A Thief in the Night you will.

It was a moral bagatelle to the treacherous

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

And at the Café Royal I incontinently told him of "Not so well as I should like to know them, Bunny."
the trouble I was in.
It was the first he had ever heard of my affair, and I "Well, it's about the most palatial of the lot. The old
told him all, ruffian is as
though not before our bottle had been succeeded by rich as Crœsus. It's a country-place in town."
a pint of the same
exemplary brand. Raffles heard me out with grave "What about the window-fastenings?" asked Raffles
attention. His casually.
sympathy was the more grateful for the tactful
brevity with which it I recoiled from the open cigarette-case that he
was indicated rather than expressed. He only proffered as he spoke.
wished that I had told Our eyes met; and in his there was that starry
him of this complication in the beginning; as I had twinkle of mirth and
not, he agreed with mischief, that sunny beam of audacious devilment,
me that the only course was a candid and complete which had been my
renunciation. It was undoing two months before, which was to undo me
not as though my divinity had a penny of her own, as often as he chose
or I could earn an until the chapter's end. Yet for once I withstood its
honest one. I had explained to Raffles that she was glamour; for
an orphan, who once I turned aside that luminous glance with front
spent most of her time with an aristocratic aunt in of steel. There
the country, and was no need for Raffles to voice his plans. I read
the remainder under the repressive roof of a them all between
pompous politician in the strong lines of his smiling, eager face. And I
Palace Gardens. The aunt had, I believed, still a pushed back my
sneaking softness chair in the equal eagerness of my own resolve.
for me, but her illustrious brother had set his face
against me from "Not if I know it!" said I. "A house I've dined in--a
the first. house I've
seen her in--a house where she stays by the month
"Hector Carruthers!" murmured Raffles, repeating together! Don't
the detested name with put it into words, Raffles, or I'll get up and go."
his clear, cold eye on mine. "I suppose you haven't
seen much of him?" "You mustn't do that before the coffee and liqueur,"
said Raffles
"Not a thing for ages," I replied. "I was at the house laughing. "Have a small Sullivan first: it's the royal
two or three road to a
days last year, but they've neither asked me since cigar. And now let me observe that your scruples
nor been at home to would do you honor if
me when I've called. The old beast seems a judge old Carruthers still lived in the house in question."
of men."
"Do you mean to say he doesn't?"
And I laughed bitterly in my glass.
Raffles struck a match, and handed it first to me. "I
"Nice house?" said Raffles, glancing at himself in mean to say, my
his silver
dear Bunny, that Palace Gardens knows the very before retiring for the night. But the key of the safe
name no more. You began in the study
by telling me you had heard nothing of these people was supposed to be in the jealous keeping of the
all this year. master of the house
That's quite enough to account for our little himself. That safe was in its turn so ingeniously
misunderstanding. I was hidden that I never
thinking of the house, and you were thinking of the should have found it for myself. I well remember
people in the how one who showed it
house." to me (in the innocence of her heart) laughed as she
assured me that
"But who are they, Raffles? Who has taken the even her little trinkets were solemnly locked up in it
house, if old Carruthers every night. It
has moved, and how do you know that it is still had been let into the wall behind one end of the
worth a visit?" book-case, expressly
to preserve the barbaric splendor of Mrs.
"In answer to your first question--Lord Carruthers; without a doubt
Lochmaben," replied Raffles, these Lochmabens would use it for the same
blowing bracelets of smoke toward the ceiling. purpose; and in the altered
"You look as though you circumstances I had no hesitation in giving Raffles
had never heard of him; but as the cricket and all the information
racing are the only part he desired. I even drew him a rough plan of the
of your paper that you condescend to read, you can't ground-floor on the
be expected to back of my menu-card.
keep track of all the peers created in your time.
Your other question "It was rather clever of you to notice the kind of
is not worth answering. How do you suppose that I locks on the inner
know these things? doors," he remarked as he put it in his pocket. "I
It's my business to get to know them, and that's all suppose you don't
there is to it. remember if it was a Yale on the front door as
As a matter of fact, Lady Lochmaben has just as well?"
good diamonds as Mrs.
Carruthers ever had; and the chances are that she "It was not," I was able to answer quite promptly.
keeps them where Mrs. "I happen to know
Carruthers kept hers, if you could enlighten me on because I once had the key when--when we went to
that point." a theatre together."

As it happened, I could, since I knew from his niece "Thank you, old chap," said Raffles
that it was one on sympathetically. "That's all I
which Mr. Carruthers had been a faddist in his time. shall want from you, Bunny, my boy. There's no
He had made quite night like to-night!"
a study of the cracksman's craft, in a resolve to
circumvent it with It was one of his sayings when bent upon his worst.
his own. I remembered myself how the ground- I looked at him
floor windows were aghast. Our cigars were just in blast, yet already he
elaborately bolted and shuttered, and how the doors was signalling
of all the rooms for his bill. It was impossible to remonstrate with
opening upon the square inner hall were fitted with him until we were
extra Yale locks, both outside in the street.
at an unlikely height, not to be discovered by one
within the room. It "I'm coming with you," said I, running my arm
had been the butler's business to turn and to collect through his.
all these keys
"Nonsense, Bunny!" wrote to tell her so on Sunday. Now it's
Wednesday, and she hasn't
"Why is it nonsense? I know every inch of the answered by line or sign. It's waiting for one word
ground, and since the from her that's
house has changed hands I have no compunction. driving me mad."
Besides, 'I have been
there' in the other sense as well: once a thief, you "Perhaps you wrote to Palace Gardens?"
know! In for a
penny, in for a pound!" "No, I sent it to the country. There's been time for
an answer,
It was ever my mood when the blood was up. But wherever she may be."
my old friend failed to
appreciate the characteristic as he usually did. We We had reached the Albany, and halted with one
crossed Regent accord at the Piccadilly
Street in silence. I had to catch his sleeve to keep a portico, red cigar to red cigar.
hand in his
inhospitable arm. "You wouldn't like to go and see if the answer's in
your rooms?" he
"I really think you had better stay away," said asked.
Raffles as we reached
the other curb. "I've no use for you this time." "No. What's the good? Where's the point in giving
her up if I'm going
"Yet I thought I had been so useful up to now?" to straighten out when it's too late? It is too late, I
have given her
"That may be, Bunny, but I tell you frankly I don't up, and I am coming with you!"
want you to-night."
The hand that bowled the most puzzling ball in
"Yet I know the ground and you don't! I tell you England (once it found
what," said I: "I'll its length) descended on my shoulder with
come just to show you the ropes, and I won't take a surprising promptitude.
pennyweight of the
swag." "Very well, Bunny! That's finished; but your blood
be on your own pate
Such was the teasing fashion in which he invariably if evil comes of it. Meanwhile we can't do better
prevailed upon me; than turn in here
it was delightful to note how it caused him to yield till you have finished your cigar as it deserves, and
in his turn. But topped up with
Raffles had the grace to give in with a laugh, such a cup of tea as you must learn to like if you
whereas I too often lost hope to get on in
my temper with my point. your new profession. And when the hours are small
enough, Bunny, my
"You little rabbit!" he chuckled. "You shall have boy, I don't mind admitting I shall be very glad to
your share, whether have you with me."
you come or not; but, seriously, don't you think you
might remember the I have a vivid memory of the interim in his rooms.
girl?" I think it must
have been the first and last of its kind that I was
"What's the use?" I groaned. "You agree there is called upon to
nothing for it but to sustain with so much knowledge of what lay before
give her up. I am glad to say that for myself before me. I passed the
I asked you, and time with one restless eye upon the clock, and the
other on the
Tantalus which Raffles ruthlessly declined to How I wish I could make the whole world see and
unlock. He admitted that hear him, and smell the
it was like waiting with one's pads on; and in my smoke of his beloved Sullivan, as he took me into
slender experience of these, the secrets of
the game of which he was a world's master, that was his infamous trade! Neither look nor language
an ordeal not to be would betray the infamy.
endured without a general quaking of the inner man. As a mere talker, I shall never listen to the like of
I was, on the Raffles on this
other hand, all right when I got to the metaphorical side of the sod; and his talk was seldom garnished
wicket; and half by an oath, never in
the surprises that Raffles sprung on me were my remembrance by the unclean word. Then he
doubtless due to his early looked like a man who had
recognition of the fact. dressed to dine out, not like one who had long since
dined; for his
On this occasion I fell swiftly and hopelessly out of curly hair, though longer that another's, was never
love with the untidy in its
prospect I had so gratuitously embraced. It was not length; and these were the days when it was still as
only my repugnance black as ink. Nor
to enter that house in that way, which grew upon were there many lines as yet upon the smooth and
my better judgment as mobile face; and its
the artificial enthusiasm of the evening evaporated frame was still that dear den of disorder and good
from my veins. taste, with the
Strong as that repugnance became, I had an even carved book-case, the dresser and chests of still
stronger feeling that older oak, and the
we were embarking on an important enterprise far Wattses and Rossettis hung anyhow on the walls.
too much upon the spur
of the moment. The latter qualm I had the temerity It must have been one o'clock before we drove in a
to confess to hansom as far as
Raffles; nor have I often loved him more than when Kensington Church, instead of getting down at the
he freely admitted gates of our private
it to be the most natural feeling in the world. He road to ruin. Constitutionally shy of the direct
assured me, approach, Raffles was
however, that he had had my Lady Lochmaben and further deterred by a ball in full swing at the
her jewels in his mind Empress Rooms, whence
for several months; he had sat behind them at first potential witnesses were pouring between dances
nights; and long into the cool deserted
ago determined what to take or to reject; in fine, he street. Instead he led me a little way up Church
had only been Street, and so
waiting for those topographical details which it had through the narrow passage into Palace Gardens.
been my chance He knew the house as
privilege to supply. I now learned that he had well as I did. We made our first survey from the
numerous houses in a other side of the
similar state upon his list; something or other was road. And the house was not quite in darkness;
wanting in each there was a dim light
case in order to complete his plans. In that of the over the door, a brighter one in the stables, which
Bond Street stood still farther
jeweller it was a trusty accomplice; in the present back from the road.
instance, a more
intimate knowledge of the house. And lastly, this "That's a bit of a bore," said Raffles. "The ladies
was a Wednesday have been out
night, when the tired legislator gets early to his bed. somewhere--trust them to spoil the show! They
would get to bed before
the stable folk, but insomnia is the curse of their sex
and our It was the sweep of the drive, and in the dim light
profession. Somebody's not home yet; that will be from above the
the son of the door, the soft gravel, ploughed into ridges by the
house; but he's a beauty, who may not come home night's wheels,
at all." threatened an alarm at every step. Yet Raffles, with
me in his arms,
"Another Alick Carruthers," I murmured, recalling crossed the zone of peril softly as the pard.
the one I liked least
of all the household, as I remembered it. "Shoes in your pocket--that's the beauty of pumps!"
he whispered on the
"They might be brothers," rejoined Raffles, who step; his light bunch tinkled faintly; a couple of
knew all the loose fish keys he stooped and
about town. "Well, I'm not sure that I shall want tried, with the touch of a humane dentist; the third
you after all, let us into the
Bunny." porch. And as we stood together on the mat, as he
was gradually
"Why not?" closing the door, a clock within chimed a half-hour
in fashion so
"If the front door's only on the latch, and you're thrillingly familiar to me that I caught Raffles by
right about the the arm. My
lock, I shall walk in as though I were the son of the half-hours of happiness had flown to just such
house myself." chimes! I looked wildly
about me in the dim light. Hat-stand and oak settee
And he jingled the skeleton bunch that he carried on belonged equally
a chain as honest to my past. And Raffles was smiling in my face as
men carry their latchkeys. he held the door
wide for my escape.
"You forget the inner doors and the safe."
"You told me a lie!" I gasped in whispers.
"True. You might be useful to me there. But I still
don't like "I did nothing of the sort," he replied. "The
leading you in where it isn't absolutely necessary, furniture's the
Bunny." furniture of Hector Carruthers; but the house is the
house of Lord
"Then let me lead you, I answered, and forthwith Lochmaben. Look here!"
marched across the
broad, secluded road, with the great houses standing He had stooped, and was smoothing out the
back on either discarded envelope of a
side in their ample gardens, as though the one telegram. "Lord Lochmaben," I read in pencil by
opposite belonged to me. the dim light; and the
I thought Raffles had stayed behind, for I never case was plain to me on the spot. My friends had
heard him at my heels, let their house,
yet there he was when I turned round at the gate. furnished, as anybody but Raffles would have
explained to me in the
"I must teach you the step," he whispered, shaking beginning.
his head. "You
shouldn't use your heel at all. Here's a grass border "All right," I said. "Shut the door."
for you: walk it
as you would the plank! Gravel makes a noise, and And he not only shut it without a sound, but drew a
flower-beds tell a bolt that might
tale. Wait--I must carry you across this." have been sheathed in rubber.
 The study-door was at right angles to the lowest
In another minute we were at work upon the study- flight, and just to
door, I with the tiny the right of one alighting in the hall. It was thus
lantern and the bottle of rock-oil, he with the brace impossible for us
and the largest to see who it was until the person was close abreast
bit. The Yale lock he had given up at a glance. It of us; but by the
was placed high up rustle of the gown we knew that it was one of the
in the door, feet above the handle, and the chain of ladies, and dressed
holes with which just as she had come from theatre or ball.
Raffles had soon surrounded it were bored on a Insensibly I drew back as
level with his eyes. the candle swam into our field of vision: it had not
Yet the clock in the hall chimed again, and two traversed many
ringing strokes inches when a hand was clapped firmly but silently
resounded through the silent house before we across my mouth.
gained admittance to the
room. I could forgive Raffles for that, at any rate! In
another breath I
Raffle's next care was to muffle the bell on the should have cried aloud: for the girl with the candle,
shuttered window (with the girl in her
a silk handkerchief from the hat-stand) and to ball-dress, at dead of night, the girl with the letter
prepare an emergency for the post,
exit by opening first the shutters and then the was the last girl on God's wide earth whom I should
window itself. Luckily have chosen thus to
it was a still night, and very little wind came in to encounter--a midnight intruder in the very house
embarrass us. He where I had been
then began operations on the safe, revealed by me reluctantly received on her account!
behind its folding
screen of books, while I stood sentry on the I forgot Raffles. I forgot the new and unforgivable
threshold. I may have grudge I had
stood there for a dozen minutes, listening to the against him now. I forgot his very hand across my
loud hall clock and mouth, even before
to the gentle dentistry of Raffles in the mouth of the he paid me the compliment of removing it. There
safe behind me, was the only girl in
when a third sound thrilled my every nerve. It was all the world: I had eyes and brains for no one and
the equally for nothing else.
cautious opening of a door in the gallery overhead. She had neither seen nor heard us, had looked
neither to the right hand
I moistened my lips to whisper a word of warning to nor the left. But a small oak table stood on the
Raffles. But his opposite side of the
ears had been as quick as mine, and something hall; it was to this table that she went. On it was
longer. His lantern one of those boxes
darkened as I turned my head; next moment I felt in which one puts one's letters for the post; and she
his breath upon the stooped to read
back of my neck. It was now too late even for a by her candle the times at which this box was
whisper, and quite out cleared.
of the question to close the mutilated door. There
we could only The loud clock ticked and ticked. She was standing
stand, I on the threshold, Raffles at my elbow, while at her full height
one carrying a now, her candle on the table, her letter in both
candle crept down the stairs. hands, and in her
downcast face a sweet and pitiful perplexity that
drew the tears to my
eyes. Through a film I saw her open the envelope I saw him fell one officer to the ground, and dart
so lately sealed and across the lawn with
read her letter once more, as though she would have another at his heels. A third came running up to the
altered it a little window. What
at the last. It was too late for that; but of a sudden could I do but double back into the house? And
she plucked a there in the hall I met
rose from her bosom, and was pressing it in with my lost love face to face.
her letter when I
groaned aloud. Till that moment she had not recognized me. I ran
to catch her as she
How could I help it? The letter was for me: of that I all but fell. And my touch repelled her into life, so
was as sure as that she shook
though I had been looking over her shoulder. She me off, and stood gasping: "You, of all men! You,
was as true as of all men!" until I
tempered steel; there were not two of us to whom could bear it no more, but broke again for the study-
she wrote and sent window. "Not that
roses at dead of night. It was her one chance of way--not that way!" she cried in an agony at that.
writing to me. None Her hands were upon
would know that she had written. And she cared me now. "In there, in there," she whispered,
enough to soften the pointing and pulling me
reproaches I had richly earned, with a red rose to a mere cupboard under the stairs, where hats and
warm from her own warm coats were hung;
heart. And there, and there was I, a common thief and it was she who shut the door on me with a sob.
who had broken in to
steal! Yet I was unaware that I had uttered a sound Doors were already opening overhead, voices
until she looked calling, voices answering,
up, startled, and the hands behind me pinned me the alarm running like wildfire from room to room.
where I stood. Soft feet pattered
in the gallery and down the stairs about my very
I think she must have seen us, even in the dim light ears. I do not know
of the solitary what made me put on my own shoes as I heard
candle. Yet not a sound escaped her as she peered them, but I think that I
courageously in our was ready and even longing to walk out and give
direction; neither did one of us move; but the hall myself up. I need not
clock went on and say what and who it was that alone restrained me. I
on, every tick like the beat of a drum to bring the heard her name. I
house about our heard them crying to her as though she had fainted.
ears, until a minute must have passed as in some I recognized the
breathless dream. And detested voice of my _bête noir_, Alick Carruthers,
then came the awakening--with such a knocking thick as might be
and a ringing at the expected of the dissipated dog, yet daring to stutter
front door as brought all three of us to our senses on out her name.
the spot. And then I heard, without catching, her low reply; it
was in answer to
"The son of the house!" whispered Raffles in my the somewhat stern questioning of quite another
ear, as he dragged me voice; and from what
back to the window he had left open for our escape. followed I knew that she had never fainted at all.
But as he leaped
out first a sharp cry stopped me at the sill. "Get "Upstairs, miss, did he? Are you sure?"
back! Get back!
We're trapped!" he cried; and in the single second I did not hear her answer. I conceive her as simply
that I stood there, pointing up the
stairs. In any case, about my very ears once more, there and then to his accursed rooms. But first I
there now followed must escape from the
such a patter and tramp of bare and booted feet as trap in which he had been so ready to leave me.
renewed in me a base And on the very steps
fear for my own skin. But voices and feet passed I drew back in despair. They were searching the
over my head, went up shrubberies between
and up, higher and higher; and I was wondering the drive and the road; a policeman's lantern kept
whether or not to make a flashing in and out
dash for it, when one light pair came running down among the laurels, while a young man in evening-
again, and in very clothes directed him
despair I marched out to meet my preserver, looking from the gravel sweep. It was this young man
as little as I whom I must dodge, but at
could like the abject thing I felt. my first step in the gravel he wheeled round, and it
was Raffles
"Be quick!" she cried in a harsh whisper, and himself.
pointed peremptorily to
the porch. "Hulloa!" he cried. "So you've come up to join the
dance as well! Had
But I stood stubbornly before her, my heart a look inside, have you? You'll be better employed
hardened by her hardness, in helping to draw
and perversely indifferent to all else. And as I stood the cover in front here. It's all right, officer--only
I saw the another
letter she had written, in the hand with which she gentleman from the Empress Rooms."
pointed, crushed
into a ball. And we made a brave show of assisting in the futile
search, until the
"Quickly!" She stamped her foot. "Quickly--if you arrival of more police, and a broad hint from an
ever cared!" irritable sergeant,
gave us an excellent excuse for going off arm-in-
This in a whisper, without bitterness, without arm. But it was
contempt, but with a Raffles who had thrust his arm through mine. I
sudden wild entreaty that breathed upon the dying shook him off as we
embers of my poor left the scene of shame behind.
manhood. I drew myself together for the last time
in her sight. I "My dear Bunny!" he exclaimed. "Do you know
turned, and left her as she wished--for her sake, not what brought me back?"
for mine. And as
I went I heard her tearing her letter into little pieces, I answered savagely that I neither knew nor cared.
and the
little pieces falling on the floor. "I had the very devil of a squeak for it," he went on.
"I did the
Then I remembered Raffles, and could have killed hurdles over two or three garden-walls, but so did
him for what he had the flyer who was on
done. Doubtless by this time he was safe and snug my tracks, and he drove me back into the straight
in the Albany: what and down to High
did my fate matter to him? Never mind; this should Street like any lamplighter. If he had only had the
be the end between breath to sing out
him and me as well; it was the end of everything, it would have been all up with me then; as it was I
this dark night's pulled off my coat
work! I would go and tell him so. I would jump the moment I was round the corner, and took a
into a cab and drive ticket for it at the
Empress Rooms."
"I suppose you had one for the dance that was going It was my hand that gripped his arm once more.
on," I growled. Nor
would it have been a coincidence for Raffles to "I guessed," he answered, gravely enough even for
have had a ticket for me.
that or any other entertainment of the London
season. "It was she who saved me, not you," I said. "And
that is the bitterest
"I never asked what the dance was," he returned. "I part of all!"
merely took the
opportunity of revising my toilet, and getting rid of Yet I told him that part with a strange sad pride in
that rather her whom I had
distinctive overcoat, which I shall call for now. lost--through him--forever. As I ended we turned
They're not too into High Street; in
particular at such stages of such proceedings, but the prevailing stillness, the faint strains of the band
I've no doubt I reached us from
should have seen someone I knew if I had none the Empress Rooms; and I hailed a crawling
right in. I might even hansom as Raffles turned
have had a turn, if only I had been less uneasy about that way.
you, Bunny."
"Bunny," said he, "it's no use saying I'm sorry.
"It was like you to come back to help me out," said Sorrow adds insult in
I. "But to lie to a case like this--if ever there was or will be such
me, and to inveigle me with your lies into that another! Only
house of all believe me, Bunny, when I swear to you that I had
houses--that was not like you, Raffles--and I never not the smallest
shall forgive it or shadow of a suspicion that she was in the house."
you!"
And in my heart of hearts I did believe him; but I
Raffles took my arm again. We were near the High could not bring
Street gates of myself to say the words.
Palace Gardens, and I was too miserable to resist an
advance which I "You told me yourself that you had written to her in
meant never to give him an opportunity to repeat. the country," he
pursued.
"Come, come, Bunny, there wasn't much inveigling
about it," said he. "I "And that letter!" I rejoined, in a fresh wave of
did my level best to leave you behind, but you bitterness: "that
wouldn't listen to me." letter she had written at dead of night, and stolen
down to post, it
"If you had told me the truth I should have listened was the one I have been waiting for all these days!
fast enough," I I should have got
retorted. "But what's the use of talking? You can it to-morrow. Now I shall never get it, never hear
boast of your own from her again, nor
adventures after you bolted. You don't care what have another chance in this world or in the next. I
happened to me." don't say it was
all your fault. You no more knew that she was there
"I cared so much that I came back to see." than I did. But
you told me a deliberate lie about her people, and
"You might have spared yourself the trouble! The that I never shall
wrong had been done. forgive."
Raffles--Raffles--don't you know who she was?"
I spoke as vehemently as I could under my breath. me this injury, or indeed any injury at all.
The hansom was Intrinsically the deceit
waiting at the curb. had been quite venial, the reason for it obviously the
reason that
"I can say no more than I have said," returned Raffles had given me. It was quite true that he had
Raffles with a shrug. spoken of this
"Lie or no lie, I didn't tell it to bring you with me, Lochmaben peerage as a new creation, and of the
but to get you heir to it in a fashion
to give me certain information without feeling a only applicable to Alick Carruthers. He had given
beast about it. But, me hints, which I
as a matter of fact, it was no lie about old Hector had been too dense to take, and he had certainly
Carruthers and Lord made more than one
Lochmaben, and anybody but you would have attempt to deter me from accompanying him on this
guessed the truth." fatal emprise; had he
been more explicit, I might have made it my
"What is the truth?" business to deter him. I
could not say in my heart that Raffles had failed to
"I as good as told you, Bunny, again and again." satisfy such honor
as I might reasonably expect to subsist between us.
"Then tell me now." Yet it seems to me
to require a superhuman sanity always and
"If you read your paper there would be no need; but unerringly to separate cause
if you want to from effect, achievement from intent. And I, for
know, old Carruthers headed the list of the Birthday one, was never quite
Honors, and Lord able to do so in this case.
Lochmaben is the title of his choice."
I could not be accused of neglecting my newspaper
And this miserable quibble was not a lie! My lip during the next few
curled, I turned my wretched days. I read every word that I could find
back without a word, and drove home to my Mount about the attempted
Street flat in a new jewel-robbery in Palace Gardens, and the reports
fury of savage scorn. Not a lie, indeed! It was the afforded me my sole
one that is half comfort. In the first place, it was only an attempted
a truth, the meanest lie of all, and the very last to robbery; nothing
which I could had been taken, after all. And then--and then--the
have dreamt that Raffles would stoop. So far there one member of the
had been a degree household who had come nearest to a personal
of honor between us, if only of the kind understood encounter with either of
to obtain between us was unable to furnish any description of the
thief and thief. Now all that was at an end. Raffles man--had even expressed
had cheated me. a doubt as to the likelihood of identification in the
Raffles had completed the ruin of my life. I was event of an
done with Raffles, as arrest!
she who shall not be named was done with me.
I will not say with what mingled feelings I read and
And yet, even while I blamed him most bitterly, and dwelt on that
utterly abominated announcement. It kept a certain faint glow alive
his deceitful deed, I could not but admit in my heart within me until the
that the result morning brought me back the only presents I had
was put of all proportion to the intent: he had never ever made her. They
dreamt of doing were books; jewellery had been tabooed by the
authorities. And the
books came back without a word, though the parcel "Yes," I said, "that sort of way. It's finished. What
was directed in her did you expect?"
hand.
"I don't know," said Raffles. "I only thought that
I had made up my mind not to go near Raffles the girl who went
again, but in my heart I so far to get a fellow out of a tight place might go a
already regretted my resolve. I had forfeited love, I little farther
had sacrificed to keep him from getting into another."
honor, and now I must deliberately alienate myself
from the one being "I don't see why she should," said I, honestly
whose society might yet be some recompense for all enough, yet with the
that I had lost. irritation of a less just feeling deep down in my
The situation was aggravated by the state of my inmost consciousness.
exchequer. I expected
an ultimatum from my banker by every post. Yet "Yet you did hear from her?" he persisted.
this influence was
nothing to the other. It was Raffles I loved. It was "She sent me back my poor presents, without a
not the dark life word," I said, "if you
we led together, still less its base rewards; it was the call that hearing."
man himself,
his gayety, his humor, his dazzling audacity, his I could not bring myself to own to Raffles that I had
incomparable courage given her only
and resource. And a very horror of turning to him books. He asked if I was sure that she had sent
again in mere need them back herself; and
of greed set the seal on my first angry resolution. that was his last question. My answer was enough
But the anger was for him. And to this
soon gone out of me, and when at length Raffles day I cannot say whether it was more in relief than
bridged the gap by in regret that he
coming to me, I rose to greet him almost with a laid a hand upon my shoulder.
shout.
"So you are out of Paradise after all!" said Raffles.
He came as though nothing had happened; and, "I was not sure,
indeed, not very many days or I should have come round before. Well, Bunny,
had passed, though they might have been months to if they don't want
me. Yet I fancied you there, there's a little Inferno in the Albany
the gaze that watched me through our smoke a trifle where you will be as
less sunny than it welcome as ever."
had been before. And it was a relief to me when he
came with few And still, with all the magic mischief of his smile,
preliminaries to the inevitable point. there was that
touch of sadness which I was yet to read aright.
"Did you ever hear from her, Bunny?" he asked.

"In a way," I answered. "We won't talk about it, if

you don't mind,
Raffles." The Chest of Silver

"That sort of way!" he exclaimed. He seemed both Like all the tribe of which I held him head, Raffles
surprised and professed the
disappointed. liveliest disdain for unwieldy plunder of any
description; it might be
old Sheffield, or it might be solid silver or gold, but nothing, yet which often meant so much; and in a
if the thing flash I was convinced
was not to be concealed about the person, he would that our most jealous enemy and dangerous rival,
none whatever of it. the doyen of an older
Unlike the rest of us, however, in this as in all else, school, had paid him yet another visit.
Raffles would
not infrequently allow the acquisitive spirit of the "That remains to be seen," was the measured reply;
mere collector to "and I for one have
silence the dictates of professional prudence. The not set naked eye on the fellow since I saw him off
old oak chests, and through that window
even the mahogany wine-cooler, for which he had and left myself for dead on this very spot. In fact, I
doubtless paid like an imagined him
honest citizen, were thus immovable with pieces of comfortably back in jail."
crested plate, which
he had neither the temerity to use nor the hardihood "Not old Crawshay!" said I. "He's far too good a
to melt or sell. man to be taken
He could but gloat over them behind locked doors, twice. I should call him the very prince of
as I used to tell professional cracksmen."
him, and at last one afternoon I caught him at it. It
was in the year "Should you?" said Raffles coldly, with as cold an
after that of my novitiate, a halcyon period at the eye looking into
Albany, when mine. "Then you had better prepare to repel princes
Raffles left no crib uncracked, and I played second- when I'm gone."
murderer every
time. I had called in response to a telegram in which "But gone where?" I asked, finding a corner for my
he stated that he hat and coat, and
was going out of town, and must say good-by to me helping myself to the comforts of the venerable
before he went. And I dresser which was one
could only think that he was inspired by the same of our friend's greatest treasures. "Where is it you
impulse toward the are off to, and
bronzed salvers and the tarnished teapots with why are you taking this herd of white elephants
which I found him with you?"
surrounded, until my eyes lit upon the enormous
silver-chest into which Raffles bestowed the cachet of his smile on my
he was fitting them one by one. description of his
motley plate. He joined me in one of his favorite
"Allow me, Bunny! I shall take the liberty of cigarettes, only
locking both doors shaking a superior head at his own decanter.
behind you and putting the key in my pocket," said
Raffles, when he had "One question at a time, Bunny," said he. "In the
let me in. "Not that I mean to take you prisoner, my first place, I am
dear fellow; but going to have these rooms freshened up with a
there are those of us who can turn keys from the potful of paint, the
outside, though it was electric light, and the telephone you've been at me
never an accomplishment of mine." about so long."

"Not Crawshay again?" I cried, standing still in my "Good!" I cried. "Then we shall be able to talk to
hat. each other day and
night!"
Raffles regarded me with that tantalizing smile of
his which might mean "And get overheard and run in for our pains? I shall
wait till you are
run in, I think," said Raffles cruelly. "But the rest's a great week at Liverpool and Lincoln; then ask
a necessity: them if they can do
not that I love new paint or am pining for electric with your silver while you run over to Paris for a
light, but for merry Easter. I
reasons which I will just breathe in your private ear, should tell them it's rather heavy--a lot of old family
Bunny. You must stuff that
not try to take them too seriously; but the fact is, you've a good mind to leave with them till you
there is just the marry and settle down."
least bit of a twitter against me in this rookery of an
Albany. It I winced at this, but consented to the rest after a
must have been started by that tame old bird, moment's
Policeman Mackenzie; it consideration. After all, and for more reasons that I
isn't very bad as yet, but it needn't be that to reach need enumerate,
my ears. Well, it was a plausible tale enough. And Raffles had no
it was open to me either to clear out altogether, and banker; it was
so confirm quite impossible for him to explain, across any
whatever happened to be in the air, or to go off for a single counter, the
time, under some large sums of hard cash which did sometimes fall
arrangement which would give the authorities into his hands; and it
ample excuse for might well be that he had nursed my small account
overhauling every inch of my rooms. Which would in view of the very
you have done, Bunny?" quandary which had now arisen. On all grounds, it
was impossible for
"Cleared out, while I could!" said I devoutly. me to refuse him, and I am still glad to remember
that my assent was
"So I should have thought," rejoined Raffles. "Yet given, on the whole, ungrudgingly.
you see the merit
of my plan. I shall leave every mortal thing "But when will the chest be ready for me," I merely
unlocked." asked, as I stuffed
the notes into my cigarette case. "And how are we
"Except that," said I, kicking the huge oak case with to get it out of
the iron bands this, in banking hours, without attracting any
and clamps, and the baize lining fast disappearing amount of attention at
under heavy packages this end?"
bearing the shapes of urns and candelabra.
Raffles gave me an approving nod.
"That," replied Raffles, "is neither to go with me
nor to remain here." "I'm glad to see you spot the crux so quickly,
Bunny. I have thought
"Then what do you propose to do with it?" of your taking it round to your place first, under
cloud of night; but
"You have your banking account, and your banker," we are bound to be seen even so, and on the whole
he went on. This was it would look far
perfectly true, though it was Raffles alone who had less suspicious in broad daylight. It will take you
kept the one open, some twelve or
and enabled me to propitiate the other in moments fifteen minutes to drive to your bank in a growler,
of emergency. so if you are here
with one at a quarter to ten to-morrow morning, that
"Well?" will exactly meet
the case. But you must have a hansom this minute
"Well, pay in this bundle of notes this afternoon, if you mean to
and say you have had prepare the way with those notes this afternoon!"
 least have dined together, and in my heart I felt just
It was only too like the Raffles of those days to the least bit
dismiss a subject and hurt, until it occurred to me as I drove to count the
myself in the same breath, with a sudden nod, and a notes in my
brief grasp of the cigarette case. Resentment was impossible after
hand he was already holding out for mine. I had a that. The sum ran well
great mind to take into three figures, and it was plain that Raffles
another of his cigarettes instead, for there were one meant me to have a
or two points on good time in his absence. So I told his lie with
which he had carefully omitted to enlighten me. unction at my bank,
Thus, I had still to and made due arrangements for the reception of his
learn the bare direction of his journey; and it was all chest next morning.
that I could do Then I repaired to our club, hoping he would drop
to drag it from him as I stood buttoning my coat and in, and that we might
gloves. dine together after all. In that I was disappointed.
It was nothing,
"Scotland," he vouchsafed at last. however, to the disappointment awaiting me at the
Albany, when I
"At Easter," I remarked. arrived in my four-wheeler at the appointed hour
next morning.
"To learn the language," he explained. "I have no
tongue but my own, "Mr. Raffles 'as gawn, sir," said the porter, with a
you see, but I try to make up for it by cultivating note of reproach
every shade of in his confidential undertone. The man was a
that. Some of them have come in useful even to favorite with Raffles,
your knowledge, Bunny: who used him and tipped him with consummate
what price my Cockney that night in St. John's tact, and he knew me only
Wood? I can keep up my less well.
end in stage Irish, real Devonshire, very fair
Norfolk, and three "Gone!" I echoed aghast. "Where on earth to?"
distinct Yorkshire dialects. But my good Galloway
Scots might be "Scotland, sir."
better, and I mean to make it so."
"Already?"
"You still haven't told me where to write to you."
"By the eleven-fifty lawst night."
"I'll write to you first, Bunny."
"Last night! I thought he meant eleven-fifty this
"At least let me see you off," I urged at the door. "I morning!"
promise not to
look at your ticket if you tell me the train!" "He knew you did, sir, when you never came, and
he told me to tell you
"The eleven-fifty from Euston." there was no such train."

"Then I'll be with you by quarter to ten." I could have rent my garments in mortification and
annoyance with
And I left him without further parley, reading his myself and Raffles. It was as much his fault as
impatience in his mine. But for his
face. Everything, to be sure, seemed clear enough indecent haste in getting rid of me, his characteristic
without that fuller abruptness at
discussion which I loved and Raffles hated. Yet I the end, there would have been no
thought we might at misunderstanding or mistake.
 at the time I looked--what I felt--as though all I
"Any other message?" I inquired morosely. valued upon earth
were in jeopardy.
"Only about the box, sir. Mr. Raffles said as you
was goin' to take I should have got through the rest of that day
chawge of it time he's away, and I've a friend ready happily enough, such was
to lend a 'and in the load off my mind and hands, but for an
getting it on the cab. It's a rare 'eavy 'un, but Mr. extraordinary and most
Raffles an' me disconcerting note received late at night from
could lift it all right between us, so I dessay me an' Raffles himself. He was
my friend can." a man who telegraphed freely, but seldom wrote a
letter. Sometimes,
For my own part, I must confess that its weight however, he sent a scribbled line by special
concerned me less than messenger; and overnight,
the vast size of that infernal chest, as I drove with it evidently in the train, he had scribbled this one to
past club and post in the small
park at ten o'clock in the morning. Sit as far back as hours at Crewe:
I might in the
four-wheeler, I could conceal neither myself nor my "'Ware Prince of Professors! _He was in the
connection with the offing when I left._
huge iron-clamped case upon the roof: in my heated If slightest cause for uneasiness about bank,
imagination its wood withdraw at once
was glass through which all the world could see the and keep in own rooms like good chap,
guilty contents.
Once an officious constable held up the traffic at "A. J. R.
our approach, and
for a moment I put a blood-curdling construction "P. S.--Other reasons, as you shall hear."
upon the simple
ceremony. Low boys shouted after us--or if it was
not after us, I There was a nice nightcap for a puzzled head! I had
thought it was--and that their cry was "Stop thief!" made rather an
Enough said of evening of it, what with increase of funds and
one of the most unpleasant cab-drives I ever had in decrease of anxiety, but
my life. Horresco this cryptic admonition spoiled the remainder of my
referens. night. It had
arrived by a late post, and I only wished that I had
At the bank, however, thanks to the foresight and left it all night
liberality of in my letter-box.
Raffles, all was smooth water. I paid my cabman
handsomely, gave a What exactly did it mean? And what exactly must I
florin to the stout fellow in livery whom he helped do? These were
with the chest, and questions that confronted me with fresh force in the
could have pressed gold upon the genial clerk who morning.
laughed like a
gentleman at my jokes about the Liverpool winners The news of Crawshay did not surprise me. I was
and the latest quite sure that
betting on the Family Plate. I was only Raffles had been given good reason to bear him in
disconcerted when he informed mind before his
me that the bank gave no receipts for deposits of journey, even if he had not again beheld the ruffian
this nature. I am in the flesh. That
now aware that few London banks do. But it is ruffian and that journey might be more intimately
pleasing to believe that connected than I had
yet supposed. Raffles never told me all. Yet the fountain, even the spent swathed forms upon the
solid fact held couches, and the whole
good--held better than ever--that I had seen his clean, warm, idle atmosphere, were so much
plunder safely planted unction to my simpler soul.
in my bank. Crawshay himself could not follow it The half-hour in the hot-rooms I used to count but a
there. I was certain strenuous step to
he had not followed my cab: in the acute self- a divine lassitude of limb and accompanying
consciousness induced by exaltation of intellect.
that abominable drive, I should have known it in my And yet--and yet--it was in the hottest room of all,
bones if he had. I in a temperature
thought of the porter's friend who had helped me of 270° Fahrenheit, that the bolt fell from the Pall
with the chest. No, I Mall Gazette
remember him as well as I remembered Crawshay; which I had bought outside the bath.
they were quite
different types. I was turning over the hot, crisp pages, and
positively revelling in my
To remove that vile box from the bank, on top of fiery furnace, when the following headlines and
another cab, with no leaded paragraphs leapt
stronger pretext and no further instructions, was not to my eye with the force of a veritable blow:
to be thought of
for a moment. Yet I did think of it, for hours. I was BANK ROBBERS IN THE WEST
always anxious END--
to do my part by Raffles; he had done more than his DARING AND MYSTERIOUS
by me, not once or CRIME
twice, to-day or yesterday, but again and again from
the very first. I An audacious burglary and dastardly assault have
need not state the obvious reasons I had for fighting been committed
shy of the on the premises of the City and Suburban Bank in
personal custody of his accursed chest. Yet he had Sloane Street, W.
run worse risks for From the details so far to hand, the robbery
me, and I wanted him to learn that he, too, could appears to have been
depend on a devotion deliberately planned and adroitly executed in the
not unworthy of his own. early hours of
this morning.
In my dilemma I did what I have often done when
at a loss for light and A night watchman named Fawcett states that
leading. I took hardly any lunch, but went to between one and two
Northumberland Avenue o'clock he heard a slight noise in the neighborhood
and had a Turkish bath instead. I know nothing so of the lower
cleansing to mind as strong-room, used as a repository for the plate and
well as body, nothing better calculated to put the other
finest possible edge possessions of various customers of the bank.
on such judgment as one may happen to possess. Going down to
Even Raffles, without investigate, he was instantly attacked by a
an ounce to lose or a nerve to soothe, used to own a powerful ruffian,
sensuous who succeeded in felling him to the ground before
appreciation of the peace of mind and person to be an alarm could
gained in this be raised.
fashion when all others failed. For me, the fun
began before the boots Fawcett is unable to furnish any description of his
were off one's feet; the muffled footfalls, the thin assailant
sound of the
 or assailants, but is of opinion that more than one to cast Raffles into the outer darkness of penal
were engaged servitude! And
in the commission of the crime. When the Crawshay was capable of it--of perceiving the
unfortunate man insidious revenge--of
recovered consciousness, no trace of the thieves taking it without compunction or remorse.
remained, with
the exception of a single candle which had been There was only one course for me. I must follow
left burning on my instructions to the
the flags of the corridor. The strong-room, letter and recover the chest at all hazards, or be
however, had been taken myself in the
opened, and it is feared the raid on the chests of attempt. If only Raffles had left me some address,
plate and to which I could
other valuables may prove to have been only too have wired some word of warning! But it was no
successful, in use thinking of that;
view of the Easter exodus, which the thieves had for the rest there was time enough up to four
evidently taken o'clock, and as yet it
into account. The ordinary banking chambers was not three. I determined to go through with my
were not even bath and make the
visited; entry and exit are believed to have been most of it. Might it not be my last for years?
effected
through the coal cellar, which is also situated in But I was past enjoying even a Turkish bath. I had
the basement. not the patience
Up to the present the police have effected no for a proper shampoo, or sufficient spirit for the
arrest. plunge. I weighed
myself automatically, for that was a matter near my
I sat practically paralyzed by this appalling news; heart; but I forgot
and I swear that, to give my man his sixpence until the reproachful
even in that incredible temperature, it was a cold intonation of his
perspiration in adieu recalled me to myself. And my couch in the
which I sweltered from head to heel. Crawshay, of cooling gallery--my
course! Crawshay favorite couch, in my favorite corner, which I had
once more upon the track of Raffles and his ill- secured with gusto
gotten gains! And once on coming in--it was a bed of thorns, with hideous
more I blamed Raffles himself: his warning had visions of a
come too late: he should plank-bed to follow!
have wired to me at once not to take the box to the
bank at all. He I ought to be able to add that I heard the burglary
was a madman ever to have invested in so obvious discussed on
and obtrusive a adjacent couches before I left. I certainly listened
receptacle for treasure. It would serve Raffles right for it, and was
if that and no rather disappointed more than once when I had held
other was the box which had been broken into by my breath in vain.
the thieves. But this is the unvarnished record of an odious hour,
and it passed
Yet, when I considered the character of his treasure, without further aggravation from without; only, as I
I fairly drove to Sloane
shuddered in my sweat. It was a hoard of criminal Street, the news was on all the posters, and on one I
relics. Suppose his read of "a clew"
chest had indeed been rifled, and emptied of every which spelt for me a doom I was grimly resolved to
silver thing but share.
one; that one remaining piece of silver, seen of men,
was quite enough
Already there was something in the nature of a I dare say they also have been 'at it with others all
"run" up on the Sloane the afternoon,'
Street branch of the City and Suburban. A cab but I shall make this worth their while."
drove away with a chest
of reasonable dimensions as mine drove up, while I did not mind driving through the streets with the
in the bank itself a thing this time. My
lady was making a painful scene. As for the genial present relief was too overwhelming as yet to admit
clerk who had of pangs and fears
roared at my jokes the day before, he was for the immediate future. No summer sun had ever
mercifully in no mood for any shone more brightly
more, but, on the contrary, quite rude to me at sight. than that rather watery one of early April. There
was a green-and-gold
"I've been expecting you all the afternoon," said he. dust of buds and shoots on the trees as we passed
"You needn't the park. I felt
look so pale." greater things sprouting in my heart. Hansoms
passed with schoolboys
"Is it safe?" just home for the Easter holidays, four-wheelers
outward bound, with
"That Noah's Ark of yours? Yes, so I hear; they'd bicycles and perambulators atop; none that rode in
just got to it when them were half so
they were interrupted, and they never went back happy as I, with the great load on my cab, but the
again." greater one off my
heart.
"Then it wasn't even opened?"
At Mount Street it just went into the lift; that was a
"Only just begun on, I believe." stroke of luck;
and the lift-man and I between us carried it into my
"Thank God!" flat. It seemed a
featherweight to me now. I felt a Samson in the
"You may; we don't," growled the clerk. "The exaltation of that
manager says he believes hour. And I will not say what my first act was
your chest was at the bottom of it all." when I found myself
alone with my white elephant in the middle of the
"How could it be?" I asked uneasily. room; enough that the
siphon was still doing its work when the glass
"By being seen on the cab a mile off, and followed," slipped through my
said the clerk. fingers to the floor.

"Does the manager want to see me?" I asked boldly. "Bunny!"

"Not unless you want to see him," was the blunt It was Raffles. Yet for a moment I looked about me
reply. "He's been at quite in vain. He
it with others all the afternoon, and they haven't all was not at the window; he was not at the open door.
got off as cheap And yet Raffles it
as you." had been, or at all events his voice, and that
bubbling over with fun
"Then my silver shall not embarrass you any and satisfaction, be his body where it might. In the
longer," said I grandly. "I end I dropped my
meant to leave it if it was all right, but after all you eyes, and there was his living face in the middle of
have said I the lid of the
certainly shall not. Let your man or men bring up chest, like that of the saint upon its charger.
the chest at once.
But Raffles was alive, Raffles was laughing as
though his vocal cords But Raffles wagged away with his most charming
would snap--there was neither tragedy nor illusion and disarming smile; he
in the apparition of was in old clothes, rather tattered and torn, and
Raffles. A life-size Jack-in-the-box, he had thrust more than a little
his head through a grimy as to the face and hands, but, on the surface,
lid within the lid, cut by himself between the two wonderfully little
iron bands that ran the worse for his experience. And, as I say, his
round the chest like the straps of a portmanteau. He smile was the smile
must have been of the Raffles I loved best.
busy at it when I found him pretending to pack, if
not far into that "You would have done your damnedest, Bunny!
night, for it was a very perfect piece of work; and There is no limit to your
even as I stared heroism; but you forget the human equation in the
without a word, and he crouched laughing in my pluckiest of the
face, an arm came plucky. I couldn't afford to forget it, Bunny; I
squeezing out, keys in hand; one was turned in couldn't afford to
either of the two great give a point away. Don't talk as though I hadn't
padlocks, the whole lid lifted, and out stepped trusted you! I
Raffles like the trusted my very life to your loyal tenacity. What do
conjurer he was. you suppose would
have happened to me if you had let me rip in that
"So you were the burglar!" I exclaimed at last. strong-room? Do you
"Well, I am just as think I would ever have crept out and given myself
glad I didn't know." up? Yes, I'll have
a peg for once; the beauty of all laws is in the
He had wrung my hand already, but at this he fairly breaking, even of the
mangled it in his. kind we make unto ourselves."

"You dear little brick," he cried, "that's the one I had a Sullivan for him, too; and in another minute
thing of all things he was spread out
I longed to hear you say! How could you have on my sofa, stretching his cramped limbs with
behaved as you've done if infinite gusto, a
you had known? How could any living man? How cigarette between his fingers, a yellow bumper at
could you have acted, as hand on the chest of
the polar star of all the stages could not have acted his triumph and my tribulation.
in your place?
Remember that I have heard a lot, and as good as "Never mind when it occurred to me, Bunny; as a
seen as much as I've matter of fact, it was
heard. Bunny, I don't know where you were only the other day, when I had decided to go away
greatest: at the Albany, for the real reasons
here, or at your bank!" I have already given you. I may have made more of
them to you than I
"I don't know where I was most miserable," I do in my own mind, but at all events they exist.
rejoined, beginning to see And I really did want
the matter in a less perfervid light. "I know you the telephone and the electric light."
don't credit me with
much finesse, but I would undertake to be in the "But where did you stow the silver before you
secret and to do quite went?"
as well; the only difference would be in my own
peace of mind, which, "Nowhere; it was my luggage--a portmanteau,
of course, doesn't count." cricket-bag, and suit-case
full of very little else--and by the same token I left incident was steps outside and a key in the lock! I
the lot at was disporting
Euston, and one of us must fetch them this myself on the lid of the trunk at the time. I had
evening." barely time to knock
out my light and slip down behind it. Luckily it was
"I can do that," said I. "But did you really go all the only another box
way to Crewe?" of sorts; a jewel-case, to be more precise; you shall
see the contents
"Didn't you get my note? I went all the way to in a moment. The Easter exodus has done me even
Crewe to post you those better than I dared to
few lines, my dear Bunny! It's no use taking trouble hope."
if you don't take
trouble enough; I wanted you to show the proper set His words reminded me of the Pall Mall Gazette,
of faces at the which I had brought in
bank and elsewhere, and I know you did. Besides, my pocket from the Turkish bath. I fished it out, all
there was an up-train wrinkled and
four minutes after mine got in. I simply posted my bloated by the heat of the hottest room, and handed
letter in Crewe it to Raffles with
station, and changed from one train to the other." my thumb upon the leaded paragraphs.

"At two in the morning!" "Delightful!" said he when he had read them.
"More thieves than one,
"Nearer three, Bunny. It was after seven when I and the coal-cellar of all places as a way in! I
slung in with the certainly tried to
Daily Mail. The milk had beaten me by a short can. give it that appearance. I left enough candle-grease
But even so I had there to make
two very good hours before you were due." those coals burn bravely. But it looked up into a
blind backyard,
"And to think," I murmured, "how you deceived me Bunny, and a boy of eight couldn't have squeezed
there!" through the trap. Long
may that theory keep them happy at Scotland
"With your own assistance," said Raffles laughing. Yard!"
"If you had looked
it up you would have seen there was no such train in "But what about the fellow you knocked out?" I
the morning, and I asked. "That was not
never said there was. But I meant you to be like you, Raffles."
deceived, Bunny, and I
won't say I didn't--it was all for the sake of the side! Raffles blew pensive rings as he lay back on my
Well, when sofa, his black hair
you carted me away with such laudable despatch, I tumbled on the cushion, his pale profile as clear and
had rather an sharp against the
uncomfortable half-hour, but that was all just then. light as though slashed out with the scissors.
I had my candle,
I had matches, and lots to read. It was quite nice in "I know it wasn't, Bunny," he said regretfully. "But
that strong-room things like that,
until a very unpleasant incident occurred." as the poet will tell you, are really inseparable from
victories like
"Do tell me, my dear fellow!" mine. It had taken me a couple of hours to break
out of that
"I must have another Sullivan--thank you--and a strong-room; I was devoting a third to the harmless
match. The unpleasant task of simulating
the appearance of having broken in; and it was then surprise me to find that you had never heard of him
I heard the since the day of
fellow's stealthy step. Some might have stood their his escape through your window."
ground and killed
him; more would have bolted into a worse corner "I never even thought of him, Bunny, until you
than they were in came to see me the day
already. I left my candle where it was, crept to before yesterday, and put him into my head with
meet the poor devil, your first words. The
flattened myself against the wall, and let him have it whole point was to make you as genuinely anxious
as he passed. I about the plate as you
acknowledge the foul blow, but here's evidence that must have seemed all along the line."
it was mercifully
struck. The victim has already told his tale." "Of course I see your point," I rejoined; "but mine is
that you labored
As he drained his glass, but shook his head when I it. You needn't have written me a downright lie
wished to replenish about the fellow."
it, Raffles showed me the flask which he had carried
in his pocket: it "Nor did I, Bunny."
was still nearly full; and I found that he had
otherwise provisioned "Not about the 'prince of professors' being 'in the
himself over the holidays. On either Easter Day or offing' when you
Bank Holiday, had I left?"
failed him, it had been his intention to make the best
escape he could. "My dear Bunny, but so he was!" cried Raffles.
But the risk must have been enormous, and it filled "Time was when I was
my glowing skin to none too pure an amateur. But after this I take leave
think that he had not relied on me in vain. to consider
myself a professor of the professors. And I should
As for his gleanings from such jewel-cases as were like to see one
spending the Easter more capable of skippering their side!"
recess in the strong-room of my bank, without
going into rhapsodies or
even particulars on the point, I may mention that
they realized enough
for me to join Raffles on his deferred holiday in The Rest Cure
Scotland, besides
enabling him to play more regularly for Middlesex I had not seen Raffles for a month or more, and I
in the ensuing summer was sadly in need of
than had been the case for several seasons. In fine, his advice. My life was being made a burden to me
this particular by a wretch who had
exploit entirely justified itself in my eyes, in spite of obtained a bill of sale over the furniture in Mount
the Street, and it was
superfluous (but invariable) secretiveness which I only by living elsewhere that I could keep the
could seldom help vulpine villain from my
resenting in my heart. I never thought less of it than door. This cost ready money, and my balance at the
in the present bank was sorely in
instance; and my one mild reproach was on the need of another lift from Raffles. Yet, had he been
subject of the phantom in my shoes, he
Crawshay. could not have vanished more effectually than he
had done, both from
"You let me think he was in the air again," I said. the face of the town and from the ken of all who
"But it wouldn't knew him.
 I looked up from the mysterious missive, the
It was late in August; he never played first-class equally mysterious
cricket after July, messenger had disappeared in a manner worthy of
when, a scholastic understudy took his place in the the whole affair. He
Middlesex eleven. was, however, the first creature I espied under the
And in vain did I scour my _Field_ and my tattered trees of
_Sportsman_ for the country-house Holland Walk that evening.
matches with which he wilfully preferred to wind
up the season; the "Seen 'im yet?" he inquired confidentially, blowing
matches were there, but never the magic name of A. a vile cloud from
J. Raffles. Nothing his horrid pipe.
was known of him at the Albany; he had left no
instructions about his "No, I haven't; and I want to know where you've
letters, either there or at the club. I began to fear seen him," I replied
that some evil sternly. "Why did you run away like that the
had overtaken him. I scanned the features of moment you had given me
captured criminals in the his note?"
illustrated Sunday papers; on each occasion I
breathed again; nor was "Orders, orders," was the reply. "I ain't such a
anything worthy of Raffles going on. I will not juggins as to go agen
deny that I was less a toff as makes it worf while to do as I'm bid an' 'old
anxious on his account than on my own. But it was me tongue."
a double relief to
me when he gave a first characteristic sign of life. "And who may you be?" I asked jealously. "And
what are you to Mr.
I had called at the Albany for the fiftieth time, and Raffles?"
returned to
Piccadilly in my usual despair, when a street "You silly ass, Bunny, don't tell all Kensington that
sloucher sidled up to me I'm in town!"
in furtive fashion and inquired if my name was what replied my tatterdemalion, shooting up and
it is. smoothing out into a merely
shabby Raffles. "Here, take my arm--I'm not so
"'Cause this 'ere's for you," he rejoined to my beastly as I look. But
affirmative, and with neither am I in town, nor in England, nor yet on the
that I felt a crumpled note in my palm. face of the earth,
for all that's known of me to a single soul but you."
It was from Raffles. I smoothed out the twisted
scrap of paper, and on "Then where are you," I asked, "between
it were just a couple of lines in pencil: ourselves?"

"Meet me in Holland Walk at dark to-night. Walk "I've taken a house near here for the holidays, where
up and down till I I'm going in for
come. A. J. R." a Rest Cure of my own description. Why? Oh, for
lots of reasons, my
That was all! Not another syllable after all these dear Bunny; among others, I have long had a wish
weeks, and the few to grow my own beard;
words scribbled in a wild caricature of his scholarly under the next lamppost you will agree that it's
and dainty hand! training on very
I was no longer to be alarmed by this sort of thing; nicely. Then, you mayn't know it, but there's a
it was all so like canny man at Scotland
the Raffles I loved least; and to add to my Yard who has had a quiet eye on me longer than I
indignation, when at length like. I thought it
about time to have an eye on him, and I stared him good they let you carry the trunks up-stairs; and I've
in the face outside taken notes from
the Albany this very morning. That was when I saw the inside of more than one commodious residence
you go in, and which will come in
scribbled a line to give you when you came out. If useful in the autumn. In fact, Bunny, what with
he had caught us these new Rowton
talking he would have spotted me at once." houses, my beard, and my otherwise well-spent
holiday, I hope to have
"So you are lying low out here!" quite a good autumn season before the erratic
Raffles turns up in town."
"I prefer to call it my Rest Cure," returned Raffles,
"and it's really I felt it high time to wedge in a word about my own
nothing else. I've got a furnished house at a time far less
when no one else satisfactory affairs. But it was not necessary for me
would have dreamed of taking one in town; and my to recount half
very neighbors don't my troubles. Raffles could be as full of himself as
know I'm there, though I'm bound to say there are many a worse man,
hardly any of them at and I did not like his society the less for these
home. I don't keep a servant, and do everything for human outpourings.
myself. It's the They had rather the effect of putting me on better
next best fun to a desert island. Not that I make terms with myself,
much work, for I'm through bringing him down to my level for the time
really resting, but I haven't done so much solid being. But his
reading for years. egoism was not even skin-deep; it was rather a
Rather a joke, Bunny: the man whose house I've cloak, which Raffles
taken is one of her could cast off quicker than any man I ever knew, as
Majesty's inspectors of prisons, and his study's a he did not fail to
storehouse of show me now.
criminology. It has been quite amusing to lie on
one's back and have a "Why, Bunny, this is the very thing!" he cried.
good look at one's self as others fondly imagine "You must come and
they see one." stay with me, and we'll lie low side by side. Only
remember it really
"But surely you get some exercise?" I asked; for he is a Rest Cure. I want to keep literally as quiet as I
was leading me at a was without
good rate through the leafy byways of Campden you. What do you say to forming ourselves at once
Hill; and his step was into a practically
as springy and as light as ever. Silent Order? You agree? Very well, then, here's
the street and
"The best exercise I ever had in my life," said that's the house."
Raffles; "and you would
never live to guess what it is. It's one of the reasons It was ever such a quiet little street, turning out of
why I went in one of those
for this seedy kit. I follow cabs. Yes, Bunny, I turn which climb right over the pleasant hill. One side
out about dusk was monopolized by
and meet the expresses at Euston or King's Cross; the garden wall of an ugly but enviable mansion
that is, of course, I standing in its own
loaf outside and pick my cab, and often run my ground; opposite were a solid file of smaller but
three or four miles for taller houses; on
a bob or less. And it not only keeps you in the very neither side were there many windows alight, nor a
pink: if you're solitary soul on the
pavement or in the road. Raffles led the way to one about my Rest Cure."
of the small tall
houses. It stood immediately behind a lamppost, "You are actually staying in a house where you've
and I could not but broken in to steal?"
notice that a love-lock of Virginia creeper was
trailing almost to the "Not to steal, Bunny! I haven't stolen a thing. But
step, and that the bow-window on the ground floor staying here I
was closely certainly am, and having the most complete rest a
shuttered. Raffles admitted himself with his latch- busy man could wish."
key, and I squeezed
past him into a very narrow hall. I did not hear him "There'll be no rest for me!"
shut the door,
but we were no longer in the lamplight, and he Raffles laughed as he struck a match. I had
pushed softly past me in followed him into what
his turn. would have been the back drawing-room in the
ordinary little London
"I'll get a light," he muttered as he went; but to let house; the inspector of prisons had converted it into
him pass I had a separate study
leaned against some electric switches, and while his by filling the folding doors with book-shelves,
back was turned I which I scanned at once
tried one of these without thinking. In an instant for the congenial works of which Raffles had
hall and staircase spoken. I was not able to
were flooded with light; in another Raffles was carry my examination very far. Raffles had lighted
upon me in a fury, and, a candle, stuck (by
all was dark once more. He had not said a word, its own grease) in the crown of an opera hat, which
but I heard him he opened the
breathing through his teeth. moment the wick caught. The light thus struck the
ceiling in an oval
Nor was there anything to tell me now. The mere shaft, which left the rest of the room almost as dark
flash of electric as it had been
light upon a hail of chaos and uncarpeted stairs, and before.
on the face of
Raffles as he sprang to switch it off, had been "Sorry, Bunny!" said Raffles, sitting on one
enough even for me. pedestal of a desk from
which the top had been removed, and setting his
"So this is how you have taken the house," said I in makeshift lantern on
his own undertone. the other. "In broad daylight, when it can't be
"'Taken' is good; 'taken' is beautiful!" spotted from the
outside, you shall have as much artificial light as
"Did you think I'd done it through an agent?" he you like. If you
snarled. "Upon my want to do some writing, that's the top of the desk
word, Bunny, I did you the credit of supposing you on end against the
saw the joke all the mantlepiece. You'll never have a better chance so
time!" far as interruption
goes. But no midnight oil or electricity! You
"Why shouldn't you take a house," I asked, "and pay observe that their last
for it?" care was to fix up these shutters; they appear to
have taken the top
"Why should I," he retorted, "within three miles of off the desk to get at 'em without standing on it; but
the Albany? the beastly
Besides, I should have had no peace; and I meant things wouldn't go all the way up, and the strip they
every word I said leave would give
us away to the backs of the other houses if we lit up "No, Bunny, I regret to say I came in through the
after dark. Mind dormer window. They
that telephone! If you touch the receiver they will were painting next door but one. I never did like
know at the ladder work, but it
exchange that the house is not empty, and I takes less time than in picking a lock in the broad
wouldn't put it past the light of a street
colonel to have told them exactly how long he was lamp."
going to be away.
He's pretty particular: look at the strips of paper to "So they left you a latch-key as well as everything
keep the dust else!"
off his precious books!"
"No, Bunny. I was just able to make that for
"Is he a colonel?" I asked, perceiving that Raffles myself. I am playing at
referred to the 'Robinson Crusoe,' not 'The Swiss Family
absentee householder. Robinson.' And now, my dear
Friday, if you will kindly take off those boots, we
"Of sappers," he replied, "and a V.C. into the can explore the
bargain, confound him! island before we turn in for the night."
Got it at Rorke's Drift; prison governor or inspector
ever since; The stairs were very steep and narrow, and they
favorite recreation, what do you think? Revolver creaked alarmingly as
shooting! You can Raffles led the way up, with the single candle in the
read all about him in his own _Who's Who_. A crown of the
devil of a chap to tackle, colonel's hat. He blew it out before we reached the
Bunny, when he's at home!" half-landing,
where a naked window stared upon the backs of the
"And where is he now?" I asked uneasily. "And do houses in the next
you know he isn't on road, but lit it again at the drawing-room door. I
his way home?" just peeped in upon
a semi-grand swathed in white and a row of water
"Switzerland," replied Raffles, chuckling; "he wrote colors mounted in
one too many gold. An excellent bathroom broke our journey to
labels, and was considerate enough to leave it the second floor.
behind for our guidance.
Well, no one ever comes back from Switzerland at "I'll have one to-night," said I, taking heart of a
the beginning of luxury unknown in
September, you know; and nobody ever thinks of my last sordid sanctuary.
coming back before the
servants. When they turn up they won't get in. I "You'll do no such thing," snapped Raffles. "Have
keep the latch the goodness to
jammed, but the servants will think it's jammed remember that our island is one of a group inhabited
itself, and while by hostile tribes.
they're gone for the locksmith we shall walk out like You can fill the bath quietly if you try, but it
gentlemen--if we empties under the
haven't done so already." study window, and makes the very devil of a noise
about it. No, Bunny,
"As you walked in, I suppose?" I bale out every drop and pour it away through the
scullery sink, so
Raffles shook his head in the dim light to which my you will kindly consult me before you turn a tap.
sight was growing Here's your room;
inured. hold the light outside while I draw the curtains; it's
the old chap's
dressing-room. Now you can bring the glim. How's
that for a jolly Raffles stood still at my feet, and well he might! A
wardrobe? And look at his coats on their cross- deafening double
trees inside: dapper knock had resounded through the empty house; and
old dog, shouldn't you say? Mark the boots on the to add to the utter
shelf above, and the horror of the moment, Raffles instantly blew out the
little brass rail for his ties! Didn't I tell you he was light. I heard my
particular? heart pounding. Neither of us breathed. We were
And wouldn't he simply love to catch us at his kit?" on our way down to
the first landing, and for a moment we stood like
"Let's only hope it would give him an apoplexy," mice; then Raffles
said I shuddering. heaved a deep sigh, and in the depths I heard the
gate swing home.
"I shouldn't build on it," replied Raffles. "That's a
big man's "Only the postman, Bunny! He will come now and
trouble, and neither you nor I could get into the old again, though they have
chap's clothes. obviously left instructions at the post-office. I hope
But come into the best bedroom, Bunny. You won't the old colonel
think me selfish if I will let them have it when he gets back. I confess it
don't give it up to you? Look at this, my boy, look gave me a turn."
at this! It's the
only one I use in all the house." "Turn!" I gasped. "I must have a drink, if I die for
it."
I had followed him into a good room, with ample
windows closely "My dear Bunny, that's no part of my Rest Cure."
curtained, and he had switched on the light in a
hanging lamp at the "Then good-by! I can't stand it; feel my forehead;
bedside. The rays fell from a thick green funnel in a listen to my heart!
plateful of Crusoe found a footprint, but he never heard a
strong light upon a table deep in books. I noticed double-knock at the
several volumes of street door!"
the "Invasion of the Crimea."
"'Better live in the midst of alarms,'" quoted Raffles,
"That's where I rest the body and exercise the "'than dwell in
brain," said Raffles. "I this horrible place.' I must confess we get it both
have long wanted to read my Kinglake from A to Z, ways, Bunny. Yet
and I manage about a I've nothing but tea in the house."
volume a night. There's a style for you, Bunny! I
love the "And where do you make that? Aren't you afraid of
punctilious thoroughness of the whole thing; one smoke?"
can understand its
appeal to our careful colonel. His name, did you "There's a gas-stove in the dining-room."
say? Crutchley,
Bunny--Colonel Crutchley, R.E., V.C." "But surely to goodness," I cried, "there's a cellar
lower down!"
"We'd put his valor to the test!" said I, feeling more
valiant myself "My dear, good Bunny," said Raffles, "I've told you
after our tour of inspection. already that I
didn't come in here on business. I came in for the
"Not so loud on the stairs," whispered Raffles. Cure. Not a penny
"There's only one door will these people be the worse, except for their
between us and--" washing and their
electric light, and I mean to leave enough to cover and watched through the drawing-room blind the
both items." cleansing of all the
steps in the street but ours. Yet Raffles had
"Then," said I, "since Brutus is such a very evidently been up some
honorable man, we will time; the house seemed far purer than overnight as
borrow a bottle from the cellar, and replace it before though he had
we go." managed to air it room by room; and from the one
with the gas-stove
Raffles slapped me softly on the back, and I knew there came a frizzling sound that fattened the heart.
that I had gained my
point. It was often the case when I had the presence I only would I had the pen to do justice to the week
of heart and mind I spent in-doors
to stand up to him. But never was little victory of on Campden Hill! It might make amusing reading;
mine quite so the reality for me was
grateful as this. Certainly it was a very small cellar, far removed from the realm of amusement. Not that
indeed a mere I was denied many a
cupboard under the kitchen stairs, with a most laugh of suppressed heartiness when Raffles and I
ridiculous lock. Nor were together. But
was this cupboard overstocked with wine. But I half our time we very literally saw nothing of each
made out a jar of other. I need not
whiskey, a shelf of Zeltinger, another of claret, and say whose fault that was. He would be quiet; he
a short one at was in ridiculous and
the top which presented a little battery of golden- offensive earnest about his egregious Cure.
leafed necks and Kinglake he would read by
corks. Raffles set his hand no lower. He examined the hour together, day and night, by the hanging
the labels while I lamp, lying up-stairs
held folded hat and naked light. on the best bed. There was daylight enough for me
in the drawing-room
"Mumm, '84!" he whispered. "G. H. Mumm, and below; and there I would sit immersed in criminous
A.D. 1884! I am no tomes weakly
wine-bibber, Bunny, as you know, but I hope you fascinated until I shivered and shook in my stocking
appreciate the soles. Often I
specifications as I do. It looks to me like the only longed to do something hysterically desperate, to
bottle, the last rouse Raffles and
of its case, and it does seem a bit of a shame; but bring the street about our ears; once I did bring him
more shame for the about mine by
miser who hoards in his cellar what was meant for striking a single note on the piano, with the soft
mankind! Come, Bunny, pedal down. His
lead the way. This baby is worth nursing. It would neglect of me seemed wanton at the time. I have
break my heart if long realized that he
anything happened to it now!" was only wise to maintain silence at the expense of
perilous amenities,
So we celebrated my first night in the furnished and as fully justified in those secret and solitary
house; and I slept sorties which made
beyond belief, slept as I never was to sleep there bad blood in my veins. He was far cleverer than I at
again. But it was getting in and
strange to hear the milkman in the early morning, out; but even had I been his match for stealth and
and the postman wariness, my company
knocking his way along the street an hour later, and would have doubled every risk. I admit now that he
to be passed over treated me with
by one destroying angel after another. I had come quite as much sympathy as common caution would
down early enough, permit. But at the time
I took it so badly as to plan a small revenge. determined to complete my toilet in every detail.
My idea was first to
What with his flourishing beard and the increasing give him the fright he deserved, and secondly to
shabbiness of the show him that I was
only suit he had brought with him to the house, quite as fit to move abroad as he. It was, however, I
there was no denying confess, a pair
that Raffles had now the advantage of a permanent of the colonel's gloves that I was buttoning as I
disguise. That was slipped down to the
another of his excuses for leaving me as he did, and study even more quietly than usual. The electric
it was the one I light was on, as it
was determined to remove. On a morning, generally was by day, and under it stood as
therefore, when I awoke to formidable a figure as ever
find him flown again, I proceeded to execute a plan I encountered in my life of crime.
which I had already
matured in my mind. Colonel Crutchley was a Imagine a thin but extremely wiry man, past middle
married man; there were no age, brown and
signs of children in the house; on the other hand, bloodless as any crabapple, but as coolly truculent
there was much and as casually
evidence that the wife was a woman of fashion. alert as Raffles at his worst. It was, it could only
Her dresses overflowed be, the
the wardrobe and her room; large, flat, cardboard fire-eating and prison-inspecting colonel himself!
boxes were to be He was ready for
found in every corner of the upper floors. She was me, a revolver in his hand, taken, as I could see,
a tall woman; I was from one of those
not too tall a man. Like Raffles, I had not shaved locked drawers in the pedestal desk with which
on Campden Hill. Raffles had refused to
That morning, however, I did my best with a very tamper; the drawer was open, and a bunch of keys
fair razor which the depended from the
colonel had left behind in my room; then I turned lock. A grim smile crumpled up the parchment
out the lady's face, so that one eye was
wardrobe and the cardboard boxes, and took my puckered out of sight; the other was propped open
choice. by an eyeglass,
which, however, dangled on its string when I
I have fair hair, and at the time it was rather long. appeared.
With a pair of
Mrs. Crutchley's tongs and a discarded hair-net, I "A woman, begad!" the warrior exclaimed. "And
was able to produce where's the man, you
an almost immodest fringe. A big black hat with a scarlet hussy?"
wintry feather
completed a headdress as unseasonable as my Not a word could I utter. But, in my horror and my
skating skirt and feather amazement, I have
boa; of course, the good lady had all her summer no sort of doubt that I acted the part I had assumed
frocks away with her in a manner I
in Switzerland. This was all the more annoying never should have approached in happier
from the fact that we circumstances.
were having a very warm September; so I was not
sorry to hear Raffles "Come, come, my lass," cried the old oak veteran,
return as I was busy adding a layer of powder to my "I'm not going to put
heated countenance. a bullet through you, you know! You tell me all
I listened a moment on the landing, but as he went about it, and it'll do
into the study I you more good than harm. There, I'll put the nasty
thing away and--God
bless me, if the brazen wench hasn't squeezed into opposite corner at the same instant. But the
the wife's kit!" instrument happened to be
a standard of the more elaborate pattern, and I
A squeeze it happened to have been, and in my flattered myself that I
emotion it felt more of had put the delicate engine out of action for the day.
one than ever; but his sudden discovery had not
heightened the Not that my adversary took the trouble to ascertain.
veteran's animosity against me. On the contrary, I He was looking at
caught a glint of me strangely in the electric light, standing intently
humor through his gleaming glass, and he on his guard, his
proceeded to pocket his right hand in the pocket where he had dropped his
revolver like the gentleman he was. revolver. And I--I
hardly knew it--but I caught up the first thing handy
"Well, well, it's lucky I looked in," he continued. "I for self-defence,
only came round and was brandishing the bottle which Raffles and I
on the off-chance of letters, but if I hadn't you'd had emptied in honor
have had another of my arrival on this fatal scene.
week in clover. Begad, though, I saw your
handwriting the moment I'd "Be shot if I don't believe you're the man himself!"
got my nose inside! Now just be sensible and tell cried the colonel,
me where your good shaking an armed fist in my face. "You young wolf
man is." in sheep's clothing.
Been at my wine, of course! Put down that bottle;
I had no man. I was alone, had broken in alone. down with it this
There was not a soul instant, or I'll drill a tunnel through your middle. I
in the affair (much less the house) except myself. thought so!
So much I stuttered Begad, sir, you shall pay for this! Don't you give me
out in tones too hoarse to betray me on the spot. an excuse for
But the old man of potting you now, or I'll jump at the chance! My last
the world shook a hard old head. bottle of
'84--you miserable blackguard--you unutterable
"Quite right not to give away your pal," said he. beast!"
"But I'm not one of
the marines, my dear, and you mustn't expect me to He had browbeaten me into his own chair in his
swallow all that. own corner; he was
Well, if you won't say, you won't, and we must just standing over me, empty bottle in one hand,
send for those who revolver in the other, and
will." murder itself in the purple puckers of his raging
face. His language I
In a flash I saw his fell design. The telephone will not even pretend to indicate: his skinny throat
directory lay open on swelled and
one of the pedestals. He must have been consulting trembled with the monstrous volleys. He could
it when he heard me smile at my appearance
on the stairs; he had another look at it now; and that in his wife's clothes; he would have had my blood
gave me my for the last bottle
opportunity. With a presence of mind rare enough of his best champagne. His eyes were not hidden
in me to excuse the now; they needed no
boast, I flung myself upon the instrument in the eyeglass to prop them open; large with fury, they
corner and hurled it started from the
to the ground with all my might. I was myself sent livid mask. I watched nothing else. I could not
spinning into the understand why they
should start out as they did. I did not try. I say I face the ferocious gaze of those implacable eyes.
watched nothing But Raffles only
else--until I saw the face of Raffles over the laughed at my squeamishness, and flung a dust-
unfortunate officer's sheet over man and chair;
shoulder. and the stark outline drove me from the room.

Raffles had crept in unheard while our altercation It was Raffles at his worst, Raffles as I never knew
was at its height, him before or
had watched his opportunity, and stolen on his man after--a Raffles mad with pain and rage, and
unobserved by either desperate as any other
of us. While my own attention was completely criminal in the land. Yet he had struck no brutal
engrossed, he had seized blow, he had uttered
the colonel's pistol-hand and twisted it behind the no disgraceful taunt, and probably not inflicted a
colonel's back tithe of the pain he
until his eyes bulged out as I have endeavored to had himself to bear. It is true that he was flagrantly
describe. But the in the wrong,
fighting man had some fight in him still; and his victim as laudably in the right. Nevertheless,
scarcely had I grasped granting the
the situation when he hit out venomously behind original sin of the situation, and given this
with the bottle, which unforeseen development,
was smashed to bits on Raffles's shin. Then I threw even I failed to see how Raffles could have
my strength into combined greater humanity
the scale; and before many minutes we had our with any regard for our joint safety; and had his
officer gagged and bound barbarities ended
in his chair. But it was not one of our bloodless here, I for one should not have considered them an
victories. Raffles extraordinary
had been cut to the bone by the broken glass; his leg aggravation of an otherwise minor offence. But in
bled wherever he the broad daylight
limped; and the fierce eyes of the bound man of the bathroom, which had a ground-glass window
followed the wet trail but no blind, I saw at
with gleams of sinister satisfaction. once the serious nature of his wound and of its
effect upon the man.
I thought I had never seen a man better bound or
better gagged. But "It will maim me for a month," said he; "and if the
the humanity seemed to have run out of Raffles V.C. comes out
with his blood. He tore alive, the wound he gave may be identified with the
up tablecloths, he cut down blind-cords, he brought wound I've got."
the dust-sheets
from the drawing-room, and multiplied every bond. The V.C.! There, indeed, was an aggravation to one
The unfortunate illogical mind. But
man's legs were lashed to the legs of his chair, his to cast a moment's doubt upon the certainty of his
arms to its arms, coming out alive!
his thighs and back fairly welded to the leather.
Either end of his own "Of course he'll come out," said I. "We must make
ruler protruded from his bulging cheeks--the middle up our minds to
was hidden by his that."
moustache--and the gag kept in place by
remorseless lashings at the "Did he tell you he was expecting the servants or
back of his head. It was a spectacle I could not bear his wife? If so, of
to contemplate course we must hurry up."
at length, while from the first I found myself
physically unable to
"No, Raffles, I'm afraid he's not expecting anybody. he had taken out and so destroy that clew to the
He told me, if he manner of man who had
hadn't looked in for letters, we should have had the made himself at home in the house. On his last visit
place to ourselves I heard him whisk
another week. That's the worst of it." off the dust-sheet; then he waited a minute; and
when he came out it
Raffles smiled as he secured a regular puttee of was to lead the way into the open air as though the
dust-sheeting. No accursed house
blood was coming through. belonged to him.

"I don't agree, Bunny," said he. "It's quite the best "We shall be seen," I whispered at his heels.
of it, if you "Raffles, Raffles,
ask me." there's a policeman at the corner!"

"What, that he should die the death?" "I know him intimately," replied Raffles, turning,
however, the other
"Why not?" way. "He accosted me on Monday, when I
explained that I was an old
And Raffles stared me out with a hard and merciless soldier of the colonel's regiment, who came in every
light in his clear few days to air
blue eyes--a light that chilled the blood. the place and send on any odd letters. You see, I
have always carried
"If it's a choice between his life and our liberty, one or two about me, redirected to that address in
you're entitled to Switzerland, and
your decision and I'm entitled to mine, and I took it when I showed them to him it was all right. But
before I bound after that it was no
him as I did," said Raffles. "I'm only sorry I took so use listening at the letter-box for a clear coast, was
much trouble if it?"
you're going to stay behind and put him in the way
of releasing himself I did not answer; there was too much to exasperate
before he gives up the ghost. Perhaps you will go in these prodigies
and think it over of cunning which he could never trouble to tell me
while I wash my bags and dry 'em at the gas stove. at the time. And I
It will take me at knew why he had kept his latest feats to himself:
least an hour, which will just give me time to finish unwilling to trust me
the last volume outside the house, he had systematically
of Kinglake." exaggerated the dangers of his
own walks abroad; and when to these injuries he
Long before he was ready to go, however, I was added the insult of a
waiting in the hall, patronizing compliment on my late disguise, I again
clothed indeed, but not in a mind which I care to made no reply.
recall. Once or
twice I peered into the dining-room where Raffles "What's the good of your coming with me?" he
sat before the stove, asked, when I had followed
without letting him hear me. He, too, was ready for him across the main stream of Notting Hill.
the street at a
moment's notice; but a steam ascended from his left "We may as well sink or swim together," I
leg, as he sat answered sullenly.
immersed in his red volume. Into the study I never
went again; but "Yes? Well, I'm going to swim into the provinces,
Raffles did, to restore to its proper shelf this and have a shave on the
every other book
way, buy a new kit piecemeal, including a cricket- cricket-bag, and found it heavier than a cricket-bag
bag (which I really has any right to
want), and come limping back to the Albany with be. But in the bed Raffles was sleeping like an
the same old strain in infant, his shaven
my bowling leg. I needn't add that I have been self once more. And when I shook him he awoke
playing country-house with a smile.
cricket for the last month under an alias; it's the
only decent way to "Going to confess, eh, Bunny? Well, wait a bit; the
do it when one's county has need of one. That's my local police won't
itinerary, Bunny, thank you for knocking them up at this hour. And I
but I really can't see why you should come with bought a late
me." edition which you ought to see; that must be it on
the floor. You have
"We may as well swing together!" I growled. a look in the stop-press column, Bunny."

"As you will, my dear fellow," replied Raffles. I found the place with a sunken heart, and this is
"But I begin to dread what I read:
your company on the drop!"
WEST-END OUTRAGE
I shall hold my pen on that provincial tour. Not that
I joined Raffles Colonel Crutchley, R.E., V.C., has been the victim
in any of the little enterprises with which he of a dastardly
beguiled the breaks in outrage at his residence, Peter Street, Campden
our journey; our last deed in London was far too Hill. Returning
great a weight upon my unexpectedly to the house, which had been left
soul. I could see that gallant officer in his chair, see untenanted during
him at every the absence of the family abroad, it was found
hour of the day and night, now with his indomitable occupied by two
eyes meeting mine ruffians, who overcame and secured the
ferociously, now a stark outline underneath a sheet. distinguished officer by
The vision the exercise of considerable violence. When
darkened my day and gave me sleepless nights. I discovered through
was with our victim in the intelligence of the Kensington police, the
all his agony; my mind would only leave him for gallant victim was
that gallows of which gagged and bound hand and foot, and in an
Raffles had said true things in jest. No, I could not advanced stage of
face so vile a exhaustion.
death lightly, but I could meet it, somehow, better
than I could endure
a guilty suspense. In the watches of the second "Thanks to the Kensington police," observed
night I made up my Raffles, as I read the last
mind to meet it halfway, that very morning, while words aloud in my horror. "They can't have gone
still there might be when they got my
time to save the life that we had left in jeopardy. letter."
And I got up early
to tell Raffles of my resolve. "Your letter?"

His room in the hotel where we were staying was "I printed them a line while we were waiting for our
littered with clothes train at Euston.
and luggage new enough for any bridegroom; I They must have got it that night, but they can't have
lifted the locked paid any
attention to it until yesterday morning. And when "They have got it into their heads," said he, "that the
they do, they take gladiatorial
all the credit and give me no more than you did, element is the curse of most modern sport. They
Bunny!" tremble especially for
the professional gladiator. And they want to know
I looked at the curly head upon the pillow, at the whether my
smiling, handsome experience tallies with their theory."
face 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
"Slow murder? You should have known me better. coll_., and any number
A few hours' enforced of suicides. It really is rather in my public line."
Rest Cure was the worst I wished him."
"In yours, if you like, but not in mine," said I. "No,
"You might have told me, Raffles!" Raffles,
they've got their eye on us both, and mean to put us
"That may be, Bunny, but you ought certainly to under the
have trusted me!" microscope, or they never would have pitched on
_me_."

Raffles smiled on my perturbation.

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

"Why Peckham and Solomons?" inquired my lord. "Let us say many a poor fellow who has been
charged with burglary,"
"They never meant to kill that old lady." replied the cheery Q.C. "It's not quite the same
thing, you know, nor
"But they strangled her in her bed with her own is 'many' the most accurate word. I never touch
pillow-case!" criminal work in town."

"I don't care," said the uncouth scribe. "They didn't "It's the only kind I should care about," said the
break in for novelist, eating
that. They never thought of scragging her. The jelly with a spoon.
foolish old person
would make a noise, and one of them tied too tight. "I quite agree with you," our host chimed in. "And
I call it jolly of all the
bad luck on them." criminals one might be called upon to defend, give
me the enterprising
"On quiet, harmless, well-behaved thieves," added burglar."
Lord Thornaby, "in
the unobtrusive exercise of their humble avocation." "It must be the breeziest branch of the business,"
remarked Raffles,
while I held my breath.
 Lord Thornaby stared at him in consternation. The
But his touch was as light as gossamer, and his smile on the
artless manner a Napoleonic countenance of the barrister looked
triumph of even his incomparable art. Raffles was forced and frozen for
alive to the danger the first time during the evening. Our author, who
at last. I saw him refuse more champagne, even as I was nibbling cheese
drained my glass from a knife, left a bead of blood upon his beard.
again. But it was not the same danger to us both. The futile Ernest
Raffles had no alone met the occasion with a hearty titter.
reason to feel surprise or alarm at such a turn in a
conversation "What!" cried my lord. "You know the thief?"
frankly devoted to criminology; it must have been
as inevitable to him "I wish I did," rejoined Raffles, chuckling. "No,
as it was sinister to me, with my fortuitous Lord Thornaby, I
knowledge of the only meant the jeweller, Danby. I go to him when I
suspicions that were entertained. And there was want a wedding
little to put him on present."
his guard in the touch of his adversaries, which was
only less light I heard three deep breaths drawn as one before I
than his own. drew my own.

"I am not very fond of Mr. Sikes," announced the "Rather a coincidence," observed our host dryly,
barrister, like a man "for I believe you
who had got his cue. also know the Milchester people, where Lady
Melrose had her necklace
"But he was prehistoric," rejoined my lord. "A lot stolen a few months afterward."
of blood has flowed
under the razor since the days of Sweet William." "I was staying there at the time," said Raffles
eagerly. No snob was
"True; we have had Peace," said Parrington, and ever quicker to boast of basking in the smile of the
launched out into such great.
glowing details of that criminal's last moments that
I began to hope "We believe it to be the same man," said Lord
the diversion might prove permanent. But Lord Thornaby, speaking
Thornaby was not to be apparently for the Criminologists' Club, and with
denied. much less severity of
voice.
"William and Charles are both dead monarchs," said
he. "The reigning "I only wish I could come across him," continued
king in their department is the fellow who gutted Raffles heartily.
poor Danby's place in "He's a criminal much more to my mind than your
Bond Street." murderers who swear on
the drop or talk cricket in the condemned cell!"
There was a guilty silence on the part of the three
conspirators--for I "He might be in the house now," said Lord
had long since persuaded myself that Ernest was not Thornaby, looking Raffles in
in their the face. But his manner was that of an actor in an
secret--and then my blood froze. unconvincing part
and a mood to play it gamely to the bitter end; and
"I know him well," said Raffles, looking up. he seemed
embittered, as even a rich man may be in the
moment of losing a bet.
 The venerable butler stood wheezing at his elbow. I
"What a joke if he were!" cried the Wild West had not hitherto
writer. observed that the man was an asthmatic.

"_Absit omen!_" murmured Raffles, in better taste. "I beg your lordship's pardon, but I think your
lordship must have
"Still, I think you'll find it's a favorite time," argued forgotten."
Kingsmill,
Q.C. "And it would be quite in keeping with the The voice came in rude gasps, but words of
character of this man, reproach could scarcely have
so far as it is known, to pay a little visit to the achieved a finer delicacy.
president of the
Criminologists' Club, and to choose the evening on "Forgotten, Leggett! Forgotten what, may I ask?"
which he happens to
be entertaining the other members." "Locking your lordship's dressing-room door
behind your lordship, my
There was more conviction in this sally than in that lord," stuttered the unfortunate Leggett, in the short
of our noble host; spurts of a
but this I attributed to the trained and skilled winded man, a few stertorous syllables at a time.
dissimulation of the "Been up myself, my
bar. Lord Thornaby, however, was not to be lord. Bedroom door--dressing-room door--both
amused by the elaboration locked inside!"
of his own idea, and it was with some asperity that
he called upon the But by this time the noble master was in worse case
butler, now solemnly superintending the removal of than the man. His
the cloth. fine forehead was a tangle of livid cords; his baggy
jowl filled out
"Leggett! Just send up-stairs to see if all the doors like a balloon. In another second he had abandoned
are open and the his place as our
rooms in proper order. That's an awful idea of host and fled the room; and in yet another we had
yours, Kingsmill, or of forgotten ours as his
mine!" added my lord, recovering the courtesy of guests and rushed headlong at his heels.
his order by an effort
that I could follow. "We should look fools. I don't Raffles was as excited as any of us now: he
know which of us outstripped us all. The
it was, by the way, who seduced the rest from the cherubic little lawyer and I had a fine race for the
main stream of blood last place but
into this burglarious backwater. Are you familiar one, which I secured, while the panting butler and
with De Quincey's his satellites
masterpiece on 'Murder as a Fine Art,' Mr. Raffles?" brought up a respectful rear. It was our
unconventional author,
"I believe I once read it," replied Raffles doubtfully. however, who was the first to volunteer his
assistance and advice.
"You must read it again," pursued the earl. "It is the
last word on a "No use pushing, Thornaby!" cried he. "If it's been
great subject; all we can hope to add is some baleful done with a wedge
illustration or and gimlet, you may smash the door, but you'll
bloodstained footnote, not unworthy of De never force it. Is there
Quincey's text. Well, a ladder in the place?"
Leggett?"
"There's a rope-ladder somewhere, in case of fire, I
believe," said my
lord vaguely, as he rolled a critical eye over our literary adventurer had elbowed Raffles out of the
faces. "Where is it limelight, and
kept, Leggett?" gratitude for the service was what I had detected in
Raffles's voice.
"William will fetch it, my lord." No need to say how grateful I felt myself. But my
gratitude was shot
And a pair of noble calves went flashing to the with flashes of unwonted insight. Parrington was
upper regions. one of those who
suspected Raffles, or, at all events, one who was in
"What's the good of bringing it down," cried the secret of
Parrington, who had thrown those suspicions. What if he had traded on the
back to the wilds in his excitement. "Let him hang suspect's presence in
it out of the the house? What if he were a deep villain himself,
window above your own, and let me climb down and _the_ villain of
and do the rest! I'll this particular piece? I had made up my mind about
undertake to have one or other of these doors open him, and that in a
in two twos!" tithe of the time I take to make it up as a rule, when
we heard my man
The fastened doors were at right angles on the in the dressing-room. He greeted us with an
landing which we filled impudent shout; in a few
between us. Lord Thornaby smiled grimly on the moments the door was open, and there stood
rest of us, when he had Parrington, flushed and
nodded and dismissed the author like a hound from dishevelled, with a gimlet in one hand and a wedge
the leash. in the other.

"It's a good thing we know something about our Within was a scene of eloquent disorder. Drawers
friend Parrington," said had been pulled out,
my lord. "He takes more kindly to all this than I do, and now stood on end, their contents heaped upon
I can tell you." the carpet. Wardrobe
doors stood open; empty stud-cases strewed the
"It's grist to his mill," said Raffles charitably. floor; a clock, tied up
in a towel, had been tossed into a chair at the last
"Exactly! We shall have the whole thing in his next moment. But a
book." long tin lid protruded from an open cupboard in one
corner. And one
"I hope to have it at the Old Bailey first," remarked had only to see Lord Thornaby's wry face behind
Kingsmill, Q.C. the lid to guess that
it was bent over a somewhat empty tin trunk.
"Refreshing to find a man of letters such a man of
action too!" "What a rum lot to steal!" said he, with a twitch of
humor at the
It was Raffles who said this, and the remark seemed corners of his canine mouth. "My peer's robes, with
rather trite for coronet complete!"
him, but in the tone there was a something that just
caught my private We rallied round him in a seemly silence. I thought
ear. And for once I understood: the officious our scribe would
attitude of Parrington, put in his word. But even he either feigned or felt a
without being seriously suspicious in itself, was proper awe.
admirably calculated
to put a previously suspected person in a grateful "You may say it was a rum place to keep 'em,"
shade. This continued Lord Thornaby.
"But where would you gentlemen stable your white The policeman in command had knocked and been
elephants? And these admitted to the library
were elephants as white as snow; by Jove, I'll job as Lord Thornaby spoke.
them for the future!"
"I didn't hear what you said, my lord."
And he made merrier over his loss than any of us
could have imagined "Merely that the perpetrator of this amusing outrage
the minute before; but the reason dawned on me a can be no other
little later, when we than the swell mobsman who relieved Lady Melrose
all trooped down-stairs, leaving the police in of her necklace and
possession of the poor Danby of half his stock a year or two ago."
theatre of crime. Lord Thornaby linked arms with
Raffles as he led the "I believe your lordship has hit the nail on the
way. His step was lighter, his gayety no longer head."
sardonic; his very
looks had improved. And I divined the load that "The man who took the Thimblely diamonds and
had been lifted from returned them to Lord
the hospitable heart of our host. Thimblely, you know."

"I only wish," said he, "that this brought us any "Perhaps he'll treat your lordship the same."
nearer to the
identity of the gentleman we were discussing at "Not he! I don't mean to cry over _my_ spilt milk.
dinner, for, of course, I only wish the
we owe it to all our instincts to assume that it was fellow joy of all he had time to take. Anything
he." fresh up-stairs by the
way?"
"I wonder!" said old Raffles, with a foolhardy
glance at me. "Yes, my lord: the robbery took place between a
quarter past eight and
"But I'm sure of it, my dear sir," cried my lord. the half-hour."
"The audacity is his
and his alone. I look no further than the fact of his "How on earth do you know?"
honoring me on
the one night of the year when I endeavor to "The clock that was tied up in the towel had stopped
entertain my brother at twenty past."
Criminologists. That's no coincidence, sir, but a
deliberate irony, "Have you interviewed my man?"
which would have occurred to no other criminal
mind in England." "I have, my lord. He was in your lordship's room
until close on the
"You may be right," Raffles had the sense to say quarter, and all was as it should be when he left it."
this time, though I
flattered myself it was my face that made him. "Then do you suppose the burglar was in hiding in
the house?"
"What is still more certain," resumed our host, "is
that no other "It's impossible to say, my lord. He's not in the
criminal in the world would have crowned so house now, for he
delicious a conception with could only be in your lordship's bedroom or
so perfect an achievement. I feel sure the inspector dressing-room, and we have
will agree with searched every inch of both."
us."
Lord Thornaby turned to us when the inspector had honor where they had done injustice. I heard
retreated, caressing Kingsmill, Q.C., telling
his peaked cap. Raffles the best time to catch him at chambers, and
promising a seat in
"I told him to clear up these points first," he court for any trial he might ever like to hear.
explained, jerking his Parrington spoke of a
head toward the door. "I had reason to think my presentation set of his books, and in doing homage
man had been to Raffles made his
neglecting his duties up there. I am glad to find peace with our host. As for Lord Thornaby, I did
myself mistaken." overhear the name of
the Athenæum Club, a reference to his friends on
I ought to have been no less glad to see my own the committee, and a
mistake. My suspicions whisper (as I thought) of Rule II.
of our officious author were thus proved to have
been as wild as The police were still in possession when we went
himself. I owed the man no grudge, and yet in my our several ways, and
human heart I felt it was all that I could do to drag Raffles up to my
vaguely disappointed. My theory had gained color rooms, though, as I
from his behavior have said, they were just round the corner. He
ever since he had admitted us to the dressing-room; consented at last as a
it had changed all lesser evil than talking of the burglary in the street;
at once from the familiar to the morose; and only and in my rooms
now was I just enough I told him of his late danger and my own dilemma,
to remember that Lord Thornaby, having tolerated of the few words I
those familiarities as had overheard in the beginning, of the thin ice on
long as they were connected with useful service, which he had cut
had administered a fancy figures without a crack. It was all very well
relentless snub the moment that service had been for him. He had
well and truly never realized his peril. But let him think of me--
performed. listening,
watching, yet unable to lift a finger--unable to say
But if Parrington was exonerated in my mind, so one warning word.
also was Raffles
reinstated in the regard of those who had entertained Raffles suffered me to finish, but a weary sigh
a far graver and followed the last
more dangerous hypothesis. It was a miracle of symmetrical whiff of a Sullivan which he flung into
good luck, a my fire before he
coincidence among coincidences, which had white- spoke.
washed him in their
sight at the very moment when they were straining "No, I won't have another, thank you. I'm going to
the expert eye to talk to you, Bunny.
sift him through and through. But the miracle had Do you really suppose I didn't see through these
been performed, and wiseacres from the
its effect was visible in every face and audible in first?"
every voice. I
except Ernest, who could never have been in the I flatly refused to believe he had done so before that
secret; moreover, that evening. Why
gay Criminologist had been palpably shaken by his had he never mentioned his idea to me? It had been
first little quite the other
experience of crime. But the other three vied way, as I indignantly reminded Raffles. Did he
among themselves to do mean me to believe he
was the man to thrust his head into the lion's mouth his incredible statement was not, after all, to be
for fun? And what ignored.
point would there be in dragging me there to see the
fun? "Of course," I went on, "if you really had brought
off this thing on
"I might have wanted you, Bunny. I very nearly your own, I should be the last to criticise your
did." means of reaching such
an end. You have not only scored off a far superior
"For my face?" force, which had
laid itself out to score off you, but you have put
"It has been my fortune before to-night, Bunny. It them in the wrong
has also given me about you, and they'll eat out of your hand for the
more confidence than you are likely to believe at rest of their days.
this time of day. But don't ask me to believe that you've done all this
You stimulate me more than you think." alone! By
George," I cried, in a sudden wave of enthusiasm, "I
"Your gallery and your prompter's box in one?" don't care how
you've done it or who has helped you. It's the
"Capital, Bunny! But it was no joking matter with biggest thing you ever
me either, my dear did in your life!"
fellow; it was touch-and-go at the time. I might
have called on you at And certainly I had never seen Raffles look more
any moment, and it was something to know I should radiant, or better
not have called in pleased with the world and himself, or nearer that
vain." elation which he
usually left to me.
"But what to do, Raffles?"
"Then you shall hear all about it, Bunny, if you'll do
"Fight our way out and bolt!" he answered, with a what I ask you."
mouth that meant it,
and a fine gay glitter of the eyes. "Ask away, old chap, and the thing's done."

I shot out of my chair. "Switch off the electric lights."

"You don't mean to tell me you had a hand in the "All of them?"
job?"
"I think so."
"I had the only hand in it, my dear Bunny."
"There, then."
"Nonsense! You were sitting at table at the time.
No, but you may "Now go to the back window and up with the
have taken some other fellow into the show. I blind."
always thought you
would!" "Well?"

"One's quite enough, Bunny," said Raffles dryly; he "I'm coming to you. Splendid! I never had a look
leaned back in his so late as this.
chair and took out another cigarette. And I accepted It's the only window left alight in the house!"
of yet another
from his case; for it was no use losing one's temper His cheek against the pane, he was pointing slightly
with Raffles; and downward and very
much aslant through a long lane of mews to a little and that has been the very mischief. In the end I had
square light like a to find out
yellow tile at the end. But I had opened the window something about the man, and wire to him from his
and leaned out girl to meet her
before I saw it for myself. outside at eight o'clock. Of course he pretends he
was at his post at
"You don't mean to say that's Thornaby House?" the time: that I foresaw, and did the poor fellow's
work before my own.
I was not familiar with the view from my back I folded and put away every garment before I
windows. permitted myself to rag
the room."
"Of course I do, you rabbit! Have a look through
your own race-glass. "I wonder you had time!"
It has been the most useful thing of all."
"It took me one more minute, and it put the clock on
But before I had the glass in focus more scales had exactly fifteen.
fallen from my By the way, I did that literally, of course, in the case
eyes; and now I knew why I had seen so much of of the clock
Raffles these last few they found. It's an old dodge, to stop a clock and
weeks, and why he had always come between seven alter the time; but
and eight o'clock in you must admit that it looked as though one had
the evening, and waited at this very window, with wrapped it up all ready
these very glasses at to cart away. There was thus any amount of
his eyes. I saw through them sharply now. The one _prima-facie_ evidence of the
lighted window robbery having taken place when we were all at
pointed out by Raffles came tumbling into the dark table. As a matter of
circle of my vision. fact, Lord Thornaby left his dressing-room one
I could not see into the actual room, but the minute, his valet
shadows of those within followed him the minute after, and I entered the
were quite distinct on the lowered blind. I even minute after that."
thought a black
thread still dangled against the square of light. It "Through the window?"
was, it must be,
the window to which the intrepid Parrington had "To be sure. I was waiting below in the garden.
descended from the one You have to pay for
above. your garden in town, in more ways than one. You
know the wall, of
"Exactly!" said Raffles in answer to my course, and that jolly old postern? The lock was
exclamation. "And that's the beneath contempt."
window I have been watching these last few weeks.
By daylight you can "But what about the window? It's on the first floor,
see the whole lot above the ground floor on this side isn't it?"
of the house; and
by good luck one of them is the room in which the Raffles took up the cane which he had laid down
master of the house with his overcoat. It
arrays himself in all his nightly glory. It was easily was a stout bamboo with a polished ferule. He
spotted by unscrewed the ferule,
watching at the right time. I saw him shaved one and shook out of the cane a diminishing series of
morning before you smaller canes,
were up! In the evening his valet stays behind to exactly like a child's fishing-rod, which I afterward
put things straight; found to have
been their former state. A double hook of steel was five minutes?"
now produced and
quickly attached to the tip of the top joint; then "Of course I don't, and of course I didn't."
Raffles undid three
buttons of his waistcoat; and lapped round and "Then what do you mean, and what did you do?"
round his waist was the
finest of Manila ropes, with the neatest of foot- "Made two bites at the cherry, Bunny! I had a dress
loops at regular rehearsal in the
intervals. dead of last night, and it was then I took the swag.
Our noble friend
"Is it necessary to go any further?" asked Raffles was snoring next door all the time, but the effort
when he had unwound may still stand high
the rope. "This end is made fast to that end of the among my small exploits, for I not only took all I
hook, the other wanted, but left the
half of the hook fits over anything that comes its whole place exactly as I found it, and shut things
way, and you leave after me like a good
your rod dangling while you swarm up your line. little boy. All that took a good deal longer; to-night
Of course, you must I had simply to
know what you've got to hook on to; but a man who rag the room a bit, sweep up some studs and links,
has had a porcelain and leave ample
bath fixed in his dressing-room is the man for me. evidence of having boned those rotten robes _to-
The pipes were all night_. That, if you
outside, and fixed to the wall in just the right place. come to think of it, was what you writing chaps
You see I had would call the
made a reconnaissance by day in addition to many quintessential Q.E.F. I have not only shown these
by night; it would dear Criminologists
hardly have been worth while constructing my that I couldn't possibly have done this trick, but that
ladder on chance." there's some
other fellow who could and did, and whom they've
"So you made it on purpose!" been perfect asses to
confuse with me."
"My dear Bunny," said Raffles, as he wound the
hemp girdle round his You may figure me as gazing on Raffles all this
waist once more, "I never did care for ladder work, time in mute and rapt
but I always said amazement. But I had long been past that pitch. If
that if I ever used a ladder it should be the best of its he had told me now
kind yet that he had broken into the Bank of England, or the
invented. This one may come in useful again." Tower, I should not
have disbelieved him for a moment. I was prepared
"But how long did the whole thing take you?" to go home with him
to the Albany and find the regalia under his bed.
"From mother earth, to mother earth? About five And I took down my
minutes, to-night, and overcoat as he put on his. But Raffles would not
one of those was spent in doing another man's hear of my
work." accompanying him that night.

"What!" I cried. "You mean to tell me you climbed "No, my dear Bunny, I am short of sleep and fed up
up and down, in and with excitement. You
out, and broke into that cupboard and that big tin mayn't believe it--you may look upon me as a
box, and wedged up plaster devil--but those
the doors and cleared out with a peer's robes and all five minutes you wot of were rather too crowded
the rest of it in even for my taste. The
dinner was nominally at a quarter to eight, and I little doubt that the stigma was undeserved. But we
don't mind telling did not think so
you now that I counted on twice as long as I had. then, for Nasmyth was unpopular with high and
But no one came until low, and appeared to
twelve minutes to, and so our host took his time. I glory in the fact. A swollen conscience caused him
didn't want to be to see and hear
the last to arrive, and I was in the drawing-room even more than was warranted by his position, and
five minutes before his uncompromising
the hour. But it was a quicker thing than I care nature compelled him to act on whatsoever he heard
about, when all is or saw: a savage
said." custodian of public morals, he had in addition a
perverse enthusiasm
And his last word on the matter, as he nodded and for lost causes, loved a minority for its own sake,
went his way, may and untenable
well be mine; for one need be no criminologist, tenets for theirs. Such, at all events, was my
much less a member of impression of Nipper
the Criminologists' Club, to remember what Raffles Nasmyth, after my first term, which was also his
did with the robes last. I had never
and coronet of the Right Hon. the Earl of Thornaby, spoken to him, but I had heard him speak with
K.G. He did with extraordinary force and
them exactly what he might have been expected to fervor in the school debates. I carried a clear
do by the gentlemen picture of his unkempt
with whom he had foregathered; and he did it in a hair, his unbrushed coat, his dominant spectacles,
manner so his dogmatic jaw.
characteristic of himself as surely to remove from And it was I who knew the combination at a glance,
their minds the last after years and
aura of the idea that he and himself were the same years, when the fateful whim seized Raffles to play
person. Carter once more in the
Paterson was out of the question, and any labelling Old Boys' Match, and his will took me down with
or addressing to be him to participate in
avoided on obvious grounds. But Raffles stabled the milder festivities of Founder's Day.
the white elephants in
the cloak-room at Charing Cross--and sent Lord It was, however, no ordinary occasion. The
Thornaby the ticket. bicentenary loomed but a
year ahead, and a movement was on foot to mark
the epoch with an
adequate statue of our pious founder. A special
meeting was to be held
The Field of Phillipi at the school-house, and Raffles had been specially
invited by the new
Nipper Nasmyth had been head of our school when head master, a man of his own standing, who had
Raffles was captain of been in the eleven with
cricket. I believe he owed his nickname entirely to him up at Cambridge. Raffles had not been near the
the popular old place for
prejudice against a day-boy; and in view of the years; but I had never gone down since the day I
special reproach which left; and I will not
the term carried in my time, as also of the fact that dwell on the emotions which the once familiar
his father was journey awakened in my
one of the school trustees, partner in a banking firm unworthy bosom. Paddington was alive with Old
of four Boys of all ages--but
resounding surnames, and manager of the local very few of ours--if not as lively as we used to
branch, there can be make it when we all
landed back for the holidays. More of us had Raffles his hand. "So you are going down," he
moustaches and cigarettes sneered, "to this great
and "loud" ties. That was all. Yet of the throng, gathering?" And I stood listening at my distance, as
though two or three though still in
looked twice and thrice at Raffles, neither he nor I the middle fourth.
knew a soul until
we had to change at the junction near our journey's "Rather!" cried Raffles. "I'm afraid I have let
end, when, as I myself lose touch, but
say, it was I who recognized Nipper Nasmyth at I mean to turn over a new leaf. I suppose that isn't
sight. necessary in your
case, Nasmyth?"
The man was own son of the boy we both
remembered. He had grown a He spoke with an enthusiasm rare indeed in him: it
ragged beard and a moustache that hung about his had grown upon
face like a neglected Raffles in the train; the spirit of his boyhood had
creeper. He was stout and bent and older than his come rushing back
years. But he at fifty miles an hour. He might have been
spurned the platform with a stamping stride which following some honorable
even I remembered in calling in town; he might have snatched this brief
an instant, and which was enough for Raffles before respite from a
he saw the man's distinguished but exacting career. I am convinced
face. that it was I alone
who remembered at that moment the life we were
"The Nipper it is!" he cried. "I could swear to that really leading at that
walk in a time. With me there walked this skeleton through
pantomime procession! See the independence in every waking hour
every step: that's his that was to follow. I shall endeavor not to refer to it
heel on the neck of the oppressor: it's the again. Yet it
nonconformist conscience in should not be forgotten that my skeleton was always
baggy breeches. I must speak to him, Bunny. there.
There was a lot of good
in the old Nipper, though he and I did bar each "It certainly is not necessary in my case," replied
other." Nasmyth, still as
stiff as any poker. "I happen to be a trustee."
And in a moment he had accosted the man by the
boy's nickname, "Of the school?"
obviously without thinking of an affront which few
would have read in "Like my father before me."
that hearty open face and hand.
"I congratulate you, my dear fellow!" cried the
"My name's Nasmyth," snapped the other, standing hearty Raffles--a
upright to glare. younger Raffles than I had ever known in town.

"Forgive me," said Raffles undeterred. "One "I don't know that you need," said Nasmyth sourly.
remembers a nickname and
forgets all it never used to mean. Shake hands, my "But it must be a tremendous interest. And the
dear fellow! I'm proof is that you're
Raffles. It must be fifteen years since we met." going down to this show, like all the rest of us."

"At least," replied Nasmyth coldly; but he could no "No, I'm not. I live there, you see."
longer refuse
And I think the Nipper recalled that name as he to-morrow night. I hear it's to be quite an
ground his heel upon an exceptional gathering this
unresponsive flagstone. year; let us hope it may contain a few sane men.
There are none on the
"But you're going to this meeting at the school- present staff, and I only know of one among the
house, surely?" trustees!"

"I don't know. If I do there may be squalls. I don't Raffles refrained from smiling as his dancing eye
know what you met mine.
think about this precious scheme Raffles, but _I_..."
"I can understand your view," he said. "I am not
The ragged beard stuck out, set teeth showed sure that I don't
through the wild share it to some extent. But it seems to me a duty to
moustache, and in a sudden outpouring we had his support a
views. They were general movement like this even if it doesn't take
narrow and intemperate and perverse as any I had the direction or the
heard him advocate as shape of our own dreams. I suppose you yourself
the firebrand of the Debating Society in my first will give something,
term. But they were Nasmyth?"
stated with all the old vim and venom. The mind of
Nasmyth had not "Give something? I? Not a brass farthing!" cried
broadened with the years, but neither had its natural the implacable
force abated, nor banker. "To do so would be to stultify my whole
that of his character either. He spoke with great position. I cordially
vigor at the top of and conscientiously disapprove of the whole thing,
his voice; soon we had a little crowd about us; but and shall use all my
the tall collars influence against it. No, my good sir, I not only
and the broad smiles of the younger Old Boys did don't subscribe
not deter our dowdy myself, but I hope to be the means of nipping a
demagogue. Why spend money on a man who had good many subscriptions
been dead two hundred in the bud."
years? What good could it do him or the school?
Besides, he was only I was probably the only one who saw the sudden
technically our founder. He had not founded a great and yet subtle change in
public school. He Raffles--the hard mouth, the harder eye. I, at least,
had founded a little country grammar school which might have
had pottered along foreseen the sequel then and there. But his quiet
for a century and a half. The great public school voice betrayed
was the growth of nothing, as he inquired whether Nasmyth was going
the last fifty years, and no credit to the pillar of to speak at next
piety. Besides, he night's meeting. Nasmyth said he might, and
was only nominally pious. Nasmyth had made certainly warned us what
researches, and he knew. to expect. He was still fulminating when our train
And why throw good money after a bad man? came in.

"Are there many of your opinion?" inquired Raffles, "Then we meet again at Philippi," cried Raffles in
when the agitator gay adieu. "For you
paused for breath. And Nasmyth beamed on us have been very frank with us all, Nasmyth, and I'll
with flashing eyes. be frank enough in
my turn to tell you that I've every intention of
"Not one to my knowledge as yet," said he. "But speaking on the other
we shall see after side!"
 the lot in turn and in the lump. I never knew him in
It happened that Raffles had been asked to speak by quite such form.
his old college I will not say he was a boy among them, but he was
friend, the new head master. Yet it was not at the that rarer being,
school-house that the man of the world who can enter absolutely into
he and I were to stay, but at the house that we had the fun and fervor
both been in as of the salad age. My cares and my regrets had
boys. It also had changed hands: a wing had been never been more acute,
added, and the double but Raffles seemed a man without either in his life.
tier of tiny studies made brilliant with electric light.
But the quad He was not, however, the hero of the Old Boys'
and the fives-courts did not look a day older; the ivy Match, and that was
was no thicker expected of him by all the school. There was a hush
round the study windows; and in one boy's castle when he went in, a
we found the groan when he came out. I had no reason to
traditional print of Charing Cross Bridge which had suppose he was not trying;
knocked about our these things happen to the cricketer who plays out
studies ever since a son of the contractor first sold it of his class; but
when he left. when the great Raffles went on to bowl, and was hit
Nay, more, there was the bald remnant of a stuffed all over the field,
bird which had been I was not so sure. It certainly failed to affect his
my own daily care when it and I belonged to spirits; he was
Raffles. And when we all more brilliant than ever at our hospitable board; and
filed in to prayers, through the green baize door after dinner came
which still separated the meeting at which he and Nasmyth were to
the master's part of the house from that of the boys, speak.
there was a small
boy posted in the passage to give the sign of silence It was a somewhat frigid gathering until Nasmyth
to the rest rose. We had all
assembled in the hall, quite identically as in the dim dined with our respective hosts, and then repaired to
old days; the this business in
picture was absolutely unchanged; it was only we cold blood. Many were lukewarm about it in their
who were out of it in hearts; there was a
body and soul. certain amount of mild prejudice, and a greater
amount of animal
On our side of the baize door a fine hospitality and indifference, to be overcome in the opening speech.
a finer flow of It is not for me
spirits were the order of the night. There was a to say whether this was successfully accomplished.
sound representative I only know how the
assortment of quite young Old Boys, to whom ours temperature of that meeting rose with Nipper
was a prehistoric Nasmyth.
time, and in the trough of their modern chaff and
chat we old stagers And I dare say, in all the circumstances of the case,
might well have been left far astern of the fun. Yet his really was a
it was Raffles rather vulgar speech. But it was certainly
who was the life and soul of the party, and that not impassioned, and probably
by meretricious as purely instinctive as his denunciation of all the
virtue of his cricket. There happened not to be causes which
another cricketer appeal to the gullible many without imposing upon
among us, and it was on their own subjects that the cantankerous few.
Raffles laughed with His arguments, it is true, were merely an elaboration
of those with
which he had favored some of us already; but they Even so did Raffles disappoint the Old Boys in the
were pointed by a evening as he had
concise exposition of the several definite principles disappointed the school by day. We had looked to
they represented, him for a noble
and barbed with a caustic rhetoric quite admirable raillery, a lofty and loyal disdain, and he had fobbed
in itself. In a us off with
word, the manner was worthy of the very friendly personalities not even in impeccable taste.
foundation it sought to shake, Nevertheless, this
or we had never swallowed such matter without a light treatment of a grave offence went far to restore
murmur. As it was, the natural
there was a demonstration in the wilderness when amenities of the occasion. It was impossible even
the voice ceased for Nasmyth to reply
crying. But we sat in the deeper silence when to it as he might to a more earnest onslaught. He
Raffles rose to reply. could but smile
sardonically, and audibly undertake to prove Raffles
I leaned forward not to lose a word. I knew my a false prophet;
Raffles so well that I and though subsequent speakers were less merciful
felt almost capable of reporting his speech before I the note was struck,
heard it. Never and there was no more bad blood in the debate.
was I more mistaken, even in him! So far from a There was plenty,
gibe for a gibe and a however, in the veins of Nasmyth, as I was to
taunt for a taunt, there never was softer answer than discover for myself
that which A. J. before the night was out.
Raffles returned to Nipper Nasmyth before the
staring eyes and startled You might think that in the circumstances he would
ears of all assembled. He courteously but firmly not have attended
refused to believe a the head master's ball with which the evening
word his old friend Nasmyth had said--about ended; but that would be
himself. He had known sadly to misjudge so perverse a creature as the
Nasmyth for twenty years, and never had he met a notorious Nipper. He
dog who barked so loud was probably one of those who protest that there is
and bit so little. The fact was that he had far too "nothing personal"
kind a heart to in their most personal attacks. Not that Nasmyth
bite at all. Nasmyth might get up and protest as took this tone about
loud as he liked: the Raffles when he and I found ourselves cheek by
speaker declared he knew him better than Nasmyth jowl against the
knew himself. He had ballroom wall; he could forgive his franker critics,
the necessary defects of his great qualities. He was but not the
only too good a friendly enemy who had treated him so much more
sportsman. He had a perfect passion for the weaker gently than he deserved.
side. That alone
led Nasmyth into such excesses of language as we "I seem to have seen you with this great man
had all heard from his Raffles," began Nasmyth,
lips that night. As for Raffles, he concluded his far as he overhauled me with his fighting eye. "Do you
too genial know him well?"
remarks by predicting that, whatever Nasmyth
might say or think of the "Intimately."
new fund, he would subscribe to it as handsomely
as any of us, like "I remember now. You were with him when he
"the generous good chap" that we all knew him to forced himself upon me on
be. the way down yesterday. He had to tell me who he
was. Yet he talks as
though we were old friends." "And is that all he does for a living?" pursued my
inquisitor keenly.
"You were in the upper sixth together," I rejoined,
nettled by his tone. "You had better ask Raffles himself," said I to that.
"It's a pity you
"What does that matter? I am glad to say I had too didn't ask him in public, at the meeting!"
much self-respect,
and too little respect for Raffles, ever to be a friend But I was beginning to show temper in my
of his then. I embarrassment, and of course
knew too many of the things he did," said Nipper that made Nasmyth the more imperturbable.
Nasmyth.
"Really, he might be following some disgraceful
His fluent insults had taken my breath. But in a calling, by the mystery
lucky flash I saw my you make of it!" he exclaimed. "And for that matter
retort. I call first-class
cricket a disgraceful calling, when it's followed by
"You must have had special opportunities of men who ought to
observation, living in the be gentlemen, but are really professionals in
town," said I; and drew first blood between the long gentlemanly clothing.
hair and the The present craze for gladiatorial athleticism I
ragged beard; but that was all. regard as one of the
great evils of the age; but the thinly veiled
"So he really did get out at nights?" remarked my professionalism of the
adversary. "You so-called amateur is the greatest evil of that craze.
certainly give your friend away. What's he doing Men play for the
now?" gentlemen and are paid more than the players who
walk out of another
I let my eyes follow Raffles round the room before gate. In my time there was none of that. Amateurs
replying. He was were amateurs and
waltzing with a master's wife--waltzing as he did sport was sport; there were no Raffleses in first-
everything else. class cricket then.
Other couples seemed to melt before them. And the I had forgotten Raffles was a modern first-class
woman on his arm cricketer: that
looked a radiant girl. explains him. Rather than see my son such another,
do you know what
I'd prefer to see him?"
"I meant in town, or wherever he lives his
mysterious life," explained I neither knew nor cared: yet a wretched
Nasmyth, when I told him that he could see for premonitory fascination held
himself. But his clever me breathless till I was told.
tone did not trouble me; it was his epithet that
caused me to prick my "I'd prefer to see him a thief!" said Nasmyth
ears. And I found some difficulty in following savagely; and when his
Raffles right round the eyes were done with me, he turned upon his heel.
room. So that ended that
stage of my discomfiture.
"I thought everybody knew what he was doing; he's
playing cricket most It was only to give place to a worse. Was all this
of his time," was my measured reply; and if it bore accident or fell
an extra touch of design? Conscience had made a coward of me, and
insolence, I can honestly ascribe that to my nerves. yet what reason had I
to disbelieve the worst? We were pirouetting on the "Has everybody gone to bed?" I asked.
edge of an abyss;
sooner or later the false step must come and the pit "Long ago. I was the last in. Why?"
swallow us. I
began to wish myself back in London, and I did get "Only it might sound a little odd, our turning out
back to my room in again, if they were
our old house. My dancing days were already over; to hear us."
there I had taken
the one resolution to which I remained as true as Raffles stood over me with a smile made of
better men to better mischief and cunning; but it
vows; there the painful association was no mere was the purest mischief imaginable, the most
sense of personal innocent and comic cunning.
unworthiness. I fell to thinking in my room of other
dances ... and "They shan't hear us at all, Bunny," said he. "I
was still smoking the cigarette which Raffles had mean to get out as I
taught me to did in the good old nights. I've been spoiling for the
appreciate when I looked up to find him regarding chance ever
me from the door. He since I came down. There's not the smallest harm in
had opened it as noiselessly as only Raffles could it now; and if
open doors, and now you'll come with me I'll show you how it used to be
he closed it in the same professional fashion. done."

"I missed Achilles hours ago," said he. "And still "But I know," said I. "Who used to haul up the rope
he's sulking in his after you, and let
tent!" it down again to the minute?"

"I have been," I answered, laughing as he could Raffles looked down on me from lowered lids, over
always make me, "but a smile too humorous
I'll chuck it if you'll stop and smoke. Our host to offend.
doesn't mind; there's
an ash-tray provided for the purpose. I ought to be "My dear good Bunny! And do you suppose that
sulking between even then I had only one
the sheets, but I'm ready to sit up with you till way of doing a thing? I've had a spare loophole all
morning." my life, and when
you're ready I'll show you what it was when I was
"We might do worse; but, on the other hand, we here. Take off those
might do still better," boots, and carry your tennis-shoes; slip on another
rejoined Raffles, and for once he resisted the coat; put out your
seductive Sullivan. "As light; and I'll meet you on the landing in two
a matter of fact, it's morning now; in another hour it minutes."
will be dawn;
and where could day dawn better than in Warfield He met me with uplifted finger, and not a syllable;
Woods, or along the and down-stairs he
Stockley road, or even on the Upper or the Middle? led me, stocking soles close against the skirting, two
I don't want to feet to each
turn in, any more than you do. I may as well particular step. It must have seemed child's play to
confess that the whole Raffles; the old
show down here has exalted me more than anything precautions were obviously assumed for my
for years. But if we entertainment; but I confess
can't sleep, Bunny, let's have some fresh air that to me it was all refreshingly exciting--for once
instead." without a risk of
durance if we came to grief! With scarcely a creak night-dews and the petals of the poet; but Raffles
we reached the ran his arm through
hall, and could have walked out of the street door mine, and would chatter in whispers as we went.
without danger or
difficulty. But that would not do for Raffles. He "So you and Nipper had a word--or was it words? I
must needs lead me saw you out of the
into the boys' part, through the green baize door. It tail of my eye when I was dancing, and I heard you
took a deal of out of the tail of
opening and shutting, but Raffles seemed to enjoy my ear. It sounded like words, Bunny, and I
nothing better than thought I caught my name.
these mock obstacles, and in a few minutes we were He's the most consistent man I know, and the least
resting with sharp altered from a boy.
ears in the boys' hall. But he'll subscribe all right, you'll see, and be very
glad I made him."
"Through these windows?" I whispered, when the
clock over the piano had I whispered back that I did not believe it for a
had matters its own way long enough to make our moment. Raffles had
minds quite easy. not heard all Nasmyth had said of him. And neither
would he listen to
"How else?" whispered Raffles, as he opened the the little I meant to repeat to him; he would but
one on whose ledge our reiterate a
letters used to await us of a morning. conviction so chimerical to my mind that I
interrupted in my turn to
"And then through the quad--" ask him what ground he had for it.

"And over the gates at the end. No talking, Bunny; "I've told you already," said Raffles. "I mean to
there's a dormitory make him."
just overhead; but ours was in front, you remember,
and if they had "But how?" I asked. "And when, and where?"
ever seen me I should have nipped back this way
while they were "At Philippi, Bunny, where I said I'd see him. What
watching the other." a rabbit you are
at a quotation!
His finger was on his lips as we got out softly into
the starlight. I "'And I think that the field of Philippi
remember how the gravel hurt as we left the smooth Was where Caesar came to an end;
flagged margin of But who gave old Brutus the tip, I
the house for the open quad; but the nearer of two Can't comprehend!'
long green seats
(whereon you prepared your construe for the "You may have forgotten your Shakespeare, Bunny,
second-school in the summer but you ought to
term) was mercifully handy; and once in our rubber remember that."
soles we had no
difficulty in scaling the gates beyond the fives- And I did, vaguely, but had no idea what it or
courts. Moreover, we Raffles meant, as I
dropped into a very desert of a country road, nor plainly told him.
saw a soul when we
doubled back beneath the outer study windows, nor "The theatre of war," he answered--"and here we
heard a footfall in are at the stage door!"
the main street of the slumbering town. Our own
fell like the Raffles had stopped suddenly in his walk. It was
the last dark hour of
the summer night, but the light from a neighboring "My dear Bunny, they're a part of my kit! I take
lamppost showed me them wherever I take
the look on his face as he turned. my evening-clothes. As to this potty bank, I never
even thought of it,
"I think you also inquired when," he continued. much less that it would become a public duty to
"Well, then, this draw a hundred or so
minute--if you will give me a leg up!" without signing for it. That's all I shall touch,
Bunny--I'm not on
And behind him, scarcely higher than his head, and the make to-night. There's no risk in it either. If I
not even barred, was am caught I
a wide window with a wire blind, and the name of shall simply sham champagne and stand the racket;
Nasmyth among others it would be an
lettered in gold upon the wire. obvious frolic after what happened at that meeting.
And they will
"You're never going to break in?" catch me, if I stand talking here: you run away back
to bed--unless
"This instant, if you'll, help me; in five or ten you're quite determined to 'give old Brutus the tip!'"
minutes, if you
won't." Now we had barely been a minute whispering
where we stood, and the
"Surely you didn't bring the--the tools?" whole street was still as silent as the tomb. To me
there seemed least
He jingled them gently in his pocket. danger in discussing the matter quietly on the spot.
But even as he
"Not the whole outfit, Bunny. But you never know gave me my dismissal Raffles turned and caught the
when you mayn't want sill above him,
one or two. I'm only thankful I didn't leave the lot first with one hand and then with the other. His legs
behind this time. swung like a
I very nearly did." pendulum as he drew himself up with one arm, then
shifted the position
"I must say I thought you would, coming down of the other hand, and very gradually worked
here," I said himself waist-high with
reproachfully. the sill. But the sill was too narrow for him; that
was as far as he
"But you ought to be glad I didn't," he rejoined with could get unaided; and it was as much as I could
a smile. "It's bear to see of a feat
going to mean old Nasmyth's subscription to the which in itself might have hardened my conscience
Founder's Fund, and and softened my
that's to be a big one, I promise you! The lucky heart. But I had identified his doggerel verse at last.
thing is that I went I am ashamed
so far as to bring my bunch of safekeys. Now, are to say that it was part of a set of my very own
you going to help me writing in the school
use them, or are you not? If so, now's your minute; magazine of my time. So Raffles knew the stuff
if not, clear out better than I did
and be--" myself, and yet scorned to press his flattery to win
me over! He had
"Not so fast, Raffles," said I testily. "You must won me: in a second my rounded shoulders were a
have planned this pedestal for those
before you came down, or you would never have dangling feet. And before many more I heard the
brought all those things old metallic snap,
with you." followed by the raising of a sash so slowly and
gently as to be almost
inaudible to me listening just below. question him on the point. Indeed, the first thing
was to get out of
Raffles went through hands first, disappeared for an the bank; for the stars were drowning in a sky of ink
instant, then and water, and it
leaned out, lowering his hands for me. was a comfort to feel that we could fly straight to
our beds. I said
"Come on, Bunny! You're safer in than out. Hang so in whispers as Raffles cautiously opened our
on to the sill and window and peeped out.
let me get you under the arms. Now all together-- In an instant his head was in, and for another I
quietly does it--and feared the worst.
over you come!"
"What was that, Bunny? No, you don't, my son!
No need to dwell on our proceedings in the bank. I There's not a soul in
myself had small sight that I can see, but you never know, and we
part in the scene, being posted rather in the wings, may as well lay a
at the foot of the scent while we're about it. Ready? Then follow
stairs leading to the private premises in which the me, and never mind the
manager had his window."
domestic being. But I made my mind easy about
him, for in the silence With that he dropped softly into the street, and I
of my watch I soon detected a nasal note overhead, after him, turning
and it was resonant to the right instead of the left, and that at a brisk trot
and aggressive as the man himself. Of Raffles, on instead of
the contrary, I the innocent walk which had brought us to the bank.
heard nothing, for he had shut the door between us, Like mice we
and I was to warn scampered past the great schoolroom, with its gable
him if a single sound came through. I need scarcely snipping a paler
add that no sky than ever, and the shadows melting even in the
warning was necessary during the twenty minutes colonnade
we remained in the underneath. Masters' houses flitted by on the left,
bank. Raffles afterward assured me that nineteen of lesser landmarks
them had been on either side, and presently we were running our
spent in filing one key; but one of his latest heads into the dawn,
inventions was a little one under either hedge of the Stockley road.
thick velvet bag in which he carried the keys; and
this bag had two "Did you see that light in Nab's just now?" cried
elastic mouths, which closed so tightly about either Raffles as he led.
wrist that he
could file away, inside, and scarcely hear it himself. "No; why?" I panted, nearly spent.
As for these
keys, they were clever counterfeits of typical "It was in Nab's dressing-room."
patterns by two great
safe-making firms. And Raffles had come by them "Yes?"
in a manner all his
own, which the criminal world may discover for "I've seen it there before," continued Raffles. "He
itself. never was a good
sleeper, and his ears reach to the street. I wouldn't
When he opened the door and beckoned to me, I like to say how
knew by his face that he often I was chased by him in the small hours! I
had succeeded to his satisfaction, and by experience believe he knew who it
better than to was toward the end, but Nab was not the man to
accuse you of what he
couldn't prove." "You beast!" he growled, as I have known him
growl it in form.
I had no breath for comment. And on sped Raffles
like a yacht before But Raffles himself had abandoned the flight on
the wind, and on I blundered like a wherry at sea, hearing my downfall,
making heavy weather and I was on hands and knees just in time to see the
all the way, and nearer foundering at every stride. meeting between
Suddenly, to my him and old Nab. And there stood Raffles in the
deep relief, Raffles halted, but only to tell me to silvery mist, laughing
stop my pipes while with his whole light heart, leaning back to get the
he listened. full flavor of his
mirth; and, nearer me, sturdy old Nab, dour and
"It's all right, Bunny," he resumed, showing me a grim, with beads of dew
glowing face in the on the hoary beard that had been lamp-black in our
dawn. "History's on its own tracks once more, and time.
I'll bet you it's
dear old Nab on ours! Come on, Bunny; run to the "So I've caught you at last!" said he. "After more
last gasp, and leave years than I mean
the rest to me." to count!"

I was past arguing, and away he went. There was "Then you're luckier than we are, sir," answered
no help for it but to Raffles, "for I fear
follow as best I could. Yet I had vastly preferred to our man has given us the slip."
collapse on the
spot, and trust to Raffles's resource, as before very "Your man!" echoed Nab. His bushy eyebrows had
long I must. I shot up: it was as much
had never enjoyed long wind and the hours that we as I could do to keep my own in their place.
kept in town may well
have aggravated the deficiency. Raffles, however, "We were indulging in the chase ourselves,"
was in first-class explained Raffles, "and one
training from first-class cricket, and he had no of us has suffered for his zeal, as you can see. It is
mercy on Nab or me. even possible
But the master himself was an old Oxford miler, that we, too, have been chasing a perfectly innocent
who could still bear it man."
better than I; nay, as I flagged and stumbled, I heard
him pounding "Not to say a reformed character," said our pursuer
steadily behind. dryly. "I suppose
you don't mean a member of the school?" he added,
"Come on, come on, or he'll do us!" cried Raffles pinking his man
shrilly over his suddenly as of yore, with all the old barbed acumen.
shoulder; and a gruff sardonic laugh came back over But Raffles was
mine. It was now his match.
pearly morning now, but we had run into a shallow
mist that took me by "That would be carrying reformation rather far, sir.
the throat and stabbed me to the lungs. I coughed No, as I say, I
and coughed, and may have been mistaken in the first instance; but I
stumbled in my stride, until down I went, less by had put out my
accident than to get light and was looking out of the window when I saw
it over, and so lay headlong in my tracks. And old a fellow behaving
Nab dealt me a quite suspiciously. He was carrying his boots and
verbal kick as he passed. creeping along in
his socks--which must be why you never heard him, than for the immeasurably graver offence against
sir. They make less society and another
noise than rubber soles even--that is, they must, you Old Boy. This, indeed, did not worry him at all;
know! Well, and the story was
Bunny had just left me, so I hauled him out and we received next day with absolute credulity on all
both crept down to sides. Nasmyth
play detective. No sign of the fellow! We had a himself was the first to thank us both for our
look in the spirited effort on his
colonnade--I thought I heard him--and that gave us behalf; and the incident had the ironic effect of
no end of a hunt for establishing an
nothing. But just as we were leaving he came immediate _entente cordiale_ between Raffles and
padding past under our his very latest victim.
noses, and that's where we took up the chase. I must confess, however, that for my own part I was
Where he'd been in the thoroughly uneasy
meantime I have no idea; very likely he'd done no during the Old Boys' second innings, when Raffles
harm; but it seemed made a selfish score,
worth while finding out. He had too good a start, instead of standing by me to tell his own story in his
though, and poor own way. There
Bunny had too bad a wind." was never any knowing with what new detail he
was about to embellish
"You should have gone on and let me rip," said I, it: and I have still to receive full credit for the tact
climbing to my feet that it
at last. required to follow his erratic lead convincingly.
Seldom have I been
"As it is, however, we will all let the other fellow do more thankful than when our train started next
so," said old morning, and the poor,
Nab in a genial growl. "And you two had better unsuspecting Nasmyth himself waved us a last
turn into my house and farewell from the platform.
have something to keep the morning cold out."
"Lucky we weren't staying at Nab's," said Raffles,
You may imagine with what alacrity we complied; as he lit a Sullivan
and yet I am bound to and opened his Daily Mail at its report of the
confess that I had never liked Nab at school. I still robbery. "There was one
remember my term thing Nab would have spotted like the downy old
in his form. He had a caustic tongue and fine bird he always was and
assortment of damaging will be."
epithets, most of which were levelled at my devoted
skull during those "What was that?"
three months. I now discovered that he also kept a
particularly mellow "The front door must have been found duly barred
Scotch whiskey, an excellent cigar, and a fund of and bolted in the
anecdote of which a morning, and yet we let them assume that we came
mordant wit was the worthy bursar. Enough to add out that way. Nab
that he kept us would have pounced on the point, and by this time
laughing in his study until the chapel bells rang him we might have been
out. nabbed ourselves."

As for Raffles, he appeared to me to feel far more It was but a little over a hundred sovereigns that
compunction for the Raffles had taken,
fable which he had been compelled to foist upon and, of course, he had resolutely eschewed any and
one of the old masters every form of paper
money. He posted his own first contribution of would do it anonymously."
twenty-five pounds to
the Founder's Fund immediately on our return to "But what makes you think I did it, Raffles?"
town, before rushing
off to more first-class cricket, and I gathered that "Everybody is saying so. You will find it all over
the rest would the place when you
follow piecemeal as he deemed it safe. By an odd get back. You will find yourself the most popular
coincidence, however, man down there,
a mysterious but magnificent donation of a hundred Nasmyth!"
guineas was almost
simultaneously received in notes by the treasurer of I never saw a nobler embarrassment than that of this
the Founder's awkward, ungainly,
Fund, from one who simply signed himself "Old cantankerous man: all his angles seemed to have
Boy." The treasurer been smoothed away:
happened to be our late host, the new man at our old there was something quite human in the flushed,
house, and he undecided, wistful face.
wrote to congratulate Raffles on what he was
pleased to consider a "I never was popular in my life," he said. "I don't
direct result of the latter's speech. I did not see the want to buy my
letter that popularity now. To be perfectly candid with you,
Raffles wrote in reply, but in due course I heard the Raffles--"
name of the
mysterious contributor. He was said to be no other "Don't! I can't stop to hear. They're ringing the
than Nipper Nasmyth bell. But you
himself. I asked Raffles if it was true. He replied shouldn't have been angry with me for saying you
that he would ask were a generous good
old Nipper point-blank if he came up as usual to the chap, Nasmyth, when you were one all the time.
Varsity match, and Good-by, old fellow!"
if they had the luck to meet. And not only did this
happen, but I had But Nasmyth detained us a second more. His
the greater luck to be walking round the ground hesitation was at an end.
with Raffles when we There was a sudden new light in his face.
encountered our shabby friend in front of the
pavilion. "Was I?" he cried. "Then I'll make it _two_
hundred, and damn the odds!"
"My dear fellow," cried Raffles, "I hear it was you
who gave that Raffles was a thoughtful man as we went to our
hundred guineas by stealth to the very movement seats. He saw nobody,
you denounced. Don't would acknowledge no remark. Neither did he
deny it, and don't blush to find it fame. Listen to attend to the cricket for
me. There was a the first half-hour after lunch; instead, he eventually
great lot in what you said; but it's the kind of thing invited me to
we ought all to come for a stroll on the practice ground, where,
back, whether we strictly approve of it in our hearts however, we found two
or not." chairs aloof from the fascinating throng.

"Exactly, Raffles, but the fact is--" "I am not often sorry, Bunny, as you know," he
began. "But I have been
"I know what you're going to say. Don't say it. sorry since the interval. I've been sorry for poor old
There's not one in a Nipper Nasmyth.
thousand who would do as you've done, and not one Did you see the idea of being popular dawn upon
in a million who him for the first time
in his life?" A Bad Night

"I did; but you had nothing to do with that, my dear There was to be a certain little wedding in which
man." Raffles and I took a
surreptitious interest. The bride-elect was living in
Raffles shook his head over me as our eyes met. "I some retirement,
had everything to with a recently widowed mother and an asthmatical
do with it. I tried to make him tell the meanest lie. brother, in a mellow
I made sure he hermitage on the banks of the Mole. The
would, and for that matter he nearly did. Then, at bridegroom was a prosperous
the last moment, he son of the same suburban soil which had nourished
saw how to hedge things with his conscience. And both families for
his second hundred generations. The wedding presents were so
will be a real gift." numerous as to fill several
rooms at the pretty retreat upon the Mole, and of an
"You mean under his own name--" intrinsic value
calling for a special transaction with the Burglary
"And with his own free-will. My good Bunny, is it Insurance Company
possible you don't in Cheapside. I cannot say how Raffles obtained all
know what I did with the hundred we drew from this information.
that bank!" I only know that it proved correct in each particular.
I was not
"I knew what you were going to do with it," said I. indeed deeply interested before the event, since
"I didn't know you Raffles assured me
had actually got further than the twenty-five you that it was "a one-man job," and naturally intended
told me you were to be the one man
sending as your own contribution." himself. It was only at the eleventh hour that our
positions were
Raffles rose abruptly from his chair. inverted by the wholly unexpected selection of
Raffles for the English
"And you actually thought that came out of his team in the Second Test Match.
money?"
In a flash I saw the chance of my criminal career. It
"Naturally." was some years
since Raffles had served his country in these
"In my name?" encounters; he had never
thought to be called upon again, and his
"I thought so." gratification was only less
than his embarrassment. The match was at Old
Raffles stared at me inscrutably for some moments, Trafford, on the third
and for some more at Thursday, Friday, and Saturday in July; the other
the great white numbers over the grand-stand. affair had been all
arranged for the Thursday night, the night of the
"We may as well have another look at the cricket," wedding at East
said he. "It's Molesey. It was for Raffles to choose between the
difficult to see the board from here, but I believe two excitements, and
there's another man for once I helped him to make up his mind. I duly
out." pointed out to him
that in Surrey, at all events, I was quite capable of
taking his place.
Nay, more, I insisted at once on my prescriptive
right and on his
patriotic obligation in the matter. In the country's lead at last; and I wish I could think that Raffles
name and in my ever realized with
own, I implored him to give it and me a chance; and what gusto I threw myself into his part.
for once, as I say,
my arguments prevailed. Raffles sent his telegram-- Thus I was first out of a crowded theatre train at
it was the day Esher next night,
before the match. We then rushed down to Esher, and first down the stairs into the open air. The night
and over every inch of was close and
the ground by that characteristically circuitous route cloudy; and the road to Hampton Court, even now
which he that the suburban
enjoined on me for the next night. And at six in the builder has marked much of it for his own, is one of
evening I was the darkest I
receiving the last of my many instructions through a know. The first mile is still a narrow avenue, a
window of the mere tunnel of leaves
restaurant car. at midsummer; but at that time there was not a
lighted pane or cranny
"Only promise me not to take a revolver," said by the way. Naturally, it was in this blind reach that
Raffles in a whisper. I fancied I was
"Here are my keys; there's an old life-preserver being followed. I stopped in my stride; so did the
somewhere in the steps I made sure I
bureau; take that, if you like--though what you take had heard not far behind; and when I went on, they
I rather fear you followed suit. I
are the chap to use!" dried my forehead as I walked, but soon brought
myself to repeat the
"Then the rope be round my own neck!" I experiment when an exact repetition of the result
whispered back. "Whatever else went to convince me
I may do, Raffles, I shan't give _you_ away; and that it had been my own echo all the time. And
you'll find I do better since I lost it on
than you think, and am worth trusting with a little getting quit of the avenue, and coming out upon the
more to do, or I'll straight and open
know the reason why!" road, I was not long in recovering from my scare.
But now I could see
And I meant to know it, as he was borne out of my way, and found the rest of it without mishap,
Euston with raised though not without
eyebrows, and I turned grimly on my heel. I saw another semblance of adventure. Over the bridge
his fears for me; and across the Mole, when
nothing could have made me more fearless for about to turn to the left, I marched straight upon a
myself. Raffles had been policeman in
wrong about me all these years; now was my rubber soles. I had to call him "officer" as I passed,
chance to set him right. It and to pass my
was galling to feel that he had no confidence in my turning by a couple of hundred yards, before
coolness or my venturing back another way.
nerve, when neither had ever failed him at a pinch. I
had been loyal to At last I had crept through a garden gate, and round
him through rough and smooth. In many an ugly by black windows
corner I had stood as to a black lawn drenched with dew. It had been a
firm as Raffles himself. I was his right hand, and heating walk, and I
yet he never was glad to blunder on a garden seat, most
hesitated to make me his catspaw. This time, at all considerately placed under a
events, I should cedar which added its own darkness to that of the
be neither one nor the other; this time I was the night. Here I rested
understudy playing
a few minutes, putting up my feet to keep them dry, "I don't see why they should have sent you down,"
untying my shoes to he said at length.
save time, and generally facing the task before me "We are being quite well looked after by the local
with a coolness police; they're
which I strove to make worthy of my absent chief. giving us a special call every hour."
But mine was a
self-conscious quality, as far removed from the "I know that, Mr. Medlicott," I rejoined on my own
original as any other account. "I met one
deliberate imitation of genius. I actually struck a of them at the corner just now, and we passed the
match on my time of night."
trousers, and lit one of the shorter Sullivans.
Raffles himself would My heart was knocking me to bits. I had started for
not have done such a thing at such a moment. But I myself at last.
wished to tell him
that I had done it; and in truth I was not more than "Did you get my name from him?" pursued my
pleasurably questioner, in a suspicious
afraid; I had rather that impersonal curiosity as to wheeze.
the issue which
has been the saving of me in still more precarious "No; they gave me that before I started," I replied.
situations. I even "But I'm sorry
grew impatient for the fray, and could not after all you saw me, sir; it's a mere matter of routine, and
sit still as long not intended to
as I had intended. So it happened that I was annoy anybody. I propose to keep a watch on the
finishing my cigarette on place all night, but I
the edge of the wet lawn, and about to slip off my own it wasn't necessary to trespass as I've done. I'll
shoes before take myself off
stepping across the gravel to the conservatory door, the actual premises, if you prefer it."
when a most
singular sound arrested me in the act. It was a This again was all my own; and it met with a
muffled gasping success that might have
somewhere overhead. I stood like stone; and my given me confidence.
listening attitude must
have been visible against the milky sheen of the "Not a bit of it," replied young Medlicott, with a
lawn, for a labored grim geniality.
voice hailed me sternly from a window. "I've just woke up with the devil of an attack of
asthma, and may have
"Who on earth are you?" it wheezed. to sit up in my chair till morning. You'd better
come up and see me
"A detective officer," I replied, "sent down by the through, and kill two birds while you're about it.
Burglary Insurance Stay where you are,
Company." and I'll come down and let you in."

Not a moment had I paused for my precious fable. Here was a dilemma which Raffles himself had not
It had all been foreseen! Outside, in
prepared for me by Raffles, in case of need. I was the dark, my audacious part was not hard to play;
merely repeating a but to carry the
lesson in which I had been closely schooled. But at improvisation in-doors was to double at once the
the window there difficulty and the
was pause enough, filled only by the uncanny risk. It was true that I had purposely come down in
wheezing of the man I a true detective's
could not see. overcoat and bowler; but my personal appearance
was hardly of the
detective type. On the other hand as the _soi- There was just room for me to keep his arm in
disant_ guardian of the mine; with the other he
gifts one might only excite suspicion by refusing to hauled on the banisters; and so we mounted, step by
enter the house step, a panting
where they were. Nor could I forget that it was my pause on each, and a pitched battle for breath on the
purpose to effect half-landing. In
such entry first or last. That was the casting the end we gained a cosey library, with an open
consideration. I door leading to a
decided to take my dilemma by the horns. bedroom beyond. But the effort had deprived my
poor companion of all
There had been a scraping of matches in the room power of speech; his laboring lungs shrieked like
over the conservatory; the wind; he could
the open window had shown for a moment, like an just point to the door by which we had entered, and
empty picture-frame, a which I shut in
gigantic shadow wavering on the ceiling; and in the obedience to his gestures, and then to the decanter
next half-minute I and its accessories
remembered to tie my shoes. But the light was slow on the table where he had left them overnight. I
to reappear through gave him nearly half
the leaded glasses of an outer door farther along the a glassful, and his paroxysm subsided a little as he
path. And when sat hunched up in
the door opened, it was a figure of woe that stood a chair.
within and held an
unsteady candle between our faces. "I was a fool ... to turn in," he blurted in more
whispers between
I have seen old men look half their age, and young longer pauses. "Lying down is the devil ... when
men look double you're in for a real
theirs; but never before or since have I seen a bad night. You might get me the brown
beardless boy bent into cigarettes ... on the table in
a man of eighty, gasping for every breath, shaken there. That's right ... thanks awfully ... and now a
by every gasp, match!"
swaying, tottering, and choking, as if about to die
upon his feet. Yet The asthmatic had bitten off either end of the
with it all, young Medlicott overhauled me stramonium cigarette,
shrewdly, and it was several and was soon choking himself with the crude
moments before he would let me take the candle fumes, which he inhaled in
from him. desperate gulps, to exhale in furious fits of
coughing. Never was more
"I shouldn't have come down--made me worse," he heroic remedy; it seemed a form of lingering
began whispering in suicide; but by degrees
spurts. "Worse still going up again. You must give some slight improvement became apparent, and at
me an arm. You length the sufferer was
will come up? That's right! Not as bad as I look, able to sit upright, and to drain his glass with a sigh
you know. Got some of rare relief.
good whiskey, too. Presents are all right; but if they I sighed also, for I had witnessed a struggle for dear
aren't you'll life by a man in
hear of it in-doors sooner than out. Now I'm ready-- the flower of his youth, whose looks I liked, whose
thanks! Mustn't smile came like the
make more noise than we can help--wake my sun through the first break in his torments, and
mother." whose first words were
to thank me for the little I had done in bare
It must have taken us minutes to climb that single humanity.
flight of stairs.
That made me feel the thing I was. But the feeling "Raffles, for one. He was 62 not out at close of
put me on my guard. play!"
And I was not unready for the remark which
followed a more exhaustive And the note of admiration rang in my voice,
scrutiny than I had hitherto sustained. though I tried in my
self-consciousness to keep it out. But young
"Do you know," said young Medlicott, "that you Medlicott's enthusiasm
aren't a bit like the proved an ample cloak for mine; it was he who
detective of my dreams?" might have been the
personal friend of Raffles; and in his delight he
"Only to proud to hear it," I replied. "There would chuckled till he
be no point in my puffed and blew again.
being in plain clothes if I looked exactly what I
was." "Good old Raffles!" he panted in every pause.
"After being chosen
My companion reassured me with a wheezy laugh. last, and as a bowler-man! That's the cricketer for
me, sir; by Jove,
"There's something in that," said he, "although I do we must have another drink in his honor! Funny
congratulate the thing, asthma; your
insurance people on getting a man of your class to liquor affects your head no more than it does a man
do their dirty work. with a snake-bite;
And I congratulate myself," he was quick enough to but it eases everything else, and sees you through.
add, "on having you Doctors will tell
to see me through as bad a night as I've had for a you so, but you've got to ask 'em first; they're no
long time. You're good for asthma!
like flowers in the depths of winter. Got a drink? I've only known one who could stop an attack, and
That's right! I he knocked me
suppose you didn't happen to bring down an sideways with nitrite of amyl. Funny complaint in
evening paper?" other ways; raises
your spirits, if anything. You can't look beyond the
I said I had brought one, but had unfortunately left next breath.
it in the train. Nothing else worries you. Well, well, here's luck to
A. J. Raffles,
"What about the Test Match?" cried my asthmatic, and may he get his century in the morning!"
shooting forward in
his chair. And he struggled to his feet for the toast; but I
drank it sitting
"I can tell you that," said I. "We went in first--" down. I felt unreasonably wroth with Raffles, for
coming into the
"Oh, I know all about that," he interrupted. "I've conversation as he had done--for taking centuries in
seen the miserable Test Matches as he
score up to lunch. How many did we scrape was doing, without bothering his head about me. A
altogether?" failure would have
been in better taste; it would have shown at least
"We're scraping them still." some imagination,
some anxiety on one's account I did not reflect that
"No! How many?" even Raffles could
scarcely be expected to picture me in my cups with
"Over two hundred for seven wickets." the son of the house
that I had come to rob; chatting with him,
"Who made the stand?" ministering to him; admiring
his cheery courage, and honestly attempting to hidden face had flushed to the ears, and, when at
lighten his load! Truly length it was raised
it was an infernal position: how could I rob him or to mine, its crimson calm was as incongruous as an
his after this? optical illusion.
And yet I had thrust myself into it; and Raffles
would never, never "It takes the blood from the heart," he murmured,
understand! "and clears the whole
show for the moment. If it only lasted! But you
Even that was not the worst. I was not quite sure can't take two
that young Medlicott without a doctor; one's quite enough to make you
was sure of me. I had feared this from the smell the brimstone...
beginning, and now (over I say, what's up? You're listening to something! If
the second glass that could not possibly affect a it's the policeman
man in his condition) we'll have a word with him."
he practically admitted as much to me. Asthma was
such a funny thing It was not the policeman; it was no out-door sound
(he insisted) that it would not worry him a bit to that I had caught in
discover that I had the sudden cessation of the bout for breath. It was a
come to take the presents instead of to take care of noise, a
them! I showed a footstep, in the room below us. I went to the
sufficiently faint appreciation of the jest. And it window and leaned out:
was presently right underneath, in the conservatory, was the
punished as it deserved, by the most violent faintest glimmer of a
paroxysm that had seized light in the adjoining room.
the sufferer yet: the fight for breath became faster
and more furious, "One of the rooms where the presents are!"
and the former weapons of no more avail. I whispered Medlicott at my
prepared a cigarette, but elbow. And as we withdrew together, I looked him
the poor brute was too breathless to inhale. I in the face as I had
poured out yet more not done all night.
whiskey, but he put it from him with a gesture.
I looked him in the face like an honest man, for a
"Amyl--get me amyl!" he gasped. "The tin on the miracle was to make
table by my bed." me one once more. My knot was cut--my course
inevitable. Mine, after
I rushed into his room, and returned with a little tin all, to prevent the very thing that I had come to do!
of tiny My gorge had long
cylinders done up like miniature crackers in scraps since risen at the deed; the unforeseen
of calico; the circumstances had rendered it
spent youth broke one in his handkerchief, in which impossible from the first; but now I could afford to
he immediately recognize the
buried his face. I watched him closely as a subtle impossibility, and to think of Raffles and the
odor reached my asthmatic alike without
nostrils; and it was like the miracle of oil upon the a qualm. I could play the game by them both, for it
billows. His was one and the
shoulders rested from long travail; the stertorous same game. I could preserve thieves' honor, and yet
gasping died away to regain some shred
a quick but natural respiration; and in the sudden of that which I had forfeited as a man!
cessation of the
cruel contest, an uncanny stillness fell upon the So I thought as we stood face to face, our ears
scene. Meanwhile the straining for the least
movement below, our eyes locked in a common There was no question of a foul blow. He had been
anxiety. Another muffled just as ready to
foot-fall--felt rather than heard--and we exchanged pounce on me; it was simply my luck to have got
grim nods of the first blow home.
simultaneous excitement. But by this time Yet a fellow-feeling touched me with remorse, as I
Medlicott was as helpless as stood over the
he had been before; the flush had faded from his senseless body, sprawling prone, and perceived that
face, and his I had struck an
breathing alone would have spoiled everything. In unarmed man. The lantern only had fallen from his
dumb show I had to hands; it lay on one
order him to stay where he was, to leave my man to side, smoking horribly; and a something in the reek
me. And then it was caused me to set it
that in a gusty whisper, with the same shrewd look up in haste and turn the body over with both hands.
that had
disconcerted me more than once during our vigil, Shall I ever forget the incredulous horror of that
young Medlicott froze moment?
and fired my blood by turns.
It was Raffles himself!
"I've been unjust to you," he said, with his right
hand in his How it was possible, I did not pause to ask myself;
dressing-gown pocket. "I thought for a bit--never if one man on earth
mind what I could annihilate space and time, it was the man
thought--I soon saw I was wrong. But--I've had this lying senseless at my
thing in my pocket feet; and that was Raffles, without an instant's
all the time!" doubt. He was in
villainous guise, which I knew of old, now that I
And he would have thrust his revolver upon me as a knew the unhappy
peace-offering, but wearer. His face was grimy, and dexterously
I would not even take his hand, as I tapped the life- plastered with a growth of
preserver in my reddish hair; his clothes were those in which he had
pocket, and crept out to earn his honest grip or to followed cabs from
fall in the the London termini; his boots were muffled in thick
attempt. On the landing I drew Raffles's little socks; and I had
weapon, slipped my laid him low with a bloody scalp that filled my cup
right wrist through the leathern loop, and held it in of horror. I
readiness over my groaned aloud as I knelt over him and felt his heart.
right shoulder. Then, down-stairs I stole, as Raffles And I was
himself had answered by a bronchial whistle from the door.
taught me, close to the wall, where the planks are
nailed. Nor had I "Jolly well done!" cheered my asthmatical friend.
made a sound, to my knowledge; for a door was "I heard the whole
open, and a light was thing--only hope my mother didn't. We must keep
burning, and the light did not flicker as I it from her if we can."
approached the door. I
clenched my teeth and pushed it open; and here was I could have cursed the creature's mother from my
the veriest villain full heart; yet even
waiting for me, his little lantern held aloft. with my hand on that of Raffles, as I felt his feeble
pulse, I told
"You blackguard!" I cried, and with a single thwack myself that this served him right. Even had I
I felled the brained him, the fault
ruffian to the floor. had been his, not mine. And it was a characteristic,
an inveterate
fault, that galled me for all my anguish: to trust and "I'll go," he said hurriedly. "I'll go as I am, before
yet distrust me my mother is
to the end, to race through England in the night, to disturbed and frightened out of her life. I owe you
spy upon me at his something, too,
work--to do it himself after all! not only for what you've done for me, but for what I
was fool enough to
"Is he dead?" wheezed the asthmatic coolly. think about you at the first blush. It's entirely
through you that I
"Not he," I answered, with an indignation that I feel as fit as I do for the moment. So I'll take your
dared not show. tip, and go just
as I am, before my poor old pipes strike up another
"You must have hit him pretty hard," pursued tune."
young Medlicott, "but I
suppose it was a case of getting first knock. And a I scarcely looked up until the good fellow had
good job you got turned his back upon the
it, if this was his," he added, picking up the final tableau of watchful officer and prostrate
murderous little prisoner and gone out
life-preserver which poor Raffles had provided for wheezing into the night. But I was at the door to
his own destruction. hear the last of him
down the path and round the corner of the house.
"Look here," I answered, sitting back on my heels. And when I rushed back
"He isn't dead, Mr. into the room, there was Raffles sitting cross-legged
Medlicott, and I don't know how long he'll be as on the floor, and
much as stunned. He's slowly shaking his broken head as he stanched the
a powerful brute, and you're not fit to lend a hand. blood.
But that
policeman of yours can't be far away. Do you think "Et tu, Bunny!" he groaned. "Mine own familiar
you could struggle friend!"
out and look for him?"
"Then you weren't even stunned!" I exclaimed.
"I suppose I am a bit better than I was," he replied "Thank God for that!"
doubtfully. "The
excitement seems to have done me good. If you "Of course I was stunned," he murmured, "and no
like to leave me on thanks to you that I
guard with my revolver, I'll undertake that he wasn't brained. Not to know me in the kit you've
doesn't escape me." seen scores of times!
You never looked at me, Bunny; you didn't give me
I shook my head with an impatient smile. time to open my
mouth. I was going to let you run me in so prettily!
"I should never hear the last of it," said I. "No, in We'd have walked
that case all I off arm-in-arm; now it's as tight a place as ever we
can do is to handcuff the fellow and wait till were in, though
morning if he won't go you did get rid of old blow-pipes rather nicely. But
quietly; and he'll be a fool if he does, while there's a we shall have the
fighting devil's own run for our money!"
chance."
Raffles had picked himself up between his
Young Medlicott glanced upstairs from his post on mutterings, and I had
the threshold. I followed him to the door into the garden, where he
refrained from watching him too keenly, but I knew stood busy with the
what was in his mind. key in the dark, having blown out his lantern and
handed it to me. But
though I followed Raffles, as my nature must, I was eventually taken him twenty minutes to creep back
far too embittered to locked doors, and
to answer him again. And so it was for some another ten to ring up the inmates. His description
minutes that might furnish of my personal
forth a thrilling page, but not a novel one to those appearance, as reported in the papers, is the only
who know their thing that
Raffles and put up with me. Suffice it that we left a reconciles me to the thought of his sufferings during
locked door that half-hour.
behind us, and the key on the garden wall, which
was the first of half But at the time I had other thoughts, and they lay
a dozen that we scaled before dropping into a lane too deep for idle
that led to a words, for to me also it was a bitter hour. I had not
foot-bridge higher up the backwater. And when we only failed in
paused upon the my self-sought task; I had nearly killed my comrade
foot-bridge, the houses along the bank were still in into the bargain.
peace and darkness. I had meant well by friend and foe in turn, and I had
ended in doing
Knowing _my_ Raffles as I did, I was not surprised execrably by both. It was not all my fault, but I
when he dived under knew how much my
one end of this bridge, and came up with his weakness had contributed to the sum. And I must
Inverness cape and opera walk with the man
hat, which he had hidden there on his way to the whose fault it was, who had travelled two hundred
house. The thick socks miles to obtain this
were peeled from his patent-leathers, the ragged last proof of my weakness, to bring it home to me,
trousers stripped from and to make our
an evening pair, bloodstains and Newgate fringe intimacy intolerable from that hour. I must walk
removed at the water's with him to Surbiton,
edge, and the whole sepulchre whited in less time but I need not talk; all through Thames Ditton I had
than the thing takes ignored his
to tell. Nor was that enough for Raffles, but he sallies; nor yet when he ran his arm through mine,
must alter me as on the river front,
well, by wearing my overcoat under his cape, and when we were nearly there, would I break the seal
putting his Zingari my pride had set upon
scarf about my neck. my lips.

"And now," said he, "you may be glad to hear "Come, Bunny," he said at last, "I have been the one
there's a 3:12 from to suffer most,
Surbiton, which we could catch on all fours. If you when all's said and done, and I'll be the first to say
like we'll go that I deserved
separately, but I don't think there's the slightest it. You've broken my head; my hair's all glued up
danger now, in my gore; and what
and I begin to wonder what's happening to old yarn I'm to put up at Manchester, or how I shall take
blow-pipes." the field at all,
I really don't know. Yet I don't blame you, Bunny,
So, indeed, did I, and with no small concern, until I and I do blame
read of his myself. Isn't it rather hard luck if I am to go
adventures (and our own) in the newspapers. It unforgiven into the
seemed that he had made bargain? I admit that I made a mistake; but, my
a gallant spurt into the road, and there paid the dear fellow, I made it
penalty of his entirely for your sake."
rashness by a sudden incapacity to move another
inch. It had "For my sake!" I echoed bitterly.
Raffles was more generous; he ignored my tone. "It was the finest," I said in a low voice; for now I
marvelled more at
"I was miserable about you--frankly--miserable!" he the impulse which had prompted his feat, and at the
went on. "I circumstances
couldn't get it out of my head that somehow you surrounding it, than even at the feat itself.
would be laid by the
heels. It was not your pluck that I distrusted, my "Heaven knows," he went on, "what they are saying
dear fellow, but it and doing in
was your very pluck that made me tremble for you. Manchester! But what can they say? What business
I couldn't get you is it of theirs? I
out of my head. I went in when runs were wanted, was there when play stopped, and I shall be there
but I give you my when it starts again.
word that I was more anxious about you; and no We shall be at Waterloo just after half-past three,
doubt that's why I and that's going to
helped to put on some runs. Didn't you see it in the give me an hour at the Albany on my way to
paper, Bunny? Euston, and another hour at
It's the innings of my life, so far." Old Trafford before play begins. What's the matter
with that? I don't
"Yes," I said, "I saw that you were in at close of suppose I shall notch any more, but all the better if I
play. But I don't don't; if we
believe it was you--I believe you have a double who have a hot sun after the storm, the sooner they get in
plays your cricket the better; and
for you!" may I have a bowl at them while the ground bites!"

And at the moment that seemed less incredible than "I'll come up with you," I said, "and see you at it."
the fact.
"My dear fellow," replied Raffles, "that was my
"I'm afraid you didn't read your paper very whole feeling about
carefully," said Raffles, you. I wanted to 'see you at it'--that was absolutely
with the first trace of pique in his tone. "It was rain all. I wanted
that closed to be near enough to lend a hand if you got tied up,
play before five o'clock. I hear it was a sultry day as the best of us
in town, but at will at times. I knew the ground better than you,
Manchester we got the storm, and the ground was and I simply
under water in ten couldn't keep away from it. But I didn't mean you
minutes. I never saw such a thing in my life. There to know that I was
was absolutely there; if everything had gone as I hoped it might, I
not the ghost of a chance of another ball being should have
bowled. But I had sneaked back to town without ever letting you know
changed before I thought of doing what I did. It I had been up. You
was only when I was should never have dreamt that I had been at your
on my way back to the hotel, by myself, because I elbow; you would have
couldn't talk to a believed in yourself, and in my belief in you, and
soul for thinking of you, that on the spur of the the rest would have
moment I made the man been silence till the grave. So I dodged you at
take me to the station instead, and was under way in Waterloo, and I tried
the restaurant car not to let you know that I was following you from
before I had time to think twice about it. I am not Esher station. But
sure that of all you suspected somebody was; you stopped to listen
the mad deeds I have ever done, this was not the more than once; after
maddest of the lot!"
the second time I dropped behind, but gained on "And to think that I did that," I groaned, "and that
you by taking the short you laid yourself
cut by Imber Court and over the foot-bridge where I open to it, and that we have neither of us got
left my coat and another thing to show
hat. I was actually in the garden before you were. I for our night's work! That poor chap said it was as
saw you smoke bad a night as he
your Sullivan, and I was rather proud of you for it, had ever had in his life; but I call it the very worst
though you must that you and I
never do that sort of thing again. I heard almost ever had in ours."
every word between
you and the poor devil upstairs. And up to a certain Raffles was smiling under the double lamps of the
point, Bunny, I first-class
really thought you played the scene to perfection." compartment that we had to ourselves.

The station lights were twinkling ahead of us in the "I wouldn't say that, Bunny. We have done worse."
fading velvet of
the summer's night. I let them increase and "Do you mean to tell me that you did anything at
multiply before I spoke. all?"

"And where," I asked, "did you think I first went "My dear Bunny," replied Raffles, "you should
wrong?" remember how long I had
been maturing felonious little plan, what a blow it
"In going in-doors at all," said Raffles. "If I had was to me to have
done that, I to turn it over to you, and how far I had travelled to
should have done exactly what you did from that see that you did
point on. You couldn't it and yourself as well as might be. You know what
help yourself, with that poor brute in that state. And I did see, and how
I admired you well I understood. I tell you again that I should
immensely, Bunny, if that's any comfort to you have done the same
now." thing myself, in your place. But I was not in your
place, Bunny. My
Comfort! It was wine in every vein, for I knew that hands were not tied like yours. Unfortunately, most
Raffles meant what of the jewels have
he said, and with his eyes I soon saw myself in gone on the honeymoon with the happy pair; but
braver colors. I ceased these emerald links are
to blush for the vacillations of the night, since he all right, and I don't know what the bride was doing
condoned them. I to leave this
could even see that I had behaved with a measure of diamond comb behind. Here, too, is the old silver
decency, in a truly skewer I've been
trying situation, now that Raffles seemed to think wanting for years--they make the most charming
so. He had changed paper-knives in the
my whole view of his proceedings and my own, in world--and this gold cigarette-case will just do for
every incident of the your smaller
night but one. There was one thing, however, Sullivans."
which he might forgive
me, but which I felt that I could forgive neither Nor were these the only pretty things that Raffles
Raffles nor myself. set out in twinkling
And that was the contused scalp wound over which array upon the opposite cushions. But I do not
I shuddered in the pretend that this was
train. one of our heavy hauls, or deny that its chief
interest still resides
in the score of the Second Test Match of that "No--not come in yet--and I'm caught."
Australian tour.
"Caught!"

"In that trap he bragged about. It serves me right. I

didn't believe
A Trap to Catch a Cracksman in it. But I'm caught at last ... caught ... at last!"

I was just putting out my light when the telephone "When he told us he set it every night! Oh, Raffles,
rang a furious what sort of a
tocsin in the next room. I flounced out of bed more trap is it? What shall I do? What shall I bring?"
asleep than awake;
in another minute I should have been past ringing But his voice had grown fainter and wearier with
up. It was one every answer, and now
o'clock in the morning, and I had been dining with there was no answer at all. Again and again I asked
Swigger Morrison at Raffles if he was
his club. there; the only sound to reach me in reply was the
low metallic hum of
"Hulloa!" the live wire between his ear and mine. And then,
as I sat gazing
"That you, Bunny?" distractedly at my four safe walls, with the receiver
still pressed to
"Yes--are you Raffles?" my head, there came a single groan, followed by the
dull and dreadful
"What's left of me! Bunny, I want you--quick." crash of a human body falling in a heap.

And even over the wire his voice was faint with In utter panic I rushed back into my bedroom, and
anxiety and flung myself into the
apprehension. crumpled shirt and evening clothes that lay where I
had cast them off.
"What on earth has happened?" But I knew no more what I was doing than what to
do next I afterward
"Don't ask! You never know--" found that I had taken out a fresh tie, and tied it
rather better than
"I'll come at once. Are you there, Raffles?" usual; but I can remember thinking of nothing but
Raffles in some
"What's that?" diabolical man-trap, and of a grinning monster
stealing in to strike
"Are you there, man?" him senseless with one murderous blow. I must
have looked in the glass
"Ye--e--es." to array myself as I did; but the mind's eye was the
seeing eye, and it
"At the Albany?" was filled with this frightful vision of the notorious
pugilist known
"No, no; at Maguire's." to fame and infamy as Barney Maguire.

"You never said so. And where's Maguire?" It was only the week before that Raffles and I had
been introduced to
"In Half-moon Street." him at the Imperial Boxing Club. Heavy-weight
champion of the United
"I know that. Is he there now?" States, the fellow was still drunk with his
sanguinary triumphs on that
side, and clamoring for fresh conquests on ours. But that Raffles had accepted the braggart's boast as a
his reputation had challenge. Nor did
crossed the Atlantic before Maguire himself; the he deny it later when I taxed him with his mad
grandiose hotels had resolve; he merely
closed their doors to him; and he had already taken refused to allow me to implicate myself in its
and sumptuously execution. Well, there
furnished the house in Half-moon Street which does was a spice of savage satisfaction in the thought that
not re-let to this Raffles had been
day. Raffles had made friends with the magnificent obliged to turn to me in the end. And, but for the
brute, while I took dreadful thud which
timid stock of his diamond studs, his jewelled I had heard over the telephone, I might have
watch-chain, his extracted some genuine
eighteen-carat bangle, and his six-inch lower jaw. I comfort from the unerring sagacity with which he
had shuddered to had chosen his night.
see Raffles admiring the gewgaws in his turn, in his
own brazen Within the last twenty-four hours Barney Maguire
fashion, with that air of the cool connoisseur which had fought his first
had its double great battle on British soil. Obviously, he would no
meaning for me. I for my part would as lief have longer be the man
looked a tiger in the that he had been in the strict training before the
teeth. And when we finally went home with fight; never, as I
Maguire to see his other gathered, was such a ruffian more off his guard, or
trophies, it seemed to me like entering the tiger's less capable of
lair. But an protecting himself and his possessions, than in these
astounding lair it proved, fitted throughout by one first hours of
eminent firm, and relaxation and inevitable debauchery for which
ringing to the rafters with the last word on fantastic Raffles had waited with
furniture. characteristic foresight. Nor was the terrible Barney
likely to be
The trophies were a still greater surprise. They more abstemious for signal punishment sustained in
opened my eyes to the a far from bloodless
rosier aspect of the noble art, as presently practised victory. Then what could be the meaning of that
on the right sickening and most
side of the Atlantic. Among other offerings, we suggestive thud? Could it be the champion himself
were permitted to who had received the
handle the jewelled belt presented to the pugilist by _coup de grâce_ in his cups? Raffles was the very
the State of man to administer
Nevada, a gold brick from the citizens of it--but he had not talked like that man through the
Sacramento, and a model of telephone.
himself in solid silver from the Fisticuff Club in
New York. I still And yet--and yet--what else could have happened?
remember waiting with bated breath for Raffles to I must have asked
ask Maguire if he myself the question between each and all of the
were not afraid of burglars, and Maguire replying above reflections, made
that he had a trap to partly as I dressed and partly in the hansom on the
catch the cleverest cracksman alive, but flatly way to Half-moon
refusing to tell us Street. It was as yet the only question in my mind.
what it was. I could not at the moment conceive a You must know
more terrible trap what your emergency is before you can decide how
than the heavy-weight himself behind a curtain. to cope with it; and
Yet it was easy to see to this day I sometimes tremble to think of the
rashly direct method by
which I set about obtaining the requisite right opposite the door, and I can still see the three
information. I drove every of them
yard of the way to the pugilist's very door. You will regarding me in its light. The pugilist had been at
remember that I least a fine
had been dining with Swigger Morrison at his club. figure of a bully and a braggart when I saw him
before his fight; now
Yet at the last I had a rough idea of what I meant to he had a black eye and a bloated lip, hat on the back
say when the door of his head, and
was opened. It seemed almost probable that the made-up tie under one ear. His companions were
tragic end of our talk his sallow little
over the telephone had been caused by the sudden Yankee secretary, whose name I really forget, but
arrival and as sudden whom I met with
violence of Barney Maguire. In that case I was Maguire at the Boxing Club, and a very grand
resolved to tell him person in a second skin of
that Raffles and I had made a bet about his burglar shimmering sequins.
trap, and that I
had come to see who had won. I might or might not I can neither forget nor report the terms in which
confess that Raffles Barney Maguire asked
had rung me out of bed to this end. If, however, I me who I was and what I was doing there. Thanks,
was wrong about however, to Swigger
Maguire, and he had not come home at all, then my Morrison's hospitality, I readily reminded him of
action would depend our former meeting,
upon the menial who answered my reckless ring. and of more that I only recalled as the words were
But it should result in in my mouth.
the rescue of Raffles by hook or crook.
"You'll remember Raffles," said I, "if you don't
I had the more time to come to some decision, since remember me. You
I rang and rang in showed us your trophies the other night, and asked
vain. The hall, indeed, was in darkness; but when I us both to look you
peeped through the up at any hour of the day or night after the fight."
letter-box I could see a faint beam of light from the
back room. That I was going on to add that I had expected to find
was the room in which Maguire kept his trophies Raffles there before
and set his trap. All me, to settle a wager that we had made about the
was quiet in the house: could they have haled the man-trap. But the
intruder to Vine indiscretion was interrupted by Maguire himself,
Street in the short twenty minutes which it had whose dreadful fist
taken me to dress and became a hand that gripped mine with brute fervor,
to drive to the spot? That was an awful thought; but while with the other
even as I hoped he clouted me on the back.
against hope, and rang once more, speculation and
suspense were cut "You don't say!" he cried. "I took you for some
short in the last fashion to be foreseen. darned crook, but now
I remember you perfectly. If you hadn't 've spoke
A brougham was coming sedately down the street up slick I'd have
from Piccadilly; to my bu'st your face in, sonny. I would, sure! Come
horror, it stopped behind me as I peered once more right in, and have a
through the drink to show there's--Jeehoshaphat!"
letter-box, and out tumbled the dishevelled
prizefighter and two The secretary had turned the latch-key in the door,
companions. I was nicely caught in my turn. There only to be hauled
was a lamp-post
back by the collar as the door stood open, and the face; but if I had my thick boots on I'd dance the
light from the inner soul out of your
room was seen streaming upon the banisters at the carcass for two cents!"
foot of the narrow
stairs. After this it required less courage to join the others
in the inner
"A light in my den," said Maguire in a mighty room; and for some moments even I failed to
whisper, "and the blamed identify the truly
door open, though the key's in my pocket and we repulsive object about which I found them grouped.
left it locked! Talk There was no false
about crooks, eh? Holy smoke, how I hope we've hair upon the face, but it was as black as any
landed one alive! You sweep's. The clothes,
ladies and gentlemen, lay round where you are, on the other hand, were new to me, though older
while I see." and more pestiferous in
themselves than most worn by Raffles for
And the hulking figure advanced on tiptoe, like a professional purposes. And at
performing elephant, first, as I say, I was far from sure whether it was
until just at the open door, when for a second we Raffles at all; but
saw his left I remembered the crash that cut short our talk over
revolving like a piston and his head thrown back at the telephone; and
its fighting angle. this inanimate heap of rags was lying directly
But in another second his fists were hands again, underneath a wall
and Maguire was instrument, with the receiver dangling over him.
rubbing them together as he stood shaking with
laughter in the light of "Think you know him?" asked the sallow secretary,
the open door. as I stooped and
peered with my heart in my boots.
"Walk up!" he cried, as he beckoned to us three.
"Walk up and see one "Good Lord, no! I only wanted to see if he was
o' their blamed British crooks laid as low as the dead," I explained,
blamed carpet, and having satisfied myself that it was really Raffles,
nailed as tight!" and that Raffles
was really insensible. "But what on earth has
Imagine my feelings on the mat! The sallow happened?" I asked in
secretary went first; the my turn.
sequins glittered at his heels, and I must own that
for one base moment "That's what I want to know," whined the person in
I was on the brink of bolting through the street door. sequins, who had
It had never contributed various ejaculations unworthy of report,
been shut behind us. I shut it myself in the end. and finally
Yet it was small subsided behind an ostentatious fan.
credit to me that I actually remained on the same
side of the door as "I should judge," observed the secretary, "that it's
Raffles. for Mr. Maguire to
say, or not to say, just as he darn pleases."
"Reel home-grown, low-down, unwashed
Whitechapel!" I had heard Maguire But the celebrated Barney stood upon a Persian
remark within. "Blamed if our Bowery boys ain't hearth-rug, beaming upon
cock-angels to scum us all in a triumph too delicious for immediate
like this. Ah, you biter, I wouldn't soil my knuckles translation into words.
on your ugly The room was furnished as a study, and most
artistically furnished, if
you consider outlandish shapes in fumed oak "You shall have a little something in a minute,"
artistic. There was nothing rejoined Maguire. "But
of the traditional prize-fighter about Barney if you take a little anything out of that decanter,
Maguire, except his you'll collapse
vocabulary and his lower jaw. I had seen over his like our friend upon the floor."
house already, and
it was fitted and decorated throughout by a high-art "Good heavens!" I cried out, with involuntary
firm which indignation, and his fell
exhibits just such a room as that which was the scheme broke upon me in a clap.
scene of our
tragedietta. The person in the sequins lay glistening "Yes, _sir!_" said Maguire, fixing me with his
like a landed bloodshot orbs. "My trap
salmon in a quaint chair of enormous nails and for crooks and cracksmen is a bottle of hocussed
tapestry compact. The whiskey, and I guess
secretary leaned against an escritoire with huge that's it on the table, with the silver label around its
hinges of beaten neck. Now look
metal. The pugilist's own background presented an at this other decanter, without any label at all; but
elaborate scheme of for that they're
oak and tiles, with inglenooks green from the joiner, the dead spit of each other. I'll put them side by
and a china side, so you can
cupboard with leaded panes behind his bullet head. see. It isn't only the decanters, but the liquor looks
And his bloodshot the same in
eyes rolled with rich delight from the decanter and both, and tastes so you wouldn't know the
glasses on the difference till you woke up
octagonal table to another decanter in the quaintest in your tracks. I got the poison from a blamed
and craftiest of Indian away west, and
revolving spirit tables. it's ruther ticklish stuff. So I keep the label around
the
"Isn't it bully?" asked the prize-fighter, smiling on trap-bottle, and only leave it out nights. That's the
us each in turn, idea, and that's
with his black and bloodshot eyes and his bloated all there is to it," added Maguire, putting the
lip. "To think that labelled decanter back
I've only to invent a trap to catch a crook, for a in the stand. "But I figure it's enough for ninety-
blamed crook to walk nine crooks out of
right into! You, Mr. Man," and he nodded his great a hundred, and nineteen out of twenty 'll have their
head at me, "you'll liquor before they
recollect me telling you that I'd gotten one when go to work."
you come in that
night with the other sport? Say, pity he's not with "I wouldn't figure on that," observed the secretary,
you now; he was a with a downward
good boy, and I liked him a lot; but he wanted to glance as though at the prostrate Raffles. "Have
know too much, and I you looked to see if
guess he'd got to want. But I'm liable to tell you the trophies are all safe?"
now, or else bu'st.
See that decanter on the table?" "Not yet," said Maguire, with a glance at the
pseudo-antique cabinet in
"I was just looking at it," said the person in sequins. which he kept them.
"You don't
know what a turn I've had, or you'd offer me a little "Then you can save yourself the trouble," rejoined
something." the secretary, as he
dived under the octagonal table, and came up with a
small black bag
that I knew at a glance. It was the one that Raffles "It looks to me," said he, "as though the crook had
had used for rung up somebody
heavy plunder ever since I had known him. before he went off."

The bag was so heavy now that the secretary used I turned and assisted the grand lady to the
both hands to get it refreshment that she craved.
on the table. In another moment he had taken out
the jewelled belt "Like his cheek!" Maguire thundered. "But who in
presented to Maguire by the State of Nevada, the blazes should _he_ ring
solid silver statuette up?"
of himself, and the gold brick from the citizens of
Sacramento. "It'll all come out," said the secretary. "They'll tell
us at the
Either the sight of his treasures, so nearly lost, or central, and we shall find out fast enough."
the feeling that
the thief had dared to tamper with them after all, "It don't matter now," said Maguire. "Let's have a
suddenly infuriated drink and then
Maguire to such an extent that he had bestowed a rouse the devil up."
couple of brutal kicks
upon the senseless form of Raffles before the But now I was shaking in my shoes. I saw quite
secretary and I could clearly what this
interfere. meant. Even if I rescued Raffles for the time being,
the police would
"Play light, Mr. Maguire!" cried the sallow promptly ascertain that it was I who had been rung
secretary. "The man's up by the burglar,
drugged, as well as down." and the fact of my not having said a word about it
would be directly
"He'll be lucky if he ever gets up, blight and blister damning to me, if in the end it did not incriminate
him!" us both. It made
me quite faint to feel that we might escape the
"I should judge it about time to telephone for the Scylla of our present
police." peril and yet split on the Charybdis of
circumstantial evidence. Yet I
"Not till I've done with him. Wait till he comes to! could see no middle course of conceivable safety, if
I guess I'll I held my tongue
punch his face into a jam pudding! He shall wash another moment. So I spoke up desperately, with
down his teeth with the rash resolution
his blood before the coppers come in for what's which was the novel feature of my whole conduct
left!" on this occasion. But
any sheep would be resolute and rash after dining
"You make me feel quite ill," complained the grand with Swigger Morrison
lady in the chair. at his club.
"I wish you'd give me a little something, and not be
more vulgar than "I wonder if he rang _me_ up?" I exclaimed, as if
you can 'elp." inspired.

"Help yourself," said Maguire, ungallantly, "and "You, sonny?" echoed Maguire, decanter in hand.
don't talk through "What in hell could he
your hat. Say, what's the matter with the 'phone?" know about you?"

The secretary had picked up the dangling receiver. "Or what could you know about him?" amended the
secretary, fixing me
with eyes like drills. remorselessly to the charge, while Maguire roared
"Drink up!" and then
"Nothing," I admitted, regretting my temerity with drooped once more.
all my heart. "But
some one did ring me up about an hour ago. I "I was half asleep," I answered, "and he was the
thought it was Raffles. first person who
I told you I expected to find him here, if you occurred to me. We are both on the telephone, you
remember." see. And we had
made a 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
secretary, with his relentless eyes boring deeper and down untouched.
deeper into mine. Maguire's huge jaw had dropped upon his spreading
shirt-front, and
"No more do I," was my miserable reply. But there beyond him I saw the person in sequins fast asleep
was a certain in the artistic
comfort in his words, and some simultaneous armchair.
promise in the quantity of
spirit which Maguire splashed into his glass. "What bet?" asked a voice with a sudden start in it.
The secretary was
"Were you cut off sudden?" asked the secretary, blinking as he drained his glass.
reaching for the
decanter, as the three of us sat round the octagonal "About the very thing we've just had explained to
table. us," said I, watching
my man intently as I spoke. "I made sure it was a
"So suddenly," I replied, "that I never knew who it man-trap. Raffles
was who rang me up. thought it must be something else. We had a
No, thank you--not any for me." tremendous argument about
it. Raffles said it wasn't a man-trap. I said it was.
"What!" cried Maguire, raising a depressed head We had a bet
suddenly. "You won't about it in the end. I put my money on the man-
have a drink in my house? Take care, young man. trap. Raffles put his
That's not being a upon the other thing. And Raffles was right--it
good boy!" wasn't a man-trap.
But it's every bit as good--every little bit--and the
"But I've been dining out," I expostulated, "and had whole boiling of
my whack. I you are caught in it except me!"
really have."
I sank my voice with the last sentence, but I might
Barney Maguire smote the table with terrific fist. just as well have
raised it instead. I had said the same thing over and
"Say, sonny, I like you a lot," said he. "But I shan't over again to
like you any if see whether the wilful tautology would cause the
you're not a good boy!" secretary to open his
eyes. It seemed to have had the very opposite
"Very well, very well," I said hurriedly. "One effect. His head fell
finger, if I must." forward on the table, with never a quiver at the
blow, never a twitch
And the secretary helped me to not more than two. when I pillowed it upon one of his own sprawling
arms. And there sat
"Why should it have been your friend Raffles?" he Maguire bolt upright, but for the jowl upon his
inquired, returning shirt-front, while the
sequins twinkled in a regular rise and fall upon the Eheu! I dreamed somebody was kicking me in the
reclining form of ribs, and I believe it
the lady in the fanciful chair. All three were sound must have been true."
asleep, by what
accident or by whose design I did not pause to He had risen with a hand to his side and a wry look
inquire; it was enough on his sweep's face.
to ascertain the fact beyond all chance of error.
"You can guess which of them it was," said I. "The
I turned my attention to Raffles last of all. There beast is jolly well
was the other side served!"
of the medal. Raffles was still sleeping as sound as
the enemy--or so And I shook my fist in the paralytic face of the most
I feared at first I shook him gently: he made no sign. brutal bruiser of
I introduced his time.
vigor into the process: he muttered incoherently. I
caught and twisted "He is safe till the forenoon, unless they bring a
an unresisting wrist--and at that he yelped doctor to him," said
profanely. But it was many Raffles. "I don't suppose we could rouse him now
and many an anxious moment before his blinking if we tried. How much
eyes knew mine. of the fearsome stuff do you suppose _I_ took?
About a tablespoonful! I
"Bunny!" he yawned, and nothing more until his guessed what it was, and couldn't resist making
position came back to sure; the minute I was
him. "So you came to me," he went on, in a tone satisfied, I changed the label and the position of the
that thrilled me with two decanters,
its affectionate appreciation, "as I knew you would! little thinking I should stay to see the fun; but in
Have they turned another minute I
up yet? They will any minute, you know; there's could hardly keep my eyes open. I realized then that
not one to lose." I was fairly
poisoned with some subtle drug. If I left the house
"No, they won't, old man!" I whispered. And he sat at all in that
up and saw the state, I must leave the spoil behind, or be found
comatose trio for himself. drunk in the gutter
with my head on the swag itself. In any case I
Raffles seemed less amazed at the result than I had should have been picked
been as a puzzled up and run in, and that might have led to anything."
witness of the process; on the other hand, I had
never seen anything "So you rang me up!"
quite so exultant as the smile that broke through his
blackened "It was my last brilliant inspiration--a sort of flash
countenance like a light. It was all obviously no in the brain-pan
great surprise, and before the end--and I remember very little about it.
no puzzle at all, to Raffles. I was more asleep
than awake at the time."
"How much did they have, Bunny?" were his first
whispered words. "You sounded like it, Raffles, now that one has the
clue."
"Maguire a good three fingers, and the others at
least two." "I can't remember a word I said, or what was the
end of it, Bunny."
"Then we needn't lower our voices, and we needn't
walk on our toes. "You fell in a heap before you came to the end."
 twofold; and the funny thing was that I had seen
"You didn't hear that through the telephone?" both horns of the
dilemma for myself, before Raffles came to his
"As though we had been in the same room: only I senses. But with
thought it was Maguire Raffles in his right mind, I had ceased to apply my
who had stolen a march on you and knocked you own, or to carry my
out." share of our common burden another inch. It had
been an unconscious
I had never seen Raffles more interested and withdrawal on my part, an instinctive tribute to my
impressed; but at this leader; but I was
point his smile altered, his eyes softened, and I sufficiently ashamed of it as we stood and faced the
found my hand in his. problem in each
other's eyes.
"You thought that, and yet you came like a shot to
do battle for my "If we simply cleared out," continued Raffles, "you
body with Barney Maguire! Jack-the-Giant-killer would be
wasn't in it with you, incriminated in the first place as my accomplice,
Bunny!" and once they had you
they would have a compass with the needle pointing
"It was no credit to me--it was rather the other straight to me.
thing," said I, They mustn't have either of us, Bunny, or they will
remembering my rashness and my luck, and get us both. And
confessing both in a breath. for my part they may as well!"
"You know old Swigger Morrison?" I added in final
explanation. "I had I echoed a sentiment that was generosity itself in
been dining with him at his club!" Raffles, but in my
case a mere truism.
Raffles shook his long old head. And the kindly
light in his eyes was "It's easy enough for me," he went on. "I am a
still my infinite reward. common house-breaker,
and I escape. They don't know me from Noah. But
"I don't care," said he, "how deeply you had been they do know you; and
dining: _in vino how do you come to let me escape? What has
veritas_, Bunny, and your pluck would always out! happened to you, Bunny?
I have never doubted That's the crux. What could have happened after
it, and I never shall. In fact, I rely on nothing else they all dropped off?"
to get us out And for a minute Raffles frowned and smiled like a
of this mess." sensation novelist
working out a plot; then the light broke, and
My face must have fallen, as my heart sank at these transfigured him through
words. I had said his burnt cork. "I've got it, Bunny!" he exclaimed.
to myself that we were out of the mess already--that "You took some of
we had merely to the stuff yourself, though of course not nearly so
make a clean escape from the house--now the much as they did.
easiest thing in the world.
But as I looked at Raffles, and as Raffles looked at "Splendid!" I cried. "They really were pressing it
me, on the upon me at the end,
threshold of the room where the three sleepers slept and I did say it must be very little."
on without sound
or movement, I grasped the real problem that lay "You dozed off in your turn, but you were naturally
before us. It was the first to come
to yourself. I had flown; so had the gold brick, the "What could I say? I was obliged to think of
jewelled belt, somebody, and I saw they
and the silver statuette. You tried to rouse the were not going to recognize you. So I put up a yarn
others. You couldn't about a wager we
succeed; nor would you if you did try. So what did had made about this very trap of Maguire's. You
you do? What's the see, Raffles, I've
only really innocent thing you could do in the never properly told you how I got in, and there's no
circumstances?" time now; but the
first thing I had said was that I half expected to find
"Go for the police," I suggested dubiously, little you here before
relishing the me. That was in case they spotted you at once. But
prospect. it made all that
part about the telephone fit in rather well."
"There's a telephone installed for the purpose," said
Raffles. "I "I should think it did, Bunny," murmured Raffles, in
should ring them up, if I were you. Try not to look a tone that added
blue about it, sensibly to my reward. "I couldn't have done better
Bunny. They're quite the nicest fellows in the myself, and you
world, and what you will forgive my saying that you have never in your
have to tell them is a mere microbe to the camels life done half so
I've made them well. Talk about that crack you gave me on the
swallow without a grain of salt. It's really the most head! You have made it
convincing story up to me a hundredfold by all you have done to-
one could conceive; but unfortunately there's night. But the bother
another point which will of it is that there's still so much to do, and to hit
take more explaining away." upon, and so
precious little time for thought as well as action."
And even Raffles looked grave enough as I nodded.
I took out my watch and showed it to Raffles
"You mean that they'll find out you rang me up?" without a word. It was
three o'clock in the morning, and the latter end of
"They may," said Raffles. "I see that I managed to March. In little
replace the more than an hour there would be dim daylight in
receiver all right. But still--they may." the streets. Raffles
roused himself from a reverie with sudden decision.
"I'm afraid they will," said I, uncomfortably. "I'm
very much afraid I "There's only one thing for it, Bunny," said he. "We
gave something of the kind away. You see, you had must trust each
_not_ replaced the other and divide the labor. You ring up the police,
receiver; it was dangling over you where you lay. and leave the rest
This very question to me."
came up, and the brutes themselves seemed so
quick to see its "You haven't hit upon any reason for the sort of
possibilities that I thought best to take the bull by burglar they think you
the horns and own were, ringing up the kind of man they know I am?"
that I had been rung up by somebody. To be
absolutely honest, I even "Not yet, Bunny, but I shall. It may not be wanted
went so far as to say I thought it was Raffles!" for a day or so,
and after all it isn't for you to give the explanation.
"You didn't, Bunny!" It would be
highly suspicious if you did."
"So it would," I agreed. very roof of my mouth.

"Then will you trust me to hit on something--if It was daybreak when I gave the alarm with bell and
possible before telephone. In a
morning--in any case by the time it's wanted? I few minutes we had the house congested with
won't fail you, Bunny. dishevelled domestics,
You must see how I can never, never fail you after irascible doctors, and arbitrary minions of the law.
to-night!" If I told my
story once, I told it a dozen times, and all on an
That settled it. I gripped his hand without another empty stomach. But
word, and remained it was certainly a most plausible and consistent tale,
on guard over the three sleepers while Raffles stole even without
upstairs. I have that confirmation which none of the other victims
since learned that there were servants at the top of was as yet
the house, and in sufficiently recovered to supply. And in the end I
the basement a man, who actually heard some of was permitted to
our proceedings! But he retire from the scene until required to give further
was mercifully too accustomed to nocturnal orgies, information, or to
and those of a far identify the prisoner whom the good police
more uproarious character, to appear unless confidently expected to make
summoned to the scene. I before the day was out.
believe he heard Raffles leave. But no secret was
made of his exit: he I drove straight to the flat. The porter flew to help
let himself out and told me afterward that the first me out of my
person he hansom. His face alarmed me more than any I had
encountered in the street was the constable on the left in Half-moon
beat. Raffles Street. It alone might have spelled my ruin.
wished him good-morning, as well he might; for he
had been upstairs to "Your flat's been entered in the night, sir," he cried.
wash his face and hands; and in the prize-fighter's "The thieves
great hat and fur have taken everything they could lay hands on."
coat he might have marched round Scotland Yard
itself, in spite of his "Thieves in my flat!" I ejaculated aghast. There
having the gold brick from Sacramento in one were one or two
pocket, the silver incriminating possessions up there, as well as at the
statuette of Maguire in the other, and round his Albany.
waist the jewelled
belt presented to that worthy by the State of "The door's been forced with a jimmy," said the
Nevada. porter. "It was the
milkman who found it out. There's a constable up
My immediate part was a little hard after the there now."
excitement of those small
hours. I will only say that we had agreed that it A constable poking about in my flat of all others! I
would be wisest for rushed upstairs
me to lie like a log among the rest for half an hour, without waiting for the lift. The invader was
before staggering moistening his pencil
to my feet and rousing house and police; and that in between laborious notes in a fat pocketbook; he had
that half-hour penetrated no
Barney Maguire crashed to the floor, without further than the forced door. I dashed past him in a
waking either himself or fever. I kept _my_
his companions, though not without bringing my trophies in a wardrobe drawer specially fitted with a
beating heart into the Bramah lock. The
lock was broken--the drawer void.
"That's what we couldn't make out."
"Something valuable, sir?" inquired the intrusive
constable at my heels. "I tell you I got it directly I had left you. He called
you away in
"Yes, indeed--some old family silver," I answered. order to burgle you too, of course!"
It was quite true.
But the family was not mine. And Raffles stood smiling upon me in all his
incomparable radiance and
And not till then did the truth flash across my mind. audacity.
Nothing else of
value had been taken. But there was a meaningless "But why me?" I asked. "Why on earth should he
litter in all the burgle _me?_"
rooms. I turned to the porter, who had followed me
up from the street; "My dear Bunny, we must leave something to the
it was his wife who looked after the flat. imagination of the
police. But we will assist them to a fact or two in
"Get rid of this idiot as quick as you can," I due season. It was
whispered. "I'm going the dead of night when Maguire first took us to his
straight to Scotland Yard myself. Let your wife tidy house; it was at
the place while the Imperial Boxing Club we met him; and you
I'm gone, and have the lock mended before she meet queer fish at the
leaves. I'm going as I Imperial Boxing Club. You may remember that he
am, this minute!" telephoned to his man
to prepare supper for us, and that you and he
And go I did, in the first hansom I could find--but discussed telephones and
not straight to treasure as we marched through the midnight
Scotland Yard. I stopped the cab in Picadilly on the streets. He was certainly
way. bucking about his trophies, and for the sake of the
argument you will
Old Raffles opened his own door to me. I cannot be good enough to admit that you probably bucked
remember finding him about yours. What
fresher, more immaculate, more delightful to behold happens? You are overheard; you are followed; you
in every way. are worked into the
Could I paint a picture of Raffles with something same scheme, and robbed on the same night."
other than my pen, it
would be as I saw him that bright March morning, "And you really think this will meet the case?"
at his open door in
the Albany, a trim, slim figure in matutinal gray, "I am quite certain of it, Bunny, so far as it rests wit
cool and gay and us to meet the
breezy as incarnate spring. case at all."

"What on earth did you do it for?" I asked within. "Then give me another cigarette, my dear fellow,
and let me push on to
"It was the only solution," he answered, handing me Scotland Yard."
the cigarettes. "I
saw it the moment I got outside." Raffles held up both hands in admiring horror.

"I don't see it yet." "Scotland Yard!"

"Why should a burglar call an innocent gentleman "To give a false description of what you took from
away from home?" that drawer in my
wardrobe." nothing had been good enough for him as it stood in
our day. The man
"A false description! Bunny, you have no more to was a hunting maniac, and where my dear father
learn from me. Time used to grow prize
was when I wouldn't have let you go there without peaches under glass, this vandal was soon stabling
me to retrieve a lost his hothouse
umbrella--let alone a lost cause!" thoroughbreds, which took prizes in their turn at all
the country
And for once I was not sorry for Raffles to have the shows. It was a southern county, and I never went
last unworthy down there without
word, as he stood once more at his outer door and missing another greenhouse and noting a
gayly waved me down corresponding extension to the
the stairs. stables. Not that I ever set foot in the grounds from
the day we left;
but for some years I used to visit old friends in the
neighborhood, and
could never resist the temptation to reconnoiter the
The Spoils of Sacrilege scenes of my
childhood. And so far as could be seen from the
There was one deed of those days which deserved a road--which it stood
place in our original too near--the house itself appeared to be the one
annals. It is the deed of which I am personally most thing that the horsey
ashamed. I have purchaser had left much as he found it.
traced the course of a score of felonies, from their
source in the My only other excuse may be none at all in any
brain of Raffles to their issue in his hands. I have eyes but mine. It was
omitted all my passionate desire at this period to "keep up my
mention of the one which emanated from my own end" with Raffles in
miserable mind. But in every department of the game felonious. He would
these supplementary memoirs, wherein I pledged insist upon an equal
myself to extenuate division of all proceeds; it was for me to earn my
nothing more that I might have to tell of Raffles, it share. So far I had
is only fair that been useful only at a pinch; the whole credit of any
I should make as clean a breast of my own real success
baseness. It was I, then, belonged invariably to Raffles. It had always been
and I alone, who outraged natural sentiment, and his idea. That was
trampled the expiring the tradition which I sought to end, and no means
embers of elementary decency, by proposing and could compare with
planning the raid upon that of my unscrupulous choice. There was the one
my own old home. house in England of
which I knew every inch, and Raffles only what I
I would not accuse myself the more vehemently by told him. For once I
making excuses at this must lead, and Raffles follow, whether he liked it or
point. Yet I feel bound to state that it was already not. He saw that
many years since himself; and I think he liked it better than he liked
the place had passed from our possession into that me for the
of an utter alien, desecration in view; but I had hardened my heart,
against whom I harbored a prejudice which was and his feelings were
some excuse in itself. too fine for actual remonstrance on such a point.
He had enlarged and altered the dear old place out
of knowledge; I, in my obduracy, went to foul extremes. I drew
plans of all the
floors from memory. I actually descended upon my
friends in the "Far afield! It's not forty miles on the London and
neighborhood, with the sole object of obtaining Brighton."
snap-shots over our own
old garden wall. Even Raffles could not keep his "Well, that's as bad as a hundred on most lines.
eyebrows down when I And when did you say
showed him the prints one morning in the Albany. it was to be?"
But he confined his
open criticisms to the house. "Friday week."

"Built in the late 'sixties, I see," said Raffles, "or "I don't much like a Friday, Bunny. Why make it
else very early one?"
in the 'seventies."
"It's the night of their Hunt Point-to-Point. They
"Exactly when it was built," I replied. "But that's wind up the season
worthy of a with it every year; and the bloated Guillemard
sixpenny detective, Raffles! How on earth did you usually sweeps the board
know?" with his fancy flyers."

"That slate tower bang over the porch, with the "You mean the man in your old house?"
dormer windows and the
iron railing and flagstaff atop makes us a present of "Yes; and he tops up with no end of dinner there," I
the period. You went on, "to his
see them on almost every house of a certain size hunting pals and the bloods who ride for him. If the
built about thirty festive board
years ago. They are quite the most useless doesn't groan under a new regiment of challenge
excrescences I know." cups, it will be no
fault of theirs, and old Guillemard will have to do
"Ours wasn't," I answered, with some warmth. "It them top-hole all
was my _sanctum the same."
sanctorum_ in the holidays. I smoked my first pipe
up there, and wrote "So it's a case of common pot-hunting," remarked
my first verses." Raffles, eyeing me
shrewdly through the cigarette smoke.
Raffles laid a kindly hand upon my
shoulder--"Bunny, Bunny, you can rob "Not for us, my dear fellow," I made answer in his
the old place, and yet you can't hear a word against own tone. "I
it?" wouldn't ask you to break into the next set of
chambers here in the
"That's different," said I relentlessly. "The tower Albany for a few pieces of modern silver, Raffles.
was there in my Not that we need
time, but the man I mean to rob was not." scorn the cups if we get a chance of lifting them,
and if Guillemard
"You really do mean to do it, Bunny?" does so in the first instance. It's by no means
certain that he will.
"By myself, if necessary! I averred. But it _is_ pretty certain to be a lively night for him
and his pals--and
"Not again, Bunny, not again," rejoined Raffles, a vulnerable one for the best bedroom!"
laughing as he shook
his head. "But do you think the man has enough to "Capital!" said Raffles, throwing coils of smoke
make it worth our between his smiles.
while to go so far afield?"
"Still, if it's a dinner-party, the hostess won't leave
her jewels "I only hope you didn't ask too many questions,
upstairs. She'll wear them, my boy." Bunny! But if your
friends are such old friends, you will never enter
"Not all of them, Raffles; she has far too many for their heads when
that. Besides, it they hear what has happened, unless you are seen
isn't an ordinary dinner-party; they say Mrs. down there on the
Guillemard is generally night, which might be fatal. Your approach will
the only lady there, and that she's quite charming in require some thought:
herself. Now, no if you like I can work out the shot for you. I shall
charming woman would clap on all sail in jewels go down
for a roomful of independently, and the best thing may be to meet
fox-hunters." outside the house
itself on the night of nights. But from that moment
"It depends what jewels she has." I am in your
hands."
"Well, she might wear her rope of pearls."
And on these refreshing lines our plan of campaign
"I should have said so." was gradually
developed and elaborated into that finished study on
"And, of course, her rings." which Raffles
would rely like any artist of the footlights. None
"Exactly, Bunny." were more capable
than he of coping with the occasion as it rose, of
"But not necessarily her diamond tiara--" rising himself with
the emergency of the moment, of snatching a
"Has she got one?" victory from the very dust
of defeat. Yet, for choice, every detail was
"--and certainly not her emerald and diamond premeditated, and an
necklace on top of all!" alternative expedient at each finger's end for as
many bare and awful
Raffles snatched the Sullivan from his lips, and his possibilities. In this case, however, the finished
eyes burned like study stopped short
its end. at the garden gate or wall; there I was to assume
command; and though
"Bunny, do you mean to tell me there are all these Raffles carried the actual tools of trade of which he
things?" alone was master,
it was on the understanding that for once I should
"Of course I do," said I. "They are rich people, and control and direct
he's not such a their use.
brute as to spend everything on his stable. Her
jewels are as much the I had gone down in evening-clothes by an evening
talk as his hunters. My friends told me all about train, but had
both the other day carefully overshot old landmarks, and alighted at a
when I was down making inquiries. They thought small station some
my curiosity as natural miles south of the one where I was still
as my wish for a few snapshots of the old place. In remembered. This committed me
their opinion the to a solitary and somewhat lengthy tramp; but the
emerald necklace alone must be worth thousands of night was mild and
pounds." starry, and I marched into it with a high stomach;
for this was to be
Raffles rubbed his hands in playful pantomime.
no costume crime, and yet I should have Raffles at hand, the very feel of the gravel underfoot, were at
my elbow all the once familiar to
night. Long before I reached my destination, my senses as the sweet, relaxing, immemorial air
indeed, he stood in wait that one drank deeper
for me on the white highway, and we finished with at every breath. Our stealthy advance was to me
linked arms. like stealing back
into one's childhood; and yet I could conduct it
"I came down early," said Raffles, "and had a look without compunction.
at the races. I I was too excited to feel immediate remorse, albeit
always prefer to measure my man, Bunny; and you not too lost in
needn't sit in the excitement to know that remorse for every step that
front row of the stalls to take stock of your friend I was taking would
Guillemard. No be my portion soon enough. I mean every word that
wonder he doesn't ride his own horses! The steeple- I have written of my
chaser isn't foaled peculiar shame for this night's work. And it was all
that would carry him round that course. But he's a to come over me
fine monument of a before the night was out. But in the garden I never
man, and he takes his troubles in a way that makes felt it once.
me blush to add to
them." The dining-room windows blazed in the side of the
house facing the
"Did he lose a horse?" I inquired cheerfully. road. That was an objection to peeping through the
venetian blinds, as
"No, Bunny, but he didn't win a race! His horses we nevertheless did, at our peril of observation from
were by chalks the the road. Raffles
best there, and his pals rode them like the foul fiend, would never have led me into danger so gratuitous
but with the and unnecessary, but
worst of luck every time. Not that you'd think it, he followed me into it without a word. I can only
from the row plead that we both
they're making. I've been listening to them from the had our reward. There was a sufficient chink in the
road--you always obsolete
did say the house stood too near it." venetians, and through it we saw every inch of the
picturesque board.
"Then you didn't go in?" Mrs. Guillemard was still in her place, but she
really was the only
"When it's your show? You should know me better. lady, and dressed as quietly as I had prophesied;
Not a foot would I round her neck was
set on the premises behind your back. But here they her rope of pearls, but not the glimmer of an
are, so perhaps emerald nor the glint of
you'll lead the way." a diamond, nor yet the flashing constellation of a
tiara in her hair.
And I led it without a moment's hesitation, through I gripped Raffles in token of my triumph, and he
the unpretentious nodded as he scanned
six-barred gate into the long but shallow crescent of the overwhelming majority of flushed fox-hunters.
the drive. There With the exception
were two such gates, one at each end of the drive, of one stripling, evidently the son of the house, they
but no lodge at were in evening
either, and not a light nearer than those of the house. pink to a man; and as I say, their faces matched
The shape and their coats. An
altitude of the lighted windows, the whisper of the enormous fellow, with a great red face and cropped
laurels on either moustache, occupied
my poor father's place; he it was who had replaced
our fruitful "The other leads into the dressing-room, of course?
vineries with his stinking stables; but I am bound to Then you might be
own he looked a fixing the outer dressing-room door," he whispered
genial clod, as he sat in his fat and listened to the at his work, "but
young bloods not the middle one Bunny, unless you want to. The
boasting of their prowess, or elaborately explaining stuff will be in
their mishaps. there, you see, if it isn't in here."
And for a minute we listened also, before I
remembered my My door was done in a moment, being fitted with a
responsibilities, and led Raffles round to the back of powerful bolt; but
the house. now an aching conscience made me busier than I
need have been. I had
There never was an easier house to enter. I used to raised the rope-ladder after us into my own old
feel that keenly room, and while Raffles
as a boy, when, by a prophetic irony, burglars were wedged his door I lowered the ladder from one of
my bugbear, and I the best bedroom
looked under my bed every night in life. The bow- windows, in order to prepare that way of escape
windows on the ground which was a fundamental
floor finished in inane balconies to the first-floor feature of his own strategy. I meant to show Raffles
windows. These that I had not
balconies had ornamental iron railings, to which a followed in his train for nothing. But I left it to him
less ingenious to unearth the
rope-ladder than ours could have been hitched with jewels. I had begun by turning up the gas; there
equal ease. Raffles appeared to be no
had brought it with him, round his waist, and he possible risk in that; and Raffles went to work with
carried the telescopic a will in the
stick for fixing it in place. The one was unwound, excellent light. There were some good pieces in the
and the other put room, including an
together, in a secluded corner of the red-brick walls, ancient tallboy in fruity mahogany, every drawer of
where of old I which was turned
had played my own game of squash-rackets in the out on the bed without avail. A few of the drawers
holidays. I made had locks to pick,
further investigations in the starlight, and even yet not one trifle to our taste within. The situation
found a trace of my became serious
original white line along the red wall. as the minutes flew. We had left the party at its
sweets; the solitary
But it was not until we had effected our entry lady might be free to roam her house at any minute.
through the room which In the end we
had been my very own, and made our parlous way turned our attention to the dressing-room. And no
across the lighted sooner did Raffles
landing, to the best bedroom of those days and behold the bolted door than up went his hands.
these, that I really
felt myself a worm. Twin brass bedsteads occupied "A bathroom bolt," he cried below his breath, "and
the site of the old no bath in the room!
four-poster from which I had first beheld the light. Why didn't you tell me, Bunny? A bolt like that
The doors were speaks volumes;
the same; my childish hands had grasped these very there's none on the bedroom door, remember, and
handles. And there this one's worthy of a
was Raffles securing the landing door with wedge strong room! What if it is their strong room,
and gimlet, the very Bunny! Oh, Bunny, what
second after softly closing it behind us. if this is their safe?"
Raffles had dropped upon his knees before a carved "Come on then!"
oak chest of
indisputable antiquity. Its panels were delightfully "No, no, I'll lead the way. I know every inch of it."
irregular, its
angles faultlessly faulty, its one modern defilement And, as I leaned against the bedroom door, handle
a strong lock to in hand, while
the lid. Raffles was smiling as he produced his Raffles stooped to unscrew the gimlet and withdraw
jimmy. R--r--r--rip the wedge, I hit
went lock or lid in another ten seconds--I was not upon the ideal port in the storm that was evidently
there to see which. about to burst on
I had wandered back into the bedroom in a our devoted heads. It was the last place in which
paroxysm of excitement and they would look for
suspense. I must keep busy as well as Raffles, and a couple of expert cracksmen with no previous
it was not too knowledge of the house.
soon to see whether the rope-ladder was all right. If only we could gain my haven unobserved, there
In another minute... we might lie in
unsuspected hiding, and by the hour, if not for days
I stood frozen to the floor. I had hooked the ladder and nights.
beautifully to
the inner sill of wood, and had also let down the Alas for that sanguine dream! The wedge was out,
extended rod for the and Raffles on his
more expeditious removal of both on our return to feet behind me. I opened the door, and for a second
_terra firma_. the pair of us
Conceive my cold horror on arriving at the open stood upon the threshold.
window just in time to
see the last of hooks and bending rod, as they Creeping up the stairs before us, each on the tip of
floated out of sight and his silken toes,
reach into the outer darkness of the night, removed was a serried file of pink barbarians, redder in the
by some silent and face than anywhere
invisible hand below! else, and armed with crops carried by the wrong
end. The monumental
"Raffles--Raffles--they've spotted us and moved the person with the short moustache led the advance.
ladder this very The fool stood still
instant!" upon the top step to let out the loudest and cheeriest
view-holloa that
So I panted as I rushed on tiptoe to the dressing- ever smote my ears.
room. Raffles had
the working end of his jimmy under the lid of a It cost him more than he may know until I tell him.
leathern jewel case. It There was the wide
flew open at the vicious twist of his wrist that part of the landing between us; we had just that
preceded his reply. much start along the
narrow part, with the walls and doors upon our left,
"Did you let them see that you'd spotted that?" the banisters on
our right, and the baize door at the end. But if the
"No." great Guillemard
had not stopped to live up to his sporting reputation,
"Good! Pocket some of these cases--no time to he would
open them. Which door's assuredly have laid one or other of us by the heels,
nearest the backstairs?" and either would
have been tantamount to both. As I gave Raffles a
"The other." headlong lead to the
baize door, I glanced down the great well of stairs, the merry lot below were still yelling and bellowing
and up came the in full cry.
daft yells of these sporting oafs:
"Gone to ground! screamed one.
"Gone away--gone away!"
"Where's the terrier?" screeched another.
"Yoick--yoick--yoick!"
But their host of the mighty girth--a man like a
"_Yon_-der they go?" soda-water bottle,
from my one glimpse of him on his feet--seemed
And gone I had, through the baize door to the back sobered rather than
landing, with stunned by the crack on that head of his. We heard
Raffles at my heels. I held the swing door for him, his fine voice no
and heard him bang more, but we could feel him straining every thew
it in the face of the spluttering and blustering master against the trap-door
of the house. upon which Raffles and I stood side by side. At
Other feet were already in the lower flight of the least I thought
backstairs; but the Raffles was standing, until he asked me to strike a
upper flight was the one for me, and in an instant light, when I found
we were racing along him on his knees instead of on his feet, busy
the upper corridor with the chuckle-headed pack at screwing down the
our heels. Here it trap-door with his gimlet. He carried three or four
was all but dark--they were the servants' bedrooms gimlets for
that we were passing wedging doors, and he drove them all in to the
now--but I knew what I was doing. Round the last handle, while I pulled
corner to the right, at the stanchion and pushed with my feet.
through the first door to the left and we were in the
room underneath But the upward pressure ceased before our efforts.
the tower. In our time a long stepladder had led to We heard the ladder
the tower itself. creak again under a ponderous and slow descent;
I rushed in the dark to the old corner. Thank God, and we stood upright in
the ladder was the dim flicker of a candle-end that I had lit and left
there still! It leaped under us as we rushed aloft like burning on the
one quadruped. floor. Raffles glanced at the four small windows in
The breakneck trap-door was still protected by a turn and then at
curved brass me. "Is there any way out at all?" he whispered, as
stanchion; this I grasped with one hand, and then no other being
Raffles with the would or could have whispered to the man who had
other as I felt my feet firm upon the tower floor. In led him into such a
he sprawled trap. "We've no rope-ladder, you know."
after me, and down went the trap-door with a bang
upon the leading "Thanks to me," I groaned. "The whole thing's my
hound. fault!

I hoped to feel his dead-weight shake the house, as "Nonsense, Bunny; there was no other way to run.
he crashed upon the But what about these
floor below; but the fellow must have ducked, and windows?"
no crash came.
Meanwhile not a word passed between Raffles and His magnanimity took me by the throat; without a
me; he had followed me, word I led him to the
as I had led him, without waste of breath upon a one window looking inward upon sloping slates and
single syllable. But level leads. Often as
a boy I had clambered over them, for the fearful fun "There was."
of risking life
and limb, or the fascination of peering through the I opened one of the side windows and reached out
great square as far as I could.
skylight, down the well of the house into the hall
below. There were, "You'll be seen from that skylight!" cried Raffles in
however, several smaller skylights, for the benefit a warning
of the top floor, undertone.
through any one of which I thought we might have
made a dash. But at a "No, I won't. I can't see it myself. But here's the
glance I saw we were too late: one of these lightning-conductor, where it always was."
skylights became a
brilliant square before our eyes; opened, and "How thick," asked Raffles, as I drew in and
admitted a flushed face rejoined him.
on flaming shoulders.
"Rather thicker than a lead-pencil."
"I'll give them a fright!" said Raffles through his
teeth. In an "They sometimes bear you," said Raffles, slipping
instant he had plucked out his revolver, smashed the on a pair of white
window with its kid gloves, and stuffing his handkerchief into the
butt, and the slates with a bullet not a yard from the palm of one. "The
protruding head. difficulty is to keep a grip; but I've been up and
And that, I believe, was the only shot that Raffles down them before
ever fired in his to-night. And it's our only chance. I'll go first,
whole career as a midnight marauder. Bunny: you watch
me, and do exactly as I do if I get down all right."
"You didn't hit him?" I gasped, as the head
disappeared, and we heard a "But if you don't?"
crash in the corridor.
"If I don't," whispered Raffles, as he wormed
"Of course I didn't, Bunny," he replied, backing into through the window feet
the tower; "but foremost, "I'm afraid you'll have to face the music
no one will believe I didn't mean to, and it'll stick where you are, and
on ten years if I shall have the best of it down in Acheron!"
we're caught. That's nothing, if it gives us an extra
five minutes And he slid out of reach without another word,
now, while they hold a council of war. Is that a leaving me to shudder
working flag-staff alike at his levity and his peril; nor could I follow
overhead?" him very far by
the wan light of the April stars; but I saw his
"It used to be." forearms resting a
moment in the spout that ran around the tower,
"Then there'll be halliards." between bricks and
slates, on the level of the floor; and I had another
"They were as thin as clothes-lines." dim glimpse of him
lower still, on the eaves over the very room that we
"And they're sure to be rotten, and we should be had ransacked.
seen cutting them Thence the conductor ran straight to earth in an
down. No, Bunny, that won't do. Wait a bit. Is angle of the façade.
there a lightning And since it had borne him thus far without mishap,
conductor?" I felt that Raffles
was as good as down. But I had neither his muscles wave of excitement which had swept all before it to
nor his nerves, and the upper regions
my head swam as I mounted to the window and was subsiding in as swift a rush downstairs; and I
prepared to creep out raced after Raffles
backward in my turn. along the edge of the drive without daring to look
behind.
So it was that at the last moment I had my first
unobstructed view of We came out by the opposite gate to that by which
the little old tower of other days. Raffles was out of we had stolen in.
the way; the Sharp to the right ran the private lane behind the
bit of candle was still burning on the floor, and in its stables and sharp to
dim light the the right dashed Raffles, instead of straight along
familiar haunt was cruelly like itself of innocent the open road. It
memory. A lesser was not the course I should have chosen, but I
ladder still ascended to a tinier trap-door in the apex followed Raffles without
of the tower; a murmur, only too thankful that he had assumed
the fixed seats looked to me to be wearing their old, the lead at last.
old coat of Already the stables were lit up like a chandelier;
grained varnish; nay the varnish had its ancient there was a staccato
smell, and the very rattle of horseshoes in the stable yard, and the great
vanes outside creaked their message to my ears. I gates were
remembered whole opening as we skimmed past in the nick of time. In
days that I had spent, whole books that I had read, another minute we
here in this were skulking in the shadow of the kitchen-garden
favorite fastness of my boyhood. The dirty little wall while the
place, with the high-road rang with the dying tattoo of galloping
dormer window in each of its four sloping sides, hoofs.
became a gallery hung
with poignant pictures of the past. And here was I "That's for the police," said Raffles, waiting for me.
leaving it with my "But the fun's
life in my hands and my pockets full of stolen only beginning in the stables. Hear the uproar, and
jewels! A superstition see the lights!
seized me. Suppose the conductor came down with In another minute they'll be turning out the hunters
me ... suppose I for the last run
slipped ... and was picked up dead, with the of the season!"
proceeds of my shameful
crime upon me, under the very windows "We mustn't give them one, Raffles!"

...where the sun "Of course we mustn't; but that means stopping
Came peeping in at dawn... where we are."

I hardly remember what I did or left undone. I only "We can't do that!"
know that nothing
broke, that somehow I kept my hold, and that in the "If they're wise they'll send a man to every railway
end the wire ran station within ten
red-hot through my palms so that both were torn miles and draw every cover inside the radius. I can
and bleeding when I only think of one
stood panting beside Raffles in the flower-beds. that's not likely to occur to them."
There was no time for
thinking then. Already there was a fresh "What's that?"
commotion in-doors; the tidal
"The other side of this wall. How big is the garden, But what a night it was! The little bathing-box had
Bunny?" two doors, one to
the water, the other to the path. To hear all that
"Six or seven acres." could be heard, it
was necessary to keep both doors open, and quite
"Well, you must take me to another of your old imperative not to
haunts, where we can lie talk. The damp night air of April filled the place,
low till morning." and crept through
our evening clothes and light overcoats into the very
"And then?" marrow; the
mental torture of the situation was renewed and
"Sufficient for the night, Bunny! The first thing is multiplied in my brain;
to find a burrow. and all the time one's ears were pricked for
What are those trees at the end of this lane?" footsteps on the path
between the rhododendrons. The only sounds we
"St. Leonard's Forest." could at first identify
came one and all from the stables. Yet there the
"Magnificent! They'll scour every inch of that excitement subsided
before they come back sooner than we had expected, and it was Raffles
to their own garden. Come, Bunny, give me a leg himself who breathed a
up, and I'll pull you doubt as to whether they were turning out the
after me in two ticks!" hunters after all. On
the other hand, we heard wheels in the drive not
There was indeed nothing better to be done; and, long after midnight;
much as I loathed and and Raffles, who was beginning to scout among the
dreaded entering the place again, I had already shrubberies, stole
thought of a second back to tell me that the guests were departing, and
sanctuary of old days, which might as well be put to being sped, with an
the base uses of unimpaired conviviality which he failed to
this disgraceful night. In a far corner of the garden, understand. I said I could
over a hundred not understand it either, but suggested the general
yards from the house, a little ornamental lake had influence of
been dug within my liquor, and expressed my envy of their state. I had
own memory; its shores were shelving lawn and drawn my knees up
steep banks of to my chin, on the bench where one used to dry
rhododendrons; and among the rhododendrons one's self after
nestled a tiny boathouse bathing, and there I sat in a seeming stolidity at
which had been my childish joy. It was half a dock utter variance with
for the dingy in my inward temper. I heard Raffles creep forth
which one plowed these miniature waters and half a again and I let him go
bathing-box for without a word. I never doubted that he would be
those who preferred their morning tub among the back again in a
goldfish. I could not minute, and so let many minutes elapse before I
think of a safer asylum than this, if we must spend realized his continued
the night upon the absence, and finally crept out myself to look for
premises; and Raffles agreed with me when I had him.
led him by sheltering
shrubbery and perilous lawn to the diminutive Even then I only supposed that he had posted
_châlet_ between the himself outside in some
rhododendrons and the water. more commanding position. I took a catlike stride
and breathed his
name. There was no answer. I ventured further, till time for the early train while the coast's still clear."
I could overlook
the lawns: they lay like clean slates in the starlight: The early train leaves the station in question at 6.20
there was no A.M.; and that
sign of living thing nearer than the house, which fine spring morning there was a police officer in a
was still lit up, but peaked cap to see
quiet enough now. Was it a cunning and deliberate it off; but he was too busy peering into the
quiet assumed as a compartments for a pair of
snare? Had they caught Raffles, and were they very swell mobsmen that he took no notice of the
waiting for me? I huge man in
returned to the boat-house in an agony of fear and riding-clothes, who was obviously intoxicated, or
indignation. It was the more
fear for the long hours that I sat there waiting for insignificant but not less horsy character who had
him; it was him in hand. The
indignation when at last I heard his stealthy step early train is due at Victoria at 8.28, but these
upon the gravel. I worthies left it at
would not go out to meet him. I sat where I was Clapham Junction, and changed cabs more than
while the stealthy once between Battersea and
step came nearer, nearer; and there I was sitting Piccadilly, and a few of their garments in each four-
when the door opened, wheeler. It was
and a huge man in riding-clothes stood before me in barely nine o'clock when they sat together in the
the steely dawn. Albany, and might
have been recognized once more as Raffles and
I leaped to my feet, and the huge man clapped me myself.
playfully on the
shoulder. "And now," said Raffles, "before we do anything
else, let us turn out
"Sorry I've been so long, Bunny, but we should those little cases that we hadn't time to open when
never have got away as we took them. I
we were; this riding-suit makes a new man of me, mean the ones I handed to you, Bunny. I had a look
on top of my own, and into mine in the
here's a youth's kit that should do you down to the garden, and I'm sorry to say there was nothing in
ground." them. The lady must
have been wearing their proper contents."
"So you broke into the house again!"
Raffles held out his hand for the substantial leather
"I was obliged to, Bunny; but I had to watch the cases which I had
lights out one by one, produced at his request. But that was the extent of
and give them a good hour after that I went through my compliance;
that dressing room instead of handing them over, I looked boldly into
at my leisure this time; the only difficulty was to the eyes that seemed
spot the son's to have discerned my wretched secret at one glance.
quarters at the back of the house; but I overcame it,
as you see, in "It is no use my giving them to you," I said. "They
the end. I only hope they'll fit, Bunny. Give me are empty also."
your patent
leathers, and I'll fill them with stones and sink them "When did you look into them?"
in the pond.
I'm doing the same with mine. Here's a brown pair "In the tower."
apiece, and we
mustn't let the grass grow under them if we're to get "Well, let me see for myself."
to the station in
"As you like." "And what you did. I guessed it in the boathouse. I
knew that
"My dear Bunny, this one must have contained the something must have happened or been discovered
necklace you boasted to disperse that
about." truculent party of sportsmen so soon and on such
good terms with
"Very likely." themselves. They had not got us; they might have
got something better
"And this one the tiara." worth having; and your phlegmatic attitude
suggested what. As luck
"I dare say." would have it, the cases that I personally had
collared were the empty
"Yet she was wearing neither, as you prophesied, ones; the two prizes had fallen to you. Well, to
and as we both saw for allay my horrid
ourselves." suspicion, I went and had another peep through the
lighted venetians.
I had not taken my eyes from his. And what do you think I saw?"

"Raffles," I said, "I'll be frank with you after all. I I shook my head. I had no idea, nor was I very
meant you eager for enlightenment.
never to know, but it's easier than telling you a lie.
I left both "The two poor people whom it was your own idea
things behind me in the tower. I won't attempt to to despoil," quoth
explain or defend Raffles, "prematurely gloating over these two pretty
myself; it was probably the influence of the tower, things?"
and nothing else;
but the whole thing came over me at the last He withdrew a hand from either pocket of his
moment, when you had gone crumpled dinner-jacket,
and I was going. I felt that I should very probably and opened the pair under my nose. In one was a
break my neck, diamond tiara, and in
that I cared very little whether I did or not, but that the other a necklace of fine emeralds set in clusters
it would be of brilliants.
frightful to break it at that house with those things
in my pocket. "You must try to forgive me, Bunny," continued
You may say I ought to have thought of all that Raffles before I could
before! you may say speak. "I don't say a word against what you did, or
what you like, and you won't say more than I undid; in fact,
deserve. It was now it's all over, I am rather glad to think that you
hysterical, and it was mean, for I kept the cases to did try to undo
impose on you." it. But, my dear fellow, we had both risked life,
limb, and liberty;
"You were always a bad liar, Bunny," said Raffles, and I had not your sentimental scruples. Why
smiling. "Will you should I go empty away?
think me one when I tell you that I can understand If you want to know the inner history of my second
what you felt, and visit to that good
even what you did? As a matter of fact, I have fellow's dressing-room, drive home for a fresh kit
understood for several and meet me at the
hours now." Turkish bath in twenty minutes. I feel more than a
little grubby, and
"You mean what I felt, Raffles?" we can have our breakfast in the cooling gallery.
Besides, after a
whole night in your old haunts, Bunny, it's only in the big brass gods, whose little delinquencies are
order to wind up in written in water by
Northumberland Avenue." the finger of time. The Napoleon Relics we know,
the Nelson Relics
we've heard about, and here are mine!"

"Which I wish to goodness we could see," I added,

The Raffles Relics longingly. Next
moment I was sorry I had spoken. Raffles was
It was in one of the magazines for December, 1899, looking at me across the
that an article magazine. There was a smile on his lips that I knew
appeared which afforded our minds a brief respite too well, a light
from the then in his eyes that I had kindled.
consuming excitement of the war in South Africa.
These were the days "What an excellent idea! he exclaimed, quite softly,
when Raffles really had white hair, and when he as though working
and I were nearing the it out already in his brain.
end of our surreptitious second innings, as
professional cracksmen of "I didn't mean it for one," I answered, "and no more
the deadliest dye. Piccadilly and the Albany knew do you."
us no more. But we
still operated, as the spirit tempted us, from our "Certainly I do," said Raffles. "I was never more
latest and most serious in my life."
idyllic base, on the borders of Ham Common.
Recreation was our "You would march into Scotland Yard in broad
greatest want; and though we had both descended to daylight?"
the humble bicycle,
a lot of reading was forced upon us in the winter "In broad lime-light," he answered, studying the
evenings. Thus the magazine again, "to
war came as a boon to us both. It not only provided set eyes on my own once more. Why here they all
us with an honest are, Bunny--you never
interest in life, but gave point and zest to told me there was an illustration. That's the chest
innumerable spins across you took to your
Richmond Park, to the nearest paper shop; and it bank with me inside, and those must be my own
was from such an rope-ladder and things on
expedition that I returned with inflammatory matter top. They produce so badly in the baser magazines
unconnected with that it's impossible
the war. The magazine was one of those that are to swear to them; there's nothing for it but a visit of
read (and sold) by the inspection."
million; the article was rudely illustrated on every
other page. Its "Then you can pay it alone," said I grimly. "You
subject was the so-called Black Museum at may have altered, but
Scotland Yard; and from the they'd know me at a glance."
catchpenny text we first learned that the gruesome
show was now "By all means, Bunny, if you'll get me the pass."
enriched by a special and elaborate exhibit known
as the Raffles Relics. "A pass?" I cried triumphantly. "Of course we
should have to get one,
"Bunny," said Raffles, "this is fame at last! It is no and of course that puts an end to the whole idea.
longer Who on earth would
notoriety; it lifts one out of the ruck of robbers into give a pass for this show, of all others, to an old
the society of prisoner like me?"
 Yard, which I treasure to this day. I am surprised to
Raffles addressed himself to the reading of the see that it was
magazine with a shrug undated, and might still almost "Admit Bearer to
that showed some temper. see the Museum," to
say nothing of the bearer's friends, since my editor's
"The fellow who wrote this article got one," said he name "and party"
shortly. "He got is scrawled beneath the legend.
it from his editor, and you can get one from yours if
you tried. But "But he doesn't want to come," as I explained to
pray don't try, Bunny: it would be too terrible for Raffles. "And it
you to risk a means that we can both go, if we both like."
moment's embarrassment to gratify a mere whim of
mine. And if I went Raffles looked at me with a wry smile; he was in
instead of you and got spotted, which is so likely good enough humor now.
with this head of
hair, and the general belief in my demise, the "It would be rather dangerous, Bunny. If they
consequences to you spotted you, they might
would be too awful to contemplate! Don't think of me."
contemplate them, my dear
fellow. And do let me read my magazine." "But you say they'll never know you now."

Need I add that I set about the rash endeavor "I don't believe they will. I don't believe there's the
without further slightest
expostulation? I was used to such ebullitions from risk; but we shall soon see. I've set my heart on
the altered Raffles seeing, Bunny, but
of these later days, and I could well understand there's no earthly reason why I should drag you into
them. All the it."
inconvenience of the new conditions fell on him. I
had purged my known "You do that when you present this card," I pointed
offences by imprisonment, whereas Raffles was out. "I shall hear
merely supposed to have of it fast enough if anything happens."
escaped punishment in death. The result was that I
could rush in where "Then you may as well be there to see the fun?"
Raffles feared to tread, and was his plenipotentiary
in all honest "It will make no difference if the worst comes to the
dealings with the outer world. It could not but gall worst."
him to be so
dependent upon me, and it was for me to minimize "And the ticket is for a party, isn't it?"
the humiliation by
scrupulously avoiding the least semblance of an "It is."
abuse of that power
which I now had over him. Accordingly, though "It might even look peculiar if only one person
with much misgiving, I made use of it?"
did his ticklish behest in Fleet Street, where, despite
my past, I was "It might."
already making a certain lowly footing for myself.
Success followed as "Then we're both going, Bunny! And I give you my
it will when one longs to fail; and one fine evening I word," cried Raffles,
returned to Ham "that no real harm shall come of it. But you mustn't
Common with a card from the Convict Supervision ask to see the
Office, New Scotland Relics, and you mustn't take too much interest in
them when you do see
them. Leave the questioning to me: it really will be remember going to the old place in Whitehall, years
a chance of ago, and being
finding out whether they've any suspicion of one's shown round by one of the tip-top 'tecs. And this
resurrection at may be another."
Scotland Yard. Still I think I can promise you a
certain amount of But even I could see at a glance that there was
fun, old fellow, as some little compensation for your nothing of the
pangs and fears?" detective and everything of the clerk about the very
young man who had
The early afternoon was mild and hazy, and unlike joined us at last upon the landing. His collar was
winter but for the the tallest I have
prematurely low sun struggling through the haze, as ever seen, and his face was as pallid as his collar.
Raffles and I He carried a
emerged from the nether regions at Westminster loose key, with which he unlocked a door a little
Bridge, and stood for way along the
one moment to admire the infirm silhouettes of passage, and so ushered us into that dreadful
Abbey and Houses in flat repository which perhaps
gray against a golden mist. Raffles murmured of has fewer visitors than any other of equal interest in
Whistler and of Arthur the world. The
Severn, and threw away a good Sullivan because place was cold as the inviolate vault; blinds had to
the smoke would curl be drawn up, and
between him and the picture. It is perhaps the glass cases uncovered, before we could see a thing
picture that I can now except the row of
see clearest of all the set scenes of our lawless life. murderers' death-masks--the placid faces with the
But at the swollen necks--that
time I was filled with gloomy speculation as to stood out on their shelves to give us ghostly
whether Raffles would greeting.
keep his promise of providing an entirely harmless
entertainment for my "This fellow isn't formidable," whispered Raffles, as
benefit at the Black Museum. the blinds went
up; "still, we can't be too careful. My little lot are
We entered the forbidding precincts; we looked round the
relentless officers in corner, in the sort of recess; don't look till we come
the face, and they almost yawned in ours as they to them in their
directed us through turn."
swing doors and up stone stairs. There was
something even sinister in So we began at the beginning, with the glass case
the casual character of our reception. We had an nearest the door; and
arctic landing to in a moment I discovered that I knew far more
ourselves for several minutes, which Raffles spent about its contents than
in an instinctive our pallid guide. He had some enthusiasm, but the
survey of the premises, while I cooled my heels most inaccurate
before the portrait of smattering of his subject. He mixed up the first
a late commissioner. murderer with quite
the wrong murder, and capped his mistake in the
"Dear old gentleman!" exclaimed Raffles, joining next breath with an
me. "I have met him intolerable libel on the very pearl of our particular
at dinner, and discussed my own case with him, in tribe.
the old days. But we
can't know too little about ourselves in the Black "This revawlver," he began, "belonged to the
Museum, Bunny. I celebrited burgular,
Chawles Peace. These are his spectacles, that's his rope-ladders--none so ingenious as ours--and then at
jimmy, and this last there was
here knife's the one that Chawley killed the something that the clerk knew all about. It was a
policeman with." small tin
cigarette-box, and the name upon the gaudy
Now I like accuracy for its own sake, strive after it wrapper was not the name of
myself, and am Sullivan. Yet Raffles and I knew even more about
sometimes guilty of forcing it upon others. So this this exhibit than the
was more than I clerk.
could pass.
"There, now," said our guide, "you'll never guess
"That's not quite right," I put in mildly. "He never the history of that!
made use of the I'll give you twenty guesses, and the twentieth will
knife." be no nearer than
the first."
The young clerk twisted his head round in its vase
of starch. "I'm sure of it, my good fellow," rejoined Raffles, a
discreet twinkle
"Chawley Peace killed two policemen," said he. in his eye. "Tell us about it, to save time."

"No, he didn't; only one of them was a policeman; And he opened, as he spoke, his own old twenty-
and he never killed five tin of purely
anybody with a knife." popular cigarettes; there were a few in it still, but
between the
The clerk took the correction like a lamb. I could cigarettes were jammed lumps of sugar wadded
not have refrained with cotton-wool. I saw
from making it, to save my skin. But Raffles Raffles weighing the lot in his hand with subtle
rewarded me with as satisfaction. But the
vicious a little kick as he could administer clerk saw merely the mystification which he desired
unobserved. "Who was to create.
Charles Peace?" he inquired, with the bland
effrontery of any judge "I thought that'd beat you, sir," said he. "It was an
upon the bench. American dodge.
Two smart Yankees got a jeweller to take a lot of
The clerk's reply came pat and unexpected. stuff to a private
room at Keliner's, where they were dining, for them
"The greatest burgular we ever had," said he, "till to choose from.
good old Raffles When it came to paying, there was some bother
knocked him out!" about a remittance; but
they soon made that all right, for they were far too
"The greatest of the pre-Raffleites," the master clever to suggest
murmured, as we passed taking away what they'd chosen but couldn't pay
on to the safer memorials of mere murder. There for. No, all they
were misshapen bullets wanted was that what they'd chosen might be
and stained knives that had taken human life; there locked up in the safe and
were lithe, lean considered theirs until their money came for them to
ropes which had retaliated after the live letter of the pay for it. All
Mosaic law. they asked was to seal the stuff up in something; the
There was one bristling broadside of revolvers jeweller was to
under the longest shelf take it away and not meddle with it, nor yet break
of closed eyes and swollen throats. There were the seals, for a
festoons of
week or two. It seemed a fair enough thing, now, indisposed to make a late contribution--"besides,
didn't it, sir?" Raffles would never
have smoked those cigarettes. There was only one
"Eminently fair," said Raffles sententiously. brand for him. It
was--let me see--"
"So the jeweller thought," crowed the clerk. "You
see, it wasn't as if "Sullivans?" cried the clerk, right for once. "It's all
the Yanks had chosen out the half of what he'd a matter of
brought on appro.; 'abit," he went on, as he replaced the twenty-five tin
they'd gone slow on purpose, and they'd paid for all box with the
they could on the vulgar wrapper. "I tried them once, and I didn't like
nail, just for a blind. Well, I suppose you can guess 'em myself.
what happened in It's all a question of taste. Now, if you want a good
the end? The jeweller never heard of those smoke, and
Americans again; and these cheaper, give me a Golden Gem at quarter of the
few cigarettes and lumps of sugar were all he price."
found."
"What we really do want," remarked Raffles mildly,
"Duplicate boxes!" I cried, perhaps a thought too "is to see something
promptly. else as clever as that last."

"Duplicate boxes!" murmured Raffles, as "Then come this way," said the clerk, and led us
profoundly impressed as a into a recess almost
second Mr. Pickwick. monopolized by the iron-clamped chest of thrilling
memory, now a mere
"Duplicate boxes!" echoed the triumphant clerk. platform for the collection of mysterious objects
"Artful beggars, these under a dust-sheet on
Americans, sir! You've got to crawss the 'Erring the lid. "These," he continued, unveiling them with
Pond to learn a trick an air, "are the
worth one o' that?" Raffles Relics, taken from his rooms in the Albany
after his death and
"I suppose so," assented the grave gentleman wit burial, and the most complete set we've got. That's
the silver hair. his centre-bit,
"Unless," he added, as if suddenly inspired, "unless and this is the bottle of rock-oil he's supposed to
it was that man have kept dipping
Raffles." it in to prevent making a noise. Here's the
revawlver he used when he
"It couldn't 've bin," jerked the clerk from his shot at a gentleman on the roof down Horsham way;
conning-tower of a it was afterward
collar. "He'd gone to Davy Jones long before." taken from him on the P. & O. boat before he
jumped overboard."
"Are you sure?" asked Raffles. "Was his body ever
found?" I could not help saying I understood that Raffles
had never shot at
"Found and buried," replied our imaginative friend. anybody. I was standing with my back to the
"Malter, I think nearest window, my hat
it was; or it may have been Giberaltar. I forget jammed over my brows and my overcoat collar up
which." to my ears.

"Besides," I put in, rather annoyed at all this wilful "That's the only time we know about," the clerk
work, yet not admitted; "and it
couldn't be brought 'ome, or his precious pal would of lazy insolence in the half-shut eyes. I have since
have got more than possessed myself
he did. This empty cawtridge is the one he 'id the of a copy, and it is not Raffles at his best; but the
Emperor's pearl in, features are
on the Peninsular and Orient. These gimlets and clean-cut and regular; and I often wish that I had
wedges were what he lent it to the
used for fixin' doors. This is his rope-ladder, with artistic gentlemen who have battered the statue out
the telescope of all likeness to
walking-stick he used to hook it up with; he's said the man.
to have 'ad it with
him the night he dined with the Earl of Thornaby, "You wouldn't think it of him, would you?" quoth
and robbed the house the clerk. "It makes
before dinner. That's his life-preserver; but no one you understand how no one ever did think it of him
can make out what at the time."
this little thick velvet bag's for, with the two holes
and the elawstic The youth was looking full at Raffles, with the
round each. Perhaps you can give a guess, sir?" watery eyes of
unsuspecting innocence. I itched to emulate the
Raffles had taken up the bag that he had invented fine bravado of my
for the noiseless friend.
filing of keys. Now he handled it as though it were
a tobacco-pouch, "You said he had a pal," I observed, sinking deeper
putting in finger and thumb, and shrugging over the into the collar of
puzzle with a my coat. "Haven't you got a photograph of him?"
delicious face; nevertheless, he showed me a few
grains of steel filing The pale clerk gave such a sickly smile, I could
as the result of his investigations, and murmured in have smacked some
my ear, "These blood into his pasty face.
sweet police!" I, for my part, could not but examine
the life-preserver "You mean Bunny?" said the familiar fellow. "No,
with which I had once smitten Raffles himself to the sir, he'd be out of
ground: actually, place; we've only room for real criminals here.
there was his blood upon it still; and seeing my Bunny was neither one
horror, the clerk thing nor the other. He could follow Raffles, but
plunged into a characteristically garbled version of that's all he could
that incident do. He was no good on his own. Even when he put
also. It happened to have come to light among up the low-down job
others at the Old of robbing his old 'ome, it's believed he hadn't the
Bailey, and perhaps had its share in promoting the 'eart to take the
quality of mercy stuff away, and Raffles had to break in a second
which had undoubtedly been exercised on my time for it. No, sir,
behalf. But the present we don't bother our heads about Bunny; we shall
recital was unduly trying, and Raffles created a never hear no more of
noble diversion by 'im. He was a harmless sort of rotter, if you awsk
calling attention to an early photograph of himself, me."
which may still
hang on the wall over the historic chest, but which I I had not asked him, and I was almost foaming
had carefully under the respirator that
ignored. It shows him in flannels, after some great I was making of my overcoat collar. I only hoped
feat upon the that Raffles would
tented field. I am afraid there is a Sullivan between say something, and he did.
his lips, a look
"The only case I remember anything about," he "Inspector Druce," the clerk informed us in
remarked, tapping the impressive whispers, "who
clamped chest with his umbrella, "was this; and that had the Chalk Farm case in hand. _He'd_ be the
time, at all man for Raffles, if
events, the man outside must have had quite as Raffles was alive to-day!"
much to do as the one
inside. May I ask what you keep in it?" "I'm sure he would," was the grave reply. "I should
be very sorry to
"Nothing, sir." have a man like that after me. But what a run there
seems to be upon
"I imagined more relics inside. Hadn't he some your Black Museum!"
dodge of getting in and
out without opening the lid?" "There isn't reelly, sir," whispered the clerk. "We
sometimes go weeks
"Of putting his head out, you mean," returned the on end without having regular visitors like you two
clerk, whose gentlemen. I think
knowledge of Raffles and his Relics was really most those are friends of the Inspector's, come to see the
comprehensive on Chalk Farm
the whole. He moved some of the minor memorials photographs, that helped to hang his man. We've a
and with his penknife lot of interesting
raised the trap-door in the lid. photographs, sir, if you like to have a look at them."

"Only a skylight," remarked Raffles, deliciously "If it won't take long," said Raffles, taking out his
unimpressed. watch; and as the
clerk left our side for an instant he gripped my arm.
"Why, what else did you expect?" asked the clerk, "This is a bit
letting the trap-door too hot," he whispered, "but we mustn't cut and run
down again, and looking sorry that he had taken so like rabbits. That
much trouble. might be fatal. Hide your face in the photographs,
and leave
"A backdoor, at least!" replied Raffles, with such a everything to me. I'll have a train to catch as soon
sly look at me as ever I dare."
that I had to turn aside to smile. It was the last time
I smiled that I obeyed without a word, and with the less
day. uneasiness as I had time to
consider the situation. It even struck me that
The door had opened as I turned, and an Raffles was for once
unmistakable detective had inclined to exaggerate the undeniable risk that we
entered with two more sight-seers like ourselves. ran by remaining in
He wore the hard, the same room with an officer whom both he and I
round hat and the dark, thick overcoat which one knew only too well by
knows at a glance as name and repute. Raffles, after all, had aged and
the uniform of his grade; and for one awful moment altered out of
his steely eye was knowledge; but he had not lost the nerve that was
upon us in a flash of cold inquiry. Then the clerk equal to a far more
emerged from the direct encounter than was at all likely to be forced
recess devoted to the Raffles Relics, and the upon us. On the
alarming interloper other hand, it was most improbable that a
conducted his party to the window opposite the distinguished detective would
door. know by sight an obscure delinquent like myself;
besides, this one had
come to the front since my day. Yet a risk it was, anæmic clerk. I put my hand in my pocket, and
and I certainly did measured him with a
not smile as I bent over the album of horrors sidelong eye. The tipping system is nothing less
produced by our guide. I than a minor bane of
could still take an interest in the dreadful my existence. Not that one is a grudging giver, but
photographs of murderous simply because in
and murdered men; they appealed to the morbid so many cases it is so hard to know whom to tip and
element in my nature; and what to tip him. I
it was doubtless with degenerate unction that I know what it is to be the parting guest who has not
called Raffles's parted freely
attention to a certain scene of notorious slaughter. enough, and that not from stinginess but the want of
There was no a fine instinct on
response. I looked round. There was no Raffles to the point. I made no mistake, however, in the case
respond. We had all of the clerk, who
three been examining the photographs at one of the accepted my pieces of silver without demur, and
windows; at another expressed a hope of
three newcomers were similarly engrossed; and seeing the article which I had assured him I was
without one word, or a about to write. He
single sound, Raffles had decamped behind all our has had some years to wait for it, but I flatter myself
backs. that these
belated pages will occasion more interest than
Fortunately the clerk was himself very busy offense if they ever do
gloating over the horrors meet those watery eyes.
of the album; before he looked round I had hidden
my astonishment, but Twilight was falling when I reached the street; the
not my wrath, of which I had the instinctive sense to sky behind St.
make no secret. Stephen's had flushed and blackened like an angry
face; the lamps were
"My friend's the most impatient man on earth!" I lit, and under every one I was unreasonable enough
exclaimed. "He said to look for Raffles.
he was going to catch a train, and now he's gone Then I made foolishly sure that I should find him
without a word!" hanging about the
station, and hung thereabouts myself until one
"I never heard him," said the clerk, looking puzzled. Richmond train had gone
without me. In the end I walked over the bridge to
"No more did I; but he did touch me on the Waterloo, and took
shoulder," I lied, "and say the first train to Teddington instead. That made a
something or other. I was too deep in this beastly shorter walk of it,
book to pay much but I had to grope my way through a white fog from
attention. He must have meant that he was off. the river to Ham
Well, let him be off! Common, and it was the hour of our cosy dinner
I mean to see all that's to be seen." when I reached our place
of retirement. There was only a flicker of firelight
And in my nervous anxiety to allay any suspicions on the blinds: I
aroused by my was the first to return after all. It was nearly four
companion's extraordinary behavior, I outstayed hours since
even the eminent Raffles had stolen away from my side in the
detective and his friends, saw them examine the ominous precincts of
Raffles Relics, heard Scotland Yard. Where could he be? Our landlady
them discuss me under my own nose, and at last wrung her hands over
was alone with the him; she had cooked a dinner after her favorite's
heart, and I let it
spoil before making one of the most melancholy "Sorry to wake you, Bunny," said he. "I thought I
meals of my life. was behaving like a
mouse; but after a three hours' tramp one's feet are
Up to midnight there was no sign of him; but long all heels."
before this time I
had reassured our landlady with a voice and face I did not get up and fall upon his neck. I sat back in
that must have given my chair and
my words the lie. I told her that Mr. Ralph (as she blinked with bitterness upon his selfish
used to call him) insensibility. He should not
had said something about going to the theatre; that I know what I had been through on his account.
thought he had
given up the idea, but I must have been mistaken, "Walk out from town?" I inquired, as indifferently
and should certainly as though he were in
sit up for him. The attentive soul brought in a plate the habit of doing so.
of sandwiches
before she retired; and I prepared to make a night of "From Scotland Yard," he answered, stretching
it in a chair by himself before the fire
the sitting-room fire. Darkness and bed I could not in his stocking soles.
face in my
anxiety. In a way I felt as though duty and loyalty "Scotland Yard?" I echoed. "Then I was right;
called me out into that's where you were
the winter's night; and yet whither should I turn to all the time; and yet you managed to escape!"
look for Raffles?
I could think of but one place, and to seek him there I had risen excitedly in my turn.
would be to
destroy myself without aiding him. It was my "Of course I did," replied Raffles. "I never thought
growing conviction that there would be
he had been recognized when leaving Scotland much difficulty about that, but there was even less
Yard, and either taken than I anticipated.
then and there, or else hunted into some new place I did once find myself on one side of a sort of
of hiding. It would counter, and an officer
all be in the morning papers; and it was all his own dozing at his desk at the other side. I thought it
fault. He had safest to wake him
thrust his head into the lion's mouth, and the lion's up and make inquiries about a mythical purse left in
jaws had snapped. a phantom hansom
Had he managed to withdraw his head in time? outside the Carlton. And the way the fellow fired
me out of that was
There was a bottle at my elbow, and that night I say another credit to the Metropolitan Police: it's only in
deliberately that the savage
it was not my enemy but my friend. It procured me countries that they would have troubled to ask how
at last some one had got in."
surcease from my suspense. I fell fast asleep in my
chair before the "And how did you?" I asked. "And in the Lord's
fire. The lamp was still burning, and the fire red, name, Raffles, when and
when I awoke; but why?"
I sat very stiff in the iron clutch of a wintry
morning. Suddenly I Raffles looked down on me under raised eyebrows,
slued round in my chair. And there was Raffles in a as he stood with his
chair behind me, coat tails to the dying fire.
with the door open behind him, quietly taking off
his boots. "How and when, Bunny, you know as well as I do,"
said he, cryptically.
"And at last you shall hear the honest why and that I had been sitting up for him all night long!
wherefore. I had more The hint of a
reasons for going to Scotland Yard, my dear fellow, temperance homily, on top of all I had borne, and
than I had the face from Raffles of all
to tell you at the time." mortal men, tried my temper to its last limit--but a
flash of late
"I don't care why you went there!" I cried. "I want enlightenment enabled me just to keep it.
to know why you
stayed, or went back, or whatever it was you may "Where did you hide?" I asked grimly.
have done. I thought
they had got you, and you had given them the slip!" "At the Yard itself."

Raffles smiled as he shook his head. "So I gather; but whereabouts at the Yard?"

"No, no, Bunny; I prolonged the visit, as I paid it, of "Can you ask, Bunny?"
my own accord.
As for my reasons, they are far too many for me to "I am asking."
tell you them all;
they rather weighed upon me as I walked out; but "It's where I once hid before."
you'll see them for
yourself if you turn round." "You don't mean in the chest?"

I was standing with my back to the chair in which I "I do."

had been asleep;
behind the chair was the round lodging-house table; Our eyes met for a minute.
and there, reposing
on the cloth with the whiskey and sandwiches, was "You may have ended up there," I conceded. "But
the whole collection where did you go first
of Raffles Relics which had occupied the lid of the when you slipped out behind my back, and how the
silver-chest in the devil did you know
Black Museum at Scotland Yard! The chest alone where to go?"
was missing. There was
the revolver that I had only once heard fired, and "I never did slip out," said Raffles, "behind your
there the back. I slipped in."
blood-stained life-preserver, brace-and-bit, bottle of
rock-oil, velvet "Into the chest?"
bag, rope-ladder, walking-stick, gimlets, wedges,
and even the empty "Exactly."
cartridge-case which had once concealed the gift of
a civilized monarch I burst out laughing in his face.
to a potentate of color.
"My dear fellow, I saw all these things on the lid
"I was a real Father Christmas," said Raffles, "when just afterward. Not
I arrived. It's a one of them was moved. I watched that detective
pity you weren't awake to appreciate the scene. It show them to his
was more edifying friends."
than the one I found. You never caught _me_
asleep in my chair, Bunny!" "And I heard him."

He thought I had merely fallen asleep in my chair! "But not from the inside of the chest?"
He could not see
"From the inside of the chest, Bunny. Don't look incredulity. And Raffles looked at me without
like that--it's replying, until I read
foolish. Try to recall a few words that went before, the explanation in his look.
between the idiot
in the collar and me. Don't you remember my "I see," I said. "You used to get into it to hide from
asking him if there was me!"
anything in the chest?"
"My dear Bunny, I am not always a very genial
"Yes." man," he answered; "but
when you let me have a key of your rooms I could
"One had to be sure it was empty, you see. Then I not very well refuse
asked if there was a you one of mine, although I picked your pocket of it
backdoor to the chest as well as a skylight." in the end. I
will only say that when I had no wish to see you,
"I remember." Bunny, I must have
been quite unfit for human society, and it was the
"I suppose you thought all that meant nothing?" act of a friend to
deny you mine. I don't think it happened more than
"I didn't look for a meaning." once or twice. You
can afford to forgive a fellow after all these years?
"You wouldn't; it would never occur to you that I
might want to find "That, yes," I replied bitterly; "but not this, Raffles."
out whether anybody at the Yard had found out that
there _was_ something "Why not? I really hadn't made up my mind to do
precisely in the nature of a sidedoor--it isn't a what I did. I had
backdoor--to that merely thought of it. It was that smart officer in the
chest. Well, there is one; there was one soon after I same room that
took the chest made me do it without thinking twice."
back from your rooms to mine, in the good old
days. You push one of "And we never even heard you!" I murmured, in a
the handles down--which no one ever does--and the voice of involuntary
whole of that end admiration which vexed me with myself. "But we
opens like the front of a doll's house. I saw that was might just as well!" I
what I ought to was as quick to add in my former tone.
have done at first: it's so much simpler than the trap
at the top; and "Why, Bunny?"
one likes to get a thing perfect for its own sake.
Besides, the trick "We shall be traced in no time through our ticket of
had not been spotted at the bank, and I thought I admission."
might bring it off
again some day; meanwhile, in one's bedroom, with "Did they collect it?"
lots of things on
top, what a port in a sudden squall!" "No; but you heard how very few are issued."

I asked why I had never heard of the improvement "Exactly. They sometimes go weeks on end
before, not so much at without a regular visitor. It
the time it was made, but in these later days, when was I who extracted that piece of information,
there were fewer Bunny, and I did nothing
secrets between us, and this one could avail him no rash until I had. Don't you see that with any luck it
more. But I did not will be two or
put the question out of pique. I put it out of sheer three weeks before they are likely to discover their
obstinate loss?"
 I admitted that we might be safe for three or four
I was beginning to see. weeks. Raffles held
out his hand.
"And then, pray, how are they going to bring it
home to us? Why should "Then let us be friends about it, Bunny, and smoke
they even suspect us, Bunny? I left early; that's all I the cigarette of
did. You took Sullivan and peace! A lot may happen in three or
my departure admirably; you couldn't have said four weeks; and what
more or less if I had should you say if this turned out to be the last as
coached you myself. I relied on you, Bunny, and well as the least
you never more of all my crimes? I must own that it seems to me
completely justified my confidence. The sad thing their natural and
is that you have fitting end, though I might have stopped more
ceased to rely on me. Do you really think that I characteristically than
would leave the place with a mere crime of sentiment. No, I make no
in such a state that the first person who came in promises, Bunny; now I
with a duster would have got these things, I may be unable to resist
see that there had been a robbery?" using them once more.
But with this war one gets all the excitement one
I denied the thought with all energy, though it requires--and rather
perished only as I more than usual may happen in three or four
spoke. weeks?"

"Have you forgotten the duster that was over these Was he thinking even then of volunteering for the
things, Bunny? Have front? Had he
you forgotten all the other revolvers and life already set his heart on the one chance of some
preservers that there atonement for his
were to choose from? I chose most carefully, and I life--nay, on the very death he was to die? I never
replaced my relics knew, and shall
with a mixed assortment of other people's which never know. Yet his words were strangely
really look just as prophetic, even to the three
well. The rope-ladder that now supplants mine is, or four weeks in which those events happened that
of course, no patch imperilled the fabric
upon it, but coiled up on the chest it really looks of our empire, and rallied her sons from the four
much the same. To winds to fight
be sure, there was no second velvet bag; but I beneath her banner on the veldt. It all seems very
replaced my stick with ancient history
another quite like it, and I even found an empty now. But I remember nothing better or more
cartridge to vividly than the last words
understudy the setting of the Polynesian pearl. You of Raffles upon his last crime, unless it be the
see the sort of pressure of his hand
fellow they have to show people round: do you as he said them, or the rather sad twinkle in his tired
think he's the kind to eyes.
see the difference next time, or to connect it with us
if he does? One The Last Word
left much the same things, lying much as he left
them, under a The last of all these tales of Raffles is from a fresher
dust-sheet which is only taken off for the benefit of and a sweeter
the curious, who pen. I give it exactly as it came to me, in a letter
often don't turn up for weeks on end." which meant more
to me than it can possibly mean to any other reader.
And yet, it may
stand for something with those for whom these pale places, but I stayed behind at Palace Gardens. I had
reflections have a gone up to the
tithe of the charm that the real man had for me; and drawing-room after dinner, and was just putting on
it is to leave the lights, when in
such persons thinking yet a little better of him (and walked Mr. Raffles from the balcony. I knew him
not wasting at once, because I
another thought on me) that I am permitted to retail happened to have watched him make his hundred at
the very last word Lord's only the day
about their hero and mine. before. He seemed surprised that no one had told
me he was there, but
The letter was my first healing after a chance the whole thing was such a surprise that I hardly
encounter and a thought of that. I
sleepless night; and I print every word of it except am afraid I must say that it was not a very pleasant
the last. surprise. I felt
instinctively that he had come from you, and I
"39 CAMPDEN GROVE confess that for the
COURT, W., moment it made me very angry indeed. Then in a
"June 28, 1900. breath he assured me
that you knew nothing of his coming, that you
"DEAR HARRY: You may have wondered at the would never have allowed
very few words I could find him to come, but that he had taken it upon himself
to say to you when we met so strangely yesterday. I as your intimate
did not mean to be friend and one who would be mine as well. (I said
unkind. I was grieved to see you so cruelly hurt and that I would tell
lame. I could you every word.)
not grieve when at last I made you tell me how it
happened. I honor "Well, we stood looking at each other for some
and envy every man of you--every name in those time, and I was never
dreadful lists that fill more convinced of anybody's straightness and
the papers every day. But I knew about Mr. sincerity; but he was
Raffles, and I did not know straight and sincere with me, and true to you that
about you, and there was something I longed to tell night, whatever he
you about him, may have been before and after. So I asked him
something I could not tell you in a minute in the why he had come, and
street, or indeed by what had happened; and he said it was not what had
word of mouth at all. That is why I asked you for happened, but what
your address. might happen next; so I asked him if he was
thinking of you, and he
"You said I spoke as if I had known Mr. Raffles. just nodded, and told me that I knew very well what
Of course I have you had done. But
often seen him playing cricket, and heard about him I began to wonder whether Mr. Raffles himself
and you. But I only knew, and I tried to get
once met him, and that was the night after you and I him to tell me what you had done, and he said I
met last. I have knew as well as he did
always supposed that you knew all about our that you were one of the two men who had come to
meeting. Yesterday I could the house the night
see that you knew nothing. So I have made up my before. I took some time to answer. I was quite
mind to tell you every mystified by his
word. manner. At last I asked him how he knew. I can
hear his answer now.
"That night--I mean the next night--they were all
going out to several
"'Because I was the other man,' he said quite to me then that he should speak of it as he did, and
quietly; 'because I led still more
him blindfold into the whole business, and would wonderful that I should sit and listen to him as I did.
rather pay the shot But I have
than see poor Bunny suffer for it.' often thought about it since, and have long ceased to
wonder at myself.
"Those were his words, but as he said them he made There was an absolute magnetism about Mr. Raffles
their meaning clear which neither you nor
by going over to the bell, and waiting with his I could resist. He had the strength of personality
finger ready to ring which is a
for whatever assistance or protection I desired. Of different thing from strength of character; but when
course I would not you meet both
let him ring at all; in fact, at first I refused to believe kinds together, they carry the ordinary mortal off
him. Then his or her feet.
he led me out into the balcony, and showed me You must not imagine you are the only one who
exactly how he had got up would have served and
and in. He had broken in for the second night followed him as you did. When he told me it was all
running, and all to tell a game to him, and
me that the first night he had brought you with him the one game he knew that was always exciting,
on false pretences. always full of danger
He had to tell me a great deal more before I could and of drama, I could just then have found it in my
quite believe him. heart to try the
But before he went (as he had come) I was the one game myself! Not that he treated me to any
woman in the world ingenious sophistries or
who knew that A. J. Raffles, the great cricketer, and paradoxical perversities. It was just his natural
the so-called charm and humor, and
'amateur cracksman' of equal notoriety, were one a touch of sadness with it all, that appealed to
and the same person. something deeper than
one's reason and one's sense of right. Glamour, I
"He had told me his secret, thrown himself on my suppose, is the
mercy, and put his word. Yet there was far more in him than that.
liberty if not his life in my hands, but all for your There were depths,
sake, Harry, to which called to depths; and you will not
right you in my eyes at his own expense. And misunderstand me when I say I
yesterday I could see think it touched him that a woman should listen to
that you knew nothing whatever about it, that your him as I did, and in
friend had died such circumstances. I know that it touched me to
without telling you of his act of real and yet vain think of such a life
self-sacrifice! so spent, and that I came to myself and implored
Harry, I can only say that now I understand your him to give it all up.
friendship, and the I don't think I went on my knees over it. But I am
dreadful lengths to which it carried you. How many afraid I did cry;
in your place would and that was the end. He pretended not to notice
not have gone as far for such a friend? Since that anything, and then in
night, at any rate, an instant he froze everything with a flippancy
I for one have understood. It has grieved me more which jarred horribly
than I can tell you, at the time, but has ever since touched me more
Harry, but I have always understood. than all the rest. I
remember that I wanted to shake hands at the end.
"He spoke to me quite simply and frankly of his But Mr. Raffles only
life. It was wonderful shook his head, and for one instant his face was as
sad as it was
gallant and gay all the rest of the time. Then he that Mr. Raffles was what he was because he loved
went as he had come, danger and adventure,
in his own dreadful way, and not a soul in the house and that you were what you were because you loved
knew that he had Mr. Raffles. But,
been. And even you were never told! even admitting it was all as bad as bad could be, he
is dead, and you
"I didn't mean to write all this about your own are punished. The world forgives, if it does not
friend, whom you knew forget. You are
so much better yourself, yet you see that even you young enough to live everything down. Your part
did not know how in the war will help
nobly he tried to undo the wrong he had done you; you in more ways than one. You were always fond
and now I think I of writing. You have
know why he kept it to himself. It is fearfully late-- now enough to write about for a literary lifetime.
or early--I seem You must make a new
to have been writing all night--and I will explain the name for yourself. You must Harry, and you will!
matter in the
fewest words. I promised Mr. Raffles that I would "I suppose you know that my aunt, Lady Melrose,
write to you, Harry, died some years ago?
and see you if I could. Well, I did write, and I did She was the best friend I had in the world, and it is
mean to see you, thanks to her
but I never had an answer to what I wrote. It was that I am living my own life now in the one way
only one line, and I after my own heart.
have long known you never received it. I could not This is a new block of flats, one of those where they
bring myself to do everything for
write more, and even those few words were merely you; and though mine is tiny, it is more than all I
slipped into one of shall ever want.
the books which you had given me. Years One does just exactly what one likes--and you must
afterward these books, with my blame that habit for
name in them, must have been found in your rooms; all that is least conventional in what I have said. Yet
at any rate they were I should like
returned to me by somebody; and you could never you to understand why it is that I have said so
have opened them, for much, and, indeed, left
there was my line where I had left it. Of course you nothing unsaid. It is because I want never to have
had never seen to say or hear
it, and that was all my fault. But it was too late to another word about _anything_ that is past and
write again. over. You may answer that
Mr. Raffles was supposed to have been drowned, I run no risk! Nevertheless, if you did care to come
and everything was known and see me some
about you both. But I still kept my own day as an old friend, we might find one or two new
independent knowledge to points of contact,
myself; to this day, no one else knows that you were for I am rather trying to write myself! You might
one of the two in almost guess as much
Palace Gardens; and I still blame myself more than from this letter; it is long enough for anything; but,
you may think for Harry, if it
nearly everything that has happened since. makes you realize that one of your oldest friends is
glad to have seen
"You said yesterday that your going to the war and you, and will be gladder still to see you again, and
getting wounded to talk of
wiped out nothing that had gone before. I hope you anything and everything _except the past_, I shall
are not growing cease to be ashamed
morbid about the past. It is not for me to condone even of its length!
it, and yet I know
"And so good-by for the present from

I omit her name and nothing else. Did I not say in

the beginning that
it should never be sullied by association with mine?
And yet--and
yet--even as I write I have a hope in my heart of
hearts which is not
quite consistent with that sentiment. It is as faint a
hope as man
ever had, and yet its audacity makes the pen tremble
in my fingers.
But, if it be ever realized, I shall owe more than I
could deserve in a
century of atonement to one who atoned more nobly
than I ever can. And
to think that to the end I never heard one word of it
from Raffles!