Not that my adversary took the trouble to ascertain. He was looking at
bullet through you, you know! You tell me all. about it, and it'll do you more me strangely in the electric light, standing intently on his guard, his right
good than harm. There, I'll put the nasty thing away and - God bless me, if hand in the pocket where he had dropped his revolver. And I - I hardly knew
the brazen wench hasn't squeezed into the wife's kit!" 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
A squeeze it happened to have been, and in my emotion it felt more of
scene.
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 "Be shot if I don't believe you're the man himself!" cried the colonel,
gleaming glass, and he proceeded to pocket his revolver like the gentleman shaking an armed fist in my face. "You young wolf in sheep's clothing. Been
he was. 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
"'Well, well, it's lucky I looked in," he continued. "I only came round on
this! Don't you give me an excuse for potting you now, or I'll jump at the
the off-chance of letters, but if I hadn't you'd have had another week in
chance! My last bottle of '84 - you miserable blackguard - you unutterable
clover. Begad, though, I saw your handwriting the moment I'd got my nose
beast!"
inside! Now just be sensible and tell me where your good man is.
He had browbeaten me into his own chair in his own corner; he was
I had no man. I was alone, had broken in alone. There was not a soul in
standing over me, empty bottle in one hand, revolver in the other, and
the affair (much less the house) except myself. So much I stuttered out in
murder itself in the purple puckers of his raging face. His language I will not
tones too hoarse to betray me on the spot. But the old man of the world
even pretend to indicate: his skinny throat swelled and trembled with the
shook a hard old head.
monstrous volleys. He could smile at my appearance in his wife's clothes; he
"Quite right not to give away your pal," said he. "But I'm not one of the would have had my blood for the last bottle of his best champagne. His eyes
marines, my dear, and you mustn't expect me to swallow all. that. Well, if you were not hidden now; they needed no eyeglass to prop them open; large
won't say, you won't, and we must just send for those who will." with fury, they started from the livid mask. I watched nothing else. I could not
In a flash I saw his fell design. The telephone directory lay open on one understand why they should start out as they did. I did not try. I say I
of the pedestals. He must have been consulting it when he heard me on the watched nothing else - until I saw the face of Raffles over the unfortunate
stairs; he had another look at it now; and that gave me my opportunity. With officer's shoulder.
a presence of mind rare enough in me to excuse the boast, I flung myself Raffles had crept in unheard while our altercation was at its height, had
upon the instrument in the corner and hurled it to the ground with all. my watched his opportunity, and stolen on his man unobserved by either of us.
might. I was myself sent spinning into the opposite corner at the same While my own attention was completely engrossed, he had seized the
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colonel's pistol-hand and twisted it behind the colonel's back until his eyes extraordinary aggravation of an otherwise minor offence. But in the broad
bulged out as I have endeavored to describe. But the fighting man had some daylight of the bathroom, which had a ground-glass window but no blind, I
fight in him still; and scarcely had I grasped the situation when he hit out saw at once the serious nature of his wound and of its effect upon the man.
venomously behind with the bottle, which was smashed to bits on Raffles's
"It will maim me for a month," said he; "and if the V.C. comes out alive,
shin. Then I threw my strength into the scale; and before many minutes we
the wound he gave may be identified with the wound I've got"
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 The V.C.! There, indeed, was an aggravation to one illogical mind. But
leg bled wherever he limped; and the fierce eyes of the bound man followed to cast a moment's doubt upon the certainty of his coming out alive!
the wet trail with gleams of sinister satisfaction. "Of course he'll come out," said I. "We must make up our minds to that."
I thought I had never seen a man better bound or better gagged. But the "Did he tell you he was expecting the servants or his wife? If so, of
humanity seemed to have run out of Raffles with his blood. He tore up course we must hurry up."
tablecloths, he cut down blind-cords, he brought the dust-sheets from the
"No, Raffles, I'm afraid he's not expecting anybody. He told me, if he
drawing-room, and multiplied every bond. The unfortunate man's legs were
hadn't looked in for letters, we should have had the place to ourselves
lashed to the legs of his chair, his arms to its arms, his thighs and back fairly
another week. That's the worst of it."
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 Raffles smiled as he secured a regular puttee of dust-sheeting. No blood
place by remorseless lashings at the back of his head. It was a spectacle I was coming through.
could not bear to contemplate at length, while from the first I found myself "I don't agree, Bunny," said he. "It's quite the best of it, if you ask me."
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 "What, that he should die the death?"
and chair; and the stark outline drove me from the room. "Why not?"
It was Raffles at his worst, Raffles as I never knew him before or after - And Raffles stared me out with a hard and merciless light in his clear
a Raffles mad with pain and rage, and desperate as any other criminal in the blue eyes - a light that chilled the blood.
land. Yet he had struck no brutal blow, he had uttered no disgraceful taunt,
"If it's a choice between his life and our liberty, you're entitled to your
and probably not inflicted a tithe of the pain he had himself to bear. It is true
decision and I'm entitled to mine, and I took it before I bound him as I did,"
that he was flagrantly in the wrong, his victim as laudably in the right.
said Raffles. "I'm only sorry I took so much trouble if you're going to stay
Nevertheless, granting the original sin of the situation, and given this
behind and put him in the way of releasing himself before he gives up the
unforeseen development, even I failed to see how Raffles could have
ghost. Perhaps you will go and think it over while I wash my bags and dry
combined greater humanity with any regard for our joint safety; and had his
'em at the gas stove. It will take me at least an hour, which will just give me
barbarities ended here, I for one should not have considered them an
time to finish the last volume of Kinglake."
- 26 -
 Long before he was ready to go, however, I was waiting in the hall, "Yes? Well, I'm going to swim into the provinces, have a shave on the
clothed indeed, but not in a mind which I care to recall. Once or twice I way, buy a new kit piecemeal, including a cricket-bag (which I really want),
peered into the dining-room where Raffles sat before the stove, without and come limping back to the Albany with the same old strain in my bowling
letting him hear me. He, too, was ready for the street at a moment's notice; leg. I needn't add that I have been playing country-house cricket for the last
but a steam ascended from his left leg, as he sat immersed in his red month under an alias; it's the only decent way to do it when one's county has
volume. Into the study I never went again; but Raffles did, to restore to its need of one. That's my itinerary, Bunny, but I really can't see why you should
proper shelf this and every other book he had taken out and so destroy that come with me."
clew to the manner of man who had made himself at home in the house. On
"We may as well swing together!" I growled.
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 "As you will, my dear fellow," replied Raffles. "But I begin to dread your
accursed house belonged to him. company on the drop!"

"We shall be seen," I whispered at his heels. "Raffles, Raffles, there's a I shall hold my pen on that provincial tour. Not that I joined Raffles in any
policeman at the corner!" 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
"I know him intimately," replied Raffles, turning, however, the other way.
gallant officer in his chair, see him at every hour of the day and night, now
"He accosted me on Monday, when I explained that I was an old soldier of
with his indomitable eyes meeting mine ferociously, now a stark outline
the colonel's regiment, who came in every few days to air the place and send
underneath a sheet. The vision darkened my day and gave me sleepless
on any odd letters. You see, I have always carried one or two about me,
nights. I was with our victim in all. his agony; my mind would only leave him
redirected to that address in Switzerland, and when I showed them to him it
for that gallows of which Raffles had said true things in jest. No, I could not
was all. right. But after that it was no use listening at the letter-box for a clear
face so vile a death lightly, but I could meet it, somehow, better than I could
coast, was it?"
endure a guilty suspense. In the watches of the second night I made up my
I did not answer; there was too much to exasperate in these prodigies of mind to meet it halfway, that very morning, while still there might be time to
cunning which he could never trouble to tell me at the time. And I knew why save the life that we had left in jeopardy. And I got up early to tell Raffles of
he had kept his latest feats to himself: unwilling to trust me outside the my resolve.
house, he had systematically exaggerated the dangers of his own walks
His room in the hotel where we were staying was littered with clothes
abroad; and when to these injuries he added the insult of a patronizing
and luggage new enough for any bridegroom; I lifted the locked cricket-bag,
compliment on my late disguise, I again made no reply.
and found it heavier than a cricket-bag has any right to be. But in the bed
"What's the good of your coming with me he asked, when I had followed Raffles was sleeping like an infant, his shaven self once more. And when I
him across the main stream of Notting Hill. shook him he awoke with a smile.
"We may as well sink or swim together," I answered sullenly.

- 27 -
 "Going to confess, eh, Bunny? Well, wait a bit; the local police won't "Slow murder? You should have known me better. A few hours'
thank you for knocking them up at this hour. And I bought a late edition enforced Rest Cure was the worst I wished him."
which you ought to see; that must be it on the floor. You have a look in the
"'you might have told me, Raffles!"
stop-press column, Bunny."
"That may be, Bunny, but you ought certainly to have trusted me!"
I found the place with a sunken heart, and this is what I read:

WEST-END OUTRAGE Chapter 4

The Criminologists' Club
Colonel Crutchley, R.E., V.C., has been the victim of a
dastardly outrage at his residence, Peter Street, Campden "But who are they, Raffles, and where's their house? There's no such
Hill. Returning unexpectedly to the house, which had been club on the list in Whitaker."
left untenanted during the absence of the family abroad, it
"The Criminologists, my dear Bunny, are too few for a local habitation,
was found occupied by two ruffians, who overcame and
and too select to tell their name in Gath. They are merely so many solemn
secured the distinguished officer by the exercise of
students of contemporary crime, who meet and dine periodically at each
considerable violence. When discovered through the
other's clubs or houses."
intelligence of the Kensington police, the gallant victim was
gagged and bound hand and foot, and in an advanced stage "But why in the world should they ask us to dine with them?"
of exhaustion. And I brandished the invitation which had brought me hotfoot to the
"Thanks to the Kensington police," observed Raffles, as I read the last Albany: it was from the Right Hon. the Earl of Thornaby, K.G.; and it
words aloud in my horror. "They can't have gone when they got my letter." 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
"Your letter?"
disturbing compliment: judge then of my dismay on learning that Raffles had
"I printed them a line while we were waiting for our train at Euston. They been invited too!
must have got it that night, but they can't have paid any attention to it until
"They have got it into their heads," said he, "that the gladiatorial element
yesterday morning. And when they do, they take all. the credit and give me
is the curse of most modern sport. They tremble especially for the
no more than you did, Bunny!"
professional gladiator. And they want to know whether my experience tallies
I looked at the curly head upon the pillow, at the smiling, handsome face with their theory."
under the curls. And at last I understood.
"So they say!"
"So all. the time you never meant it!"
"They quote the case of a league player, sus per coll., and any number
of suicides. It really is rather in my public line."

- 28 -
 "In yours, if you like, but not in mine," said I. "No, Raffles, they've got lips in the House of Lords. Yet they say there is no better brain in the August
their eye on us both, and mean to put us under the microscope, or they assembly, and he certainly made us a wonderful speech last time the
never would have pitched on me." 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
Raffles smiled on my perturbation.
practice - but he looks quite capable of both at crime!"
"I almost wish you were right, Bunny! It would be even better fun than I
I now longed to behold this remarkable peer, in the flesh, and with the
mean to make it as it is. But it may console you to hear that it was I who
greater curiosity since another of the things which he evidently never did was
gave them your name. I told them you were a far keener criminologist than
to have his photograph published for the benefit of the vulgar. I told Raffles
myself. I am delighted to hear they have taken my hint, and that we are to
that I would dine with him at Lord Thornaby's, and he nodded as though I
meet at their gruesome board."
had not hesitated for a moment. I see now how deftly he had disposed of my
"If I accept," said I, with the austerity he deserved. reluctance. No doubt he had thought it all. out before: his little speeches look
"If you don't," rejoined Raffles, "you will miss some sport after both our sufficiently premeditated as I set them down at the dictates of an excellent
hearts. Think of it, Bunny! These fellows meet to wallow in all. the latest memory. Let it, however, be borne in mind that Raffles did not talk exactly
crimes; we wallow with them as though we knew more about it than like a Raffles book: he said the things, but he did not say them in so many
themselves. Perhaps we don't, for few criminologists have a soul above consecutive breaths. They were punctuated by puffs from his eternal
murder; and I quite expect to have the privilege of lifting the discussion into cigarette, and the punctuation was often in the nature of a line of asterisks,
our own higher walk. They shall give their morbid minds to the fine art of while he took a silent turn up and down his room. Nor was he ever more
burgling, for a change; and while we're about it, Bunny, we may as well deliberate than when he seemed most nonchalant and spontaneous. I came
extract their opinion of our noble selves. As authors, as collaborators, we will to see it in the end. But these were early days, in which he was more
sit with the flower of our critics, and find our own level in the expert eye. It will plausible to me than I can hope to render him to another human being.
be a piquant experience, if not an invaluable one; if we are sailing too near And I saw a good deal of Raffles just then; it was, in fact, the one period
the wind, we are sure to hear about it, and can trim our yards accordingly. at which I can remember his coming round to see me more frequently than I
Moreover, we shall get a very good dinner into the bargain, or our noble host went round to him. Of course he would come at his own odd hours, often just
will belie a European reputation." as one was dressing to go out and dine, and I can even remember finding
"Do you know him?" I asked. 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
"We have a pavilion acquaintance, when it suits my lord," replied
evening when we discussed anything and everything but our own
Raffles, chuckling. "But I know all. about him. He was president one year of
malpractices; indeed, there were none to discuss just then. Raffles, on the
the M.C.C., and we never had a better. He knows the game, though I believe
contrary, was showing himself with some industry in the most respectable
he never played cricket in his life. But then he knows most things, and has
society, and by his advice I used the club more than ever.
never done any of them. He has never even married, and never opened his
- 29 -
 "There is nothing like it at this time of year," said he. "In the summer I original apprehension! And still no Raffles in sight - no Raffles to warn - no
have my cricket to provide me with decent employment in the sight of men. Raffles, and the clocks striking eight!
Keep yourself before the public from morning to night, and they'll never think
Well may I shirk the psychology of such a moment, for my belief is that
of you in the still small hours."
the striking clocks struck out all. power of thought and feeling, and that I
Our behavior, in fine, had so long been irreproachable that I rose without played my poor part the better for that blessed surcease of intellectual
misgiving on the morning of Lord Thornaby's dinner to the other sensation. On the other hand, I was never more alive to the purely objective
Criminologists and guests. My chief anxiety was to arrive under the aegis of impressions of any hour of my existence, and of them the memory is startling
my brilliant friend, and I had begged him to pick me up on his way; but at five to this day. I hear my mad knock at the double doors; they fly open in the
minutes to the appointed hour there was no sign of Raffles or his cab. We middle, and it is like some sumptuous and solemn rite. A long slice of silken-
were bidden at a quarter to eight for eight o'clock, so after all. I had to hurry legged lackey is seen on either hand; a very prelate of a butler bows a
off alone. 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
Fortunately, Thornaby House is almost at the end of my street that was;
rug before the fire. One of them is Raffles, who is talking to a large man with
and it seemed to me another fortunate circumstance that the house stood
the brow of a demi-god and the eyes and jowl of a degenerate bulldog. And
back, as it did and does, in its own August courtyard; for, as I was about to
this is our noble host.
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 Lord Thornaby stared at me with inscrutable stolidity as we shook
the porch, and wait yet another minute in the shadows, since others were as hands, and at once handed me over to a tall, ungainly man whom he
late as I. And out jumped these others, chattering in stage whispers as they addressed as Ernest, but whose surname I never learned. Ernest in turn
paid their cab. 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
"Thornaby has a bet about it with Freddy Vereker, who can't come, I
Kingsmill, Q.C.; the other I knew at a glance from his photographs as
hear. Of course, it won t be lost or won to-night. But the dear man thinks he's
Parrington, the backwoods novelist. They were admirable foils to each other,
been invited as a cricketer!"
the barrister being plump and dapper, with a Napoleonic cast of
"I don't believe he's the other thing," said a voice as brusque as the first countenance, and the author one of the shaggiest dogs I have ever seen in
was bland. "I believe it's all. bunkum. I wish I didn't, but I do!" evening-clothes. Neither took much stock of me, but both had an eye on
"I think you'll find it's more than that," rejoined the other, as the doors Raffles as I exchanged a few words with each in turn. Dinner, however, was
opened and swallowed the pair. immediately announced, and the six of us had soon taken our places round a
brilliant little table stranded in a great dark room.
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 I had not been prepared for so small a party, and at first I felt relieved. If
suspected criminal! Raffles wrong all. the time, and I right for once in my the worst came to the worst, I was fool enough to say in my heart, they were
- 30 -
but two to one. But I was soon sighing for that safety which the adage "The chaplain remonstrated with him on his excitement over a game at
associates with numbers. We were far too few for the confidential duologue such a time, and the convict is said to have replied: 'Why, it's the first thing
with one's neighbor in which I, at least, would have taken refuge from the they'll ask me at the other end of the drop!'"
perils of a general conversation. And the general conversation soon resolved
The story was new even to me, but I had no time to appreciate its
itself into an attack, so subtly concerted and so artistically delivered that I
points. My concern was to watch its effect upon the other members of the
could not conceive how Raffles should ever know it for an attack, and that
party. Ernest, on my left, doubled up with laughter, and tittered and shook for
against himself, or how to warn him of his peril. But to this day I am not
several minutes. My other neighbor, more impressionable by temperament,
convinced that I also was honored by the suspicions of the club; it may have
winced first, and then worked himself into a state of enthusiasm which
been so, and they may have ignored me for the bigger game.
culminated in an assault upon his shirt-cuff with a joiner's pencil. Kingsmill,
It was Lord Thornaby himself who fired the first shot, over the very Q.C., beaming tranquilly on Raffles, seemed the one least impressed, until
sherry. He had Raffles on his right hand, and the backwoodsman of letters he spoke.
on his left. Raffles was hemmed in by the law on his right, while I sat
"I am glad to hear that," he remarked in a high bland voice. "I thought
between Parrington and Ernest, who took the foot of the table, and seemed a
that man would die game."
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. "Did you know anything about him, then?" inquired Lord Thornaby.

"Mr. Raffles," said he, "has been telling me about that poor fellow who "I led for the Crown," replied the barrister, with a twinkle. "You might
suffered the extreme penalty last March. A great end, gentlemen, a great almost say that I measured the poor man's neck."
end! It is true that he had been unfortunate enough to strike a jugular vein, The point must have been quite unpremeditated; it was not the less
but his own end should take its place among the most glorious traditions of effective for that. Lord Thornaby looked askance at the callous silk. It was
the gallows. You tell them Mr. Raffles: it will be as new to my friends as it is some moments before Ernest tittered and Parrington felt for his pencil; and in
to me." the interim I had made short work of my hock, though it was Johannisberger.
"I tell the tale as I heard it last time I played at Trent Bridge; it was never As for Raffles, one had but to see his horror to feel how completely he was
in the papers, I believe," said Raffles gravely. "You may remember the off his guard.
tremendous excitement over the Test Matches out in Australia at the time: it "In itself, I have heard, it was not a sympathetic case?" was the remark
seems that the result of the crucial game was expected on the condemned with which he broke the general silence.
man's last day on earth, and he couldn't rest until he knew it. We pulled it off,
"Not a bit."
if you recollect, and he said it would make him swing happy."
"That must have been a comfort to you," said Raffles dryly.
"Tell 'em what else he said!" cried Lord Thornaby, rubbing his podgy
hands.

- 31 -
 "It would have been to me," vowed our author, while the barrister merely "Let us say many a poor fellow who has been charged with burglary,"
smiled. "I should have been very sorry to have had a hand in hanging replied the cheery Q.C. "It's not quite the same thing, you know, nor is 'many'
Peckham and Solomons the other day." the most accurate word. I never touch criminal work in town."
"Why Peckham and Solomons?" inquired my lord. "It's the only kind I should care about," said the novelist, eating jelly with
a spoon.
"They never meant to kill that old lady."
"I quite agree with you," our host chimed in. "And of all. the criminals
"But they strangled her in her bed with her own pillow-case!"
one might be called upon to defend, give me the enterprising burglar."
"I don't care," said the uncouth scribe. "They didn't break in for that.
"It must be the breeziest branch of the business," remarked Raffles,
They never thought of scragging her. The foolish old person would make a
while I held my breath.
noise, and one of them tied too tight. I call it jolly bad luck on them."
But his touch was as light as gossamer, and his artless manner a
"On quiet, harmless, well-behaved thieves," added Lord Thornaby, "in
triumph of even his incomparable art. Raffles was alive to the danger at last.
the unobtrusive exercise of their humble avocation."
I saw him refuse more champagne, even as I drained my glass again. But it
And, as he turned to Raffles with his puffy smile, I knew that we had was not the same danger to us both. Raffles had no reason to feel surprise
reached that part of the programme which had undergone rehearsal: it had or alarm at such a turn in a conversation frankly devoted to criminology; it
been perfectly timed to arrive with the champagne, and I was not afraid to must have been as inevitable to him as it was sinister to me, with my
signify my appreciation of that small mercy. But Raffles laughed so quickly at fortuitous knowledge of the suspicions that were entertained. And there was
his lordship's humor, and yet with such a natural restraint, as to leave no little to put him on his guard in the touch of his adversaries, which was only
doubt that he had taken kindly to my own old part, and was playing the less light than his own.
innocent inimitably in his turn, by reason of his very innocence. It was a
"I am not very fond of Mr. Sikes," announced the barrister, like a man
poetic judgment on old Raffles, and in my momentary enjoyment of the novel
who had got his cue.
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 "But he was prehistoric," rejoined my lord. "A lot of blood has flowed
spoiled me for my wing of pheasant, and I was even looking forward to a under the razor since the days of Sweet William."
sweet, when a further remark from the literary light recalled me from the
"True; we have had Peace," said Parrington, and launched out into such
table to its talk.
glowing details of that criminal's last moments that I began to hope the
"But, I suppose," said he to Kingsmill, "it's many a burglar you've diversion might prove permanent. But Lord Thornaby was not to be denied.
restored to his friends and his relations'?"
"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."

- 32 -
 There was a guilty silence on the part of the three conspirators - for I "What a joke if he were!" cried the Wild West writer.
had long since persuaded myself that Ernest was not in their secret - and
"Absit omen!" murmured Raffles, in better taste.
then my blood froze.
"Still, I think you'll find it's a favorite time," argued Kingsmill, Q.C. "And it
"I know him well," said Raffles, looking up.
would be quite in keeping with the character of this man, so far as it is
Lord Thornaby stared at him in consternation. The smile on the known, to pay a little visit to the president of the Criminologists' Club, and to
Napoleonic countenance of the barrister looked forced and frozen for the first choose the evening on which he happens to be entertaining the other
time during the evening. Our author, who was nibbling cheese from a knife, members."
left a bead of blood upon his beard. The futile Ernest alone met the occasion
There was more conviction in this sally than in that of our noble host; but
with a hearty titter.
this I attributed to the trained and skilled dissimulation of the bar. Lord
"What!" cried my lord. "You know the thief?" Thornaby, however, was not to be amused by the elaboration of his own
idea, and it was with some asperity that he called upon the butler, now
"I wish I did," rejoined Raffles, chuckling. "No, Lord Thornaby, I only
solemnly superintending the removal of the cloth.
meant the jeweller, Danby. I go to him when I want a wedding present."
"Leggett! Just send up-stairs to see if all. the doors are open and the
I heard three deep breaths drawn as one before I drew my own.
rooms in proper order. That's an awful idea of yours, Kingsmill, or of mine!"
"Rather a coincidence," observed our host dryly, "for I believe you also added my lord, recovering the courtesy of his order by an effort that I could
know the Milchester people, where Lady Melrose had her necklace stolen a follow. "We should look fools. I don't know which of us it was, by the way,
few months afterward." who seduced the rest from the main stream of blood into this burglarious
"I was staying there at the time," said Raffles eagerly. No snob was ever backwater. Are you familiar with De Quincey's masterpiece on 'Murder as a
quicker to boast of basking in the smile of the great. Fine Art,' Mr. Raffles?"

"We believe it to be the same man," said Lord Thornaby, speaking "I believe I once read it," replied Raffles doubtfully.
apparently for the Criminologists' Club, and with much less severity of voice. "You must read it again," pursued the earl. "It is the last word on a great
"I only wish I could come across him," continued Raffles heartily. "He's a subject; all. we can hope to add is some baleful illustration or bloodstained
criminal much more to my mind than your murderers who swear on the drop footnote, not unworthy of De Quincey's text. "Well, Leggett?"
or talk cricket in the condemned cell!" The venerable butler stood wheezing at his elbow. I had not hitherto
"He might be in the house now," said Lord Thornaby, looking Raffles in observed that the man was an asthmatic.
the face. But his manner was that of an actor in an unconvincing part and a "I beg your lordship's pardon, but I think your lordship must have
mood to play it gamely to the bitter end; and he seemed embittered, as even forgotten."
a rich man may be in the moment of losing a bet.

- 33 -
 The voice came in rude gasps, but words of reproach could scarcely your own, and let me climb down and do the rest! I'll undertake to have one
have achieved a finer delicacy. or other of these doors open in two twos!"
"Forgotten, Leggett! Forgotten what, may I ask?" The fastened doors were at right angles on the landing which we filled
between us. Lord Thornaby smiled grimly on the rest of us, when he had
"Locking your lordship's dressing-room door behind your lordship, my
nodded and dismissed the author like a hound from the leash.
lord," stuttered the unfortunate Leggett, in the short spurts of a winded man,
a few stertorous syllables at a time. "Been up myself, my lord. Bedroom door "It's a good thing we know something about our friend Parrington," said
- dressing-room door - both locked inside!" my lord. "He takes more kindly to all. this than I do, I can tell you."
But by this time the noble master was in worse case than the man. His "It's grist to his mill," said Raffles charitably.
fine forehead was a tangle of livid cords; his baggy jowl filled out like a
"Exactly! We shall have the whole thing in his next book."
balloon. In another second he had abandoned his place as our host and fled
the room; and in yet another we had forgotten ours as his guests and rushed "I hope to have it at the Old Bailey first," remarked Kingsmill, Q.C.
headlong at his heels. "Refreshing to find a man of letters such a man of action too!"
Raffles was as excited as any of us now: he outstripped us all. The It was Raffles who said this, and the remark seemed rather trite for him,
cherubic little lawyer and I had a fine race for the last place but one, which I but in the tone there was a something that just caught my private ear. And
secured, while the panting butler and his satellites brought up a respectful for once I understood: the officious attitude of Parrington, without being
rear. It was our unconventional author, however, who was the first to seriously suspicious in itself, was admirably calculated to put a previously
volunteer his assistance and advice. suspected person in a grateful shade. This literary adventurer had elbowed
"No use pushing, Thornaby!" cried he. "If it's been done with a wedge Raffles out of the limelight, and gratitude for the service was what I had
and gimlet, you may smash the door, but you'll never force it. Is there a detected in Raffles's voice. No need to say how grateful I felt myself. But my
ladder in the place?" gratitude was shot with flashes of unwonted insight. Parrington was one of
those who suspected Raffles, or, at all. events, one who was in the secret of
"There's a rope-ladder somewhere, in case of fire, I believe," said my
those suspicions. What if he had traded on the suspect's presence in the
lord vaguely, as he rolled a critical eye over our faces. "Where is it kept,
house? What if he were a deep villain himself, and the villain of this particular
Leggett?"
piece? I had made up my mind about him, and that in a tithe of the time I
"'William will fetch it, my lord." take to make it up as a rule, when we heard my man in the dressing-room.
He greeted us with an impudent shout; in a few moments the door was open,
And a pair of noble calves went flashing to the upper regions.
and there stood Parrington, flushed and dishevelled, with a gimlet in one
"What's the good of bringing it down," cried Parrington, who had thrown hand and a wedge in the other.
back to the wilds in his excitement. "Let him hang it out of the window above

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 Within was a scene of eloquent disorder. Drawers had been pulled out, coincidence, sir, but a deliberate irony, which would have occurred to no
and now stood on end, their contents heaped upon the carpet. Wardrobe other criminal mind in England."
doors stood open; empty stud-cases strewed the floor; a clock, tied up in a
"You may be right," Raffles had the sense to say this time, though I
towel, had been tossed into a chair at the last moment. But a long tin lid
flattered myself it was my face that made him.
protruded from an open cupboard in one corner. And one had only to see
Lord Thornaby's wry face behind the lid to guess that it was bent over a "What is still more certain," resumed our host, "is that no other criminal
somewhat empty tin trunk. in the world would have crowned so delicious a conception with so perfect an
achievement. I feel sure the inspector will agree with us."
"What a rum lot to steal!" said he, with a twitch of humor at the corners
of his canine mouth. "My peer's robes, with coronet complete!" The policeman in command had knocked and been admitted to the
library as Lord Thornaby spoke.
We rallied round him in a seemly silence. I thought our scribe would put
in his word. But even he either feigned or felt a proper awe. "I didn't hear what you said, my lord."

"You may say it was a rum place to keep 'em," continued Lord "Merely that the perpetrator of this amusing outrage can be no other
Thornaby. "But where would you gentlemen stable your white elephants? than the swell mobsman who relieved Lady Melrose of her necklace and
And these were elephants as white as snow; by Jove, I'll job them for the poor Danby of half his stock a year or two ago."
future!" "I believe your lordship has hit the nail on the head."
And he made merrier over his loss than any of us could have imagined "The man who took the Thimblely diamonds and returned them to Lord
the minute before; but the reason dawned on me a little later, when we all. Thimblely, you know."
trooped down-stairs, leaving the police in possession of the theatre of crime.
"Perhaps he'll treat your lordship the same."
Lord Thornaby linked arms with Raffles as he led the way. His step was
lighter, his gayety no longer sardonic; his very looks had improved. And I "Not he! I don't mean to cry over my spilt milk. I only wish the fellow joy
divined the load that had been lifted from the hospitable heart of our host. of all. he had time to take. Anything fresh up-stain by the way?"

"I only wish," said he, "that this brought us any nearer to the identity of "Yes, my lord: the robbery took place between a quarter past eight and
the gentleman we were discussing at dinner, for, of course, we owe it to all. the half-hour."
our instincts to assume that it was he." "How on earth do you know?"
"I wonder!" said old Raffles, with a foolhardy glance at me. "The clock that was tied up in the towel had stopped at twenty past."
"But I'm sure of it, my dear sir," cried my lord. "The audacity is his and "Have you interviewed my man?"
his alone. I look no further than the fact of his honoring me on the one night
of the year when I endeavor to entertain my brother Criminologists. That's no "I have, my lord. He was in your lordship's room until close on the
quarter, and all. was as it should be when he left it."
- 35 -
 "Then do you suppose the burglar was in hiding in the house?" for any trial he might ever like to hear. Parrington spoke of a presentation set
of his books, and in doing homage to Raffles made his peace with our host.
"It's impossible to say, my lord. He's not in the house now, for he could
As for Lord Thornaby, I did overhear the name of the Athenaeum Club, a
only be in your lordship's bedroom or dressing-room, and we have searched
reference to his friends on the committee, and a whisper (as I thought) of
every inch of both."
Rule II.
Lord Thornaby turned to us when the inspector had retreated, caressing
The police were still in possession when we went our several ways, and
his peaked cap.
it was all. that I could do to drag Raffles up to my rooms, though, as I have
"I told him to clear up these points first," he explained, jerking his head said, they were just round the corner. He consented at last as a lesser evil
toward the door. "I had reason to think my man had been neglecting his than talking of the burglary in the street; and in my rooms I told him of his
duties up there. I am glad to find myself mistaken." late danger and my own dilemma, of the few words I had overheard in the
I ought to have been no less glad to see my own mistake. My suspicions beginning, of the thin ice on which he had cut fancy figures without a crack. It
of our officious author were thus proved to have been as wild as himself. I was all. very well for him. He had never realized his peril. But let him think of
owed the man no grudge, and yet in my human heart I felt vaguely me - listening, watching, yet unable to lift a finger - unable to say one
disappointed. My theory had gained color from his behavior ever since he warning word.
had admitted us to the dressing-room; it had changed all. at once from the Raffles suffered me to finish, but a weary sigh followed the last
familiar to the morose; and only now was I just enough to remember that symmetrical whiff of a Sullivan which he flung into my fire before he spoke.
Lord Thornaby, having tolerated those familiarities as long as they were
"No, I won't have another, thank you. I'm going to talk to you, Bunny. Do
connected with useful service, had administered a relentless snub the
you really suppose I didn't see through these wiseacres from the first?"
moment that service had been well and truly performed.
I flatly refused to believe he had done so before that evening. Why had
But if Parrington was exonerated in my mind, so also was Raffles
he never mentioned his idea to me? It had been quite the other way, as I
reinstated in the regard of those who had entertained a far graver and more
indignantly reminded Raffles. Did he mean me to believe he was the man to
dangerous hypothesis. It was a miracle of good luck, a coincidence among
thrust his head into the lion's mouth for fun? And what point would there be
coincidences, which had white-washed him in their sight at the very moment
in dragging me there to see the fun?
when they were straining the expert eye to sift him through and through. But
the miracle had been performed, and its effect was visible in every face and "I might have wanted you, Bunny. I very nearly did."
audible in every voice. I except Ernest, who could never have been in the
"For my face?"
secret; moreover, that gay Criminologist had been palpably shaken by his
first little experience of crime. But the other three vied among themselves to "It has been my fortune before to-night, Bunny. It has also given me
do honor where they had done injustice. I heard Kingsmill, Q.C., telling more confidence than you are likely to believe at this time of day. You
Raffles the best time to catch him at chambers, and promising a seat in court stimulate me more than you think."

- 36 -
 "Your gallery and your prompter's box in one?" "Then you shall hear all. about it, Bunny, if you'll do what I ask you."
"Capital, Bunny! But it was no joking matter with me either, my dear "Ask away, old chap, and the thing's done."
fellow; it was touch-and-go at the time. I might have called on you at any
"Switch off the electric lights."
moment, and it was something to know I should not have called in vain."
"All. of them?"
"But what to do, Raffles?"
"I think so."
"Fight our way out and bolt!" he answered, with a mouth that meant it,
and a fine gay glitter of the eyes. "There, then."

I shot out of my chair. "Now go to the back window and up with the blind."

"You don't mean to tell me you had a hand in the job?" "Well?"?"

"I had the only hand in it, my dear Bunny." "I'm coming to you. Splendid! I never had a look so late as this. It's the
only window left alight in the house!"
"Nonsense! You were sitting at table at the time. No, but you may have
taken some other fellow into the show. I always thought you would!" His cheek against the pane, he was pointing slightly downward and very
much aslant through a long lane of mews to a little square light like a yellow
"One's quite enough, Bunny," said Raffles dryly; he leaned back in his
tile at the end. But I had opened the window and leaned out before I saw it
chair and took out another cigarette. And I accepted of yet another from his
for myself.
case; for it was no use losing one's temper with Raffles; and his incredible
statement was not, after all., to be ignored. "You don't mean to say that's Thornaby House?"

"Of course," I went on, "if you really had brought off this thing on your I was not familiar with the view from my back windows.
own, I should be the last to criticise your means of reaching such an end. "Of course I do, you rabbit! Have a look through your own race-glass. It
You have not only scored off a far superior force, which had laid itself out to has been the most useful thing of all."
score off you, but you have put them in the wrong about you, and they'll eat
But before I had the glass in focus more scales had fallen from my eyes;
out of your hand for the rest of their days. But don't ask me to believe that
and now I knew why I had seen so much of Raffles these last few weeks,
you've done all. this alone! By George," I cried, in a sudden wave of
and why he had always come between seven and eight o'clock in the
enthusiasm, "I don't care how you've done it or who has helped you. It's the
evening, and waited at this very window, with these very glasses at his eyes.
biggest thing you ever did in your life!"
I saw through them sharply now. The one lighted window pointed out by
And certainly I had never seen Raffles look more radiant, or better Raffles came tumbling into the dark circle of my vision. I could not see into
pleased with the world and himself, or nearer that elation which he usually the actual room, but the shadows of those within were quite distinct on the
left to me. lowered blind. I even thought a black thread still dangled against the square

- 37 -
of light. It was, it must be, the window to which the intrepid Parrington had Raffles took up the cane which he had laid down with his overcoat. It
descended from the one above. was a stout bamboo with a polished ferule. He unscrewed the ferule, and
shook out of the cane a diminishing series of smaller canes, exactly like a
"Exactly!" said Raffles in answer to my exclamation. "And that's the
child's fishing-rod, which I afterward found to have been their former state. A
window I have been watching these last few weeks. By daylight you can see
double hook of steel was now produced and quickly attached to the tip of the
the whole lot above the ground floor on this side of the house; and by good
top joint; then Raffles undid three buttons of his waistcoat; and lapped round
luck one of them is the room in which the master of the house arrays himself
and round his waist was the finest of Manila ropes, with the neatest of foot-
in all. his nightly glory. It was easily spotted by watching at the right time. I
loops at regular intervals.
saw him shaved one morning before you were up! In the evening his valet
stays behind to put things straight; and that has been the very mischief. In "Is it necessary to go any further?" asked Raffles when he had unwound
the end I had to find out something about the man, and wire to him from his the rope. "This end is made fast to that end of the hook, the other half of the
girl to meet her outside at eight o'clock. Of course he pretends he was at his hook fits over anything that comes its way, and you leave your rod dangling
post at the time: that I foresaw, and did the poor fellow's work before my while you swarm up your line. Of course, you must know what you've got to
own. I folded and put away every garment before I permitted myself to rag hook on to; but a man who has had a porcelain bath fixed in his dressing-
the room." room is the man for me. The pipes were all. outside, and fixed to the wall in
just the right place. You see I had made a reconnaissance by day in addition
"I wonder you had time!"
to many by night; it would hardly have been worth while constructing my
"It took me one more minute, and it put the clock on exactly fifteen. By ladder on chance."
the way, I did that literally, of course, in the case of the clock they found. It's
"So you made it on purpose!"
an old dodge, to stop a clock and alter the time; but you must admit that it
looked as though one had wrapped it up all. ready to cart away. There was "My dear Bunny," said Raffles, as he wound the hemp girdle round his
thus any amount of prima-fade evidence of the robbery having taken place waist once more, "I never did care for ladder work, but I always said that if I
when we were all. at table. As a matter of fact, Lord Thornaby left his ever used a ladder it should be the best of its kind yet invented. This one
dressing-room one minute, his valet followed him the minute after, and I may come in useful again."
entered the minute after that."
"But how long did the whole thing take you?"
"Through the window?"
"From mother earth, to mother earth? About five minutes, to-night, and
"To be sure. I was waiting below in the garden. You have to pay for your one of those was spent in doing another man's work."
garden in town, in more ways than one. You know the wall, of course, and
"What!" I cried. "You mean to tell me you climbed up and down, in and
that jolly old postern? The lock was beneath contempt."
out, and broke into that cupboard and that big tin box, and wedged up the
"But what about the window? It's on the first floor, isn't it?" doors and cleared out with a peer's robes and all. the rest of it in five
minutes?"
- 38 -
 "Of course I don't, and of course I didn't." And his last word on the matter, as he nodded and went his way, may
well be mine; for one need be no criminologist, much less a member of the
"Then what do you mean, and what did you do?"
Criminologists' Club, to remember what Raffles did with the robes and
"Made two bites at the cherry, Bunny! I had a dress rehearsal in the coronet of the Right Hon. the Earl of Thornaby, K.G. He did with them
dead of last night, and it was then I took the swag. Our noble friend was exactly what he might have been expected to do by the gentlemen with
snoring next door all. the time, but the effort may still stand high among my whom he had foregathered; and he did it in a manner so characteristic of
small exploits, for I not only took all. I wanted, but left the whole place exactly himself as surely to remove from their minds the last aura of the idea that he
as I found it, and shut things after me like a good little boy. All. that took a and himself were the same person. Carter Paterson was out of the question,
good deal longer; to-night I had simply to rag the room a bit, sweep up some and any labelling or addressing to be avoided on obvious grounds. But
studs and links, and leave ample evidence of having boned those rotten Raffles stabled the white elephants in the cloak-room at Charing Cross - and
robes to-night. That, if you come to think of it, was what you writing chaps sent Lord Thornaby the ticket.
would call the quintessential Q.E.F. I have not only shown these dear
Criminologists that I couldn't possibly have done this trick, but that there's
Chapter 5
some other fellow who could and did, and whom they've been perfect asses The Field of Phillipi
to confuse with me."
You may figure me as gazing on Raffles all. this time in mute and rapt Nipper Nasmyth had been head of our school when Raffles was captain
amazement. But I had long been past that pitch. If he had told me now that of cricket. I believe he owed his nickname entirely to the popular prejudice
he had broken into the Bank of England, or the Tower, I should not have against a day-boy; and in view of the special reproach which the term carried
disbelieved him for a moment. I was prepared to go home with him to the in my time, as also of the fact that his father was one of the school trustees,
Albany and find the regalia under his bed. And I took down my overcoat as partner in a banking firm of four resounding surnames, and manager of the
he put on his. But Raffles would not hear of my accompanying him that night. local branch, there can be little doubt that the stigma was undeserved. But
we did not think so then, for Nasmyth was unpopular with high and low, and
"No, my dear Bunny, I am short of sleep and fed up with excitement.
appeared to glory in the fact. A swollen conscience caused him to see and
You mayn't believe it - you may look upon me as a plaster devil - but those
hear even more than was warranted by his position, and his uncompromising
five minutes you wot of were rather too crowded even for my taste. The
nature compelled him to act on whatsoever he heard or saw: a savage
dinner was nominally at a quarter to eight, and I don't mind telling you now
custodian of public morals, he had in addition a perverse enthusiasm for lost
that I counted on twice as long as I had. But no one came until twelve
causes, loved a minority for its own sake, and untenable tenets for theirs.
minutes to, and so our host took his time. I didn't want to be the last to arrive,
Such, at all. events, was my impression of Nipper Nasmyth, after my first
and I was in the drawing-room five minutes before the hour. But it was a
term, which was also his last I had never spoken to him, but I had heard him
quicker thing than I care about, when all. is said."
speak with extraordinary force and fervor in the school debates. I carried a
clear picture of his unkempt hair, his unbrushed coat, his dominant

- 39 -
spectacles, his dogmatic jaw. And it was I who knew the combination at a And in a moment he had accosted the man by the boy's nickname,
glance, after years and years, when the fateful whim seized Raffles to play obviously without thinking of an affront which few would have read in that
once more in the Old Boys' Match, and his will took me down with him to hearty open face and hand.
participate in the milder festivities of Founder's Day.
"My name's Nasmyth," snapped the other, standing upright to glare.
It was, however, no ordinary occasion. The bicentenary loomed but a
"Forgive me," said Raffles undeterred. "One remembers a nickname and
year ahead, and a movement was on foot to mark the epoch with an
forgets all. it never used to mean. Shake hands, my dear fellow! I'm Raffles.
adequate statue of our pious founder. A special meeting was to be held at
It must be fifteen years since we met."
the school-house, and Raffles had been specially invited by the new head
master, a man of his own standing, who had been in the eleven with him up "At least," replied Nasmyth coldly; but he could no longer refuse Raffles
at Cambridge. Raffles had not been near the old place for years; but I had his hand. "So you are going down," he sneered, "to this great gathering?"
never gone down since the day I left; and I will not dwell on the emotions And I stood listening at my distance, as though still in the middle fourth.
which the once familiar journey awakened in my unworthy bosom. "Rather!" cried Raffles. "I'm afraid I have let myself lose touch, but I
Paddington was alive with Old Boys of all. ages - but very few of ours - if not mean to turn over a new leaf. I suppose that isn't necessary in your case,
as lively as we used to make it when we all. landed back for the holidays. Nasmyth?"
More of us had moustaches and cigarettes and "loud" ties. That was all. Yet
He spoke with an enthusiasm rare indeed in him: it had grown upon
of the throng, though two or three looked twice and thrice at Raffles, neither
Raffles in the train; the spirit of his boyhood had come rushing back at fifty
he nor I knew a soul until we had to change at the junction near our journey's
miles an hour. He might have been following some honorable calling in town;
end, when, as I say, it was I who recognized Nipper Nasmyth at sight.
he might have snatched this brief respite from a distinguished but exacting
The man was own son of the boy we both remembered. He had grown a career. I am convinced that it was I alone who remembered at that moment
ragged beard and a moustache that hung about his face like a neglected the life we were really leading at that time. With me there walked this
creeper. He was stout and bent and older than his years. But he spurned the skeleton through every waking hour that was to follow. I shall endeavor not
platform with a stamping stride which even I remembered in an instant, and to refer to it again. Yet it should not be forgotten that my skeleton was always
which was enough for Raffles before he saw the man's face. there.
"The Nipper it is!" he cried. "I could swear to that walk in a pantomime "It certainly is not necessary in my case," replied Nasmyth, still as stiff
procession! See the independence in every step: that's his heel on the neck as any poker. "I happen to be a trustee."
of the oppressor: it's the nonconformist conscience in baggy breeches. I
"Of the school?"
must speak to him, Bunny. There was a lot of good in the old Nipper, though
he and I did bar each other." "Like my father before me."
"I congratulate you, my dear fellow!" cried the hearty Raffles - a younger
Raffles than I had ever known in town.
- 40 -
 "I don't know that you need," said Nasmyth sourly. "Not one to my knowledge as yet," said he. "But we shall see after to-
morrow night. I hear it's to be quite an exceptional gathering this year; let us
"But it must be a tremendous interest. And the proof is that you're going
hope it may contain a few sane men. There are none on the present staff,
down to this show, like all. the rest of us."
and I only know of one among the trustees!"
"No, I'm not. I live there, you see."
Raffles refrained from smiling as his dancing eye met mine.
And I think the Nipper recalled that name as he ground his heel upon an
"I can understand your view," he said. "I am not sure that I don't share it
unresponsive flagstone.
to some extent. But it seems to me a duty to support a general movement
"But you're going to this meeting at the school-house, surely?" like this even if it doesn't take the direction or the shape of our own dreams. I
"I don't know. If I do there may be squalls. I don't know what you think suppose you yourself will give something, Nasmyth?"
about this precious scheme Raffles, but I . . ." "Give something? I? Not a brass farthing!" cried the implacable banker.
The ragged beard stuck out, set teeth showed through the wild "To do so would be to stultify my whole position. I cordially and
moustache, and in a sudden outpouring we had his views. They were narrow conscientiously disapprove of the whole thing, and shall use all. my influence
and intemperate and perverse as any I had heard him advocate as the against it. No, my good sir, I not only don't subscribe myself, but I hope to be
firebrand of the Debating Society in my first term. But they were stated with the means of nipping a good many subscriptions in the bud."
all. the old vim and venom. The mind of Nasmyth had not broadened with the I was probably the only one who saw the sudden and yet subtle change
years, but neither had its natural force abated, nor that of his character in Raffles - the hard mouth, the harder eye. I, at least, might have foreseen
either. He spoke with great vigor at the top of his voice; soon we had a little the sequel then and there. But his quiet voice betrayed nothing, as he
crowd about us; but the tall collars and the broad smiles of the younger Old inquired whether Nasmyth was going to speak at next night's meeting.
Boys did not deter our dowdy demagogue. Why spend money on a man who Nasmyth said he might, and certainly warned us what to expect. He was still
had been dead two hundred years? What good could it do him or the fulminating when our train came in.
school? Besides, he was only technically our founder. He had not founded a
"Then we meet again at Philippi," cried Raffles in gay adieu. "For you
great public school. He had founded a little country grammar school which
have been very frank with us all., Nasmyth, and I'll be frank enough in my
had pottered along for a century and a half. The great public school was the
turn to tell you that I've every intention of speaking on the other side!"
growth of the last fifty years, and no credit to the pillar of piety. Besides, he
was only nominally pious. Nasmyth had made researches, and he knew. And It happened that Raffles had been asked to speak by his old college
why throw good money after a bad man? friend, the new head master. Yet it was not at the school-house that he and I
were to stay, but at the house that we had both been in as boys. It also had
"Are there many of your opinion?" inquired Raffles, when the agitator
changed hands: a wing had been added, and the double tier of tiny studies
paused for breath. And Nasmyth beamed on us with flashing eyes.
made brilliant with electric light. But the quad and the fives-courts did not
look a day older; the ivy was no thicker round the study windows; and in one
- 41 -
boy's castle we found the traditional print of Charing Cross Bridge which had It was a somewhat frigid gathering until Nasmyth rose. We had all. dined
knocked about our studies ever since a son of the contractor first sold it with our respective hosts, and then repaired to this business in cold blood.
when he left. Nay, more, there was the bald remnant of a stuffed bird which Many were lukewarm about it in their hearts; there was a certain amount of
had been my own daily care when it and I belonged to Raffles. And when we mild prejudice, and a greater amount of animal indifference, to be overcome
all. filed in to prayers, through the green baize door which still separated the in the opening speech. It is not for me to say whether this was successfully
master's part of the house from that of the boys, there was a small boy accomplished. I only know how the temperature of that meeting rose with
posted in the passage to give the sign of silence to the rest assembled in the Nipper Nasmyth.
hall, quite identically as in the dim old days; the picture was absolutely
And I dare say, in all. the circumstances of the case, his really was a
unchanged; it was only we who were out of it in body and soul.
rather vulgar speech. But it was certainly impassioned, and probably as
On our side of the baize door a fine hospitality and a finer flow of spirits purely instinctive as his denunciation of all. the causes which appeal to the
were the order of the night. There was a sound representative assortment of gullible many without imposing upon the cantankerous few. His arguments, it
quite young Old Boys, to whom ours was a prehistoric time, and in the trough is true, were merely an elaboration of those with which he had favored some
of their modem chaff and chat we old stagers might well have been left far of us already; but they were pointed by a concise exposition of the several
astern of the fun. Yet it was Raffles who was the life and soul of the party, definite principles they represented, and barbed with a caustic rhetoric quite
and that not by meretricious virtue of his cricket. There happened not to be admirable in itself. In a word, the manner was worthy of the very foundation it
another cricketer among us, and it was on their own subjects that Raffles sought to shake, or we had never swallowed such matter without a murmur.
laughed with the lot in turn and in the lump. I never knew him in quite such As it was, there was a demonstration in the wilderness when the voice
form. I will not say he was a boy among them, but he was that rarer being, ceased crying. But we sat in the deeper silence when Raffles rose to reply.
the man of the world who can enter absolutely into the fun and fervor of the
I leaned forward not to lose a word. I knew my Raffles so well that I felt
salad age. My cares and my regrets had never been more acute, but Raffles
almost capable of reporting his speech before I heard it. Never was I more
seemed a man without either in his life.
mistaken, even in him! So far from a gibe for a gibe and a taunt for a taunt,
He was not, however, the hero of the Old Boys' Match, and that was there never was softer answer than that which A. J. Raffles returned to
expected of him by all. the school. There was a hush when he went in, a Nipper Nasmyth before the staring eyes and startled ears of all. assembled.
groan when he came out. I had no reason to suppose he was not trying; He courteously but firmly refused to believe a word his old friend Nasmyth
these things happen to the cricketer who plays out of his class; but when the had said - about himself. He had known Nasmyth for twenty years, and
great Raffles went on to bowl, and was hit all. over the field, I was not so never had he met a dog who barked so loud and bit so little. The fact was
sure. It certainly failed to affect his spirits; he was more brilliant than ever at that he had far too kind a heart to bite at all. Nasmyth might get up and
our hospitable board; and after dinner came the meeting at which he and protest as loud as he liked: the speaker declared he knew him better than
Nasmyth were to speak. Nasmyth knew himself. He had the necessary defects of his great qualities.
He was only too good a sportsman. He had a perfect passion for the weaker

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side. That alone led Nasmyth into such excesses of language as we had all. "I remember now. You were with him when he forced himself upon me
heard from his lips that night. As for Raffles, he concluded his far too genial on the way down yesterday. He had to tell me who he was. Yet he talks as
remarks by predicting that, whatever Nasmyth might say or think of the new though we were old friends."
fund, he would subscribe to it as handsomely as any of us, like "the
"You were in the upper sixth together," I rejoined, nettled by his tone.
generous good chap" that we all. knew him to be.
"What does that matter? I am glad to say I had too much self-respect,
Even so did Raffles disappoint the Old Boys in the evening as he had
and too little respect for Raffles, ever to be a friend of his then. I knew too
disappointed the school by day. We had looked to him for a noble raillery, a
many of the things he did," said Nipper Nasmyth.
lofty and loyal disdain, and he had fobbed us off with friendly personalities
not even in impeccable taste. Nevertheless, this light treatment of a grave His fluent insults had taken my breath. But in a lucky flash I saw my
offence went far to restore the natural amenities of the occasion. It was retort.
impossible even for Nasmyth to reply to it as he might to a more earnest "You must have had special opportunities of observation, living in the
onslaught. He could but smile sardonically, and audibly undertake to prove town," said I; and drew first blood between the long hair and the ragged
Raffles a false prophet; and though subsequent speakers were less merciful beard; but that was all.
the note was struck, and there was no more bad blood in the debate. There
"So he really did get out at nights?" remarked my adversary. "You
was plenty, however, in the veins of Nasmyth, as I was to discover for myself
certainly give your friend away. What's he doing now?"
before the night was out.
I let my eyes follow Raffles round the room before replying. He was
You might think that in the circumstances he would not have attended
waltzing with a master's wife - waltzing as he did everything else. Other
the head master's ball with which the evening ended; but that would be sadly
couples seemed to melt before them. And the woman on his arm looked a
to misjudge so perverse a creature as the notorious Nipper. He was probably
radiant girl.
one of those who protest that there is "nothing personal" in their most
personal attacks. Not that Nasmyth took this tone about Raffles when he and "I meant in town, or wherever he lives his mysterious life," explained
I found ourselves cheek by jowl against the ballroom wall; he could forgive Nasmyth, when I told him that he could see for himself. But his clever tone
his franker critics, but not the friendly enemy who had treated him so much did not trouble me; it was his epithet that caused me to prick my ears. And I
more gently than he deserved. found some difficulty in following Raffles right round the room.

"I seem to have seen you with this great man Raffles," began Nasmyth, "I thought everybody knew what he was doing; he's playing cricket most
as he overhauled me with his fighting eye. "Do you know him well?" of his time," was my measured reply; and if it bore an extra touch of
insolence, I can honestly ascribe that to my nerves.
"Intimately."
"And is that all. he does for a living?" pursued my inquisitor keenly.

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 "You had better ask Raffles himself," said I to that. "It's a pity you didn't my room of other dances ... and was still smoking the cigarette which Raffles
ask him in public, at the meeting!" had taught me to appreciate when I looked up to find him regarding me from
the door. He had opened it as noiselessly as only Raffles could open doors,
But I was beginning to show temper in my embarrassment, and of
and now he closed it in the same professional fashion.
course that made Nasmyth the more imperturbable.
"I missed Achilles hours ago," said he. "And still he's sulking in his tent!"
"Really, he might be following some disgraceful calling, by the mystery
you make of it!" he exclaimed. "And for that matter I call first-class cricket a "I have been," I answered, laughing as he could always make me, "but
disgraceful calling, when it's followed by men who ought to be gentlemen, I'll chuck it if you'll stop and smoke. Our host doesn't mind; there's an ash-
but are really professionals in gentlemanly clothing. The present craze for tray provided for the purpose. I ought to be sulking between the sheets, but
gladiatorial athleticism I regard as one of the great evils of the age; but the I'm ready to sit up with you till morning."
thinly veiled professionalism of the so-called amateur is the greatest evil of
"We might do worse; but, on the other hand, we might do still better,"
that craze. Men play for the gentlemen and are paid more than the players
rejoined Raffles, and for once he resisted the seductive Sullivan. "As a
who walk out of another gate. In my time there was none of that. Amateurs
matter of fact, it's morning now; in another hour it will be dawn; and where
were amateurs and sport was sport; there were no Raffleses in first-class
could day dawn better than in Warfield Woods, or along the Stockley road, or
cricket then. I had forgotten Raffles was a modern first-class cricketer: that
even on the Upper or the Middle? I don't want to turn in, any more than you
explains him. Rather than see my son such another, do you know what I'd
do. I may as well confess that the whole show down here has exalted me
prefer to see him?"
more than anything for years. But if we can't sleep, Bunny, let's have some
I neither knew nor cared: yet a wretched premonitory fascination held fresh air instead."
me breathless till I was told!.
"Has everybody gone to bed?" I asked.
"I'd prefer to see him a thief!" said Nasmyth savagely; and when his
"Long ago. I was the last in. Why?"
eyes were done with me, he turned upon his heel. So that ended that stage
of my discomfiture. "Only it might sound a little odd, our turning out again, if they were to
hear us."
It was only to give place to a worse. Was all. this accident or fell design?
Conscience had made a coward of me, and yet what reason had I to Raffles stood over me with a smile made of mischief and cunning; but it
disbelieve the worst? We were pirouetting on the edge of an abyss; sooner was the purest mischief imaginable, the most innocent and comic cunning.
or later the false step must come and the pit swallow us. I began to wish "They shan't hear us at all., Bunny," said he. "I mean to get out as I did
myself back in London, and I did get back to my room in our old house. My in the good old nights. I've been spoiling for the chance ever since I came
dancing days were already over; there I had taken the one resolution to down. There's not the smallest harm in it now; and if you'll come with me I'll
which I remained as true as better men to better vows; there the painful show you how it used to be done."
association was no mere sense of personal unworthiness. I fell to thinking in

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 "But I know," said I. "Who used to haul up the rope after you, and let it seen me I should have nipped back this way while they were watching the
down again to the minute?" other."
Raffles looked down on me from lowered lids, over a smile too His finger was on his lips as we got out softly into the starlight. I
humorous to offend. remember how the gravel hurt as we left the smooth flagged margin of the
house for the open quad; but the nearer of two long green seats (whereon
"My dear good Bunny! And do you suppose that even then I had only
you prepared your construe for the second-school in the summer term) was
one way of doing a thing? I've had a spare loophole all. my life, and when
mercifully handy; and once in our rubber soles we had no difficulty in scaling
you're ready I'll show you what it was when I was here. Take off those boots,
the gates beyond the fives-courts. Moreover, we dropped into a very desert
and carry your tennis-shoes; slip on another coat; put out your light; and I'll
of a country road, nor saw a soul when we doubled back beneath the outer
meet you on the landing in two minutes."
study windows, nor heard a footfall in the main street of the slumbering town.
He met me with uplifted finger, and not a syllable; and down-stairs he Our own fell like the night-dews and the petals of the poet; but Raffles ran his
led me, stocking soles close against the skirting, two feet to each particular arm through mine, and would chatter in whispers as we went.
step. It must have seemed child's play to Raffles; the old precautions were
"So you and Nipper had a word - or was it words? I saw you out of the
obviously assumed for my entertainment; but I confess that to me it was all.
tail of my eye when I was dancing, and I heard you out of the tail of my ear. It
refreshingly exciting - for once without a risk of durance if we came to grief!
sounded like words, Bunny, and I thought I caught my name. He's the most
With scarcely a creak we reached the hall, and could have walked out of the
consistent man I know, and the least altered from a boy. But he'll subscribe
street door without danger or difficulty. But that would not do for Raffles. He
all. right, you'll see, and be very glad I made him."
must needs lead me into the boys' part, through the green baize door. It took
a deal of opening and shutting, but Raffles seemed to enjoy nothing better I whispered back that I did not believe it for a moment. Raffles had not
than these mock obstacles, and in a few minutes we were resting with sharp heard all. Nasmyth had said of him. And neither would he listen to the little I
ears in the boys' hall. meant to repeat to him; he would but reiterate a conviction so chimerical to
my mind that I interrupted in my turn to ask him what ground he had for it.
"Through these windows?" I whispered, when the clock over the piano
had had matters its own way long enough to make our minds quite easy. "I've told you already," said Raffles. "I mean to make him."
"How else?" whispered Raffles, as he opened the one on whose ledge "But how?" I asked. "And when, and where?"
our letters used to await us of a morning.
"At Philippi, Bunny, where I said I'd see him. What a rabbit you are at a
"And then through the quad - " quotation!
"And over the gates at the end. No talking, Bunny; there's a dormitory "'And I think that the field of Philippi
just overhead; but ours was in front, you remember, and if they had ever Was where Caesar came to an end;

- 45 -
 But who gave old Brutus the tip, I big one, I promise you! The lucky thing is that I went so far as to bring my
Can't comprehend!' bunch of safekeys. Now, are you going to help me use them, or are you not?
If so, now's your minute; if not, clear out and be - "
"You may have forgotten your Shakespeare, Bunny, but you ought to
remember that." "Not so fast, Raffles," said I testily. "You must have planned this before
you came down, or you would never have brought all. those things with you."
And I did, vaguely, but had no idea what it or Raffles meant, as I plainly
told him. "My dear Bunny, they're a part of my kit! I take them wherever I take my
evening-clothes. As to this potty bank, I never even thought of it, much less
"The theatre of war," he answered - "and here we are at the stage door!"
that it would become a public duty to draw a hundred or so without signing
Raffles had stopped suddenly in his walk. It was the last dark hour of the for it. That's all. I shall touch, Bunny - I'm not on the make to-night. There's
summer night, but the light from a neighboring lamppost showed me the look no risk in it either. If I am caught I shall simply sham champagne and stand
on his face as he turned. the racket; it would be an obvious frolic after what happened at that meeting.
"I think you also inquired when," he continued. "Well, then, this minute - And they will catch me, if I stand talking here: you run away back to bed -
if you will give me a leg up!" unless you're quite determined to 'give old Brutus the tip!'

And behind him, scarcely higher than his head, and not even barred, Now we had barely been a minute whispering where we stood, and the
was a wide window with a wire blind, and the name of Nasmyth among whole street was still as silent as the tomb. To me there seemed least
others lettered in gold upon the wire. danger in discussing the matter quietly on the spot. But even as he gave me
my dismissal Raffles turned and caught the sill above him, first with one
"You're never going to break in?"
hand and then with the other. His legs swung like a pendulum as he drew
"This instant, if you'll, help me; in five or ten minutes, if you won't." himself up with one arm, then shifted the position of the other hand, and very
"Surely you didn't bring the - the tools?" gradually worked himself waist-high with the sill. But the sill was too narrow
for him; that was as far as he could get unaided; and it was as much as I
He jingled them gently in his pocket. could bear to see of a feat which in itself might have hardened my
"Not the whole outfit, Bunny. But you never know when you mayn't want conscience and softened my heart. But I had identified his doggerel verse at
one or two. I'm only thankful I didn't leave the lot behind this time. I very last. I am ashamed to say that it was part of a set of my very own writing in
nearly did." the school magazine of my time. So Raffles knew the stuff better than I did
myself, and yet scorned to press his flattery to win me over! He had won me:
"I must say I thought you would, coming down here," I said
in a second my rounded shoulders were a pedestal for those dangling feet.
reproachfully.
And before many more I heard the old metallic snap, followed by the raising
"But you ought to be glad I didn't," he rejoined with a smile. "It's going to of a sash so slowly and gently as to be almost inaudible to me listening just
mean old Nasmyth's subscription to the Founder's Fund, and that's to be a below.
- 46 -
 Raffles went through hands first, disappeared for an instant, then leaned "What was that, Bunny? No, you don't, my son! There's not a soul in
out, lowering his hands for me. sight that I can see, but you never know, and we may as well lay a scent
while we're about it. Ready? Then follow me, and never mind the window."
"Come on, Bunny! You're safer in than out. Hang on to the sill and let
me get you under the arms. Now all. together - quietly does it - and over you With that he dropped softly into the street, and I after him, turning to the
come!" right instead of the left, and that at a brisk trot instead of the innocent walk
which had brought us to the bank. Like mice we scampered past the great
No need to dwell on our proceedings in the bank. I myself had small part
schoolroom, with its gable snipping a paler sky than ever, and the shadows
in the scene, being posted rather in the wings, at the foot of the stairs leading
melting even in the colonnade underneath. Masters' houses flitted by on the
to the private premises in which the manager had his domestic being. But I
left, lesser landmarks on either side, and presently we were running our
made my mind easy about him, for in the silence of my watch I soon
heads into the dawn, one under either hedge of the Stockley road.
detected a nasal note overhead, and it was resonant and aggressive as the
man himself. Of Raffles, on the contrary, I heard nothing, for he had shut the "Did you see that light in Nab's just now?" cried Raffles as he led.
door between us, and I was to warn him if a single sound came through. I
"No; why?" I panted, nearly spent.
need scarcely add that no warning was necessary during the twenty minutes
we remained in the bank. Raffles afterward assured me that nineteen of "It was in Nab's dressing - room.
them had been spent in filing one key; but one of his latest inventions was a "Yes?"
little thick velvet bag in which he carried the keys; and this bag had two
"I've seen it there before," continued Raffles. "He never was a good
elastic mouths, which closed so tightly about either wrist that he could file
sleeper, and his ears reach to the street. I wouldn't like to say how often I
away, inside, and scarcely hear it himself. As for these keys, they were
was chased by him in the small hours! I believe he knew who it was toward
clever counterfeits of typical patterns by two great safe-making firms. And
the end, but Nab was not the man to accuse you of what he couldn't prove."
Raffles had come by them in a manner all. his own, which the criminal world
may discover for itself. I had no breath for comment. And on sped Raffles like a yacht before
the wind, and on I blundered like a wherry at sea, making heavy weather all.
When he opened the door and beckoned to me, I knew by his face that
the way, and nearer foundering at every stride. Suddenly, to my deep relief,
he had succeeded to his satisfaction, and by experience better than to
Raffles halted, but only to tell me to stop my pipes while he listened.
question him on the point. Indeed, the first thing was to get out of the bank;
for the stars were drowning in a sky of ink and water, and it was a comfort to "It's all. right, Bunny," he resumed, showing me a glowing face in the
feel that we could fly straight to our beds. I said so in whispers as Raffles dawn. "History's on its own tracks once more, and I'll bet you it's dear old
cautiously opened our window and peeped out. In an instant his head was in, Nab on ours! Come on, Bunny; run to the last gasp, and leave the rest to
and for another I feared the worst. me."
I was past arguing, and away he went. There was no help for it but to
follow as best I could. Yet I had vastly preferred to collapse on the spot, and
- 47 -
trust to Raffles's resource, as before very long I must. I had never enjoyed "Not to say a reformed character," said our pursuer dryly. " suppose you
long wind and the hours that we kept in town may well have aggravated the don't mean a member of the school?" he added, pinking his man suddenly
deficiency. Raffles, however, was in first-class training from first-class as of yore, with all. the old barbed acumen. But Raffles was now his match.
cricket, and he had no mercy on Nab or me. But the master himself was an
"That would be carrying reformation rather far, sir. No, as I say, I may
old Oxford miler, who could still bear it better than I; nay, as I flagged and
have been mistaken in the first instance; but I had put out my light and was
stumbled, I heard him pounding steadily behind.
looking out of the window when I saw a fellow behaving quite suspiciously.
"Come on, come on, or he'll do us!" cried Raffles shrilly over his He was carrying his boots and creeping along in his socks - which must be
shoulder; and a gruff sardonic laugh came back over mine. It was pearly why you never heard him, sir. They make less noise than rubber soles even -
morning now, but we had run into a shallow mist that took me by the throat that is, they must, you know! Well, Bunny had just left me, so I hauled him
and stabbed me to the lungs. I coughed and coughed, and stumbled in my out and we both crept down to play detective. No sign of the fellow! We had
stride, until down I went, less by accident than to get it over, and so lay a look in the colonnade - I thought I heard him - and that gave us no end of a
headlong in my tracks. And old Nab dealt me a verbal kick as he passed. hunt for nothing. But just as we were leaving he came padding past under
our noses, and that's where we took up the chase. Where he'd been in the
"You beast!" he growled, as I have known him growl it in form.
meantime I have no idea; very likely he'd done no harm; but it seemed worth
But Raffles himself had abandoned the flight on hearing my downfall, while finding out. He had too good a start, though, and poor Bunny had too
and I was on hands and knees just in time to see the meeting between him bad a wind."
and old Nab. And there stood Raffles in the silvery mist, laughing with his
"You should have gone on and let me rip," said I, climbing to my feet at
whole light heart, leaning back to get the full flavor of his mirth; and, nearer
last.
me, sturdy old Nab, dour and grim, with beads of dew on the hoary beard
that had been lamp-black in our time. "As it is, however, we will all. let the other fellow do so," said old Nab in
a genial growl. "And you two had better turn into my house and have
"So I've caught you at last!" said he. "After more years than I mean to
something to keep the morning cold out."
count!"
You may imagine with what alacrity we complied; and yet I am bound to
"Then you're luckier than we are, sir," answered Raffles, "for I fear our
confess that I had never liked Nab at school. I still remember my term in his
man has given us the slip."
form. He had a caustic tongue and fine assortment of damaging epithets,
"Your man!" echoed Nab. His bushy eyebrows had shot up: it was as most of which were levelled at my devoted skull during those three months. I
much as I could do to keep my own in their place. now discovered that he also kept a particularly mellow Scotch whiskey, an
"We were indulging in the chase ourselves," explained Raffles, "and one excellent cigar, and a fund of anecdote of which a mordant wit was the
of us has suffered for his zeal, as you can see. It is even possible that we, worthy bursar. Enough to add that he kept us laughing in his study until the
too, have been chasing a perfectly innocent man." chapel bells rang him out.

- 48 -
 As for Raffles, he appeared to me to feel far more compunction for the by the treasurer of the Founder's Fund, from one who simply signed himself
fable which he had been compelled to foist upon one of the old masters than "Old Boy." The treasurer happened to be our late host, the new man at our
for the immeasurably graver offence against society and another Old Boy. old house, and he wrote to congratulate Raffles on what he was pleased to
This, indeed, did not worry him at all.; and the story was received next day consider a direct result of the latter's speech. I did not see the letter that
with absolute credulity on all. sides. Nasmyth himself was the first to thank Raffles wrote in reply, but in due course I heard the name of the mysterious
us both for our spirited effort on his behalf; and the incident had the ironic contributor. He was said to be no other than Nipper Nasmyth himself. I asked
effect of establishing an immediate entente cordiale between Raffles and his Raffles if it was true. He replied that he would ask old Nipper point-blank if he
very latest victim. I must confess, however, that for my own part I was came up as usual to the Varsity match, and if they had the luck to meet. And
thoroughly uneasy during the Old Boys' second innings, when Raffles made not only did this happen, but I had the greater luck to be walking round the
a selfish score, instead of standing by me to tell his own story in his own ground with Raffles when we encountered our shabby friend in front of the
way. There was never any knowing with what new detail he was about to pavilion.
embellish it: and I have still to receive full credit for the tact that it required to
"My dear fellow," cried Raffles, "I hear it was you who gave that hundred
follow his erratic lead convincingly. Seldom have I been more thankful than
guineas by stealth to the very movement you denounced. Don't deny it, and
when our train started next morning, and the poor, unsuspecting Nasmyth
don't blush to find it fame. Listen to me. There was a great lot in what you
himself waved us a last farewell from the platform.
said; but it's the kind of thing we ought all. to back, whether we strictly
"Lucky we weren't staying at Nab's," said Raffles, as he lit a Sullivan and approve of it in our hearts or not."
opened his Daily Mail at its report of the robbery. "There was one thing Nab
"Exactly, Raffles, but the fact is - "
would have spotted like the downy old bird he always was and will be."
"I know what you're going to say. Don't say it. There's not one in a
"What was that?"
thousand who would do as you've done, and not one in a million who would
"The front door must have been found duly barred and bolted in the do it anonymously."
morning, and yet we let them assume that we came out that way. Nab would
"But what makes you think I did it, Raffles?"
have pounced on the point, and by this time we might have been nabbed
ourselves." "Everybody is saying so. You will find it all. over the place when you get
back. You will find yourself the most popular man down there, Nasmyth!"
It was but a little over a hundred sovereigns that Raffles had taken, and,
of course, he had resolutely eschewed any and every form of paper money. I never saw a nobler embarrassment than that of this awkward,
He posted his own first contribution of twenty-five pounds to the Founder's ungainly, cantankerous man: all. his angles seemed to have been smoothed
Fund immediately on our return to town, before rushing off to more first-class away: there was something quite human in the flushed, undecided, wistful
cricket, and I gathered that the rest would follow piecemeal as he deemed it face.
safe. By an odd coincidence, however, a mysterious but magnificent
donation of a hundred guineas was almost simultaneously received in notes
- 49 -
 "I never was popular in my life," he said. "I don't want to buy my Raffles rose abruptly from his chair.
popularity now. To be perfectly candid with you, Raffles - "
"And you actually thought that came out of his money?"
"Don't! I can't stop to hear. They're ringing the bell. But you shouldn't
"Naturally."
have been angry with me for saying you were a generous good chap,
Nasmyth, when you were one all. the time. Good-by, old fellow!" "In my name?"

But Nasmyth detained us a second more. His hesitation was at an end. "I thought so."
There was a sudden new light in his face. Raffles stared at me inscrutably for some moments, and for some more
"Was I?" he cried. "Then I'll make it two hundred, and damn the odds!" at the great white numbers over the grand-stand.

Raffles was a thoughtful man as we went to our seats. He saw nobody, "We may as well have another look at the cricket," said he. "It's difficult
would acknowledge no remark. Neither did he attend to the cricket for the to see the board from here, but I believe there's another man out."
first half-hour after lunch; instead, he eventually invited me to come for a There was to be a certain little wedding in which Raffles and I took a
stroll on the practice ground, where, however, we found two chairs aloof from surreptitious interest. The bride-elect was living in some retirement, with a
the fascinating throng. recently widowed mother and an asthmatical brother, in a mellow hermitage
"I am not often sorry, Bunny, as you know," he began. "But I have been on the banks of the Mole. The bridegroom was a prosperous son of the
sorry since the interval. I've been sorry for poor old Nipper Nasmyth. Did you same suburban soil which had nourished both families for generations. The
see the idea of being popular dawn upon him for the first time in his life?" wedding presents were so numerous as to fill several rooms at the pretty
retreat upon the Mole, and of an intrinsic value calling for a special
"I did; but you had nothing to do with that, my dear man."
transaction with the Burglary Insurance Company in Cheapside. I cannot say
Raffles shook his head over me as our eyes met. "I had everything to do how Raffles obtained all. this information. I only know that it proved correct in
with it. I tried to make him tell the meanest lie. I made sure he would, and for each particular. I was not indeed deeply interested before the event, since
that matter he nearly did. Then, at the last moment, he saw how to hedge Raffles assured me that it was "a one-man job," and naturally intended to be
things with his conscience. And his second hundred will be a real gift." the one man himself. It was only at the eleventh hour that our positions were
inverted by the wholly unexpected selection of Raffles for the English team in
"You mean under his own name - "
the Second Test Match.
"And with his own free-will. My good Bunny, is it possible you don't know
In a flash I saw the chance of my criminal career. It was some years
what I did with the hundred we drew from that bank!"
since Raffles had served his country in these encounters; he had never
"I knew what you were going to do with it," said I. "I didn't know you had thought to be called upon again, and his gratification was only less than his
actually got further than the twenty-five you told me you were sending as embarrassment. The match was at Old Trafford, on the third Thursday,
your own contribution." Friday, and Saturday in July; the other affair had been all. arranged for the

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Thursday night, the night of the wedding at East Molesey. It was for Raffles Thus I was first out of a crowded theatre train at Esher next night, and
to choose between the two excitements, and for once I helped him to make first down the stairs into the open air. The night was close and cloudy; and
up his mind. I duly pointed out to him that in Surrey, at all. events, I was quite the road to Hampton Court, even now that the suburban builder has marked
capable of taking his place. Nay, more, I insisted at once on my prescriptive much of it for his own, is one of the darkest I know. The first mile is still a
right and on his patriotic obligation in the matter. In the country's name and narrow avenue, a mere tunnel of leaves at midsummer; but at that time there
in my own, I implored him to give it and me a chance; and for once, as I say, was not a lighted pane or cranny by the way. Naturally, it was in this blind
my arguments prevailed. Raffles sent his telegram - it was the day before the reach that I fancied I was being followed. I stopped in my stride; so did the
match. We then rushed down to Esher, and over every inch of the ground by steps I made sure I had heard not far behind; and when I went on, they
that characteristically circuitous route which he enjoined on me for the next followed suit. I dried my forehead as I walked, but soon brought myself to
night. And at six in the evening I was receiving the last of my many repeat the experiment when an exact repetition of the result went to convince
instructions through a window of the restaurant car. me that it had been my own echo all. the time. And since I lost it on getting
quit of the avenue, and coming out upon the straight and open road, I was
"Only promise me not to take a revolver," said Raffles in a whisper.
not long in recovering from my scare. But now I could see my way, and
"Here are my keys; there's an old life-preserver somewhere in the bureau;
found the rest of it without mishap, though not without another semblance of
take that, if you like - though what you take I rather fear you are the chap to
adventure. Over the bridge across the Mole, when about to turn to the left, I
use!"
marched straight upon a policeman in rubber soles. I had to call him "officer"
"Then the rope be round my own neck!" I whispered back. "Whatever as I passed, and to pass my turning by a couple of hundred yards, before
else I may do, Raffles, I shan't give you away; and you'll find I do better than venturing back another way.
you think, and am worth trusting with a little more to do, or I'll know the
At last I had crept through a garden gate, and round by black windows
reason why!"
to a black lawn drenched with dew. It had been a heating walk, and I was
And I meant to know it, as he was borne out of Euston with raised glad to blunder on a garden seat, most considerately placed under a cedar
eyebrows, and I turned grimly on my heel. I saw his fears for me; and which added its own darkness to that of the night. Here I rested a few
nothing could have made me more fearless for myself. Raffles had been minutes, putting up my feet to keep them dry, untying my shoes to save time,
wrong about me all. these years; now was my chance to set him right. It was and generally facing the task before me with a coolness which I strove to
galling to feel that he had no confidence in my coolness or my nerve, when make worthy of my absent chief. But mine was a self-conscious quality, as
neither had ever failed him at a pinch. I had been loyal to him through rough far removed from the original as any other deliberate imitation of genius. I
and smooth. In many an ugly corner I had stood as firm as Raffles himself. I actually struck a match on my trousers, and lit one of the shorter Sullivans.
was his right hand, and yet he never hesitated to make me his catspaw. This Raffles himself would not have done such a thing at such a moment. But I
time, at all. events, I should be neither one nor the other; this time I was the wished to tell him that I had done it; and in truth I was not more than
understudy playing lead at last; and I wish I could think that Raffles ever pleasurably afraid; I had rather that impersonal curiosity as to the issue
realized with what gusto I threw myself into his part. which has been the saving of me in still more precarious situations. I even
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grew impatient for the fray, and could not after all sit still as long as I had This again was all. my own; and it met with a success that might have
intended. So it happened that I was finishing my cigarette on the edge of the given me confidence.
wet lawn, and about to slip off my shoes before stepping across the gravel to
"Not a bit of it," replied young Medlicott, with a grim geniality. "I've just
the conservatory door, when a most singular sound arrested me in the act. It
woke up with the devil of an attack of asthma, and may have to sit up in my
was a muffled gasping somewhere overhead. I stood like stone; and my
chair till morning. You'd better come up and see me through, and kill two
listening attitude must have been visible against the milky sheen of the lawn,
birds while you're about it. Stay where you are, and I'll come down and let
for a labored voice hailed me sternly from a window.
you in."
"Who on earth are you?" it wheezed.
Here was a dilemma which Raffles himself had not foreseen! Outside, in
"A detective officer," I replied, "sent down by the Burglary Insurance the dark, my audacious part was not hard to play; but to carry the
Company." improvisation in-doors was to double at once the difficulty and the risk. It was
true that I had purposely come down in a true detective's overcoat and
Not a moment had I paused for my precious fable. It had all. been
bowler; but my personal appearance was hardly of the detective type. On the
prepared for me by Raffles, in case of need. I was merely repeating a lesson
other hand as the soi-disant guardian of the gifts one might only excite
in which I had been closely schooled. But at the window there was pause
suspicion by refusing to enter the house where they were. Nor could I forget
enough, filled only by the uncanny wheezing of the man I could not see.
that it was my purpose to effect such entry first or last. That was the casting
"I don't see why they should have sent you down," he said at length. consideration. I decided to take my dilemma by the horns.
"We are being quite well looked after by the local police; they're giving us a
There had been a scraping of matches in the room over the
special call every hour."
conservatory; the open window had shown for a moment, like an empty
"I know that, Mr. Medlicott," I rejoined on my own account. "I met one of picture-frame, a gigantic shadow wavering on the ceiling; and in the next
them at the corner just now, and we passed the time of night." half-minute I remembered to tie my shoes. But the light was slow to reappear
My heart was knocking me to bits. I had started for myself at last. through the leaded glasses of an outer door farther along the path. And
when the door opened, it was a figure of woe that stood within and held an
"Did you get my name from him?" pursued my questioner, in a
unsteady candle between our faces.
suspicious wheeze.
I have seen old men look half their age, and young men look double
"No; they gave me that before I started," I replied. "But I'm sorry you saw
theirs; but never before or since have I seen a beardless boy bent into a man
me, sir; it's a mere matter of routine, and not intended to annoy anybody. I
of eighty, gasping for every breath, shaken by every gasp, swaying, tottering,
propose to keep a watch on the place all. night, but I own it wasn't necessary
and choking, as if about to die upon his feet. Yet with it all., young Medlicott
to trespass as I've done. I'll take myself off the actual premises, if you prefer
overhauled me shrewdly, and it was several moments before he would let
it."
me take the candle from him.

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 "I shouldn't have come down - made me worse," he began whispering in torments, and whose first words were to thank me for the little I had done in
spurts. "Worse still going up again. You must give me an arm. You will come bare humanity.
up? That's right! Not as bad as I look, you know. Got some good whiskey,
That made me feel the thing I was. But the feeling put me on my guard.
too. Presents are all. right; but if they aren't you'll hear of it in-doors sooner
And I was not unready for the remark which followed a more exhaustive
than out. Now I'm ready - thanks! Mustn't make more noise than we can help
scrutiny than I had hitherto sustained.
- wake my mother."
"Do you know," said young Medlicott, "that you aren't a bit like the
It must have taken us minutes to climb that single flight of stairs. There
detective of my dreams?"
was just room for me to keep his arm in mine; with the other he hauled on
the banisters; and so we mounted, step by step, a panting pause on each, "Only to proud to hear it," I replied. "There would be no point in my being
and a pitched battle for breath on the half-landing. In the end we gained a in plain clothes if I looked exactly what I was."
cosey library, with an open door leading to a bedroom beyond. But the effort My companion reassured me with a wheezy laugh.
had deprived my poor companion of all. power of speech; his laboring lungs
"There's something in that," said he, "although I do congratulate the
shrieked like the wind; he could just point to the door by which we had
insurance people on getting a man of your class to do their dirty work. And I
entered, and which I shut in obedience to his gestures, and then to the
congratulate myself," he was quick enough to add, "on having you to see me
decanter and its accessories on the table where he had left them overnight. I
through as bad a night as I've had for a long time. You're like flowers in the
gave him nearly half a glassful, and his paroxysm subsided a little as he sat
depths of winter. Got a drink? That's right! I suppose you didn't happen to
hunched up in a chair.
bring down an evening paper?"
"I was a fool ... to turn in," he blurted in more whispers between longer
I said I had brought one, but had unfortunately left it in the train.
pauses. "Lying down is the devil ... when you're in for a real bad night. You
might get me the brown cigarettes ... on the table in there. That's right ... "What about the Test Match?" cried my asthmatic, shooting forward in
thanks awfully ... and now a match!" his chair.

The asthmatic had bitten off either end of the stramonium cigarette, and "I can tell you that," said I. "We went in first - "
was soon choking himself with the crude fumes, which he inhaled in "Oh, I know all. about that," he interrupted. "I've seen the miserable
desperate gulps, to exhale in furious fits of coughing. Never was more heroic score up to lunch. How many did we scrape altogether?"
remedy; it seemed a form of lingering suicide; but by degrees some slight
improvement became apparent, and at length the sufferer was able to sit "We're scraping them still."
upright, and to drain his glass with a sigh of rare relief. I sighed also, for I had "No! How many?"
witnessed a struggle for dear life by a man in the flower of his youth, whose
"Over two hundred for seven wickets."
looks I liked, whose smile came like the sun through the first break in his
"Who made the stand?"

- 53 -
 "Raffles, for one. He was 62 not out at close of play!" 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
And the note of admiration rang in my voice, though I tried in my self-
appreciation of the jest. And it was presently punished as it deserved, by the
consciousness to keep it out. But young Medlicott's enthusiasm proved an
most violent paroxysm that had seized the sufferer yet: the fight for breath
ample cloak for mine; it was he who might have been the personal friend of
became faster and more furious, and the former weapons of no more avail. I
Raffles; and in his delight he chuckled till he puffed and blew again.
prepared a cigarette, but the poor brute was too breathless to inhale. I
"Good old Raffles!" he panted in every pause. "After being chosen last, poured out yet more whiskey, but he put it from him with a gesture.
and as a bowler-man! That's the cricketer for me, sir; by Jove, we must have
"Amyl - get me amyl!" he gasped. "The tin on the table by my bed."
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, I rushed into his room, and returned with a little tin of tiny cylinders done
and sees you through. Doctors will tell you so, but you've got to ask 'em first; up like miniature crackers in scraps of calico; the spent youth broke one in
they're no good for asthma! I've only known one who could stop an attack, his handkerchief, in which he immediately buried his face. I watched him
and he knocked me sideways with nitrite of amyl. Funny complaint in other closely as a subtle odor reached my nostrils; and it was like the miracle of oil
ways; raises your spirits, if anything. You can't look beyond the next breath. upon the billows. His shoulders rested from long travail; the stertorous
Nothing else worries you. Well, well, here's luck to A. J. Raffles, and may he gasping died away to a quick but natural respiration; and in the sudden
get his century in the morning!" 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
And he struggled to his feet for the toast; but I drank it sitting down. I felt
was raised to mine, its crimson calm was as incongruous as an optical
unreasonably wroth with Raffles, for coming into the conversation as he had
illusion.
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 "It takes the blood from the heart," he murmured, "and clears the whole
would have shown at least some imagination, some anxiety on one's show for the moment. If it only lasted! But you can't take two without a
account I did not reflect that even Raffles could scarcely be expected to doctor; one's quite enough to make you smell the brimstone.... I say, what's
picture me in my cups with the son of the house that I had come to rob; up? You're listening to something! If it's the policeman we'll have a word with
chatting with him, ministering to him; admiring his cheery courage, and him."
honestly attempting to lighten his load! Truly it was an infernal position: how
It was not the policeman; it was no out-door sound that I had caught in
could I rob him or his after this? And yet I had thrust myself into it; and
the sudden cessation of the bout for breath. It was a noise, a footstep, in the
Raffles would never, never understand!
room below us. I went to the window and leaned out: right underneath, in the
Even that was not the worst. I was not quite sure that young Medlicott conservatory, was the faintest glimmer of a light in the adjoining room.
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
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 "One of the rooms where the presents are!" whispered Medlicott at my Nor had I made a sound, to my knowledge; for a door was open, and a light
elbow. And as we withdrew together, I looked him in the face as I had not was burning, and the light did not flicker as I approached the door. I clenched
done all. night. my teeth and pushed it open; and here was the veriest villain waiting for me,
his little lantern held aloft.
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., "You blackguard!" I cried, and with a single thwack I felled the ruffian to
to prevent the very thing that I had come to do! My gorge had long since the floor.
risen at the deed; the unforeseen circumstances had rendered it impossible
There was no question of a foul blow. He had been just as ready to
from the first; but now I could afford to recognize the impossibility, and to
pounce on me; it was simply my luck to have got the first blow home. Yet a
think of Raffles and the asthmatic alike without a qualm. I could play the
fellow-feeling touched me with remorse, as I stood over the senseless body,
game by them both, for it was one and the same game. I could preserve
sprawling prone, and perceived that I had struck an unarmed man. The
thieves' honor, and yet regain some shred of that which I had forfeited as a
lantern only had fallen from his hands; it lay on one side, smoking horribly;
man!
and a something in the reek caused me to set it up in haste and turn the
So I thought as we stood face to face, our ears straining for the least body over with both hands.
movement below, our eyes locked in a common anxiety. Another muffled
Shall I ever forget the incredulous horror of that moment?
foot-fall - felt rather than heard - and we exchanged grim nods of
simultaneous excitement. But by this time Medlicott was as helpless as he It was Raffles himself!
had been before; the flush had faded from his face, and his breathing alone How it was possible, I did not pause to ask myself; if one man on earth
would have spoiled everything. In dumb show I had to order him to stay could annihilate space and time, it was the man lying senseless at my feet;
where he was, to leave my man to me. And then it was that in a gusty and that was Raffles, without an instant's doubt. He was in villainous guise,
whisper, with the same shrewd look that had disconcerted me more than which I knew of old, now that I knew the unhappy wearer. His face was
once during our vigil, young Medlicott froze and fired my blood by turns. grimy, and dexterously plastered with a growth of reddish hair; his clothes
"I've been unjust to you," he said, with his right hand in his dressing- were those in which he had followed cabs from the London termini; his boots
gown pocket. "I thought for a bit - never mind what I thought - I soon saw I were muffled in thick socks; and I had laid him low with a bloody scalp that
was wrong. But - I've had this thing in my pocket all. the time!" 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.
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, "Jolly well done!" cheered my asthmatical friend. "I heard the whole
and crept out to earn his honest grip or to fall in the attempt. On the landing I thing - only hope my mother didn't. We must keep it from her if we can."
drew Raffles's little weapon, slipped my right wrist through the leathern loop, I could have cursed the creature's mother from my full heart; yet even
and held it in readiness over my right shoulder. Then, down-stairs I stole, as with my hand on that of Raffles, as I felt his feeble pulse, I told myself that
Raffles himself had taught me, close to the wall, where the planks are nailed.
- 55 -
this served him right. Even had I brained him, the fault had been his, not I'll take your tip, and go just as I am, before my poor old pipes strike up
mine. And it was a characteristic, an inveterate fault, that galled me for all. another tune."
my anguish: to trust and yet distrust me to the end, to race through England
I scarcely looked up until the good fellow had turned his back upon the
in the night, to spy upon me at his work - to do it himself after all.!
final tableau of watchful officer and prostrate prisoner and gone out
"Is he dead?" wheezed the asthmatic coolly. wheezing into the night. But I was at the door to hear the last of him down
the path and round the corner of the house. And when I rushed back into the
"Not he," I answered, with an indignation that I dared not show.
room, there was Raffles sitting cross-legged on the floor, and slowly shaking
"You must have hit him pretty hard," pursued young Medlicott, "but I his broken head as he stanched the blood.
suppose it was a case of getting first knock. And a good job you got it, if this
"Et tu, Bunny!" he groaned. "Mine own familiar friend!"
was his," he added, picking up the murderous little life-preserver which poor
Raffles had provided for his own destruction. "Then you weren't even stunned!" I exclaimed. "Thank God for that!"
"Look here," I answered, sitting back on my heels. "He isn't dead, Mr. "Of course I was stunned," he murmured, "and no thanks to you that I
Medlicott, and I don't know how long he'll be as much as stunned. He's a wasn't brained. Not to know me in the kit you've seen scores of times! You
powerful brute, and you're not fit to lend a hand. But that policeman of yours never looked at me, Bunny; you didn't give me time to open my mouth. I was
can't be far away. Do you think you could struggle out and look for him?" going to let you run me in so prettily! We'd have walked off arm-in-arm; now
it's as tight a place as ever we were in, though you did get rid of old blow-
"I suppose I am a bit better than I was," he replied doubtfully. "The
pipes rather nicely. But we shall have the devil's own run for our money!"
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." Raffles had picked himself up between his mutterings, and I had
followed him to the door into the garden, where he stood busy with the key in
I shook my head with an impatient smile.
the dark, having blown out his lantern and handed it to me. But though I
"I should never hear the last of it," said I. "No, in that case all. I can do is followed Raffles, as my nature must, I was far too embittered to answer him
to handcuff the fellow and wait till morning if he won't go quietly; and he'll be again. And so it was for some minutes that might furnish forth a thrilling
a fool if he does, while there's a fighting chance." page, but not a novel one to those who know their Raffles and put up with
Young Medlicott glanced upstairs from his post on the threshold. I me. Suffice it that we left a locked door behind us, and the key on the garden
refrained from watching him too keenly, but I knew what was in his mind. wall, which was the first of half a dozen that we scaled before dropping into a
lane that led to a foot-bridge higher up the backwater. And when we paused
"I'll go," he said hurriedly. "I'll go as I am, before my mother is disturbed
upon the foot-bridge, the houses along the bank were still in peace and
and frightened out of her life. I owe you something, too, not only for what
darkness.
you've done for me, but for what I was fool enough to think about you at the
first blush. It's entirely through you that I feel as fit as I do for the moment. So Knowing my Raffles as I did, I was not surprised when he dived under
one end of this bridge, and came up with his Inverness cape and opera hat,
- 56 -
which he had hidden there on his way to the house. The thick socks were "Come, Bunny," he said at last, "I have been the one to suffer most,
peeled from his patent-leathers, the ragged trousers stripped from an when all.'s said and done, and I'll be the first to say that I deserved it. You've
evening pair, bloodstains and Newgate fringe removed at the water's edge, broken my head; my hair's all. glued up in my gore; and what yarn I'm to put
and the whole sepulchre whited in less time than the thing takes to tell. Nor up at Manchester, or how I shall take the field at all., I really don't know. Yet I
was that enough for Raffles, but he must alter me as well, by wearing my don't blame you, Bunny, and I do blame myself. Isn't it rather hard luck if I
overcoat under his cape, and putting his Zingari scarf about my neck. am to go unforgiven into the bargain? I admit that I made a mistake; but, my
dear fellow, I made it entirely for your sake."
"And now," said he, "you may be glad to hear there's a 3:12 from
Surbiton, which we could catch on all. fours. If you like we'll go separately, "For my sake!" I echoed bitterly.
but I don't think there's the slightest danger now, and I begin to wonder
Raffles was more generous; he ignored my tone.
what's happening to old blow-pipes."
"I was miserable about you - frankly - miserable!" he went on. "I couldn't
So, indeed, did I, and with no small concern, until I read of his
get it out of my head that somehow you would be laid by the heels. It was not
adventures (and our own) in the newspapers. It seemed that he had made a
your pluck that I distrusted, my dear fellow, but it was your very pluck that
gallant spurt into the road, and there paid the penalty of his rashness by a
made me tremble for you. I couldn't get you out of my head. I went in when
sudden incapacity to move another inch. It had eventually taken him twenty
runs were wanted, but I give you my word that I was more anxious about
minutes to creep back to locked doors, and another ten to ring up the
you; and no doubt that's why I helped to put on some runs. Didn't you see it
inmates. His description of my personal appearance, as reported in the
in the paper, Bunny? It's the innings of my life, so far."
papers, is the only thing that reconciles me to the thought of his sufferings
during that half-hour. "Yes," I said, "I saw that you were in at close of play. But I don't believe
it was you - I believe you have a double who plays your cricket for you!"
But at the time I had other thoughts, and they lay too deep for idle
words, for to me also it was a bitter hour. I had not only failed in my self- And at the moment that seemed less incredible than the fact.
sought task; I had nearly killed my comrade into the bargain. I had meant "I'm afraid you didn't read your paper very carefully," said Raffles, with
well by friend and foe in turn, and I had ended in doing execrably by both. It the first trace of pique in his tone. "It was rain that closed play before five
was not all. my fault, but I knew how much my weakness had contributed to o'clock. I hear it was a sultry day in town, but at Manchester we got the
the sum. And I must walk with the man whose fault it was, who had travelled storm, and the ground was under water in ten minutes. I never saw such a
two hundred miles to obtain this last proof of my weakness, to bring it home thing in my life. There was absolutely not the ghost of a chance of another
to me, and to make our intimacy intolerable from that hour. I must walk with ball being bowled. But I had changed before I thought of doing what I did. It
him to Surbiton, but I need not talk; all. through Thames Ditton I had ignored was only when I was on my way back to the hotel, by myself, because I
his sallies; nor yet when he ran his arm through mine, on the river front, couldn't talk to a soul for thinking of you, that on the spur of the moment I
when we were nearly there, would I break the seal my pride had set upon my made the man take me to the station instead, and was under way in the
lips.
- 57 -
restaurant car before I had time to think twice about it. I am not sure that of again. I heard almost every word between you and the poor devil upstairs.
all. the mad deeds I have ever done, this was not the maddest of the lot!" And up to a certain point, Bunny, I really thought you played the scene to
perfection."
"It was the finest," I said in a low voice; for now I marvelled more at the
impulse which had prompted his feat, and at the circumstances surrounding The station lights were twinkling ahead of us in the fading velvet of the
it, than even at the feat itself. summer's night. I let them increase and multiply before I spoke.
"Heaven knows," he went on, "what they are saying and doing in "And where," I asked, "did you think I first went wrong?"
Manchester! But what can they say? 'What business is it of theirs? I was
"In going in-doors at all.," said Raffles. "If I had done that, I should have
there when play stopped, and I shall be there when it starts again. We shall
done exactly what you did from that point on. You couldn't help yourself, with
be at Waterloo just after half-past three, and that's going to give me an hour
that poor brute in that state. And I admired you immensely, Bunny, if that's
at the Albany on my way to Euston, and another hour at Old Trafford before
any comfort to you now."
play begins. What's the matter with that? I don't suppose I shall notch any
more, but all. the better if I don't; if we have a hot sun after the storm, the Comfort! It was wine in every vein, for I knew that Raffles meant what he
sooner they get in the better; and may I have a bowl at them while the said, and with his eyes I soon saw myself in braver colors. I ceased to blush
ground bites!" for the vacillations of the night, since he condoned them. I could even see
that I had behaved with a measure of decency, in a truly trying situation, now
"I'll come up with you," I said, "and see you at it."
that Raffles seemed to think so. He had changed my whole view of his
"My dear fellow," replied Raffles, "that was my whole feeling about you. I proceedings and my own, in every incident of the night but one. There was
wanted to 'see you at it' - that was absolutely all. I wanted to be near enough one thing, however, which he might forgive me, but which I felt that I could
to lend a hand if you got tied up, as the best of us will at times. I knew the forgive neither Raffles nor myself. And that was the contused scalp wound
ground better than you, and I simply couldn't keep away from it. But I didn't over which I shuddered in the train.
mean you to know that I was there; if everything had gone as I hoped it
"And to think that I did that," I groaned, "and that you laid yourself open
might, I should have sneaked back to town without ever letting you know I
to it, and that we have neither of us got another thing to show for our night's
had been up. You should never have dreamt that I had been at your elbow;
work! That poor chap said it was as bad a night as he had ever had in his
you would have believed in yourself, and in my belief in you, and the rest
life; but I call it the very worst that you and I ever had in ours."
would have been silence till the grave. So I dodged you at Waterloo, and I
tried not to let you know that I was following you from Esher station. But you Raffles was smiling under the double lamps of the first-class
suspected somebody was; you stopped to listen more than once; after the compartment that we had to ourselves.
second time I dropped behind, but gained on you by taking the short cut by "I wouldn't say that, Bunny. We have done worse."
Imber Court and over the foot-bridge where I left my coat and hat. I was
"Do you mean to tell me that you did anything at all.?"
actually in the garden before you were. I saw you smoke your Sullivan, and I
was rather proud of you for it, though you must never do that sort of thing
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 "My dear Bunny," replied Raffles, "you should remember how long I had Raffles assured me that it was "a one-man job," and naturally intended to be
been maturing felonious little plan, what a blow it was to me to have to turn it the one man himself. It was only at the eleventh hour that our positions were
over to you, and how far I had travelled to see that you did it and yourself as inverted by the wholly unexpected selection of Raffles for the English team in
well as might be. You know what I did see, and how well I understood. I tell the Second Test Match.
you again that I should have done the same thing myself, in your place. But I
In a flash I saw the chance of my criminal career. It was some years
was not in your place, Bunny. My hands were not tied like yours.
since Raffles had served his country in these encounters; he had never
Unfortunately, most of the jewels have gone on the honeymoon with the
thought to be called upon again, and his gratification was only less than his
happy pair; but these emerald links are all. right, and I don't know what the
embarrassment. The match was at Old Trafford, on the third Thursday,
bride was doing to leave this diamond comb behind. Here, too, is the old
Friday, and Saturday in July; the other affair had been all. arranged for the
silver skewer I've been wanting for years - they make the most charming
Thursday night, the night of the wedding at East Molesey. It was for Raffles
paper-knives in the world - and this gold cigarette-case will just do for your
to choose between the two excitements, and for once I helped him to make
smaller Sullivans."
up his mind. I duly pointed out to him that in Surrey, at all. events, I was quite
Nor were these the only pretty things that Raffles set out in twinkling capable of taking his place. Nay, more, I insisted at once on my prescriptive
array upon the opposite cushions. But I do not pretend that this was one of right and on his patriotic obligation in the matter. In the country's name and
our heavy hauls, or deny that its chief interest still resides in the score of the in my own, I implored him to give it and me a chance; and for once, as I say,
Second Test Match of that Australian tour. my arguments prevailed. Raffles sent his telegram - it was the day before the
match. We then rushed down to Esher, and over every inch of the ground by
Chapter 6 that characteristically circuitous route which he enjoined on me for the next
night. And at six in the evening I was receiving the last of my many
A Bad Night instructions through a window of the restaurant car.
"Only promise me not to take a revolver," said Raffles in a whisper.
There was to be a certain little wedding in which Raffles and I took a
"Here are my keys; there's an old life-preserver somewhere in the bureau;
surreptitious interest. The bride-elect was living in some retirement, with a
take that, if you like - though what you take I rather fear you are the chap to
recently widowed mother and an asthmatical brother, in a mellow hermitage
use!"
on the banks of the Mole. The bridegroom was a prosperous son of the
same suburban soil which had nourished both families for generations. The "Then the rope be round my own neck!" I whispered back. "Whatever
wedding presents were so numerous as to fill several rooms at the pretty else I may do, Raffles, I shan't give you away; and you'll find I do better than
retreat upon the Mole, and of an intrinsic value calling for a special you think, and am worth trusting with a little more to do, or I'll know the
transaction with the Burglary Insurance Company in Cheapside. I cannot say reason why!"
how Raffles obtained all. this information. I only know that it proved correct in
And I meant to know it, as he was borne out of Euston with raised
each particular. I was not indeed deeply interested before the event, since
eyebrows, and I turned grimly on my heel. I saw his fears for me; and
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nothing could have made me more fearless for myself. Raffles had been which added its own darkness to that of the night. Here I rested a few
wrong about me all. these years; now was my chance to set him right. It was minutes, putting up my feet to keep them dry, untying my shoes to save time,
galling to feel that he had no confidence in my coolness or my nerve, when and generally facing the task before me with a coolness which I strove to
neither had ever failed him at a pinch. I had been loyal to him through rough make worthy of my absent chief. But mine was a self-conscious quality, as
and smooth. In many an ugly corner I had stood as firm as Raffles himself. I far removed from the original as any other deliberate imitation of genius. I
was his right hand, and yet he never hesitated to make me his catspaw. This actually struck a match on my trousers, and lit one of the shorter Sullivans.
time, at all. events, I should be neither one nor the other; this time I was the Raffles himself would not have done such a thing at such a moment. But I
understudy playing lead at last; and I wish I could think that Raffles ever wished to tell him that I had done it; and in truth I was not more than
realized with what gusto I threw myself into his part. pleasurably afraid; I had rather that impersonal curiosity as to the issue
which has been the saving of me in still more precarious situations. I even
Thus I was first out of a crowded theatre train at Esher next night, and
grew impatient for the fray, and could not after all sit still as long as I had
first down the stairs into the open air. The night was close and cloudy; and
intended. So it happened that I was finishing my cigarette on the edge of the
the road to Hampton Court, even now that the suburban builder has marked
wet lawn, and about to slip off my shoes before stepping across the gravel to
much of it for his own, is one of the darkest I know. The first mile is still a
the conservatory door, when a most singular sound arrested me in the act. It
narrow avenue, a mere tunnel of leaves at midsummer; but at that time there
was a muffled gasping somewhere overhead. I stood like stone; and my
was not a lighted pane or cranny by the way. Naturally, it was in this blind
listening attitude must have been visible against the milky sheen of the lawn,
reach that I fancied I was being followed. I stopped in my stride; so did the
for a labored voice hailed me sternly from a window.
steps I made sure I had heard not far behind; and when I went on, they
followed suit. I dried my forehead as I walked, but soon brought myself to "Who on earth are you?" it wheezed.
repeat the experiment when an exact repetition of the result went to convince
"A detective officer," I replied, "sent down by the Burglary Insurance
me that it had been my own echo all. the time. And since I lost it on getting
Company."
quit of the avenue, and coming out upon the straight and open road, I was
not long in recovering from my scare. But now I could see my way, and Not a moment had I paused for my precious fable. It had all. been
found the rest of it without mishap, though not without another semblance of prepared for me by Raffles, in case of need. I was merely repeating a lesson
adventure. Over the bridge across the Mole, when about to turn to the left, I in which I had been closely schooled. But at the window there was pause
marched straight upon a policeman in rubber soles. I had to call him "officer" enough, filled only by the uncanny wheezing of the man I could not see.
as I passed, and to pass my turning by a couple of hundred yards, before "I don't see why they should have sent you down," he said at length.
venturing back another way. "We are being quite well looked after by the local police; they're giving us a
At last I had crept through a garden gate, and round by black windows special call every hour."
to a black lawn drenched with dew. It had been a heating walk, and I was "I know that, Mr. Medlicott," I rejoined on my own account. "I met one of
glad to blunder on a garden seat, most considerately placed under a cedar them at the corner just now, and we passed the time of night."

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 My heart was knocking me to bits. I had started for myself at last. when the door opened, it was a figure of woe that stood within and held an
unsteady candle between our faces.
"Did you get my name from him?" pursued my questioner, in a
suspicious wheeze. I have seen old men look half their age, and young men look double
theirs; but never before or since have I seen a beardless boy bent into a man
"No; they gave me that before I started," I replied. "But I'm sorry you saw
of eighty, gasping for every breath, shaken by every gasp, swaying, tottering,
me, sir; it's a mere matter of routine, and not intended to annoy anybody. I
and choking, as if about to die upon his feet. Yet with it all., young Medlicott
propose to keep a watch on the place all. night, but I own it wasn't necessary
overhauled me shrewdly, and it was several moments before he would let
to trespass as I've done. I'll take myself off the actual premises, if you prefer
me take the candle from him.
it."
"I shouldn't have come down - made me worse," he began whispering in
This again was all. my own; and it met with a success that might have
spurts. "Worse still going up again. You must give me an arm. You will come
given me confidence.
up? That's right! Not as bad as I look, you know. Got some good whiskey,
"Not a bit of it," replied young Medlicott, with a grim geniality. "I've just too. Presents are all. right; but if they aren't you'll hear of it in-doors sooner
woke up with the devil of an attack of asthma, and may have to sit up in my than out. Now I'm ready - thanks! Mustn't make more noise than we can help
chair till morning. You'd better come up and see me through, and kill two - wake my mother."
birds while you're about it. Stay where you are, and I'll come down and let
It must have taken us minutes to climb that single flight of stairs. There
you in."
was just room for me to keep his arm in mine; with the other he hauled on
Here was a dilemma which Raffles himself had not foreseen! Outside, in the banisters; and so we mounted, step by step, a panting pause on each,
the dark, my audacious part was not hard to play; but to carry the and a pitched battle for breath on the half-landing. In the end we gained a
improvisation in-doors was to double at once the difficulty and the risk. It was cosey library, with an open door leading to a bedroom beyond. But the effort
true that I had purposely come down in a true detective's overcoat and had deprived my poor companion of all. power of speech; his laboring lungs
bowler; but my personal appearance was hardly of the detective type. On the shrieked like the wind; he could just point to the door by which we had
other hand as the soi-disant guardian of the gifts one might only excite entered, and which I shut in obedience to his gestures, and then to the
suspicion by refusing to enter the house where they were. Nor could I forget decanter and its accessories on the table where he had left them overnight. I
that it was my purpose to effect such entry first or last. That was the casting gave him nearly half a glassful, and his paroxysm subsided a little as he sat
consideration. I decided to take my dilemma by the horns. hunched up in a chair.
There had been a scraping of matches in the room over the "I was a fool ... to turn in," he blurted in more whispers between longer
conservatory; the open window had shown for a moment, like an empty pauses. "Lying down is the devil ... when you're in for a real bad night. You
picture-frame, a gigantic shadow wavering on the ceiling; and in the next might get me the brown cigarettes ... on the table in there. That's right ...
half-minute I remembered to tie my shoes. But the light was slow to reappear thanks awfully ... and now a match!"
through the leaded glasses of an outer door farther along the path. And
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 The asthmatic had bitten off either end of the stramonium cigarette, and "Oh, I know all. about that," he interrupted. "I've seen the miserable
was soon choking himself with the crude fumes, which he inhaled in score up to lunch. How many did we scrape altogether?"
desperate gulps, to exhale in furious fits of coughing. Never was more heroic
"We're scraping them still."
remedy; it seemed a form of lingering suicide; but by degrees some slight
improvement became apparent, and at length the sufferer was able to sit "No! How many?"
upright, and to drain his glass with a sigh of rare relief. I sighed also, for I had "Over two hundred for seven wickets."
witnessed a struggle for dear life by a man in the flower of his youth, whose
"Who made the stand?"
looks I liked, whose smile came like the sun through the first break in his
torments, and whose first words were to thank me for the little I had done in "Raffles, for one. He was 62 not out at close of play!"
bare humanity. And the note of admiration rang in my voice, though I tried in my self-
That made me feel the thing I was. But the feeling put me on my guard. consciousness to keep it out. But young Medlicott's enthusiasm proved an
And I was not unready for the remark which followed a more exhaustive ample cloak for mine; it was he who might have been the personal friend of
scrutiny than I had hitherto sustained. Raffles; and in his delight he chuckled till he puffed and blew again.

"Do you know," said young Medlicott, "that you aren't a bit like the "Good old Raffles!" he panted in every pause. "After being chosen last,
detective of my dreams?" 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
"Only to proud to hear it," I replied. "There would be no point in my being
no more than it does a man with a snake-bite; but it eases everything else,
in plain clothes if I looked exactly what I was."
and sees you through. Doctors will tell you so, but you've got to ask 'em first;
My companion reassured me with a wheezy laugh. they're no good for asthma! I've only known one who could stop an attack,
"There's something in that," said he, "although I do congratulate the and he knocked me sideways with nitrite of amyl. Funny complaint in other
insurance people on getting a man of your class to do their dirty work. And I ways; raises your spirits, if anything. You can't look beyond the next breath.
congratulate myself," he was quick enough to add, "on having you to see me Nothing else worries you. Well, well, here's luck to A. J. Raffles, and may he
through as bad a night as I've had for a long time. You're like flowers in the get his century in the morning!"
depths of winter. Got a drink? That's right! I suppose you didn't happen to And he struggled to his feet for the toast; but I drank it sitting down. I felt
bring down an evening paper?" unreasonably wroth with Raffles, for coming into the conversation as he had
I said I had brought one, but had unfortunately left it in the train. 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
"What about the Test Match?" cried my asthmatic, shooting forward in
would have shown at least some imagination, some anxiety on one's
his chair.
account I did not reflect that even Raffles could scarcely be expected to
"I can tell you that," said I. "We went in first - " picture me in my cups with the son of the house that I had come to rob;

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chatting with him, ministering to him; admiring his cheery courage, and up? You're listening to something! If it's the policeman we'll have a word with
honestly attempting to lighten his load! Truly it was an infernal position: how him."
could I rob him or his after this? And yet I had thrust myself into it; and
It was not the policeman; it was no out-door sound that I had caught in
Raffles would never, never understand!
the sudden cessation of the bout for breath. It was a noise, a footstep, in the
Even that was not the worst. I was not quite sure that young Medlicott room below us. I went to the window and leaned out: right underneath, in the
was sure of me. I had feared this from the beginning, and now (over the conservatory, was the faintest glimmer of a light in the adjoining room.
second glass that could not possibly affect a man in his condition) he
"One of the rooms where the presents are!" whispered Medlicott at my
practically admitted as much to me. Asthma was such a funny thing (he
elbow. And as we withdrew together, I looked him in the face as I had not
insisted) that it would not worry him a bit to discover that I had come to take
done all. night.
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 I looked him in the face like an honest man, for a miracle was to make
most violent paroxysm that had seized the sufferer yet: the fight for breath me one once more. My knot was cut - my course inevitable. Mine, after all.,
became faster and more furious, and the former weapons of no more avail. I to prevent the very thing that I had come to do! My gorge had long since
prepared a cigarette, but the poor brute was too breathless to inhale. I risen at the deed; the unforeseen circumstances had rendered it impossible
poured out yet more whiskey, but he put it from him with a gesture. 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
"Amyl - get me amyl!" he gasped. "The tin on the table by my bed."
game by them both, for it was one and the same game. I could preserve
I rushed into his room, and returned with a little tin of tiny cylinders done thieves' honor, and yet regain some shred of that which I had forfeited as a
up like miniature crackers in scraps of calico; the spent youth broke one in man!
his handkerchief, in which he immediately buried his face. I watched him
So I thought as we stood face to face, our ears straining for the least
closely as a subtle odor reached my nostrils; and it was like the miracle of oil
movement below, our eyes locked in a common anxiety. Another muffled
upon the billows. His shoulders rested from long travail; the stertorous
foot-fall - felt rather than heard - and we exchanged grim nods of
gasping died away to a quick but natural respiration; and in the sudden
simultaneous excitement. But by this time Medlicott was as helpless as he
cessation of the cruel contest, an uncanny stillness fell upon the scene.
had been before; the flush had faded from his face, and his breathing alone
Meanwhile the hidden face had flushed to the ears, and, when at length it
would have spoiled everything. In dumb show I had to order him to stay
was raised to mine, its crimson calm was as incongruous as an optical
where he was, to leave my man to me. And then it was that in a gusty
illusion.
whisper, with the same shrewd look that had disconcerted me more than
"It takes the blood from the heart," he murmured, "and clears the whole once during our vigil, young Medlicott froze and fired my blood by turns.
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

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 "I've been unjust to you," he said, with his right hand in his dressing- were those in which he had followed cabs from the London termini; his boots
gown pocket. "I thought for a bit - never mind what I thought - I soon saw I were muffled in thick socks; and I had laid him low with a bloody scalp that
was wrong. But - I've had this thing in my pocket all. the time!" 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.
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, "Jolly well done!" cheered my asthmatical friend. "I heard the whole
and crept out to earn his honest grip or to fall in the attempt. On the landing I thing - only hope my mother didn't. We must keep it from her if we can."
drew Raffles's little weapon, slipped my right wrist through the leathern loop,
I could have cursed the creature's mother from my full heart; yet even
and held it in readiness over my right shoulder. Then, down-stairs I stole, as
with my hand on that of Raffles, as I felt his feeble pulse, I told myself that
Raffles himself had taught me, close to the wall, where the planks are nailed.
this served him right. Even had I brained him, the fault had been his, not
Nor had I made a sound, to my knowledge; for a door was open, and a light
mine. And it was a characteristic, an inveterate fault, that galled me for all.
was burning, and the light did not flicker as I approached the door. I clenched
my anguish: to trust and yet distrust me to the end, to race through England
my teeth and pushed it open; and here was the veriest villain waiting for me,
in the night, to spy upon me at his work - to do it himself after all.!
his little lantern held aloft.
"Is he dead?" wheezed the asthmatic coolly.
"You blackguard!" I cried, and with a single thwack I felled the ruffian to
the floor. "Not he," I answered, with an indignation that I dared not show.

There was no question of a foul blow. He had been just as ready to "You must have hit him pretty hard," pursued young Medlicott, "but I
pounce on me; it was simply my luck to have got the first blow home. Yet a suppose it was a case of getting first knock. And a good job you got it, if this
fellow-feeling touched me with remorse, as I stood over the senseless body, was his," he added, picking up the murderous little life-preserver which poor
sprawling prone, and perceived that I had struck an unarmed man. The Raffles had provided for his own destruction.
lantern only had fallen from his hands; it lay on one side, smoking horribly; "Look here," I answered, sitting back on my heels. "He isn't dead, Mr.
and a something in the reek caused me to set it up in haste and turn the Medlicott, and I don't know how long he'll be as much as stunned. He's a
body over with both hands. powerful brute, and you're not fit to lend a hand. But that policeman of yours
Shall I ever forget the incredulous horror of that moment? can't be far away. Do you think you could struggle out and look for him?"

It was Raffles himself! "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
How it was possible, I did not pause to ask myself; if one man on earth
with my revolver, I'll undertake that he doesn't escape me."
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, I shook my head with an impatient smile.
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
- 64 -
 "I should never hear the last of it," said I. "No, in that case all. I can do is followed Raffles, as my nature must, I was far too embittered to answer him
to handcuff the fellow and wait till morning if he won't go quietly; and he'll be again. And so it was for some minutes that might furnish forth a thrilling
a fool if he does, while there's a fighting chance." page, but not a novel one to those who know their Raffles and put up with
me. Suffice it that we left a locked door behind us, and the key on the garden
Young Medlicott glanced upstairs from his post on the threshold. I
wall, which was the first of half a dozen that we scaled before dropping into a
refrained from watching him too keenly, but I knew what was in his mind.
lane that led to a foot-bridge higher up the backwater. And when we paused
"I'll go," he said hurriedly. "I'll go as I am, before my mother is disturbed upon the foot-bridge, the houses along the bank were still in peace and
and frightened out of her life. I owe you something, too, not only for what darkness.
you've done for me, but for what I was fool enough to think about you at the
Knowing my Raffles as I did, I was not surprised when he dived under
first blush. It's entirely through you that I feel as fit as I do for the moment. So
one end of this bridge, and came up with his Inverness cape and opera hat,
I'll take your tip, and go just as I am, before my poor old pipes strike up
which he had hidden there on his way to the house. The thick socks were
another tune."
peeled from his patent-leathers, the ragged trousers stripped from an
I scarcely looked up until the good fellow had turned his back upon the evening pair, bloodstains and Newgate fringe removed at the water's edge,
final tableau of watchful officer and prostrate prisoner and gone out and the whole sepulchre whited in less time than the thing takes to tell. Nor
wheezing into the night. But I was at the door to hear the last of him down was that enough for Raffles, but he must alter me as well, by wearing my
the path and round the corner of the house. And when I rushed back into the overcoat under his cape, and putting his Zingari scarf about my neck.
room, there was Raffles sitting cross-legged on the floor, and slowly shaking
"And now," said he, "you may be glad to hear there's a 3:12 from
his broken head as he stanched the blood.
Surbiton, which we could catch on all. fours. If you like we'll go separately,
"Et tu, Bunny!" he groaned. "Mine own familiar friend!" but I don't think there's the slightest danger now, and I begin to wonder
"Then you weren't even stunned!" I exclaimed. "Thank God for that!" what's happening to old blow-pipes."

"Of course I was stunned," he murmured, "and no thanks to you that I So, indeed, did I, and with no small concern, until I read of his
wasn't brained. Not to know me in the kit you've seen scores of times! You adventures (and our own) in the newspapers. It seemed that he had made a
never looked at me, Bunny; you didn't give me time to open my mouth. I was gallant spurt into the road, and there paid the penalty of his rashness by a
going to let you run me in so prettily! We'd have walked off arm-in-arm; now sudden incapacity to move another inch. It had eventually taken him twenty
it's as tight a place as ever we were in, though you did get rid of old blow- minutes to creep back to locked doors, and another ten to ring up the
pipes rather nicely. But we shall have the devil's own run for our money!" inmates. His description of my personal appearance, as reported in the
papers, is the only thing that reconciles me to the thought of his sufferings
Raffles had picked himself up between his mutterings, and I had
during that half-hour.
followed him to the door into the garden, where he stood busy with the key in
the dark, having blown out his lantern and handed it to me. But though I But at the time I had other thoughts, and they lay too deep for idle
words, for to me also it was a bitter hour. I had not only failed in my self-
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sought task; I had nearly killed my comrade into the bargain. I had meant "I'm afraid you didn't read your paper very carefully," said Raffles, with
well by friend and foe in turn, and I had ended in doing execrably by both. It the first trace of pique in his tone. "It was rain that closed play before five
was not all. my fault, but I knew how much my weakness had contributed to o'clock. I hear it was a sultry day in town, but at Manchester we got the
the sum. And I must walk with the man whose fault it was, who had travelled storm, and the ground was under water in ten minutes. I never saw such a
two hundred miles to obtain this last proof of my weakness, to bring it home thing in my life. There was absolutely not the ghost of a chance of another
to me, and to make our intimacy intolerable from that hour. I must walk with ball being bowled. But I had changed before I thought of doing what I did. It
him to Surbiton, but I need not talk; all. through Thames Ditton I had ignored was only when I was on my way back to the hotel, by myself, because I
his sallies; nor yet when he ran his arm through mine, on the river front, couldn't talk to a soul for thinking of you, that on the spur of the moment I
when we were nearly there, would I break the seal my pride had set upon my made the man take me to the station instead, and was under way in the
lips. restaurant car before I had time to think twice about it. I am not sure that of
all. the mad deeds I have ever done, this was not the maddest of the lot!"
"Come, Bunny," he said at last, "I have been the one to suffer most,
when all.'s said and done, and I'll be the first to say that I deserved it. You've "It was the finest," I said in a low voice; for now I marvelled more at the
broken my head; my hair's all. glued up in my gore; and what yarn I'm to put impulse which had prompted his feat, and at the circumstances surrounding
up at Manchester, or how I shall take the field at all., I really don't know. Yet I it, than even at the feat itself.
don't blame you, Bunny, and I do blame myself. Isn't it rather hard luck if I
"Heaven knows," he went on, "what they are saying and doing in
am to go unforgiven into the bargain? I admit that I made a mistake; but, my
Manchester! But what can they say? 'What business is it of theirs? I was
dear fellow, I made it entirely for your sake."
there when play stopped, and I shall be there when it starts again. We shall
"For my sake!" I echoed bitterly. be at Waterloo just after half-past three, and that's going to give me an hour
at the Albany on my way to Euston, and another hour at Old Trafford before
Raffles was more generous; he ignored my tone.
play begins. What's the matter with that? I don't suppose I shall notch any
"I was miserable about you - frankly - miserable!" he went on. "I couldn't more, but all. the better if I don't; if we have a hot sun after the storm, the
get it out of my head that somehow you would be laid by the heels. It was not sooner they get in the better; and may I have a bowl at them while the
your pluck that I distrusted, my dear fellow, but it was your very pluck that ground bites!"
made me tremble for you. I couldn't get you out of my head. I went in when
"I'll come up with you," I said, "and see you at it."
runs were wanted, but I give you my word that I was more anxious about
you; and no doubt that's why I helped to put on some runs. Didn't you see it "My dear fellow," replied Raffles, "that was my whole feeling about you. I
in the paper, Bunny? It's the innings of my life, so far." wanted to 'see you at it' - that was absolutely all. I wanted to be near enough
to lend a hand if you got tied up, as the best of us will at times. I knew the
"Yes," I said, "I saw that you were in at close of play. But I don't believe
ground better than you, and I simply couldn't keep away from it. But I didn't
it was you - I believe you have a double who plays your cricket for you!"
mean you to know that I was there; if everything had gone as I hoped it
And at the moment that seemed less incredible than the fact. might, I should have sneaked back to town without ever letting you know I
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had been up. You should never have dreamt that I had been at your elbow; "And to think that I did that," I groaned, "and that you laid yourself open
you would have believed in yourself, and in my belief in you, and the rest to it, and that we have neither of us got another thing to show for our night's
would have been silence till the grave. So I dodged you at Waterloo, and I work! That poor chap said it was as bad a night as he had ever had in his
tried not to let you know that I was following you from Esher station. But you life; but I call it the very worst that you and I ever had in ours."
suspected somebody was; you stopped to listen more than once; after the
Raffles was smiling under the double lamps of the first-class
second time I dropped behind, but gained on you by taking the short cut by
compartment that we had to ourselves.
Imber Court and over the foot-bridge where I left my coat and hat. I was
actually in the garden before you were. I saw you smoke your Sullivan, and I "I wouldn't say that, Bunny. We have done worse."
was rather proud of you for it, though you must never do that sort of thing "Do you mean to tell me that you did anything at all.?"
again. I heard almost every word between you and the poor devil upstairs.
"My dear Bunny," replied Raffles, "you should remember how long I had
And up to a certain point, Bunny, I really thought you played the scene to
been maturing felonious little plan, what a blow it was to me to have to turn it
perfection."
over to you, and how far I had travelled to see that you did it and yourself as
The station lights were twinkling ahead of us in the fading velvet of the well as might be. You know what I did see, and how well I understood. I tell
summer's night. I let them increase and multiply before I spoke. you again that I should have done the same thing myself, in your place. But I
"And where," I asked, "did you think I first went wrong?" was not in your place, Bunny. My hands were not tied like yours.
Unfortunately, most of the jewels have gone on the honeymoon with the
"In going in-doors at all.," said Raffles. "If I had done that, I should have
happy pair; but these emerald links are all. right, and I don't know what the
done exactly what you did from that point on. You couldn't help yourself, with
bride was doing to leave this diamond comb behind. Here, too, is the old
that poor brute in that state. And I admired you immensely, Bunny, if that's
silver skewer I've been wanting for years - they make the most charming
any comfort to you now."
paper-knives in the world - and this gold cigarette-case will just do for your
Comfort! It was wine in every vein, for I knew that Raffles meant what he smaller Sullivans."
said, and with his eyes I soon saw myself in braver colors. I ceased to blush
Nor were these the only pretty things that Raffles set out in twinkling
for the vacillations of the night, since he condoned them. I could even see
array upon the opposite cushions. But I do not pretend that this was one of
that I had behaved with a measure of decency, in a truly trying situation, now
our heavy hauls, or deny that its chief interest still resides in the score of the
that Raffles seemed to think so. He had changed my whole view of his
Second Test Match of that Australian tour.
proceedings and my own, in every incident of the night but one. There was
one thing, however, which he might forgive me, but which I felt that I could
Chapter 7
forgive neither Raffles nor myself. And that was the contused scalp wound
A Trap to Catch a Cracksman
over which I shuddered in the train.

- 67 -
 I was just putting out my light when the telephone rang a furious tocsin "In that trap he bragged about. It serves me right. I didn't believe in it.
in the next room. I flounced out of bed more asleep than awake; in another But I'm caught at last ... caught ... at last!"
minute I should have been past ringing up. It was one o'clock in the morning,
"When he told us he set it every night! Oh, Raffles, what sort of a trap is
and I had been dining with Swigger Morrison at his club.
it? What shall I do? What shall I bring?"
"Hulloa!"
But his voice had grown fainter and wearier with every answer, and now
"That you, Bunny?" there was no answer at all. Again and again I asked Raffles if he was there;
the only sound to reach me in reply was the low metallic hum of the live wire
"Yes - are you Raffles?"
between his ear and mine. And then, as I sat gazing distractedly at my four
"What's left of me! Bunny, I want you - quick." safe walls, with the receiver still pressed to my head, there came a single
And even over the wire his voice was faint with anxiety and groan, followed by the dull and dreadful crash of a human body falling in a
apprehension. heap.

"What on earth has happened?" In utter panic I rushed back into my bedroom, and flung myself into the
crumpled shirt and evening clothes that lay where I had cast them off. But I
"Don't ask! You never know - "
knew no more what I was doing than what to do next I afterward found that I
"I'll come at once. Are you there, Raffles?" had taken out a fresh tie, and tied it rather better than usual; but I can
"What's that?" remember thinking of nothing but Raffles in some diabolical man-trap, and of
a grinning monster stealing in to strike him senseless with one murderous
"Are you there, man?" blow. I must have looked in the glass to array myself as I did; but the mind's
"Ye - e - es." eye was the seeing eye, and it was filled with this frightful vision of the
notorious pugilist known to fame and infamy as Barney Maguire.
"At the Albany?"
It was only the week before that Raffles and I had been introduced to
"No, no; at Maguire's."
him at the Imperial Boxing Club. Heavy-weight champion of the United
"You never said so. And where's Maguire?" States, the fellow was still drunk with his sanguinary triumphs on that side,
"In Half-moon Street." and clamoring for fresh conquests on ours. But his reputation had crossed
the Atlantic before Maguire himself; the grandiose hotels had closed their
"I know that. Is he there now?"
doors to him; and he had already taken and sumptuously furnished the
"No - not come in yet - and I'm caught." house in Half-moon Street which does not re-let to this day. Raffles had
"Caught!" made friends with the magnificent brute, while I took timid stock of his
diamond studs, his jewelled watch-chain, his eighteen-carat bangle, and his
six-inch lower jaw. I had shuddered to see Raffles admiring the gewgaws in
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his turn, in his own brazen fashion, with that air of the cool connoisseur sustained in a far from bloodless victory. Then what could be the meaning of
which had its double meaning for me. I for my part would as lief have looked that sickening and most suggestive thud? Could it be the champion himself
a tiger in the teeth. And when we finally went home with Maguire to see his who had received the coup de grace in his cups? Raffles was the very man
other trophies, it seemed to me like entering the tiger's lair. But an to administer it - but he had not talked like that man through the telephone.
astounding lair it proved, fitted throughout by one eminent firm, and ringing to
And yet - and yet - what else could have happened? I must have asked
the rafters with the last word on fantastic furniture.
myself the question between each and all. of the above reflections, made
The trophies were a still greater surprise. They opened my eyes to the partly as I dressed and partly in the hansom on the way to Half-moon Street.
rosier aspect of the noble art, as presently practised on the right side of the It was as yet the only question in my mind. You must know what your
Atlantic. Among other offerings, we were permitted to handle the jewelled emergency is before you can decide how to cope with it; and to this day I
belt presented to the pugilist by the State of Nevada, a gold brick from the sometimes tremble to think of the rashly direct method by which I set about
citizens of Sacramento, and a model of himself in solid silver from the obtaining the requisite information. I drove every yard of the way to the
Fisticuff Club in New York. I still remember waiting with bated breath for pugilist's very door. You will remember that I had been dining with Swigger
Raffles to ask Maguire if he were not afraid of burglars, and Maguire replying Morrison at his club.
that he had a trap to catch the cleverest cracksman alive, but flatly refusing
Yet at the last I had a rough idea of what I meant to say when the door
to tell us what it was. I could not at the moment conceive a more terrible trap
was opened. It seemed almost probable that the tragic end of our talk over
than the heavy-weight himself behind a curtain. Yet it was easy to see that
the telephone had been caused by the sudden arrival and as sudden
Raffles had accepted the braggart's boast as a challenge. Nor did he deny it
violence of Barney Maguire. In that case I was resolved to tell him that
later when I taxed him with his mad resolve; he merely refused to allow me
Raffles and I had made a bet about his burglar trap, and that I had come to
to implicate myself in its execution. Well, there was a spice of savage
see who had won. I might or might not confess that Raffles had rung me out
satisfaction in the thought that Raffles had been obliged to turn to me in the
of bed to this end. If, however, I was wrong about Maguire, and he had not
end. And, but for the dreadful thud which I had heard over the telephone, I
come home at all., then my action would depend upon the menial who
might have extracted some genuine comfort from the unerring sagacity with
answered my reckless ring. But it should result in the rescue of Raffles by
which he had chosen his night.
hook or crook.
Within the last twenty-four hours Barney Maguire had fought his first
I had the more time to come to some decision, since I rang and rang in
great battle on British soil. Obviously, he would no longer be the man that he
vain. The hall, indeed, was in darkness; but when I peeped through the
had been in the strict training before the fight; never, as I gathered, was such
letter-box I could see a faint beam of light from the back room. That was the
a ruffian more off his guard, or less capable of protecting himself and his
room in which Maguire kept his trophies and set his trap. All. was quiet in the
possessions, than in these first hours of relaxation and inevitable
house: could they have haled the intruder to Vine Street in the short twenty
debauchery for which Raffles had waited with characteristic foresight. Nor
minutes which it had taken me to dress and to drive to the spot? That was an
was the terrible Barney likely to be more abstemious for signal punishment

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awful thought; but even as I hoped against hope, and rang once more, The secretary had turned the latch-key in the door, only to be hauled
speculation and suspense were cut short in the last fashion to be foreseen. back by the collar as the door stood open, and the light from the inner room
was seen streaming upon the banisters at the foot of the narrow stairs.
A brougham was coming sedately down the street from Piccadilly; to my
horror, it stopped behind me as I peered once more through the letter-box, "A light in my den," said Maguire in a mighty whisper, "and the blamed
and out tumbled the dishevelled prizefighter and two companions. I was door open, though the key's in my pocket and we left it locked! Talk about
nicely caught in my turn. There was a lamp-post right opposite the door, and crooks, eh? Holy smoke, how I hope we've landed one alive! You ladies and
I can still see the three of them regarding me in its light. The pugilist had gentlemen, lay round where you are, while I see."
been at least a fine figure of a bully and a braggart when I saw him before
And the hulking figure advanced on tiptoe, like a performing elephant,
his fight; now he had a black eye and a bloated lip, hat on the back of his
until just at the open door, when for a second we saw his left revolving like a
head, and made-up tie under one ear. His companions were his sallow little
piston and his head thrown back at its fighting angle. But in another second
Yankee secretary, whose name I really forget, but whom I met with Maguire
his fists were hands again, and Maguire was rubbing them together as he
at the Boxing Club, and a very grand person in a second skin of shimmering
stood shaking with laughter in the light of the open door.
sequins.
"Walk up!" he cried, as he beckoned to us three. "Walk up and see one
I can neither forget nor report the terms in which Barney Maguire asked
o' their blamed British crooks laid as low as the blamed carpet, and nailed as
me who I was and what I was doing there. Thanks, however, to Swigger
tight!"
Morrison's hospitality, I readily reminded him of our former meeting, and of
more that I only recalled as the words were in my mouth. Imagine my feelings on the mat! The sallow secretary went first; the
sequins glittered at his heels, and I must own that for one base moment I
"You'll remember Raffles," said I, "if you don't remember me. You
was on the brink of bolting through the street door. It had never been shut
showed us your trophies the other night, and asked us both to look you up at
behind us. I shut it myself in the end. Yet it was small credit to me that I
any hour of the day or night after the fight."
actually remained on the same side of the door as Raffles.
I was going on to add that I had expected to find Raffles there before
"Reel home-grown, low-down, unwashed Whitechapel!" I had heard
me, to settle a wager that we had made about the man-trap. But the
Maguire remark within. "Blamed if our Bowery boys ain't cock-angels to
indiscretion was interrupted by Maguire himself, whose dreadful fist became
scum like this. Ah, you biter, I wouldn't soil my knuckles on your ugly face;
a hand that gripped mine with brute fervor, while with the other he clouted
but if I had my thick boots on I'd dance the soul out of your carcass for two
me on the back.
cents!"
"You don't say!" he cried. "I took you for some darned crook, but now I
After this it required less courage to join the others in the inner room;
remember you perfectly. If you hadn't've spoke up slick I'd have bu'st your
and for some moments even I failed to identify the truly repulsive object
face in, sonny. I would, sure! Come right in, and have a drink to show there's
about which I found them grouped. There was no false hair upon the face,
- Jeehoshaphat!"
but it was as black as any sweep's. The clothes, on the other hand, were
- 70 -
new to me, though older and more pestiferous in themselves than most worn rolled with rich delight from the decanter and glasses on the octagonal table
by Raffles for professional purposes. And at first, as I say, I was far from to another decanter in the quaintest and craftiest of revolving spirit tables.
sure whether it was Raffles at all.; but I remembered the crash that cut short
"Isn't it bully?" asked the prize-fighter, smiling on us each in turn, with
our talk over the telephone; and this inanimate heap of rags was lying
his black and bloodshot eyes and his bloated lip. "To think that I've only to
directly underneath a wall instrument, with the receiver dangling over him.
invent a trap to catch a crook, for a blamed crook to walk right into! You, Mr.
"Think you know him?" asked the sallow secretary, as I stooped and Man," and he nodded his great head at me, "you'll recollect me telling you
peered with my heart in my boots. that I'd gotten one when you come in that night with the other sport? Say,
pity he's not with you now; he was a good boy, and I liked him a lot; but he
"Good Lord, no! I only wanted to see if he was dead," I explained,
wanted to know too much, and I guess he'd got to want. But I'm liable to tell
having satisfied myself that it was really Raffles, and that Raffles was really
you now, or else bu'st. See that decanter on the table?"
insensible. "But what on earth has happened?" I asked in my turn.
"I was just looking at it," said the person in sequins. "You don't know
"That's what I want to know," whined the person in sequins, who had
what a turn I've had, or you'd offer me a little something."
contributed various ejaculations unworthy of report, and finally subsided
behind an ostentatious fan. "You shall have a little something in a minute," rejoined Maguire. "But if
you take a little anything out of that decanter, you'll collapse like our friend
"I should judge," observed the secretary, "that it's for Mr. Maguire to say,
upon the floor."
or not to say, just as he darn pleases."
"Good heavens!" I cried out, with involuntary indignation, and his fell
But the celebrated Barney stood upon a Persian hearth-rug, beaming
scheme broke upon me in a clap.
upon us all. in a triumph too delicious for immediate translation into words.
The room was furnished as a study, and most artistically furnished, if you "Yes, sir!" said Maguire, fixing me with his bloodshot orbs. "My trap for
consider outlandish shapes in fumed oak artistic. There was nothing of the crooks and cracksmen is a bottle of hocussed whiskey, and I guess that's it
traditional prize-fighter about Barney Maguire, except his vocabulary and his on the table, with the silver label around its neck. Now look at this other
lower jaw. I had seen over his house already, and it was fitted and decorated decanter, without any label at all.; but for that they're the dead spit of each
throughout by a high-art firm which exhibits just such a room as that which other. I'll put them side by side, so you can see. It isn't only the decanters,
was the scene of our tragedietta. The person in the sequins lay glistening but the liquor looks the same in both, and tastes so you wouldn't know the
like a landed salmon in a quaint chair of enormous nails and tapestry difference till you woke up in your tracks. I got the poison from a blamed
compact. The secretary leaned against an escritoire with huge hinges of Indian away west, and it's ruther ticklish stuff. So I keep the label around the
beaten metal. The pugilist's own background presented an elaborate trap-bottle, and only leave it out nights. That's the idea, and that's all. there is
scheme of oak and tiles, with inglenooks green from the joiner, and a china to it," added Maguire, putting the labelled decanter back in the stand. "But I
cupboard with leaded panes behind his bullet head. And his bloodshot eyes figure it's enough for ninety-nine crooks out of a hundred, and nineteen out
of twenty 'll have their liquor before they go to work."

- 71 -
 "I wouldn't figure on that," observed the secretary, with a downward The secretary had picked up the dangling receiver.
glance as though at the prostrate Raffles. "Have you looked to see if the
"It looks to me," said he, "as though the crook had rung up somebody
trophies are all. safe?"
before he went off."
"Not yet," said Maguire, with a glance at the pseudo-antique cabinet in
I turned and assisted the grand lady to the refreshment that she craved.
which he kept them. "Then you can save yourself the trouble," rejoined the
secretary, as he dived under the octagonal table, and came up with a small "Like his cheek!" Maguire thundered. "But who in blazes should he ring
black bag that I knew at a glance. It was the one that Raffles had used for up?"
heavy plunder ever since I had known him. "It'll all. come out," said the secretary. "They'll tell us at the central, and
The bag was so heavy now that the secretary used both hands to get it we shall find out fast enough."
on the table. In another moment he had taken out the jewelled belt presented "It don't matter now," said Maguire. "Let's have a drink and then rouse
to Maguire by the State of Nevada, the solid silver statuette of himself, and the devil up."
the gold brick from the citizens of Sacramento.
But now I was shaking in my shoes. I saw quite clearly what this meant.
Either the sight of his treasures, so nearly lost, or the feeling that the Even if I rescued Raffles for the time being, the police would promptly
thief had dared to tamper with them after all., suddenly infuriated Maguire to ascertain that it was I who had been rung up by the burglar, and the fact of
such an extent that he had bestowed a couple of brutal kicks upon the my not having said a word about it would be directly damning to me, if in the
senseless form of Raffles before the secretary and I could interfere. end it did not incriminate us both. It made me quite faint to feel that we might
"Play light, Mr. Maguire!" cried the sallow secretary. "The man's escape the Scylla of our present peril and yet split on the Charybdis of
drugged, as well as down." circumstantial evidence. Yet I could see no middle course of conceivable
safety, if I held my tongue another moment. So I spoke up desperately, with
"He'll be lucky if he ever gets up, blight and blister him!"
the rash resolution which was the novel feature of my whole conduct on this
"I should judge it about time to telephone for the police." occasion. But any sheep would be resolute and rash after dining with
Swigger Morrison at his club.
"Not till I've done with him. Wait till he comes to! I guess I'll punch his
face into a jam pudding! He shall wash down his teeth with his blood before "I wonder if he rang me up?" I exclaimed, as if inspired.
the coppers come in for what's left!"
"You, sonny?" echoed Maguire, decanter in hand. "What in hell could he
"You make me feel quite ill," complained the grand lady in the chair. "I know about you?"
wish you'd give me a little something, and not be more vulgar than you can
"Or what could you know about him?" amended the secretary, fixing me
'elp."
with eyes like drills.
"Help yourself," said Maguire, ungallantly, "and don't talk through your
hat. Say, what's the matter with the 'phone?"
- 72 -
 "Nothing," I admitted, regretting my temerity with all. my heart. "But "I was half asleep," I answered, "and he was the first person who
some one did ring me up about an hour ago. I thought it was Raffles. I told occurred to me. We are both on the telephone, you see. And we had made a
you I expected to find him here, if you remember." bet - "
"But I don't see what that's got to do with the crook," pursued the The glass was at my lips, but I was able to set it down untouched.
secretary, with his relentless eyes boring deeper and deeper into mine. Maguire's huge jaw had dropped upon his spreading shirt-front, and beyond
him I saw the person in sequins fast asleep in the artistic armchair.
"No more do I," was my miserable reply. But there was a certain comfort
in his words, and some simultaneous promise in the quantity of spirit which "What bet?" asked a voice with a sudden start in it. The secretary was
Maguire splashed into his glass. blinking as he drained his glass.
"Were you cut off sudden?" asked the secretary, reaching for the "About the very thing we've just had explained to us," said I, watching
decanter, as the three of us sat round the octagonal table. my man intently as I spoke. "I made sure it was a man-trap. Raffles thought it
must be something else. We had a tremendous argument about it. Raffles
"So suddenly," I replied, "that I never knew who it was who rang me up.
said it wasn't a man-trap. I said it was. We had a bet about it in the end. I put
No, thank you - not any for me."
my money on the man-trap. Raffles put his upon the other thing. And Raffles
"What!" cried Maguire, raising a depressed head suddenly. "You won't was right - it wasn't a man-trap. But it's every bit as good - every little bit -
have a drink in my house? Take care, young man. That's not being a good and the whole boiling of you are caught in it except me!"
boy!"
I sank my voice with the last sentence, but I might just as well have
"But I've been dining out," I expostulated, "and had my whack. I really raised it instead. I had said the same thing over and over again to see
have." whether the wilful tautology would cause the secretary to open his eyes. It
Barney Maguire smote the table with terrific seemed to have had the very opposite effect. His head fell forward on the
table, with never a quiver at the blow, never a twitch when I pillowed it upon
"Say, sonny, I like you a lot," said he. "But I shan't like you any if you're
one of his own sprawling arms. And there sat Maguire bolt upright, but for
not a good boy!"
the jowl upon his shirt-front, while the sequins twinkled in a regular rise and
"Very well, very well," I said hurriedly. "One finger, if I must." fall upon the reclining form of the lady in the fanciful chair. All. three were
And the secretary helped me to not more than two. sound asleep, by what accident or by whose design I did not pause to
inquire; it was enough to ascertain the fact beyond all. chance of error.
"Why should it have been your friend Raffles?" he inquired, returning
remorselessly to the charge, while Maguire roared "Drink up!" and then I turned my attention to Raffles last of all. There was the other side of
drooped once more. the medal. Raffles was still sleeping as sound as the enemy - or so I feared
at first I shook him gently: he made no sign. I introduced vigor into the
process: he muttered incoherently. I caught and twisted an unresisting wrist -

- 73 -
and at that he yelped profanely. But it was many and many an anxious should stay to see the fun; but in another minute I could hardly keep my eyes
moment before his blinking eyes knew mine. open. I realized then that I was fairly poisoned with some subtle drug. If I left
the house at all. in that state, I must leave the spoil behind, or be found
"Bunny!" he yawned, and nothing more until his position came back to
drunk in the gutter with my head on the swag itself. In any case I should
him. "So you came to me," he went on, in a tone that thrilled me with its
have been picked up and run in, and that might have led to anything."
affectionate appreciation, "as I knew you would! Have they turned up yet?
They will any minute, you know; there's not one to lose." "So you rang me up!"
"No, they won't, old man!" I whispered. And he sat up and saw the "It was my last brilliant inspiration - a sort of flash in the brain-pan before
comatose trio for himself. the end - and I remember very little about it. I was more asleep than awake
at the time."
Raffles seemed less amazed at the result than I had been as a puzzled
witness of the process; on the other hand, I had never seen anything quite "You sounded like it, Raffles, now that one has the clue."
so exultant as the smile that broke through his blackened countenance like a
"I can't remember a word I said, or what was the end of it, Bunny."
light. It was all. obviously no great surprise, and no puzzle at all., to Raffles.
"You fell in a heap before you came to the end."
"How much did they have, Bunny?" were his first whispered words.
"You didn't hear that through the telephone?"
"Maguire a good three fingers, and the others at least two."
"As though we had been in the same room: only I thought it was
"Then we needn't lower our voices, and we needn't walk on our toes.
Maguire who had stolen a march on you and knocked you out."
Eheu! I dreamed somebody was kicking me in the ribs, and I believe it must
have been true." I had never seen Raffles more interested and impressed; but at this
point his smile altered, his eyes softened, and I found my hand in his.
He had risen with a hand to his side and a wry look on his sweep's face.
"You thought that, and yet you came like a shot to do battle for my body
"You can guess which of them it was," said I. "The beast is jolly well
with Barney Maguire! Jack-the-Giant-killer wasn't in it with you, Bunny!"
served!"
"It was no credit to me - it was rather the other thing," said I,
And I shook my fist in the paralytic face of the most brutal bruiser of his
remembering my rashness and my luck, and confessing both in a breath.
time.
"You know old Swigger Morrison?" I added in final explanation. "I had been
"He is safe till the forenoon, unless they bring a doctor to him," said dining with him at his club!"
Raffles. "I don't suppose we could rouse him now if we tried. How much of
Raffles shook his long old head. And the kindly light in his eyes was still
the fearsome stuff do you suppose I took? About a tablespoonful! I guessed
my infinite reward.
what it was, and couldn't resist making sure; the minute I was satisfied, I
changed the label and the position of the two decanters, little thinking I

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 "I don't care," said he, "how deeply you had been dining: in vino veritas, "Splendid!" I cried. "They really were pressing it upon me at the end, and
Bunny, and your pluck would always out! I have never doubted it, and I never I did say it must be very little."
shall. In fact, I rely on nothing else to get us out of this mess."
"You dozed off in your turn, but you were naturally the first to come to
My face must have fallen, as my heart sank at these words. I had said to yourself. I had flown; so had the gold brick, the jewelled belt, and the silver
myself that we were out of the mess already - that we had merely to make a statuette. You tried to rouse the others. You couldn't succeed; nor would you
clean escape from the house - now the easiest thing in the world. But as I if you did try. So what did you do? What's the only really innocent thing you
looked at Raffles, and as Raffles looked at me, on the threshold of the room could do in the circumstances?"
where the three sleepers slept on without sound or movement, I grasped the
"Go for the police," I suggested dubiously, little relishing the prospect.
real problem that lay before us. It was twofold; and the funny thing was that I
had seen both horns of the dilemma for myself, before Raffles came to his "There's a telephone installed for the purpose," said Raffles. "I should
senses. But with Raffles in his right mind, I had ceased to apply my own, or ring them up, if I were you. Try not to look blue about it, Bunny. They're quite
to carry my share of our common burden another inch. It had been an the nicest fellows in the world, and what you have to tell them is a mere
unconscious withdrawal on my part, an instinctive tribute to my leader; but, I microbe to the camels I've made them swallow without a grain of salt. It's
was sufficiently ashamed of it as we stood and faced the problem in each really the most convincing story one could conceive; but unfortunately there's
other's eyes. another point which will take more explaining away."

"If we simply cleared out," continued Raffles, "you would be incriminated And even Raffles looked grave enough as I nodded.
in the first place as my accomplice, and once they had you they would have "You mean that they'll find out you rang me up?"
a compass with the needle pointing straight to me. They mustn't have either
"They may," said Raffles. "I see that I managed to replace the receiver
of us, Bunny, or they will get us both. And for my part they may as well!"
all. right. But still - they may."
I echoed a sentiment that was generosity itself in Raffles, but in my case
"I'm afraid they will," said I, uncomfortably. "I'm very much afraid I gave
a mere truism.
something of the kind away. You see, you had not replaced the receiver; it
"It's easy enough for me," he went on. "I am a common house-breaker, was dangling over you where you lay. This very question came up, and the
and I escape. They don't know me from Noah. But they do know you; and brutes themselves seemed so quick to see its possibilities that I thought best
how do you come to let me escape? What has happened to you, Bunny? to take the bull by the horns and own that I had been rung up by somebody.
That's the crux. What could have happened after they all. dropped off?" And To be absolutely honest, I even went so far as to say I thought it was
for a minute Raffles frowned and smiled like a sensation novelist working out Raffles!"
a plot; then the light broke, and transfigured him through his burnt cork. "I've
"You didn't, Bunny!"
got it, Bunny!" he exclaimed. "You took some of the stuff yourself, though of
course not nearly so much as they did. "What could I say? I was obliged to think of somebody, and I saw they
were not going to recognize you. So I put up a yarn about a wager we had
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made about this very trap of Maguire's. You see, Raffles, I've never properly That settled it. I gripped his hand without another word, and remained
told you how I got in, and there's no time now; but the first thing I had said on guard over the three sleepers while Raffles stole upstairs. I have since
was that I half expected to find you here before me. That was in case they learned that there were servants at the top of the house, and in the
spotted you at once. But it made all. that part about the telephone fit in rather basement a man, who actually heard some of our proceedings! But he was
well." mercifully too accustomed to nocturnal orgies, and those of a far more
uproarious character, to appear unless summoned to the scene. I believe he
"I should think it did, Bunny," murmured Raffles, in a tone that added
heard Raffles leave. But no secret was made of his exit: he let himself out
sensibly to my reward. "I couldn't have done better myself, and you will
and told me afterward that the first person he encountered in the street was
forgive my saying that you have never in your life done half so well. Talk
the constable on the beat. Raffles wished him good-morning, as well he
about that crack you gave me on the head! You have made it up to me a
might; for he had been upstairs to wash his face and hands; and in the prize-
hundredfold by all. you have done to-night. But the bother of it is that there's
fighter's great hat and fur coat he might have marched round Scotland Yard
still so much to do, and to hit upon, and so precious little time for thought as
itself, in spite of his having the gold brick from Sacramento in one pocket, the
well as action."
silver statuette of Maguire in the other, and round his waist the jewelled belt
I took out my watch and showed it to Raffles without a word. It was three presented to that worthy by the State of Nevada.
o'clock in the morning, and the latter end of March. In little more than an hour
My immediate part was a little hard after the excitement of those small
there would be dim daylight in the streets. Raffles roused himself from a
hours. I will only say that we had agreed that it would be wisest for me to lie
reverie with sudden decision.
like a log among the rest for half an hour, before staggering to my feet and
"There's only one thing for it, Bunny," said he. "We must trust each other rousing house and police; and that in that half-hour Barney Maguire crashed
and divide the labor. You ring up the police,(and leave the rest to me." to the floor, without waking either himself or his companions, though not
"You haven't hit upon any reason for the sort of burglar they think you without bringing my beating heart into the very roof of my mouth.
were, ringing up the kind of man they know I am?" It was daybreak when I gave the alarm with bell and telephone. In a few
"Not yet, Bunny, but I shall. It may not be wanted for a day or so, and minutes we had the house congested with dishevelled domestics, irascible
after all. it isn't for you to give the explanation. It would be highly suspicious if doctors, and arbitrary minions of the law. If I told my story once, I told it a
you did." dozen times, and all. on an empty stomach. But it was certainly a most
plausible and consistent tale, even without that confirmation which none of
"So it would," I agreed.
the other victims was as yet sufficiently recovered to supply. And in the end I
"Then will you trust me to hit on something - if possible before morning - was permitted to retire from the scene until required to give further
in any case by the time it s wanted? I won't fail you, Bunny. You must see information, or to identify the prisoner whom the good police confidently
how I can never, never fail you after to-night!" expected to make before the day was out.

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 I drove straight to the flat. The porter flew to help me out of my hansom. Old Raffles opened his own door to me. I cannot remember finding him
His face alarmed me more than any I had left in Half-moon Street. It alone fresher, more immaculate, more delightful to behold in every way. Could I
might have spelled my ruin. paint a picture of Raffles with something other than my pen, it would be as I
saw him that bright March morning, at his open door in the Albany, a trim,
"Your flat's been entered in the night, sir," he cried. "The thieves have
slim figure in matutinal gray, cool and gay and breezy as incarnate spring.
taken everything they could lay hands on."
"What on earth did you do it for?" I asked within.
"Thieves in my flat!" I ejaculated aghast. There were one or two
incriminating possessions up there, as well as at the Albany. "It was the only solution," he answered, handing me the cigarettes. "I
saw it the moment I got outside."
"The door's been forced with a jimmy," said the porter. "It was the
milkman who found it out. There's a constable up there now." "I don't see it yet."
A constable poking about in my flat of all. others! I rushed upstairs "Why should a burglar call an innocent gentleman away from home?"
without waiting for the lift. The invader was moistening his pencil between
"That's what we couldn't make out."
laborious notes in a fat pocketbook; he had penetrated no further than the
forced door. I dashed past him in a fever. I kept my trophies in a wardrobe "I tell you I got it directly I had left you. He called you away in order to
drawer specially fitted with a Bramah lock. The lock was broken - the drawer burgle you too, of course!"
void. And Raffles stood smiling upon me in all. his incomparable radiance and
"Something valuable, sir?" inquired the intrusive constable at my heels. audacity.

"Yes, indeed - some old family silver," I answered. It was quite true. But "But why me?" I asked. "Why on earth should he burgle me?"
the family was not mine. "My dear Bunny, we must leave something to the imagination of the
And not till then did the truth flash across my mind. Nothing else of value police. But we will assist them to a fact or two in due season. It was the dead
had been taken. But there was a meaningless litter in all. the rooms. I turned of night when Maguire first took us to his house; it was at the Imperial Boxing
to the porter, who had followed me up from the street; it was his wife who Club we met him; and you meet queer fish at the Imperial Boxing Club. You
looked after the flat. may remember that he telephoned to his man to prepare supper for us, and
that you and he discussed telephones and treasure as we marched through
"Get rid of this idiot as quick as you can," I whispered. "I'm going straight
the midnight streets. He was certainly bucking about his trophies, and for the
to Scotland Yard myself. Let your wife tidy the place while I'm gone, and
sake of the argument you will be good enough to admit that you probably
have the lock mended before she leaves. I'm going as I am, this minute!"
bucked about yours. What happens? You are overheard; you are followed;
And go I did, in the first hansom I could find - but not straight to Scotland you are worked into the same scheme, and robbed on the same night."
Yard. I stopped the cab in Picadilly on the way.
"And you really think this will meet the case?"

- 77 -
 "I am quite certain of it, Bunny, so far as it rests wit us to meet the case place had passed from our possession into that of an utter alien, against
at all." whom I harbored a prejudice which was some excuse in itself. He had
enlarged and altered the dear old place out of knowledge; nothing had been
"Then give me another cigarette, my dear fellow, and let me push on to
good enough for him as it stood in our day. The man was a hunting maniac,
Scotland Yard."
and where my dear father used to grow prize peaches under glass, this
Raffles held up both hands in admiring horror. "Scotland Yard!" vandal was soon stabling his hothouse thoroughbreds, which took prizes in
"To give a false description of what you took from that drawer in my their turn at all. the country shows. It was a southern county, and I never
wardrobe." went down there without missing another greenhouse and noting a
corresponding extension to the stables. Not that I ever set foot in the
"A false description! Bunny, you have no more to learn from me. Time
grounds from the day we left; but for some years I used to visit old friends in
was when I wouldn't have let you go there without me to retrieve a lost
the neighborhood, and could never resist the temptation to reconnoiter the
umbrella - let alone a lost cause!"
scenes of my childhood. And so far as could be seen from the road - which it
And for once I was not sorry for Raffles to have the last unworthy word, stood too near - the house itself appeared to be the one thing that the horsey
as he stood once more at his outer door and gayly waved me down the purchaser had left much as he found it.
stairs.
My only other excuse may be none at all. in any eyes but mine. It was
my passionate desire at this period to "keep up my end" with Raffles in every
Chapter 8 department of the game felonious. He would insist upon an equal division of
The Spoils of Sacrilege
all. proceeds; it was for me to earn my share. So far I had been useful only at
a pinch; the whole credit of any real success belonged invariably to Raffles.
There was one deed of those days which deserved a place in our
It had always been his idea. That was the tradition which I sought to end,
original annals. It is the deed of which I am personally most ashamed. I have
and no means could compare with that of my unscrupulous choice. There
traced the course of a score of felonies, from their source in the brain of
was the one house in England of which I knew every inch, and Raffles only
Raffles to their issue in his hands. I have omitted all. mention of the one
what I told him. For once I must lead, and Raffles follow, whether he liked it
which emanated from my own miserable mind. But in these supplementary
or not. He saw that himself; and I think he liked it better than he liked me for
memoirs, wherein I pledged myself to extenuate nothing more that I might
the desecration in view; but I had hardened my heart, and his feelings were
have to tell of Raffles, it is only fair that I should make as clean a breast of
too fine for actual remonstrance on such a point.
my own baseness. It was I, then, and I alone, who outraged natural
sentiment, and trampled the expiring embers of elementary decency, by I, in my obduracy, went to foul extremes. I drew plans of all. the floors
proposing and planning the raid upon my own old home. from memory. I actually descended upon my friends in the neighborhood,
with the sole object of obtaining snap-shots over our own old garden wall.
I would not accuse myself the more vehemently by making excuses at
Even Raffles could not keep his eyebrows down when I showed him the
this point. Yet I feel bound to state that it was already many years since the
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prints one morning in the Albany. But he confined his open criticisms to the "I don't much like a Friday, Bunny. Why make it one?"
house.
"It's the night of their Hunt Point-to-Point. They wind up the season with
"Built in the late 'sixties, I see," said Raffles, "or else very early in the it every year; and the bloated Guillemard usually sweeps the board with his
'seventies." fancy flyers."
"Exactly when it was built," I replied. "But that's worthy of a sixpenny "You mean the man in your old house?"
detective, Raffles! How on earth did you know?"
"Yes; and he tops up with no end of dinner there," I went on, "to his
"That slate tower bang over the porch, with the dormer windows and the hunting pals and the bloods who ride for him. If the festive board doesn't
iron railing and flagstaff atop makes us a present of the period. You see groan under a new regiment of challenge cups, it will be no fault of theirs,
them on almost every house of a certain size built about thirty years ago. and old Guillemard will have to do them top-hole all. the same."
They are quite the most useless excrescences I know."
"So it's a case of common pot-hunting," remarked Raffles, eyeing me
"Ours wasn't," I answered, with some warmth. "It was my sanctum shrewdly through the cigarette smoke.
sanctorum in the holidays. I smoked my first pipe up there, and wrote my first
"Not for us, my dear fellow," I made answer in his own tone. "I wouldn't
verses."
ask you to break into the next set of chambers here in the Albany for a few
Raffles laid a kindly hand upon my shoulder - "Bunny, Bunny, you can pieces of modern silver, Raffles. Not that we need scorn the cups if we get a
rob the old place, and yet you can't hear a word against it?" chance of lifting them, and if Guillemard does so in the first instance. It's by
no means certain that he will. But it is pretty certain to be a lively night for
"That's different," said I relentlessly. "The tower was there in my time,
him and his pals - and a vulnerable one for the best bedroom!"
but the man I mean to rob was not."
"Capital!" said Raffles, throwing coils of smoke between his smiles. "Still,
"You really do mean to do it, Bunny?"
if it's a dinner-party, the hostess won't leave her jewels upstairs. She'll wear
"By myself, if necessary? I averred. them, my boy."
"Not again, Bunny, not again," rejoined Raffles, laughing as he shook "Not all. of them, Raffles; she has far too many for that. Besides, it isn't
his head. "But do you think the man has enough to make it worth our while to an ordinary dinner-party; they say Mrs. Guillemard is generally the only lady
go so far afield?" there, and that she's quite charming in herself. Now, no charming woman
"Far afield! It's not forty miles on the London and Brighton." would clap on all. sail in jewels for a roomful of fox-hunters."

"Well, that's as bad as a hundred on most lines. And when did you say it "It depends what jewels she has."
was to be?" "Well, she might wear her rope of pearls."
"Friday week." "I should have said so."

- 79 -
 "And, of course, her rings." choice, every detail was premeditated, and an alternative expedient at each
finger's end for as many bare and awful possibilities. In this case, however,
"Exactly, Bunny."
the finished study stopped short at the garden gate or wall; there I was to
"But not necessarily her diamond tiara - " assume command; and though Raffles carried the actual tools of trade of
"Has she got one?" which he alone was master, it was on the understanding that for once I
should control and direct their use.
" - and certainly not her emerald and diamond necklace on top of all.!"
I had gone down in evening-clothes by an evening train, but had
Raffles snatched the Sullivan from his lips, and his eyes burned like its
carefully overshot old landmarks, and alighted at a small station some miles
end.
south of the one where I was still remembered. This committed me to a
"Bunny, do you mean to tell me there are all. these things?" solitary and somewhat lengthy tramp; but the night was mild and starry, and I
"Of course I do," said I. "They are rich people, and he's not such a brute marched into it with a high stomach; for this was to be no costume crime,
as to spend everything on his stable. Her jewels are as much the talk as his and yet I should have Raffles at my elbow all. the night. Long before I
hunters. My friends told me all. about both the other day when I was down reached my destination, indeed, he stood in wait for me on the white
making inquiries. They thought my curiosity as natural as my wish for a few highway, and we finished with linked arms.
snapshots of the old place. In their opinion the emerald necklace alone must "I came down early," said Raffles, "and had a look at the races. I always
be worth thousands of pounds." prefer to measure my man, Bunny; and you needn't sit in the front row of the
Raffles rubbed his hands in playful pantomime. stalls to take stock of your friend Guillemard. No wonder he doesn't ride his
own horses! The steeple-chaser isn't foaled that would carry him round that
"I only hope you didn't ask too many questions, Bunny! But if your course. But he's a fine monument of a man, and he takes his troubles in a
friends are such old friends, you will never enter their heads when they hear way that makes me blush to add to them."
what has happened, unless you are seen down there on the night, which
might be fatal. Your approach will require some thought: if you like I can work "Did he lose a horse?" I inquired cheerfully.
out the shot for you. I shall go down independently, and the best thing may "No, Bunny, but he didn't win a race! His horses were by chalks the best
be to meet outside the house itself on the night of nights. But from that there, and his pals rode them like the foul fiend, but with the worst of luck
moment I am in your hands." every time. Not that you'd think it, from the row they're making. I've been
And on these refreshing lines our plan of campaign was gradually listening to them from the road - you always did say the house stood too
developed and elaborated into that finished study on which Raffles would near it."
rely like any artist of the footlights. None were more capable than he of "Then you didn't go in?"
coping with the occasion as it rose, of rising himself with the emergency of
the moment, of snatching a victory from the very dust of defeat. Yet, for

- 80 -
 "When it's your show? You should know me better. Not a foot would I enormous fellow, with a great red face and cropped moustache, occupied my
set on the premises behind your back. But here they are, so perhaps you'll poor father's place; he it was who had replaced our fruitful vineries with his
lead the way." stinking stables; but I am bound to own he looked a genial clod, as he sat in
his fat and listened to the young bloods boasting of their prowess, or
And I led it without a moment's hesitation, through the unpretentious six-
elaborately explaining their mishaps. And for a minute we listened also,
barred gate into the long but shallow crescent of the drive. There were two
before I remembered my responsibilities, and led Raffles round to the back
such gates, one at each end of the drive, but no lodge at either, and not a
of the house.
light nearer than those of the house. The shape and altitude of the lighted
windows, the whisper of the laurels on either hand, the very feel of the gravel There never was an easier house to enter. I used to feel that keenly as a
underfoot, were at once familiar to my senses as the sweet, relaxing, boy, when, by a prophetic irony, burglars were my bugbear, and I looked
immemorial air that one drank deeper at every breath. Our stealthy advance under my bed every night in life. The bow-windows on the ground floor
was to me like stealing back into one's childhood; and yet I could conduct it finished in inane balconies to the first-floor windows. These balconies had
without compunction. I was too excited to feel immediate remorse, albeit not ornamental iron railings, to which a less ingenious rope-ladder than ours
too lost in excitement to know that remorse for every step that I was taking could have been hitched with equal ease. Raffles had brought it with him,
would be my portion soon enough. I mean every word that I have written of round his waist, and he carried the telescopic stick for fixing it in place. The
my peculiar shame for this night's work. And it was all. to come over me one was unwound, and the other put together, in a secluded corner of the
before the night was out. But in the garden I never felt it once. red-brick walls, where of old I had played my own game of squash-rackets in
the holidays. I made further investigations in the starlight, and even found a
The dining-room windows blazed in the side of the house facing the
trace of my original white line along the red wall.
road. That was an objection to peeping through the venetian blinds, as we
nevertheless did, at our peril of observation from the road. Raffles would But it was not until we had effected our entry through the room which
never have led me into danger so gratuitous and unnecessary, but he had been my very own, and made our parlous way across the lighted
followed me into it without a word. I can only plead that we both had our landing, to the best bedroom of those days and these, that I really felt myself
reward. There was a sufficient chink in the obsolete venetians, and through it a worm. Twin brass bedsteads occupied the site of the old four-poster from
we saw every inch of the picturesque board. Mrs. Guillemard was still in her which I had first beheld the light. The doors were the same; my childish
place, but she really was the only lady, and dressed as quietly as I had hands had grasped these very handles. And there was Raffles securing the
prophesied; round her neck was her rope of pearls, but not the glimmer of an landing door with wedge and gimlet, the very second after softly closing it
emerald nor the glint of a diamond, nor yet the flashing constellation of a behind us.
tiara in her hair. I gripped Raffles in token of my triumph, and he nodded as
"The other leads into the dressing-room, of course? Then you might be
he scanned the overwhelming majority of flushed fox-hunters. With the
fixing the outer dressing-room door," he whispered at his work, "but not the
exception of one stripling, evidently the son of the house, they were in
middle one Bunny, unless you want to. The stuff will be in there, you see, if it
evening pink to a man; and as I say, their faces matched their coats. An
isn't in here."
- 81 -
 My door was done in a moment, being fitted with a powerful bolt; but expeditious removal of both on our return to terra firma. Conceive my cold
now an aching conscience made me busier than I need have been. I had horror on arriving at the open window just in time to see the last of hooks and
raised the rope-ladder after us into my own old room, and while Raffles bending rod, as they floated out of sight and reach into the outer darkness of
wedged his door I lowered the ladder from one of the best bedroom the night, removed by some silent and invisible hand below!
windows, in order to prepare that way of escape which was a fundamental
"Raffles-Raffles - they've spotted us and moved the ladder this very
feature of his own strategy. I meant to show Raffles that I had not followed in
instant!"
his train for nothing. But I left it to him to unearth the jewels. I had begun by
turning up the gas; there appeared to be no possible risk in that; and Raffles So I panted as I rushed on tiptoe to the dressing-room. Raffles had the
went to work with a will in the excellent light. There were some good pieces working end of his jimmy under the lid of a leathern jewel case. It flew open
in the room, including an ancient tallboy in fruity mahogany, every drawer of at the vicious twist of his wrist that preceded his reply.
which was turned out on the bed without avail. A few of the drawers had "Did you let them see that you'd spotted that?"
locks to pick, yet not one triffle to our taste within. The situation became
"No."
serious as the minutes flew. We had left the party at its sweets; the solitary
lady might be free to roam her house at any minute. In the end we turned our "Good! Pocket some of these cases - no time to open them. Which
attention to the dressing-room. And no sooner did Raffles behold the bolted door's nearest the backstairs?"
door than up went his hands. "The other."
"A bathroom bolt," he cried below his breath, "and no bath in the room! "Come on then?"
Why didn't you tell me, Bunny? A bolt like that speaks volumes; there's none
on the bedroom door, remember, and this one's worthy of a strong room! "No, no, I'll lead the way. I know every inch of it."
What if it is their strong room, Bunny! Oh, Bunny, what if this is their safe?" And, as I leaned against the bedroom door, handle in hand, while
Raffles had dropped upon his knees before a carved oak chest of Raffles stooped to unscrew the gimlet and withdraw the wedge, I hit upon the
indisputable antiquity. Its panels were delightfully irregular, its angles ideal port in the storm that was evidently about to burst on our devoted
faultlessly faulty, its one modern defilement a strong lock to the lid. Raffles heads. It was the last place in which they would look for a couple of expert
was smiling as he produced his jimmy. R - r - r - rip went lock or lid in cracksmen with no previous knowledge of the house. If only we could gain
another ten seconds - I was not there to see which. I had wandered back into my haven unobserved, there we might lie in unsuspected hiding, and by the
the bedroom in a paroxysm of excitement and suspense. I must keep busy hour, if not for days and nights.
as well. as Raffles, and it was not too soon to see whether the rope-ladder Alas for that sanguine dream! The wedge was out, and Raffles on his
was all. right. In another minute . . . feet behind me. I opened the door, and for a second the pair of us stood
I stood frozen to the floor. I had hooked the ladder beautifully to the upon the threshold.
inner sill of wood, and had also let down the extended rod for the more
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 Creeping up the stairs before us, each on the tip of his silken toes, was upon the tower floor. In he sprawled after me, and down went the trap-door
a serried file of pink barbarians, redder in the face than anywhere else, and with a bang upon the leading hound.
armed with crops carried by the wrong end. The monumental person with the
I hoped to feel his dead-weight shake the house, as he crashed upon
short moustache led the advance. The fool stood still upon the top step to let
the floor below; but the fellow must have ducked, and no crash came.
out the loudest and cheeriest view-holloa that ever smote my ears.
Meanwhile not a word passed between Raffles and me; he had followed me,
It cost him more than he may know until I tell him. There was the wide as I had led him, without waste of breath upon a single syllable. But the
part of the landing between us; we had just that much start along the narrow merry lot below were still yelling and bellowing in full cry.
part, with the walls and doors upon our left, the banisters on our right, and
"Gone to ground? screamed one.
the baize door at the end. But if the great Guillemard had not stopped to live
up to his sporting reputation, he would assuredly have laid one or other of us "Where's the terrier?" screeched another.
by the heels, and either would have been tantamount to both. As I gave But their host of the mighty girth - a man like a soda-water bottle, from
Raffles a headlong lead to the baize door, I glanced down the great well of my one glimpse of him on his feet - seemed sobered rather than stunned by
stairs, and up came the daft yells of these sporting oafs: the crack on that head of his. We heard his fine voice no more, but we could
"Gone away - gone away!" feel him straining every thew against the trap-door upon which Raffles and I
stood side by side. At least I thought Raffles was standing, until he asked me
"Yoick - yoick - yoick?"
to strike a light, when I found him on his knees instead of on his feet, busy
"Yon-der they go?" screwing down the trap-door with his gimlet. He carried three or four gimlets
for wedging doors, and he drove them all. in to the handle, while I pulled at
And gone I had, through the baize door to the back landing, with Raffles
the stanchion and pushed with my feet.
at my heels. I held the swing door for him, and heard him bang it in the face
of the spluttering and blustering master of the house. Other feet were already But the upward pressure ceased before our efforts. We heard the ladder
in the lower flight of the backstairs; but the upper flight was the one for me, creak again under a ponderous and slow descent; and we stood upright in
and in an instant we were racing along the upper corridor with the chuckle- the dim flicker of a candle-end that I had lit and left burning on the floor.
headed pack at our heels. Here it was all. but dark - they were the servants' Raffles glanced at the four small windows in turn and then at me. "Is there
bedrooms that we were passing now - but I knew what I was doing. Round any way out at all.?" he whispered, as no other being would or could have
the last corner to the right, through the first door to the left and we were in whispered to the man who had led him into such a trap. "We've no rope-
the room underneath the tower. In our time a long stepladder had led to the ladder, you know."
tower itself. I rushed in the dark to the old corner. Thank God, the ladder was
"Thanks to me," I groaned. "The whole thing's my fault?
there still! It leaped under us as we rushed aloft like one quadruped. The
breakneck trap-door was still protected by a curved brass stanchion; this I "Nonsense, Bunny; there was no other way to run. But what about these
grasped with one hand, and then Raffles with the other as I felt my feet firm windows?"

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 His magnanimity took me by the throat; without a word I led him to the "No, I won't. I can't see it myself. But here's the lightning-conductor,
one window looking inward upon sloping slates and level leads. Often as a where it always was."
boy I had clambered over them, for the fearful fun of risking life and limb, or
"How thick," asked Raffles, as I drew in and rejoined him.
the fascination of peering through the great square skylight, down the well of
the house into the hall below. There were, however, several smaller "Rather thicker than a lead-pencil."
skylights, for the benefit of the top floor, through any one of which I thought "They sometimes bear you," said Raffles, slipping on a pair of white kid
we might have made a dash. But at a glance I saw we were too late: one of gloves, and stuffing his handkerchief into the palm of one. "The difficulty is to
these skylights became a brilliant square before our eyes; opened, and keep a grip; but I've been up and down them before to-night. And it's our only
admitted a flushed face on flaming shoulders. chance. I'll go first, Bunny: you watch me, and do exactly as I do if I get down
"I'll give them a fright!" said Raffles through his teeth. In an instant he all. right."
had plucked out his revolver, smashed the window with its butt, and the "But if you don't?"
slates with a bullet not a yard from the protruding head. And that, I believe,
"If I don't," whispered Raffles, as he wormed through the window feet
was the only shot that Raffles ever fired in his whole career as a midnight
foremost, "I'm afraid you'll have to face the music where you are, and I shall
marauder.
have the best of it down in Acheron!"
"You didn't hit him?" I gasped, as the head disappeared, and we heard a
And he slid out of reach without another word, leaving me to shudder
crash in the corridor.
alike at his levity and his peril; nor could I follow him very far by the wan light
"Of course I didn't, Bunny," he replied, backing into the tower; "but no of the April stars; but I saw his forearms resting a moment in the spout that
one will believe I didn't mean to, and it'll stick on ten years if we're caught. ran around the tower, between bricks and slates, on the level of the floor;
That's nothing, if it gives us an extra five minutes now, while they hold a and I had another dim glimpse of him lower still, on the eaves over the very
council of war. Is that a working flag-staff overhead?" room that we had ransacked. Thence the conductor ran straight to earth in
"It used to be." an angle of the facade. 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
"Then there'll be halliards."
nerves, and my head swam as I mounted to the window and prepared to
"They were as thin as clothes-lines.". creep out backward in my turn.
"And they're sure to be rotten, and we should be seen cutting them So it was that at the last moment I had my first unobstructed view of the
down. No, Bunny, that won't do. Wait a bit. Is there a lightning conductor?" 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
"There was."
itself of innocent memory. A lesser ladder still ascended to a tinier trap-door
I opened one of the side windows and reached out as far as I could. xyz in the apex of the tower; the fixed seats looked to me to be wearing their old,
"You'll be seen from that skylight? cried Raffles in a warning undertone.
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old coat of grained varnish; nay the varnish had its ancient smell, and the "That's for the police," said Raffles, waiting for me. "But the fun's only
very vanes outside creaked their message to my ears. I remembered whole beginning in the stables. Hear the uproar, and see the lights! In another
days that I had spent, whole books that I had read, here in this favorite minute they'll be turning out the hunters for the last run of the season
fastness of my boyhood. The dirty little place, with the dormer window in
"We mustn't give them one, Raffles?"
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 "Of course we mustn't; but that means stopping where we are."
pockets full of stolen jewels! A superstition seized me. Suppose the "We can't do that?"
conductor came down with me . . . suppose I slipped . . . and was picked up
"If they're wise they'll send a man to every railway station within ten
dead, with the proceeds of my shameful crime upon me, under the very
miles and draw every cover inside the radius. I can only think of one that's
windows
not likely to occur to them."
. . . where the sun
"What's that?"
Came peeping in at dawn . . .
"The other side of this wall. How big is the garden, Bunny?"
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 "Six or seven acres."
through my palms so that both were torn and bleeding when I stood panting "Well, you must take me to another of your old haunts, where we can lie
beside Raffles in the flower-beds. There was no time for thinking then. low till morning."
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 "And then?"
rush downstairs; and I raced after Raffles along the edge of the drive without "Sufficient for the night, Bunny! The first thing is to find a burrow. What
daring to look behind. are those trees at the end of this lane?"
We came out by the opposite gate to that by which we had stolen in. "St. Leonard's Forest."
Sharp to the right ran the private lane behind the stables and sharp to the
"Magnificent! They'll scour every inch of that before they come back to
right dashed Raffles, instead of straight along the open road. It was not the
their own garden. Come, Bunny, give me a leg up, and I'll pull you after me
course I should have chosen, but I followed Raffles without a murmur, only
in two ticks?
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 There was indeed nothing better to be done; and, much as I loathed and
yard, and the great gates were opening as we skimmed past in the nick of dreaded entering the place again, I had already thought of a second
time. In another minute we were skulking in the shadow of the kitchen- sanctuary of old days, which might as well be put to the base uses of this
garden wall while the high-road rang with the dying tattoo of galloping hoofs. 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

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shores were shelving lawn and steep banks of rhododendrons; and among Even then I only supposed that he had posted himself outside in some
the rhododendrons nestled a tiny boathouse which had been my childish joy. more commanding position. I took a catlike stride and breathed his name.
It was half a dock for the dingy in which one plowed these miniature waters There was no answer. I ventured further, till I could overlook the lawns: they
and half a bathing-box for those who preferred their morning tub among the lay like clean slates in the starlight: there was no sign of living thing nearer
goldfish. I could not think of a safer asylum than this, if we must spend the than the house, which was still lit up, but quiet enough now. Was it a cunning
night upon the premises; and Raffles agreed with me when I had led him by and deliberate quiet assumed as a snare? Had they caught Raffles, and
sheltering shrubbery and perilous lawn to the diminutive chalet between the were they waiting for me? I returned to the boat-house in an agony of fear
rhododendrons and the water. 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
But what a night it was! The little bathing-box had two doors, one to the
would not go out to meet him. I sat where I was while the stealthy step came
water, the other to the path. To hear all. that could be heard, it was
nearer, nearer; and there I was sitting when the door opened, and a huge
necessary to keep both doors open, and quite imperative not to talk. The
man in riding-clothes stood before me in the steely dawn.
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 I leaped to my feet, and the huge man clapped me playfully on the
was renewed and multiplied in my brain; and all. the time one's ears were shoulder.
pricked for footsteps on the path between the rhododendrons. The only
"Sorry I've been so long, Bunny, but we should never have got away as
sounds we could at first identify came one and all. from the stables. Yet there
we were; this riding-suit makes a new man of me, on top of my own, and
the excitement subsided sooner than we had expected, and it was Raffles
here's a youth's kit that should do you down to the ground."
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 "So you broke into the house again?
after midnight; and Raffles, who was beginning to scout among the "I was obliged to, Bunny; but I had to watch the lights out one by one,
shrubberies, stole back to tell me that the guests were departing, and being and give them a good hour after that I went through that dressing room at my
sped, with an unimpaired conviviality which he failed to understand. I said I leisure this time; the only difficulty was to spot the son's quarters at the back
could not understand it either, but suggested the general influence of liquor, of the house; but I overcame it, as you see, in the end. I only hope they'll fit,
and expressed my envy of their state. I had drawn my knees up to my chin, Bunny. Give me your patent leathers, and I'll fill them with stones and sink
on the bench where one used to dry one's self after bathing, and there I sat them in the pond. I'm doing the same with mine. Here's a brown pair apiece,
in a seeming stolidity at utter variance with my inward temper. I heard Raffles and we mustn't let the grass grow under them if we're to get to the station in
creep forth again and I let him go without a word. I never doubted that he time for the early train while the coast's still clear."
would be back again in a minute, and so let many minutes elapse before I
The early train leaves the station in question at 6.20 A.M.; and that fine
realized his continued absence, and finally crept out myself to look for him.
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

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mobsmen that he took no notice of the huge man in riding-clothes, who was "Yet she was wearing neither, as you prophesied, and as we both saw
obviously intoxicated, or the more insignificant but not less horsy character for ourselves?
who had him in hand. The early train is due at Victoria at 8.28, but these
I had not taken my eyes from his.
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- "Raffles," I said, "I'll be frank with you after all. I meant you never to
wheeler. It was barely nine o'clock when they sat together in the Albany, and know, but it's easier than telling you a lie. I left both things behind me in the
might have been recognized once more as Raffles and myself. tower. I won't attempt to explain or defend myself; it was probably the
influence of the tower, and nothing else; but the whole thing came over me at
"And now," said Raffles, "before we do anything else, let us turn out
the last moment, when you had gone and I was going. I felt that I should very
those little cases that we hadn't time to open when we took them. I mean the
probably break my neck, that I cared very little whether I did or not, but that it
ones I handed to you, Bunny. I had a look into mine in the garden, and I'm
would be frightful to break it at that house with those things in my pocket.
sorry to say there was nothing in them. The lady must have been wearing
You may say I ought to have thought of all. that before! you may say what
their proper contents."
you like, and you won't say more than I deserve. It was hysterical, and it was
Raffles held out his hand for the substantial leather cases which I had mean, for I kept the cases to impose on you."
produced at his request. But that was the extent of my compliance; instead
"You were always a bad liar, Bunny," said Raffles, smiling. "Will you
of handing them over, I looked boldly into the eyes that seemed to have
think me one when I tell you that I can understand what you felt, and even
discerned my wretched secret at one glance.
what you did? As a matter of fact, I have understood for several hours now."
"It is no use my giving them to you," I said. "They are empty also."
"You mean what I felt, Raffles?"
"When did you look into them?"
"And what you did. I guessed it in the boathouse. I knew that something
"In the tower." must have happened or been discovered to disperse that truculent party of
sportsmen so soon and on such good terms with themselves. They had not
"Well, let me see for myself."
got us; they might have got something better worth having; and your
"As you like." phlegmatic attitude suggested what. As luck would have it, the cases that I
"My dear Bunny, this one must have contained the necklace you personally had collared were the empty ones; the two prizes had fallen to
boasted about." you. Well, to allay my horrid suspicion, I went and had another peep through
the lighted venetians. And what do you think I saw?"
"Very likely."
I shook my head. I had no idea, nor was I very eager for enlightenment.
"And this one the tiara."
"The two poor people whom it was your own idea to despoil," quoth
"I dare say."
Raffles, "prematurely gloating over these two pretty things?

- 87 -
 He withdrew a hand from either pocket of his crumpled dinner-jacket, page. Its subject was the so-called Black Museum at Scotland Yard; and
and opened the pair under my nose. In one was a diamond tiara, and in the from the catchpenny text we first learned that the gruesome show was now
other a necklace of fine emeralds set in clusters of brilliants. enriched by a special and elaborate exhibit known as the Raffles Relics.
"You must try to forgive me, Bunny," continued Raffles before I could "Bunny," said Raffles, "this is fame at last! It is no longer notoriety; it lifts
speak. "I don't say a word against what you did, or undid; in fact, now it's all. one out of the ruck of robbers into the society of the big brass gods, whose
over, I am rather glad to think that you did try to undo it. But, my dear fellow, little delinquencies are written in water by the finger of time. The Napoleon
we had both risked life, limb, and liberty; and I had not your sentimental Relics we know, the Nelson Relics we've heard about, and here are mine!"
scruples. Why should I go empty away? If you want to know the inner history
"Which I wish to goodness we could see," I added, longingly. Next
of my second visit to that good fellow's dressing-room, drive home for a fresh
moment I was sorry I had spoken. Raffles was looking at me across the
kit and meet me at the Turkish bath in twenty minutes. I feel more than a little
magazine. There was a smile on his lips that I knew too well, a light in his
grubby, and we can have our breakfast in the cooling gallery. Besides, after
eyes that I had kindled.
a whole night in your old haunts, Bunny, it's only in order to wind up in
Northumberland Avenue." "What an excellent idea? he exclaimed, quite softly, as though working it
out already in his brain.
Chapter 9
The Raffles Relics "I didn't mean it for one," I answered, "and no more do you."

It was in one of the magazines for December, 1899, that an article "Certainly I do," said Raffles. "I was never more serious in my life."
appeared which afforded our minds a brief respite from the then consuming "You would march into Scotland Yard in broad daylight?"
excitement of the war in South Africa. These were the days when Raffles
really had white hair, and when he and I were nearing the end of our "In broad lime-light," he answered, studying the magazine again, "to set
surreptitious second innings, as professional cracksmen of the deadliest dye. eyes on my own once more. Why here they all. are, Bunny - you never told
Piccadilly and the Albany knew us no more. But we still operated, as the me there was an illustration. That's the chest you took to your bank with me
spirit tempted us, from our latest and most idyllic base, on the borders of inside, and those must be my own rope-ladder and things on top. They
Ham Common. Recreation was our greatest want; and though we had both produce so badly in the baser magazines that it's impossible to swear to
descended to the humble bicycle, a lot of reading was forced upon us in the them; there's nothing for it but a visit of inspection."
winter evenings. Thus the war came as a boon to us both. It not only "Then you can pay it alone," said I grimly. "You may have altered, but
provided us with an honest interest in life, but gave point and zest to they'd know me at a glance."
innumerable spins across Richmond Park, to the nearest paper shop; and it
"By all. means, Bunny, if you'll get me the pass."
was from such an expedition that I returned with inflammatory matter
unconnected with the war. The magazine was one of those that are read
(and sold) by the million; the article was rudely illustrated on every other

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 "A pass? I cried triumphantly. "Of course we should have to get one, "But he doesn't want to come," as I explained to Raffles. "And it means
and of course that puts an end to the whole idea. Who on earth would give a that we can both go, if we both like."
pass for this show, of all. others, to an old prisoner like me?"
Raffles looked at me with a wry smile; he was in good enough humor
Raffles addressed himself to the reading of the magazine with a shrug now.
that showed some temper.
"It would be rather dangerous, Bunny. If they spotted you, they might
"The fellow who wrote this article got one," said he shortly. "He got it think of me."
from his editor, and you can get one from yours if you tried. But pray don't
"But you say they'll never know you now."
try, Bunny: it would be too terrible for you to risk a moment's embarrassment
to gratify a mere whim of mine. And if I went instead of you and got spotted, "I don't believe they will. I don't believe there's the slightest risk; but we
which is so likely with this head of hair, and the general belief in my demise, shall soon see. I've set my heart on seeing, Bunny, but there's no earthly
the consequences to you would be too awful to contemplate! Don't reason why I should drag you into it."
contemplate them, my dear fellow. And do let me read my magazine." "You do that when you present this card," I pointed out. "I shall hear of it
Need I add that I set about the rash endeavor without further fast enough if anything happens."
expostulation? I was used to such ebullitions from the altered Raffles of "Then you may as well be there to see the fun?"
these later days, and I could well understand them. All. the inconvenience of
"It will make no difference if the worst comes to the worst."
the new conditions fell on him. I had purged my known offences by
imprisonment, whereas Raffles was merely supposed to have escaped "And the ticket is for a party, isn't it?"
punishment in death. The result was that I could rush in where Raffles feared "It is."
to tread, and was his plenipotentiary in all. honest dealings with the outer
world. It could not but gall him to be so dependent upon me, and it was for "It might even look peculiar if only one person made use of it?"
me to minimize the humiliation by scrupulously avoiding the least semblance "It might."
of an abuse of that power which I now had over him. Accordingly, though
"Then we're both going, Bunny! And I give you my word," cried Raffles,
with much misgiving, I did his ticklish behest in Fleet Street, where, despite
"that no real harm shall come of it. But you mustn't ask to see the Relics, and
my past, I was already making a certain lowly footing for myself. Success
you mustn't take too much interest in them when you do see them. Leave the
followed as it will when one longs to fail; and one fine evening I returned to
questioning to me: it really will be a chance of finding out whether they've
Ham Common with a card from the Convict Supervision Office, New
any suspicion of one's resurrection at Scotland Yard. Still I think I can
Scotland Yard, which I treasure to this day. I am surprised to see that it was
promise you a certain amount of fun, old fellow, as some little compensation
undated, and might still almost "Admit Bearer to see the Museum," to say
for your pangs and fears?
nothing of the bearer's friends, since my editor's name "and party" is
scrawled beneath the legend.
- 89 -
 The early afternoon was mild and hazy, and unlike winter but for the except the row of murderers' death-masks - the placid faces with the swollen
prematurely low sun struggling through the haze, as Raffles and I emerged necks - that stood out on their shelves to give us ghostly greeting.
from the nether regions at Westminster Bridge, and stood for one moment to
"This fellow isn't formidable," whispered Raffles, as the blinds went up;
admire the infirm silhouettes of Abbey and Houses in flat gray against a
"still, we can't be too careful. My little lot are round the corner, in the sort of
golden mist. Raffles murmured of Whistler and of Arthur Severn, and threw
recess; don't look till we come to them in their turn."
away a good Sullivan because the smoke would curl between him and the
picture. It is perhaps the picture that I can now see clearest of all. the set So we began at the beginning, with the glass case nearest the door; and
scenes of our lawless life. But at the time I was filled with gloomy speculation in a moment I discovered that I knew far more about its contents than our
as to whether Raffles would keep his promise of providing an entirely pallid guide. He had some enthusiasm, but the most inaccurate smattering of
harmless entertainment for my benefit at the Black Museum. his subject. He mixed up the first murderer with quite the wrong murder, and
capped his mistake in the next breath with an intolerable libel on the very
We entered the forbidding precincts; we looked relentless officers in the
pearl of our particular tribe.
face, and they almost yawned in ours as they directed us through swing
doors and up stone stairs. There was something even sinister in the casual "This revawlver," he began, "belonged to the celebrited burgular,
character of our reception. We had an arctic landing to ourselves for several Chawles Peace. These are his spectacles, that's his jimmy, and this here
minutes, which Raffles spent in an instinctive survey of the premises, while I knife's the one that Chawley killed the policeman with."
cooled my heels before the portrait of a late commissioner. Now I like accuracy for its own sake, strive after it myself, and am
"Dear old gentleman? exclaimed Raffles, joining me. "I have met him at sometimes guilty of forcing it upon others. So this was more than I could
dinner, and discussed my own case with him, in the old days. But we can't pass.
know too little about ourselves in the Black Museum, Bunny. I remember "That's not quite right," I put in mildly. "He never made use of the knife."
going to the old place in Whitehall, years ago, and being shown round by
The young clerk twisted his head round in its vase of starch.
one of the tip-top 'tecs. And this may be another."
"Chawley Peace killed two policemen," said he.
But even I could see at a glance that there was nothing of the detective
and everything of the clerk about the very young man who had joined us at "No, he didn't; only one of them was a policeman; and he never killed
last upon the landing. His collar was the tallest I have ever seen, and his anybody with a knife."
face was as pallid as his collar. He carried a loose key, with which he The clerk took the correction like a lamb. I could not have refrained from
unlocked a door a little way along the passage, and so ushered us into that making it, to save my skin. But Raffles rewarded me with as vicious a little
dreadful repository which perhaps has fewer visitors than any other of equal kick as he could administer unobserved. "Who was Charles Peace?" he
interest in the world. The place was cold as the inviolate vault; blinds had to inquired, with the bland effrontery of any judge upon the bench.
be drawn up, and glass cases uncovered, before we could see a thing

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 The clerk's reply came pat and unexpected. "The greatest burgular we the jeweller was to take it away and not meddle with it, nor yet break the
ever had," said he, "till good old Raffles knocked him out!" seals, for a week or two. It seemed a fair enough thing, now, didn't it, sir?"
"The greatest of the pre-Raffleites," the master murmured, as we "Eminently fair," said Raffles sententiously.
passed on to the safer memorials of mere murder. There were misshapen
"So the jeweller thought," crowed the clerk. "You see, it wasn't as if the
bullets and stained knives that had taken human life; there were lithe, lean
Yanks had chosen out the half of what he'd brought on appro.; they'd gone
ropes which had retaliated after the live letter of the Mosaic law. There was
slow on purpose, and they'd paid for all. they could on the nail, just for a
one bristling broadside of revolvers under the longest shelf of closed eyes
blind. Well, I suppose you can guess what happened in the end? The
and swollen throats. There were festoons of rope-ladders - none so
jeweller never heard of those Americans again; and these few cigarettes and
ingenious as ours - and then at last there was something that the clerk knew
lumps of sugar were all. he found."
all. about. It was a small tin cigarette-box, and the name upon the gaudy
wrapper was not the name of Sullivan. Yet Raffles and I knew even more "Duplicate boxes? I cried, perhaps a thought too promptly.
about this exhibit than the clerk. "Duplicate boxes!" murmured Raffles, as profoundly impressed as a
"There, now," said our guide, "you'll never guess the history of that! I'll second Mr. Pickwick.
give you twenty guesses, and the twentieth will be no nearer than the first" "Duplicate boxes!" echoed the triumphant clerk. "Artful beggars, these
"I'm sure of it, my good fellow," rejoined Raffles, a discreet twinkle in his Americans, sir! You've got to crawss the 'Erring Pond to learn a trick worth
eye. "Tell us about it, to save time." one o' that?"

And he opened, as he spoke, his own old twenty-five tin of purely "I suppose so," assented the grave gentleman wit the silver hair.
popular cigarettes; there were a few in it still, but between the cigarettes "Unless," he added, as if suddenly inspired, "unless it was that man Raffles."
were jammed lumps of sugar wadded with cotton-wool. I saw Raffles "It couldn't 've bin," jerked the clerk from his conning-tower of a collar.
weighing the lot in his hand with subtle satisfaction. But the clerk saw merely "He'd gone to Davy Jones long before."
the mystification which he desired to create.
"Are you sure?" asked Raffles. "Was his body ever found?"
"I thought that'd beat you, sir," said he. "It was an American dodge. Two
"Found and buried," replied our imaginative friend. "Malter, I think it was;
smart Yankees got a jeweller to take a lot of stuff to a private room at
or it may have been Giberaltar. I forget which."
Keliner's, where they were dining, for them to choose from. When it came to
paying, there was some bother about a remittance; but they soon made that "Besides," I put in, rather annoyed at all. this wilful work, yet not
all. right, for they were far too clever to suggest taking away what they'd indisposed to make a late contribution - "besides, Raffles would never have
chosen but couldn't pay for. No, all. they wanted was that what they'd chosen smoked those cigarettes. There was only one brand for him. It was - let me
might be locked up in the safe and considered theirs until their money came see - "
for them to pay for it. All. they asked was to seal the stuff up in something;

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 "Sullivans? cried the clerk, right for once. "It's all. a matter of 'abit," he Raffles had taken up the bag that he had invented for the noiseless filing
went on, as he replaced the twenty-five tin box with the vulgar wrapper. "I of keys. Now he handled it as though it were a tobacco-pouch, putting in
tried them once, and I didn't like 'em myself. It's all. a question of taste. Now, finger and thumb, and shrugging over the puzzle with a delicious face;
if you want a good smoke, and cheaper, give me a Golden Gem at quarter of nevertheless, he showed me a few grains of steel filing as the result of his
the price." investigations, and murmured in my ear, "These sweet police! I, for my part,
could not but examine the life-preserver with which I had once smitten
"What we really do want," remarked Raffles mildly, "is to see something
Raffles himself to the ground: actually, there was his blood upon it still; and
else as clever as that last."
seeing my horror, the clerk plunged into a characteristically garbled version
"Then come this way," said the clerk, and led us into a recess almost of that incident also. It happened to have come to light among others at the
monopolized by the iron-clamped chest of thrilling memory, now a mere Old Bailey, and perhaps had its share in promoting the quality of mercy
platform for the collection of mysterious objects under a dust-sheet on the lid. which had undoubtedly been exercised on my behalf. But the present recital
"These," he continued, unveiling them with an air, are the Raffles Relics, was unduly trying, and Raffles created a noble diversion by calling attention
taken from his rooms in the Albany after his death and burial, and the most to an early photograph of himself, which may still hang on the wall over the
complete set we've got. That's his centre-bit, and this is the bottle of rock-oil historic chest, but which I had carefully ignored. It shows him in flannels,
he's supposed to have kept dipping it in to prevent making a noise. Here's after some great feat upon the tented field. I am afraid there is a Sullivan
the revawlver he used when he shot at a gentleman on the roof down between his lips, a look of lazy insolence in the half-shut eyes. I have since
Horsham way; it was afterward taken from him on the P. & 0. boat before he possessed myself of a copy, and it is not Raffles at his best; but the features
jumped overboard." are clean-cut and regular; and I often wish that I had lent it to the artistic
I could not help saying I understood that Raffles had never shot at gentlemen who have battered the statue out of all. likeness to the man.
anybody. I was standing with my back to the nearest window, my hat "You wouldn't think it of him, would you?" quoth the clerk. "It makes you
jammed over my brows and my overcoat collar up to my ears. understand how no one ever did think it of him at the time."
"That's the only time we know about," the clerk admitted; "and it couldn't The youth was looking full at Raffles, with the watery eyes of
be brought 'ome, or his precious pal would have got more than he did. This unsuspecting innocence. I itched to emulate the fine bravado of my friend.
empty cawtridge is the one he 'id the Emperor's pearl in, on the Peninsular
"You said he had a pal," I observed, sinking deeper into the collar of my
and Orient. These gimlets and wedges were what he used for fixin' doors.
coat. "Haven't you got a photograph of him?"
This is his rope-ladder, with the telescope walking-stick he used to hook it up
with; he's said to have 'ad it with him the night he dined with the Earl of The pale clerk gave such a sickly smile, I could have smacked some
Thornaby, and robbed the house before dinner. That's his life-preserver; but blood into his pasty face.
no one can make out what this little thick velvet bag's for, with the two holes
"You mean Bunny?" said the familiar fellow. "No, sir, he'd be out of
and the elawstic round each. Perhaps you can give a guess, sir?"
place; we've only room for real criminals here. Bunny was neither one thing

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nor the other. He could follow Raffles, but that's all. he could do. He was no of his grade; and for one awful moment his steely eye was upon us in a flash
good on his own. Even when he put up the low-down job of robbing his old of cold inquiry. Then the clerk emerged from the recess devoted to the
'ome, it's believed he hadn't the 'eart to take the stuff away, and Raffles had Raffles Relics, and the alarming interloper conducted his party to the window
to break in a second time for it. No, sir, we don't bother our heads about opposite the door.
Bunny; we shall never hear no more of 'im. He was a harmless sort of rotter,
"Inspector Druce," the clerk informed us in impressive whispers, "who
if you awsk me."
had the Chalk Farm case in hand. He'd be the man for Raffles, if Raffles was
I had not asked him, and I was almost foaming under the respirator that alive to-day!"
I was making of my overcoat collar. I only hoped that Raffles would say
"I'm sure he would," was the grave reply. "I should be very sorry to have
something, and he did.
a man like that after me. But what a run there seems to be upon your Black
"The only case I remember anything about," he remarked, tapping the Museum!"
clamped chest with his umbrella, "was this; and that time, at all. events, the
"There isn't reelly, sir," whispered the clerk. "We sometimes go weeks
man outside must have had quite as much to do as the one inside. May I ask
on end without having regular visitors like you two gentlemen. I think those
what you keep in it?"
are friends of the Inspector's, come to see the Chalk Farm photographs, that
"Nothing, sir. helped to hang his man. We've a lot of interesting photographs, sir, if you like
to have a look at them."
"I imagined more relics inside. Hadn't he some dodge of getting in and
out without opening the lid?" "If it won't take long," said Raffles, taking out his watch; and as the clerk
left our side for an instant he gripped my arm. "This is a bit too hot," he
"Of putting his head out, you mean," returned the clerk, whose
whispered, "but we mustn't cut and run like rabbits. That might be fatal. Hide
knowledge of Raffles and his Relics was really most comprehensive on the
your face in the photographs, and leave everything to me. I'll have a train to
whole. He moved some of the minor memorials and with his penknife raised
catch as soon as ever I dare."
the trap-door in the lid.
I obeyed without a word, and with the less uneasiness as I had time to
"Only a skylight," remarked Raffles, deliciously unimpressed.
consider the situation. It even struck me that Raffles was for once inclined to
"Why, what else did you expect?" asked the clerk, letting the trap-door exaggerate the undeniable risk that we ran by remaining in the same room
down again, and looking sorry that he had taken so much trouble. with an officer whom both he and I knew only too well by name and repute.
"A backdoor, at least!" replied Raffles, with such a sly look at me that I Raffles, after all., had aged and altered out of knowledge; but he had not lost
had to turn aside to smile. It was the last time I smiled that day. the nerve that was equal to a far more direct encounter than was at all. likely
to be forced upon us. On the other hand, it was most improbable that a
The door had opened as I turned, and an unmistakable detective had
distinguished detective would know by sight an obscure delinquent like
entered with two more sight-seers like ourselves. He wore the hard, round
myself; besides, this one had come to the front since my day. Yet a risk it
hat and the dark, thick overcoat which one knows at a glance as the uniform
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was, and I certainly did not smile as I bent over the album of horrors clerk, who accepted my pieces of silver without demur, and expressed a
produced by our guide. I could still take an interest in the dreadful hope of seeing the article which I had assured him I was about to write. He
photographs of murderous and murdered men; they appealed to the morbid has had some years to wait for it, but I flatter myself that these belated pages
element in my nature; and it was doubtless with degenerate unction that I will occasion more interest than offense if they ever do meet those watery
called Raffles's attention to a certain scene of notorious slaughter. There eyes.
was no response. I looked round. There was no Raffles to respond. We had
Twilight was falling when I reached the street; the sky behind St.
all. three been examining the photographs at one of the windows; at another
Stephen's had flushed and blackened like an angry face; the lamps were lit,
three newcomers were similarly engrossed; and without one word, or a
and under every one I was unreasonable enough to look for Raffles. Then I
single sound, Raffles had decamped behind all. our backs.
made foolishly sure that I should find him hanging about the station, and
Fortunately the clerk was himself very busy gloating over the horrors of hung thereabouts myself until one Richmond train had gone without me. In
the album; before he looked round I had hidden my astonishment, but not my the end I walked over the bridge to Waterloo, and took the first train to
wrath, of which I had the instinctive sense to make no secret. Teddington instead. That made a shorter walk of it, but I had to grope my
way through a white fog from the river to Ham Common, and it was the hour
"My friend's the most impatient man on earth!" I exclaimed. "He said he
of our cosy dinner when I reached our place of retirement. There was only a
was going to catch a train, and now he's gone without a word!"
flicker of firelight on the blinds: I was the first to return after all. It was nearly
"I never heard him," said the clerk, looking puzzled. four hours since Raffles had stolen away from my side in the ominous
"No more did I; but he did touch me on the shoulder," I lied, "and say precincts of Scotland Yard. Where could he be? Our landlady wrung her
something or other. I was too deep in this beastly book to pay much hands over him; she had cooked a dinner after her favorite's heart, and I let it
attention. He must have meant that he was off. Well, let him be off! I mean to spoil before making one of the most melancholy meals of my life.
see all. that's to be seen." Up to midnight there was no sign of him; but long before this time I had
And in my nervous anxiety to allay any suspicions aroused by my reassured our landlady with a voice and face that must have given my words
companion's extraordinary behavior, I outstayed even the eminent detective the lie. I told her that Mr. Ralph (as she used to call him) had said something
and his friends, saw them examine the Raffles Relics, heard them discuss about going to the theatre; that I thought he had given up the idea, but I must
me under my own nose, and at last was alone with the anemic clerk. I put my have been mistaken, and should certainly sit up for him. The attentive soul
hand in my pocket, and measured him with a sidelong eye. The tipping brought in a plate of sandwiches before she retired; and I prepared to make
system is nothing less than a minor bane of my existence. Not that one is a a night of it in a chair by the sitting-room fire. Darkness and bed I could not
grudging giver, but simply because in so many cases it is so hard to know face in my anxiety. In a way I felt as though duty and loyalty called me out
whom to tip and what to tip him. I know what it is to be the parting guest who into the winter s night; and yet whither should I turn to look for Raffles? I
has not parted freely enough, and that not from stinginess but the want of a could think of but one place, and to seek him there would be to destroy
fine instinct on the point. I made no mistake, however, in the case of the myself without aiding him. It was my growing conviction that he had been

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recognized when leaving Scotland Yard, and either taken then and there, or mythical purse left in a phantom hansom outside the Carlton. And the way
else hunted into some new place of hiding. It would all. be in the morning the fellow fired me out of that was another credit to the Metropolitan Police:
papers; and it was all. his own fault. He had thrust his head into the lion's it's only in the savage countries that they would have troubled to ask how
mouth, and the lion's jaws had snapped. Had he managed to withdraw his one had got in."
head in time?
"And how did you?" I asked. "And in the Lord's name, Raffles, when and
There was a bottle at my elbow, and that night I say deliberately that it why?"
was not my enemy but my friend. It procured me at last some surcease from
Raffles looked down on me under raised eyebrows, as he stood with his
my suspense. I fell fast asleep in my chair before the fire. The lamp was still
coat tails to the dying fire.
burning, and the fire red, when I awoke; but I sat very stiff in the iron clutch of
a wintry morning. Suddenly I slued round in my chair. And there was Raffles "How and when, Bunny, you know as well as I do," said he, cryptically.
in a chair behind me, with the door open behind him, quietly taking off his "And at last you shall hear the honest why and wherefore. I had more
boots. reasons for going to Scotland Yard, my dear fellow, than I had the face to tell
you at the time."
"Sorry to wake you, Bunny," said he. "I thought I was behaving like a
mouse; but after a three hours' tramp one's feet are all. heels." "I don't care why you went there!" I cried. "I want to know why you
stayed, or went back, or whatever it was you may have done. I thought they
I did not get up and fall upon his neck. I sat back in my chair and blinked
had got you, and you had given them the slip!"
with bitterness upon his selfish insensibility. He should not know what I had
been through on his account. Raffles smiled as he shook his head.

"Walk out from town?" I inquired, as indifferently as though he were in "No, no, Bunny; I prolonged the visit, as I paid it, of my own accord. As
the habit of doing so. for my reasons, they are far too many for me to tell you them all.; they rather
weighed upon me as I walked out; but you'll see them for yourself if you turn
"From Scotland Yard," he answered, stretching himself before the fire in
round."
his stocking soles.
I was standing with my back to the chair in which I had been asleep;
"Scotland Yard?" I echoed. "Then I was right; that's where you were all.
behind the chair was the round lodging-house table; and there, reposing on
the time; and yet you managed to escape!"
the cloth with the whiskey and sandwiches, was the whole collection of
I had risen excitedly in my turn. Raffles Relics which had occupied the lid of the silver-chest in the Black
Museum at Scotland Yard! The chest alone was missing. There was the
"Of course I did," replied Raffles. "I never thought there would be much
revolver that I had only once heard fired, and there the blood-stained life-
difficulty about that, but there was even less than I anticipated. I did once find
preserver, brace-and-bit, bottle of rock-oil, velvet bag, rope-ladder, walking-
myself on one side of a sort of counter, and an officer dozing at his desk at
the other side. I thought it safest to wake him up and make inquiries about a

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stick, gimlets, wedges, and even the empty cartridge-case which had once I burst out laughing in his face.
concealed the gift of a civilized monarch to a potentate of color.
"My dear fellow, I saw all. these things on the lid just afterward. Not one
"I was a real Father Christmas," said Raffles, "when I arrived. It's a pity of them was moved. I watched that detective show them to his friends."
you weren't awake to appreciate the scene. It was more edifying than the
"And I heard him."
one I found. You never caught me asleep in my chair, Bunny!"
"But not from the inside of the chest?"
He thought I had merely fallen asleep in my chair! He could not see that
I had been sitting up for him all. night long! The hint of a temperance homily, "From the inside of the chest, Bunny. Don't look like that - it's foolish. Try
on top of all. I had borne, and from Raffles of all. mortal men, tried my to recall a few words that went before, between the idiot in the collar and me.
temper to its last limit - but a flash of late enlightenment enabled me just to Don't you remember my asking him if there was anything in the chest?"
keep it. "Yes."
"Where did you hide?" I asked grimly. "One had to be sure it was empty, you see. Then I asked if there was a
"At the Yard itself." backdoor to the chest as well as a skylight."

"So I gather; but whereabouts at the Yard?" "I remember."

"Can you ask, Bunny?" "I suppose you thought all. that meant nothing?"

"I am asking." "I didn't look for a meaning."

"It's where I once hid before." "You wouldn't; it would never occur to you that I might want to find out
whether anybody at the Yard had found out that there was something
"You don't mean in the chest?"
precisely in the nature of a sidedoor - it isn't a backdoor - to that chest. Well,
"I do." there is one; there was one soon after I took the chest back from your rooms
to mine, in the good old days. You push one of the handles down - which no
Our eyes met for a minute.
one ever does - and the whole of that end opens like the front of a doll's
"You may have ended up there," I conceded. "But where did you go first house. I saw that was what I ought to have done at first: it's so much simpler
when you slipped out behind my back, and how the devil did you know than the trap at the top; and one likes to get a thing perfect for its own sake.
where to go?" Besides, the trick had not been spotted at the bank, and I thought I might
"I never did slip out," said Raffles, "behind your back. I slipped in." bring it off again some day; meanwhile, in one's bedroom, with lots of things
on top, what a port in a sudden squall!"
"Into the chest?"
I asked why I had never heard of the improvement before, not so much
"Exactly."
at the time it was made, but in these later days, when there were fewer
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secrets between us, and this one could avail him no more. But I did not put "And then, pray, how are they going to bring it home to us? Why should
the question out of pique. I put it out of sheer obstinate incredulity. And they even suspect us, Bunny? I left early; that's all. I did. You took my
Raffles looked at me without replying, until I read the explanation in his look. departure admirably; you couldn't have said more or less if I had coached
you myself. I relied on you, Bunny, and you never more completely justified
"I see," I said. "You used to get into it to hide from me!"
my confidence. The sad thing is that you have ceased to rely on me. Do you
"My dear Bunny, I am not always a very genial man," he answered; "but really think that I would leave the place in such a state that the first person
when you let me have a key of your rooms I could not very well refuse you who came in with a duster would see that there had been a robbery?"
one of mine, although I picked your pocket of it in the end. I will only say that
I denied the thought with all. energy, though it perished only as I spoke.
when I had no wish to see you, Bunny, I must have been quite unfit for
human society, and it was the act of a friend to deny you mine. I don't think it "Have you forgotten the duster that was over these things, Bunny? Have
happened more than once or twice. You can afford to forgive a fellow after you forgotten all. the other revolvers and life preservers that there were to
all. these years? choose from? I chose most carefully, and I replaced my relics with a mixed
assortment of other people's which really look just as well. The rope-ladder
"That, yes," I replied bitterly; "but not this, Raffles."
that now supplants mine is, of course, no patch upon it, but coiled up on the
"Why not? I really hadn't made up my mind to do what I did. I had chest it really looks much the same. To be sure, there was no second velvet
merely thought of it. It was that smart officer in the same room that made me bag; but I replaced my stick with another quite like it, and I even found an
do it without thinking twice." empty cartridge to understudy the setting of the Polynesian pearl. You see
"And we never even heard you!" I murmured, in a voice of involuntary the sort of fellow they have to show people round: do you think he's the kind
admiration which vexed me with myself. "But we might just as well!" I was as to see the difference next time, or to connect it with us if he does? One left
quick to add in my former tone. much the same things, lying much as he left them, under a dust-sheet which
is only taken off for the benefit of the curious, who often don't turn up for
"Why, Bunny?"
weeks on end."
"We shall be traced in no time through our ticket of admission."
I admitted that we might be safe for three or four weeks. Raffles held out
"Did they collect it?" his hand.
"No; but you heard how very few are issued." "Then let us be friends about it, Bunny, and smoke the cigarette of
"Exactly. They sometimes go weeks on end without a regular visitor. It Sullivan and peace! A lot may happen in three or four weeks; and what
was I who extracted that piece of information, Bunny, and I did nothing rash should you say if this turned out to be the last as well as the least of all. my
until I had. Don't you see that with any luck it will be two or three weeks crimes? I must own that it seems to me their natural and fitting end, though I
before they are likely to discover their loss?" might have stopped more characteristically than with a mere crime of
sentiment. No, I make no promises, Bunny; now I have got these things, I
I was beginning to see. may be unable to resist using them once more. But with this war one gets all.
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the excitement one requires - and rather more than usual may happen in man of you - every name in those dreadful lists that fill the papers every day.
three or four weeks?" But I knew about Mr. Raffles, and I did not know about you, and there was
something I longed to tell you about him, something I could not tell you in a
Was he thinking even then of volunteering for the front? Had he already
minute in the street, or indeed by word of mouth at all. That is why I asked
set his heart on the one chance of some atonement for his life - nay, on the
you for your address.
very death he was to die? I never knew, and shall never know. Yet his words
were strangely prophetic, even to the three or four weeks in which those "You said I spoke as if I had known Mr. Raffles. Of course I have often
events happened that imperilled the fabric of our empire, and rallied her sons seen him playing cricket, and heard about him and you. But I only once met
from the four winds to fight beneath her banner on the veldt. It all. seems him, and that was the night after you and I met last. I have always supposed
very ancient history now. But I remember nothing better or more vividly than that you knew all. about our meeting. Yesterday I could see that you knew
the last words of Raffles upon his last crime, unless it be the pressure of his nothing. So I have made up my mind to tell you every word.
hand as he said them, or the rather sad twinkle in his tired eyes.
The last of all. these tales of Raffles is from a fresher and a sweeter
Chapter 10 pen. I give it exactly as it came to me, in a letter which meant more to me
The Last Word than it can possibly mean to any other reader. And yet, it may stand for
something with those for whom these pale reflections have a tithe of the
The last of all. these tales of Raffles is from a fresher and a sweeter charm that the real man had for me; and it is to leave such persons thinking
pen. I give it exactly as it came to me, in a letter which meant more to me yet a little better of him (and not wasting another thought on me) that I am
than it can possibly mean to any other reader. And yet, it may stand for permitted to retail the very last word about their hero and mine.
something with those for whom these pale reflections have a tithe of the
The letter was my first healing after a chance encounter and a sleepless
charm that the real man had for me; and it is to leave such persons thinking
night; and I print every word of it except the last
yet a little better of him (and not wasting another thought on me) that I am
permitted to retail the very last word about their hero and mine. "39 CAMPDEN GROVE COURT, W.,
"June 28, 1900.
The letter was my first healing after a chance encounter and a sleepless
night; and I print every word of it except the last "DEAR HARRY: You may have wondered at the very few words I could
find to say to you when we met so strangely yesterday. I did not mean to be
"39 CAMPDEN GROVE COURT, W.,
unkind. I was grieved to see you so cruelly hurt and lame. I could not grieve
"June 28, 1900.
when at last I made you tell me how it happened. I honor and envy every
"DEAR HARRY: You may have wondered at the very few words I could man of you - every name in those dreadful lists that fill the papers every day.
find to say to you when we met so strangely yesterday. I did not mean to be But I knew about Mr. Raffles, and I did not know about you, and there was
unkind. I was grieved to see you so cruelly hurt and lame. I could not grieve something I longed to tell you about him, something I could not tell you in a
when at last I made you tell me how it happened. I honor and envy every

- 98 -
minute in the street, or indeed by word of mouth at all. That is why I asked and have long ceased to wonder at myself. There was an absolute
you for your address. magnetism about Mr. Raffles which neither you nor I could resist. He had the
strength of personality which is a different thing from strength of character;
"You said I spoke as if I had known Mr. Raffles. Of course I have often
but when you meet both kinds together, they carry the ordinary mortal off his
seen him playing cricket, and heard about him and you. But I only once met
or her feet. You must not imagine you are the only one who would have
him, and that was the night after you and I met last. I have always supposed
served and followed him as you did. When he told me it was all. a game to
that you knew all. about our meeting. Yesterday I could see that you knew
him, and the one game he knew that was always exciting, always full of
nothing. So I have made up my mind to tell you every word.
danger and of drama, I could just then have found it in my heart to try the
"Those were his words, but as he said them he made their meaning game myself! Not that he treated me to any ingenious sophistries or
clear by going over to the bell, and waiting with his finger ready to ring for paradoxical perversities. It was just his natural charm and humor, and a
whatever assistance or protection I desired. Of course I would not let him touch of sadness with it all., that appealed to something deeper than one's
ring at all.; in fact, at first I refused to believe him. Then he led me out into reason and one's sense of right. Glamour, I suppose, is the word. Yet there
the balcony, and showed me exactly how he had got up and in. He had was far more in him than that. There were depths, which called to depths;
broken in for the second night running, and all. to tell me that the first night and you will not misunderstand me when I say I think it touched him that a
he had brought you with him on false pretences. He had to tell me a great woman should listen to him as I did, and in such circumstances. I know that it
deal more before I could quite believe him. But before he went (as he had touched me to think of such a life so spent, and that I came to myself and
come) I was the one woman in the world who knew that A. J. Raffles, the implored him to give it all. up. I don't think I went on my knees over it. But I
great cricketer, and the so-called 'amateur cracksman' of equal notoriety, am afraid I did cry; and that was the end. He pretended not to notice
were one and the same person. anything, and then in an instant he froze everything with a flippancy which
"He had told me his secret, thrown himself on my mercy, and put his jarred horribly at the time, but has ever since touched me more than all. the
liberty if not his life in my hands, but all. for your sake, Harry, to right you in rest. I remember that I wanted to shake hands at the end. But Mr. Raffles
my eyes at his own expense. And yesterday I could see that you knew only shook his head, and for one instant his face was as sad as it was gallant
nothing whatever about it, that your friend had died without telling you of his and gay all. the rest of the time. Then he went as he had come, in his own
act of real and yet vain self-sacrifice! Harry, I can only say that now I dreadful way, and not a soul in the house knew that he had been. And even
understand your friendship, and the dreadful lengths to which it carried you. you were never told!
How many in your place would not have gone as far for such a friend? Since "I didn't mean to write all. this about your own friend, whom you knew so
that night, at any rate, I for one have understood. It has grieved me more much better yourself, yet you see that even you did not know how nobly he
than I can tell you, Harry, but I have always understood. tried to undo the wrong he had done you; and now I think I know why he kept
"He spoke to me quite simply and frankly of his life. It was wonderful to it to himself. It is fearfully late - or early - I seem to have been writing all.
me then that he should speak of it as he did, and still more wonderful that I night - and I will explain the matter in the fewest words. I promised Mr.
should sit and listen to him as I did. But I have often thought about it since, Raffles that I would write to you, Harry, and see you if I could. Well, I did
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write, and I did mean to see you, but I never had an answer to what I wrote. I have said. Yet I should like you to understand why it is that I have said so
It was only one line, and I have long known you never received it. I could not much, and, indeed, left nothing unsaid. It is because I want never to have to
bring myself to write more, and even those few words were merely slipped say or hear another word about anything that is past and over. You may
into one of the books which you had given me. Years afterward these books, answer that I run no risk! Nevertheless, if you did care to come and see me
with my name in them, must have been found in your rooms; at any rate they some day as an old friend, we might find one or two new points of contact,
were returned to me by somebody; and you could never have opened them, for I am rather trying to write myself! You might almost guess as much from
for there was my line where I had left it. Of course you had never seen it, and this letter; it is long enough for anything; but, Harry, if it makes you realize
that was all. my fault. But it was too late to write again. Mr. Raffles was that one of your oldest friends is glad to have seen you, and will be gladder
supposed to have been drowned, and everything was known about you both. still to see you again, and to talk of anything and everything except the past,
But I still kept my own independent knowledge to myself; to this day, no one I shall cease to be ashamed even of its length!
else knows that you were one of the two in Palace Gardens; and I still blame
"And so good-by for the present from
myself more than you may think for nearly everything that has happened
"____"
since.
I omit her name and nothing else. Did I not say in the beginning that it
"You said yesterday that your going to the war and getting wounded
should never be sullied by association with mine? And yet - and yet - even
wiped out nothing that had gone before. I hope you are not growing morbid
as I write I have a hope in my heart of hearts which is not quite consistent
about the past. It is not for me to condone it, and yet I know that Mr. Raffles
with that sentiment. It is as faint a hope as man ever had, and yet its
was what he was because he loved danger and adventure, and that you
audacity makes the pen tremble in my fingers. But, if it be ever realized, I
were what you were because you loved Mr. Raffles. But, even admitting it
shall owe more than I could deserve in a century of atonement to one who
was all. as bad as bad could be, he is dead, and you are punished. The
atoned more nobly than I ever can. And to think that to the end I never heard
world forgives, if it does not forget. You are young enough to live everything
one word of it from Raffles!
down. Your part in the war will help you in more ways than one. You were
always fond of writing. You have now enough to write about for a literary THE END
lifetime. You must make a new name for yourself. You must Harry, and you
will!
"I suppose you know that my aunt, Lady Melrose, died some years ago?
She was the best friend I had in the world, and it is thanks to her that I am
living my own life now in the one way after my own heart. This is a new block
of flats, one of those where they do everything for you; and though mine is
tiny, it is more than all. I shall ever want. One does just exactly what one
likes - and you must blame that habit for all. that is least conventional in what

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