WORDSWORTH CLASSICS

E.W HORNUNG
Raffles:
The Amateur
Cracksman

» COMPLETE ^NDUNABRIDGED^
 RAFFLES,
THE AMATEUR CRACKSMAN
 RAFFLES,
THE AMATEUR
CRACKSMAN

E.W. Hornung

WORDSWORTH CLASSICS
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 Introduction

Raffles, the Amateur Cracksman first appeared in 1899. The

title is something of a misnomer, because there can be little
justification for describing Raffles as amateur. From his
rooms in Albany, off Piccadilly, Raffles made frequent and
successful sorties to relieve the rich of their wealth, varying
his modus operandi by robbing guests at country house-parties
to which he, too, had been invited.
Perhaps the clue to his designated status lies in his cricket­
ing prowess. A J Raffles was one of the finest cricketers in
England, equally capable of making a century at Lords, or
running through the opposing batting order on a turning
pitch. But A J was a Gentleman rather than a Player, in the
days when this distinction between amateur and professional
cricketers was of huge social importance. With his elegant
lifestyle, public school education and social standing Raffles
did not have to steal. Given his contacts, he could have landed
almost any job in, say, the City, but such a mundane life was
not for him. Risk was an important spice to his life, but above
all style was what counted with him, and the style is the style
of a cricketer. It depended less on the written rules of the
game, but more on the form. Some things were not ‘done’,
not ‘cricket’; in his essay Raffles and Miss Blandish George
Orwell is particularly enlightening on this aspect of Raffles,
pointing out that ‘in the eyes of any true cricket-lover it is
possible for an innings of ten runs to be ‘better’ (ie more ele­
gant) than an innings of a hundred runs’.
The style that characterises Raffles himself is present in the
stories themselves. They are constructed with the elegance
that marked the period in which they were written. It was a
period of prosperity and Empire when social form was more
important than achievement, and it is against this form that
Raffles and his erstwhile fag Bunny Manders rebel. Their
exploits have the hallmark of schoolboy pranks because they
are constrained by the social conventions that are so akin to
school walls. The ennui that marked the age is present in the
slightly later stories ofJohn Buchan, and found its most acute
expression at the onset of the Great War with Brooke’s poem
Peace ‘Now, God be thanked Who has matched us with His
hour* (it is perhaps inevitable that Raffles should eventually
find redemption in a hero’s death on the Veldt). Social dis­
grace was more to be feared than death.
However, the reader should not adopt too anachronistic an
approach to these wonderful stories, which are so unusual, for
being told from the criminal’s point of view. To this extent
they are an effective foil for the contemporary Sherlock
Holmes Stories and will continue to be read alongside the
chronicles of the greatest fictional detective of all time.

Ernest William Hornung was bom in England ini866 and is naw

chiefly remembered as the creator of Raffles. He married Arthur
Conan Doyle’s sister in 1893, and by all accounts the brothers-in-
law enjoyed each other’s company famously. Stingaree, also told
from the criminal’s point of view was published in 1905, and The
Crime Doctor in 1914. Hornung died in 1921.

Further reading:
E W Hornung: Mr Justice Raffles
E W Hornung: A Thief in the Night
G Orwell: Raffles and Miss Blandish in Horizon 1944
 Contents

The Ides of March 1

A Costume Piece 23
Gentlemen and Players 41
Le Premier Pas 61
Wilful Murder 78
Nine Points of the Law 94
The Return Match 112
The Gift of the Emperor 129
No Sinecure 154
A Jubilee Present 175
The Fate of Faustina 190
The Last Laugh 210
To Catch a Thief 228
An Old Flame 252
The Wrong House 276
The Knees of the Gods 290
 CHAPTER I

The Ides ofMarch

It was about half-past twelve when I returned to the

Albany as a last desperate resort. The scene of my disaster was
much as I had left it. The baccarat-counters still strewed the
table, with the empty glasses and the loaded ash-trays. A
window had been opened to let the smoke out, and was letting
in the fog instead. Raffles himself had merely discarded his
dining-jacket for one of his innumerable blazers. Yet he arched
his eyebrows as though I had dragged him from his bed.
‘Forgotten something?’ said he, when he saw me on the
mat.’
‘No,’ said I, pushing past him without ceremony. And I led
the way into his room with an impudence amazing to myself.
‘Not come back for your revenge, have you? Because I’m
afraid I can’t give it you single-handed. I was sorry myself
that the others -’
We were face to face by his fireside, and I cut him short.
‘Raffles,’ said I, ‘you may well be surprised at my coming
back in this way and at this hour. I hardly know you. I was
never in your rooms before to-night. But I fagged for you at
school, and you said you remembered me. Of course that’s no
excuse but will you listen to me - for two minutes?’
In my emotion I had at first to struggle for every word; but
his face reassured me as I went on, and I was not mistaken in
its expression.
‘Certainly, my dear man,’ said he, ‘as many minutes as you
like. Have a Sullivan and sit down.’ And he handed me his
silver cigarette-case.

1
 RAFFLES

‘No,’ said I, finding a full voice as I shook my head; ‘no, I

won’t smoke, and I won’t sit down, thank you. Nor will you
ask me to do either when you’ve heard what I have to say.’
‘Really?’ said he, lighting his own cigarette with one clear
blue eye upon me. ‘How do you know?’
‘Because you will probably show me the door,’ I cried bit­
terly; ‘and you’ll be justified in doing it! But it’s no good
beating about the bush. You know I dropped over two hun­
dred just now?’
He nodded.
‘I hadn’t the money in my pocket.'
‘I remember.’
‘But I had my cheque-book, and I wrote each of you a
cheque at that desk.’
‘Well?’
‘Not one of them was worth the paper it was written on,
Raffles. I am overdrawn already at my bank!’
‘Surely only for the moment?’
‘No. I have spent everything.’
‘But somebody told me you were so well off. I heard you
had come in for money?’
‘So I did. Three years ago. It has been my curse; now it’s
all gone - every penny! Yes, I’ve been a fool; there never was
nor will be such a fool as I’ve been. . . Isn’t this enough for
you? Why don’t you turn me out?’ He was walking up and
down with a very long face instead.
‘Couldn’t your people do anything?’ he asked at length.
‘Thank God,’ I cried, ‘I have no people! I was an only
child. I came in for everything there was. My one comfort is
that they’re gone, and will never know.’
I cast myself into a chair and hid my face. Raffles continued
to pace the rich carpet that was of a piece with everything else
in his rooms. There was no variation in his soft and even
footfalls.
‘You used to be a literary little cuss,’ he said at length;
‘didn’t you edit the mag. before you left? Anyway I recollect

2
 RAFFLES

fagging you to do my verses; and literature of sorts is the very

thing nowadays; any fool can make a living at it.’
I shook my head. ‘Any fool couldn’t write off my debts,’
said I.
‘Then you have a flat somewhere?’ he went on.
‘Yes, in Alount Street.’
‘Well, what about the furniture?’
I laughed aloud in my misery. ‘There’s been a bill of sale
on every stick for months!’
And at that Raffles stood still, with raised eyebrows and
stern eyes that I could meet the better now that he knew the
worst; then, with a shrug, he resumed his walk, and for some
minutes neither of us spoke. But in his handsome unmoved
face I read my fate and death-warrant; and with every breath
I cursed my folly and my cowardice in coming to him at all.
Because he had been kind to me at school, when he was cap­
tain of the eleven, and I his fag, I had dared to look for kind­
ness from him now; because I was ruined, and he rich enough
to play cricket all the summer, and do nothing for the rest of
the year, I had fatuously counted on his mercy, his sympathy,
his help! Yes, I had relied on him in my heart, for all my out­
ward diffidence and humility; and I was rightly served. There
was as little of mercy as of sympathy in that curling nostril,
that rigid jaw, that cold blue eye which never glanced my
way. I caught up my hat. I blundered to my feet. I would have
gone without a word; but Raffles stood between me and the
door.
‘Where are you going?’ said he.
‘That’s my business,’ I replied. ‘I won’t trouble you any
more.’
‘Then how am I to help you?’
‘I didn’t ask your help.’
‘Then why come to me?’
‘Why, indeed!’ I echoed. ‘Will you let me pass?’
‘Not until you tell me where you are going and what you
mean to do.’

3
 RAFFLES

‘Can’t you guess?’ I cried. And for many seconds we stood

staring in each other’s eyes.
‘Have you got the pluck?’ said he, breaking the spell in a
tone so cynical that it brought my last drop of blood to the
boil.
‘You shall see,’ said I, as I stepped back and whipped the
pistol from my overcoat pocket. ‘Now, will you let me pass?
or shall I do it here?’
The barrel touched my temple, and my thumb the trigger.
Mad with excitement as I was, ruined, dishonoured, and now
finally determined to make an end of my misspent life, my
only surprise to this day is that I did not do so then and there.
The despicable satisfaction of involving another in one’s
destruction added its miserable appeal to my baser egoism;
and had fear or horror flown to my companion’s face, I shud­
der to think I might have died diabolically happy with that
look for my last impious consolation. It was the look that
came instead which held my hand. Neither fear nor horror
were in it; only wonder, admiration, and such a measure of
pleased expectancy as caused me after all to pocket my
revolver with an oath.
‘You devil!’ I said. ‘I believe you wanted me to do it!’
‘Not quite,’ was the reply, made with a little start, and a
change of colour that came too late. ‘To tell you the truth,
though, I half thought you meant it, and I was never more
fascinated in my life. I never dreamt you had such stuff in
you, Bunny! No, I’m hanged if I let you go now. And you’d
better not try that game again, for you won’t catch me stand
and look on a second time. We must think of some way out
of the mess. I had no idea you were a chap of that sort!
There, let me have the gun.’
One of his hands fell kindly on my shoulder, while the
other slipped into my overcoat pocket, and I suffered him to
deprive me of my weapon without a murmur. Nor was this
simply because Raffles had the power of making himself irre­
sistible at will. He was beyond comparison the most masterful

4
 RAFFLES

man whom I have ever known; yet my acquiescence was due

to more than the mere subjection of the weaker nature to the
stronger. The forlorn hope which had brought me to the
Albany was turned as by magic into an almost staggering
sense of safety. Raffles would help me after all! A. J. Raffles
would be my friend! It was as though all the world had come
round suddenly to my side; so far therefore from resisting his
action, I caught and clasped his hand with a fervour as uncon­
trollable as the frenzy which had preceded it.
‘God bless you!’ I cried. ‘Forgive me for everything. I will
tell you the truth. I did think you might help me in my
extremity, though I well knew that I had no claim upon you.
Still - for the old school’s sake - the sake of old times - I
thought you might give me another chance. If you wouldn’t, I
meant to blow out my brains - and will still if you change
your mind!’
In truth I feared that it was changing, with his expression,
even as I spoke, and in spite of his kindly tone and kindlier
use of my old school nickname. His next words showed me
my mistake.
‘What a boy it is for jumping to conclusions! I have my
vices, Bunny, but backing and filling is not one of them. Sit
down, my good fellow, and have a cigarette to soothe your
nerves. I insist. Whisky? The worst thing for you; here’s
some coffee that I was brewing when you came in. Now listen
to me. You speak of “another chance.” What do you mean?
Another chance at baccarat? Not if I know it. You think the
luck must turn; suppose it didn’t. We should only have made
bad worse. No, my dear chap, you’ve plunged enough. Do
you put yourself in my hands or do you not? Very well, then
you plunge no more, and I undertake not to present my
cheque. Unfortunately there are the other men; and still
more unfortunately, Bunny, I’m as hard up at this moment as
you are yourself!’
It was my turn to stare at Raffles. ‘You?’ I vociferated. ‘You
hard up? How am I to sit here and believe that?’

5
 RAFFLES

‘Did I refuse to believe it of you?’ he returned, smiling.

‘And, with your own experience, do you think that because a
fellow has rooms in this place, and belongs to a club or two,
and plays a little cricket, he must necessarily have a balance at
the bank? I tell you, my dear man, that at this moment I’m as
hard up as ever you were. I have nothing but my wits to live
on - absolutely nothing else. It was as necessary for me to win
some money this evening as it was for you. We’re in the same
boat, Bunny; we’d better pull together.’
‘Together!’ I jumped at it. ‘I’ll do anything in this world
for you, Raffles,’ I said, ‘if you really mean that you won’t
give me away. Think of anything you like, and I’ll do it! I was
a desperate man when I came here, and I’m just as desperate
now. I don’t mind what I do if only I can get out of this with­
out a scandal.’
Again I see him, leaning back in one of the luxurious chairs
with which his room was furnished. I see his indolent, athletic
figure; his pale, sharp, clean-shaven features; his curly black
hair; his strong unscrupulous mouth. And again I feel the
clear beam of his wonderful eye, cold and luminous as a star,
shining into my brain - sifting the very secrets of my heart.
‘I wonder if you mean all that!’ he said at length.
‘You do in your present mood; but who can back his mood
to last? Still, there’s hope when a chap takes that tone. Now I
think of it, too, you were a plucky little devil at school; you
once did me rather a good turn, I recollect. Remember it,
Bunny? Well, wait a bit, and perhaps I’ll be able to do you a
better one. Give me time to think.’
He got up, lit a fresh cigarette, and fell to pacing the room
once more, but with a slower and more thoughtful step, and
for a much longer period than before. Twice he stopped at
my chair as though on the point of speaking, but each time he
checked himself and resumed his stride in silence. Once he
threw up the window, which he had shut some time since,
and stood for some moments leaning out into the fog which
filled the Albany courtyard. Meanwhile a clock on the chim­

6
 RAFFLES

neypiece struck one, and one again for the half-hour, without
a word between us.
Yet I not only kept my chair with patience, but I acquired
an incongruous equanimity in that half-hour. Insensibly I had
shifted my burden to the broad shoulders of this splendid
friend, and my thoughts wandered with my eyes as the min­
utes passed. The room was the good-sized, square one, with
the folding doors, the marble mantelpiece, and the gloomy,
old-fashioned distinction peculiar to the Albany. It was
charmingly furnished and arranged, with the right amount of
negligence and the right amount of taste. What struck me
most, however, was the absence of the usual insignia of a
cricketer’s den. Instead of the conventional rack of war-worn
bats, a carved oak bookcase, with every shelf in a litter, filled
the better part of one wall; and where I looked for cricketing
groups, I found reproductions of such works as ‘Love and
Death’ and ‘The Blessed Damozel,’ in dusty frames and dif­
ferent parallels. The man might have been a minor poet
instead of an athlete of the first water. But there had always
been a fine streak of aestheticism in his complex composition;
some of these very pictures I had myself dusted in his study at
school; and they set me thinking of yet another of his many
sides - and of the little incident to which he had just referred.
Everybody knows how largely the tone of a public school
depends on that of the eleven, and on the character of the cap­
tain of cricket in particular; and I have never heard it denied
that in A. J. Raffles’s time our tone was good, or that such
influence as he troubled to exert was on the side of the angels.
Yet it was whispered in the school that he was in the habit of
parading the town at night in loud checks and a false beard. It
was whispered, and disbelieved. I alone knew it for a fact; for
night after night had I pulled the rope up after him when the
rest of the dormitory were asleep, and kept awake by the hour
to let it down again on a given signal. Well, one night he was
over-bold, and within an ace of ignominious expulsion in the
heyday of his fame. Consummate daring and extraordinary

7
 RAFFLES

nerve on his part, aided, doubtless, by some little presence of

mind on mine, averted that untoward result; and no more
need be said of a discreditable incident. But I cannot pretend
to have forgotten it in throwing myself on this man’s mercy in
my desperation. And I was wondering how much of his
leniency was owing to the fact that Raffles had not forgotten it
either, when he stopped and stood over my chair once more.
‘I’ve been thinking of that night we had the narrow
squeak,’ he began. ‘Why do you start?’
‘I was thinking of it too.’
He smiled, as though he had read my thoughts.
‘Well, you were the right sort of little beggar then, Bunny:
you didn’t talk and you didn’t flinch. You asked no questions
and you told no tales. I wonder if you’re like that now?’
‘I don’t know,’ said I, slightly puzzled by his tone. ‘I’ve
made such a mess of my own affairs that I trust myself about
as little as I’m likely to be trusted by anybody else. Yet I never
in my life went back on a friend. I will say that; otherwise
perhaps I mightn’t be in such a hole to-night.’
‘Exactly,’ said Raffles, nodding to himself, as though in
assent to some hidden train of thought; ‘exactly what I
remember of you, and I’ll bet it’s as true now as it was ten
years ago. We don’t alter, Bunny, we only develop. I suppose
neither you nor I are really altered since you used to let down
that rope and I use to come up it hand over hand. You would
stick at nothing for a pal - what?’
‘At nothing in this world,’ I was pleased to cry.
‘Not even at a crime?’ said Raffles, smiling.
I stopped to think, for his tone had changed, and I felt sure
he was chaffing me. Yet his eye seemed as much in earnest as
ever, and for my part I was in no mood for reservations.
‘No, not even at that,’ I declared; ‘name your crime, and
I’m your man.’
He looked at me one moment in wonder, and another
moment in doubt; then turned the matter off with a shake of
his head, and the little cynical laugh that was all his own.

8
 RAFFLES

‘You’re a nice chap, Bunny! A real desperate character -

what? Suicide one moment, and any crime I like the next!
What you want is a drag, my boy, and you did well to come
to a decent law-abiding citizen with a reputation to lose.
None the less we must have that money to-night - by hook
or crook.’
‘To-night, Raffles?’
‘The sooner the better. Every hour after ten o’clock to­
morrow morning is an hour of risk. Let one of those cheques
get round to your own bank, and you and it are dishonoured
together. No, we must raise the wind to night and re-open
your account first thing to-morrow. And I rather think I
know where the wind can be raised.’
‘At two o’clock in the morning?’
‘Yes.’
‘But how - but where - at such an hour?’
‘From a friend of mine here in Bond Street.’
‘He must be a very intimate friend!’
‘Intimate’s not the word. I have the run of his place and a
latchkey all to myself.’
‘You would knock him up at this hour of the night?’
‘If he’s in bed.’
‘And it’s essential that I should go in with you?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Then I must; but I’m bound to say I don’t like the idea,
Raffles.’
‘Do you prefer the alternative?’ asked my companion, with
a sneer. ‘No, hang it, that’s unfair!’ he cried apologetically in
the same breath. ‘I quite understand. It’s a beastly ordeal. But
it would never do for you to stay outside. I tell you what, you
shall have a peg before we start - just one. There’s the
whisky, here’s the syphon, and I’ll be putting on an overcoat
while you help yourself.’
Well, I daresay I did so with some freedom, for this plan of
his was not the less distasteful to me from its apparent
inevitability. I must own, however, that it possessed fewer

9
 RAFFLES

terrors before my glass was empty. Meanwhile Raffles

rejoined me, with a covert-coat over his blazer, and a soft felt
hat set carelessly on the curly head he shook with a smile as I
passed him the decanter.
‘When we come back,’ said he. ‘Work first, play after­
wards. Do you see what day it is?’ he added, tearing a leaflet
from a Shakespearean calendar as I drained my glass. ‘March
15th. “The Ides of March, the Ides of March, remember.”
Eh, Bunny, my boy? You won’t forget them, will you?’
And, with a laugh, he threw some coals on the fire before
turning down the gas like a careful householder. So we went out
together as the clock on the chimneypiece was striking two.

II

Piccadilly was a trench of raw white fog, rimmed with

blurred street-lamps, and lined with a thin coating of adhe­
sive mud. We met no other wayfarers on the deserted flag­
stones, and were ourselves favoured with a very hard stare
from the constable of the beat, who, however, touched his
helmet on recognising my companion. ‘You see, I’m known
to the police,’ laughed Raffles as we passed on. ‘Poor devils,
they’ve got to keep their weather eye open on a night like
this! A fog may be a bore to you and me, Bunny, but it’s a
perfect godsend to the criminal classes, especially so late in
their season. Here we are, though - and I’m hanged if the
beggar isn’t in bed and asleep after all!’ We had turned into
Bond Street, and had halted on the curb a few yards down on
the right. Raffles was gazing up at some windows across the
road, windows barely discernible through the mist, and with­
out the glimmer of a light to throw them out. They were over
a jeweller’s shop, as I could see by the peep-hole in the shop
door, and the bright light burning within. But the entire
‘upper part’, with the private street-door next to the shop,
was black and blank as the sky itself.

10
 RAFFLES

‘Better give it up for to-night,’ I urged. ‘Surely the morn­

ing will be time enough!’
‘Not a bit of it,’ said Raffles. ‘I have his key. We’ll surprise
him. Come along.’
And seizing my right arm, he hurried me across the road,
opened the door with his latchkey, and in another moment
had shut it swiftly but softly behind us. We stood together in
the dark. Outside, a measured step was approaching; we had
heard it through the fog as we crossed the street; now, as it
drew nearer, my companion’s fingers tightened on my arm.
‘It may be the chap himself,’ he whispered. ‘He’s the devil
of a night-bird. Not a sound, Bunny! We’ll startle the life out
of him. Ah!’
The measured step had passed without a pause. Raffles
drew a deep breath, and his singular grip of me slowly
relaxed.
‘But still, not a sound,’ he continued in the same whisper;
‘we’ll take a rise out of him, wherever he is! Slip off your
shoes and follow me.’
Well, you may wonder at my doing so; but you can never
have met A. J. Raffles. Half his power lay in a conciliating
trick of sinking the commander in the leader. And it was
impossible not to follow one who led with such a zest. You
might question, but you followed first. So now, when I heard
him kick off his own shoes, I did the same, and was on the
stairs at his heels before I realised what an extraordinary way
was this of approaching a stranger for money in the dead of
night. But obviously Raffles and he were on exceptional terms
of intimacy, and I could not but infer that they were in the
habit of playing practical jokes upon each other.
We groped our way so slowly upstairs that I had time to
make more than one note before we reached the top. The
stair was uncarpeted. The spread fingers of my right hand
encountered nothing on the damp wall; those of my left
trailed through a dust that could be felt on the banisters. An
eerie sensation had been upon me since we entered the

11
 RAFFLES

house. It increased with every step we climbed. What hermit

were we going to startle in his cell?
We came to a landing. The banisters led us to the left, and
to the left again. Four steps more, and we were on another
and a longer landing, and suddenly a match blazed from the
black. I never heard it struck. Its flash was blinding. When
my eyes became accustomed to the light, there was Raffles
holding up the match with one hand, and shading it with the
other, between bare boards, stripped walls, and the open
doors of empty rooms.
‘Where have you brought me?’ I cried. ‘The house is unoc­
cupied?’
‘Hush! Wait!’ he whispered, and he led the way into one of
the empty rooms. His match went out as we crossed the
threshold, and he struck another without the slightest noise.
Then he stood with his back to me, fumbling with something
that I could not see. But when he threw the second match
away, there was some other light in its stead, and a slight
smell of oil. I stepped forward to look over his shoulder, but
before I could do so he had turned and flashed a tiny lantern
in my face.
‘What’s this?’ I gasped. ‘What rotten trick are you going to
play?’
‘It’s played,’ he answered, with his quiet laugh. ‘On me?’
‘I’m afraid so, Bunny.’
‘Is there no one in the house, then?’
‘No one but ourselves.’
‘So it was mere chaff about your friend in Bond Street,
who could let us have that money?’
‘Not altogether. It’s quite true that Danby is a friend of
mine.’
‘Danby?’
‘The jeweller underneath.’
‘What do you mean?’ I whispered, trembling like a leaf as
his meaning dawned upon me. ‘Are you going to get the
money from the jeweller?’

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 RAFFLES

‘Well, not exactly.’

‘What then?’
‘The equivalent - from his shop.’ There was no need for
another question. I understood everything but my own den­
sity. He had given me a dozen hints, and I had taken none.
And there I stood staring at him, in that empty room; and
there he stood with his dark lantern, laughing at me.
‘A burglar!’ I gasped. ‘You - you!’
‘I told you I lived by my wits.’
‘Why couldn’t you tell me what you were going to do?
Why couldn’t you trust me? Why must you lie?’ I demanded,
piqued to the quick for all my horror. ‘I wanted to tell you,’
said he. ‘I was on the point of telling you more than once.
You may remember how I sounded you about crime, though
you have probably forgotten what you said yourself. I didn’t
think you meant it at the time, but I thought I’d put you to
the test. Now I see you didn’t, and I don’t blame you. I only
am to blame. Get out of it, my dear boy, as quick as you can;
leave it to me. You won’t give me away, whatever else you
do!’
Oh, his cleverness! - his fiendish cleverness! Had be fallen
back on threats, coercion, sneers, all might have been differ­
ent even yet. But he set me free to leave him in the lurch. He
would not blame me. He did not even bind me to secrecy; he
trusted me. He knew my weakness and my strength, and was
playing on both with his master’s touch.
‘Not so fast,’ said I. ‘Did I put this into your head, or were
you going to do it in any case?’
‘Not in any case,’ said Raffles. ‘It’s true I’ve had the key for
days, but when I won to-night I thought of chucking it; for,
as a matter of fact, it’s not a one man job.’
‘That settles it. I’m your man.’
‘You mean it?’
‘Yes - for to-night.’
‘Good old Bunny,’ he murmured, holding the lantern for
one moment to my face; the next he was explaining his plans,

13
 RAFFLES

and I was nodding, as though we had been fellow cracksmen

all our days.
‘I know the shop,’ he whispered, ‘because I’ve got a few
things there. I know this upper part too; it’s been to let for a
month, and I got an order to view, and took a cast of the key
before using it. The one thing I don’t know is how to make a
connection between the two; at present there’s none. We
may make it up here, though I rather fancy the basement
myself. If you wait a minute I’ll tell you.’
He set his lantern on the floor, and crept to a back window,
and opened it with scarcely a sound; only to return shaking
his head, after shutting the window with the same care. ‘That
was our one chance,’ said he, ‘a back window above a back
window; but it’s too dark to see anything, and we daren’t
show an outside light. Come down after me to the basement;
and remember, though there’s not a soul on the premises,
you can’t make too little noise. There - there - listen to that!’
It was the measured tread that we had heard before on the
flagstones outside. Raffles darkened his lantern, and again we
stood motionless till it had passed.
‘Either a policeman,’ he muttered, ‘or a watchman that all
these jewellers run between them. The watchman’s the man
for us to watch; he’s simply paid to spot this kind of thing.’
We crept very gingerly down the stairs, which creaked a bit
in spite of us, and we picked up our shoes in the passage; then
down some narrow stone steps, at the foot of which Raffles
showed his light, and put on his shoes once more, bidding me
do the same in rather a louder tone than he had permitted
himself to employ overhead. We were now considerably
below the level of the street, in a small space with as many
doors as it had sides. Three were ajar, and we saw through
them into empty cellars; but in the fourth a key was turned
and a bolt drawn; and this one presently let us out into the
bottom of a deep, square well of fog. A similar door faced it
across this area, and Raffles had the lantern close against it,
and was hiding the light with his body, when a short and

14
 RAFFLES

sudden crash made my heart stand still. Next moment I saw

the door wide open, and Raffles standing within and beckon­
ing me with a jemmy.
‘Door number one,’ he whispered. ‘Deuce knows how
many more there’ll be, but I know of two at least. We won’t
have to make much noise over them, either; down here
there’s less risk.’
We were now at the bottom of the exact fellow to the
narrow stone stair which we had just descended; the yard, or
well, being the one part common to both the private and the
business premises. But this flight led to no open passage;
instead, a singularly solid mahogany door confronted us at
the top. ‘I thought so,’ muttered Raffles, handing me the
lantern, and pocketing a bunch of skeleton keys, after tam­
pering for a few minutes with the lock. ‘It’ll be an hour’s
work to get through that!’
‘Can’t you pick it?’
‘No. I know these locks. It’s no use trying. We must cut it
out, and it’ll take us an hour.’ It took us forty-seven minutes
by my watch; or rather it took Raffles, and never in my life
have I seen anything more deliberately done. My part was
simply to stand by with the dark lantern in one hand and a
small bottle of rock-oil in the other. Raffles had produced a
pretty, embroidered case, intended obviously for his razors,
but filled instead with the tools of his secret trade, including
the rock-oil. From this case he selected a ‘bit,’ capable of
drilling a hole an inch in diameter, and fitted it to a small but
very strong steel ‘brace.’ Then he took off his covert-coat and
his blazer, spread them neatly on the top step - knelt on them
- turned up his shirt-cuffs - and went to work with brace-
and-bit near the keyhole. But first he oiled the bit to min­
imise the noise, and this he did invariably before beginning a
fresh hole, and often in the middle of one. It took thirty-two
separate borings to cut round that lock. I noticed that
through the first circular orifice Raffles thrust a forefinger;
then, as the circle became an even lengthening oval, he got

15
 RAFFLES

his hand through up to the thumb, and I heard him swear

softly to himself. ‘I was afraid so!’
‘What is it?’
‘An iron gate on the other side!’
‘How on earth are we to get through that?’ I asked in
dismay. ‘Pick the lock. But there may be two. In that case
they’ll be top and bottom, and we shall have two fresh holes
to make, as the door opens inwards. It won’t open two
inches as it is.’ I confess I did not feel sanguine about the
lock-picking, seeing that one lock had baffled us already; and
my disappointment and impatience must have been a revela­
tion to me had I stopped to think. The truth is that I was
entering into our nefarious undertaking with an involuntary
zeal of which I was myself quite unconscious at the time.
The romance and the peril of the whole proceeding held me
spellbound and entranced. My moral sense and my sense of
fear were stricken by a common paralysis. And there I stood,
shining my light and holding my phial with a keener interest
than I had ever brought to any honest avocation. And there
knelt A. J. Raffles, with his black hair tumbled, and the same
watchful, quiet, determined half-smile with which I have
seen him send down over after over in a county match I At
last the chain of holes was complete, the lock wrenched out
bodily, and a splendid bare arm plunged up to the shoulder
through the aperture, and through the bars of the iron gate
beyond.
‘Now,’ whispered Raffles, ‘if there’s only one lock it’ll be in
the middle. Joy! Here it is! Only let me pick it, and we’re
through at last.’
He withdrew his arm, a skeleton key was selected from the
bunch, and then back went his arm to the shoulder. It was a
breathless moment. I heard the heart throbbing in my body,
the very watch ticking in my pocket, and ever and anon the
tinkle-tinkle of the skeleton key. Then - at last - there came a
single unmistakable click. In another minute the mahogany
door and the iron gate yawned behind us, and Raffles was sit­

16
 RAFFLES

ting on an office table, wiping his face, with the lantern

throwing a steady beam by his side.
We were now in a bare and roomy lobby behind the shop,
but separated therefrom by an iron curtain, the very sight of
which filled me with despair. Raffles, however, did not appear
in the least depressed, but hung up his coat and hat on some
pegs in the lobby before examining this curtain with his
lantern. ‘That’s nothing,’ said be, after a minute’s inspection;
‘we’ll be through that in no time, but there’s a door on the
other side which may give us trouble.’
‘Another door!’ I groaned. ‘And how do you mean to tackle
this thing?’
‘Prise it up with the jointed jemmy. The weak point of
these iron curtains is the leverage you can get from below.
But it makes a noise, and this is where you’re coming in,
Bunny; this is where I couldn’t do without you. I must have
you overhead to knock through when the street’s clear. I’ll
come with you and show a light.’ Well, you may imagine how
little I liked the prospect of this lonely vigil; and yet there was
something very stimulating in the vital responsibility which it
involved. Hitherto I had been a mere spectator. Now I was to
take part in the game. And the fresh excitement made me
more than ever insensible to those considerations of con­
science and of safety which were already as dead nerves in my
breast. So I took my post without a murmur in the front
room above the shop. The fixtures had been left for the
refusal of the incoming tenant, and fortunately for us they
included Venetian blinds which were already down. It was
the simplest matter in the world to stand peeping through the
laths into the street, to beat twice with my foot when any­
body was approaching, and once when all was clear again.
The noises that even I could hear below, with the exception
of one metallic crash at the beginning, were indeed incredibly
slight; but they ceased altogether at each double rap from my
toe, and a policeman passed quite half a dozen times beneath
my eyes, and the man whom I took to be the jeweller’s watch­

17
 RAFFLES

man oftener still, during the better part of an hour that I

spent at the window. Once, indeed, my heart was in my
mouth, but only once. It was when the watchman stopped
and peered through the peep-hole into the lighted shop. I
waited for his whistle - I waited for the gallows or the gaol!
But my signals had been studiously obeyed, and the man
passed on in undisturbed serenity. In the end I had a signal in
my turn, and retraced my steps with lighted matches down
the broad stairs, down the narrow ones, across the area, and
up into the lobby where Raffles awaited me with an out­
stretched hand.
‘Well done, my boy!’ said he. ‘You’re the same good man
in a pinch, and you shall have your reward. I’ve got a thou­
sand pounds’ worth if I’ve got a penn’oth. It’s all in my pock­
ets. And here’s something else I found in this locker; very
decent port and some cigars, meant for poor dear Danby’s
business friends. Take a pull, and you shall light up presently.
I’ve found a lavatory, too, and we must have a wash-and-
brush-up before we go, for I’m as black as your boot.’
The iron curtain was down, but he insisted on raising it
until I could peep through the glass door on the other side
and see his handiwork in the shop beyond. Here two electric
lights were left burning all night long, and in their cold white
rays I could at first see nothing amiss. I looked along an
orderly lane, an empty glass counter on my left, glass cup­
boards of untouched silver on my right, and facing me the
filmy black eye of the peep-hole that shone like a stage moon
on the street. The counter had not been emptied by Raffles,
its contents were in the Chubb’s safe, which he had given up
at a glance; nor had he looked at the silver, except to choose a
cigarette-case for me. He had confined himself entirely to the
shop window. This was in three compartments, each secured
for the night by removable panels with separate locks. Raffles
had removed them a few hours before their time, and the
electric light shone on a corrugated shutter bare as the ribs of
an empty carcase. Every article of value was gone from the

18
 RAFFLES

one place which was invisible from the little window in the
door; elsewhere all was as it had been left over night. And but
for a train of mangled doors behind the iron curtain, a bottle
of wine and a cigar-box with which liberties had been taken, a
rather black towel in the lavatory, a burnt match here and
there, and our finger-marks on the dusty banisters, not a
trace of our visit did we leave.
‘Had it in my head for long?’ said Raffles, as we strolled
through the streets towards dawn, for all the world as though
we were returning from a dance. ‘No, Bunny, I never thought
of it till I saw that upper part empty about a month ago, and
bought a few things in the shop to get the lie of the land.
That reminds me that I never paid for them; but, by Jove, I
will tomorrow, and if that isn’t poetic justice, what is? One
visit showed me the possibilities of the place, but a second
convinced me of its impossibilities without a pal. So I had
practically given up the idea, when you came along on the
very night and in the very plight for it! But here we are at the
Albany, and I hope there’s some fire left; for I don’t know
how you feel, Bunny, but for my part, I’m as cold as Keats’
owl.’
He could think of Keats on his way from a felony! He
could hanker for his fireside like another. Flood: gates were
loosened within me, and the plain English of our adventure
rushed over me as cold as ice. Raffles was a burglar. I had
helped to commit one burglary, therefore I was a burglar too.
Yet I could stand and warm myself by his fire, and watch him
empty his pockets, as though we had done nothing wonderful
or wicked!
My blood froze. My heart sickened. My brain whirled.
How I had liked this villain! How I had admired him! How
my liking and admiration must turn to loathing and disgust! I
waited for the change. I longed to feel it in my heart. But - I
longed and I waited in vain! I saw he was emptying his pock­
ets; the table sparkled with their hoard. Rings by the dozen,
diamonds by the score; bracelets, pendants, aigrettes, neck­

19
 RAFFLES

laces; pearls, rubies, amethysts, sapphires; and diamonds

always, diamonds in everything, flashing bayonets of light,
dazzling me - blinding me — making me disbelieve because I
could no longer forget. Last of all came no gem, indeed, but
my own revolver from an inner pocket. And that struck a
chord. I suppose I said something - my hand flew out. I can
see Raffles now, as he looked at me once more with a high
arch over each clear eye. I can see him pick out the cartridges
with his quiet, cynical smile, before he would give me my
pistol back again. ‘You mayn’t believe it, Bunny,’ said he, ‘but
I never carried a loaded one before. On the whole I think it
gives one confidence. Yet it would be very awkward if any­
thing went wrong; one might use it, and that’s not the game
at all, though I have often thought that the murderer who has
just done the trick must have great sensations before things
get too hot for him. Don’t look so distressed, my dear chap;
I’ve never had those sensations, and I don’t suppose I ever
shall.’
‘But this much you have done before?’ said I hoarsely.
‘Before? My dear Bunny, you offend me! Did it look like a
first attempt? Of course I have done it before.’
‘Often?’
‘Well - no? Not often enough to destroy the charm, at all
events; never, as a matter of fact, unless I’m cursedly hard up.
Did you hear about the Thimbleby diamonds? Well, that was
the last time - and a poor lot of paste they were. Then there
was the little business of the Dormer house - boat at Henley
last year. That was mine also - such as it was. I’ve never
brought off a really big coup yet; when I do I shall chuck it up.’
Yes, I remembered both cases very well. To think that he
was their author! It was incredible, outrageous, inconceivable.
Then my eyes would fall upon the table, twinkling and glit­
tering in a hundred places, and incredulity was at an end.
‘How came you to begin?’ I asked, as curiosity overcame
mere wonder, and a fascination for his career gradually wove
itself into my fascination for the man.

20
 RAFFLES

‘Ah! that’s a long story,’ said Raffles. ‘It was in the

Colonies, when I was out there playing cricket. It’s too long a
story to tell you now, but I was in much the same fix that you
were in to-night, and it was my only way out. I never meant it
for anything more; but I’d tasted blood, and it was all over
with me. Why should I work when I could steal? Why settle
down to some humdrum uncongenial billet, when excite­
ment, romance, danger, and a decent living were all going
begging together? Of course, it’s very wrong, but we can’t all
be moralists, and the distribution of wealth is very wrong to
begin with. Besides, you’re not at it all the time. I’m sick of
quoting Gilbert’s lines to myself, but they’re profoundly true.
I only wonder if you’ll like the life as much as I do!’
‘Like it?’ I cried. ‘Not I! It’s no life for me. Once is
enough!’
‘You wouldn’t give me a hand another time?’
‘Don’t ask me, Raffles. Don’t ask me, for God’s sake!’
‘Yet you said you would do anything for me! You asked me
to name my crime! But I knew at the time you didn’t mean it;
you didn’t go back on me to-night, and that ought to satisfy
me, goodness knows! I suppose I’m ungrateful, and unreason­
able, and all that. I ought to let it end at this. But you’re the
very man for me, Bunny, the - very - man! Just think how we
got through to-night. Not a scratch - not a hitch! There’s
nothing very terrible in it, you see; there never would be,
while we worked together.’
He was standing in front of me with a hand on either
shoulder; he was smiling as he knew so well how to smile. I
turned on my heel, planted my elbows on the chimneypiece,
and my burning head between my hands. Next instant a still
heartier hand had fallen on my back. ‘All right, my boy! You
are quite right and I’m worse than wrong. I’ll never ask it
again. Go, if you want to, and come again about midday for
the cash. There was no bargain; but, of course, I’ll get you
out of your scrape - especially after the way you’ve stood by
me to-night.’

21
 RAFFLES

I was round again with my blood on fire.

‘I’ll do it again,’ I said, through my teeth.
He shook his head. ‘Not you,’ he said, smiling quite good-
humouredly on my insane enthusiasm.
‘I will,’ I cried with an oath. ‘I’ll lend you a hand as often as
you like! What does it matter now? I’ve been in it once. I’ll
be in it again. I’ve gone to the devil anyhow. I can’t go back,
and wouldn’t if I could. Nothing matters another rap! When
you want me I’m your man.’
And that is how Raffles and I joined felonious forces on the
Ides of March.

22
 CHAPTER n

A Costume Piece

LONDON WAS JUST then talking of one whose name is already

a name and nothing more. Reuben Rosenthall had made his
millions on the diamond fields of South Africa, and had come
home to enjoy them according to his lights; how he went to
work will scarcely be forgotten by any reader of the halfpenny
evening papers, which revelled in endless anecdotes of his orig­
inal indigence and present prodigality, varied with interesting
particulars of the extraordinary establishment which the mil­
lionaire set up in St. John’s Wood. Here he kept a retinue of
Kaffirs, who were literally his slaves; and hence he would sally
with enormous diamonds in his shirt and on his finger, in the
convoy of a prize fighter of heinous repute, who was not, how­
ever, by any means the worst element in the Rosenthall
•menage. So said common gossip; but the fact was sufficiently
established by the interference of the police on at least one
occasion, followed by certain magisterial proceedings which
were reported with justifiable gusto and huge headlines in the
newspapers aforesaid. And this was all one knew of Reuben
Rosenthall up to the time when the Old Bohemian Club,
having fallen on evil days, found it worth its while to organise a
great dinner in honour of so wealthy an exponent of the club’s
principles. I was not at the banquet myself, but a member took
Raffles, who told me all about it that very night.
‘Most extraordinary show I ever went to in my life,’ said he.
‘As for the man himself - well, I was prepared for something
grotesque, but the fellow fairly took my breath away. To
begin with, he’s the most astounding brute to look at, well

23
 RAFFLES

over six feet, with a chest like a barrel, and a great hook-nose,
and the reddest hair and whiskers you ever saw. Drank like a
fire-engine, but only got drunk enough to make us a speech
that I wouldn’t have missed for ten pounds. I’m only sorry
you weren’t there too, Bunny, old chap.’
I began to be sorry myself, for Raffles was anything but an
excitable person, and never had I seen him so excited before.
Had he been following Rosenthall’s example? His coming to
my rooms at midnight, merely to tell me about his dinner,
was in itself enough to excuse a suspicion which was certainly
at variance with my knowledge of A. J. Raffles.
‘What did he say?’ I inquired mechanically, divining some
subtler explanation of this visit, and wondering what on earth
it could be.
‘Say?’ cried Raffles. ‘What did he not say! He boasted of his
rise, he bragged of his riches, and he blackguarded society for
taking him up for his money and dropping him out of sheer
pique and jealousy because he had so much. He mentioned
names, too, with the most charming freedom, and swore he
was as good a man as the Old Country had to show — pace the
Old Bohemians. To prove it he pointed to a great diamond in
the middle of his shirt-front with a little finger loaded with
another just like it: which of our bloated princes could show a
pair like that? As a matter of fact, they seemed quite wonderful
stones, with a curious purple gleam to them that must mean a
pot of money. But old Rosenthall swore he wouldn’t take fifty
thousand pounds for the two, and wanted to know where the
other man was who went about with twenty-five thousand in
his shirt-front, and other twenty-five on his little finger. He
didn’t exist. If he did, he wouldn’t have the pluck to wear them.
But he had - he’d tell us why. And before you could say Jack
Robinson he had whipped out a whacking great revolver!’
‘Not at the table?’
‘At the table! In the middle of his speech! But it was noth­
ing to what he wanted to do. He actually wanted us to let him
write his name in bullets on the opposite wall to show us why

24
 RAFFLES

he wasn’t afraid to go about in all his diamonds! That brute

Purvis, the prize-fighter, who is his paid bully, had to bully
his master before he could be persuaded out of it. There was
quite a panic for the moment; one fellow was saying his
prayers under the table, and the waiters bolted to a man.’
‘What a grotesque scene!’
‘Grotesque enough, but I rather wish they had let him go
the whole hog and blaze away. He was as keen as knives to
show us how he could take care of his purple diamonds; and,
do you know, Bunny, I was as keen as knives to see.’
And Raffles leant towards me with a sly, slow smile that
made the hidden meaning of his visit only too plain to me at
last.
‘So you think of having a try for his diamonds yourself?’
He shrugged his shoulders.
‘It is horridly obvious, I admit. But - yes, I have set my
heart upon them! To be quite frank, I have had them on my
conscience for some time; one couldn’t hear so much of the
man, and his prize-fighter, and his diamonds, without feeling
it a kind of duty to have a go for them; but when it comes to
brandishing a revolver and practically challenging the world,
the thing becomes inevitable. It is simply thrust upon one. I
was fated to hear tharchallenge, Bunny, and I, for one, must
take it up. I was only sorry I couldn’t get on my hind legs and
say so then and there.’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘I don’t see the necessity as things are with
us; but, of course, I’m your man.’ My tone may have been
half-hearted. I did my best to make it otherwise. But it was
barely a month since our Bond Street exploit, and we cer­
tainly could have afforded to behave ourselves for some time
to come. We had been getting along so nicely: by his advice I
had scribbled a thing or two; inspired by Raffles, I had even
done an article on our own jewel robbery; and for the
moment I was quite satisfied with this sort of adventure. I
thought we ought to know when we were well off, and could
see no point in our running fresh risks before we were

25
 RAFFLES

obliged. On the other hand, I was anxious not to show the

least disposition to break the pledge that I had given a month
ago. But it was not on my manifest disinclination that Raffles
fastened.
‘Necessity, my dear Bunny? Does the writer only write
when the wolf is at the door? Does the painter paint for bread
alone? Must you and I be driven to crime like Tom of Bow
and Dick of Whitechapel? You pain me, my dear chap; you
needn’t laugh, because you do. Art for art’s sake is a vile
catchword, but I confess it appeals to me. In this case my
motives are absolutely pure, for I doubt if we shall ever be
able to dispose of such peculiar stones. But if I don’t have a
try for them - after to-night - I shall never be able to hold up
my head again.’
His eye twinkled, but it glittered too.
‘We shall have our work cut out,’ was all I said. ‘And do you
suppose I should be keen on it if we hadn’t?’ cried Raffles. ‘My
dear fellow, I would rob St. Paul’s Cathedral if I could, but I
could no more scoop a till when the shopwalker wasn’t look­
ing than I could bag apples out of an old woman’s basket.
Even that little business last month was a sordid affair, but it
was necessary, and I think its strategy redeemed it to some
extent. Now there’s some credit, and more sport, in going
where they boast they’re on their guard against you. The Bank
of England, for example, is the ideal crib; but that would need
half a dozen of us with years to give to the job; and meanwhile
Reuben Rosenthall is high enough game for you and me. We
know he’s armed. We know how Billy Purvis can fight. It’ll be
no soft thing, I grant you. But what of that, my good Bunny -
what of that? A man’s reach must exceed his grasp, dear boy,
or what the dickens is a heaven for?’
‘I would rather we didn’t exceed ours just yet,’ I answered
laughing, for his spirit was irresistible, and the plan was
growing upon me, despite my qualms.
‘Trust me for that,’ was his reply; ‘I’ll see you through.
After all I expect to find that the difficulties are nearly all on

26
 RAFFLES

the surface. These fellows both drink like the devil, and that
should simplify matters considerably. But we shall see, and
we must take our time. There will probably turn out to be a
dozen different ways in which the thing might be done, and
we shall have to choose between them. It will mean watching
the house for at least a week in any case; it may mean lots of
other things that will take much longer; but give me a week,
and I will tell you more. That’s to say if you’re really on?’
‘Of course I am,’ I replied indignantly. ‘But why should I
give you a week? Why shouldn’t we watch the house
together?’
‘Because two eyes are as good as four, and take up less
room. Never hunt in couples unless you’re obliged. But don’t
you look offended, Bunny; there’ll be plenty for you to do
when the time comes, that I promise you. You shall have your
share of the fun, never fear, and a purple diamond all to your­
self — if we’re lucky.’
On the whole, however, this conversation left me less than
lukewarm, and I still remember the depression which came
upon me when Raffles was gone. I saw the folly of the enter­
prise to which I had committed myself - the sheer, gratu­
itous, unnecessary folly of it. And the paradoxes in which
Raffles revelled, and the frivolous casuistry which was never­
theless half sincere, and which his mere personality rendered
wholly plausible at the moment of utterance, appealed very
little to me when recalled in cold blood. I admired the spirit
of pure mischief in which he seemed prepared to risk his lib­
erty and his life, but I did not find it an infectious spirit on
calm reflection. Yet the thought of withdrawal was not to be
entertained for a moment. On the contrary, I was impatient
of the delay ordained by Raffles; and, perhaps, no small part
of my secret disaffection came of his galling determination to
do without me until the last moment.
It made it no better that this was characteristic of the man
and of his attitude towards me. For a month we had been, I
suppose, the thickest thieves in all London, and yet our inti­

27
 RAFFLES

macy was curiously incomplete. With all his charming frank­

ness, there was in Raffles a vein of capricious reserve which
was perceptible enough to be very irritating. He had the
instinctive secretiveness of the inveterate criminal. He would
make mysteries of matters of common concern; for example,
I never knew how or where he disposed of the Bond Street
jewels, on the proceeds of which we were both still leading
the outward lives of hundreds of other young fellows about
town. He was consistently mysterious about that and other
details, of which it seemed to me that I had already earned
the right to know everything. I could not but remember how
he had led me into my first felony, by means of a trick, while
yet uncertain whether he could trust me or not. That I could
no longer afford to resent, but I did resent his want of confi­
dence in me now. I said nothing about it, but it rankled every
day, and never more than in the week that succeeded the
Rosenthall dinner. When I met Raffles at the club he would
tell me nothing; when I went to his rooms he was out, or pre­
tended to be. One day he told me he was getting on well, but
slowly; it was a more ticklish game than he had thought; but
when I began to ask questions he would say no more. Then
and there, in my annoyance, I took my own decision. Since
he would tell me nothing of the result of his vigils, I deter­
mined to keep one on my own account, and that very evening
found my way to the millionaire’s front gates.
The house he was occupying is, I believe, quite the largest
in the St. John’s Wood district. It stands in the angle formed
by two broad thoroughfares, neither of which, as it happens,
is a ‘bus route, and I doubt if many quieter spots exist within
the four-mile radius. Quiet also was the great square house,
in its garden of grass-plots and shrubs; the lights were low,
the millionaire and his friends obviously spending their
evening elsewhere. The garden walls were only a few feet
high. In one there was a side door opening into a glass pas­
sage; in the other two five-barred, grained-and-varnished
gates, one at either end of the little semicircular drive, and

28
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both wide open. So still was the place that I had a great mind
to walk boldly in and learn something of the premises; in fact,
I was on the point of doing so, when I heard a quick, shuf­
fling step on the pavement behind me. I turned round and
faced the dark scowl and the dirty clenched fists of a dilapi­
dated tramp. ‘You fool!’ said he. ‘You utter idiot!’
‘Raffles!’
‘That’s it,’ he whispered savagely; ‘tell all the neighbour­
hood - give me away at the top of your voice!’ With that he
turned his back upon me, and shambled down the road,
shrugging his shoulders and muttering to himself as though I
had refused him alms. A few moments I stood astounded,
indignant, at a loss; then I followed him. His feet trailed, his
knees gave, his back was bowed, his head kept nodding: it was
the gait of a man eighty years of age. Presently he waited for
me midway between two lamp-posts. As I came up he was
fighting rank tobacco, in a cutty pipe, with an evil-smelling
match, and the flame showed me the suspicion of a smile.
‘You must forgive my heat, Bunny, but it really was very
foolish of you. Here am I trying every dodge - begging at the
door one night - hiding in the shrubs the next - doing every
mortal thing but stand and stare at the house as you went and
did. It’s a costume piece, and in you rush in your ordinary
clothes. I tell you they’re on the look-out for us night and
day. It’s the toughest nut I ever tackled!’
‘Well,’ said I, ‘if you had told me so before I shouldn’t have
come. You told me nothing.’ He looked hard at me from
under the broken rim of a battered billycock.
‘You’re right,’ he said at length. Tve been too close. It’s
become second nature with me, when I’ve anything on. But
here’s an end of it, Bunny, so far as you’re concerned. I’m going
home now, and I want you to follow me; but for heaven’s sake
keep your distance, and don’t speak to me again until I speak to
you. There - give me a start’ And he was off again, a decrepit
vagabond, with his hands in his pockets, his elbows squared, and
frayed coat-tails swinging raggedly from side to side.

29
 RAFFLES

I followed him to the Finchley Road. There he took an

Atlas omnibus, and I sat some rows behind him on the top,
but not far enough to escape the pest of his vile tobacco. That
he could carry his character-sketch to such a pitch - he who
would only smoke one brand of cigarettes! It was the last,
least touch of the insatiable artist, and it charmed away what
mortification there still remained in me. Once more I felt the
fascination of a comrade who was for ever dazzling one with a
fresh and unsuspected facet of his character.
As we neared Piccadilly I wondered what he would do.
Surely he was not going into the Albany like that ? No, he
took another omnibus to Sloane Street, I sitting behind him
as before. At Sloane Street we changed again, and were
presendy in the long lean artery of the King’s Road. I was
now all agog to know our destination, nor was I kept many
more minutes in doubt. Raffles got down. I followed. He
crossed the road and disappeared up a dark turning. I pressed
after him, and was in time to see his coat-tails as he plunged
into a still darker flagged alley to the right. He was holding
himself up and stepping out like a young man once more;
also, in some subtle way, he already looked less disreputable.
But I alone was there to see him, the alley was absolutely
deserted, and desperately dark. At the further end he opened
a door with a latchkey, and it was darker yet within.
Instinctively I drew back and heard him chuckle. We could
no longer see each other.
‘All right, Bunny! There’s no hanky-panky this time.
These are studios, my friend, and I’m one of the lawful ten­
ants.’
Indeed, in another minute we were in a lofty room with
skylight, easels, dressing-cupboard, platform, and every other
adjunct save the signs of actual labour. The first thing I saw,
as Raffles lit the gas, was its reflection in his silk hat on the
pegs beside the rest of his normal garments.
‘Looking for the works of art?’ continued Raffles, lighting
a cigarette and beginning to divest himself of his rags. ‘I’m

30
 RAFFLES

afraid you won’t find any, but there’s the canvas I’m always
going to make a start upon. I tell them I’m looking high and
low for my ideal model. I have the stove lit on principle twice
a week, and look in and leave a newspaper and a smell of Sul­
livans - how good they are after shag! Meanwhile I pay my
rent, and am a good tenant in every way; and it’s a very useful
little pied-a-terre — there’s no saying how useful it might be at
a pinch. As it is, the billycock comes in and the topper goes
out, and nobody takes the slightest notice of either; at this
time of night the chances are that there’s not a soul in the
building except ourselves.’
‘You never told me you went in for disguises,’ said I, watch­
ing him as he cleansed the grime from his face and hands.
‘No, Bunny, I’ve treated you very shabbily all round.
There was really no reason why I shouldn’t have shown you
this place a month ago, and yet there was no point in my
doing so, and circumstances are just conceivable in which it
would have suited us both for you to be in genuine ignorance
of my whereabouts. I have something to sleep on, as you per­
ceive, in case of need, and, of course, my name is not Raffles
in the King’s Road. So you will see that one might bolt fur­
ther and fare worse.’
‘Meanwhile you use the place as a dressing-room?’
‘It’s my private pavilion,’ said Raffles. ‘Disguises? In some
cases they’re half the battle, and it’s always pleasant to feel
that, if the worst comes to the worst, you needn’t necessarily
be convicted under your own name. Then they’re indispens­
able in dealing with the fences. I drive all my bargains in the
tongue and raiment of Shoreditch. If I didn’t there’d be the
very devil to pay in blackmail. Now, this cupboard’s full of all
sorts of toggery. I tell the woman who cleans the room that
it’s for my models when I find ’em. By the way, I only hope
I’ve got something that’ll fit you, for you’ll want a rig for to­
morrow night.’
‘To-morrow night!’ I exclaimed. ‘Why, what do you mean
to do?’

31
 RAFFLES

‘The trick,’ said Raffles,, ‘I intended writing to you as soon

as I got back to my rooms, to ask you to look me up to­
morrow afternoon; then I was going to unfold my plan of
campaign, and take you straight into action then and there.
There’s nothing like putting the nervous players in first; it’s
the sitting with their pads on that upsets their applecart; that
was another of my reasons for being so confoundedly close.
You must try to forgive me. I couldn’t help remembering
how well you played up last trip, without any time to weaken
on it beforehand. All I want is for you to be as cool and smart
to-morrow night as you were then; though, by Jove, there’s
no comparison between the two cases!’
‘I thought you would find it so.’
‘You were right. I have. Mind you, I don’t say this will be
the tougher job all round; we shall probably get in without
any difficulty at all; it’s the getting out again that may flum­
mox us. That’s the worst of an irregular household!’ cried
Raffles, with quite a burst of virtuous indignation. ‘I assure
you, Bunny, I spent the whole of Monday night in the shrub­
bery of the garden next door, looking over the wall, and, if
you’ll believe me, somebody was about all night long! I don’t
mean the Kaffirs. I don’t believe they ever get to bed at all,
poor devils! No, I mean Rosenthall himself, and that pasty-
faced beast Purvis. They were up and drinking from mid­
night, when they came in, to broad daylight, when I cleared
out. Even then I left them sober enough to slang each other.
By the way, they very nearly came to blows in the garden,
within a few yards of me, and I heard something that might
come in useful and make Rosenthall shoot crooked at a criti­
cal moment. You know what an I.D.B. is?’
‘Illicit Diamond Buyer?’
‘Exactly. Well, it seems that Rosenthall was one. He must
have let it out to Purvis in his cups. Anyhow, I heard Purvis
taunting him with it, and threatening him with the breakwater
at Capetown; and I begin to think our friends are friend and
foe. But about to-morrow night: there’s nothing subtle in my

32
 RAFFLES

plan. It’s simply to get in while these fellows are out on the
loose, and to he low till they come back, and longer. If possi­
ble, we must doctor the whisky. That would simplify the
whole thing, though it’s not a very sporting game to play, still,
we must remember Rosenthall’s revolver; we don’t want him
to sign his name on us. With all those Kaffirs about, however,
it’s ten to one on the whisky, and a hundred to one against us
if we go looking for it. A brush with the heathen would spoil
everything, if it did no more. Besides, there are the ladies -’
‘The deuce there are!’
‘Ladies with an i, and the very voices for raising Cain. I
fear, I fear the clamour! It would be fatal to us. Au contraire, if
we can manage to stow our selves away unbeknowns, half the
battle will be won. If Rosenthall turns in drunk, it’s a purple
diamond apiece. If he sits up sober, it may be a bullet instead.
We will hope not, Bunny; and all the firing wouldn’t be on
one side; but it’s on the knees of the gods.’
And so we left it when we shook hands in Piccadilly - not by
any means as much later as I could have wished. Raffles would
not ask me to his rooms that night. He said he made it a rule to
have a long night before playing cricket and - other games. His
final word to me was framed on the same principle.
‘Mind, only one drink to-night, Bunny. Two at the outside
- as you value your life - and mine!’
I remember my abject obedience, and the endless, sleepless
night it gave me; and the roofs of the houses opposite stand­
ing out at last against the blue-grey London dawn. I won­
dered whether I should ever see another, and was very hard
on myself for that little expedition which I had made on my
own wilful account.
It was between eight and nine o’clock in the evening when
we took up our position in the garden adjoining that of
Reuben Rosenthall; the house itself was shut up, thanks to the
outrageous libertine next door, who, by driving away the
neighbours, had gone far towards delivering himself into our
hands. Practically secure from surprise on that side, we could

33
 RAFFLES

watch our house tinder cover of a wall just high enough to see
over, while a fair margin of shrubs in either garden afforded
us additional protection. Thus entrenched we had stood an
hour, watching a pair of lighted bow-windows with vague
shadows flitting continually across the blinds, and listening to
the drawing of corks, the clink of glasses, and a gradual
crescendo of coarse voices within. Our luck seemed to have
deserted us: the owner of the purple diamonds was dining at
home, and dining at undue length. I thought it was a dinner­
party. Raffles differed; in the end he proved right. Wheels
grated in the drive, a carriage and pair stood at the steps;
there was a stampede from the dining-room, and the loud
voices died away, to burst forth presently from the porch.
Let me make our position perfectly clear. We were over
the wall, at the side of the house, but a few feet from the
dining-room windows. On our right, one angle of the build­
ing cut the back lawn in two diagonally; on our left, another
angle just permitted us to see the jutting steps and the waiting
carriage. We saw Rosenthall come out - saw the glimmer of
his diamonds before anything. Then came the pugilist; then a
lady with a head of hair like a bath sponge; then another, and
the party was complete.
Raffles ducked and pulled me down in great excitement.
*The ladies are going with them,’ he whispered. ‘This is
great!’
‘That’s better still.’
‘The Gardenia!’ the millionaire had bawled.
‘And that’s best of all,’ said Raffles, standing upright as
hoofs and wheels crunched through the gates and rattled off
at a fine speed.
‘Now what?’ I whispered, trembling with excitement.
‘They’ll be clearing away. Yes, here come their shadows.
The drawing-room windows open on the lawn. Bunny, it’s
the psychological moment. Where’s that mask?’
I produced it with a hand whose trembling I tried in vain to
still, and could have died for Raffles when he made no com­

34
 RAFFLES

ment on what he could not fail to notice. His own hands were
firm and cool as he adjusted my mask for me, and then his
own.
‘By Jove, old boy!’ he whispered cheerily, ‘you look about
the greatest ruffian I ever saw! These masks alone will down a
nigger, if we meet one. But I’m glad I remembered to tell you
not to shave. You’ll pass for Whitechapel if the worst comes
to the worst and you don’t forget to talk the lingo. Better sulk
like a mule if you’re not sure of it, and leave the dialogue to
me; but, please our stars, there will be no need. Now, are you
ready?’
‘Quite.’
‘Got your gag?’
‘Yes.’
‘Shooter?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then follow me.’ In an instant we were over the wall, in
another on the lawn behind the house. There was no moon.
The very stars in their courses had veiled themselves for our
benefit. I crept at my leader’s heels to some French windows
opening upon a shallow verandah. He pushed. They yielded.
‘Luck again,’ be whispered; ‘nothing but luck! Now for a
fight.’
And the light came!
A good score of electric burners glowed red for the fraction
of a second, then rained merciless white beams into our
blinded eyes. When we found our sight four revolvers covered
us, and between two of them the colossal frame of Reuben
Rosenthall shook with a wheezy laughter from head to foot.
‘Good-evening, boys,’ he hiccoughed. ‘Glad to see ye at
last! Shift foot or finger, you on the left, though, and you’re a
dead boy. I mean you, you greaser!’ he roared out at Raffles.
‘I know you. I’ve been waitin’ for you. I’ve been watchin’ you
all this week! Plucky smart you thought yerself, didn’t you?
One day beggin’, next time shammin’ tight, and next one o’
them old pals from Kimberley what never come when I’m in.

35
 RAFFLES

But you left the same tracks every day, you buggins, an’ the
same tracks every night, all round the blessed premises.’
‘All right, guv’nor,’ drawled Raffles; ‘don’t excite. It’s a fair
cop. We don’t sweat to know ’ow you brung it orf. On’y don’t
you go for to shoot, ’cos we ’aint awmed, s’help me Gord!’
‘Ah, you’re a knowin’ one,’ said Rosenthall, fingering his
triggers. ‘But you’ve struck a knowin’er.’
‘Ho, yuss, we know all abaht thet! Set a thief to catch a
thief - ho, yuss.’
My eyes had torn themselves from the round black muz­
zles, from the accursed diamonds that had been our snare, the
pasty pig-face of the overfed pugilist, and the flaming cheeks
and hook nose of Rosenthall himself. I was looking beyond
them at the doorway filled with quivering silk and plush,
black faces, white eye-balls, woolly pates. But a sudden
silence recalled my attention to the millionaire. And only his
nose retained its colour.
‘What d’ye mean?’ he whispered with a hoarse oath. ‘Spit it
out, or, by Christmas, I’ll drill you!’
‘Whort price thet brikewater?’ drawled Raffles coolly.
‘Eh?’
Rosenthall’s revolvers were describing widening orbits.
‘What price thet brikewater - old I.D.B.?’
‘Where in hell did you get hold o’ that?’ asked Rosenthall,
with a rattle in his thick neck meant for mirth.
‘You may well arst,’ says Raffles. ‘It’s all over the plice
w’ere I come from.’
‘Who can have spread such rot?’
‘I dunno,’ says Raffles; ‘arst the gen’leman on yer left;
p’raps ’e knows.’ The gentleman on his left had turned livid
with emotion. Guilty conscience never declared itself in
plainer terms. For a moment his small eyes bulged like cur­
rants in the suet of his face, the next, he had pocketed his pis­
tols on a professional instinct, and was upon us with his fists.
‘Out o’ the fight - out o’ the light!’ yelled Rosenthall in a
frenzy.

36
 RAFFLES

He was too late. No sooner had the burly pugilist

obstructed his fire than Raffles was through the window at a
bound; while I, for standing still and saying nothing, was sci­
entifically felled to the floor.
I cannot have been many moments without my senses.
When I recovered them there was a great to-do in the
garden, but I had the drawing-room to myself. I sat up.
Rosenthall and Purvis were rushing about outside, cursing
the Kaffirs and nagging at each other.
‘Over that wall, I tell yer!’
‘I tell you it was this one. Can’t you whistle for the police?’
‘Police be damned! I’ve had enough of the blessed police.’
‘Then we’d better get back and make sure of the other
rotter.’
‘Oh, make sure o’ yer skin. That’s what you’d better do. -
Jala, you black hog, if I catch you skulk in’...’
I never heard the threat. I was creeping from the drawing­
room on my hands and knees, my own revolver swinging by
its steel ring from my teeth.
For an instant I thought that the hall also was deserted. I
was wrong, and I crept upon a Kaffir on all fours. Poor devil, I
could not bring myself to deal him a base blow, but I threat­
ened him most hideously with my revolver, and left the white
teeth chattering in his black head as I took the stairs three at a
time. Why I went upstairs in that decisive fashion, as though it
were my only course, I cannot explain. But garden and ground
floor seemed alive with men, and I might have done worse.
I turned into the first room I came to. It was a bedroom -
empty, though fit up; and never shall I forget how I started as I
entered, on encountering the awful villain that was myself at full
length in a pier-glass! Masked, armed, and ragged, I was indeed
fit carrion for a bullet or the hangman, and to one or the other I
made up my mind. Nevertheless, I hid myself in the wardrobe
behind the mirror, and there I stood shivering and cursing my
fate, my folly, and Raffles most of all - Raffles first and last - or
I daresay half an hour. Then the wardrobe door was flung sud­

37
 RAFFLES

denly open; they had stolen into the room without a sound; and
I was hauled downstairs, an ignominious captive.
Gross scenes followed in the hall. The ladies were now
upon the stage, and at sight of the desperate criminal they
screamed with one accord. In truth I must have given them
fair cause, though my mask was now torn away and hid noth­
ing but my left ear. Rosenthall answered their shrieks with a
roar for silence; the woman with the bath-sponge hair swore
at him shrilly in return; the place became a Babel impossible
to describe. I remember wondering how long it would be
before the police appeared. Purvis and the ladies were for
calling them in and giving me in charge without delay.
Rosenthall would not hear of it. He swore that he would
shoot man or woman who left his sight. He had had enough
of the police. He was not going to have them coming there to
spoil sport; he was going to deal with me in his own way.
With that he dragged me from all other hands, flung me
against a door, and sent a bullet crashing through the wood
within an inch of my ear.
‘You drunken fool! It’ll be murder!’ shouted Purvis, getting
in the way a second time.
‘Wha’ do I care? He’s armed, isn’t he? I shot him in self-
defence. It’ll he a warning to others. Will you stand aside, or
d’ye want it yourself?’
‘You’re drunk,’ said Purvis, still between us. ‘I saw you take
a neat tumblerful since you came in, and it’s made you drunk
as a fool. Pull yourself together, old man. You ain’t a-going
to do what you’ll be sorry for.’
‘Then I won’t shoot at him, I’ll only shoot roun’ an’ roun’
the beggar. You’re quite right, ole feller. Wouldn’t hurt him.
Great mishtake. Roun’ an’ roun’. There - like that!’
His freckled paw shot up over Purvis’s shoulder, mauve
lightning came from his ring, a red flash from his revolver,
and shrieks from the women as the reverberations died away.
Some splinters lodged in my hair.
Next instant the prize-fighter disarmed him; and I was safe

38
 RAFFLES

from the devil, but finally doomed to the deep sea. A police­
man was in our midst. He had entered through the drawing­
room window; he was an officer of few words and creditable
promptitude. In a twinkling he had the handcuffs on my
wrist, while the pugilist explained the situation, and his
patron reviled the force and its representative with impotent
malignity. A fine watch they kept; a lot of good they did;
coming in when all was over and the whole household might
have been murdered in their sleep. The officer only deigned
to notice him as he marched me off.
‘We know all about you, sir,’ said he contemptuously, and
he refused the sovereign Purvis proffered. ‘You will be seeing
me again, sir, at Marylebone.’
‘Shall I come now?’
‘As you please, sir. I rather think the other gentleman
requires you more, and I don’t fancy this young man means
to give much trouble.’
‘Oh, I’m coming quietly,’ I said.
And I went.
In silence we traversed perhaps a hundred yards. It must
have been midnight. We did not meet a soul. At last I whis­
pered:
‘How on earth did you manage it?’
‘Purely by luck,’ said Raffles. ‘I had the luck to get clear
away through knowing every brick of those back-garden
walls, and the double luck to have these togs with the rest
over at Chelsea. The helmet is one of a collection I made up
at Oxford; here it goes over this wall, and we’d better carry
the coat and belt before we meet a real officer. I got them
once for a fancy ball - ostensibly - and thereby hangs a yarn.
I always thought they might come in useful a second time.
My; chief crux to-night was getting rid of the hansom that
brought me back I sent him off to Scotland Yard with ten
bob and a special message to good old Mackenzie. The whole
detective department will be at Rosenthall’s in about half an
hour. Of course I speculated on our gentleman’s hatred of the

39
 RAFFLES

police - another huge slice of luck. If you’d got away, well

and good; if not, I felt he was the man to play with his mouse
as long as possible. Yes, Bunny, it’s been more of a costume
piece than I intended, and we’ve come out of it, with a good
deal less credit. But, by Jove, we’re jolly lucky to have come-
out of it at all!’

40
 CHAPTER HI

Gentlemen and Players

OLD RAFFLES may or may not have been an exceptional crimi­

nal, but as a cricketer I dare swear he was unique. Himself a
dangerous bat, a brilliant field, and perhaps the very finest slow
bowler of his decade, he took incredibly little interest in the
game at large. He never went up to Lord’s without his cricket­
bag, or showed the slightest interest in the result of a match in
which he was not himself engaged. Nor was this mere hateful
egotism on his part. He professed to have lost all enthusiasm for
the game, and to keep it up only from the very lowest motives.
‘Cricket,’ said Raffles, ‘like everything else, is good enough
sport until you discover a better. As a source of excitement it
isn’t in it with other things you wot of, Bunny, and the invol­
untary comparison becomes a bore. What’s the satisfaction of
taking a man’s wicket when you want his spoons? Still, if you
can bowl a bit your low cunning won’t get rusty, and always
looking for the weak spot’s just the kind of mental exercise
one wants. Yes, perhaps there’s some affinity between the two
things after all. But I’d chuck up cricket to-morrow, Bunny, if
it wasn’t for the glorious protection it affords a person of my
proclivities.’
‘How so?’ said I. ‘It brings you before the public, I should
have thought, far more than is either safe or wise.’
‘My dear Bunny, that’s exactly where you make a mistake.
To follow crime with reasonable impunity you simply must
have a parallel ostensible career - the more public the better.
The principle is obvious. Mr. Peace, of pious memory, dis­
armed suspicion by acquiring a local reputation for playing

41
 RAFFLES

the fiddle and taming animals, and it’s my profound convic­

tion that Jack the Ripper was a really eminent public man,
whose speeches were very likely reported alongside his atroc­
ities. Fill the bill in some prominent part, and you’ll never be
suspected of doubling it with another of equal prominence.
That’s why I want you to cultivate journalism, my boy, and
sign all you can. And it’s the one and only reason why I don’t
burn my bats for firewood.’
Nevertheless, when he did play there was no keener per­
former on the field, nor one more anxious to do well for his
side. I remember how he went to the nets, before the first
match of the season, with his pocket full of sovereigns, which
he put on the stumps instead of bails. It was a sight to see the
professionals bowling like demons for the hard cash, for
whenever stump was hit a pound was tossed to the bowler
and another balanced in its stead, while one man took £3 with
a ball that spread-eagled the wicket. Raffles’s practice cost
him either eight or nine sovereigns; but he had absolutely
first-class bowling all the time, and he made fifty-seven runs
next day.
It became my pleasure to accompany him to all his
matches, to watch every ball he bowled, or played, or fielded,
and to sit chatting with him in the pavilion when he was
doing none of these three things. You might have seen us
there, side by side, during the greater part of the Gentlemen’s
first innings against the Players (who had lost the toss) on the
second Monday in July. We were to be seen, but not heard,
for Raffles had failed to score, and was uncommonly cross for
a player who cared so little for the game. Merely taciturn
with me, he was positively rude to more than one member
who wanted to know how it had happened, or who ventured
to commiserate him on his luck; there he sat, with a straw hat
tilted over his nose and a cigarette stuck between lips that
curled disagreeably at every advance. I was, therefore, much
surprised when a young fellow of the exquisite type came and
squeezed himself in between us, and met with a perfectly civil

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 RAFFLES

reception despite the liberty. I did not know the boy by sight
nor did Raffles introduce us; but their conversation pro­
claimed at once a slightness of acquaintanceship and a licence
on the lad’s part which combined to puzzle me. Mystification
reached its height when Raffles was informed that the other’s
father was anxious to meet him, and he instantly consented to
gratify that whim.
‘He’s in the Ladies’ Enclosure. Will you come round now?’
‘With pleasure,’ says Raffles. - ‘Keep a place for me,
Bunny.’
And they were gone.
‘Young Crowley,’ said some voice further back. ‘Last year’s
Harrow Eleven.’
‘I remember him. Worst man in the team.’
‘Keen cricketer, however. Stopped till he was twenty to get
his colours. Governor made him. Keen breed. Oh, pretty, sir!
Very pretty!’
The game was boring me. I only came to see old Raffles
perform. Soon I was looking wistfully for his return, and at
length I saw him beckoning me from the palings to the right.
‘Want to introduce you to old Amersteth,’ he whispered,
when I joined him. ‘They’ve a cricket week next month, when
this boy Crowley comes of age, and we’ve both got to go
down and play.’
‘Both!’ I echoed. ‘But I’m no cricketer!’
‘Shut up,’ says Raffles. ‘Leave that to me. I’ve been lying
for all I’m worth,’ he added sepulchrally, as we reached the
bottom of the steps. ‘I trust to you not to give the show
away.’
There was the gleam in his eye that I knew well enough
elsewhere, but was unprepared for in those healthy, sane sur­
roundings; and it was with very definite misgivings and sur­
mises that I followed the Zingari blazer through the vast
flower-bed of hats and bonnets that bloomed beneath the
ladies’ awning.
Lord Amersteth was a fine-looking man with a short mous­

43
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tache and a double chin. He received me with much dry

courtesy, through which, however, it was not difficult to read
a less flattering tale. I was accepted as the inevitable
appendage of the invaluable Raffles, with whom I felt deeply
incensed as I made my bow.
‘I have been bold enough,’ said Lord Amersteth, ‘to ask
one of the Gentlemen of England to come down and play
some rustic cricket for us next month. He is kind enough to
say that he would have liked nothing better, but for this little
fishing expedition of yours, Mr.-, Mr.-,’ and Lord Amersteth
succeeded in remembering my name.
It was, of course, the first I had ever heard of that fishing
expedition, but I made haste to say that it could easily, and
should certainly, be put off. Raffles gleamed approval
through his eyelashes. Lord Amersteth bowed and shrugged.
‘You’re very good, I’m sure,’ said he. ‘But I understand
you’re a cricketer yourself?’
‘He was one at school,’ said Raffles, with infamous readi­
ness.
‘Not a real cricketer,’ I was stammering meanwhile.
‘In the eleven?’ said Lord Amersteth.
‘I’m afraid not,’ said I.
‘But only just out of it,’ declared Raffles, to my horror.
‘Well, well, we can’t all play for the Gentlemen,’ said Lord
Amersteth slyly. ‘My son Crowley only just scraped into the
eleven at Harrow, and he’s going to play. I may even come in
myself at a pinch; so you won’t be the only duffer, if you are
one, and I shall be very glad if you will come down and help
us too. You shall flog a stream before breakfast and after
dinner, if you like.’
‘I should be very proud,’ I was beginning, as the mere pre­
lude to resolute excuses; but the eye of Raffles opened wide
upon me; and I hesitated weakly, to be duly lost.
‘Then that’s settled,’ said Lord Amersteth, with the slight­
est suspicion of grimness. ‘It’s to be a little week, you know,
when my son comes of age. We play the Free Foresters, the

44
 RAFFLES

Dorsetshire Gentlemen, and probably some local lot as well.

But Mr. Raffles will tell you all about it, and Crowley shall
write. - Another wicket! By Jove, they’re all out! Then I rely
on you both.’ And, with a little nod, Lord Amersteth rose and
sidled to the gangway.
Raffles rose also, but I caught the sleeve of his blazer.
‘What are you thinking of?’ I whispered savagely. ‘I was
nowhere near the eleven. I’m no sort of cricketer. I shall have
to get out of this!’
‘Not you,’ he whispered back. ‘You needn’t play, but come
you must. If you wait for me after half-past six I’ll tell you
why.’
But I could guess the reason; and I am ashamed to say that
it revolted me much less than did the notion of making a
public fool of myself on a cricket-field. My gorge rose at this
as it no longer rose at crime, and it was in no tranquil
humour that I strolled about the ground while Raffles disap­
peared in the pavilion. Nor was my annoyance lessened by a
little meeting I witnessed between young Crowley and his
father, who shrugged as he stopped and stooped to convey
some information which made the young man look a little
blank. It may have been pure self-consciousness on my part,
but I could have sworn that the trouble was their inability to
secure the great Raffles without his insignificant friend.
Then the bell rang, and I climbed to the top of the pavilion
to watch Raffles bowl. No subtleties are lost up there; and if
ever a bowler was full of them, it was A. J. Raffles on this day,
as, indeed, all the cricket world remembers. One had not to
be a cricketer oneself to appreciate his perfect command of
pitch and break, his beautifully easy action, which never
varied with the varying pace, his great ball on the leg-stump -
his dropping head-ball - in a word, the infinite ingenuity of
that versatile attack. It was no mere exhibition of athletic
prowess, it was an intellectual treat, and one with a special
significance in my eyes. I saw the ‘affinity between the two
things,’ saw it in that afternoon’s tireless warfare against the

45
 RAFFLES

flower of professional cricket. It was not that Raffles took

many wickets for few runs; he was too fine a bowler to mind
being hit; and time was short, and the wicket good. What I
admired, and what I remember, was the combination of
resource and cunning, of patience and precision, of head­
work and handiwork, which made every over an artistic
whole. It was all so characteristic of that other Raffles whom I
alone knew!
‘I felt like bowling this afternoon,’ he told me later - in the
hansom. ‘With a pitch to help me, I’d have done something
big; as it is, three for forty-one, out of the four that fell, isn’t
so bad for a slow bowler on a plumb wicket against those fel­
lows. But I felt venomous! Nothing riles me more than being
asked about for my cricket as though I were a pro. myself.’
‘Then why on earth go?’
‘To punish them, and - because we shall be jolly hard up,
Bunny, before the season’s over!’
‘Ah!’ said I. ‘I thought it was that.’
‘Of course it was! It seems they’re going to have the very
devil of a week of it - balls - dinner-parties— swagger house­
party - general junketings - and obviously a houseful of dia­
monds as well. Diamonds galore! As a general rule nothing
would induce me to abuse my position as a guest. I’ve never
done it, Bunny. But in this case we’re engaged like the waiters
and the band, and by heaven we’ll take our toll! Let’s have a
quiet dinner somewhere and talk it over.’
‘It seems rather a vulgar sort of theft,’ I could not help
saying; and to this, my single protest, Raffles instantly
assented.
‘It is a vulgar sort,’ said he; ‘but I can’t help that. We’re
getting vulgarly hard up again, and there’s an end on’t.
Besides, these people deserve it, and can afford it. And don’t
you run away with the idea that all will be plain sailing; noth­
ing will be easier than getting some stuff, and nothing harder
than avoiding all suspicion, as, of course, we must. We may
come away with no more than a good working plan of the

46
 RAFFLES

premises. Who knows? In any case there’s weeks of thinking

in it for you and me.’
But with those weeks I will not weary you further than by
remarking that the ‘thinking’ was done entirely by Raffles,
who did not always trouble to communicate his thoughts to
me. His reticence, however, was no longer an irritant. I began
to accept it as a necessary convention of these little enter­
prises. And, after our last adventure of the kind, more espe­
cially after its denouement, my trust in Raffles was much too
solid to be shaken by a want of trust in me, which I still
believe to have been more the instinct of the criminal than
the judgment of the man.
It was on Monday, August 10, that we were due at Milch-
ester Abbey, Dorset; and the beginning of the month found
us cruising about that very county, with fly-rods actually in
our hands. The idea was that we should acquire at once a
local reputation as decent fishermen, and some knowledge of
the country-side, with a view to further and more deliberate
operations in the event of an unprofitable week. There was
another idea which Raffles kept to himself until he had got
me down there. Then one day he produced a cricket-ball in a
meadow we were crossing, and threw me catches for an hour
together. More hours he spent in bowling to me on the near­
est green; and, if I was never a cricketer, at least I came nearer
to being one by the end of that week than ever before or
since.
Incident began early on the Monday. We had sallied forth
from a desolate little junction within quite a few miles of
Milchester, had been caught in a shower, had run for shelter
to a wayside inn. A florid, over-dressed man was drinking in
the parlour, and I could have sworn it was at the sight of him
that Raffles recoiled on the threshold, and afterwards insisted
on returning to the station through the rain. He assured me,
however, that the odour of stale ale had almost knocked him
down. And I had to make what I could of his speculative,
downcast eyes and knitted brows.

47
 RAFFLES

Milchester Abbey is a grey, quadrangular pile, deep set in

rich woody country, and twinkling with triple rows of quaint
windows, every one of which seemed alight as we drove up
just in time to dress for dinner. The carriage had whirled us
under I know not how many triumphal arches in process of
construction, and past the tents and flag-poles of a juicy-
looking cricket field, on which Raffles undertook to bowl up
to his reputation. But the chief signs of festival were within,
where we found an enormous house-party assembled, includ­
ing more persons of pomp, majesty, and dominion than I had
ever encountered in one room before. I confess I felt over­
powered. Our errand and my own pretences combined to rob
me of an address upon which I had sometimes plumed
myself; and I have a grim recollection of my nervous refief
when dinner was at last announced. I little knew what an
ordeal it was to prove.
I had taken in a much less formidable young lady than
might have fallen to my lot. Indeed I began by blessing my
good fortune in this respect. Miss Melhuish was merely the
rector’s daughter, and she had only been asked to make an
even number. She informed me of both facts before the soup
reached us, and her subsequent conversation was charac­
terised by the same engaging candour. It exposed what was
little short of a mania for imparting information. I had simply
to listen, to nod, and to be thankful. When I confessed to
knowing very few of those present, even by sight, my enter­
taining companion proceeded to tell me who everybody was,
beginning on my left and working conscientiously round to
her right. This lasted quite a long time, and really interested
me; but a great deal that followed did not; and, obviously to
recapture my unworthy attention, Miss Melhuish suddenly
asked me, in a sensational whisper, whether I could keep a
secret.
I said I thought I might, whereupon another question fol­
lowed, in still lower and more thrilling accents:
‘Are you afraid of burglars?’

48
 RAFFLES

Burglars! I was roused at last. The word stabbed me. I

repeated it in horrified query.
‘So I’ve found something to interest you at last!’ said Miss
Melhuish, in naive triumph. ‘Yes - burglars! But don’t speak
so loud. It’s supposed to be kept a great secret. I really
oughtn’t to tell you at all!’
‘But what is there to tell?’ I whispered with satisfactory
impatience.
‘You promise not to speak of it?’
‘Of course!’
‘Well, then, there are burglars in the neighbourhood.’
‘Have they committed any robberies?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Then how do you know?’
‘They’ve been seen. In the district. Two well-known
London thieves!’
Two! I looked at Raffles. I had done so often during the
evening, envying him his high spirits, his iron nerve, his
buoyant wit, his perfect ease and self-possession. But now I
pitied him; through all my own terror and consternation, I
pitied him as he sat eating and drinking, and laughing, and
talking, without a cloud of fear or of embarrassment on his
handsome, taking, dare-devil face. I caught up my champagne
and emptied the glass.
‘Who has seen them?’ I then asked calmly.
‘A detective. They were traced down from town a few days
ago. They are believed to have designs on the Abbey!’
‘But why aren’t they run in?’
‘Exactly what I asked papa on the way here this evening.
He says there is no warrant out against the men at present,
and all that can be done is to watch their movements.’
‘Oh! so they are being watched?’
‘Yes, by a detective who is down here on purpose. And I
heard Lord Amersteth tell papa that they had been seen this
afternoon at Warbeck Junction.’
The very place where Raffles and I had been caught in the

49
 RAFFLES

rain! Our stampede from the inn was now explained; on the
other hand, I was no longer to be taken by surprise by any­
thing that my companion might have to tell me; and I suc­
ceeded in looking her in the face with a smile.
‘This is really quite exciting, Miss Melhuish,’ said I. ‘May I
ask how you come to know so much about it?’
‘It’s papa,’ was the confidential reply. ‘Lord Amersteth
consulted him, and he consulted me. But for goodness sake
don’t let it get about! I can’t think what tempted me to tell
you!’
‘You may trust me, Miss Melhuish. But - aren’t you fright­
ened?’
Miss Melhuish giggled.
‘Not a bit! They won’t come to the rectory. There’s noth­
ing for them there. But look round the table: look at the dia­
monds: look at old Lady Melrose’s neck lace alone!’
The Dowager-Marchioness of Melrose was one of the few
persons whom it had been unnecessary to point out to me.
She sat on Lord Amersteth’s right, flourishing her ear-trum­
pet, and drinking champagne with her usual notorious free­
dom, as dissipated and kindly a dame as the world has ever
seen. It was a necklace of diamonds and sapphires that rose
and fell about her ample neck
‘They say it’s worth five thousand pounds at least,’ contin­
ued my companion. ‘Lady Margaret told me so this morning
(that’s Lady Margaret next your Mr. Raffles, you know); and
the old dear will wear them every night. Think what a haul
they would be! No; we don’t feel in immediate danger at the
rectory.’
When the ladies rose, Miss Melhuish bound me to fresh
vows of secrecy; and left me, I should think with some
remorse for her indiscretion, but more satisfaction at the
importance which it had undoubtedly given her in my eyes.
The opinion may smack of vanity, though, in reality, the very
springs of conversation reside in that same human, universal
itch to thrill the auditor The peculiarity of Miss Melhuish

50
 RAFFLES

was that she must be thrilling at all costs. And thrilling she
had surely been.
I spare you my feelings of the next two hours. I tried hard
to get a word with Raffles, but again and again I failed. In the
dining-room he and Crowley lit their cigarettes with the
same match, and had their heads together all the time. In the
drawing-room I had the mortification of hearing him talk
interminable nonsense into the trumpet-ear of Lady Melrose,
whom he knew in town. Lastly, in the billiard-room, they had
a great and lengthy pool, while I sat aloof and chafed more
than ever in the company of a very serious Scotchman, who
had arrived since dinner, and who would talk of nothing but
the recent improvements in instantaneous photography. He
had not come to play in the matches (he told me), but to
obtain for Lord Amersteth such a series of cricket pho­
tographs as had never been taken before; whether as an ama­
teur or a professional photographer I was unable to
determine. I remember, however, seeking distraction in little
bursts of resolute attention to the conversation of this bore.
And so at last the long ordeal ended; glasses were emptied,
men said good-night, and I followed Raffles to his room.
‘It’s all up!’ I gasped, as he turned up the gas and I shut the
door. ‘We’re being watched. We’ve been followed down
from town. There’s a detective here on the spot!’
‘How do you know?’ asked Raffles, turning upon me quite
sharply, but without the least dismay. And I told him how I
knew.
‘Of course,’ I added, ‘it was the fellow we saw in the inn
this afternoon.’
‘The detective?’ said Raffles. ‘Do you mean to say you
don’t know a detective when you see one, Bunny?’
‘If that wasn’t the fellow, which is?’
Raffles shook his head.
‘To think that you’ve been talking to him for the last hour
in the billiard-room, and couldn’t spot what he was!’
‘The Scotch photographer -’

51
 RAFFLES

I paused aghast.
‘Scotch he is,’ said Raffles, ‘and photographer he may be.
He is also Inspector Mackenzie of Scotland Yard - the very
man I sent the message to that night last April. And you
couldn’t spot who he was in a whole hour! Oh Bunny, Bunny,
you were never built for crime!’
‘But,’ said I, ‘if that was Mackenzie, who was the follow
you bolted from at Warbeck?’
‘The man he’s watching.’
‘But he’s watching us!’
Raffles looked at me with a pitying eye, and shook his head
again before handing me his open cigarette case.
‘I don’t know whether smoking’s forbidden in one’s bed­
room, but you’d better take one of these and stand tight,
Bunny, because I’m going to say something offensive.’
I helped myself with a laugh.
‘Say what you Eke, my dear fellow, if it really isn’t you and
I that Mackenzie’s after.’
‘Well, then, it isn’t and it couldn’t be, and nobody but a
born Bunny would suppose for a moment that it was! Do you
seriously think he would sit there and knowingly watch his
man playing pool under his nose? Well, he might: he’s a cool
hand, Mackenzie; but I’m not cool enough to win a pool
under such conditions. At least, I don’t think I am; it would
be interesting to see. The situation wasn’t free from strain as
it was, though I knew he wasn’t thinking of us. Crowley told
me all about it after dinner, you see, and then I’d seen one of
the men for myself this afternoon. You thought it was a
detective who made me turn tail at that inn. I really don’t
know why I didn’t tell you at the time, but it was just the
opposite. That loud, red-faced brute is one of the cleverest
thieves in London, and I once had a drink with him and our
mutual fence. I was an Eastender from tongue to toe at the
moment, but you will understand that I don’t ran unneces­
sary risks of recognition by a brute like that.’
‘He’s not alone, I hear.’

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 RAFFLES

‘By no means; there’s at least one other man with him; and
it’s suggested that there may be an accomplice here in the
house.’
‘Did Lord Crowley tell you so?’
‘Crowley and the champagne between them. In confi­
dence, of course, just as your girl told you; but even in confi­
dence he never let on about Mackenzie. He told me there was
a detective in the background, but that was all. Putting him
up as a guest is evidently their big secret, to be kept from the
other guests because it might offend them, but more particu­
larly from the servants whom he’s here to watch. That’s my
reading of the situation, Bunny, and you will agree with me
that it’s infinitely more interesting than we could have imag­
ined it would prove.’
‘But infinitely more difficult for us,’ said I, with a sigh of
pusillanimous relief. ‘Our hands are tied for this week, at all
events.’
‘Not necessarily, my dear Bunny, though I admit that the
chances are against us. Yet I’m not so sure of that either.
There are all sorts of possibilities in these three-cornered
combinations. Set A to watch B, and he won’t have an eye left
for C. That’s the obvious theory, but then Mackenzie’s a very
big A. I should be sorry to have any boodle about me with
that man in the house. Yet it would be great to nip in
between A and B and score off them both at once! It would
be worth a risk, Bunny, to do that; it would be worth risking
something merely to take on old hands like B and his men at
their own old game! Eh, Bunny? That would be something
like a match. Gentlemen and Players at single wicket, by
Jove!’
His eyes were brighter than I had known them for many a
day. They shone with the perverted enthusiasm which was
roused in him only by the contemplation of some new audac­
ity. He kicked off his shoes and began pacing his room with
noiseless rapidity; not since the night of the Old Bohemian
dinner to Reuben Rosenthall had Raffles exhibited such

53
 RAFFLES

excitement in my presence; and I was not sorry at the

moment to be reminded of the fiasco to which that banquet
had been the prelude.
‘My dear A. J.,’ said I in his very own tone, ‘you’re far too
fond of the uphill game; you will eventually fell a victim to
the sporting spirit and nothing else. Take a lesson from our
last escape, and fly lower as you value our skins. Study the
house as much as you like, but do - not - go and shove your
head into Mackenzie’s mouth!’
My wealth of metaphor brought him to a standstill, with
his cigarette between his fingers and a grin beneath his shin­
ing eyes.
‘You’re quite right, Bunny. I won’t. I really won’t. Yet -
you saw old Lady Melrose’s necklace? I’ve been wanting it for
years! But I’m not going to play the fool, honour bright, I’m
not; yet - by Jove! - to get to windward of the professors and
Mackenzie too! It would be a great game, Bunny, it would be
a great game!’
‘Well, you mustn’t play it this week’
‘No, no, I won’t. But I wonder how the professors think of
going to work? That’s what one wants to know. I wonder if
they’ve really got an accomplice in the house? How I wish I
knew their game! But it’s all right, Bunny; don’t you be jeal­
ous; it shall be as you wish.’
And with that assurance I went off to my own room and so
to bed with an incredibly light heart. I had still enough of the
honest man in me to welcome the postponement of our
actual felonies, to dread their performance, to deplore their
necessity: which is merely another way of stating the too
patent fact that I was an incomparably weaker man than Raf­
fles, while every whit as wicked. I had, however, one rather
strong point. I possessed the gift of dismissing unpleasant
considerations, not intimately connected with the passing
moment, entirely from my mind. Through the exercise of
this faculty I had lately been living my frivolous life in town
with as much ignoble enjoyment as I had derived from it the

54
 RAFFLES

year before; and similarly, here at Milchester, in the long-

dreaded cricket week, I had after all a quite excellent time.
It is true that there were other factors in this pleasing dis­
appointment. In the first place, mirabile dictu, there were one
or two even greater duffers than I on the Abbey cricket field.
Indeed, quite early in the week, when it was of most value to
me, I gained considerable kudos for a lucky catch; a ball, of
which I had merely heard the hum, stuck fast in my hand,
which Lord Amersteth himself grasped in public congratula­
tion. This happy accident was not to be undone even by me,
and, as nothing succeeds like success, and the constant
encouragement of the one great cricketer on the field was in
itself an immense stimulus, I actually made a run or two in
my very next innings. Miss Melhuish said pretty things to me
that night at the great ball in honour of Viscount Crowley’s
majority; she also told me that was the night on which the
robbers would assuredly make their raid, and was full of arch
tremors when we sat out in the garden, though the entire
premises were illuminated all night long. Meanwhile the
quiet Scotchman took countless photographs by day, which
he developed by night in a dark room admirably situated in
the servants’ part of the house; and it is my firm belief that
only two of his fellow guests knew Mr. Clephane of Dundee
for Inspector Mackenzie of Scotland Yard.
The week was to end with a trumpery match on the Satur­
day, which two or three of us intended abandoning early in
order to return to town that night. The match, however, was
never played. In the small hours of the Saturday morning a
tragedy took place at Milchester Abbey.
Let me tell of the thing as I saw and heard it. My room
opened upon the central gallery, and was not even on the
same floor as that on which Raffles - and I think all the other
men - were quartered. I had been put, in fact, into the dress­
ing-room of one of the grand suites, and my two near neigh­
bours were old Lady Melrose and my host and hostess. Now,
by the Friday evening the actual festivities were at an end, and,

55
 RAFFLES

for the first time that week, I must have been sound asleep
since midnight, when all at once I found myself sitting up
breathless. A heavy thud had come against my door, and now I
heard hard breathing and the dull stamp of muffled feet.
‘I’ve got ye,’ muttered a voice. ‘It’s no use struggling.’
It was the Scotch detective, and a new fear turned me cold.
There was no reply, but the hard breathing grew harder still,
and the muffled feet beat the floor to a quicker measure. In
sudden panic I sprang out of bed and flung open my door. A
light burnt low on the landing, and by it I could see Macken­
zie swaying and staggering in a silent tussle with some power­
ful adversary.
‘Hold this man!’ he cried, as I appeared. ‘Hold the rascal!’
But I stood like a fool until the pair of them backed into
me, when, with a deep breath, I flung myself on the fellow,
whose face I had seen at last. He was one of the footmen who
waited at table; and no sooner had I pinned him than the
detective loosed his hold.
‘Hang on to him,’ he cried. ‘There’s more of ’em below.’
And he went leaping down the stairs, as other doors
opened and Lord Amersteth and his son appeared simultane­
ously in their pyjamas. At that my man ceased struggling; but
I was still holding him when Crowley turned up the gas.
‘What the devil’s all this?’ asked Lord Amersteth, blinking.
‘Who was that ran downstairs?’
‘MacCIephane!’ said I hastily.
‘Aha!’ said he, turning to the footman. ‘So you’re the
scoundrel, are you? - Well done! Well done! Where was he
caught?’
I had no idea.
‘Here’s Lady Melrose’s door open,’ said Crowley. - ‘Lady
Melrose! Lady Melrose!’
‘You forget she’s deaf,’ said Lord Amersteth. ‘Ah! that’ll be
her maid.’
An inner door had opened; next instant there was a little
shriek, and a white figure gesticulated on the threshold.

56
 RAFFLES

‘Oil done est I'ecrin de Madame la Marquise? La fenetre est

ouverte. Il a disparu!'
‘Window open and jewel-case gone, by Jove!’ exclaimed
Lord Amersteth. ‘Mais comment est Madame la Marquise? Est­
elle bien?’
‘Oui, milor. Elle dort. ’
‘Sleeps through it all,’ said my lord. ‘She’s the only one,
then!’
‘What made Mackenzie - Clephane - bolt?’ young Crow­
ley asked me.
‘Said there were more of them below.’
‘Why the devil couldn’t you tell us so before?’ he cried,
and went leaping downstairs in his turn.
He was followed by nearly all the cricketers, who now burst
upon the scene in a body, only to desert it for the chase. Raffles
was one of them, and I would gladly have been another, had
not the footman chosen this moment to hurl me from him, and
to make a dash in the direction from which they had come.
Lord Amersteth had him in an instant; but the fellow fought
desperately, and it took the two of us to drag him downstairs,
amid a terrified chorus from half-open doors. Eventually we
handed him over to two other footmen who appeared with
their night-shirts tucked into their trousers, and my host was
good enough to compliment me as he led the way outside.
‘I thought I heard a shot,’ he added. ‘Didn’t you?’
‘I thought I heard three.’
And out we dashed into the darkness.
I remember how the gravel pricked my feet, how the wet
grass numbed them as we made for the sound of voices on an
outlying lawn. So dark was the night that we were in the
cricketers’ midst before we saw the shimmer of their pyjamas,
and then Lord Amersteth almost trod on Mackenzie as he lay
prostrate in the dew. ‘Who’s this?’ he cried. ‘What on earth’s
happened?’
‘It’s Clephane,’ said a man who knelt over him. ‘He’s got a
bullet in him somewhere.’

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‘Is he alive?’
‘Barely.’
‘Good God! Where’s Crowley?’
‘Here I am,’ called a breathless voice. ‘It’s no good, you fel­
lows. There’s nothing to show which way they’ve gone.
Here’s Raffles; he’s chucked it, too.’ And they ran up panting.
‘Well, we’ve got one of them, at all events,’ muttered Lord
Amersteth. ‘The next thing is to get this poor fellow indoors.
Take his shoulders, somebody. Now his middle. Join hands
under him. All together now; that’s the way. Poor fellow!
Poor fellow! His name isn’t Clephane at all. He’s a Scotland
Yard detective, down here for these very villains!’
Raffles was the first to express surprise; but he had also
been the first to raise the wounded man. Nor had any of
them a stronger or more tender hand in the slow procession
to the house. In a little we had the senseless man stretched on
a sofa in the library. And there, with ice on his wound and
brandy in his throat, his eyes opened and his lips moved.
Lord Amersteth bent down to catch the words.
‘Yes, yes,’ said he; ‘we’ve got one of them safe and sound.
The brute you collared upstairs.’ Lord Amersteth bent lower.
‘By Jove! Lowered the jewel-case out of the window, did he?
And they’ve got clean away with it! Well, well! I only hope
we’ll be able to pull this good fellow through. He’s off again.’
An hour passed: the sun was rising.
It found a dozen young fellows on the settees in the bil­
liard-room, drinking whisky and soda-water in their over­
coats and pyjamas, and still talking excitedly in one breath. A
time-table was being passed from hand to hand: the doctor
was still in the library. At last the door opened, and Lord
Amersteth put in his head.
‘It isn’t hopeless,’ said he, ‘but it’s bad enough. There’ll be
no cricket to-day.’
Another hour, and most of us were on our way to catch the
early train; between us we filled a compartment almost to suf­
focation. And still we talked all together of the night’s event;

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and still I was a little hero in my way, for having kept my hold
of the one ruffian who had been taken; and my gratification
was subtle and intense. Raffles watched me under lowered
lids. Not a word had we had together; not a word did we have
until we had left the others at Paddington, and were skim­
ming through the streets in a hansom with noiseless tyres and
a tinkling bell.
‘Well, Bunny,’ said Raffles, ‘so the professors have it, eh?’
‘Yes,’ said I. ‘And I’m jolly glad!’
‘That poor Mackenzie has a ball in his chest?’
‘That you and I have been on the decent side for once.’
He shrugged his shoulders.
‘You’re hopeless, Bunny, quite hopeless! I take it you
wouldn’t have refused your share if the boodle had fallen to
us? Yet you positively enjoy coming off second best - for the
second time running! I confess, however, that the professors’
methods were full of interest to me. I, for one, have probably
gained as much in experience as I have lost in other things.
That lowering the jewel-case out of the window was a very
simple and effective expedient; two of them had been waiting
below for it for hours.’
‘How do you know?’ I asked.
‘I saw them from my own window, which was just above
the dear old lady’s. I was fretting for that necklace in particu­
lar, when I went up to turn in for our last night - and I hap­
pened to look out of the window. In point of fact, I wanted to
see whether the one below was open, and whether there was
the slightest chance of working the oracle with my sheet for a
rope. Of course I took the precaution of turning my light off
first, and it was a lucky thing I did. I saw the pros, right down
below, and they never saw me. I saw a little tiny luminous
disc just for an instant, and then again for an instant a few
minutes later. Of course I knew what it was, for I have my
own watch-dial daubed with luminous paint; it makes a
lantern of sorts when you can get no better. But these fellows
were not using theirs as a lantern. They were under the old

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lady’s window. They were watching the time. The whole

thing was arranged with their accomplice inside. Set a thief to
catch a thief: in a minute I had guessed what the whole thing
proved to be.’
‘And you did nothing!’ I exclaimed.
‘On the contrary, I went downstairs and straight into Lady
Melrose’s room -’
‘You did?’
‘Without a moment’s hesitation. To save her jewels. And I
was prepared to yell as much into her ear-trumpet for all the
house to hear. But the dear lady is too deaf and too fond of
her dinner to wake easily.’
‘Well?’
‘She didn’t stir.’
‘And yet you allowed the professors, as you call them, to
take her jewels, case and all!’
‘All but this,’ said Raffles, thrusting his fist into my lap. ‘I
would have shown it you before, but really, old fellow, your
face all day has been worth a fortune to the firm!’ And he
opened his fist, to shut it next instant on the bunch of dia­
monds and of sapphires that I had last seen encircling the
neck of Lady Melrose.

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 CHAPTER IV

Le Premier Pas

That night HE told ME the story of his earliest crime. Not

since the fateful morning of the Ides of March, when he had
just mentioned it as an unreported incident of a certain
cricket tour, had I succeeded in getting a word out of Raffles
on the subject. It was not for want of trying; he would shake
his head, and watch his cigarette smoke thoughtfully; a subtle
look in his eyes, half cynical, half wistful, as though the
decent honest days that were no more had had their merits
after all. Raffles would plan a fresh enormity, or glory in the
last, with the unmitigated enthusiasm of the artist. It was
impossible to imagine one throb or twitter of compunction
beneath those frankly egoistic and infectious transports. And
yet the ghost of a dead remorse seemed still to visit him with
the memory of his first felony, so that I had given the story
up long before the night of our return from Milchester.
Cricket, however, was in the air, and Raffles’s cricket-bag
back where he sometimes kept it, in the fender, with the
remains of an old Orient label still adhering to the leather.
My eyes had been on this label for some time, and I suppose
his eyes had been on mine, for all at once he asked me if I still
burned to hear that yarn.
‘It’s no use,’ I replied. ‘You won’t spin it. I must imagine it
for myself.’
‘How can you?’
‘Oh, I begin to know your methods.’
‘You take it I went with my eyes open, as I do now, eh?’
‘I can’t imagine your doing otherwise.’

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‘My dear Bunny, it was the most unpremeditated thing I

ever did in my life!’
His chair wheeled back into the books as he sprang up with
sudden energy. There was quite an indignant glitter in his
eyes.
‘I can’t believe that,’ said I craftily. ‘I can’t pay you such a
poor compliment.’
‘Then you must be a fool -’
He broke off, stared hard at me, and in a trice stood smil­
ing in his own despite.
Or a better knave than I thought you, Bunny, and, by Jove,
it’s the knave! Well - I suppose I’m fairly drawn; I give you
best, as they say out here. As a matter of fact, I’ve been think­
ing of the thing myself; last night’s racket reminds me of it in
one or two respects. I tell you what, though, this is an occa­
sion in any case, and I’m going to celebrate it by breaking the
one good rule of my life. I’m going to have a second drink!’
The whisky tinkled, the syphon fizzed, and ice plopped
home; and seated there in his pyjamas, with the inevitable
cigarette, Raffles told me the story that I had given up hoping
to hear. The windows were wide open; the sounds of Pic­
cadilly floated in at first. Long before he finished, the last
wheels had rattled, the last brawler was removed, we alone
broke the quiet of the summer night.

‘... No, they do you very well indeed. You pay for nothing
but drinks, so to speak, but I’m afraid mine were of a compre­
hensive character. I had started in a hole, I ought really to
have refused the invitation; then we all went to the Mel­
bourne Cup, and I had the certain winner that didn’t win, and
that’s not the only way you can play the fool in Melbourne. I
wasn’t the steady old stager I am now, Bunny; my analysis
was a confession in itself. But the others didn’t know how
hard up I was, and I swore they shouldn’t. I tried the Jews,

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but they’re extra fly out there. Then I thought of a kinsman

of sorts, a second cousin of my father’s whom none of us
knew anything about, except that he was supposed to be in
one or other of the Colonies. If he was a rich man, well and
good, I would work him; if not, there would be no harm
done. I tried to get on his tracks, and, as luck would have it, I
succeeded (or thought I had) at the very moment when I hap­
pened to have a few days to myself. I was cut over on the
hand, just before the big Christmas match, and couldn’t have
bowled a ball if they had played me.
‘The surgeon who fixed me up happened to ask me if I was
any relation of Raffles of the National Bank, and the pure luck
of it almost took my breath away. A relation who was a high
official in one of the banks, who would finance me on my mere
name - could any thing be better? I made up my mind that this
Raffles was the man I wanted, and was awfully sold to find next
moment that he wasn’t a high official at all. Nor had the doctor
so much as met him, but had merely read of him in connection
with a small sensation at the suburban branch which my name­
sake managed; an armed robber had been rather pluckily
beaten off, with a bullet in him, by this Raffles; and the sort of
thing was so common out there that this was the first I had
heard of it! A suburban branch - my financier had faded into
some excellent fellow with a billet to lose if he called his soul
his own. Still a manager was a manager, and I said I would
soon see whether this was the relative I was looking for, if he
would be good enough to give me the name of that branch.
‘ “I’ll do more,” says the doctor. “I’ll give you the name of
the branch he’s been promoted to, for I think I heard they’d
moved him up one already.” And the next day he brought me
the name of the township of Yea, some fifty miles north of
Melbourne; but, with the vagueness which characterised all
his information, he was unable to say whether I should find
my relative there or not.
‘ “He’s a single man, and his initials are W. F.,” said the
doctor, who was certain enough of the immaterial points. “He

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left his old post several days ago, but it appears he’s not due at
the new one till the New Year. No doubt he’ll go before then
to take things over and settle in. You might find him up there
and you might not. If I were you I should write.”
‘ “That’ll lose two days,” said I, “and more if he isn’t
there,” for I’d grown quite keen on this up-country manager,
and I felt that if I could get at him while the holidays were
still on, a little conviviality might help matters considerably.
‘ “Then,” said the doctor, “I should get a quiet horse and
ride. You needn’t use that hand.”
‘ “Can’t I go by train?”
‘ “You can and you can’t. You would still have to ride. I
suppose you’re a horseman?”
‘ “Yes.”
‘ “Then I should certainly ride all the way. It’s a delightful
road, through Whittlesea and over the Plenty Ranges. It’ll
give you some idea of the bush, Mr. Raffles, and you’ll see the
sources of the water-supply of this city, sir. You’ll see where
every drop of it comes from, the pure Yan Yean! I wish I had
time to ride with you.”
‘ “But where can I get a horse?”
‘The doctor thought a moment.
‘ “I’ve a mare of my own that’s as fat as butter for want of
work,” said he. “It would be a charity to me to sit on her back
for a hundred miles or so, and then I should know you’d have
no temptation to use that hand.”
‘ “You’re far too good,” I protested.
‘ “You’re A. J. Raffles,” he said.
‘And if ever there was a prettier compliment, or a finer
instance of even Colonial hospitality, I can only say, Bunny,
that I never heard of either.’
He sipped his whisky, threw away the stump of his ciga­
rette, and lit another before continuing.
‘Well, I managed to write a line to W. F. with my own
hand, which, as you will gather, was not very badly wounded;
it was simply this third finger that was split and in splints; the

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next morning the doctor packed me off on a bovine beast that

would have done for an ambulance. Half the team came up to
see me start; the rest were rather sick with me for not stop­
ping to see the match out, as if I could help them to win by
watching them. They little knew the game I’d got on myself,
but still less did I know the game I was going to play.
‘It was an interesting ride enough, especially after passing
the place called Whittlesea, a real wild township on the lower
slopes of the ranges, where I recollect having a deadly meal of
hot mutton and tea with the thermometer at three figures in
the shade. The first thirty miles or so was a good metal road,
too good to go half round the world to ride on, but after
Whittlesea it was a mere track over the ranges, a track I often
couldn’t see and left entirely to the mare. Now it dipped into
a gully and ran through a creek, and all the time the local
colour was inches thick: gum trees galore and parrots all
colours of the rainbow. In one place a whole forest of gums
had been ring-barked, and were just as though they had been
painted white, without a leaf or a living thing for miles. And
the first living thing I did meet was the sort to give you the
creeps: it was a riderless horse coming full tilt through the
bush, with the saddle twisted round and the stirrup-irons
ringing. Without thinking, I had a shot at heading him with
the doctor’s mare, and blocked him just enough to allow a
man who came galloping after to do the rest.
‘ “Thank ye, mister,” growled the man, a huge chap in a
red checked shirt, with a beard like W. G. Grace, but the
very devil of an expression.
‘ “Been an accident?” said I, reining up.
‘ “Yes,” said he, scowling as though he defied me to ask any
more.
‘ “And a nasty one,” I said, “if that’s blood on the saddle!”
‘Well, Bunny, I may be a blackguard myself, but I don’t
think I ever looked at a fellow as that chap looked at me. But
I stared him out, and forced him to admit that it was blood on
the twisted saddle, and after that he became quite tame. He

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told me exactly what had happened. A mate of his had been

dragged under a branch, and had his nose smashed, but that
was all; had sat tight after it till he dropped from loss of
blood; another mate was with him back in the bush.
‘As I’ve said already, Bunny, I wasn’t the old stager that I
am now - in any respect - and we parted good enough
friends. He asked me which way I was going, and, when I told
him, he said I should save seven miles, and get a good hour
earlier to Yea, by striking off the track and making for a peak
that we could see through the trees, and following a creek
that I should see from the peak. Don’t smile, Bunny! I began
by saying I was a child in those days. Of course, the short cut
was the long way round; and it was nearly dark when that
unlucky mare and I saw the single street of Yea.
‘I was looking for the bank when a fellow in a white suit
ran down from the verandah.
‘ “Mr. Raffles?” said he.
‘ “Mr. Raffles!” said I, laughing, as I shook his hand.
‘ “You’re late.”
‘ “I was misdirected.”
‘ “That all? I’m relieved,” he said. “Do you know what they
are saying? There are some brand-new bushrangers on the
road between Whittlesea and this - a second Kelly gang!
They’d have caught a Tartar in you, eh?”
‘ “They would in you,” I retorted, and my tu quoque shut
him up and seemed to puzzle him. Yet there was much more
sense in it than in his compliment to me, which was
absolutely pointless.
* “I’m afraid you’ll find things pretty rough,” he resumed,
when he had unstrapped my valise, and handed my reins to
his man. “It’s lucky you’re a bachelor like myself.”
‘I could not quite see the point of this remark either, since,
had I been married, I should hardly have sprung my wife
upon him in this free-and-easy fashion. I muttered the con­
ventional sort of thing, and then he said I should find it all
right when I settled, as though I had come to graze upon him

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for weeks! “Well,” thought I, “these Colonials do take the

cake for hospitality!” And, still marvelling, I let him lead me
into the private part of the bank.
‘ “Dinner will be ready in a quarter of an hour,” said he, as
we entered. “I thought you might like a tub first, and you’ll
find all ready in the room at the end of the passage. Sing out
if there’s anything you want. Your luggage hasn’t turned up
yet, by the way, but here’s a letter that came this morning.”
‘ “Not for me?”
‘ “Yes; didn’t you expect one?”
‘ “I certainly did not!”
‘ “Well, here it is.”
‘And, as he lit me to my room, I read my own superscrip­
tion of the previous day - to W. F. Raffles!

‘Bunny, you’ve had your wind bagged at footer, I daresay;

you know what that’s like? All I can say is that my moral wind
was bagged by that letter as I hope, old chap, I have never yet
bagged yours. I couldn’t speak. I could only stand with my
own letter in my hands until he had the good taste to leave
me by myself.
‘W. F. Raffles! We had mistaken each other for W. F. Raf­
fles - for the new manager who had not yet arrived! Small
wonder we had conversed at cross purposes; the only wonder
was that we had not discovered our mutual mistake. How the
other man would have laughed! But I - I could not laugh. By
Jove, no, it was no laughing matter for me! I saw the whole
thing in a flash, without a tremor, but with the direct depres­
sion from my own single point of view. Call it callous if you
like, Bunny, but remember that I was in much the same hole
as you’ve since been in yourself, and that I had counted on
W. F. Raffles even as you counted on A. J. I thought of the
man with the W. G. beard - the riderless horse with the
bloody saddle - the deliberate misdirection that had put me

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off the track and out of the way - and now the missing man­
ager and the report of bushrangers at this end. But I simply
don’t pretend to have felt any personal pity for a man whom I
had never seen; that kind of pity’s usually cant; and besides,
all mine was needed for myself.
‘1 was in as big a hole as ever. What the devil was I to do? I
doubt if I have sufficiently impressed upon you the absolute
necessity of my returning to Melbourne in funds. As a matter
of fact it was less the necessity than my own determination
which I can truthfully describe as absolute.
‘Money I would have - but how - but how? Would this
stranger be open to persuasion - if I told him the truth? No;
that would set us all scouring the country for the rest of the
night. Why should I tell him? Suppose I left him to find out
his mistake . . . would anything be gained? Bunny, I give you
my word that I went to dinner without a definite intention in
my head, or one premeditated lie upon my lips. I might do
the decent natural thing, and explain matters without loss of
time; on the other hand, there was no hurry. I had not
opened the letter, and could always pretend I had not noticed
the initials; meanwhile something might turn up. I could wait
a little and see. Tempted I already was, but as yet the tempta­
tion was vague, and its very vagueness made me tremble.
‘ “Bad news, I’m afraid,” said the manager, when at last I
sat down at his table.
‘ “A mere annoyance,” I answered - I do assure you - on
the spur of the moment and nothing else. But my lie was told;
my position was taken; from that moment onward there was
no retreat. By implication, without realising what I was
doing, I had already declared myself W. F. Raffles. There­
fore, W. F. Raffles I would be, in that bank, for that night.
And the devil teach me how to use my lie!’

Again he raised his glass to his lips -1 had forgotten mine.

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 RAFFLES

His cigarette-case caught the gaslight as he handed it to me. I

shook my head without taking my eyes from his.
‘The devil played up,’ continued Raffles, with a laugh.
‘Before I tasted my soup I had decided what to do. I had
determined to rob that bank instead of going to bed, and to
be back in Melbourne for breakfast if the doctor’s mare could
do it. I would tell the old fellow that I had missed my way and
been bushed for hours, as I easily might have been, and had
never got to Yea at all. At Yea, on the other hand, the person­
ation and robbery would ever after be attributed to a member
of the gang that had waylaid and murdered the new manager
with that very object. You are acquiring some experience in
such matters, Bunny. I ask you, was there ever a better get-
out? Last night’s was something like it, only never such a cer­
tainty. And I saw it from the beginning - saw to the end
before I had finished my soup!
‘To increase my chances, the cashier, who also lived in
the bank, was away over the holidays, had actually gone
down to Melbourne to see us play; and the man who had
taken my horse also waited at table; for he and his wife were
the only servants, and they slept in a separate building. You
may depend I ascertained this before we had finished
dinner. Indeed, I was by way of asking too many questions
(the most oblique and delicate was that which elicited my
host’s name, Ewbank), nor was I careful enough to conceal
their drift.
‘ “Do you know,” said this fellow Ewbank, who was one of
the downright sort, “if it wasn’t you, I should say you were in
a funk of robbers? Have you lost your nerve?”
‘ “I hope not,” said I, turning jolly hot, I can tell you; “but
- well, it’s not a pleasant thing to have to put a bullet through
a fellow!”
‘ “No?” said he, coolly. “I should enjoy nothing better,
myself; besides, yours didn’t go through.”
‘ “I wish it had!” I was smart enough to cry.
‘ “Amen!” said he.

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 RAFFLES

‘And I emptied my glass; actually I did not know whether

my wounded bank-robber was in prison, dead, or at large!
‘But, now that I had had more than enough of it, Ewbank
would come back to the subject. He admitted that the staff
was small; but as for himself, he had a loaded revolver under
his pillow all night, under the counter all day, and he was
only waiting for his chance.
‘ “Under the-counter, eh?” I was ass enough to say.
‘ “Yes; so had you!”
‘He was looking at me in surprise, and something told me
that to say “Of course - I had forgotten!” would have been
quite fatal, considering what I was supposed to have done. So
I looked down my nose and shook my head.
‘ “But the papers said you had!” he cried.
‘ “Not under the counter,” said I.
‘ “But it’s the regulation!”
‘For the moment, Bunny, I felt stumped, though I trust I
only looked more superior than before, and I think I justified
my look.
‘ “The regulation!” I said at length, in the most offensive
tone at my command. “Yes, the regulation would have us all
dead men! My dear sir, do you expect your bank-robber to let
you reach for your gun in the place where he knows it’s kept?
I had mine in my pocket, and I got my chance by retreating
from the counter with all visible reluctance.”
‘Ewbank stared at me with open eyes and a five-barred
forehead, then down came his fist on the table.
‘ “By God, that was smart! Still,” he added, like a man who
would not be in the wrong, “the papers said the other thing,
you know!”
‘ “Of course,” I rejoined, “because they said what I told
them. You wouldn’t have had me advertise the fact that I
improved upon the bank’s regulations, would you?”
‘So that cloud rolled over, and, by Jove, it was a cloud with
a golden lining! Not silver - real good Australian gold! For
old Ewbank hadn’t quite appreciated me till then; he was a

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hard nut, a much older man than myself, and I felt pretty sure
he thought me young for the place, and my supposed feat a
fluke. But I never saw a man change his mind more openly.
He got out his best brandy, he made me throw away the cigar
I was smoking, and opened a fresh box. He was a convivial-
looking party, with a red moustache, and a very humorous
face (not unlike Tom Emmett’s), and from that moment I
laid myself out to attack him on his convivial flank. But he
wasn’t a Rosenthall, Bunny, he had a treble-seamed, hand-
sewn head, and could have drunk me under the table ten
times over.
‘ “All right,” I thought, “you may go to bed sober, but
you’ll sleep like a timber-yard!” And I threw half he gave me
through the open window, when he wasn’t looking.
‘But he was a good chap, Ewbank, and don’t you imagine
he was at all intemperate. Convivial I called him, and I only
wish he had been something more. He did, however, become
more and more genial as the evening advanced, and I had not
much difficulty in getting him to show me round the bank at
what was really an unearthly hour for such a proceeding. It
was when he went to fetch the revolver before turning in. I
kept him out of his bed another twenty minutes, and I knew
every inch of the business premises before I shook hands with
Ewbank in my room.
‘You won’t guess what I did with myself for the next hour.
I undressed and went to bed. The incessant strain involved in
even the most deliberate impersonation is the most wearing
thing I know; then how much more so when the imperson­
ation is impromptu! There’s no getting your eye in; the next
word may bowl you out; it’s batting in a bad light all through.
I haven’t told you of half the tight places I was in during a
conversation that ran into hours and became dangerously
intimate towards the end. You can imagine them for yourself,
and then picture me spread out on my bed, getting my
second wind for the big deed of the night.
‘Once more I was in luck, for I had not been lying there

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long before I heard my dear Ewbank snoring like a harmo­

nium, and the music never ceased for a moment; it was as
loud as ever when I crept out and closed my door behind me,
as regular as ever when I stopped to listen at his. And I have
still to hear the concert that I shall enjoy much more. The
good fellow snored me out of the bank, and was still snoring
when I again stood and listened under his open window.
‘Why did I leave the bank first? To catch and saddle the
mare and tether her in a clump of trees close by - to have the
means of escape nice and handy before I went to work. I have
often wondered at the instinctive wisdom of the precaution;
unconsciously I was acting on what has been one of my guid­
ing principles ever since. Pains and patience were required: I
had to get my saddle without waking the man, and I was not
used to catching horses in a horse-paddock. Then I distrusted
the poor mare, and I went back to the stables for a hatful of
oats, which I left with her in the clump, hat and all. There was
a dog, too, to reckon with (our very worst enemy, Bunny); but
I had been ’cute enough to make immense friends with him
during the evening; and he wagged his tail, not only when I
came downstairs, but when I reappeared at the back door.
‘As the soi-disant new manager, I had been able, in the most
ordinary course, to pump poor Ewbank about anything and
everything connected with the working of the bank, espe­
cially in those twenty last invaluable minutes before turning
in. And I had made a very natural point of asking him where
he kept, and would recommend me to keep, the keys at night.
Of course, I thought he would take them with him to his
room; but no such thing; he had a dodge worth two of that.
What it was doesn’t much matter, but no outsider would have
found those keys in a month of Sundays.
‘I, of course, had them in a few seconds, and in a few more
I was in the strong-room itself. I forgot to say that the moon
had risen and was letting quite a lot of fight into the bank. I
had, however, brought a bit of candle with me from my
room; and in the strong-room, which was down some narrow

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stairs behind the counter in the banking chamber, I had no

hesitation in lighting it. There was no window down there,
and though I could no longer hear old Ewbank snoring, I had
not the slightest reason to anticipate disturbance from that
quarter. I did think of locking myself in while I was at work,
but, thank goodness, the iron door had no keyhole on the
inside.
‘Well, there was heaps of gold in the safe, but I only took
what I needed and could comfortably carry, not much more
than a couple of hundred altogether. Not a note would I
touch, and my native caution came out also in the way I
divided the sovereigns between all my pockets, and packed
them up so that I shouldn’t be like the old woman of Banbury
Cross. Well, you think me too cautious still, but I was
insanely cautious then. And so it was that, just as I was ready
to go, whereas I might have been gone ten minutes, there
came a violent knocking at the outer door.
‘Bunny, it was the outer door of the banking chamber! My
candle must have been seen! And there I stood, with the
grease running hot over my fingers, in that brick grave of a
strong-room!
‘There was only one thing to be done. I must trust to the
sound sleeping of Ewbank upstairs, open the door myself,
knock the visitor down, or shoot him with the revolver I had
been new chum enough to buy before leaving Melbourne,
and make a dash for that clump of trees and the doctor’s
mare. My mind was made up in an instant, and I was at the
top of the strong-room stairs, the knocking still continuing,
when a second sound drove me back. It was the sound of bare
feet coming along a corridor.
‘My narrow stair was stone. I tumbled down it with little
noise, and had only to push open the iron door, for I had left
the keys in the safe. As I did so I heard a handle turn over­
head, and thanked my gods that I had shut every single door
behind me. You see, old chap, one’s caution doesn’t always
let one in!

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‘ “Who’s that knocking?” said Ewbank, up above.

‘I could not make out the answer, but it sounded to me like
the irrelevant supplication of a spent man. What I did hear
plainly was the cocking of the bank revolver before the bolts
were shot back. Then, a tottering step, a hard, short, shallow
breathing, and Ewbank’s voice in horror:
‘ “Good Lord! What’s happened to you? You’re bleeding
like a pig!”
‘ “Not now,” came with a grateful sort of sigh.
‘ “But you have been! What’s done it?”
‘ “Bushrangers.”
‘ “Down the road?”
‘ “This and Whittlesea - tied to tree - cock-shots - left me
- bleed to death. .. .”
‘The weak voice failed, and the bare feet bolted. Now was
my time - if the poor devil had fainted. But I could not be
sure, and there I crouched down below in the dark, at the
half-shut iron door, not less spellbound than imprisoned. It
was just as well, for Ewbank wasn’t gone a minute.
‘ “Drink this,” I heard him say, and, when the other spoke
again his voice was stronger.
‘ “Now I begin to feel alive.”
‘ “Don’t talk!”
‘ “It does me good. You don’t know what it was, all those
miles alone, one an hour at the outside! I never thought I
should come through. You must let me tell you - in case I
don’t!”
* “Well, have another sip.”
‘ “Thank you.... I said bushrangers; of course there are no
such things nowadays.”
‘ “What were they, then?”
‘ “Bank thieves; the one that had the pot-shots was the very
brute I drove out of the bank at Coburg, with a bullet in
him!” ’
‘I knew it!’
‘Of course you did, Bunny; so did I, down in that strong­

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room; but old Ewbank didn’t, and I thought he was never

going to speak again.
* “You’re delirious,” he says at last. “Who in blazes do you
think you are?”
‘ “The new manager.”
‘ “The new manager’s in bed and asleep upstairs I”
‘ “When did he arrive?”
‘ “This evening.”
‘ “Call himself Raffles?”
‘ “Yes.”
‘ “Well, I’m damned!” whispered the real man. “I thought
it was just revenge, but now I see what it was. My dear sir, the
man upstairs is an impostor - if he’s upstairs still! He must be
one of the gang. He’s going to rob the bank - if he hasn’t
done so already!”
‘ “If he hasn’t done so already,” muttered Ewbank after
him; “if he’s upstairs still! By God, if he is I’m sorry for him!”
‘His tone was quiet enough, but about the nastiest I ever
heard. I tell you. Bunny, I was glad I’d brought that revolver.
It looked as though it must be mine against his, muzzle to
muzzle.
‘ “Better have a look down here, first,” said the new manager.
‘ “While he gets through his window? No, no, he’s not
down here.”
‘ “It’s easy to have a look.”
‘Bunny, if you ask me what was the most thrilling moment
of my infamous career, I say it was that moment. There I
stood at the bottom of those narrow stone stairs, inside the
strong-room, with the door a good foot open, and I didn’t
know whether it would creak or not. The light was coming
nearer - and I didn’t know! I had to chance it. And it didn’t
creak a bit; it was far too solid and well-hung; and I couldn’t
have banged it if I’d tried, it was too heavy, and it fitted so
close that I felt and heard the air squeeze out in my face.
Every shred of light went out, except the streak underneath,
and it brightened. How I blessed that door!

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‘ “No, he’s not down there,” I heard, as though through

cotton-wool; then the streak went out too, and in a few sec­
onds I ventured to open once more, and was in time to hear
them creeping to my room.
‘Well, now, there was not a fifth of a second to be lost, but
I’m proud to say I came up those stairs on my toes and fin­
gers, and out of that bank (they’d gone and left the door
open) just as gingerly as though my time had been my own. I
didn’t even forget to put on the hat that the doctor’s mare
was eating her oats out of, as well as she could with a bit, or it
alone would have landed me. I didn’t even gallop away, but
just jogged off quietly in the thick dust at the side of the road
(though I own my heart was galloping), and thanked my stars
the bank was at that end of the township, in which I really
hadn’t set foot. The very last thing I heard was the two man­
agers raising Cain and the coach man. And now, Bunny -’
He stood up and stretched himself, with a smile that ended
in a yawn. The black windows had faded through every shade
of indigo; they now framed their opposite neighbours, stark
and livid in the dawn; and the gas seemed turned to nothing
in the globes.
‘But that’s not all?’ I cried.
‘I’m sorry to say it is,’ said Raffles apologetically. ‘The
thing should have ended with an exciting chase I know, but
somehow it didn’t. I suppose they thought I had got no end
of a start; then they had made up their minds that I belonged
to the gang, which was not so many miles away; and one of
them had got as much as he could carry from that gang as it
was. But I wasn’t to know all that, and I’m bound to say that
there was plenty of excitement left for me. Lord, how I made
that poor brute travel when I got among the trees! Though
we must have been well over fifty miles from Melbourne, we
had done it at a snail’s pace; and those stolen oats had brisked
the old girl up to such a pitch that she fairly bolted when she
felt her nose turned south. By Jove, it was no joke, in and out
among those trees, and under branches with your face in the

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mane! I told you about the forest of dead gums? It looked

perfectly ghostly in the moonlight. And I found it as still as I
had left it - so still that I pulled up there, my first halt, and
lay with my ear to the ground for two or three minutes. But I
heard nothing - not a thing but the mare’s bellows and my
own heart. I’m sorry, Bunny; but if ever you write my mem­
oirs, you won’t have any difficulty in working up that chase.
Play those dead gum-trees for all they’re worth, and let the
bullets fly like hail. I’ll turn round in my saddle to see
Ewbank coming up hell-to-leather in his white suit, and I’ll
duly paint it red. Do it in the third person, and they won’t
know how it’s going to end.’
‘But I don’t know myself,’ I complained. ‘Did the mare
carry you all the way back to Melbourne?’
‘Every rod, pole, or perch! I had her well seen to at our
hotel, and returned her to the doctor in the evening. He was
tremendously tickled to hear I had been bushed; next morn­
ing he brought me the paper, to show me what I had escaped
at Yea!’
‘Without suspecting anything?’
‘Ah!’ said Raffles, as he put out the gas; ‘that’s a point on
which I’ve never made up my mind. The mare and her colour
was a coincidence — luckily she was only a bay - and I fancy
the condition of the beast must have told a tale. The doctor’s
manner was certainly different. I’m inclined to think he sus­
pected something, though not the right thing. I wasn’t
expecting him, and I fear my appearance may have increased
his suspicions.’
I asked him why.
‘I used to have rather a heavy moustache,’ said Raffles, ‘but
I lost it the day after I lost my innocence.’

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 CHAPTER V

Wilful Murder

Of the various robberies in which we were both con­

cerned, it is but the few, I find, that will bear telling at any
length. Not that the others contained details which even I
would hesitate to recount; it is, rather, the very absence of
untoward incident which renders them useless for my present
purpose. In point of fact our plans were so craftily laid (by
Raffles) that the chances of a hitch were invariably reduced to
a minimum before we went to work. We might be disap­
pointed in the market value of our haul; but it was quite the
exception for us to find ourselves confronted by unforeseen
impediments, or involved in a really dramatic dilemma.
There was a sameness, even in our spoil; for, of course, only
the most precious stones are worth the trouble we took and
the risks we ran. In short, our most successful escapades
would prove the greatest weariness of all in narrative form;
and none more so than the dull affair of the Ardagh emeralds,
some eight or nine weeks after the Milchester cricket week.
The former, however, had a sequel that I would rather forget
than all our burglaries put together.
It was the evening after our return from Ireland, and I was
waiting at my rooms for Raffles, who had gone off as usual to
dispose of the plunder. Raffles had his own method of con­
ducting this very vital branch of our business, which I was
well content to leave entirely in his hands. He drove the bar­
gains, I believe, in a thin but subtle disguise of the flashy-
seedy order, and always in the Cockney dialect of which he
had made himself a master. Moreover, he invariably

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employed the same ‘fence,’ who was ostensibly a money­

lender in a small (but yet notorious) way, and in reality a
rascal as remarkable as Raffles himself. Only lately I also had
been to the man, but in my proper person. We had needed
capital for the getting of these very emeralds, and I had raised
a hundred pounds, on the terms you would expect from a
soft-spoken greybeard with an ingratiating smile, an incessant
bow, and the shiftiest old eyes that ever flew from rim to rim
of a pair of spectacles. So the original sinews and the final
spoils of war came in this case from the self-same source - a
circumstance which appealed to us both.
But these same final spoils I was still to see, and I waited
and waited with an impatience that grew upon me with the
growing dusk. At my open window I had played Sister Ann
until the faces in the street below were no longer distinguish­
able. And now I was tearing to and fro in the grip of horrible
hypothesis - a grip that tightened when at last the lift-gates
opened with a clatter outside - that held me breathless until a
well-known tattoo followed on my door.
‘In the dark!’ said Raffles, as I dragged him in. ‘Why,
Bunny, what’s wrong?’
‘Nothing - now you’ve come,’ said I, shutting the door
behind him in a fever of relief and anxiety. ‘Well? Well?
What did they fetch?’
‘Five hundred.’
‘Down?’
‘Got it in my pocket.’
‘Good man!’ I cried. ‘You don’t know what a stew I’ve
been in. I’ll switch on the light. I’ve been thinking of you and
nothing else for the last hour. I - I was ass enough to think
something had gone wrong!’
Raffles was smiling when the white light filled die room, but
for the moment I did not perceive the peculiarity of his smile. I
was fatuously full of my own late tremors and present relief, and
my first idiotic act was to spill some whisky and squirt the soda-
water all over in my anxiety to do instant justice to the occasion.

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‘So you thought something had happened?’ said Raffles,

leaning back in my chair as he lit a cigarette and looking
much amused. ‘What should you say if something had? Sit
tight, my dear chap! It was nothing of the slightest conse­
quence, and it’s all over now. A stern chase and a long one,
Bunny, but I think I’m well to windward this time.’
And suddenly I saw that his collar was limp, his hair
matted, his boots thick with dust.
‘The police?’ I whispered aghast.
‘Oh dear, no; only old Baird.’
‘Baird! But wasn’t it Baird who took the emeralds?’
‘It was.’
‘Then how came he to chase you?’
‘My dear fellow, I’ll tell you if you give me a chance; it’s
really nothing to get in the least excited about. Old Baird has
at last spotted that I’m not quite the common cracksman I
would have him think me. So he’s been doing his best to run
me to my burrow.’
‘And you call that nothing!’
‘It would be something if he had succeeded; but he has still
to do that. I admit, however, that he made me sit up for the
time being. It all comes of going on the job so far from home.
There was the old brute with the whole thing in his morning
paper. He knew it must have been done by some fellow who
could pass himself off for a gentleman, and I saw his eye­
brows go up the moment I told him I was the man, with the
same old twang that you could cut with a paper-knife. I did
my best to get out of it - swore I had a pal who was a real
swell - but I saw very plainly that I had given myself away.
He gave up haggling. He paid my price as though he enjoyed
doing it. But I felt him following me when I made tracks -
though, of course, I didn’t turn round to see.’
‘Why not?’
‘My dear Bunny, it’s the very worst thing you can do. As
long as you look unsuspecting they’ll keep their distance, and
so long as they keep their distance you stand a chance. Once

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show that you know you’re being followed, and it’s flight or
fight for all you’re worth. I never even looked round; and
mind you never do in the same hole. I just hurried up to
Blackfriars and booked for High Street, Kensington, at the
top of my voice; and as the train was leaving Sloane Square
out I hopped, and up all those stairs like a lamplighter, and
round to the studio by the back streets. Well, to be on the
safe side, I lay low there all the afternoon, hearing nothing in
the least suspicious, and only wishing I had a window to look
through instead of that beastly skylight. However, the coast
seemed clear enough, and thus far it was my mere idea that
he would follow me; there was nothing to show he had. So at
last I marched out in my proper rig - almost straight into old
Baird’s arms!’
‘What on earth did you do?’
‘Walked past him as though I had never set eyes on him in
my life, and didn’t then; took a hansom in the King’s Road,
and drove like the deuce to Clapham Junction; rushed on to
the nearest platform, without a ticket, jumped into the first
train I saw, got out at Twickenham, walked full tilt back to
Richmond, took the District to Charing Cross, and here I
am! Ready for tub and a change, and the best dinner the club
can give us. I came to you first, because I thought you might
be getting anxious. Come round with me, and I won’t keep
you long.’
‘You’re certain you’ve given him the slip?’ I said, as we put
on our hats.
‘Certain enough; but we can make assurance doubly sure,’
said Raffles, and went to my window where he stood for a
minute or two looking down into the street.
‘All right?’ I asked him.
‘All right,’ said he; and we went downstairs forthwith, and
so to the Albany arm-in-arm.
But we were both rather silent on the way. I, for my part,
was wondering what Raffles would do about the studio in
Chelsea, whither, air all events, he had been successfully

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dogged. To me the point seemed one of immediate impor­

tance, but when I mentioned it he said there was time enough
to think about that. His one other remark was made after we
had nodded (in Bond Street) to a young blood of our
acquaintance who happened to be getting himself a bad
name.
‘Poor Jack Rutter!’ said Raffles, with a sigh. ‘Nothing’s
sadder than to see a fellow going to the bad like that. He’s
about mad with drink and debt; did you see his eye? Odd that
we should have met him to-night, by the way; it’s old Baird
who’s said to have skinned him. I’ve a jolly good mind to skin
old Baird!’
And his tone took a sudden low fury, made the more
noticeable by another long silence, which lasted, indeed,
throughout an admirable dinner at the club, and for some
time after we had settled down in a quiet comer of the smok­
ing-room with our coffee and cigars. Then at last I saw Raf­
fles looking at me with his lazy smile, and I knew that the
morose fit was at an end.
‘I daresay you wonder what I’ve been thinking about all
this time?’ said he. ‘I’ve been thinking what rot it is to go
doing things by halves!’
‘Well,’ said I, returning his smile, ‘that’s not a charge that
you can bring against yourself, is it?’
‘I’m not so sure,’ said Raffles, blowing a meditative puff; ‘as
a matter of fact, I was thinking less of myself than of that
poor devil of a Jack Rutter. There’s a fellow who does things
by halves; he’s only half gone to the bad; and look at the dif­
ference between him and us! He’s under the thumb of a vil­
lainous money-lender; we are solvent citizens. He’s taken to
drink; we’re as sober as we are solvent. His pals are beginning
to cut him; our difficulty is to keep the pal from the door.
Enfin, he begs or borrows, which is stealing by halves; and we
steal outright and are done with it. Obviously ours is the
more honest course. Yet I’m not sure Bunny, but we’re doing
the thing by halves ourselves!’

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 RAFFLES

‘Why? What more could we do?’ I exclaimed in soft deri­

sion, looking round, however, to make sure that we were not
overheard.
‘What more?’ said Raffles. ‘Well, murder - for one thing.’
‘Rot!’
‘A matter of opinion, my dear Bunny; I don’t mean it for
rot. I’ve told you before that the biggest man alive is the man
who’s committed a murder, and not yet been found out; at
least he ought to be but he so very seldom has the soul to
appreciate himself. Just think of it! Think of coming here and
talking to the men, very likely about the murder itself; and
knowing you’ve done it; and wondering how they’d look if
they knew! Oh, it would be great, simply great! But besides
all that, when you were caught, there’d be a merciful and dra­
matic end of you. You’d fill the bill for a few weeks, and then
snuff out with a flourish of extra-specials; you wouldn’t rust
with a vile repose for seven or fourteen years.’
‘Good old Raffles!’ I chuckled. ‘I begin to forgive you for
being in bad form at dinner.’
‘But I was never more earnest in my life.’
‘Go on!’
‘I mean it.’
‘You know very well that you wouldn’t commit a murder,
whatever else you might do.’
‘I know very well I’m going to commit one to-night!’
He had been leaning back in the saddle-bag chair, watch­
ing me with keen eyes sheathed by languid lids; now he
started forward, and his eyes leapt to mine like cold steel
from the scabbard. They struck home to my slow wits; their
meaning was no longer in doubt. I, who knew the man, read
murder in his clenched hands, and murder in his locked lips,
but a hundred murders in those hard blue eyes.
‘Baird?’ I faltered, moistening my Bps with my tongue.
‘Of course.’
‘But you said it didn’t matter about the room in Chelsea?’
‘I told a lie.’

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‘Anyway you gave him the slip afterwards!’

‘That was another. I didn’t. I thought I had when I came
up to you this evening; but when I looked out of your
window - you remember? to make assurance doubly sure -
there he was on the opposite pavement down below.’
‘And you never said a word about it!’
‘I wasn’t going to spoil your dinner, Bunny, and I wasn’t
going to let you spoil mine. But there he was as large as life,
and, of course, he followed us to the Albany. A fine game for
him to play, a game after his mean old heart: blackmail for
me, bribes from the police, the one bidding against the other;
but he sha’n’t play it with me, he sha’n’t live to, and the world
will have an extortioner the less. — Waiter! Two Scotch
whiskies and sodas. - I’m off at eleven, Bunny; it’s the only
thing to be done.’
‘You know where he lives, then?’
‘Yes, out Willesden way, and alone; the fellow’s a miser
among other things. I long ago found out all about him.’
Again I looked round the room; it was a young man’s club,
and young men were laughing, chatting, smoking, drinking,
on every hand. One nodded to me through the smoke. Like a
machine I nodded to him, and turned back to Raffles with a
groan.
‘Surely you will give him a chance!’ I urged. ‘The very
sight of your pistol should bring him to terms.’
‘It wouldn’t make him keep them.’
‘But you might try the effect?’
‘I probably shall. Here’s a drink for you, Bunny. Wish me
luck.’
‘I’m coming too.’
‘I don’t want you.’
‘But I must come!’
An ugly gleam shot from the steel-blue eyes.
‘To interfere?’ said Raffles.
‘Not I.’
‘You give me your word?’

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 RAFFLES

‘I do.’
‘Bunny, if you break it
‘You may shoot me too!’
‘I most certainly should,’ said Raffles solemnly. ‘So you
come at your own peril, my dear man; but if you are coming -
well, the sooner the better, for I must stop at my rooms on
the way.’
Five minutes later I was waiting for him at the Piccadilly
entrance to the Albany. I had a reason for remaining outside.
It was the feeling - half hope, half fear - that Angus Baird
might still be on our trail - that some more immediate and
less cold-blooded way of dealing with him might result from
a sudden encounter between the money-lender and myself. I
would not warn him of his danger; but I would avert tragedy
at all costs. And when no such encounter had taken place, and
Raffles and I were fairly on our way to Willesden, that, I
think, was still my honest resolve. I would not break my word
if I could help it, but it was a comfort to feel that I could
break it if I liked, on an understood penalty. Alas! I fear my
good intentions were tainted with a devouring curiosity, and
overlaid by the fascination which goes hand in hand with
horror.
I have a poignant recollection of the hour it took us to
reach the house. We walked across St. James’s Park (I can see
the lights now, bright on the bridge and blurred on the
water), and we had some minutes to wait for the last train to
Willesden. It left at 11.21, I remember, and Raffles was put
out to find it did not go on to Kensal Rise. We had to get out
at Willesden Junction and walk on through the streets into
fairly open country that happened to be quite new to me. I
could never find the house again. I remember, however, that
we were on a dark footpath between woods and fields when
the clocks began striking twelve.
‘Surely,’ said I, ‘we shall find him in bed, and asleep?’
‘I hope we do,’ said Raffles grimly.
‘Then you mean to break in?’

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 RAFFLES

‘What else did you think?’

I had not thought about it at all; the ultimate crime had
monopolised my mind. Beside it burglary was a bagatelle, but
one to deprecate none the less. I saw obvious objections; the
man was au fait with cracksmen and their ways, he would cer­
tainly have firearms, and might be the first to use them.
‘I could wish nothing better,’ said Raffles. ‘Then it will be
man to man, and devil take the worst shot. You don’t suppose
I prefer foul play to fair, do you? But die he must, by one or
the other, or it’s a long stretch for you and me.’
‘Better that than this!’
‘Then stay where you are, my good fellow. I told you I
didn’t want you; and this is the house. So good-night.’
I could see no house at all, only the angle of a high wall
rising solitary in the night, with the starlight glittering on
battlements of broken glass; and in the wall a tall green gate,
bristling with spikes, and showing a front for battering-rams
in the feeble rays of an out lying lamp-post cast across the
new-made road. It seemed to me a road of building sites, with
but this one house built, all by itself, at one end; but the night
was too dark for more than a mere impression.
Raffles, however, had seen the place by daylight, and had
come prepared for the special obstacles; already he was reach­
ing up and putting champagne corks on the spikes, and in
another moment he had his folded covert coat across the
corks. I stepped back as he raised himself, and saw a little
pyramid of slates snip the sky above the gate; as he squirmed
over I ran forward, and had my own weight on the spikes and
corks and covert coat when he gave the latter a tug.
‘Coming after all?’
‘Rather!’
‘Take care, then; the place is all bell-wires and springs. It’s
no soft spring, this! There - stand still while I take off the
corks.’
The garden was very small and new, with a grass-plot still
in separate sods, but a quantity of full-grown laurels stuck

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 RAFFLES

into the raw clay beds. ‘Bells in themselves,’ Raffles whis­

pered; ‘there’s nothing else rustles so - cunning old beast!’
And we gave them a wide berth as we crept across the grass.
‘He’s gone to bed!’
‘I don’t think so, Bunny. I believe he’s seen us.’
‘Why?’
‘I saw a light.’
‘Where?’
‘Downstairs, for an instant, when I -’
His whisper died away; he had seen the light again, and so
had I.
It lay like a golden rod under the front door - and vanished.
It reappeared like a gold thread under the lintel - and vanished
for good. We heard the stairs creak, creak, and cease, also for
good. We neither saw nor heard any more, though we stood
waiting on the grass till our feet were soaked with the dew.
‘I’m going in,’ said Raffles at last. ‘I don’t believe he saw us
at all. I wish he had. This way.’
We trod gingerly on the path, but the gravel stuck to our
wet soles, and grated horribly in a little tiled verandah with a
glass door leading within. It was through this glass that Raf­
fles had first seen the light; and he now proceeded to take out
a pane, with the diamond, the pot of treacle, and the sheet of
brown paper which were seldom omitted from his impedi­
menta. Nor did he dispense with my own assistance, though
he may have accepted it as instinctively as it was proffered. In
any case it was these fingers that helped to spread the treacle
on the brown paper, and pressed the latter to the glass until
the diamond had completed its circuit and the pane fell
gently back into our hands.
Raffles now inserted his hand, turned the key in the lock,
and, by making a long arm, succeeded in drawing the bolt at
the bottom of the door; it proved to be the only one, and the
door opened, though not very wide.
‘What’s that?’ said Raffles, as something crunched beneath
his feet on the very threshold.

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‘A pair of spectacles,’ I whispered, picking them up. I was

still fingering the broken lenses and the bent rims when Raf­
fles tripped and almost fell, with a gasping cry that he made
no effort to restrain.
‘Hush, man, hush!’ I entreated under my breath. ‘He’ll
hear you!’
For answer his teeth chattered - even his - and I heard him
fumbling with his matches.
‘No, Bunny; he won’t hear us,’ whispered Raffles presently,
and he rose from his knees and lit a gas as the match burnt
down.
Angus Baird was lying on his own floor, dead, with his grey
hairs glued together by his blood; near him a poker with the
black end glistening; in a corner his desk, ransacked, littered.
A clock ticked noisily on the chimneypiece, for perhaps a
hundred seconds there was no other sound.
Raffles stood very still, staring down at the dead, as a man
might stare into an abyss after striding blindly to its brink.
His breath came audibly through wide nostrils; he made no
other sign, and his lips seemed sealed.
‘That light!’ said I hoarsely; ‘the light we saw under the
door!’
With a start he turned to me.
‘It’s true. I had forgotten it. It was in here I saw it first!’
‘He must be upstairs still!’
‘If he is we’ll soon rout him out. Come on!’
Instead I laid a hand upon his arm, imploring him to reflect
- that his enemy was dead now - that we should certainly be
involved - that now or never was our own time to escape. He
shook me off in a sudden fury of impatience, a reckless con­
tempt in his eyes, and, bidding me save my own skin if I liked,
he once more turned his back upon me, and this time left me
half resolved to take him at his word. Had he forgotten on
what errand he himself was here? Was he determined that
this night should end in black disaster? As I asked myself
these questions his match flared in the hall; in another

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moment the stairs were creaking under his feet, even as they
had creaked under those of the murderer; and the humane
instinct that inspired him in defiance of his risk was borne in
also upon my slower sensibilities. Could we let the murderer
go? My answer was to bound up the creaking stairs and to
overhaul Raffles on the landing.
But three doors presented themselves: the first opened into
a bedroom with the bed turned down but undisturbed; the
second room was empty in every sense; the third door was
locked.
Raffles fit the landing gas.
‘He’s in there,’ said he, cocking his revolver. ‘Do you
remember how we used to break into the studies at school?
Here goes!’
His flat foot crashed over the keyhole, the lock gave, the
door flew open, and in the sudden draught the landing gas
heeled over like a cobble in a squall; as the flame righted itself
I saw a fixed bath, two bath-towels knotted together - an
open window - a cowering figure - and Raffles struck aghast
on the threshold.
‘Jack - Rutter?’
The words came thick and slow with horror, and in horror
I heard myself repeating them, while the cowering figure by
the bathroom window rose gradually erect.
‘It’s you!’ he whispered, in amazement no less than our
own; ‘it’s you two! What’s it mean, Raffles? I saw you get
over the gate; a bell rang, the place is full of them. Then you
broke in? What’s it all mean?’
‘We may tell you that when you tell us what in God’s name
you’ve done, Rutter!’
‘Done? What have I done?’ The unhappy wretch came out
into the light with bloodshot, blinking eyes, and a bloody
shirt-front. ‘You know - you’ve seen - but I’ll tell you if you
like. I’ve killed a robber; that’s all. I’ve killed a robber, a
usurer, a jackal, a blackmailer, the cleverest and the cruellest
villain unhung. I’m ready to hang for him. I’d kill him again!’

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And he looked us fiercely in the face, a fine defiance in his

dissipated eyes; his breast heaving, his jaw like a rock.
‘Shall I tell you how it happened?’ he went passionately on.
‘He’s made my life a hell these weeks and months past. You
may know that. A perfect hell! Well, to-night I met him in
Bond Street. Do you remember when I met you fellows? He
wasn’t twenty yards behind you; he was on your tracks, Raf­
fles; he saw me nod to you, and stopped me and asked me who
you were. He seemed as keen as knives to know, I couldn’t
think why, and didn’t care either, for I saw my chance. I said
I’d tell him all about you if he’d give me a private interview.
He said he wouldn’t. I said he should, and held him by the
coat; by the time I let him go you were out of sight, and I
waited where I was till he came back in despair. I had the whip
hand of him then. I could dictate where the interview should
be, and I made him take me home with him, still swearing to
tell him all about you when we’d had our talk. Well, when we
got here I made him give me something to eat, putting him
off and off; and about ten o’clock I heard the gate shut. I
waited a bit, and then asked him if he lived alone.
‘Not at all,’ says he; ‘did you not see the servant?’
I said I’d seen her, but I thought I heard her go; if I was
mistaken no doubt she will come when she was called; and I
yelled three times at the top of my voice. Of course there was
no servant to come. I knew that, because I came to see him
one night last week, and he interviewed me himself through
the gate, but wouldn’t open it. Well, when I had done yelling,
and not a soul had come near us, he was as white as that ceil­
ing. Then I told him we could have our chat at last; and I
picked the poker out of the fender, and told him how he’d
robbed me, but by God he shouldn’t rob me any more. I gave
him three minutes to write and sign a settlement of all his
iniquitous claims against me, or have his brains beaten out
over his own carpet. He thought a minute, and then went to
his desk for pen and paper. In two seconds he was round like
lightning with a revolver, and I went for him bald-headed.

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He fired two or three times and missed - you can find the
holes if you like; but I hit him every time - my God! I was
like a savage till the thing was done. And then I didn’t care. I
went through his desk looking for my own bills, and was
coming away when you turned up. I said I didn’t care, nor do
I; but I was going to give myself up to-night, and shall still; so
you see I sha’n’t give you fellows much trouble!’
He was done; and there we stood on the landing of the
lonely house, the low, thick, eager voice still racing and ring­
ing through our ears; the dead man below and in front of us
his impenitent slayer. I knew to whom the impenitence would
appeal when he had heard the story, and I was not mistaken.
‘That’s all rot,’ said Raffles, speaking after a pause ‘we
sha’n’t let you give yourself up.’
‘You sha’n’t stop me! What would be the good? The
woman saw me; it would only be a question of time; and I
can’t face waiting to be taken. Think of it: waiting for them
to touch you on the shoulder! No, no, no; I’ll give myself up
and get it over.’
His speech was changed; he faltered, floundered. It was as
though a clearer perception of his position had come with the
bare idea of escape from it.
‘But listen to me,’ urged Raffles. ‘We’re here at our peril
ourselves. We broke in like thieves to enforce redress for a
grievance like your own. But don’t you see? We took out a
pane — did the thing like regular burglars. We shall get the
credit of all the rest!’
‘You mean that I sha’n’t be suspected?’
‘I do.’
‘But I don’t want to get off scot-free,’ cried Rutter hysteri­
cally. ‘I’ve killed him. I know that. But it was in self-defence;
it wasn’t murder. I must own up and take the consequences. I
shall go mad if I don’t.’ His hands twitched; his lips quivered;
the tears were in his eyes. Raffles took him roughly by the
shoulder.
‘Look here, you fool! If the three of us are caught here

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now, do you know what those consequences would be? We

should swing in a row at Newgate in six weeks’ time! You talk
as though we were sitting in a club; don’t you know it’s one
o’clock in the morning, and the lights on, and a dead man
down below? For God’s sake pull yourself together, and do
what I tell you, or you’re a dead man yourself.’
‘I wish I was one!’ Rutter sobbed. ‘I wish I had his revolver;
I’d blow my own brains out. It’s somewhere under him! O
my God, my God!’
His knees knocked together; the frenzy of reaction was at
its height. We had to take him downstairs between us, and so
through the front door out into the open air.
All was still outside - all but the smothered weeping of the
unstrung wretch upon our hands. Raffles returned for a
moment to the house; then all was dark as well. The gate
opened from within; we closed it carefully behind us; and so
left the "starlight shining on broken glass and polished spikes,
one and all as we had found them.
We escaped; no need to dwell on our escape. Our mur­
derer seemed set upon the scaffold: drunk with his deed, he
was more trouble than six men drunk with wine. Again and
again we threatened to leave him to his fate, to wash our
hands of him. But incredible and unmerited luck was with the
three of us. Not a soul did we meet between that and Willes-
den; and of those who saw us later, did one think of the two
young men with crooked white ties, supporting a third in a
seemingly unmistakable condition, when the evening papers
apprised the town of a terrible tragedy at Kensal Rise?
We walked to Maida Vale, and thence drove openly to my
rooms. But I alone went upstairs; the other two proceeded to
the Albany, and I saw no more of Raffles for forty-eight
hours. He was not at his rooms when I called in the morning,
he had left no word. When he reappeared the papers were
full of the murder; and the man who had committed it was on
the wide Atlantic, a steerage passenger from Liverpool to
New York.

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‘There was no arguing with him,’ so Raffles told me;

‘either he must make a clean breast of it or flee the country.
So I rigged him up at the studio, and we took the first train to
Liverpool. Nothing would induce him to sit tight and enjoy
the situation as I should have endeavoured to do in his place;
and it’s just as well! I went to his diggings to destroy same
papers, and what do you think I found? The police in posses­
sion; there’s a warrant out against him already! The idiots
think that window wasn’t genuine, and the warrant’s out. It
won’t be my fault if it’s ever served!’
Nor, after all these years, can I think it will be mine.

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 CHAPTER VI

Nine Points of the Law

‘Well,’ said Raffles, ‘what do you make of it?’

I read the advertisement once more before replying. It was
in the last column of the Daily Telegraph, and it ran:
‘Two Thousand Pounds Reward. - The above sum may be
earned by any one qualified to undertake delicate mission and
prepared to run certain risk. - Apply by telegram, Security,
London.’
‘I think,’ said I, ‘it’s the most extraordinary advertisement
that ever got into print!’ Raffles smiled. ‘Not quite all that,
Bunny, still, extraordinary enough, I grant you.’
‘Look at the figure!’
‘It is certainly large.’
‘And the mission - and the risk!’
‘Yes; the combination is frank, to say the least of it. But the
really original point is requiring applications by telegram to a
telegraphic address! There’s something in the fellow who
thought of that, and something in his game; with one word
he chokes off the million who answer an advertisement every
day - when they can raise the stamp. My answer cost me five
bob; but then I prepaid another.’
‘You don’t mean to say that you’ve applied?’
‘Rather,’ said Raffles. ‘I want two thousand pounds as
much as any man.’
‘Put your own name?’
‘Well - no, Bunny, I didn’t. In point of fact, I smell some­
thing interesting and illegal, and you know what a cautious
chap I am. I signed myself Glasspool, care of Hickey, 38

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Conduit Street; that’s my tailor, and after sending the wire I

went round and told him what to expect. He promised to
send the reply along the moment it came. I shouldn’t be sur­
prised if that’s it!’
And he was gone before a double knock on the outer door
had done ringing through the rooms, to return next minute
with an open telegram and a face full of news.
‘What do you think?’ said he. ‘Security’s that fellow
Addenbrooke, the police-court lawyer, and he wants to see
me instanter!’
‘Do you know him, then?’
‘Merely by repute. I only hope he doesn’t know me. He’s
the chap who got six weeks for sailing too close to the wind in
the Sutton-Wilmer case; everybody wondered why he wasn’t
struck off the rolls. Instead of that he’s got a first-rate prac­
tice on the seamy side, and every blackguard with half a case
takes it straight to Bennett Addenbrooke. He’s probably the
one man who would have the cheek to put in an advertise­
ment like that, and the one man who could do it without
exciting suspicion. It’s simply in his line; but you may be sure
there’s something shady at the bottom of it. The odd thing is
that I have long made up my mind to go to Addenbrooke
myself if accidents should happen.’
‘And you’re going to him now?’
‘This minute,’ said Raffles, brushing his hat; ‘and so are
you.’
‘But I came in to drag you out to lunch.’
‘You shall lunch with me when we’ve seen this fellow.
Come on, Bunny, and we’ll choose your name on the way.
Mine’s Glasspool, and don’t you forget it.’
Mr. Bennett Addenbrooke occupied substantial offices in
Wellington Street, Strand, and was out when we arrived; but
he had only just gone ‘over the way to the court;’ and five
minutes sufficed to produce a brisk, fresh-coloured, resolute­
looking man, with a very confident, rather festive air, and
black eyes that opened wide at the sight of Raffles.

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‘Mr. - Glasspool?’ exclaimed the lawyer.

‘My name,’ said Raffles with dry effrontery.
‘Not up at Lord’s, however!’ said the other slyly. ‘My dear
sir, I have seen you take far too many wickets to make any
mistake!’
For a single moment Raffles looked venomous; then he
shrugged and smiled, and the smile grew into a little cynical
chuckle.
‘So you have bowled me out in my turn?’ said he.
‘Well, I don’t think there’s anything to explain. I am
harder up than I wished to admit under my own name, that’s
all, and I want that thousand pounds reward.’
‘Two thousand,’ said the solicitor. ‘And the man who is not
above an alias happens to be just the sort of man I want; so
don’t let that worry you, my dear sir. The matter, however, is
of a strictly private and confidential character.’ And he looked
very hard at me.
‘Quite so,’ said Raffles. ‘But there was something about a
risk?’
‘A certain risk is involved.’
‘Then surely three heads will be better than two. I said I
wanted that thousand pounds; my friend here wants the
other. We are both cursedly hard up, and we go into this
thing together or not at all. Must you have his name too? - I
should give him my real one, Bunny.’
Mr. Addenbrooke raised his eyebrows over the card I
found for him; then he drummed upon it with his finger-nail,
and his embarrassment expressed itself in a puzzled smile.
‘The fact is I find myself in a difficulty,’ he confessed at
last. ‘Yours is the first reply I have received; people who can
afford to send long telegrams don’t rush to the advertise­
ments in the Daily Telegraph-, but, on the other hand, I was
not quite prepared to hear from men like yourselves. Can­
didly, and on consideration, I am not sure that you are the
stamp of men for me - men who belong to good clubs! I
rather intended to appeal to the - er - adventurous classes.’

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‘We are adventurers,’ said Raffles gravely,

‘But you respect the law?’
The black eyes gleamed shrewdly.
‘We are not professional rogues, if that’s what you mean,’
said Raffles, smiling. ‘But on our beam-ends we are; we
would do a good deal for a thousand pounds apiece - eh,
Bunny?’
‘Anything,’ I murmured.
The solicitor rapped his desk.
‘I’ll tell you what I want you to do. You can but refuse. It’s
illegal, but it’s illegality in a good cause; that’s the risk, and
my client is prepared to pay for it. He will pay for the
attempt, in case of failure; the money is as good as yours once
you consent to run the risk. My client is Sir Bernard Deben-
ham, of Broom Hall, Esher.’
‘I know his son,’ I remarked.
Raffles knew him too, but said nothing, and his eye
drooped disapproval in my direction. Bennett Addenbrooke
turned to me.
‘Then,’ said he, ‘you have the privilege of knowing one of
the most complete young blackguards about town, and the
fins et origo of the whole trouble. As you know the son, you
may know the father too, at all events by reputation; and in
that case I needn’t tell you that he is a very peculiar man. He
lives alone in a storehouse of treasures which no eyes but his
ever behold. He is said to have the finest collection of pic­
tures in the south of England, though nobody ever sees them
to judge; pictures, fiddles, and furniture are his hobby, and he
is undoubtedly very eccentric. Nor can one deny that there
has been considerable eccentricity in his treatment of his son.
For years Sir Bernard paid his debts, and the other day, with­
out the slightest warning, not only refused to do so any more,
but absolutely stopped the lad’s allowance. Well, I’ll tell you
what has happened; but first of all you must know, or you
may remember, that I appeared for young Debenham in a
little scrape he got into a year or two ago. I got him off all

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right, and Sir Bernard paid me handsomely on the nail. And

no more did I hear or see of either of them until one day last
week’
The lawyer drew his chair nearer ours, and leant forward
with a hand on either knee.
‘On Tuesday of last week I had a telegram from Sir
Bernard; I was to go to him at once. I found him waiting for
me in the drive; without a word he led me to the picture-
gallery7, which was locked and darkened, drew up a blind, and
stood simply pointing to an empty picture-frame. It was a
long time before I could get a word out of him. Then at last
he told me that that frame had contained one of the rarest
and most valuable pictures in England - in the world — an
original Velasquez. I have checked this,’ said the lawyer, ‘and
it seems literally true; the picture was a portrait of the Infanta
Maria Teresa, said to be one of the artist’s greatest works,
second only to another portrait of one of the Popes of Rome
- so they told me at the National Gallery, where they had its
history by heart. They say there that the picture is practically
priceless. And young Debenham has sold it for five thousand
pounds!’
‘The deuce he has!’ said Raffles.
I inquired who had bought it.
‘A Queensland legislator of the name of Craggs - the Hon.
John Montagu Craggs, M.L.C., to give him his full title. Not
that we knew anything about him on Tuesday last; we didn’t
even know for certain that young Debenham had stolen the
picture. But he had gone down for money on the Monday
evening, had been refused, and it was plain enough that he
had helped himself in this way; he had threatened revenge,
and this was it. Indeed, when I hunted him up in town on the
Tuesday night, he confessed as much in the most brazen
manner imaginable. But he wouldn’t tell me who was the
purchaser, and finding out took the rest of the week; but I did
find out, and a nice time I’ve had of it ever since! Backwards
and forwards between Esher and the Metropole, where the

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Queenslander is staying, sometimes twice a day; threats,

offers, prayers, entreaties, not one of them a bit of good!’
‘But,’ said Raffles, ‘surely it’s a clear case? The sale was ille­
gal; you can pay him back his money and force him to give
the picture up.’
‘Exactly; but not without an action and a public scandal,
and that my client declines to face. He would rather lose even
his picture than have the whole thing get into the papers; he
has disowned his son, but he will not disgrace him; yet his
picture he must have by hook or crook, and there’s the rub! I
am to get it back by fair means or foul. He gives me carte
blanche in the matter, and, I verily believe, would throw in a
blank cheque if asked. He offered one to the Queenslander,
but Craggs simply tore it in two; the one old boy is as much a
character as the other, and between the two of them I’m at
my wit’s end.’
‘So you put that advertisement in the paper?’ said Raffles,
in the dry tones he had adopted throughout the interview.
‘As a last resort. I did.’
‘And you wish us to steal this picture?’
It was magnificently said; the lawyer flushed from his hair
to his collar.
‘I knew you were not the men!’ he groaned. ‘I never
thought of men of your stamp! But it’s not stealing,’ he
exclaimed heatedly; ‘it’s recovering stolen property. Besides,
Sir Bernard will pay him his five thousand as soon as he has
the picture; and, you’ll see, old Craggs will be just as loth to
let it come out as Sir Bernard himself. No, no - it’s an enter­
prise, an adventure, if you like - but not stealing.’
‘You yourself mentioned the law,’ murmured Raffles.
‘And the risk,’ I added.
‘We pay for that,’ he said once more.
‘But not enough,’ said Raffles, shaking his head. ‘My good
sir, consider what it means to us. You spoke of those clubs;
we should not only get kicked out of them, but put in prison
like common burglars! It’s true we’re hard up, but it simply

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isn’t worth it at the price. Double your stakes, and I for one
am your man.’ Addenbrooke wavered.
‘Do you think you could bring it of?’
‘We could try.’
‘But you have no -’
‘Experience? Well, hardly!’
‘And you would really run the risk for four thousand
pounds?’
Raffles looked at me. I nodded.
‘We would,’ said he, ‘and blow the odds!’
‘It’s more than I can ask my client to pay,’ said Adden­
brooke, growing firm.
‘Then it’s more than you can expect us to risk.’
‘You are in earnest?’
‘God wot!’
‘Say three thousand if you succeed!’
‘Four is our figure, Mr. Addenbrooke.’
‘Then I think it should be nothing if you fail.’
‘Double or quits?’ cried Raffles. ‘Well, that’s sporting.
Done!’
Addenbrooke opened his lips, half rose, then sat back in his
chair, and looked long and shrewdly at Raffles - never once at
me.
‘I know your bowling,’ said he reflectively. ‘I go up to
Lords whenever I want an hour’s real rest, and I’ve seen you
bowl again and again - yes, and take the best wickets in Eng­
land on a plumb pitch. I don’t forget the last Gentlemen and
Players; I was there. You’re up to every trick - every one. ...
I’m inclined to think that if anybody could bowl out this old
Australian... Damme, I believe you’re my very man!’
The bargain was clenched at the Cafe Royal, where Ben­
nett Addenbrooke insisted on playing host at an extravagant
luncheon. I remember that he took his whack of champagne
with the nervous freedom of a man at high pressure, and have
no doubt I kept him in countenance by an equal indulgence;
but Raffles, ever an exemplar in such matters, w'as more

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abstemious even than his wont, and very poor company to

boot. I can see him now, his eyes in his place - thinking -
thinking. I can see the solicitor glancing from him to me in
an apprehension of which I did my best to disuse him by reas­
suring looks. At the close Raffles apologised for his pre-occu-
pation, called for an A.B.C. time-table, and announced his
intention of catching the 3.2 to Esher.
‘You must excuse me, Mr. Addenbrooke,’ said he, ‘but I
have my own idea, and for the moment I would much prefer
to keep it to myself. It may end in fizzle, so I would rather
not speak about it to either of you just yet. But speak to Sir
Bernard I must, so will you write me one line to him on your
card? Of course, if you wish, you must come down with me
and hear what I say, but I really don’t see much point in it.’
And as usual Raffles had his way, though Bennett Adden­
brooke showed some temper when he was gone, and I myself
shared his annoyance to no small extent. I could only tell him
that it was in the nature of Raffles to be self-willed and secre­
tive, but that no man of my acquaintance had half his audac­
ity and determination; that I for my part would trust him
through and through and let him gang his own gait every
time. More I dared not say, even to remove those chill mis­
givings with which I knew that the lawyer went his way.
That day I saw no more of Raffles, but a telegram reached
me when I was dressing for dinner:

‘Be in your rooms to-morrow from noon and keep rest of

day clear. - Raffles.’

It had been sent off from Waterloo at 6.42.

So Raffles was back in town; at an earlier stage of our rela­
tions I should have hunted him up then and there, but now I
knew better. His telegram meant that he had no desire for my
society that night or the following forenoon; that when he
wanted me I should see him soon enough.
And see him I did, towards one o’clock next day. I was

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watching for him from my window in Mount Street, when he

drove up furiously in a hansom, and jumped out without a
word to the man. I met him next minute at the lift gates, and
he fairly pushed me back into my rooms.
‘Five minutes, Bunny!’ he cried. ‘Not a moment more.’
And he tore off his coat before flinging himself into the
nearest chair.
‘I’m fairly on the rush,’ he panted; ‘having the very devil of
a time! Not a word till I’ve told you all I’ve done. I settled my
plan of campaign yesterday at lunch. The first thing was to
get in with this man Craggs; you can’t break into a place like
the Metropole, it’s got to be done from the inside. Problem
one, how to get at the fellow. Only one sort of pretext would
do - it must be something to do with this blessed picture, so
that I might see where he’d got it and all that. Well, I
couldn’t go and ask to see it out of curiosity, and I couldn’t
go as a second representative of the old chap, and it was
thinking how I could go that made me such a bear at lunch.
But I saw my way before we got up. If I could only lay hold of
a copy of the picture, I might ask leave to go and compare it
with the original. So down I went to Esher to find out if there
was a copy in existence, and was at Broom Hall for one hour
and a half yesterday afternoon. There was no copy there, but
they must exist, for Sir Bernard himself (there’s “copy”
there!) has allowed a couple to be made since the picture has
been in his possession. He hunted up the painters’ addresses,
and the rest of the evening I spent in hunting up the painters
themselves; but their work had been done on commission;
one copy had gone out of the country, and I’m still on the
track of the other.’
‘Then you haven’t seen Craggs yet?’
‘Seen him and made friends with him, and if possible he’s
the funnier old cuss of the two; but you should study ’em both.
I took the bull by the horns this morning, went in and lied like
Ananias, and it was just as well I did - the old ruffian sails for
Australia by to-morrow’s boat. I told him a man wanted to sell

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me a copy of the celebrated Infanta Maria Teresa of Velasquez,

that I’d been down to the supposed owner of the picture, only
to find that he had just sold it to him. You should have seen his
face when I told him that! He grinned all round his wicked old
head. “Did old Debenham admit the sale?” says he; and when I
said he had he chuckled to himself for about five minutes. He
was so pleased that he did just what I hoped he would do: he
showed me the great picture - luckily it isn’t by any means a
large one - also the case he’s got it in. It’s an iron map-case in
which he brought over the plans of his land in Brisbane; he
wants to know who would suspect it of containing an Old
Master too? But he’s had it fitted with a new Chubb’s lock, and
I managed to take an interest in the key while he was gloating
over the canvas. I had the wax in the palm of my hand, and I
shall make my duplicate this afternoon.’
Raffles looked at his watch and jumped up saying he had
given me a minute too much.
‘By the way,’ he added, ‘you’ve got to dine with him at the
Metropole to-night'.’
‘I?’
‘Yes; don’t look so scared. Both of us are invited - I swore
you were dining with me. I accepted for us both; but I shan’t
be there.’
His clear eye was upon me, bright with meaning and with
mischief. I implored him to tell me what his meaning was.
‘You will dine in his private sitting-room,’ said Raffles; ‘it
adjoins his bedroom. You must keep him sitting as long as
possible, Bunny, and talking all the time!’
In a flash I saw his plan.
‘You’re going for the picture while we’re at dinner?’
‘I am.’
‘If he hears you!’
‘He shan’t.’
‘But if he does,’
And I fairly trembled at the thought.
‘If he does,’ said Raffles, ‘there will be a collision, that’s all.

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Revolvers would be out of place in the Metropole, but I shall

certainly take a life-preserver.’
‘But it’s ghastly!’ I cried. ‘To sit and talk to an utter
stranger and to know that you’re at work in the next room!’
‘Two thousand apiece,’ said Raffles quietly.
‘Upon my soul I believe I shall give it away!’
‘Not you, Bunny. I know you better than you know your­
self.’
He put on his coat and his hat.
‘What time have I to be there?’ I asked him, with a groan.
‘Quarter to eight. There will be a telegram from me saying
I can’t turn up. He’s a terror to talk, you’ll have no difficulty
to keep the ball rolling; but head him off his picture for all
you’re worth. If he offers to show it you, say you must go. He
locked up the case elaborately this afternoon, and there’s no
earthly reason why he should unlock it again in this hemi­
sphere.’
‘Where shall I find you when I get away?’
‘I shall be down at Esher. I hope to catch the 9.55.’
‘But surely I can see you again this afternoon?’ I cried in a
ferment, for his hand was on the door. ‘I’m not half coached
up yet! I know I shall make a mess of it!’
‘Not you,’ he said again, ‘but I shall if I waste any more
time. I’ve got a deuce of a lot of rushing about to do yet. You
won’t find me at my rooms. Why not come down to Esher
yourself by the last train? That’s it - down you come with the
latest news! I’ll tell old Debenham to expect you: he shall give
us both a bed. By Jove! he won’t be able to do us too well if
he’s got his picture.’
‘If!’ I groaned as he nodded his adieu; and he left me limp
with apprehension, sick with fear, in a perfectly pitiable con­
dition of pure stage-fright.
For, after all, I had only to act my part; unless Raffles failed
where he never did fail, unless Raffles the neat and noiseless
was for once clumsy and inept, all I had to do was indeed to
‘smile and smile and be a villain.’ I practised that smile half

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the afternoon. I rehearsed putative parts in hypothetical con­

versations. I got up stories. I dipped in a book on Queens­
land at the club. And at last it was 7.45, and I was making my
bow to a somewhat elderly man with a small bald head and a
retreating brow.
‘So you’re Mr. Raffles’s friend?’ said he, overhauling me
rather rudely with his light small eyes. ‘Seen anything of him?
Expected him early to show me something, but he’s never
come.’
No more, evidently, had his telegram, and my troubles
were beginning early. I said I had not seen Raffles since one
o’clock, telling the truth with unction while I could; even as
we spoke there came a knock at the door; it was the telegram
at last, and, after reading it himself, the Queenslander handed
it to me.
‘Called out of town!’ he grumbled. ‘Sudden illness of near
relative! What near relatives has he got?’
I knew of none, and for an instant I quailed before the
perils of invention; then I replied that I had never met any of
his people’ and again felt fortified by my veracity.
‘Thought you were bosom pals?’ said he, with (as I imag­
ined) a gleam of suspicion in his crafty little eyes.
‘Only in town,’ said I. ‘I’ve never been to his place .’
‘Well,’ he growled, ‘I suppose it can’t be helped. Don’t
know why he couldn’t come and have his dinner first. Like to
see the death-bed I’d go to without my dinner; it’s a full-skin
billet, if you ask me. Well, must just dine without him, and
he’ll have to buy his pig in a poke after all. Mind touching
that bell? Suppose you know what he came to see me about.
Sorry I shan’t see him again, for his own sake. I liked Raffles
- took to him amazingly. He’s a cynic. Like cynics. One
myself. Rank bad form of his mother, or his aunt, and I hope
she will kick the bucket.’
I connect these specimens of his conversation, though they
were doubtless detached at the time, and interspersed with
remarks of mine here and there. They filled the interval until

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dinner was served, and they gave me an impression of the

man which his every subsequent utterance confirmed. It was
an impression which did away with all remorse for my treach­
erous presence at his table. He was that terrible type, the Silly
Cynic, his aim a caustic commentary on all things and all
men, his achievement mere vulgar irreverence and unintelli­
gent scorn. Ill-bred and ill-informed, he had (on his own
showing) fluked into fortune on a rise in land; yet cunning he
possessed, as well as malice, and he chuckled till he choked
over the misfortunes of less astute speculators in the same
boom. Even now I cannot feel much compunction for my
behaviour to the Hon. J. M. Craggs, M.L.C.
But never shall I forget the private agonies of the situation,
the listening to my host with one ear and for Raffles with the
other! Once I heard him - though the rooms were not
divided by the old-fashioned folding doors, and though the
door that did divide them was not only shut but richly cur­
tained, I could have sworn I heard him once. I spilt my wine
and laughed at the top of my voice at some coarse sally of my
host’s. And I heard nothing more, though my ears were on
the strain. But later, to my horror, when the waiter had
finally withdrawn, Craggs himself sprang up and rushed to
his bedroom without a word. I sat like stone till he returned.
‘Thought I heard a door go,’ he said. ‘Must have been mis­
taken . . . imagination . . . gave me, quite a turn. Raffles tell
you priceless treasure I got in there?’
It was the picture at last; up to this point I had kept him to
Queensland and the making of his pile. I tried to get him
back there now, but in vain. He was reminded of his great ill-
gotten possession. I said that Raffles had just mentioned it,
and that set him off. With the confidential garrulity of a man
who has dined too well, he plunged into his darling topic, and
I looked past him at the clock. It was only a quarter to ten.
In common decency I could not go yet. So there I sat (we
were still at port) and learnt what had originally fired my
host’s ambition to possess what he was pleased to call a ‘real,

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genuine, twin-screw, double-funnelled, copper-bottomed

Old Master;’ it was to ‘go one better’ than some rival legisla­
tor of pictorial proclivities. But even an epitome of his mono­
logue would be so much weariness; suffice it that it ended
inevitably in the invitation I had dreaded all the evening.
‘But you must see it. Next room. This way.’
‘Isn’t it packed up?’ I inquired hastily.
‘Lock and key. That’s all.’
‘Pray don’t trouble,’ I urged.
‘Trouble be hanged!’ said he. ‘Come along.’
And all at once I saw that to resist him further would be to
heap suspicion upon myself against the moment of impend­
ing discovery. I therefore followed him into his bedroom
without further protest, and suffered him first to show me the
iron map-case which stood in one corner; he took a crafty
pride in this receptacle, and I thought he would never cease
descanting on its innocent appearance and its Chubb’s lock.
It seemed an interminable age before the key was in the
latter. Then the ward clicked, and my pulse stood still.
‘By Jove!’ I cried next instant.
The canvas was in its place among the maps!
‘Thought it would knock you,’ said Craggs, drawing it out
and unrolling it for my benefit. ‘Grand thing, ain’t it?
Wouldn’t think it had been painted two hundred and thirty
years? It has, though, my word! Old Johnson’s face will be a
treat when he sees it; won’t go bragging about his pictures
much more. Why, this one’s worth all the pictures in Colony
o’ Queensland put together. Worth fifty thousand pounds,
my boy - and I got it for five!’
He dug me in the ribs, and seemed in the mood for further
confidences. My appearance checked him, and he rubbed his
hands.
‘If you take it like that,’ he chuckled, ‘how will old Johnson
take it? Go out and hang himself to his own picture-rods, I
hope!’
Heaven knows what I contrived to say at last. Struck

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speechless first by my relief, I continued silent from a very

different cause. A new tangle of emotions tied my tongue.
Raffles had failed - could I not succeed? Was it too late? Was
there no way?
‘So long,’ he said, taking a last look at the canvas before he
rolled it up - ‘so long till we get to Brisbane.’
The flutter I was in as he closed the case!
‘For the last time,’ he went on, as his keys jingled back into
his pocket. ‘It goes straight into the strong-room on board.’
For the last time! If I could but send him out to Australia
with only its legitimate contents in his precious map-case! If I
could but succeed where Raffles had failed!
We returned to the other room. I have no notion how long
he talked, or what about. Whisky and soda-water became the
order of the hour. I scarcely touched it, but he drank copi­
ously, and before eleven I left him incoherent. And the last
train for Esher was the 11.50 out of Waterloo.
I took a hansom to my rooms. I was back at the hotel in
thirteen minutes. I walked upstairs. The corridor was empty,
I stood an instant on the sitting-room threshold, heard a
snore within, and admitted myself softly with my gentleman’s
own key, which it had been a very simple matter to take away
with me. Craggs never moved; he was stretched on the sofa
fast asleep. But not fast enough for me. I saturated my hand­
kerchief with the chloroform I had brought, and I laid it
gently over his mouth. Two or three stertorous breaths, and
the man a log.
I removed the handkerchief; I extracted the keys from his
pocket. In less than five minutes I put them back, after wind­
ing the picture about my body beneath my Inverness cape. I
took some whisky and soda water before I went.
The train was easily caught - so easily that I trembled for
ten minutes in my first-class smoking carriage, in terror of
every footstep on the platform - in unreasonable terror till
the end. Then at last I sat back and fit a cigarette, and the
lights of Waterloo reeled out behind.

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Some men were returning from the theatre. I can recall

their conversation even now. They were disappointed with
the piece they had seen. It was one of the later Savoy operas,
and they spoke wistfully of the days of Pinafore and Patience.
One of them hummed a stave, and there was an argument as
to whether the air was out of Patience or the Mikado. They all
got out at Surbiton, and I was alone with my triumph for a
few intoxicating minutes. To think that I had succeeded
where Raffles had failed! Of all our adventures this was the
first in which I had played a commanding part; and, of them
all, this was infinitely the least discreditable. It left me with­
out a conscientious qualm; I had but robbed a robber, when
all was said. And I had done it myself, single-handed - ipse
egomed.
I pictured Raffles, his surprise, his delight. He would think
a little more of me in future. And that future, it should be dif­
ferent. We had two thousand pounds apiece - surely enough
to start afresh as honest men - and all through me.
In a glow I sprang out at Esher, and took the one belated
cab that was waiting under the bridge. In a perfect fever I
beheld Broom Hall, with the lower storey still lit up, and saw
the front door open as I climbed the steps.
‘Thought it was you,’ said Raffles cheerily. ‘It’s all right.
There’s a bed for you. Sir Bernard’s sitting up to shake your
hand.’
His good spirits disappointed me. But I knew the man: he
was one of those who wear their brightest smile in the black­
est hour. I knew him too well by this time to be deceived.
‘I’ve got it!’ I cried in his ear. ‘I’ve got it!’
‘Got what?’ he asked me, stepping back.
‘The picture!’
‘What?’
‘The picture. He showed it me. You had to go without it; I
saw that. So I determined to have it. And here it is.’
‘Let’s see,’ said Raffles grimly.
I threw off my cape and unwound the canvas from about

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my body. While I was doing so an untidy old gentleman

made his appearance in the hall, and stood looking on with
raised eyebrows.
‘Looks pretty fresh for an Old Master, doesn’t she?’ said
Raffles.
His tone was strange. I could only suppose that he was jeal­
ous of my success.
‘So Craggs said. I hardly looked at it myself.’
‘Well, look now - look closely. By Jove, I must have faked
her better than I thought!’
‘It’s a copy!’ I cried.
‘It’s the copy,’ he answered. ‘It’s the copy I’ve been tearing
all over the country to procure. It’s the copy I faked back and
front, so that, on your own showing, it imposed upon Craggs,
and might have made him happy for life. And you go and rob
him of that!’
I could not speak.
‘How did you manage it?’ inquired Sir Bernard Debenham.
‘Have you killed him?’ asked Raffles sardonically.
I did not look at him; I turned to Sir Bernard Debenham,
and to him I told my story, hoarsely, excitedly, for it was all
that I could do to keep from breaking down. But as I spoke I
became calmer, and I finished in mere bitterness, with the
remark that another time Raffles might tell me what he
meant to do.
‘Another time!’ he cried instantly. ‘My dear Bunny, you
speak as though we were going to turn burglars for a living!’
‘I trust you won’t,’ said Sir Bernard, smiling, ‘for you are
certainly two very daring young men. Let us hope our friend
from Queensland will do as he said, and not open his map­
case till he gets back there. He will find my cheque awaiting
him, and I shall be very much surprised if he troubles any of
us again.’
Raffles and I did not speak till I was in the room which had
been prepared for me. Nor was I anxious to do so then. But
he followed me and took my hand.

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’Bunny,’ said he, ‘don’t you be hard on a fellow! I was in

the deuce of a hurry, and didn’t know that I should get what I
wanted in time, and that’s a fact. But it serves me right that
you should have gone and undone one of the best things I
ever did. As for your handiwork, old chap, you won’t mind
my saying that I didn’t think you had it in you. In future -’
‘Don’t talk to me about the future!’ I cried. ‘I hate the
whole thing! I’m going to chuck it up!’
‘So am I,’ said Raffles, ‘when I’ve made my pile.’

Ill
 CHAPTER Vn

The Return Match

I HAD TURNED INTO PICCADILLY, one thick evening in the fol­

lowing November, when my guilty heart stood still at the
sudden grip of a hand upon my arm. I thought - I was always
thinking - that my inevitable hour was come at last. It was only
Raffles, however, who stood smiling at me through the fog.
‘Well met!’ said he; ‘I’ve been looking for you at the club.’
‘I was just on my way there,’ I returned, with an attempt to
hide my tremors. It was an ineffectual attempt, as I saw from
his broader smile, and by the indulgent shake of his head.
‘Come up to my place instead,’ said he. ‘I’ve something
amusing to tell you.’
I made excuses, for his tone foretold the kind of amuse­
ment, and it was a kind against which I had successfully set
my face for months. I have stated before, however, and I can
but reiterate, that to me, at all events, there was never any­
body in the world so irresistible as Raffles when his mind was
made up. That we had both been independent of crime since
our little service to Sir Bernard Debenham - that there had
been no occasion for that masterful mind to be made up in
any such direction for many a day - was the undeniable basis
of a longer spell of honesty than I had hitherto enjoyed
during the term of our mutual intimacy. Be sure I would deny
it if I could; the very thing I am to tell you would discredit
such a boast. I made my excuses, as I have said. But his arm
slid through mine, with his little laugh of light-hearted mas­
tery. And even while I argued we were on his staircase in the
Albany.

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His fire had fallen low. He poked and replenished it after

Ughting the gas. As for me, I stood by sullenly in my overcoat
until he dragged it off my back.
‘What a chap you are!’ said Raffles playfully. ‘One would
really think I had proposed to crack another crib, this blessed
night! Well, it isn’t that, Bunny; so get into that chair, and
take one of these Sullivans, and sit tight.’
He held the match to my cigarette; he brought me a
whisky and soda. Then he went out in the lobby, and, just as I
was beginning to feel happy, I heard a bolt shot home. It cost
me an effort to remain in that chair; next moment he was
straddling another and gloating over my discomfiture across
his folded arms.
‘You remember Milchester, Bunny, old boy?’
His tone was as bland as mine was grim when I answered
that I did.
‘We had a little match there that wasn’t down on the card.
Gentlemen and Players, if you recollect?’
. ‘I don’t forget it.’
‘Seeing that you never got an innings, so to speak, I
thought you might. Well, the Gentlemen scored pretty
freely, but the Players were all caught -’
‘Poor devils!’
‘Don’t be too sure. You remember the fellow we saw in the
inn? The florid, overdressed chap who I told you was one of
the cleverest thieves in town?’
‘I remember him. Crawshay his name turned out to be.’
‘Well, it was certainly the name he was convicted under, so
Crawshay let it be. You needn’t waste any pity on him, old
chap; he escaped from Dartmoor yesterday afternoon.’
‘Well done!’
Raffles smiled, but his eyebrows had gone up and his
shoulders followed suit.
‘You are perfectly right; it was very well done indeed. I
wonder you didn’t see it in the paper. In a dense fog on the
moor yesterday good old Crawshay made a bolt for it, and

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got away without a scratch under heavy fire. All honour to

him, I agree; a fellow with that much grit deserves his liberty.
But Crawshay has a good deal more. They hunted him all
night long; couldn’t find him for nuts; and that was all you
missed in the morning papers.’
He unfolded a Pall Mall, which he had brought in with
him.
‘But listen to this; here’s an account of the escape, with just
the addition which puts the thing on a higher level. “The
fugitive has been traced to Totnes, where he appears to have
committed a peculiarly daring outrage in the early hours of
this morning. He is reported to have entered the lodgings of
the Rev. A. H. Ellingworth, curate of the parish, who missed
his clothes on rising at the usual hour; later in the morning
those of the convict were discovered neatly folded at the
bottom of a drawer. Meanwhile Crawshay had made good his
second escape, though it is believed that so distinctive a guise
will lead to his recapture during the day.” What do you think
of that, Bunny?’
‘He is certainly a sportsman,’ said I, reaching for the paper.
‘He’s more,’ said Raffles; ‘he’s an artist, and I envy him.
The curate, of all men! Beautiful - beautiful! But that’s not
all. I saw just now on the board at the club that there’s been
an outrage on the line near Dawlish. Parson found insensible
in the six foot way. Our friend again. The telegram doesn’t
say so, but it’s obvious; he’s simply knocked some other
fellow out, changed clothes again, and come on gaily to town.
Isn’t it great? I do believe it’s the best thing of the kind that’s
ever been done!’
‘But why should he come to town?’
In an instant the enthusiasm faded from Raffles’s face;
clearly I had reminded him of some prime anxiety, forgotten
in his impersonal joy over the exploit of a fellow-criminal. He
looked over his shoulder towards the lobby before replying.
‘I believe,’ said he, ‘that the beggar’s on my tracks!’
And as he spoke he was himself again quietly amused -

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cynically unperturbed - characteristically enjoying the situa­

tion and my surprise.
‘But look here, what do you mean?’ said I. ‘What does
Crawshay know about you?’
‘Not much; but he suspects.’
‘Why should he?’
‘Because, in his way, he’s very nearly as good a man as I
am; because, my dear Bunny, with eyes in his head and brains
behind them, he couldn’t help suspecting. He saw me once in
town with old Baird. He must have seen me that day in the
pub on the way to Milchester, as well as afterwards on the
cricket field. As a matter of fact, I know he did, for he wrote
and told me so before his trial.’
‘He wrote to you! And you never told me!’
The old shrug answered the old grievance.
‘What was the good, my dear fellow? It would only have
worried you.’
‘Well, what did he say?’
‘That he was sorry he had been run in before getting back
to town, as he had proposed doing himself the honour of
paying me a call; however, he trusted it was only a pleasure
deferred, and he begged me not to go and get lagged myself
before he came out. Of course he knew the Melrose necklace
was gone, though he hadn’t got it; and he said that the man
who could take that and leave the rest was a man after his
own heart. And so on, with certain little proposals for the far
future, which I fear may be the very near future indeed! I’m
only surprised he hasn’t turned up yet.’
He looked again towards the lobby, which he had left in
darkness, with the inner door shut as carefully as the outer
one. I asked him what he meant to do.
‘Let him knock - if he gets so far. The porter is to say I’m
out of town; it will be true, too, in another hour or so.’
‘You’re going off to-night?’
‘By the 7.15 from Liverpool Street. I don’t say much about
my people, Bunny, but I have the best of sisters married to a

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country parson in the eastern counties. They always make me

welcome, and let me read the lessons for the sake of getting
me to church. I’m sorry you won’t be there to hear me on
Sunday, Bunny. I’ve figured out some of my best schemes in
that parish, and I know of no better port in a storm. But I
must pack. I thought I’d just let you know where I was going,
and why, in case you cared to follow my example.’
He flung the stump of his cigarette into the fire, stretched
himself as he rose, and remained so long in the inelegant atti­
tude that my eyes mounted from his body to his face; a
second later they had followed his eyes across the room, and I
also was on my legs. On the threshold of the folding doors
that divided bedroom and sitting-room, a well-built man
stood in ill-fitting broadcloth, and bowed to us until his
bullet head presented an unbroken disc of short red hair.
Brief as was my survey of this astounding apparition, the
interval was long enough for Raffles to recover his compo­
sure; his hands were in his pockets, and a smile upon his face,
when my eyes flew back to him.
‘Let me introduce you, Bunny,’ said he, ‘to our distin­
guished colleague, Mr. Reginald Crawshay.’
The bullet head bobbed up, and there was a wrinkled brow
above the coarse, shaven face, crimson, also I remember,
from the grip of a collar several sizes too small. But I noted
nothing consciously at the time. I had jumped to my own
conclusion, and I turned on Raffles with an oath.
‘It’s a trick!’ I cried. ‘It’s another of your cursed tricks. You
got him here, and then you got me. You want me to join you,
I suppose? I’ll see you damned!’
So cold was the stare which met this outburst that I became
ashamed of my words while they were yet upon my lips.
‘Really, Bunny!’ said Raffles, and turned his shoulder with
a shrug.
‘Lord love yer,’ cried Crawshay, ‘ ’e knew nothin’. ’E didn’t
expect me; ’e’s all right. - And you’re the cool canary, you
are,’ he went on to Raffles. ‘I knoo you were, but, do me

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proud, you’re one after my own kidney!’ And he thrust out a

shaggy hand.
‘After that,’ said Raffles, taking it, ‘what am I to say? But
you must have heard my opinion of you. I am proud to make
your acquaintance. How the deuce did you get in?’
‘Never you mind,’ said Crawshay, loosening his collar;
‘let’s talk about how I’m to get out, Lord love yer, but that’s
better!’ There was a livid ring round his bull-neck, that he
fingered tenderly. ‘Didn’t know how much longer I might
have to play the gent,’ he explained, ‘didn’t know who you’d
bring in,’
‘Drink whisky and soda?’ inquired Raffles, when the con­
vict was in the chair from which I had leapt.
‘No, I drink it neat,’ replied Crawshay, ‘but I talk business
first. You don’t get over me like that. Lor’ love yer!’
‘Well, then, what can I do for you?’
‘You know without me tellin’ you,’
‘Give it a name.’
‘Clean heels, then; that’s what I want to show, and I leaves
the way to you. We’re brothers in arms, though I ain’t armed
this time. It ain’t necessary. You’ve too much sense. But
brothers we are, and you’ll see a brother through. Let’s put it
at that. You’ll see me through in your own way. I leaves it all
to you.’
His tone was rich with conciliation and concession; he bent
over and tore a pair of button boots from his bare feet, which
he stretched towards the fire, painfully uncurling his toes.
‘I hope you take a larger size than them,’ said he. ‘I’d have
had a see if you’d given me time. I wasn’t in long afore you.’
‘And you won’t tell me how you got in?’
‘Wot’s the use? I can’t teach you nothin’. Besides, I want
out. I want out of London, an’ England, an’ bloomin’ Europe
too. That’s all I want of you, mister. I don’t arst how you go
on the job. You know w’ere I come from, ’cos I heard you
say; you know w’ere I want to ’ead for, ’cos I’ve just told yer;
the details I leaves entirely to you.’

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‘Well,’ said Raffles, ‘we must see what can be done.’

‘We must,’ said Mr. Crawshay, and leaned back comfort­
ably, and began twirling his stubby thumbs.
Raffles turned to me with a twinkle in his eye; but his fore­
head was scored with thought, and resolve mingled with res­
ignation in the lines of his mouth. And he spoke exactly as
though he and I were alone in the room.
‘You seize the situation, Bunny? If our friend here is
“copped,” to speak his language, he means to “blow the gaff”
on you and me. He is considerate enough not to say so in so
many words, but it’s plain enough, and natural enough for
that matter. I would do the same in his place. We had the
bulge before; he has it now; it’s perfectly fair. We must take
on this job; we aren’t in a position to refuse it: even if we
were, I should take it on. Our friend is a great sportsman; he
has got clear away from Dartmoor; it would be a thousand
pities to let him go back. Nor shall he; not if I can think of a
way of getting him abroad.’
‘Any way you like,’ murmured Crawshay, with his eyes
shut. ‘I leaves the ’ole thing to you.’
‘But you’ll have to wake up and tell us things.’
‘All right, mister; but I’m fair on the rocks for a sleep!’
And he stood up, blinking.
‘Think you were tracked to town?’
‘Must have been.’
‘And here?’
‘Not in this fog - not with any luck.’
Raffles went into the bedroom, lit the gas there, and
returned next minute.
‘So you got in by the window?’
‘That’s about it.’
‘It was devilish smart of you to know which one; it beats
me how you brought it off in daylight, fog or no fog! But let
that pass. Don’t you think you were seen?’
‘I don’t think it, sir.’
‘Well, let’s hope you are right. I shall reconnoitre and soon

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find out. - And you’d better come too, Bunny, and have
something to eat and talk it.over.’
As Raffles looked at me, I looked at Crawshay, anticipating
trouble; and trouble brewed in his blank, fierce face, in the
glitter of his startled eyes, in the sudden closing of his fists.
‘And what’s to become o’ me?’ he cried out with an oath.
‘You wait here.’
‘No, you don’t,’ he roared, and at a bound had his back to
the door. ‘You don’t get round me like that, you cuckoos!’
Raffles turned to me with a twitch of the shoulders.
‘That’s the worst of these professors,’ said he; ‘they never
will use their heads. They see the pegs, and they mean to hit
’em; but that’s all they do see and mean, and they think we’re
the same. No wonder we licked them last time!’
‘Don’t talk through yer neck,’ snarled the convict. ‘Talk
out straight, curse you!’
‘Right,’ said Raffles. ‘I’ll talk as straight as you like. You say
you put yourself in my hands - you leave it all to me - yet you
don’t trust me an inch! I know what’s to happen if I fail. I
accept the risk. I take this thing on. Yet you think I’m going
straight out to give you away and make you give me away in
my turn. You’re a fool, Mr. Crawshay, though you have
broken Dartmoor; you’ve got to listen to a better man, and
obey him. I see you through in my own way, or not at all. I
come and go as I like, and with whom I like, without your
interference; you stay here and lie just as low as you know
how, be as wise as your word, and leave the whole thing to
me. If you won’t - if you’re fool enough not to trust me -
there’s the door. Go out and say what you like, and be
damned to you!’
Crawshay slapped his thigh.
‘That’s talking!’ said he. ‘Lord love yer, I know where I am
when you talk like that. I’ll trust yer. I know a man when he
gets his tongue between his teeth; you’re all right. I don’t say
so much about this other gent, though I saw him along with
you on the job that time in the provinces; but if he’s a pal of

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yours, Mr. Raffles, he’ll be all right too. I only hope you
gents ain’t too stony -’
And he touched his pockets with a rueful face.
‘I only went for their togs,’ said he. ‘You never struck two
such stony-broke cusses in yer life.’
‘That’s all right,’ said Raffles. ‘We’ll see you through prop­
erly. Leave it to us, and you sit tight.’
‘Rightum!’ said Crawshay. ‘And I’ll have a sleep time
you’re gone. But no sperrits - no, thank’ee - not yet! Once
let me loose on lush, and, Lord love yer I’m a gone coon!’
Raffles got his overcoat, a long, light driving coat, I
remember, and even as he put it on our fugitive was dozing in
the chair; we left him murmuring incoherently, with the gas
out, and his bare feet toasting.
‘Not such a bad chap, that professor,’ said Raffles on the
stairs; ‘a real genius in his way, too, though his methods are a
little elementary for my taste. But technique isn’t everything;
to get out of Dartmoor and into the Albany in the same
twenty-four hours is a whole that justifies its parts. Good
Lord!’
We had passed a man in the foggy courtyard, and Raffles
had nipped my arm.
‘Who was it?’
‘The last man we want to see! I hope to heaven he didn’t
hear me!’
‘But who is it, Raffles?’
‘Our old friend Mackenzie, from the Yard!’
I stood still with horror.
‘Do you think he’s on Crawshay’s track?’
‘I don’t know. I’ll find out.’
And before I could remonstrate he had wheeled me round;
when I found my voice he merely laughed, and whispered
that the bold course was the safe one every time.
‘But it’s madness -’
‘Not it. Shut up! - Is that you, Mr. Mackenzie?’
The detective turned about and scrutinised us keenly; and

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through the gaslit mist I noticed that his hair was grizzled at
the temples, and his face still cadaverous, from the wound
that had nearly been his death.
‘Ye have the advantage o’ me, sirs,’ said he.
‘I hope you’re fit again,’ said my companion. ‘My name is
Raffles, and we met at Milchester last year.’
‘Is that a fact?’ cried the Scotchman, with quite a start.
‘Yes, now I remember your face, and yours too, sir. Ay, yon
was a bad business, but it ended vera well, an’ that’s the main
thing.’
His native caution had returned to him. Raffles pinched my
arm.
‘Yes, it ended splendidly, but for you,’ said he. ‘But what
about this escape of the leader of the gang, that fellow Craw­
shay? What do you think of that, eh?’
‘I havena the parteeculars,’ replied the Scot.
‘Good!’ cried Raffles. ‘I was only afraid you might be on
his tracks once more!’
Mackenzie shook his head with a dry smile, and wished us
good-evening, as an invisible window was thrown up and a
whistle blown softly through the fog.
‘We must see this out,’ whispered Raffles. ‘Nothing more
natural than a little curiosity on our part. After him, quick!’
And we followed the detective into another entrance on
the same side as that from which we had emerged, the left­
hand side on one’s way to Piccadilly; quite openly we fol­
lowed him, and at the foot of the stairs met one of the porters
of the place. Raffles asked him what was wrong.
‘Nothing, sir,’ said the fellow glibly.
‘Rot!’ said Raffles. ‘That was Mackenzie, the detective. I’ve
just been speaking to him. What’s he here for? Come on, my
good fellow; we won’t give you away, if you’ve instructions
not to tell.’
The man looked quaintly wistful, the temptation of an
audience hot upon him; a door shut upstairs, and he fell.
‘It’s like this,’ he whispered. ‘This afternoon a gen’leman

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comes arfter rooms, and I sent him to the orifice; one of the
clurks, ’e goes round with ’im an’ shows ’im the empties, an’
the gen’leman’s partic’ly struck on the set the coppers is up in
now. So he sends the clurk to fetch the manager, as there was
one or two things he wished to speak about; an’ when they
come back, blowed if the gent isn’t gone! Beg your pardon,
sir, but he’s clean disappeared off the face o’ the premises!’
And the porter looked at us with shining eyes.
‘Well?’ said Raffles.
‘Well, sir, they looked about, an’ at larst they give him up
for a bad job; thought he’d changed his mind an’ didn’t want
to tip the clurk; so they shut up the place and come away. An’
that’s all till about ’alf an hour ago, when I takes the manager
his extry-speshul Star, in about ten minutes he comes running
out with a note an’ sends me with it to Scotland Yard in a
hansom. An’ that’s all I know, sir - straight. The coppers is up
there now, and the tec. and the manager, and they think their
gent is about the place somewhere still. Least, I reckon that’s
their idea; but who he is, or what they want him for, I dunno.’
‘Jolly interesting!’ said Raffles. ‘I’m going up to inquire. -
Come on, Bunny; there should be some fun.’
‘Beg yer pardon, Mr. Raffles, but you won’t say nothing
about me?’
‘Not I; you’re a good fellow. I won’t forget it if this leads to
sport. - Sport!’ he whispered, as we reached the landing. ‘It
looks like precious poor sport for you and me, Bunny!’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘I don’t know. There’s no time to think. This, to start
with.’
And he thundered on the shut door; a policeman opened it.
Raffles strode past him with the air of a chief commissioner,
and I followed before the man had recovered from his aston­
ishment. The bare boards rang under us; in the bedroom we
found a knot of officers stooping over the window-ledge with
a constable’s lantern. Mackenzie was the first to stand
upright, and he greeted us with a glare. ’

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‘May I ask what you gentlemen want?’ said he.

‘We want to lend a hand,’ said Raffles briskly. ‘We lent one
once before, and it was my friend here who took over from
you the fellow who split on all the rest and held him tight.
Surely that entitles him, at all events, to see any fun that’s
going? As for myself, well it’s true I only helped to carry you
to the house; but for old acquaintance I do hope, my dear Mr.
Mackenzie, that you will permit us to share such sport as
there may be. I myself can only stop a few minutes, in any
case.’
‘Then ye’ll not see much,’ growled the detective, ‘for he’s
not up here. - Constable, go you and stand at the foot o’ the
stairs, and let no other body come up on any consideration;
these gentlemen may be able to help us after all.’
‘That’s kind of you, Mackenzie!’ cried Raffles warmly. ‘But
what is it all? I questioned a porter I met coming down, but
could get nothing out of him, except that somebody had been
to see these rooms and not since been seen himself.’
‘He’s a man we want,’ said Mackenzie. ‘He’s concealed
himself somewhere about these premises, or I’m vera much
mistaken. D’ye reside in the Albany, Mr. Raffles?’
‘I do.’
‘Will your rooms be near these?’
‘On the next staircase but one.’
‘Ye’ll just have left them?’
‘Just.’
‘Been in all the afternoon, likely?’
‘Not all.’
‘Then I may have to search your rooms, sir. I am prepared
to search every room in the Albany! Our man seems to have
gone for the leads; but unless he’s left more marks outside
than in, or we find him up there, I shall have the entire build­
ing to ransack.’
‘I will leave you my key,’ said Raffles at once. ‘I am dining
out, but I’ll leave it with the officer down below.’
I caught my breath in mute amazement. What was the

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meaning of this insane promise? It was wilful, gratuitous, sui­

cidal; it made me catch at his sleeve in open horror and dis­
gust; but, with a word of thanks, Mackenzie had returned to
his window-sill, and we sauntered unwatched through the
folding doors in the adjoining room. Here the window
looked down into the courtyard; it was still open; and as we
gazed out in apparent idleness, Raffles reassured me.
‘It’s all right, Bunny; you do what I tell you and leave the
rest to me. It’s a tight corner, but I don’t despair. What
you’ve got to do is to stick to these chaps, especially if they
search my rooms; they mustn’t poke about more than neces­
sary, and they won’t if you’re there.’
‘But where will you be? You’re never going to leave me to
be landed alone?’
‘If I do, it will be to turn up trumps at the right moment.
Besides, there are such things as windows, and Crawshay’s
the man to take his risks. You must trust me, Bunny; you’ve
known me long enough.’
‘And you’re going now?’
‘There’s no time to lose. Stick to them, old chap; don’t let
them suspect you, whatever else you do.’ His hand lay an
instant on my shoulder; then he left me at the window, and
recrossed the room.
‘I’ve got to go now,’ I heard him say; ‘but my friend will
stay and see this through, and I’ll leave the gas on in my
rooms - and my key with the constable downstairs. Good
luck, Mackenzie; only wish I could stay.’
‘Good-bye, sir,’ came in a preoccupied voice, ‘and many
thanks.’
Mackenzie was still busy at his window, and I remained at
mine, a prey to mingled fear and wrath, for all my knowledge
of Raffles and of his infinite resource. By this time I felt that I
knew more or less what he would do in any given emergency;
at least I could conjecture a characteristic course of equal
cunning and audacity. He would return to his rooms, put
Crawshay on his guard, and - stow him away? No - there

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were such things as windows. Then why was Raffles going to

desert us all? I thought of many things - lastly of a cab. These
bedroom windows looked into a narrow side-street; they
were not very high; from them a man might drop on to the
roof of a cab - even as it passed - and be driven away - even
under the noses of the police! I pictured Raffles driving that
cab, unrecognisable in the foggy night; the vision came to me
as he passed under the window, tucking up the collar of his
great driving-coat on the way to his rooms; it was still with
me when he passed again on his way back, and stopped to
hand the constable his key.
‘We’re on his track,’ said a voice behind me. ‘He’s got up
on the leads, sure enough, though how he managed it from
yon window is a myst’ry to me. We’re going to lock up here
and try what like it is from the attics. So you’d better come
with us if you’ve a mind.’
The top floor at the Albany, as elsewhere, is devoted to the
servants - a congeries of little kitchens and cubicles, used by
many as lumber-rooms - by Raffles among the many. The
annexe in this case was, of course, empty as the rooms below;
and that was lucky, for we filled it, what with the manager,
who now joined us, and another tenant whom he brought
with him to Mackenzie’s undisguised annoyance.
‘Better let in all Piccadilly at a crown a head,’ said he. -
‘Here, my man, out you go on the roof to make one less, and
have your truncheon handy.’
We crowded to the little window, which Mackenzie took
care to fill; and a minute yielded no sound but the crunch and
slither of constabulary boots upon sooty slates. Then came a
shout.
‘What now?’ cried Mackenzie.
‘A rope,’ we heard, ‘hanging from the spout by a hook!’
‘Sirs,’ purred Mackenzie, ‘yon’s how he got up from below!
He would do it with one o’ they telescope sticks, an’ I never
thocht o’t! How long a rope, my lad?’
‘Quite short. I’ve got it.’

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‘Did it hang over a window? Ask him that!’ cried the man­
ager. ‘He can see by leaning over the parapet.’
The question was repeated by Mackenzie; a pause, then,
“Yes, it did.’
‘Ask him how many windows along!’ shouted the manager
in high excitement.
‘Six, he says,’ said Mackenzie next minute; and he drew in
his head and shoulders. ‘I should just Oke to see those rooms,
six windows along.’
‘Mr. Raffles’s,’ announced the manager after a mental cal­
culation.
‘Is that a fact?’ cried Mackenzie. ‘Then we shall have no
difficulty at all. He’s left me his key down below.’
The words had a dry, speculative intonation, which even
then I found time to dislike; it was as though the coincidence
had already struck the Scotchman as something more.
‘Where is Mr. Raffles?’ asked the manager, as we all filed
downstairs.
‘He’s gone out to his dinner,’ said Mackenzie.
‘Are you sure?’
‘I saw him go,’ said I. My heart was beating horribly. I
would not trust myself to speak again. But I wormed my way
to a front place in the little procession, and was, in feet, the
second man to cross the threshold that had been the Rubicon
of my life. As I did so I uttered a cry of pain, for Mackenzie
had trod back heavily on my toes; in another second I saw the
reason, and saw it with another and a louder cry.
A man was lying at full length before the fire, on his back,
with a little wound in the white forehead, and the blood
draining into his eyes. And the man was Raffles himself!
‘Suicide,’ said Mackenzie calmly. ‘No - here’s the poker -
looks more like murder.’ He went on his knees and shook his
head quite cheerfully. ‘An’ it’s not even murder,’ said he, with
a shade of disgust in his matter-of-fact voice; ‘yon’s no more
than a flesh wound, and I have my doubts whether it felled
him; but, sirs, he just stinks o’ chloryform!’

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He got up and fixed his keen grey eyes upon me; my own
were full of tears, but they faced him unashamed.
‘I understood ye to say ye saw him go out?’ said he sternly.
‘I saw that long driving-coat; of course I thought he was
inside it.’
‘And I could ha’ sworn it was the same gent when he gave
me the key!’
It was the disconsolate voice of the constable in the back­
ground; on him turned Mackenzie, white to the lips.
‘You’d think anything, some of you damned policemen,’
said he. ‘What’s your number, you rotter? P34? You’ll be
hearing more of this, Mr. P34! If that gentleman was dead -
instead of coming to himself while I’m talking - do you know
what you’d be? Guilty of his manslaughter, you stuck pig in
buttons! Do you know who you’ve let slip, butter-fingers?
Crawshay - no less - him that broke Dartmoor yesterday. By
the God that made ye, P34, if I lose him I’ll hound ye from
the forrce!’
Working face - shaking fist - a calm man on fire. It was a
new side of Mackenzie, and one to mark and to digest. Next
moment he had flounced from our midst.

‘Difficult thing to break your own head,’ said Raffles later;

‘infinitely easier to cut your own throat. Chloroform’s
another matter; when you’ve used it on others, you know the
dose to a nicety. So you thought I was really gone? Poor old
Bunny! But I hope Mackenzie saw your face?’
‘He did,’ said I. I would not tell him all Mackenzie must
have seen, however.
‘That’s all right. I wouldn’t have had him miss it for
worlds; and you mustn’t think me a brute, old boy, for I fear
that man; and, you know, we sink or swim together.’
‘And now we sink or swim with Crawshay too,’ said I dole­
fully.

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‘Not we!’ cried Raffles with conviction. ‘Old Crawshay’s a

true sportsman, and he’ll do by us as we’ve done by him;
besides, this makes us quits; and I don’t think, Bunny, that
we’ll take on the professors again!’

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 CHAPTER VIII

The Gift of the Emperor

WHEN THE King of the Cannibal Islands made faces at

Queen Victoria, and a European monarch set the cables tin­
gling with his compliments on the exploit, the indignation in
England was not less than the surprise, for the thing was not
so common as it has since become. But when it transpired
that a gift of peculiar significance was to follow the congratu­
lations, to give them weight, the inference prevailed that the
white potentate and the black had taken simultaneous leave of
their fourteen senses. For the gift was a pearl of price unpar­
alleled, picked aforetime by British cutlasses from a Polyne­
sian setting, and presented by British royalty to the sovereign
who seized this opportunity of restoring it to its original pos­
sessor.
The incident would have been a godsend to the Press a few
weeks later. Even in June there were leaders, letters, large
headlines, leaded type; the Daily Chronicle devoted half its lit­
erary page to a charming drawing of the island capital which
the new Pall Mall, in a leading article headed by a pun,
advised the Government to blow to flinders. I was myself dri­
ving a poor but not dishonest quill at the time, and the topic
of the hour goaded me into satiric verse which obtained a
better place than anything I had yet turned out. I had let my
flat in town, and taken inexpensive quarters at Thames
Ditton, on a plea of a disinterested passion for the river.
‘First-rate, old boy,’ said Raffles (who must needs come
and see me there), lying back in the boat while I sculled and
steered. ‘I suppose they pay you pretty well for these, eh?’

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‘Not a penny.’
‘Nonsense, Bunny! I thought they paid so well? Give them
time, and you’ll get your cheque.’
‘Oh no, I shan’t,’ said I gloomily. ‘I’ve got to be content
with the honour of getting in; the editor wrote to say so, in so
many words,’ I added. But I gave the gentleman his distin­
guished name.
‘You don’t mean to say you’ve written for payment
already?’
No; it was the last thing I had intended to admit. But I had
done it. The murder was out; there was no sense in further
concealment. I had written for my money because I really
needed it; if he must know, I was cursedly hard up. Raffles
nodded as though he knew already. I warmed to my woes. It
was no easy matter to keep your end up as a raw free lance of
letters; for my part, I was afraid I wrote neither well enough
nor ill enough for success. I suffered from a persistent inef­
fectual feeling after style. Verse I could manage; but it did not
pay. To personal paragraphs and the baser journalism I could
not and I would not stoop.
Raffles nodded again, this time with a smile that stayed in
his eyes as he leant back watching me. I knew that he was
thinking of other things I had stooped to, and I thought I
knew what he was going to say. He had said it before so
often; he was sure to say it again. I had my answer ready, but
evidently he was tired of asking the same question. His lids
fell, he took up the paper he had dropped, and I sculled the
length of the old red wall of Hampton Court before he spoke
again.
‘And they gave you nothing for these! My dear Bunny,
they’re capital, not only qua verses, but for crystallising your
subject and putting it in a nutshell. Certainly you’ve taught
me more about it than I knew before. But is it really worth
fifty thousand pounds - a single pearl?’
‘A hundred, I believe; but that wouldn’t scan.’
‘A hundred thousand pounds!’ said Raffles, with his eyes

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shut. And again I made certain what was coming, but again I
was mistaken. ‘If it’s worth all that,’ he cried at last, ‘there
would be no getting rid of it at all; it’s not like a diamond that
you can subdivide. But I beg your pardon, Bunny. I was for­
getting!’
And we said no more about the emperor’s gift; for pride
thrives on an empty pocket, and no privation would have
drawn from me the proposal which I had expected Raffles to
make. My expectation had been half a hope, though I only
knew it now. But neither did we touch again on what Raffles
professed to have forgotten - my ‘apostasy,’ my ‘lapse into
virtue,’ as he had been pleased to call it We were both a little
silent, a little constrained, each preoccupied with his own
thoughts. It was months since we had met, and, as I saw him
off towards eleven o’clock that Sunday night, I fancied it was
for more months that we were saying good-bye.
But as we waited for the train I saw those clear eyes peering
at me under the station lamps, and when I met their glance
Raffles shook his head.
‘You don’t look well on it, Bunny,’ said he. ‘I never did
believe in this Thames Valley. You want a change of air.’
I wished I might get it.
‘What you really want is a sea voyage.’
‘And a winter at St. Moritz, or do you recommend Cannes
or Cairo? It’s all very well, A. J., but you forget what I told
you about my funds.’
‘I forget nothing. I merely don’t want to hurt your feelings.
But, look here, a sea voyage you shall have. I want a change
myself, and you shall come with me as my guest. We’ll spend
July in the Mediterranean.’
‘But you’re playing cricket -’
‘Hang the cricket!’
‘Well, if I thought you meant it -’
‘Of course I mean it. Will you come?’
‘Like a shot - if you go.’
And I shook his hand, and waved mine in farewell, with the

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perfectly good-humoured conviction that I should hear no

more of the matter. It was a passing thought, no more, no
less. I soon wished it were more; that week found me wishing
myself out of England for good and all. I was making noth­
ing. I could but subsist on the difference between the rent I
paid for my flat and the rent at which I had sublet it, fur­
nished, for the season. And the season was near its end, and
creditors awaited me in town. Was it possible to be entirely
honest? I had run no bills when I had money in my pocket,
and the more downright dishonesty seemed to me the less
ignoble.
But from Raffles, of course, I heard nothing more; a week
went by, and half another week; then, late on the second
Wednesday night, I found a telegram from him at my lodg­
ings, after seeking him vainly in town, and dining with des­
peration at the solitary club to which I still belonged.
‘Arranged to leave Waterloo by North German Lloyd spe­
cial,’ he wired, ‘9.25 a.m. Monday next will meet you
Southampton aboard Uhlan with tickets, am writing.’
And write he did, a light-hearted letter enough, but full of
serious solicitude for me and for my health and prospects; a
letter almost touching in the light of our past relations, in the
twilight of their complete rupture. He said that he had
booked two berths to Naples, that we were bound for Capri,
which was clearly the Island of the Lotos-eaters, that we
would bask there together, ‘and for a while forget.’ It was a
charming letter. I had never seen Italy; the privilege of initia­
tion should be his. No mistake was greater than to deem it an
impossible country for the summer. The Bay of Naples was
never so divine, and he wrote of ‘faery lands forlorn,’ as
though the poetry sprang unbidden to his pen. To come back
to earth and prose, I might think it unpatriotic of him to
choose a German boat, but on no other Une did you receive
such attention and accommodation for your money. There
was a hint of better reasons. Raffles wrote, as he had
telegraphed, from Bremen; and I gathered that the personal

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use of some little influence with the authorities there had

resulted in a material reduction in our fares.
Imagine my excitement and delight! I managed to pay what
I owed at Thames Ditton, to squeeze a small editor for a very
small cheque, and my tailors for one more flannel suit. I
remember that I broke my last sovereign to get a box of Sulli­
van’s cigarettes for Raffles to smoke on the voyage. But my
heart was as light as my purse on the Monday morning, the
fairest morning of an unfair summer, when the special
whirled me through the sunshine to the sea.
A tender awaited us at Southampton. Raffles was not on
board, nor did I really look for him till we reached the liner’s
side. And then I looked in vain. His face was not among the
many that fringed the rail; his hand was not of the few that
waved to friends. I climbed aboard in a sudden heaviness. I
had no ticket, nor the money to pay for one. I did not even
know the number of my room. My heart was in my mouth as
I waylaid a steward and asked if a Mr. Raffles was on board.
Thank Heaven - he was! But where? The man did not know;
was plainly on some other errand, and a-hunting I must go.
But there was no sign of him on the promenade deck, and
none below in the saloon; the smoking-room was empty but
for a little German with a red moustache twisted into his
eyes; nor was Raffles in his own cabin, whither I inquired my
way in desperation, but where the sight of his own name on
the baggage was certainly a further reassurance. Why he him­
self kept in the background, however, I could not conceive,
and only sinister reasons would suggest themselves in expla­
nation.
‘So there you are! I’ve been looking for you all over the
ship!’
Despite the graven prohibition, I had tried the bridge as a
last resort; and there, indeed, was A, J. Raffles, seated on a
skylight, and leaning over one of the officers’ long chairs, in
which reclined a girl in a white drill coat and skirt - a slip of a
girl with a pale skin, dark hair, and rather remarkable eyes. So

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much I noted as he rose and quickly turned; thereupon I

could think of nothing but the swift grimace which preceded
a start of well-feigned astonishment.
‘Why - Bunny?’ cried Raffles. ‘Where have you sprung
from?’
I stammered something as he pinched my hand.
‘And you are coming in this ship? And to Naples too?
Well, upon my word! - Miss Werner, may I introduce him?’
And he did so without a blush, describing me as an old
schoolfellow whom he had not seen for months, with wilful
circumstance and gratuitous detail that filled me at once with
confusion, suspicion, and revolt. I felt myself blushing for us
both, and I did not care. My address utterly deserted me, and
I made no effort to recover it, to carry the thing off. All I
would do was to mumble such words as Raffles actually put
into my mouth, and that I doubt not with a thoroughly evil
grace. -
‘So you saw my name in the list of passengers, and came in
search of me? Good old Bunny! I say, though, I wish you’d
share my cabin? I’ve got a beauty on the promenade deck, but
they wouldn’t promise to keep me by myself. We ought to
see about it before they shove in some alien. In any case we
shall have to get out of this.’
For a quartermaster had entered the wheel-house, and
even while we had been speaking the pilot had taken posses­
sion of the bridge; as we descended, the tender left us with
flying handkerchiefs and shrill good-byes; and as we bowed
to Miss Werner on the promenade deck, there came a deep,
slow throbbing underfoot, and our voyage had begun.
It did not begin pleasantly between Raffles and me. On
deck he had overborne my stubborn perplexity by dint of a
forced though forceful joviality; in his cabin the gloves were
off.
‘You idiot,’ he snarled, ‘you’ve given me away again!’
‘How have I given you away?’
I ignored the separate insult in his last word.

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‘How? I should have thought any clod could see that I

meant us to meet by chance!’
‘After taking both tickets yourself?’
‘They know nothing about that on board; besides, I hadn’t
decided when I took the tickets.’
‘Then you should have let me know when you did decide.
You lay your plans, and never say a word, and expect me to
tumble to them by light of nature. How was I to know you
had anything on?’
I had turned the tables with some effect. Raffles almost
hung his head.
‘The fact is, Bunny, I didn’t mean you to know. You -
you’ve grown such a pious rabbit in your old age!’
My nickname and his tone went far to mollify me, other
things went further, but I had much to forgive him still.
‘If you were afraid of writing,’ I pursued, ‘it was your busi­
ness to give me the tip the moment I set foot on board. I
would have taken it all right. I am not so virtuous as all that.’
Was it my imagination, or did Raffles look slightly
ashamed? If so, it was for the first and last time in all the
years I knew him; nor can I swear to it even now.
‘That,’ said he, ‘was the very thing I meant to do - to lie in
wait in my room and get you as you passed. But -’
‘You were better engaged?’
‘Say otherwise.’
‘The charming Miss Werner?’
‘She is quite charming.’
‘Most Australian girls are,’ said I.
‘How did you know she was one?’ he cried.
‘I heard her speak.’
‘Brute!’ said Raffles, laughing; ‘she has no more twang than
you have. Her people are German, she has been to school in
Dresden, and is on her way out alone.’
‘Money?’ I inquired.
‘Confound you!’ he said, and, though he was laughing, I
thought it was a point at which the subject might be changed.

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‘Well,’ I said, ‘it wasn’t for Miss Werner you wanted us to

play strangers, was it? You have some deeper game than that,
eh?’
‘I suppose I have.’
‘Then hadn’t you better tell me what it is?’
Raffles treated me to the old cautious scrutiny that I knew
so well; the very familiarity of it, after all these months, set
me smiling in a way that might have reassured him; for dimly
already I divined his enterprise.
‘It won’t send you off in the pilot’s boat, Bunny?’
‘Not quite.’
‘Then - you remember the pearl you wrote the -’
I did not wait for him to finish his sentence.
‘You’ve got it!’ I cried, my face on fire, for I caught sight of
it that moment in the state-room mirror.
Raffles seemed taken aback.
‘Not yet,’ said he; ‘but I mean to have it before we get to
Naples.’
‘Is it on board?’
‘Yes.’
‘But how - where - who’s got it?’
‘A little German officer, a whipper-snapper with perpen­
dicular moustaches.’
‘I saw him in the smoke-room.’
‘That’s the chap; he’s always there. Herr Captain Wilhelm
von Heumann, if you look in the list. Well, he’s the special
envoy of the emperor, and he’s taking the pearl out with
him!’
‘You found this out in Bremen?’
‘No, in Berlin, from a newspaper man I know there. I’m
ashamed to tell you, Bunny, that I went there on purpose!’
I burst out laughing.
‘You needn’t be ashamed. You are doing the very thing I
was rather hoping you were going to propose the other day
on the river.’
‘You were hoping it?’ said Raffles, with his eyes wide open.

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Indeed, it was his turn to show surprise, and mine to be much

more ashamed than I felt. ‘Yes,’ I answered, ‘I was quite keen
on the idea, but I wasn’t going to propose it.’
‘Yet you would have listened to me the other day?’
Certainly I would, and I told him so without reserve; not
brazenly, you understand; not even now with the gusto of a
man who savours such an adventure for its own sake, but
doggedly, defiantly, through my teeth, as one who had tried to
live honestly and had failed. And, while I was about it, I told
him much more. Eloquently enough, I daresay, I gave him
chapter and verse of my hopeless struggle, my inevitable
defeat; for hopeless and inevitable they were to a man with my
record, even though that record was written only in one’s own
soul. It was the old story of the thief trying to turn honest
man; the thing was against nature, and there was an end of it.
Raffles entirely disagreed with me. He shook his head over
my conventional view. Human nature was a board of che­
quers; why not reconcile oneself to alternate black and white?
Why desire to be all one thing or all the other, like our fore­
fathers on the stage or in the old-fashioned fiction? For his
part, he enjoyed himself on all squares of the board, and liked
the light the better for the shade. My conclusion he consid­
ered absurd.
‘But you err in good company, Bunny, for all the cheap
moralists who preach the same twaddle: old Virgil was the
first and worst offender of you all. I back myself to climb out
of Avernus any day I like, and sooner or later I shall climb out
for good. I suppose I can’t very well turn myself into a Lim­
ited Liability Company. But I could retire and settle down
and live blamelessly ever after. I’m not sure that it couldn’t be
done on this pearl alone!’
‘Then you don’t still think it too remarkable to sell?’
‘We might take a fishery and haul it up with smaller fry. It
would come after months of ill-luck - just as we were going
to sell the schooner; by Jove, it would be the talk of the
Pacific!’

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‘Well, we’ve got to get it first. Is this von What’s his-name

a formidable cuss?’
‘More so than he looks; and he has the cheek of the devil!’
As he spoke a white drill skirt fluttered past the open state­
room door, and I caught a glimpse of ^n upturned moustache
beyond.
‘But is he the chap we have to deal with? Won’t the pearl
be in the purser’s keeping?’
Raffles stood at the door, frowning out upon the Solent,
but for an instant he turned to me with a sniff.
‘My good fellow, do you suppose the whole ship’s company
knows there’s a gem like that aboard? You said that it was
worth a hundred thousand pounds; in Berlin they say it’s
priceless. I doubt if the skipper himself knows that Von
Heumann has it on him.’
‘And he has?’
‘Must have.’
‘Then we have only him to deal with?’
He answered me without a word. Something white was
fluttering past once more, and Raffles, stepping forth, made
the promenaders three.

I do not ask to set foot aboard a finer steamship than the

Uhlan of the Norddeutscher Lloyd, to meet a kindlier gentle­
man than her then commander or better fellows than his offi­
cers. This much at least let me have the grace to admit. I
hated the voyage. It was no fault of anybody connected with
the ship; it was no fault of the weather, which was monoto­
nously ideal. Not even in my own heart did the reason reside;
conscience and I were divorced at last, and the decree made
absolute. With my scruples had fled all fear, and I was ready
to revel between bright skies and sparkling sea with the light­
hearted detachment of Raffles himself. It was Raffles himself

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who prevented me, but not Raffles alone. It was Raffles and
that Colonial minx on her way home from school.
What he could see in her - but that begs the question. Of
course he saw no more than I did, but to annoy me, or per­
haps to punish me for my long defection, he must turn his
back on me and devote himself to this chit from Southamp­
ton to the Mediterranean. They were always together. It was
too absurd. After breakfast they would begin, and go on until
eleven or twelve at night; there was no intervening hour at
which you might not hear her nasal laugh, or his quiet voice
talking soft nonsense into her ear. Of course it was nonsense!
Is it conceivable that a man like Raffles, with his knowledge
of the world, and his experience of women (a side of his char­
acter upon which I have purposely never touched, for it
deserves another volume); is it credible, I ask, that such a man
could find anything but nonsense to talk by the day together
to a giddy young schoolgirl? I would not be unfair for the
world. I think I have admitted that the young person had
points. Her eyes, I suppose, were really fine, and certainly the
shape of the little brown face was charming, so far as mere
contour can charm. I admit also more audacity than I cared
about, with enviable health, mettle, and vitality. I may not
have occasion to report any of this young lady’s speeches
(they would scarcely bear it), and am therefore the more anx­
ious to describe her without injustice. I confess to some little
prejudice against her. I resented her success with Raffles, of
whom, in consequence, I saw less and less each day. It is a
mean thing to have to confess, but there must have been
something not unlike jealousy rankling within me.
Jealousy there was in another quarter - crude, rampant,
undignified jealousy. Captain von Heumann would twirl his
moustaches into twin spires, shoot his white cuffs over his
rings, and stare at me insolently through his rimless eye­
glasses; we ought to have consoled each other, but we never
exchanged a syllable. The captain had a murderous scar
across one of his cheeks, a present from Heidelberg, and I

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used to think how he must long to have Raffles there to serve

the same. It was not as though von Heumann never had his
innings. Raffles let him go in several times a day, for the
malicious pleasure of bowling him out as he was ‘getting set;’
those where his words when I taxed him disingenuously with
obnoxious conduct towards a German on a German boat.
‘You’ll make yourself disliked on board!’
‘By von Heumann merely.’
‘But is that wise when he’s the man we’ve got to diddle?’
‘The wisest thing I ever did. To have chummed up with
him would have been fatal - the common dodge.’
I was consoled, encouraged, almost content. I had feared
Raffles was neglecting things, and I told him so in a burst.
Here we were near Gibraltar, and not a word since the
Solent. He shook his head with a smile.
‘Plenty of time, Bunny, plenty of time. We can do nothing
before we get to Genoa, and that won’t be till Sunday night.
The voyage is still young, and so are we; let’s make the most
of things while we can.’
It was after dinner on the promenade deck, and as Raffles
spoke he glanced sharply fore and aft, leaving me next moment
with a step full of purpose. I retired to the smoking-room, to
smoke and read in a comer, and to watch von Heumann, who
very soon came to drink beer and to sulk in another.
Few travellers tempt the Red Sea at midsummer; the Uhlan
was very empty indeed. She had, however, but a limited
supply of cabins on the promenade deck, and there was just
that excuse for my sharing Raffles’s room. I could have had
one to myself downstairs, but I must be up above. Raffles had
insisted that I should insist on the point. So we were
together, I think, without suspicion, though also without any
object that I could see.
On the Sunday afternoon I was asleep in my berth, the
lower one when the curtains were shaken by Raffles, who was
in his shirt-sleeves on the settee.
‘Achilles sulking in his bunk!’

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‘What else is there to do?’ I asked him as I stretched and

yawned. I noted, however, the good-humour of his tone, and
did my best to catch it.
*1 have found something else, Bunny.’
‘I daresay!’
‘You misunderstand me. The whipper-snapper’s making
his century this afternoon. I’ve had other fish to fry.’
I swung my legs over the side of my berth and sat forward,
as he was sitting, all attention. The inner door, a grating, was
shut and bolted, and curtained like the open port-hole.
‘We shall be at Genoa before sunset,’ continued Raffles.
‘It’s the place where the deed’s got to be done.’
‘So you still mean to do it!’
‘Did I ever say I didn’t?’
‘You have said so little either way.’
‘Advisedly so, my dear Bunny; why spoil a pleasure trip by
talking unnecessary shop? But now the time has come. It
must be done at Genoa or not at all.’
‘On land?’
‘No, on board’ to-morrow night. To-night would do, but
to-morrow is better, in case of mishap. If we were forced to
use violence we could get away by the earliest train, and
nothing be known till the ship was sailing and von Heumann
found dead or drugged -’
‘Not dead!’ I exclaimed.
‘Of course not,’ assented Raffles, ‘or there would be no
need for us to bolt; but if we should have to bolt, Tuesday
morning is our time, when this ship has got to sail, whatever
happens. But I don’t anticipate any violence. Violence is a
confession of terrible incompetence. In all these years how
many blows have you known me strike? Not one, I believe;
but I have been quite ready to kill my man every time, if the
worst came to the worst.’
I asked him how he proposed to enter von Heumann’s
state-room unobserved, and even through the curtained
gloom of ours his face lighted up.

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‘Climb into my bunk, Bunny, and you shall see.’

I did so, but could see nothing. Raffles reached across me
and tapped the ventilator, a sort of trap door in the wall
above his bed, some eighteen inches long and half that
height. It opened outwards into the ventilating shaft.
‘That,’ said he, ‘is our door to fortune. Open it if you like;
you won’t see much, because it doesn’t open far; but loosen­
ing a couple of screws will set that all right. The shaft, as you
may see, is more or less bottomless; you pass under it when­
ever you go to your bath, and the top is a skylight on the
bridge. That’s why this thing has to be done while we’re at
Genoa, because they keep no watch on the bridge in port.
The ventilator opposite ours is von Heumann’s. It again will
only mean a couple of screws, and there’s a beam to stand on
while you work.’
‘But if anybody should look from below?’
‘It’s extremely unlikely that anybody will be astir below, so
unlikely that we can afford to chance it. No, I can’t have you
there to make sure. The great point is that neither of us
should be seen from the time we turn in. A couple of ship’s
boys do sentry-go on these decks, and they shall be our wit­
nesses; by Jove, it’ll be the biggest mystery that ever was
made!’
‘If von Heumann doesn’t resist.’
‘Resist! He won’t get the chance. He drinks too much beer
to sleep light, and nothing is so easy as to chloroform a heavy
sleeper; you’ve even done it yourself on an occasion of which
it’s perhaps unfair to remind you. Von Heumann will be past
sensation almost as soon as I get my hand through his ventila­
tor. I shall crawl in over his body, Bunny, my boy!’
‘And I?’
‘You will hand me what I want, and hold the fort in case of
accidents, and generally lend me the moral support you’ve
made me require. It’s a luxury, Bunny, but I found it devilish
difficult to do without it after you turned pi!’
He said that von Heumann was certain to sleep with a

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bolted door, which he, of course, would leave unbolted, and

spoke of other ways of laying a false scent while rifling the
cabin. Not that Raffles anticipated a tiresome search. The
pearl would be about von Heumann’s person; in fact, Raffles
knew exactly where and in what he kept it. Naturally I asked
how he could have come by such knowledge, and his answer
led up to a momentary unpleasantness.
‘It’s a very old story, Bunny. I really forget in what book it
comes; I’m only sure of the Testament. But Samson was the
unlucky hero and one Delilah the heroine.’
And he looked so knowing that I could not be in a
moment’s doubt as to his meaning.
‘So the fair Australian has been playing Delilah?’ said I.
‘In a very harmless, innocent sort of way.’
‘She got his mission out of him?’
‘Yes, I’ve forced him to score all the points he could, and
that was his great stroke, as I hoped it would be. He has even
shown Amy the pearl.’
‘Amy, eh! and she promptly told you?’
‘Nothing of the kind. What makes you think so? I had the
greatest trouble in getting it out of her.’
His tone should have been a sufficient warning to me. I
had not the tact to take it as such. At last I knew the meaning
of his furious flirtation, and stood wagging my head and
shaking my finger, blinded to his frowns by my own enlight­
enment.
‘Wily worm!’ said I. ‘Now I see through it all; how dense
I’ve been!’
‘Sure you’re not still?’
‘No; now I understand what has beaten me all the week. I
simply couldn’t fathom what you saw in that little girl. I
never dreamt it was part of the game.’
‘So you think it was that and nothing more?’
‘You deep old dog - of course I do!’
‘You didn’t know she was the daughter of a wealthy squat­
ter?’

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‘There are wealthy women by the dozen who would marry

you to-morrow.’
‘It doesn’t occur to you that I might like to draw stumps,
start clean, and live happily ever after - in the bush?’
‘With that voice? It certainly does not!’
‘Bunny!’ he cried so fiercely that I braced myself for a
blow.
But no more followed.
‘Do you think you would live happily?’ I made bold to ask
him.
‘God knows!’ he answered. And with that he left me, to
marvel at his look and tone, and, more than ever, at the insuf­
ficiently exciting cause.

Of all the mere feats of cracksmanship which I have seen

Raffles perform, at once the most delicate and most difficult
was that which he accomplished between one and two o’clock
on the Tuesday morning, aboard the North German steamer
Uhlan, lying at anchor in Genoa harbour.
Not a hitch occurred. Everything had been foreseen;
everything happened as I had been assured everything must.
Nobody was about below, only the ship’s boys on deck, and
nobody on the bridge. It was twenty-five minutes past one
when Raffles, without a stitch of clothing on his body, but
with a glass phial, corked with cotton-wool, between his
teeth, and a tiny screw-driver behind his ear, squirmed feet
first through the ventilator over his berth; and it was nineteen
minutes to two when he returned, head first, with the phial
still between his teeth, and the cotton-wool rammed home to
still the rattling of that which lay like a great grey bean
within. He had taken screws out and put them in again; he
had unfastened Von Heumann’s ventilator and had left: it fast
as he had found it - fast as he instantly proceeded to make his

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own. As for Von Heumann, it had been enough to place the

drenched wad first on his moustache, and then to hold it
between his gaping lips; thereafter the intruder had climbed
both ways across his shins without eliciting a groan.
And here was the prize - this pearl as large as a filbert - with
a pale pink tinge like a lady’s finger-nail - this spoil of the fili­
bustering age - this gift from a European emperor to a South
Sea chief. We gloated over it when all was snug. We toasted it
in whisky and soda-water laid in overnight in view of the great
moment. But the moment was greater, more triumphant, than
our most sanguine dreams. All we had now to do was to secrete
the gem (which Raffles had prised from its setting, replacing
the latter), so that we could stand the strictest search and yet
take it ashore with us at Naples; and this Raffles was doing
when I turned in. I myself would have landed incontinently,
that night, at Genoa, and bolted with the spoil; he would not
hear of it, for a dozen good reasons which will be obvious.
On the whole I do not think that anything was discovered
or suspected before we weighed anchor; but I cannot be sure.
It is difficult to believe that a man could be chloroformed in
his sleep and feel no tell-tale effects, sniff no suspicious
odour, in the morning. Nevertheless, von Heumann reap­
peared as though nothing had happened to him, his German
cap over his eyes and his moustaches brushing the peak. And
by ten o’clock we were quit of Genoa; the last lean, blue-
chinned official had left our decks; the last fruitseller had
been beaten off with bucketsfol of water and left cursing us
from his boat; the last passenger had come aboard at the last
moment - a fussy greybeard who kept the big ship waiting
while he haggled with his boatmen over half a Ura. But at
length we were off, the tug was shed, the lighthouse passed,
and Raffles and I leaned together over the rail, watching our
shadows on the pale green, liquid, veined marble that again
washed the vessel’s side.
Von Heumann was having his innings once more; it was
part of the design that he should remain in all day, and so

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postponed the inevitable hour; and, though the lady looked

bored, and was for ever glancing in our direction, he seemed
only too willing to avail himself of his opportunities. But Raf­
fles was moody and ill at ease. He had not the air .of a success­
ful man. I could but opine that the impending parting at
Naples sat heavily on his spirit.
He would neither talk to me, nor would he let me go.
‘Stop where you are, Bunny. I’ve things to tell you. Can
you swim?’
‘A bit.’
‘Ten miles?’
‘Ten?’ I burst out laughing. ‘Not one! Why do you ask?’
‘We shall be within a ten miles’ swim of the shore most of
the day.’
‘What on earth are you driving at, Raffles?’
‘Nothing; only I shall swim for it if the worst comes to the
worst. I suppose you can’t swim under water at all?’
I did not answer his question. I scarcely heard it: cold beads
were bursting through my skin.
‘Why should the worst come to the worst?’ I whispered.
‘We aren’t found out, are we?’
‘No.’
‘Then why speak as though we were?’
‘We may be; an old enemy of ours is on board.’
‘An old enemy?’
‘Mackenzie.’
‘Never!’
‘The man with the beard who came aboard last.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Sure! I was only sorry to see you didn’t recognise him too.’
I took my handkerchief to my face; now that I thought of
it, there had been something familiar in the old man’s gait, as
well as something rather youthful for his apparent years; his
very beard seemed unconvincing, now that I recalled it in the
light of this horrible revelation. I looked up and down the
deck, but the old man was nowhere to be seen.

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‘That’s the worst of it,’ said Raffles. ‘I saw him go into the
captain’s cabin twenty minutes ago.’
‘But what can have brought him?’ I cried miserably. ‘Can it
be a coincidence - is it somebody else he’s after?’
Raffles shook his head.
‘Hardly this time.’
‘Then you think he’s after you?’
Tve been afraid of it for some weeks.’
‘Yet there you standi’
‘What am I to do? I don’t want to swim for it before I
must. I begin to wish I’d taken your advice, Bunny, and left
the ship at Genoa. But I’ve not the smallest doubt that Mac
was watching both ship and station till the last moment.
That’s why he ran it so fine.’ He took a cigarette and handed
me the case, but I shook my head impatiently.
‘I still don’t understand,’ said I. ‘Why should he be after
you? He couldn’t come all this way about a jewel which was
perfectly safe for all he knew. What’s your own theory?’
‘Simply that he’s been on my track for some time, probably
ever since friend Crawshay slipped clean through his fingers
last November. There have been other indications. I am
really not unprepared for this. But it can only be pure suspi­
cion. I’ll defy him to bring anything home, and I’ll defy him
to find the pearl! Theory, my dear Bunny! I know how he’s
got here as well as though I’d been inside that Scotchman’s
skin, and I know what he’ll do next. He found out I’d gone
abroad, and looked for a motive; he found out about von
Heumann and his mission, and here was his motive cut and
dried. Great chance - to nab me on a new job altogether. But
he won’t do it, Bunny; mark my words, he’ll search the ship
and search iis all, when the loss is known; but he’ll search in
vain. And there’s the skipper beckoning the whipper-snapper
to his cabin: the fat will be in the fire in five minutes!’
Yet there was no conflagration, no fuss, no searching of the
passengers, no whisper of what had happened in the air;
instead of a stir there was portentous peace; and it was clear

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to me that Raffles was not a little disturbed at the falsification

of all his predictions. There was something sinister in silence
under such a loss, and the silence was sustained for hours,
during which Mackenzie never reappeared. But he was
abroad during the luncheon-hour - he was in our cabin! I had
left my book in Raffles’s berth, and in taking it after lunch I
touched the quilt. It was warm from the recent pressure of
flesh and blood, and on an instinct I sprang to the ventilator;
as I opened it the ventilator opposite was closed with a snap.
I waylaid Raffles. ‘All right. Let him find the pearl.’
‘Have you dumped it overboard?’
‘That’s a question I shan’t condescend to answer.’
He turned on his heel, and at subsequent intervals I saw
him making the most of his last afternoon with the inevitable
Miss Werner. I remember that she looked both cool and
smart in quite a simple affair of brown holland, which toned
well with her complexion, and was cleverly relieved with
touches of scarlet. I quite admired her that afternoon, for her
eyes were really very good, and so were her teeth, yet I had
never admired her more directly in my own despite. For I
passed them again and again in order to get a word with Raf­
fles, to tell him I knew there was danger in the wind; but he
would not so much as catch my eye. So at last I gave it up.
And I saw him next in the captain’s cabin.
They had summoned him first; he had gone in smiling; and
smiling I found him when they summoned me. The state­
room was spacious, as befitted that of a commander. Macken­
zie sat on the settee, his beard in front of him on the polished
table; but a revolver lay in front of the captain; and when I
had entered, the chief officer, who had summoned me, shut
the door and put his back to it. Von Heumann completed the
party, his fingers busy with his moustache. I
Raffles greeted me.
‘This is a great joke!’ he cried. ‘You remember the pearl
you were so keen about, Bunny, the emperor’s pearl, the
pearl money wouldn’t buy? It seems it was entrusted to our

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little friend here, to take out to Canoodle Dum, and the poor
little chap’s gone and lost it; ergo, as we’re Britishers, they
think we’ve got it!’
‘But I know ye have,’ put in Mackenzie, nodding to his
beard.
‘You will recognise that loyal and patriotic voice,’ said Raf­
fles. ‘Mon, ’tis our auld acquaintance Mackenzie, o’ Scoteland
Yarrd an’ Scoteland itsel”!’
‘Dat is enought,’ cried the captain. ‘Have you submid to be
searge, or do I vorce you?’
‘What you will?’ said Raffles, ‘but it will do you no harm to
give us fair play first. You accuse us of breaking into Captain
von Heumann’s state-room during the small hours of this
morning, and abstracting from it this confounded pearl.
Well, I can prove that I was in my own room all night long,
and I have no doubt my friend can prove the same.’
‘Most certainly I can,’ said I indignantly. ‘The ship’s boys
can bear witness to that.’
Mackenzie laughed, and shook his head at his reflection in
the polished mahogany.
‘That was vera clever,’ said he, ‘and like enough it would
ha’ served ye had I not stepped aboard. But I’ve just had a
look at they ventilators, and I think I know how ye worrked
it. - Anyway, captain, it makes no matter. I’ll just be clappin’
the darbies on these young sparks, an’ then -’
‘By what right?’ roared Raffles in a ringing voice, and I
never saw his face in such a blaze. ‘Search us if you like;
search every scrap and stitch we possess; but you dare to lay a
finger on us without a warrant!’
‘I wouldna’ dare,’ said Mackenzie gravely, as he fumbled in
his breast pocket, and Raffles dived his hand into his own.
‘Hand his wrist!’ shouted the Scotchman; and the huge Colt
that had been with us many a night, but had never been fired
in my hearing, clattered on the table and was raked in by the
captain.
‘All right,’ said Raffles savagely to the mate. ‘You can let go

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now. I won’t try it again. - Now, Mackenzie, let’s see your

warrant!’
‘Ye’ll no mishandle it?’
‘What good would that do me? Let me see it,’ said Raffles
peremptorily, and the detective obeyed. Raffles raised his
eyebrows as he perused the document; his mouth hardened,
but suddenly relaxed; and it was with a smile and a shrug that
he returned the paper.
‘Wull that do for ye?’ inquired Mackenzie.
‘It may. I congratulate you, Mackenzie; it’s a strong hand,
at any rate. - Two burglaries and the Melrose necklace,
Bunny!’ And he turned to me with a rueful smile.
‘An’ all easy to prove,’ said the Scotchman, pocketing the
warrant. - ‘I’ve one o’ these for you,’ he added, nodding to
me, ‘only not such a long one.’
‘To thingk,’ said the captain reproachfully, ‘that my shib
should be made a den of thiefs! It shall be a very disagreeable
madder. I have been obliged to pud you both in irons until
we ged to Nables.’
‘Surely not!’ exclaimed Raffles. - ‘Mackenzie, intercede
with him; don’t give your countrymen away before all hands!
- Captain, we can’t escape; surely you could hush it up for
the night? Look here, here’s everything I have in my pock­
ets; you empty yours too, Bunny, and they shall strip us stark
if they suspect we’ve weapons up our sleeves. All I ask is that
we are allowed to get out of this without gyves upon our
wrists.’
‘Webbons you may not have,’ said the captain; ‘bud wad
about der bearl dat you were sdealing?’
‘You shall have it!’ cried Raffles. ‘You shall have it this
minute if you guarantee no public indignity on board!’
‘That I’ll see to,’ said Mackenzie, ‘as long as you behave
yourselves. There now, where is’t?’
‘On the table under your nose.’
My eyes fell with the rest, but no pearl was there; only the
contents of our pockets - our watches, pocket-books, pencils,

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penknives, cigarette-cases - lay on the shiny table along with

the revolvers already mentioned.
‘Ye’re humbuggin’ us,’ said Mackenzie. ‘What’s the use?'
‘I’m doing nothing of the sort,’ laughed Raffles. ‘I’m test­
ing you. Where’s the harm?’
‘It’s here, joke apart?’
‘On that table, by all my gods.’
Mackenzie opened the cigarette cases and shook each par­
ticular cigarette. Thereupon Raffles prayed to be allowed to
smoke one, and, when his prayer was heard, observed that the
pearl had been on the table much longer than the cigarettes.
Mackenzie promptly caught up the Colt and opened the
chamber in the butt.
‘Not there, not there,’ said Raffles; ‘but you’re getting hot.
Try the cartridges.’
Mackenzie emptied them into his palm, and shook each
one at his ear without result.
‘Oh, give them to me -’
And, in an instant, Raffles had found the right one, had
bitten out the bullet, and placed the emperor’s pearl with a
flourish in the centre of the table.
‘After that you will perhaps show me such little considera­
tion as is in your power. - Captain, I have been a bit of a vil­
lain, as you see, and as such I am ready and willing to lie in
irons all night, if you deem it requisite for the safety of the
ship. All I ask is that you do me one favour first.’
‘That shall debend on wad der vafour has been.’
‘Captain, I’ve done a worse thing aboard your ship than
any of you know. I have become engaged to be married, and I
want to say good-bye!’
I suppose we were all equally amazed; but the only one to
express his amazement was von Heumann, whose deep-
chested German oath was almost his first contribution to the
proceedings. He was not slow to follow it, however, with a
vigorous protest against the proposed farewell; but he was
overruled, and the masterful prisoner had his way. He was to

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have five minutes with the girl, while the captain and
Mackenzie stood within range (but not earshot), with their
revolvers behind their backs. As we were moving from the
cabin in a body, he stopped and gripped my hand.
‘So I’ve let you in at last, Bunny - at last and after all! If
you knew how sorry I am. . . . But you won’t get much - I
don’t see why you should get anything at all. Can you forgive
me? This may be for years, and it may be for ever, you know!
You were a good pal always when it came to the scratch;
some day or other you mayn’t be so sorry to remember you
were a good pal at the last!’
There was a meaning in his eye that I understood; and my
teeth were set, and my nerves strung ready as I wrung that
strong and cunning hand for the last time in my life.
How that last scene stays with me, and will stay to my
death! How I see every detail, every shadow on the sunlit
deck! We were among the islands that dot the course from
Genoa to Naples; that was Elba falling back on our starboard
quarter, that purple patch with the hot sun setting over it.
The captain’s cabin opened to starboard, and the starboard
promenade deck, sheeted with sunshine and scored with
shadow, was deserted but for the group of which I was one,
and for the pale, slim, brown figure further aft with Raffles.
Engaged? I could not believe it, cannot to this day. Yet there
they stood together, and we did not hear a word; there they
stood out against the sun set, and the long, dazzling highway
of sunlit sea that sparkled from Elba to the Uhlan’s plates; and
their shadows reached almost to our feet.
Suddenly - an instant - and the thing was done - a thing I
have never known whether to admire or to detest. He caught
her - he kissed her before us all - then flung her from him so
that she almost fell. It was that action which foretold the next.
The mate sprang after him, and I sprang after the mate.
Raffles was on the rail, but only just.
‘Hold him, Bunny!’ he cried. ‘Hold him tight!’ And as I
obeyed that last behest with all my might, without a thought

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of what I was doing, save that he hade me do it, I saw his

hands shoot up and his head bob down, and his lithe, spare
body cut the sunset as cleanly and precisely as though he had
plunged at his leisure from a diver’s board!

Of what followed on deck I can tell you nothing, for I was

not there. Nor can my final punishment, my long imprison­
ment, my everlasting disgrace, concern or profit you, beyond
the interest and advantage to be gleaned from the knowledge
that I at least had my deserts. But one thing I must set down,
believe it who will - one more thing only and I am done.
It was into a second-class cabin, on the starboard side, that
I was promptly thrust in irons, and the door locked upon me
as though I were another Raffles. Meanwhile a boat was low­
ered, and the sea scoured to no purpose, as is doubtless on
record elsewhere. But either the setting sun, flashing over the
waves, must have blinded all eyes, or else mine were victims
of a strange illusion.
For the boat was back, the screw throbbing, and the pris­
oner peering through his port-hole across the sunlit waters
that he believed had closed for ever over his comrade’s head.
Suddenly the sun sank behind the Island of Elba, the lane of
dancing sunlight was instantaneously quenched and swal­
lowed in the trackless waste, and in the middle distance,
already miles astern, either my sight deceived me or a black
speck bobbed amid the grey. The bugle had blown for
dinner; it may well be that all save myself had ceased to strain
an eye. And now I lost what I had found, now it rose, now
sank, and now I gave it up utterly. Yet anon it would rise
again, a mere mote dancing in the dim grey distance, drifting
towards a purple island, beneath a fading western sky.
streaked with dead gold and cerise. And night fell before I
knew whether it was a human head or not.

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 CHAPTER IX

No Sinecure

I AM STILL UNCERTAIN which surprised me more, the

telegram calling my attention to the advertisement or the
advertisement itself. The telegram is before me as I write. It
would appear to have been handed in at Vere Street at eight
o’clock in the morning of May 11, 1897, and received before
half-past at Holloway B.O. And in that drab region it duly
found me, unwashen but at work before the day grew hot and
my attic insupportable.

‘See Mr. Maturin’s advertisement Daily Mail might suit

you earnestly beg try will speak if necessary... .”

I transcribe the thing as I see it before me, all in one breath

that took away mine; but I leave out the initials at the end,
which completed the surprise. They stood very obviously for
the knighted specialist whose consulting-room is within a
cab-whistle of Vere Street, and who once called me kinsman
for his sins. More recently he had called me other names. I
was a disgrace, qualified by an adjective which seemed to me
another. I had made my bed, and I could go and lie and die in
it. If I ever again had the insolence to show my nose in that
house, I should go out quicker than I came in. All this, and
more, my least distant relative could tell a poor devil to his
face; could ring for his man, and give him his brutal instruc­
tions on the spot; and then relent to the tune of this telegram!
I have no phrase for my amazement. I literally could not
believe my eyes. Yet their evidence was more and more con-

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elusive: a very epistle could not have been more characteristic

of its sender. Meanly elliptical, ludicrously precise, saving
halfpence at the expense of sense, yet paying like a man for
‘Mr.’ Maturin, that was my distinguished relative from his
bald patch to his corns. Nor was all the rest unlike him, upon
second thoughts. He had a reputation for charity, he was
going to live up to it after all. Either that, or it was the
sudden impulse of which the most calculating are capable at
times; the morning papers with the early cup of tea, this
advertisement seen by chance, and the rest upon the spur of a
guilty conscience.
Well, I must see it for myself, and the sooner the better,
though work pressed. I was writing a series of articles upon
prison life, and had my nib into the whole System; a literary
and philanthropical daily was parading my ‘charges,’ the
graver ones with the more gusto; and the terms, if unhand­
some for creative work, were temporary wealth to me. It so
happened that my first cheque had just arrived by the eight
o’clock post; and my position should be appreciated when I
say that I had to cash it to obtain a Daily Mail.
Of the advertisement itself, what is to be said? It should
speak for itself if I could find it, but I cannot, and only
remember that it was a ‘male nurse and constant attendant’
that was ‘wanted for an elderly gentleman in feeble health.’ A
male nurse! An absurd tag was appended, offering ‘liberal
salary to University or public-school man;’ and of a sudden I
saw that I should get this thing if I applied for it. What other
‘University or public-school man’ would dream of doing so?
Was any other in such straits as I? And then my relenting rel­
ative; he not only promised to speak for me, but was the very
man to do so. Could any recommendation compete with his
in the matter of a male nurse? And need the duties of such be
necessarily loathsome and repellent? Certainly the surround­
ings would be better than those of my common lodging­
house and own particular garret; and the food; and every
other condition of life that I could think of on my way back

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to that unsavoury asylum. So I dived into a pawnbroker’s

shop, where I was a stranger only upon my present errand,
and within the hour was airing a decent if antiquated suit, but
little corrupted by the pawnbroker’s moth, and a new straw
hat, on the top of a tram.
The address given in the advertisement was that of a flat at
Earl’s Court, which cost me a cross-country journey, finish­
ing with the District Railway and a seven minutes’ walk. It
was now past midday, and the tarry wood-pavement was good
to smell as I strode up the Earl’s Court Road. It was great to
walk the civilised world again. Here were men with coats on
their backs, and ladies in gloves. My only fear was lest I might
run up against one or other whom I had known of old. But it
was my lucky day. I felt it in my bones. I was going to get this
berth: and sometimes I should be able to smell the wood­
pavement on the old boy’s errands; perhaps he would insist
on skimming over it in his bath-chair, with me behind.
I felt quite nervous when I reached the flats. They were a
small pile in a side-street, and I pitied the doctor whose plate
I saw upon the palings before the ground-floor windows; he
must be in a very small way, I thought. I rather pitied myself
as well. I had indulged in visions of better flats than these.
There were no balconies. The porter was out of livery. There
was no lift, and my invalid on the third floor! I trudged up,
wishing I had never lived in Mount Street, and brushed
against a dejected individual coming down. A full-blooded
young fellow in a frock-coat flung the right door open at my
summons.
‘Does Mr. Maturin live here?’ I inquired.
‘That’s right,’ said the full-blooded young man, grinning
all over a convivial countenance.
‘I - I’ve come about his advertisement in the Daily Mail.’
‘You’re the thirty-ninth,’ cried the blood; ‘that was the
thirty-eighth you met upon the stairs, and the day’s still
young. Excuse my staring at you. Yes, you pass your prelim.,
and can come inside; you’re one of the few. We had most just

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after breakfast, but now the porter’s heading off the worst
cases, and that last chap was the first for twenty minutes.
Come in here.’
And I was ushered into an empty room with a good bay­
window, which enabled my full-blooded friend to inspect me
yet more critically in a good light; this he did-without the
least false delicacy: then his questions began.
* ’Varsity man?’
‘No.’
‘Public school?’
‘Yes ‘
‘Which one?’
I told him, and he sighed relief.
‘At last! You’re the very first I’ve not had to argue with as
to what is and what is not a public school. Expelled?’
‘No,’ I said, after a moment’s hesitation. ‘No, I was not
expelled. And I hope you won’t expel me if I ask a question in
my turn.’
‘Certainly not.’
‘Are you Mr. Maturin’s son?’
‘No, my name’s Theobald. You may have seen it down
below.’
‘The doctor?’ I said.
‘His doctor,’ said Theobald, with a satisfied eye. ‘Mr.
Maturin’s doctor. He is having a male nurse and attendant by
my advice, and he wants a gentleman if he can get one. I
rather think he’ll see you, though he’s only seen two or three
all day. There are certain questions which he prefers to ask
himself, and it’s no good going over the same ground twice.
So perhaps I had better tell him about you before we get any
further.’
And he withdrew to a room still nearer the entrance, as I
could hear, for it was a very small flat indeed. But now two
doors were shut between us, and I had to rest content with
murmurs through the wall until the doctor returned to
summon me.

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‘I have persuaded my patient to see you,’ he whispered,

‘but I confess I am not sanguine of the result. He is very diffi­
cult to please. You must prepare yourself for a querulous
invalid, and for no sinecure if you get the billet.’
‘May I ask what’s the matter with him?’
‘By all means - when you’ve got the billet.’
Dr. Theobald then led the way, his professional dignity so
thoroughly intact that I could not but smile as I followed his
swinging coat-tails to the sickroom. I carried no smile across
the threshold of a darkened chamber which reeked of drugs
and twinkled with medicine bottles, and in the middle of
which a gaunt figure lay abed in the half-light.
‘Take him to the window, take him to the window,’ a thin
voice snapped, ‘and let’s have a look at him. Open the blind a
bit. Not as much as that, damn you, not as much as that -’
The doctor took the oath as though it had been a fee. I no
longer pitied him. It was now very clear to me that he had
one patient who was a little practice in himself. I determined
there and then that he should prove a little profession to me,
if we could but keep him alive between us. Mr. Maturin,
however, had the whitest face that I have ever seen, and his
teeth gleamed out through the dusk as though the withered
Ups no longer met about them; nor did they except in speech;
and anything ghastlier than the perpetual grin of his repose I
defy you to imagine. It was with this grin that he lay regard­
ing me while the doctor held the blind.
‘So you think you could look after me, do you?’
‘I’m certain I could, sir.’
‘Single-handed, mind! I don’t keep another soul. You
would have to cook your own grub and my slops. Do you
think you could do all that?’
‘Yes, sir, I think so.’
‘Why do you? Have you any experience of the kind?’
‘No, sir, none.’
‘Then why do you pretend you have?’
‘I only meant that I would do my best.’

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 RAFFLES

‘Only meant, only meant! Have you done your best at

everything else, then?’
I hung my head. This was a facer. And there was some­
thing in my invalid which thrust the unspoken lie down my
throat.
‘No, sir, I have not,’ I told him plainly.
‘He, he, he!’ the old wretch tittered; ‘and you do well to
own it; you do well, sir, very well indeed. If you hadn’t owned
up, out you would have gone, out neck and crop! You’ve
saved your bacon. You may do more. So you are a public­
school boy, and a very good school yours is, but you weren’t
at either University. Is that correct?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘What did you do when you left school?’
‘I came in for money.’
‘And then?’
‘I spent my money.’
‘And since then?’
I stood like a mule.
‘And since then, I say!’
‘A relative of mine will tell you if you ask him. He is an
eminent man, and he has promised to speak for me. I would
rather say no more myself.’
‘But you shall, sir, but you shall! Do you suppose that I
suppose a public-school boy would apply for a berth like this
if something or other hadn’t happened? What I want is a
gentleman of sorts, and I don’t much care what sort; but
you’ve got to tell me what did happen, if you don’t tell any­
body else. - Dr. Theobald, sir, you can go to the devil if you
won’t take a hint. This man may do or he may not. You have
no more to say to it till I send him down to tell you one thing
or the other. Clear out, sir, clear out; and if you think you’ve
anything to complain of, you stick it down in the bill!’
In the mild excitement of our interview the thin voice had
gathered strength, and the last shrill insult was screamed after
the devoted medico, as he retired in such order that I felt cer­

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tain he was going to take this trying patient at his word. The
bedroom door closed, then the outer one, and the doctor’s
heels went drumming down the common stair. I was alone in
the flat with this highly singular and rather terrible old man.
‘And a damned good riddance!’ croaked the invalid, raising
himself on one elbow without delay. ‘I may not have much
body left to boast about, but at least I’ve got a lost old soul to
call my own. That’s why I want a gentleman of sorts about
me. I’ve been too dependent on that chap. He won’t even let
me smoke, and he’s been in the flat all day to see I didn’t.
You’ll find the cigarettes behind the Madonna of the Chair.'
It was a steel engraving of the great Raffaelle, and the
frame was tilted from the wall; at a touch a packet of ciga­
rettes tumbled down from behind.
‘Thanks; and now a light.’
I struck the match and held it, while the invalid inhaled
with normal lips; and suddenly I sighed. I was irresistibly
reminded of my poor dear old Raffles. A smoke-ring worthy
of the great A. J. was floating upward from the sick man’s bps.
‘And now take one yourself. I have smoked more poisonous
cigarettes. But even these are not Sullivans!’
I cannot repeat what I said. I have no idea what I did. I
only know - I only knew - that it was A. J. Raffles in the
flesh!

n
‘Yes, Bunny, it was the very devil of a swim; but I defy you
to sink in the Mediterranean. That sunset saved me. The sea
was on fire. I hardly swam under water at all, but went all I
knew for the sun itself; when it set I must have been a mile
away; until it did I was the invisible man. I figured on that,
and only hope it wasn’t set down as a case of suicide. I shall
get outed quite soon enough, Bunny, but I’d rather be
dropped by the hangman than throw my own wicket away.’

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 RAFFLES

‘Oh, my dear old chap, to think of having you by the hand

again! I feel as though we were both aboard that German
liner, and all that’s happened since a nightmare. I thought
that time was the last!’
‘It looked rather like it, Bunny. It was taking all the risks,
and hitting at everything. But the game came off, and some
day I’ll tell you how.’
‘Oh, I’m in no hurry to hear. It’s enough for me to see you
lying there, I don’t want to know how you came there, or
why, though I fear you must be pretty bad. I must have a
good look at you before I let you speak another word!’
I raised one of the blinds, I sat upon the bed, and I had that
look. It left me all unable to conjecture his true state of health,
but quite certain in my own mind that my dear Raffles was not
and never would be the man that he had been. He had aged
twenty years; he looked fifty at the very least. His hair was
white; there was no trick about that; and his face was another
white. The lines about the corners of the eyes and mouth were
both many and deep. On the other hand, the eyes themselves
were alight and alert as ever; they were still keen and grey and
gleaming like finely-tempered steel. Even the mouth, with a
cigarette to close it, was the mouth of Raffles and no other:
strong and unscrupulous as the man himself. It was only the
physical strength which appeared to have departed; but that
was quite sufficient to make my heart bleed for the dear rascal
who had cost me every tie I valued but the tie between us two.
‘Think I look much older?’ he asked at length.
‘A bit,’ I admitted. ‘But it is chiefly your hair.’
‘Whereby hangs a tale for when we’ve talked ourselves out,
though I have often thought it was that long swim that
started it. Still, the Island of Elba is a rummy show, I can
assure you. And Naples is a rummier.’
‘You went there after all?’
‘Rather! It’s the European paradise for such as our noble
selves. But there’s no place that’s a patch on little London as
a non-conductor of heat; it never need get too hot for a

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fellow here; if it does it’s his own fault. It’s the kind of wicket
you don’t get out on, unless you get yourself out. So here I
am again, and have been for the last six weeks. And I mean to
have another knock.’
‘But surely, old fellow, you’re not awfully fit, are you?’
‘Fit? My dear Bunny, I’m dead - I’m at the bottom of the
sea - and don’t you forget it for a minute.’
‘But are you all right, or are you not?’
‘No, I’m half poisoned by Theobald’s prescriptions and
putrid cigarettes, and as weak as a cat from lying in bed.’
‘Then why on earth He in bed, Raffles?’
‘Because it’s better than lying in gaol, as I am afraid you
know, my poor dear fellow. I tell you I am dead; and my one
terror is of coming to life again by accident. Can’t you see? I
simply dare not show my nose out of doors - by day. You
have no idea of the number of perfectly innocent things a
dead man daren’t do. I can’t even smoke Sullivans, because
no one man was ever so partial to them as I was in my fife­
time, and you never know when you may start a clue.’
‘What brought you to these mansions?’
‘I fancied a flat, and a man recommended these on the
boat; such a good chap, Bunny; he was my reference when it
came to signing the lease. You see I landed on a stretcher -
most pathetic case - old Australian without a friend in old
country - ordered Engadine as last chance - no go - not an
earthly - sentimental wish to die in London - that’s the his­
tory of Mr. Maturin. If it doesn’t hit you hard, Bunny, you’re
the first. But it hit friend Theobald hardest of all. I’m an
income to him. I believe he’s going to marry on me.’
‘Does he guess there’s nothing wrong?’
‘Knows, bless you! But he doesn’t know I know he knows,
and there isn’t a disease in the dictionary that he hasn’t
treated me for since he’s had me in hand. To do him justice, I
believe he thinks me a hypochondriac of the first water; but
that young man will go far if he keeps on the wicket. He has
spent half his nights up here, at guineas apiece.’

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 RAFFLES

‘Guineas must be plentiful, old chap!’

‘They have been, Bunny. I can’t say more. But I don’t see
why they shouldn’t be again.’
I was not going to inquire where the guineas came from.
As if I cared! But I did ask old Raffles how in the world he
had got upon my tracks; and thereby drew the sort of smile
with which old gentlemen rub their hands, and old ladies nod
their noses. Raffles merely produced a perfect oval of blue
smoke before replying.
‘I was waiting for you to ask that, Bunny; it’s a long time
since I did anything upon which I plume myself more. Of
course, in the first place, I spotted you at once by these prison
articles; they were not signed, but the fist was the fist of my
sitting rabbit!’
‘But who gave you my address?’
‘I wheedled it out of your excellent editor; called on him at
dead of night, when I occasionally go afield like other ghosts,
and wept it out of him in five minutes. I was your only rela­
tive; your name was not your own name; if he insisted I
would give him mine. He didn’t insist, Bunny, and I danced
down his stairs with your address in my pocket.’
‘Last night?’
‘No, last week.’
‘And so the advertisement was yours, as well as the
telegram!’
I had, of course, forgotten both in the high excitement of
the hour, or I should scarcely have announced my belated
discovery with such an air. As it was I made Raffles look at me
as I had known him look before, and the droop of his eyelids
began to sting.
‘Why all this subtlety?’ I petulantly exclaimed. ‘Why
couldn’t you come straight away to me in a cab?’
He did not inform me that I was hopeless as ever. He did
not address me as his good rabbit. He was silent for a time,
and then spoke in a tone which made me ashamed of mine.
‘You see, there are two or three of me now, Bunny: one’s at

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the bottom of the Mediterranean, and one’s an old Australian

desirous of dying in the old country, but in no immediate
danger of dying anywhere. The old Australian doesn’t know a
soul in town; he’s got to be consistent, or he’s done. This
sitter Theobald is his only friend, and has seen rather too
much of him; ordinary dust won’t do for his eyes. Begin to
see? To pick you out of a crowd, that was the game; to let old
Theobald help to pick you, better still! To start with, he was
dead against my having anybody at all; wanted me all to him­
self, naturally; but anything rather than kill the goose! So he
is to have a fiver a week while he keeps me alive, and he’s
going to be married next month. That’s a pity in some ways,
but a good thing in others; he will want more money than he
foresees, and he may always be of use to us at a pinch. Mean­
while he eats out of my hand.’
I complimented Raffles on the mere composition of his
telegram, with half the characteristics of my distinguished
kinsman squeezed into a dozen odd words; and let him know
how the old ruffian had really treated me. Raffles was not sur­
prised; we had dined together at my relative’s in the old days,
and filed for reference a professional valuation of his house­
hold gods. I now learnt that the telegram had been posted,
with the hour marked for its despatch, at the pillar nearest
Vere Street, on the night before the advertisement was due to
appear in the Daily Mail. This also had been carefully pre­
arranged; and Raffles’s only fear had been lest it might be
held over despite his explicit instructions, and so drive me to
the doctor for an explanation of his telegram. But the adverse
chances had been weeded out and weeded out to the irre­
ducible minimum of risk.
His greatest risk, according to Raffles, lay nearest home:
bedridden invalid that he was supposed to be, his nightly
terror was of running into Theobald’s arms in the immediate
neighbourhood of the flat. But Raffles had characteristic
methods of minimising even that danger, of which something
anon; meanwhile he recounted more than one of his noctur­

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nal adventures, all, however, of a singularly innocent type;

and one thing I noticed while he talked. His room was the
first as you entered the flat. The long inner wall divided the
room not merely from the passage but from the outer landing
as well. Thus every step upon the bare stone stairs could be
heard by Raffles where he lay; and he would never speak
while one was ascending, until it had passed his door. The
afternoon brought more than one applicant for the post
which it was my duty to tell them that I had already obtained.
Between three and four, however, Raffles, suddenly looking
at his watch, packed me off in a hurry to the other end of
London for my things.
‘I’m afraid you must be famishing, Bunny. It’s a fact that I
eat very little, and that at odd hours, but I ought not to have
forgotten you. Get yourself a snack outside, but not a square
meal if you can resist one. We’ve got to celebrate this day this
night!’
‘To-night?’ I cried.
‘To-night at eleven, and Kellner’s the place. You may well
open your eyes, but we didn’t go there much, if you remem­
ber, and the staff seems changed. Anyway, we’ll risk it for
once. I was in last night, talking like a stage American, and
supper’s ordered for eleven sharp.’
‘You made as sure of me as all that!’
‘There was no harm in ordering supper. We shall have it in
a private room, but you may as well dress if you’ve got the
duds.’
‘They’re at my only forgiving relative’s.’
‘How much will get them out, and square you up, and
bring you back bag and baggage in good time?’
I had to calculate.
‘A tenner, easily.’
‘I had one ready for you. Here it is, and I wouldn’t lose any
time if I were you. On the way you might look up Theobald,
tell him you’ve got it and how long you’ll be gone, and that I
can’t be left alone all the time. And, by Jove, yes! You get me

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a stall for the Lyceum at the nearest agent’s; there are two or
three in High Street; and say it was given you when you come
in. That young man shall be out of the way to-night.’
I found our doctor in a minute consulting-room and his
shirt-sleeves, a tall tumbler at his elbow; at least I caught
sight of the tumbler on entering; thereafter he stood in front
of it, with a futility which had my sympathy.
‘So you’ve got the billet,’ said Dr. Theobald. ‘Well, as I
told you before, and as you have since probably discovered
for yourself, you won’t find it exactly a sinecure. My own part
of the business is by no means that; indeed, there are those
who would throw up the case, after the kind of treatment that
you have seen for yourself. But professional considerations
are not the only ones, and one cannot make too many
allowances in such a case.’
‘But what is the case?’ I asked him. ‘You said you would tell
me if I was successful.’
Dr. Theobald’s shrug was worthy of the profession he
seemed destined to adorn; it was not incompatible with any
construction which one chose to put upon it. Next moment
he had stiffened. I suppose I still spoke more or less like a
gentleman. Yet, after all, I was only the male nurse. He
seemed to remember this suddenly, and he took occasion to
remind me of the fact.
‘Ah,’ said he, ‘that was before I knew you were altogether
without experience; and I must say that I was surprised even at
Mr. Maturin’s engaging you after that; but it will depend upon
yourself how long I allow him to persist in so curious an exper­
iment. As for what is the matter with him, my good fellow, it is
no use my giving you an answer which would be double Dutch
to you; moreover, I have still to test your discretionary powers.
I may say, however, that that poor gentleman presents at once
the most complex and most troublesome case, which is respon­
sibility enough without certain features which make it all but
insupportable. Beyond this I must refuse to discuss my patient
for the present; but I shall certainly go up iff can find time.’

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He went up within five minutes. I found him there on my

return at dusk But he did not refuse my stall for the Lyceum,
which Raffles would not allow me to use myself, and pre­
sented to him offhand without my leave.
‘And don’t you bother any more about me till to-morrow,’
snapped the high thin voice as he was off. ‘I can send for you
now when I want you, and I’m hoping to have a decent night
for once.’

in

It was half-past ten when we left the flat, in an interval of

silence on the noisy stairs. The silence was unbroken by our
wary feet. Yet for me a surprise was in store upon the very
landing. Instead of going downstairs, Raffles led me up two
flights, and so out upon a perfectly flat roof. ‘There are two
entrances to these mansions,’ he explained between stars and
chimney-stacks: ‘one to our staircase, and another round the
corner. But there’s only one porter, and he lives on the base­
ment underneath us, and affects the door nearest home. We
miss him by using the wrong stairs, and we run less risk of old
Theobald. I got the tip from the postmen, who come up one
way and down the other. Now follow me, and look out!’
There was indeed some necessity for caution, for each half
of the building had its L-shaped well dropping sheer to the
base, the parapets so low that one might easily have tripped
over them into eternity. However, we were soon upon the
second staircase, which opened on the roof like the first. And
twenty minutes of the next twenty-five we spent in an
admirable hansom, skimming east.
‘Not much change in the old hole, Bunny. More of these
magic-lantern advertisements ... and absolutely the worst bit
of taste in town, though it’s saying something, in that eques­
trian statue with the gilt stirrups and fixings: why don’t they
black the buffer’s boots and his horse’s hoofs while they are

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about it?... More bicyclists, of course. That was just begin­

ning, if you remember. It might have been useful to us. . . .
And there’s the old club, getting put into a crate for the
Jubilee; by Jove, Bunny, we ought to be there. I wouldn’t lean
forward in Piccadilly, old chap. If you’re seen I’m thought of,
and we shall have to be jolly careful at Kellner’s.... Ah, there
it is! Did I tell you I was a low-down stage Yankee at Kell­
ner’s? You’d better be another, while the waiter’s in the
room.’
We had the little room upstairs; and on the very threshold
I, even I, who knew my Raffles of old, was taken horribly
aback. The table was laid for three. I called his attention to it
in a whisper.
‘Why, yep!’ came through his nose. - ‘Say, boy, the lady,
she’s not cornin’, but you leave that tackle where ’tis. If I’m
liable to pay, I guess I’ll have all there is to it.’
I have never been in America, and the American public is
the last on earth that I desire to insult; but idiom and intona­
tion alike would have imposed upon my inexperience. I had
to look at Raffles to make sure that it was he who spoke, and I
had my own reasons for looking hard.
‘Who on earth was the lady?’ I inquired aghast at the first
opportunity.
‘She isn’t on earth. They don’t like wasting this room on
two, that’s all. Bunny - my Bunny - here’s to us both!’
And we clinked glasses swimming with the liquid gold of
Steinberg, 1868; but of the rare delights of that supper I can
scarcely trust myself to write. It was no mere meal, it was no
coarse orgy, but a little feast for the fastidious gods, not
unworthy of Lucullus at his worst. And I who had bolted my
skilly at Wormwood Scrubs, and tightened my belt in a Hol­
loway attic, it was I who sat down to this ineffable repast!
Where the courses were few, but each a triumph of its kind, it
would be invidious to single out any one dish; but the jambon
de Wertphalie au champagne tempts me sorely. And then the
champagne that we drank, not the quantity but the quality!

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Well, it was Pol Roger, ’84, and quite good enough for me;
but even so it was not more dry, nor did it sparkle more, than
the merry rascal who had dragged me thus far to the devil,
but should lead me dancing the rest of the way. I was begin­
ning to tell him so. I had done my honest best since my reap­
pearance in the world; but the world had done its worst by
me. A further antithesis and my final intention were both
upon my tongue when the waiter with the Chateau Margaux
cut me short; for he was the bearer of more than that great
wine; bringing also a card upon a silver tray.
‘Show him up,’ said Raffles, laconically.
‘And who is this?’ I cried when the man was gone. Raffles
reached across the table and gripped my arm in his vice. His
eyes were steel points fixed on mine.
‘Bunny, stand by me,’ said he in the old irresistible voice, a
voice both stern and winning. ‘Stand by me, Bunny - if
there’s a row!’
And there was time for nothing more, the door flying
open, and a dapper person entering with a bow; a frock-coat
on his back, gold pince-nez on his nose; a shiny hat in one
hand, and a black bag in the other.
‘Good-evening, gentlemen,’ said he, at home and smiling.
‘Sit down,’ drawled Raffles in casual response. ‘Say, let me
introduce you to Mr. Ezra B. Martin of Shicawgo. Mr.
Martin is my future brother-in-law. - This is Mr. Robinson,
Ezra, manager to Sparks and Company, the cellerbrated jool-
ers on Regent Street.’
I pricked up my ears, but contented myself with a nod. I
altogether distrusted my ability to live up to my new name
and address.
‘I figured on Miss Martin bein’ right here, too,’ continued
Raffles, ‘but I regret to say she’s not feelin’ so good. We light
out for Parrus on the 9 a.m. train to-morrer mornin’, and she
guessed she’d be too dead. Sorry to disappoint you, Mr.
Robinson; but you’ll see Fm advertisin’ your wares.’
Raffles held his right hand under the electric light, and a

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diamond ring flashed upon his little finger. I could have

sworn it was not there five minutes before.
The tradesman had a disappointed face, but for a moment
it brightened as he expatiated on the value of that ring and on
the price his people had accepted for it. I was invited to guess
the figure, but I shook a discreet head. I have seldom been
more taciturn in my life.
‘Forty-five pounds,’ cried the jeweller; ‘and it would be
cheap at fifty guineas.’
‘That’s right,’ assented Raffles. ‘That’d be dead cheap, I
allow. But then, my boy, you gotten ready cash, and don’t
you forget it.’
I do not dwell upon my own mystification in all this. I
merely pause to state that I was keenly enjoying that very ele­
ment. Nothing could have been more typical of Raffles and
the past. It was only my own attitude that was changed.
It appeared that the mythical lady, my sister, had just
become engaged to Raffles, who seemed all anxiety to pin her
down with gifts of price. I could not quite gather whose gift
to whom was the diamond ring; but it had evidently been
paid for; and I voyaged to the moon, wondering when and
how. I was recalled to this planet by a deluge of gems from
the jeweller’s bag. They lay alight in their cases like the elec­
tric lamps above. We all three put our heads together over
them, myself without the slightest clue as to what was
coming, but not unprepared for violent crime. One does not
do eighteen months for nothing.
‘Right away,’ Raffles was saying. ‘We’ll choose for her, and
you’ll change anything she don’t like. Is that the idea?’
‘That was my suggestion, sir.’
‘Then come on, Ezra. I guess you know Sadie’s taste. You .
help me choose.’
And we chose - Lord! What did we not choose? There was
her ring, a diamond half-hoop. It cost £95, and there was no
attempt to get it for £90. Then there was a diamond necklet -
two hundred guineas, but pounds accepted. That was to be

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 RAFFLES

the gift of the bridegroom. The wedding was evidently immi­

nent. It behoved me to play a brotherly part. I therefore rose
to the occasion; calculated she would like a diamond star
(£116), but reckoned it was more than I could afford; and sus­
tained a vicious kick under the table for either verb. I was
afraid to open my mouth on finally obtaining the star for the
round hundred. And then the fat fell in the fire; for pay we
could not; though a remittance (said Raffles) was ‘overdo
from Noo York.’
‘But I don’t know you, gentlemen,’ the jeweller exclaimed.
‘I haven’t even the name of your hotel!’
‘I told you we was stoppin’ with friends,’ said Raffles, who
was not angry, though thwarted and crushed. ‘But that’s
right, sir! Oh, that’s dead right, and I’m the last man to ask
you to take Quixotic risks. I’m tryin’ to figure a way out. Yes,
sir, that’s what I’m tryin’ to do.’
‘I wish you could, sir,’ the jeweller said, with feeling. ‘It
isn’t as if we hadn’t seen the colour of your money. But cer­
tain rules I am sworn to observe; it isn’t as if I was in business
for myself; and - you say you start for Paris in the morning!’
‘On the 9 a.m. train,’ mused Raffles; ‘and I’ve heard no-end
yarns about the joolers’ stores in Parrus. But that ain’t fair;
don’t you take no notice o’ that. I’m tryin’ to figure a way
out. Yes, sir!’
He was smoking cigarettes out of a twenty-five box; the
tradesman and I had cigars. Raffles sat frowning with a preg­
nant eye, and it was only too clear to me that his plans had
miscarried. I could not help thinking, however, that they
deserved to do so, if he had counted upon buying credit for
all but £400 by a single payment of some 10 per cent. That
again seemed unworthy of Raffles, and I, for my part, still sat
prepared to spring any moment at our visitor’s throat.
‘We could mail you the money from Parrus,’ drawled Raf­
fles at length. ‘But how should we know you’d hold up your
end of the string, and mail us the same articles we’ve selected
to-night?’

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 RAFFLES

The visitor stiffened in his chair. The name of his firm

should be sufficient guarantee for that.
‘I guess I’m no better acquainted with their name than they
are with mine,’ remarked Raffles, laughing. ‘See here,
though! I got a scheme. You pack ’em in this!’
He turned the cigarettes out of the tin box, while the jew­
eller and I joined wondering eyes.
‘Pack ’em in this,’ repeated Raffles, ‘the three things we
want, and never mind the boxes; you can pack ’em in cotton­
wool. Then we’ll ring for string and sealing-wax, seal up the
lot right here, and you can take ’em away in your grip.
Within three days we’ll have our remittance, and mail you
the money, and you’ll mail us this darned box with my seal
unbroken! It’s no use you lookin’ so sick, Mr. Jooler; you
won’t trust us any, and yet we’re goin’ to trust you some. -
Ring the bell, Ezra, and we’ll see if they’ve gotten any seal­
ing-wax and string.’
They had; and the thing was done. The tradesman did not
like it; the precaution was absolutely unnecessary; but since
he was taking all his goods away with him, the sold with the
unsold, his sentimental objections soon fell to the ground. He
packed necklet ring, and star, with his own hands, in cotton­
wool and the cigarette-box held them so easily that at the last
moment, when the box was closed, and the string ready, Raf­
fles very nearly added a diamond bee-brooch at £51, 10s.
This temptation, however, he ultimately overcame, to the
other’s chagrin. The cigarette-box was tied up, and the string
sealed, oddly enough, with the diamond of the ring that had
been bought and paid for.
‘I’ll chance you having another ring in the store the dead
spit of mine,’ laughed Raffles, as he relinquished the box, and
it disappeared into the tradesman’s bag. ‘And now, Mr.
Robinson, I hope you’ll appreciate my true hospitality in not
offering you anything to drink while business was in progress.
That’s Chateau Margaux, sir, and I should judge it’s what
you’d call an eighteen-carat article.’

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 RAFFLES

In the cab which we took to the vicinity of the flat, I was

instantly snubbed for asking questions which the driver might
easily overhear, and I took the repulse just a little to heart. I
could make neither head nor tail of Raffles’s dealings with the
man from Regent Street, and was naturally inquisitive as to
the meaning of it all. But I held my tongue until we had
regained the flat in the cautious manner of our exit, and even
there until Raffles rallied me with a hand on either shoulder
and an old smile upon his face.
‘You rabbit!’ said he. ‘Why couldn’t you wait till we got
home?’
‘Why couldn’t you tell me what you were going to do?’ I
retorted as of yore.
‘Because your dear old phiz is still worth its weight in inno­
cence, and because you never could act for nuts! You looked
as puzzled as the other poor devil; but you wouldn’t if you
had known what my game really was.’
‘And pray what was it?’
‘That,’ said Raffles, and he smacked the cigarette box down
upon the mantelpiece. It was not tied. It was not sealed. It
flew open from the force of the impact. And the diamond
ring that cost £95, the necklet for £200, and my flaming star
at another £100, all three lay safe and snug in the jeweller’s
own cotton wool!
‘Duplicate boxes!’ I cried.
‘Duplicate boxes, my brainy Bunny. One was already
packed, and weighted, and in my pocket. I don’t know
whether you noticed me weighing the three things together
in my hand? I know that neither of you saw me change the
boxes, for I did it when I was nearest buying the bee brooch
at the end, and you were too puzzled, and the other Johnny
too keen. It was the cheapest shot in the game; the dear ones
were sending old Theobald to Southampton on a fool’s
errand yesterday afternoon, and showing one’s own nose
down Regent Street in broad daylight while he was gone; but
some things are worth paying for and certain risks one must

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always take. Nice boxes, aren’t they? I only wished they con­
tained a better cigarette; but a notorious brand was essential;
a box of Sullivans would have brought me to life to-morrow.’
‘But they oughtn’t to open it to-morrow.’
‘Nor will they, as a matter of fact. Meanwhile, Bunny, I
may call upon you to dispose of the boodle.’
‘I’m on for any mortal thing!’
My voice rang true, I swear, but it was the way of Raffles to
take the evidence of as many senses as possible. I felt the cold
steel of his eye through mine and through my brain. But what
he saw seemed to satisfy him no less than what he heard, for
his hand found my hand, and pressed it with a fervour foreign
to the man.
‘I know you are, and I knew you would be. Only remem­
ber, Bunny, it’s my turn next to pay the shot!’ You shall hear
how he paid it when the time came.

174
 CHAPTER X

A Jubilee Present

The ROOM OF gold, in the British Museum, is probably well

enough known to the inquiring alien and the travelled Ameri­
can. A true Londoner, however, I myself had never heard of
it until Raffles casually proposed a raid.
‘The older I grow, Bunny, the less I think of your so-called
precious stones. When did they ever bring in half their
market value in £ s. d.? There was the first little crib we ever
cracked together - you with your innocent eyes shut. A thou­
sand pounds that stuff was worth; but how many hundreds
did it actually fetch? The Ardagh emeralds weren’t much
better; old Lady Melrose’s necklace was far worse; but that
little lot the other night has about finished me. A cool hun­
dred for goods priced well over four; and £35 to come off for
bait, since we only got a tenner for the ring I bought and paid
for like an ass. I’ll be shot if I ever touch a diamond again!
Not if it was the Koh-i-noor; those few whacking stones are
too well known, and to cut them up is to decrease their value
by arithmetical retrogression. Besides, that brings you up
against the fence once more, and I’m done with the beggars
for good and all. You talk about your editors and publishers,
you literary swine. Barabbas was neither a robber nor a pub­
fisher, but a six-barred, barbed-wired, spike-topped fence.
What we really want is an Incorporated Society of Thieves,
with some public-spirited old forger to run it for us on busi­
ness lines.’
Raffles uttered these blasphemies under his breath, not, I
am afraid, out of any respect for my one redeeming profes­

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 RAFFLES*

sion, but because we were taking a midnight airing on the

roof, after a whole day of June in the little flat below. The
stars shone overhead, the lights of London underneath, and
between the lips of Raffles a cigarette of the old and only
brand. I had sent in secret for a box of the best; the boon had
arrived that night; and the foregoing speech was the first
result. I could afford to ignore the insolent asides, however,
where the apparent contention was so manifestly unsound.
‘And how are you going to get rid of your gold?’ said I,
pertinently.
‘Nothing easier, my dear rabbit.’
‘Is your Room of Gold a roomful of sovereigns?’ Raffles
laughed softly at my scorn.
‘No, Bunny, it’s principally in the shape of archaic orna­
ments, whose value, I admit, is largely extrinsic. But gold is
gold, from Phoenicia to Klondike, and if we cleared the room
we should eventually do very well.’
‘How?’
‘I should melt it down into a nugget, and bring it home
from the U.S.A, to-morrow.’
‘And then?’
‘Make them pay up in hard cash across the counter of the
Bank of England. And you can make them.’
That I knew, and so said nothing for a time, remaining a
hostile though a silent critic, while we paced the cool black
leads with our bare feet, softly as cats.
‘And how do you propose to get enough away,’ at length I
asked, ‘to make it worth while?’
‘Ah, there you have it,’ said Raffles. ‘I only propose to
reconnoitre the ground, to see what we can see. We might
find some hiding-place for a night; that, I am afraid, would be
our only chance.’
‘Have you ever been there before?’
‘Not since they got the one good, portable piece which I
believe that they exhibit now. It’s a long time since I read of it
- I can’t remember where - but I know they have got a gold

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 RAFFLES

cup of sorts worth several thousands. A number of the

immorally rich clubbed together and presented it to the
nation; and two of the richly immoral intend to snaffle it for
themselves. At any rate we might go and have a look at it,
Bunny, don’t you think?’
Think! I seized his arm.
‘When? When? When?’ I asked, like a quick-firing gun.
‘The sooner the better, while old Theobald’s away on his
honeymoon.’
Our medico had married the week before, nor was any
fellow-practitioner taking his work - at least not that consid­
erable branch of it which consisted of Raffles - during his
brief absence from town. There were reasons, delightfully
obvious to us, why such a plan would have been highly
unwise in Dr. Theobald. I, however, was sending him daily
screeds, and both matutinal and nocturnal telegrams, the
composition of which afforded Raffles not a little enjoyment.
‘Well, then, when - when?’ I began to repeat.
‘To-morrow, if you like.’
‘Only to look?’
The limitation was my one regret.
‘We must do so, Bunny, before we leap.’
‘Very well,’ I sighed. ‘But to-morrow it is!’
And the morrow it really was.
I saw the porter that night, and, I still think, bought his
absolute allegiance for the second coin of the realm. My
story, however, invented by Raffles, was sufficiently specious
in itself. That sick gentleman, Mr. Maturin (as I had to
remember to call him), was really, or apparently, sickening
for fresh air. Dr. Theobald would allow him none; he was
pestering me for just one day in the country while the glori­
ous weather lasted. I was myself convinced that no possible
harm could come of the experiment. Would the porter help
me in so innocent and meritorious an intrigue? The man hes­
itated. I produced my half-sovereign. The man was lost. And
at half-past eight next morning - before the heat of the day -

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 RAFFLES

Raffles and I drove to Kew Gardens in a hired landau which

was to call for us at midday and wait until we came. The
porter had assisted me to carry my invalid downstairs, in a
carrying-chair hired (like the landau) from Harrod’s Stores
for the occasion.
It was little after nine when we crawled together into the
gardens; by half-past my invalid had had enough, and out he
tottered on my arm; a cab, a message to our coachman, a
timely train to Baker Street, another cab, and we were at the
British Museum - brisk pedestrians now - not very many
minutes after the opening hour of 10 a.m.
It was one of those glowing days which will not be forgot­
ten by many who were in town at the time. The Diamond
Jubilee was upon us, and Queen’s weather had already set in.
Raffles, indeed, declared it was hot as Italy and Australia put
together; and certainly the short summer nights gave the
channels of wood and asphalt and the continents of brick and
mortar but little time to cool. At the British Museum the
pigeons were crooning among the shadows of the grimy
colonnade, and the stalwart janitors looked less stalwart than
usual, as though their medals were too heavy for them. I
recognised some habitual readers going to their labour under­
neath the dome; of mere visitors we seemed among the first.
‘That’s the room,’ said Raffles, who had bought the
twopenny guide, as we studied it openly on the nearest
bench; ‘Number 43, upstairs and sharp round to the right.
Come on, Bunny!’
And he led the way in silence, but with a long methodical
stride which I could not understand until we came to the cor­
ridor leading to the Room of Gold, when he turned to me for
a moment.
‘A hundred and thirty-nine yards from this to the open
street,’ said Raffles, ‘not counting the stairs. I suppose we
could do it in twenty seconds, but if we did we should have to
jump the gates. No, you must remember to loaf out at slow
march, Bunny, whether you like it or not.’

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‘But you talked about a hiding-place for a night?’

‘Quite so - for all night. We should have to get back, go on
lying low, and saunter out with the crowd next day—after
doing the whole show thoroughly.’
‘What! With gold in our pockets -’
‘And gold in our boots, and gold up the sleeves and legs of
our suits! You leave that to me, Bunny, and wait till you’ve
tried two pairs of trousers sewn together at the foot! This is
only a preliminary reconnoitre. And here we are.’
It is none of my business to describe the so-called Room of
Gold, with which I, for one, was not a little disappointed.
The glass cases, which both fill and line it, may contain
unique examples of the goldsmith’s art in times and places of
which one heard'quite enough in the course of one’s classical
education; but, from a professional point of view, I would as
lief have the ransacking of a single window in the West End
as the pick of all those spoils of Etruria and of Ancient
Greece. The gold may not be so soft as it appears, but it cer­
tainly looks as though you could bite off the business ends of
the spoons, and stop your own teeth in doing so. Nor should
I care to be seen wearing one of the rings; but the greatest
fraud of all (from the aforesaid standpoint) is assuredly that
very cup of which Raffles had spoken. Moreover, he felt this
himself.
‘Why, it’s as thin as paper,’ said he, ‘and enamelled like a
middle-aged lady of quality! But, by Jove, it’s one of the most
beautiful things I ever saw in my life, Bunny. I should like to
have it for its own sake, by all my gods!’
The thing had a little square case of plate-glass all to itself
at one end of the room. It may have been the thing of beauty
that Raffles affected to consider it, but I for my part was in no
mood to look at it in that light. Underneath were the names
of the plutocrats who had subscribed for this national
gewgaw, and I fell to wondering where their £8,000 came in,
while Raffles devoured his twopenny guide-book as greedily
as a school-girl with a zeal for culture.

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‘Those are scenes from the martyrdom of St. Agues,’ said

he ‘ “translucent on relief... one of the finest specimens
of its kind.” I should think it was! Bunny, you Philistine, why
can’t you admire the thing for its own sake? It would be
worth having only to live up to! There never was such rich
enamelling on such thin gold; and what a good scheme to
hang the lid up over it, so that you can see how thin it is. I
wonder if we could lift it, Bunny, by hook or crook?’
‘You’d better try, sir,’ said a dry voice at his elbow.
The madman seemed to think we had the room to our­
selves. I knew better, but, like another madman, had let him
ramble on unchecked. And here was a stolid constable con­
fronting us, in the short tunic that they wear in summer, his
whistle on its chain, but no truncheon at his side. Heavens!
how I see him now; a man of medium size, with a broad,
good-humoured perspiring face, and a limp moustache. He
looked sternly at Raffles, and Raffles looked merrily at him.
‘Going to run me in, officer?’ said he. ‘That would be a joke
- my hat!’
‘I didn’t say as I was, sir,’ replied the policeman. ‘But that’s
queer talk for a gentleman like you, sir, in the British
Museum!’ And he wagged his helmet at my invalid, who had
taken his airing in frock-coat and top-hat, the more readily to
assume his present part.
‘What!’ cried Raffles, ‘simply saying to my friend that I’d
like to lift the gold cup? Why, so I should, officer, so I
should! I don’t mind who hears me say so. It’s one of the
most beautiful things I ever saw in all my life.’
The constable’s face had already relaxed, and now a grin
peeped under the limp moustache. ‘I daresay there’s many as
feels like that, sir,’ said he.
‘Exactly; and I say what I feel, that’s all,’ said Raffles airily.
‘But seriously, officer, is a valuable thing like this quite safe in
a case like that?’
‘Safe enough as long as I’m here,’ replied the other,
between grim jest and stout earnest. Raffles studied his face;

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he was still watching Raffles; and I kept an eye on them both

without putting in my word.
‘You appear to be single-handed,’ observed Raffles. ‘Is that
wise?’
The note of anxiety was capitally caught; it was at once
personal and public-spirited, that of the enthusiastic savant,
afraid for a national treasure which few appreciated as he did
himself. And, to be sure, the three of us now had this treasury
to ourselves; one or two others had been there when we
entered, but now they were gone.
‘I’m not single-handed,’ said the officer, comfortably. ‘See
that seat by the door? One of the attendants sits there all day
long.’
‘Then where is he now?’
‘Talking to another attendant just ouside. If you listen
you’ll hear them for yourself.’
We listened, and we did hear them, but not just outside. In
my own mind I even questioned whether they were in the
corridor through which we had come; to me it sounded as
though they were just outside the corridor.
‘You mean the fellow with the billiard-cue who was here
when we came in?’ pursued Raffles.
‘That wasn’t a billiard-cue! It was a pointer,’ the intelligent
officer explained.
‘It ought to be a javelin,’ said Raffles nervously. ‘It ought to
be a pole-axe! The public treasure ought to be better guarded
than this. I shall write to the Times about it - you see if I
don’t!’
All at once, yet somehow not so suddenly as to excite suspi­
cion, Raffles had become the elderly busybody with nerves;
why, I could not for the life of me imagine; and the police­
man seemed equally at sea.
‘Lor’ bless you, sir,’ said he, ‘I’m all right; don’t you bother
your head about me.’
‘But you haven’t even got a truncheon!’
‘Not likely to want one either. You see, sir, it’s early as yet;

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in a few minutes these here rooms will fill up; and there’s
safety in numbers, as they say.’
‘Oh, it will fill up soon, will it?’
‘Any minute now, sir.’
‘Ah!’
‘It isn’t often empty as long as this, sir. It’s the Jubilee, I
suppose.’
‘Meanwhile, what if my friend and I had been professional
thieves? Why, we could have overpowered you in an instant,
my good fellow!’
‘That you couldn’t; leastways, not without bringing the
whole place about your ears.’
‘Well, I shall write to the Times all the same. I’m a connois­
seur in all this sort of thing, and I won’t have unnecessary
risks run with the nation’s property. You said there was an
attendant just outside, but he sounds to me as though he were
at the other end of the corridor. I shall write to-day!’
For an instant we all three listened; and Raffles was right.
Then I saw two things in one glance. Raffles had stepped a
few inches backward, and stood poised upon the ball of each
foot, his arms half raised, a fight in his eyes. And another kind
of light was breaking over the crass features of our friend the
constable.
‘Then shall I tell you what I’ll do?’ he cried, with a sudden
clutch at the whistle-chain on his chest. The whistle flew out,
but it never reached his lips. There were a couple of sharp
smacks, like double barrels discharged all but simultaneously,
and the man reeled against me so that I could not help catch­
ing him as he fell.
‘Well done, Bunny! I’ve knocked him out - I’ve knocked
him out! Run you to the door and see if the attendants have
heard anything, and take them on if they have.’
Mechanically I did as I was told. There was no time for
thought, still less for remonstrance or reproach, though my
surprise must have been even more complete than that of the
constable before Raffles knocked the sense out of him. Even

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in my utter bewilderment, however, the instinctive caution of

the real criminal did not desert me. I ran to the door, but I
sauntered through it, to plant myself before a Pompeiian
fresco in the corridor; and there were the two attendants still
gossiping outside the further door; nor did they hear the dull
crash which I heard eVen as I watched them out of the corner
of each eye.
It was hot weather, as I have said, but the perspiration on
my body seemed already to have turned into a skin of ice.
Then I caught the faint reflection of my own face in the
casing of the fresco, and it frightened me into some sem­
blance of myself as Raffles joined me with his hands in his
pockets. But my fear and indignation were redoubled at the
sight of him, when a single glance convinced me that his
pockets were as empty as his hands, and his mad outrage the
most wanton and reckless of his whole career.
‘Ah, very interesting, very interesting, but nothing to what
they have in the museum at Naples or in Pompeii itself. You
must go there some day, Bunny. I’ve a good mind to take you
myself. Meanwhile - slow march! The beggar hasn’t moved
an eyelid. We may swing for him if you show indecent haste!’
‘We!’ I whispered. ‘We!’
And my knees knocked together as we came up to the chat­
ting attendants. But Raffles must needs interrupt them to ask
the way to the Prehistoric Saloon.
‘At the top of the stairs.’
‘Thank you. Then we’ll work round that way to the Egypt­
ian part.’
And we left them resuming their providential chat.
‘I believe you’re mad,’ I said bitterly as we went.
‘I believe I was,’ admitted Raffles; ‘but I’m not now, and I’ll
see you through. A hundred and thirty-nine yards, wasn’t it?
Then it can’t be more than a hundred and twenty now - not
as much. Steady, Bunny, for God’s sake. It’s slow march - for
our lives.’
There was this much management. The rest was our colos­

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sal luck. A hansom was being paid off at the foot of the steps
outside, and in we jumped, Raffles shouting ‘Charing Cross!’
for all Bloomsbury to hear.
We had turned into Bloomsbury Street without exchang­
ing a syllable when he struck the trap-door with his fist.
‘Where the devil are you driving us?’
‘Charing Cross, sir.’
‘I said King’s Cross! Round you spin, and drive like blazes,
or we miss our train! - There’s one to York at 10.35,’ added
Raffles as the trap-door slammed; ‘we’ll book there, Bunny,
and then we’ll slope through the subway to the Metropolitan,
and so to ground via Baker Street and Earl’s Court.’
And actually in half an hour he was seated once more in
the hired carrying-chair, while the porter and I staggered
upstairs with my decrepit charge, for whose shattered
strength even one hour in Kew Gardens had proved too
much! Then, and not until then, when we had got rid of the
porter and were alone at last, did I tell Raffles, in the most
nervous English at my command, frankly and exactly what I
thought of him and of his latest deed. Once started, more­
over, I spoke as I have seldom spoken to living man; and Raf­
fles, of all men, stood my abuse without a murmur; or rather
he sat it out, too astounded even to take off his hat, though I
thought his eyebrows would have lifted it from his head.
‘But it always was your infernal way,’ I was savagely con­
cluding. ‘You make one plan, and you tell me another -’
‘Not to-day, Bunny, I"Swear!’
‘You mean to tell me you really did start with the bare idea
of finding a place to hide in for a night?’
‘Of course I did’
‘It was to be the mere reconnoitre you pretended?’
‘There was no pretence about it, Bunny.’
‘Then why on earth go and do what you did?’
‘The reason would be obvious to any one but you,’ said
Raffles, still with no unkindly scorn. ‘It was the temptation of
a minute - the final impulse of the fraction of a second, when

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Roberto saw that I was tempted, and let me see that he saw it.
It’s not a thing I care to do, and I shan’t be happy till the
papers tell me the poor devil is alive. But a knock-out shot
was the only chance for us then.’
‘Why? You don’t get run in for being tempted, nor yet for
showing that you are!’
‘But I should have deserved running in if I hadn’t yielded
to such a temptation as that, Bunny. It was a chance in a hun­
dred thousand! We might go there every day of our lives, and
never again be the only outsiders in the room, with the bil­
liard-marking Johnnie practically out of earshot at one and
the same time. It was a gift from the gods; not to have taken
it would have been flying in the face of Providence.’
‘But you didn’t take it,’ said I. ‘You went and left: it behind.’
I wish I had had a Kodak for the little smile with which Raf­
fles shook his head, for it was one that he kept for those great
moments of which our vocation is not devoid. All this time he
had been wearing his hat, tilted a little over eyebrows no
longer raised. And now at last I knew where the gold cup was.

It stood for days upon his chimney-piece, this costly trophy

whose ancient history and final fate filled newspaper columns
even in these days of Jubilee, and for which the flower of
Scotland Yard was said to be seeking high and low. Our con­
stable, we learnt, had been stunned only, and, from the
moment that I brought him an evening paper with the news,
Raffles’s spirits rose to a height inconsistent with his equable
temperament, and as unusual in him as the sudden impulse
upon which he had acted with such effect. The cup itself
appealed to me no more than it had done before. Exquisite it
might be, handsome it was, but so light in the hand that the
mere gold of it would scarcely have poured three figures out
of melting-pot. And what said Raffles but that he would never
melt it at all!

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‘Taking it was an offence against the laws of the land,

Bunny. That is nothing. But destroying it would be a crime
against God and Art, and may I be spitted on the vane of St.
Mary Abbot’s if I commit it!’
Talk such as this was unanswerable; indeed, the whole
affair had passed the pale of useful comment; and the one
course left to a practical person was to shrug his shoulders
and enjoy the joke. This was not a little enhanced by the
newspaper reports, which described Raffles as a handsome
youth, and his unwilling accomplice as an older man of black­
guardly appearance and low type.
‘Hits us both off rather neatly, Bunny,’ said he. ‘But what
they none of them do justice to is my dear cup. Look at it;
only look at it, man! Was ever anything so rich and yet so
chaste? St. Agnes must have had a pretty bad time, but it
would be almost worth it to go down to posterity in such
enamel upon such gold. And then the history of the thing. Do
you realise that it’s five hundred years old and has belonged to
Henry the Eighth and to Elizabeth among others? Bunny,
when you have me cremated, you can put my ashes in yonder
cup, and lay us in the deep delved earth together!’
‘And meanwhile?’
‘It is the joy of my heart, the light of my life, the delight of
mine eye.’
‘And suppose other eyes catch sight of it?’
‘They never must; they never shall.’
Raffles would have been too absurd had he not been thor­
oughly alive to his own absurdity; there was nevertheless an
underlying sincerity in his appreciation of any and every form
of beauty, which all his nonsense could not conceal. And his
infatuation for the cup was, as he declared, a very pure pas­
sion, since the circumstances debarred him from the chief joy
of the average collector, that of showing his treasure to his
friends. At last, however, and at the height of his craze, Raf­
fles and reason seemed to come together again as suddenly as
they had parted company in the Room of Gold.

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‘Bunny,’ lie cried, flinging his newspaper across the room,

‘I’ve got an idea after your own heart I know where I can
place it after all!’
‘Do you mean the cup!’
‘I do.’
‘Then I congratulate you.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Upon the recovery of your senses.’
‘Thanks galore. But you’ve been confoundedly unsympa­
thetic about this thing, Bunny, and I don’t think I shall tell
you my scheme till I’ve carried it out.’
‘Quite time enough,’ said I.
‘It will mean your letting me loose for an hour or two
under cloud of this very night. To-morrow’s Sunday, the
Jubilee’s on Tuesday, and old Theobald’s coming back for it.’
‘It doesn’t much matter whether he’s back or not if you go
late enough.’
‘I mustn’t be late. They don’t keep open. No, it’s no use
your asking any questions. Go out and buy me a big box of
Huntley and Palmer’s biscuits; any sort you like, only they
must be theirs, and absolutely the biggest box they sell.’
‘My dear man!’
‘No questions, Bunny; you do your part and I’ll do mine.’
Subtlety and success were in his face. It was enough for me,
and I had done his extraordinary bidding within a quarter of
an hour. In another minute Raffles had opened the box and
tumbled all the biscuits into the nearest chair.
‘Now newspapers!’
I fetched a pile. He bid the cup of gold a ridiculous
farewell, wrapped it up in newspaper after newspaper, and
finally packed it in the empty biscuit-box.
‘Now some brown paper. I don’t want to be taken for the
grocer’s young man.’
A neat enough parcel it made, when the string had been
tied and the ends cut loose; what was more difficult was to
wrap up Raffles himself in such a way that even the porter

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should not recognise him if they came face to face at the

corner. And the sun was still up.- But Raffles would go, and
when he did I should not have known him myself.
He may have been an hour away. It was barely dusk when
he returned, and my first question referred to our dangerous
ally, the porter. Raffles had passed him unsuspected in going,
but had managed to avoid him altogether on the return jour­
ney, which he had completed by way of the other entrance
and the roof. I breathed again.
‘And what have you done with the cup?’
‘Placed it!’
‘How much for? How much for?’
‘Let me think. I had a couple of cabs, and the postage was a
tanner, with another twopence for registration. Yes, it cost
me exactly five-and-eight.’
‘It costyow? But what did you get for it, Raffles?’
‘Nothing, my boy.’
‘Nothing!’
‘Not a crimson cent.’
‘I am not surprised. I never thought it had a market value. I
told you so in the beginning,’ I said, irritably. ‘But what on
earth have you done with the thing?’
‘Sent it to the Queen.’
‘You haven’t!’
Rogue is a word with various meanings, and Raffles had
been one sort of rogue ever since I had known him; but now,
for once, he was the innocent variety, a great grey haired
child, running over with merriment and mischief.
‘Well, I’ve sent it to Sir Arthur Bigge, to present to her
Majesty, with the loyal respects of the thief, if that will do for
you.’ said Raffles. ‘I thought they might take too much stock
of me at the G.P.O. if I addressed it to the Sovereign herself.
Yes, I drove over to St. Martin’s-le-Grand with it, and I reg­
istered the box into the bargain. Do a thing properly if you
do it at all.’
‘But why on earth,’ I groaned, ‘do such a thing at all?’

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‘My dear Bunny, we have been reigned over for sixty years
by infinitely the finest monarch the world has ever seen. The
world is taking the present opportunity of signifying the fact
for all it is worth. Every nation is laying of its best at her
royal feet; every class in the community is doing its little level
- except ours. All I have done is to remove one reproach from
our fraternity.’
At this I came round, was infected with his spirit, called
him the sportsman he always was and would be and shook his
daredevil hand in mine; but, at the same time, I still had my
qualms.
‘Supposing they trace it to us?’ said I.
‘There’s not much to catch hold of in a biscuit-box by
Huntley and Palmer,’ replied Raffles; ‘that was why I sent
you for one. And I didn’t write a word upon a sheet of paper
which could possibly be traced. I simply printed two or three
on a virginal postcard - another halfpenny to the bad - which
might have been bought at any post-office in the kingdom.
No, old chap, the G.P.O. was the one real danger; there was
one detective I spotted for myself; and the sight of him has
left me with a thirst. Whisky and Sullivans for two, Bunny, if
you please.’
Raffles was soon clinking his glass against mine.
‘The Queen,’ said he. ‘God bless her!’

189
 CHAPTER XI

The fate of Faustina

Mar -ga-ri,
e perzo a Salvatore!
Mar -ga-ri,
Ma I’ommo - e cacciatore!
Mar -ga-ri
Nun ce aje corpa tu!
Chello ch’ efatto, efatto, un neparlammo cchieii!

A Piano-Organ was pouring the metallic music through our

open windows, while a voice of brass brayed the words, which
I have since obtained, and print above for identification by
such as know their Italy better than I. They will not thank me
for reminding them of a tune so lately epidemic in that land
of aloes and blue skies; but at least it is unlikely to run in their
heads as the ribald accompaniment to a tragedy; and it does
in mine.
It was in the early heat of August, and the hour that of the
lawful and necessary siesta for such as turn night into day. I
was therefore shutting my window in a rage, and wondering
whether I should not do the same for Raffles, when he
appeared in the silk pyjamas to which the chronic solicitude
of Dr. Theobald confined him from morning to night.
‘Don’t do that, Bunny,’ said he. ‘I rather like that thing,
and want to listen. What sort of fellows are they to look at, by
the way?’
I put my head out to see, it being a primary rule of our
quaint establishment that Raffles must never show himself at

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any of the windows. I remember now how hot the sill was to
my elbows, as I leant upon it and looked down, in order to
satisfy a curiosity in which I could see no point.
‘Dirty-looking beggars,’ said I over my shoulder: 'dark as
dark; blue chins, oleaginous curls and ear-rings; ragged as
they make them, but nothing picturesque in their rags.’
‘Neapolitans all over,’ murmured Raffles behind me; ‘and
that’s a characteristic touch, the one fellow singing while the
other grinds; they always have that out there.’
‘He’s rather a fine chap, the singer,’ said I, as the song
ended. ‘My hat, what teeth! He’s looking up here, and grin­
ning all round his head; shall I chuck them anything?’
‘Well, I have no reason to love the Neapolitans; but it takes
me back - it takes me back! Yes, here yon are, one each.’
It was a couple of half-crowns that Raffles put into my
hand, but I had thrown them into the street for pennies
before I saw what they were. Thereupon I left the Italians
bowing to the mud, as well they might, and I turned to
protest against such wanton waste. But Raffles was walking
up and down, his head bent, his eyes troubled; and his one
excuse disarmed remonstrance.
‘They took me back,’ he repeated. ‘My God, how they took
me back!’
Suddenly he stopped in his stride.
‘You don’t understand’ Bunny, old chap; but if you like you
shall. I always meant to tell you some day, but never felt
worked up to it before, and it’s not the kind of thing one talks
about for talking’s sake. It isn’t a nursery story, Bunny, and -
there isn’t a laugh in it from start to finish; on the contrary,
you have often asked me what turned my hair grey, and now
you are going to hear.’
This was promising, but Raffles’s manner was something
more. It was unique in my memory of the man. His fine face
softened and set hard by turns. I never knew it so hard. I
never knew it so soft. And the same might be said of his
voice, now tender as any woman’s, now flying to the other

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extreme of equally unwonted ferocity. But this was toward

the end of his tale; the beginning he treated characteristically
enough, though I could have wished for a less cavalier
account of the Island of Elba, where, upon his own showing,
he had met with much humanity.
‘Deadly, my dear Bunny, is not the word for that glorified
snag, or for the molluscs its inhabitants. But they started by
wounding my vanity, so perhaps I am prejudiced after all. I
sprung myself upon them as a shipwrecked sailor - a sole sur­
vivor - stripped in the sea and landed without a stitch yet
they took no more interest in me than you do in Italian
organ-grinders. They were decent enough. I didn’t have to
pick and steal for a square meal and a pair of trousers - it
would have been more exciting if I had. But what a place!
Napoleon couldn’t stand it, you remember, but he held on
longer than I did. I put in a few weeks in their infernal mines,
simply to pick up a smattering of Italian; then got across to
the mainland in a little wooden timber tramp; and ungrate­
fully glad I was to leave Elba blazing in just such another
sunset as the one you won’t forget.
‘The tramp was bound for Naples, but first it touched at
Baise, where I carefully deserted in the night. There are too
many English in Naples itself, though I thought it would
make a first happy hunting-ground when I knew the language
better and had altered myself a bit more. Meanwhile I got a
billet of several sorts on one of the loveliest spots that ever I
struck on all my travels. The place was a vineyard, but it
overhung the sea, and I got taken on as tame sailor-man and
emergency bottle-washer. The wages were the noble figure
of a lira and a half, which is just over a bob, a day, but there
were lashings of sound wine for one and all, and better wine
to bathe in. And for eight whole months, my boy, I was an
absolutely honest man. The luxury of it, Bunny! I out-
Heroded Herod, wouldn’t touch a grape, and went in the
most delicious danger of being knifed for my principles by
the thieving crew I had joined.

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‘It was the kind of place where every prospect pleases -

and all the rest of it - especially all the rest. But may I see it
in my dreams till I die - as it was in the beginning - before
anything began to happen. It was a wedge of rock sticking
out into the bay, thatched with vines, and with the rummiest
old house on the very edge of all, a devil of a height above
the sea: you might have sat at the windows and dropped your
Sullivan-ends plumb into blue water a hundred and fifty feet
below.
‘From the garden behind the house - such a garden, Bunny
- oleanders and mimosa, myrtles, rosemary, and red tangles
of fiery untamed flowers - in a corner of this garden was the
top of a subterranean stair down to the sea; at least, there
were nearly two hundred steps tunnelled through the solid
rock; then an iron gate, and another eighty steps in the open
air; and last of all a cave fit for pirates a-penny-plain-and-
twopence coloured. This cave gave upon the sweetest little
thing in coves, all deep blue water and honest rocks; and here
I looked after the vineyard shipping, a pot-bellied tub with a
brown sail, and a sort of dingy. The tub took the wine to
Naples, and the dingy was the tub’s tender.
‘The house above was said to be on the identical site of a
suburban retreat of the admirable Tiberius; there was the old
sinner’s private theatre with the tiers cut clean to this day, the
well where he used to fatten his lampreys on his slaves, and a
ruined temple of those ripping old Roman bricks, shallow as
dominoes and ruddier than the cherry. I never was much of
an antiquary, but I could have become one there if I’d had
nothing else to do; but I had lots. When I wasn’t busy with
the boats I had to trim the vines, or gather the grapes, or
even help make the wine itself in a cool, dark, musty vault
underneath the temple, that I can see and smell as I jaw. And
can’t I hear it and feel it too! Squish, squash, bubble; squash,
squish, guggle; and your feet as though you had been wading
through slaughter to a throne. Yes, Bunny, you mightn’t
think it, but this good right foot, that never was on the wrong

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side of the crease when the ball left my hand, has also been
known to

‘... Crush the lees of pleasure

From sanguine grapes of pain.’

He made a sudden pause, as though he had stumbled on a

truth in jest. His face fdled with lines. We were sitting in the
room that had been bare when first I saw it; there were
basket-chairs and a table in it now, all meant ostensibly for
me; and hence Raffles would slip to his bed, with schoolboy
relish, at every tinkle of the bell. This afternoon we felt fairly
safe, for Mr. Theobald had called in the morning, and Mrs.
Theobald still took up much of his time. Through the open
window we could hear the piano-organ and ‘Mar - ga - ri’ a
few hundred yards further on. I fancied Raffles was listening
to it while he paused. He shook his head abstractedly when I
handed him the cigarettes; and his tone hereafter was never
just what it had been.
‘I don’t know, Bunny, whether you’re a believer in trans­
migration of souls. I have often thought it easier to believe
than lots of other things, and I have been pretty near believ­
ing in it myself since I had my being on that villa of Tiberius.
The brute who had it in my day, if he isn’t still running it
with a whole skin, was or is as cold-blooded a blackguard as
the worst of the emperors, but I have often thought he had a
lot in common with Tiberius. He had the great high sensual
Roman nose, eyes that were sinks of iniquity in themselves,
and that swelled with fatness, like the rest of him, so that he
wheezed if he walked a yard; otherwise rather a fine beast to
look at, with a huge grey moustache, like a flying gull, and
the most courteous manners even to his men; but one of the
worst, Bunny, one of the worst that ever was. It was said that
the vineyard was only his hobby; if so, he did his best to make
his hobby pay. He used to come out from Naples for the
week-ends - in the tub when it wasn’t too rough for his

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nerves - and he didn’t always come alone. His very name

sounded unhealthy - Corbucci. I suppose I ought to add that
he was a Count, though Counts are two-a-penny in Naples,
and in season all the year round.
‘He had a little English, and liked to air it upon me, much
to my disgust; if I could not hope to conceal my nationality as
yet, I at least did not want to have it advertised; and the swine
had English friends. When he heard that I was bathing in
November, when the bay is still as warm as new milk, he
would shake his wicked old head and say, “You are very
audashuss - you are very audashuss!” and put on no end of
side before his Italians. By God, he had pitched upon the
right word unawares, and I let him know it in the end!’ But
that bathing, Bunny; it was absolutely the best I ever had any­
where, I said just now the water was like wine; in my own
mind I used to call it blue champagne, and was rather
annoyed that I had no one to admire the phrase. Otherwise I
assure you that I missed my own particular kind very little
indeed, though I often wished that you were there, old chap;
particularly when I went for my lonesome swim; first thing in
the morning, when the bay was all rose-leaves, and last thing
at night, when your body caught phosphorescent fire! Ah,
yes, it was a good enough life for a change; a perfect paradise
to lie low in; another Eden until...
‘My poor Eve!’
And he fetched a sigh that took away his words; then his
jaws snapped together, and his eyes spoke terribly while he
conquered his emotion. I pen the last word advisedly. I fancy
it is one which I have never used before in writing of A. J.
Raffles, for I cannot at the moment recall any other occasion
upon which its use would have been justified. On resuming,
however, he was not only calm, but cold; and this flying for
safety to the other extreme is the single instance of self-dis-
trust which the present Achates can record to the credit of his
impious yEneas.
‘I called the girl Eve,’ said he. ‘Her real name was Faustina,

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and she was one of a vast family who hung out in a hovel on
the inland border of the vineyard. And Aphrodite rising from
the sea was less wonderful and not more beautiful than
Aphrodite emerging from that hole!
‘It was the most exquisite face I ever saw or shall see in this
life. Absolutely perfect features; a skin that reminded you of
old gold, so delicate was its bronze; magnificent hair, not
black but nearly; and such eyes and teeth as would have made
the fortune of a face without another point. I tell you, Bunny,
London would go mad about a girl like that. But I don’t
believe there’s such another in the world. And there she was
wasting her sweetness upon that lovely but desolate little
corner of it! Well, she did not waste it upon me. I would have
married her, and lived happily ever after in such a hovel as
her people’s - with her. Only to look at her - only to look at
her for the rest of my days - I could have lain low and
remained dead even to you! And that’s all I’m going to tell
you about that, Bunny; cursed be he who tells more! Yet
don’t you run away with the idea that this poor Faustina was
the only woman I ever cared about. I don’t believe in all that
“only” rot; nevertheless I tell you that she 'was the one being
who ever entirely satisfied my sense of beauty; and I honestly
believe I could have chucked the world and been true to
Faustina for that alone.
‘We met sometimes in the little temple I told you about,
sometimes among the vines; now by honest accident, now by
flagrant design; and found a ready made rendezvous, romantic
as one could wish, in the cave down all those subterranean
steps. Then the sea would call us - my blue champagne - my
sparkling cobalt - and there was the dingy ready to our hand.
Oh, those nights! I never knew which I liked best, the moon­
lit ones when you sculled through silver and could see for
miles, or the dark nights when the fishermen’s torches stood
for the sea, and a red zigzag in the sky for old Vesuvius. We
were happy, I don’t mind owning it. We seemed not to have a
care between us. My mates took no interest in my affairs, and

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Faustina’s family did not appear to bother about her. The

Count was in Naples five nights of the seven; the other two
we sighed apart.
‘At first it was the oldest story in literature - Eden plus Eve.
The place had been a heaven on earth before, but now it was
heaven itself. So for a little; then one night, a Monday night,
Faustina burst out crying in the boat; and sobbed her story as
we drifted without mishap by the mercy of the Lord. And
that was almost as old a story as the other.
‘She was engaged - what! Had I never heard of it? Did I
mean to upset the boat? What was her engagement beside
our love? “Niente, niente,” crooned Faustina, sighing yet smil­
ing through her tears. No, but what did matter was that the
man had threatened to stab her to the heart - and would do it
as soon as look at her - that I knew.
‘I knew it merely from my knowledge of the Neapolitans,
for I had no idea who the man might be. I knew it, and yet I
took this detail better than the fact of the engagement, though
now I began to laugh at both. As if I was going to let her
marry anybody else! As if a hair of her lovely head should be
touched while I lived to protect her! I had a great mind to row
away to blazes with her that very night, and never go near the
vineyard again, or let her either. But we had not a lira between
us at the time, and only the rags in which we sat barefoot in
the boat. Besides, I had to know the name of the animal who
had threatened a woman, and such a woman as this.
‘For a long time she refused to tell me, with splendid obdu­
racy; but I was as determined as she; so at last she made con­
ditions. I was not to go and get put in prison for sticking a
knife into him - he wasn’t worth it - and I did promise not to
stab him in the back. Faustina seemed quite satisfied, though
a little puzzled by my manner, having herself the racial toler­
ance for cold steel; and next moment she had taken away my
breath, “It is Sefano,” she whispered, and hung her head.
‘And well she might, poor thing! Stefano, of all creatures
on God’s earth - for her!’

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‘Bunny, he was a miserable little undersized wretch -

ill-favoured - servile - surly - and second only to his master
in bestial cunning and hypocrisy. His face was enough for
me; that was what I read in it, and I don’t often make mis­
takes. He was Corbucci’s own confidential body-servant, and
that alone was enough to damn him in decent eyes: always
came out first on the Saturday with the spese, to have all ready
for his master and current mistress, and stayed behind on the
Monday to clear and lock up. Stefano! That worm! I could
well understand his threatening a woman with a knife; what
beat me was how any woman could ever have listened to him;
above all, that Faustina should be the one! It passed my com­
prehension. But I questioned her as gently as I could; and her
explanation was largely the threadbare one you would expect
Her parents were so poor. They were so many in family.
Some of them begged - would I promise never to tell? Then
some of them stole - sometimes - and all knew the pains of
actual want. She looked after the cows, but there were only
two of them, and brought the milk to the vineyard and else­
where; but that was not employment for more than one; and
there were countless sisters waiting to take her place. Then
he was so rich, Stefano.
‘ “Rich?” I echoed. “Stefano?”
‘ “Si, Arturo mio. ”
‘Yes, I played the game on that vineyard, Bunny, even to
going by my own first name.
‘ “And how comes he to be rich?” I asked, suspiciously.
‘She did not know; but he had given her such beautiful
jewels; the family had lived on them for months, she pretend­
ing an avocat had taken charge of them for her against her
marriage. But I cared nothing about all that.
‘ “Jewels! Stefano!” I could only mutter.
‘ “Perhaps the Count has paid for some of them. He is very
kind.”
‘ “To you, is he?”
‘ “Oh, yes, very kind.”

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‘ “And you would live in his house afterwards?”

‘ “Not now, mia cara - not now!”
‘ “No, by God you don’t!” said I in English. “But you
would have done so, eh?”
‘ “Of course. That was arranged. The Count is really very
kind.”
‘ “Do you see anything of him when he comes here?”
Yes, he had sometimes brought her little presents, sweet­
meats, ribbons, and the like; but the offering had always been
made through this toad of a Stefano. Knowing the men, I
now knew all. But Faustina, she had the pure and simple
heart, and the white soul, by the God who made it, and for all
her kindness to a tattered scapegrace who made love to her in
broken Italian between the ripples and the stars. She was not
to know what I was, remember; and beside Corbucci and his
henchman I was the Archangel Gabriel come down to earth.
‘Well, as I lay awake that night, two more lines of Swin­
burne came into my head, and came to stay:

“God said, ‘Let him who wins her take

And keep Faustine.’ ”

‘On that couplet I slept at last, and it was my text and

watchword when I awoke in the morning. I forget how well
you know your Swinburne, Bunny; but don’t you run away
with the idea that there was anything else in common
between his Faustine and mine. For the last time let me tell
you that poor Faustina was the whitest and the best I ever
knew.
‘Well, I was strung up for trouble when the next Saturday
came, and I’ll tell you what I had done. I had broken the
pledge and burgled Corbucci’s villa in my best manner
during his absence in Naples. Not that it gave me the slight­
est trouble; but no human being could have told that I had
been in when I came out. And I had stolen nothing, mark
you, but only borrowed a revolver from a drawer in the

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Count’s desk, with one or two trifling accessories; for by this

time I had the measure of these damned Neapolitans. They
are spry enough with a knife, but you show them the business
end of a shooting-iron, and they’ll streak like rabbits for the
nearest hole. But the revolver wasn’t for my own use. It was
for Faustina, and I taught her how to use it in the cave down
there by the sea, shooting at candles stuck upon the rock.
The noise in the cave was something frightful, but high up
above it couldn’t be heard at all, as we proved to each other’s
satisfaction pretty early in the proceedings. So now Faustina
was armed with munitions of self-defence; and I knew
enough of her character to entertain no doubt as to their spir­
ited use upon occasion. Between the two of us, in fact, our
friend Stefano seemed tolerably certain of a warm week-end.
‘But the Saturday brought word that the Count was not
coming this week, being in Rome on business, and unable to
return in time; so for a whole Sunday we were promised
peace; and made bold plans accordingly. There was no further
merit in hushing this thing up. “Let him who wins her take
and keep Faustine.” Yes, but let him win her openly, or lose
her and be damned to him! So on the Sunday I was going to
have it out with her people - with the Count and Stefano as
soon as they showed their noses. I had no inducement,
remember, ever to return to surreptitious life within a cab-fare
of Wormwood Scrubbs. Faustina and the Bay of Naples were
quite good enough for me. And the prehistoric man in me
rather exulted in the idea of fighting for my desire.
‘On the Saturday, however, we were to meet for the last
time as heretofore - just once more in secret down there in
the cave - as soon as might be after dark. Neither of us
minded if we were kept for hours; each knew that in the end
the other would come; and there was a charm of its own even
in waiting with such knowledge. But that night I did lose
patience: not in the cave but up above, where first on one
pretext and then on another the direttore kept me going until
I smelt a rat. He was not given to exacting overtime, this

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direttore, whose only fault was his servile subjection to our

common boss. It seemed pretty obvious, therefore, that he
was acting upon some secret instructions from Corbucci him­
self, and, the moment I suspected this, I asked him to his face
if it was not the case. And it was: he admitted it with many
shrugs, being a conveniently weak person, whom one felt
almost ashamed of bullying as the occasion demanded.
‘The fact was, however, that the Count had sent for him on
finding he had to go to Rome, and had said he was very sorry
to go just then, as among other things he intended to speak to
me about Faustina. Stefano had told him all about his row
with her, and moreover that it was on my account, which
Faustina had never told me, though I had guessed as much
for myself. Well, the Count was going to take his jackal’s part
for all he was worth, which was just exactly what I expected
him to do. He intended going for me on his return, but
meanwhile I was not to make hay in his absence, and so this
tool of a direttore had orders to keep me at it night and day. I
undertook not to give the poor beast away, but at the same
time told him I had not the faintest intention of doing
another stroke of work that night.
‘It was very dark, and I remember knocking my head
against the oranges as I ran up the long, shallow steps which
ended the journey between the direttore’s lodge and the villa
itself. But at the back of the villa was the garden I spoke
about, and also a bare chunk of the cliff where it was bored by
that subterranean stair. So I saw the stars close overhead, and
the fishermen’s torches far below, the coastwise lights and the
crimson hieroglyph that spelt Vesuvius, before I plunged into
the darkness of the shaft. And that was the last time I appreci­
ated the unique and peaceful charm of this outlandish spot.
‘The stair was in two long flights, with an air-hole or two
at the top of the upper one, but not another pin-prick till you
came to the iron gate at the bottom of the lower. As you may
read of an infinitely lighter place, in a finer work of fiction
than you are ever likely to write, Bunny, it was “gloomy at

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noon, dark as midnight at dusk, and black as the ninth plague

of Egypt at midnight.” I won’t swear to my quotation, but I
will to those stairs. They were as black that night as the inside
of the safest safe in the strongest strong-room in the
Chancery Lane Deposit. Yet I had not got far down them
with my bare feet before I heard somebody else coming up in
boots. You may imagine what a turn that gave me! It could
not be Faustina, who went barefoot three seasons of the four,
and yet there was Faustina waiting for me down below. What
a fright she must have had! And all at once my own blood ran
cold; for the man sang like a kettle as he plodded up and up.
It was, it must be, the short-winded Count himself, whom we
all supposed to be in Rome!
‘Higher he came and nearer, nearer, slowly yet hurriedly,
now stopping to cough and gasp, now taking a few steps by
elephantine assault. I should have enjoyed the situation if it
had not been for poor Faustina in the cave; as it was I was
filled with nameless fears. But I could not resist giving that
grampus Corbucci one bad moment on account. A crazy
handrail ran up one wall, so I carefully flattened myself
against the other, and he passed within six inches of me, puff­
ing and wheezing like a brass band. I let him go a few steps
higher, and then I let him have it with both lungs.
‘ “Buona sera, eccellenza signori” I roared after him. And a
scream came down in answer - such a scream! A dozen differ­
ent terrors were in it; and the wheezing had stopped, with the
old scoundrel’s heart.
‘ “Chi sta lai” he squeaked at last, gibbering and whimper­
ing like a whipped monkey, so that I could not bear to miss
his face, and got a match all ready to strike.
‘ “Arturo, signori'”
‘He didn’t repeat my name, nor did he damn me in heaps.
He did nothing but wheeze for a good minute, and when he
spoke it was with insinuating civility, in his best English.
‘ “Come nearer, Arturo. You are in the lower regions down
there. I want to speak with you.”

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‘ “No, thanks. I’m in a hurry,” I said, and dropped that

match back into my pocket He might be armed, and I was
not.
‘ “So you are in a ’urry!” and he wheezed amusement. “And
you thought I was still in Rome, no doubt; and so I was until
this afternoon, when I caught train at the eleventh moment
and then another train from Naples to Pozzuoli. I have been
rowed here now by a fisherman of Pozzuoli. I had not time to
stop anywhere in Naples, but only to drive from station to
station. So I am without Stefano, Arturo, I am without Ste­
fano.”
‘His sly voice sounded preternaturally sly in the absolute
darkness, but even through that impenetrable veil I knew it
for a sham. I had laid hold of the hand rail. It shook violently
in my hand; he also was holding it where he stood. And these
suppressed tremors, or rather their detection in this way,
struck a strange chill to my heart, just as I was beginning to
pluck it up.
‘ “It is lucky for Stefano,” said I, grim as death.
‘ “Ah, but you must not be too ’ard on ’im,” remonstrated
the Count. “You have stole his girl, he speak with me about
it, and I wish to speak with you. It is very audashuss, Arturo,
very audashuss! Perhaps you are even going to meet her now,
eh?”
‘I told him straight that I was.
‘ “Then there is no ’urry, for she is not there.”
‘ “You didn’t see her in the cave?” I cried, too delighted at
the thought to keep it to myself.
‘ “I had no such fortune,” the old devil said.
‘ “She is there, all the same.”
‘ “I only wish I’ad known.”
‘ “And I’ve kept her long enough!”
‘In fact, I threw this over my shoulder as I turned and went
running down.
‘ “I ’ope you will find her!” his malicious voice came croak­
ing after me. “I ’ope you will -1 ’ope so.”

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‘And find her I did.’

Raffles had been on his feet some time, unable to sit still or
to stand, moving excitedly about the room. But now he stood
still enough, his elbows on the cast-iron mantelpiece, his
head between his hands.
‘Dead?’ I whispered.
And he nodded to the wall.
‘There was not a sound in the cave. There was no answer
to my voice. Then I went in, and my foot touched hers, and it
was colder than the rock. . . . Bunny, they had stabbed her to
the heart. She had fought them, and they had stabbed her to
the heart!’
‘You say “they,” ’ I said gendy, as he stood in heavy silence,
his back still turned. ‘I thought Stefano had been left behind?’
Raffles was round in a flash, his face white-hot, his eyes
dancing death.
‘He was in the cave!’ he shouted. ‘I saw him -1 spotted him
- it was broad twilight after those stairs - and I went for him
with my bare hands. Not fists, Bunny; not fists for a thing like
that; I meant getting my fingers into his vile little heart and
tearing it out by the roots. I was stark mad. But he had the
revolver - hers. He blazed it at arm’s length, and missed. And
that steadied me. I had smashed his funny-bone against the
rock before he could blaze again; the revolver fell with a
rattle, but without going off; in an instant I had it tight, and
the little swine at my mercy at last.’
‘You didn’t show him any?’
‘Mercy? With Faustina dead at my feet? I should have
deserved none in the next world if I had shown him any in
this! No, I just stood over him, with the revolver in both
hands, feeling the chambers with my thumb; and as I stood
he stabbed at me; but I stepped back to that one, and brought
him down with a bullet in his guts.
‘ “And I can spare you two or three more,” I said, for my
poor girl could not have fired a shot. “Take that one to hell
with you - and that - and that!”

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‘Then I started coughing and wheezing like the Count

himself, for the place was full of smoke. When it cleared my
man was very dead, and I tipped him into the sea, to defile
that rather than Faustina’s cave. And then - and then - we
were alone for the last time, she and I, in our own pet haunt;
and I could scarcely see her, yet I would not strike a match,
for I knew she would not have me see her as she was. I could
say good-bye to her without that. I said it; and I left her like a
man, and up the first open-air steps with my head in the air
and the stars all sharp in the sky; then suddenly they swam,
and back I went like a lunatic, to see if she was really dead, to
bring her back to life.... Bunny, I can’t tell you any more.’
‘Not of the Count?’ I murmured at last.
‘Not even of the Count,’ said Raffles, turning round with a
sigh. ‘I left him pretty sorry for himself; but what was the
good of that? I had taken blood for blood, and it was not
Corbucci who had killed Faustina. No, the plan was his, but
that was not part of the plan. They had found out about our
meetings in the cave; nothing simpler than to have me kept
hard at it overhead and to carry off Faustina by brute force in
the boat. It was their only chance, for she had said more to
Stefano than she had admitted to me, and more than I am
going to repeat about myself. No persuasion would have
induced her to listen to him again; so they tried force; and
she drew Corbucci’s revolver on them, but they had taken her
by surprise, and Stefano stabbed her before she could fire.’
‘But how do you know all that?’ I asked Raffles, for his tale
was going to pieces in the telling, and the tragic end of poor
Faustina was no ending for me.
‘Oh,’ said he, ‘I had it from Corbucci at his own revolver’s
point. He was waiting at his window, and I could have potted
him at my ease where he stood against the light listening hard
enough but not seeing a thing. So he asked whether it was Ste­
fano, and I whispered, “Si, signore;” and then whether he had
finished Arturo, and I brought the same shot off again. He had
let me in before he knew who was finished and who was not’

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‘And did you finish him?’

‘No; that was too good for Corbucci. But I bound and
gagged him about as tight as man was ever gagged or bound,
and I left him in his room with the shutters shut and the
house locked up. The shutters of that old place were six
inches thick, and the walls nearly six feet; that was on the Sat­
urday night, and the Count wasn’t expected at the vineyard
before the following Saturday. Meanwhile he was supposed
to be in Rome. But the dead would doubtless be discovered
next day, and I am afraid this would lead to his own discovery
with the life still in him. I believe he figured on that himself,
for he sat threatening me gamely till the last. You never saw
such a sight as he was, with his head split in two by a ruler
tied at the back of it, and his great moustache pushed up into
his bulging eyes. But I locked him up in the dark without a
qualm, and I wished and still wish him every torment of the
damned ‘
‘And then ?’
‘The night was still young, and within ten miles there was
the best of ports in a storm, and hundreds of holds for the
humble stowaway to choose from. But I didn’t want to go
further than Genoa, for by this time my Italian would wash,
so I chose the old Norddeutscher Lloyd, and had an excellent
voyage in one of the boats slung inboard over the bridge.
That’s better than any hold, Bunny, and I did splendidly on
oranges brought from the vineyard.’
‘And at Genoa?’
‘At Genoa I took to my wits once more, and have been
living on nothing else ever since. But there I had to begin all
over again, and at the very bottom of the ladder. I slept in the
streets. I begged. I did all manner of terrible things, rather
hoping for a bad end, but never coming to one. Then one day
I saw a white headed old chap looking at me through a shop
window - a window I had designs upon - and when I stared at
him he stared at me - and we wore the same rags. So I had
come to that! But one reflection makes many. I had not

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recognised myself; who on earth would recognise me?

London called me - and here I am. Italy had broken my heart
- and there it stays.’
Flippant as a schoolboy one moment, playful even in the
bitterness of the next, and now no longer giving way to the
feeling which had spoilt the climax of his tale, Raffles needed
knowing as I alone knew him for a right appreciation of those
last words. That they were no mere words I know full well.
That, but for the tragedy of his Italian life, that life would
have sufficed him for years, if not for ever, I did and do still
believe. But I alone see him as I saw him then, the lines upon
his face, and the pain behind the lines; how they came to dis­
appear, and what removed them, you will never guess. It was
the one thing you would have expected to have the opposite
effect, the thing indeed that had forced his confidence, the
organ and the voice once more beneath our very windows:

Margarita de Parete,
era o' sarta d’ e'signore;
se pugneva sempe e ddete
pe penzare a Salvatore!

Mar-ga-ri,
e perzo a Salvatore!
Mar -ga- rt,
Ma I’omtm e cacciatore!
Mar -ga- ri,
Nun ce aje corpa tu!
Chello ch’ efatto, efatto, un neparlammo cchieii!

I simply stared at Raffles. Instead of deepening, his lines

had vanished. He looked years younger, mischievous and
merry and alert as I remembered him of old in the breathless
crisis of some madcap escapade. He was holding up his
finger; he was stealing to the window; he was peeping
through the blind as though our side street were Scotland

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Yard itself; he was stealing back again, all revelry, excitement,

and suspense.
‘I half thought they were after me before,’ said he. ‘That
was why I made you look. I daren’t take a proper look myself,
but what a jest if they were! What a jest!’
‘Do you mean the police?’ said I.
‘The police! Bunny, do you know them and me so little
that you can look me in the face and ask such a question? My
boy, I’m dead to them - off their books - a good deal deader
than being off the hooks! Why, if I went to Scotland Yard
this minute, to give myself up, they’d chuck me out for a
harmless lunatic. Not I fear an enemy nowadays, and I go in
terror of the sometime friend; but I have the utmost confi­
dence in the dear police.’
‘Then whom do you mean?’
‘The Camorra!’
I repeated the word with a different intonation. Not that I
had never heard of that most powerful and sinister of secret
societies; but I failed to see on what grounds Raffles should
jump to the conclusion that these every day organ-grinders
belonged to it.
‘It was one of Corbucci’s threats,’ said he. ‘If I killed him
the Camorra would certainly kill me; he kept on telling me
so; it was like his cunning not to say that he would put them
on my tracks whether or no.’
‘He is probably a member himself!’
‘Obviously, from what he said.’
‘But why on earth should you think that these fellows are?’
I demanded, as that brazen voice came rasping through a
second verse.
‘I don’t think. It was only an idea. That thing is so thor­
oughly Neapolitan, and I never heard it on a London organ
before. Then again, what should bring them back here?’
I peeped through the blind in my turn; and, to be sure,
there was the fellow with the blue chin and the white teeth
watching our windows, and ours only, as he bawled.

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‘And why?’ cried Raffles, his eyes dancing when I told him.
‘Why should they come sneaking back to us? Doesn’t that
look suspicious, Bunny; doesn’t that promise a lark?’
‘Not to me,’ I said, having the smile for once. ‘How many
people, should you imagine, toss them five shillings for as
many minutes of their infernal row? You seem to forget that
that’s what you did an hour ago!’
Raffles had forgotten. His blank face confessed the fact.
Then suddenly he burst out laughing at himself.
‘Bunny,’ said he, ‘you’ve no imagination, and I never knew
I had so much! Of course you’re right. I only wish you were
not, for there’s nothing I should enjoy more than taking on
another Neapolitan or two. You see, I owe them something
still! I didn’t settle in full. I owe them more than ever I shall
pay them on this side Styx!’
He had hardened even as he spoke: the lines and the years
had come again, and his eyes were flint and steel, with an
honest grief behind the glitter.

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 CHAPTER Xn

The Last Laugh

As I HAVE HAD OCCASION to remark elsewhere, the pick of

our exploits from a frankly criminal point of view are of least
use for the comparatively pure purposes of these papers.
They might be appreciated in a trade journal (if only that
want could be supplied) by skilled manipulators of the jemmy
and the large light bunch; but, as records of unbroken yet
insignificant success, they would be found at once too trivial
and too technical, if not sordid and unprofitable into the bar­
gain. The latter epithets, and worse, have indeed already been
applied, if not to Raffles and all his works, at least to mine
upon Raffles, by more than one worthy wielder of a virtuous
pen. I need not say how heartily I disagree with that truly
pious opinion. So far from admitting a single word of it, I
maintain it is the liveliest warning that I am giving to the
world. Raffles was a genius, and he could not make it pay!
Raffles had invention, resource, incomparable audacity, and a
nerve in ten thousand. He was both strategian and tactician,
and we all now know the difference between the two. Yet for
months he had been hiding like a rat in a hole; unable to
show even his altered face by night or day without risk, unless
another risk were courted by three inches of conspicuous
crape. Then thus far our rewards had oftener than not been
no reward at all. Altogether it was a very different story from
the old festive, unsuspected club and cricket days, with their
nodes ambrosiana at the Albany.
And now, in addition to the eternal peril of recognition,
there was yet another menace of which I knew nothing. I

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thought no more of our Neapolitan organ-grinders, though I

did often think of the moving page that they had torn from
me out of my friend’s strange life in Italy. Raffles never
alluded to the subject again, and for my part I had entirely
forgotten his wild ideas connecting the organ-grinders with
the Camorra, and imagining them upon his own tracks. I
heard no more of it, and thought as little, as I say. Then one
night in the autumn - I shrink from shocking the susceptible
for nothing - but there was a certain house in Palace Gar­
dens, and when we got there Raffles would pass on. I could
see no soul in sight, no glimmer in the windows. But Raffles
had my arm, and on we went without talking about it. Sharp
to the left on the Notting Hill side, sharper still up Silver
Street, a little tacking west and south, a plunge across High
Street, and presently we were home.
‘Pyjamas first,’ said Raffles, with as much authority as
though it mattered. It was a warm night, however, though
September, and I did not mind until I came in clad as he
commanded to find the autocrat himself still booted and
capped. He was peeping through the blind, and the gas was
still turned down. But he said that I could turn it up, as he
helped himself to a cigarette and nothing with it.
‘May I mix you one?’ said I.
‘No, thanks.’
‘What’s the trouble?’
‘We were followed.’
‘Never!’
‘You never saw it.’
‘But j'ozz never looked round.’
‘I have an eye at the back of each ear, Bunny.’ I helped
myself, and I feared with less moderation than might have
been the case a minute before.
‘So that was why -’
‘That was why,’ said Raffles, nodding; but he did not smile,
and I put down my glass untouched.
‘They were following us then!’

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‘All up Palace Gardens.’

‘I thought you wound about coming back over the hill.’
‘Nevertheless, one of them’s in the street below at this
moment.’
No, he was not fooling me. He was very grim. And he had
not taken off a thing; perhaps he did not think it worth while.
‘Plain clothes?’ I sighed, following the sartorial train of
thought, even to the loathly arrows that had decorated my
person once already for a little aeon. Next time they would
give me double. The skilly was in my stomach when I saw
Raffles’s face.
‘Who said it was the police, Bunny?’ said he. ‘It’s the Ital­
ians. They’re only after me; they won’t hurt a hair of year
head, let alone cropping it! Have a drink, and don’t mind me.
I shall score them off before I’m done.’
‘And I’ll help you!’
‘No, old chap, you won’t. This is my own little show. I’ve
known about it for weeks. I first tumbled to it the day those
Neapolitans came back with their organs, though I didn’t
seriously suspect things then; they never came again, those
two; they had done their part. That’s the Camorra all over,
from all accounts. The Count I told you about is pretty high
up in it, by the way he spoke, but there will be grades and
grades between him and the organ-grinders. I shouldn’t be
surprised if he had every low-down Neapolitan ice-creamer
in the town upon my tracks! The organisation’s incredible.
Then do you remember the superior foreigner who came to
the door a few days afterwards? You said he had velvet eyes.’
‘I never connected him with those two!’
‘Of course, you didn’t, Bunny, so you threatened to kick
the fellow downstairs, and only made them keener on the
scent. It was too late to say anything when you told me. But
the very next time I showed my nose outside I heard a camera
click as I passed, and the fiend was a person with velvet eyes.
Then there was a lull - that happened weeks ago. They had
sent me to Italy for identification by Count Corbucci.’

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‘But this is all theory,’ I exclaimed. ‘How on earth can you

know?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Raffles, ‘but I should like to bet. Our
friend the bloodhound is hanging about the corner near the
pillar-box; look through my window, it’s dark in there, and
tell me who he is.’
The man was too far away for me to swear to his face, but
he wore a covert-coat of un-English length, and the lamp
across the road played steadily on his boots; they were very
yellow, and they made no noise when he took a turn. I
strained my eyes, and all at once I remembered the thin-
soled, low-heeled, splay yellow boots of the insidious for­
eigner, with the soft eyes and the brown-paper face, whom I
had turned from the door as a palpable fraud. The ring at the
bell was the first I had heard of him, there had been no warn­
ing step upon the stairs, and my suspicious eye had searched
his feet for rubber soles.
‘It’s the fellow,’ I said, returning to Raffles, and I described
his boots.
Raffles was delighted.
‘Well done, Bunny; you’re coming on,’ said he. ‘Now I
wonder if he’s been over here all the time, or if they sent him
over expressly? You did better than you think in spotting
those boots, for they can only have been made in Italy, and
that looks like the special envoy. But it’s no use speculating. I
must find out.’
‘How can you?’
‘He won’t stay there all night.’
‘Well?’
‘When he gets tired of it I shall return the compliment and
follow him’
‘Not alone,’ said I, firmly.
‘Well, we’ll see. We’ll see at once,’ said Raffles, rising. ‘Out
with the gas, Bunny, while I take a look. Thank you. Now
wait a bit. .. yes! He’s chucked it; he’s off already; and so am
I!’

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But I slipped to our outer door, and held the passage.

‘I don’t let you go alone, you know.’
‘You can’t come with me in pyjamas.’
‘Now I see why you made me put them on!’
‘Bunny, if you don’t shift I shall have to shift you. This is
my very own private one-man show. But I’ll be back in an
hour - there!’
‘You swear?’
‘By all my gods.’
I gave in. How could I help giving in? He did not look the
man that he had been, but you never knew with Raffles, and I
could not have him lay a hand on me. I let him go with a
shrug and my blessing, then ran into his room to see the last
of him from the window. The creature in the coat and boots
had reached the end of our little street, where he appeared to
have hesitated, so that Raffles was just in time to see which
way he turned. And Raffles was after him at an easy pace, and
had himself almost reached the corner when my attention
was distracted from the alert nonchalance of his gait. I was
marvelling that it alone had not long ago bewrayed him, for
nothing about him was so unconsciously characteristic, when
suddenly I realised that Raffles was not the only person in the
little lonely street. Another pedestrian had entered from the
other end, a man heavily built and clad, with an astrakhan
collar to his coat on this warm night, and a black slouch hat
that hid his features from my bird’s-eye view. His steps were
the short and shuffling ones of a man advanced in years and
in fatty degeneration, but of a sudden they stopped beneath
my very eyes. I could have dropped a marble into the dinted
crown of the black felt hat. Then, at the same moment, Raf­
fles turned the corner without looking round, and the big
man below raised both his hands and his face. Of the latter I
saw only the huge white moustache, like a flying gull, as Raf­
fles had described it; for at a glance I divined that this was his
arch-enemy, the Count Corbucci himself.
I did not stop to consider the subtleties of the system by

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which the real hunter lagged behind while his subordinate

pointed the quarry like a sporting dog. I left the Count shuf­
fling onward faster than before, and I jumped into some
clothes as though the flats were on fire. If the Count was
going to follow Raffles in his turn then I would follow the
Count in mine, and there would be a midnight procession of
us through the town. But I found no sign of him in the empty
street, and no sign in the Earl’s Court Road, that looked as
empty for all its length, save for a natural enemy standing like
a waxwork with a glimmer at his belt.
‘Officer,’ I gasped, ‘have you seen anything of an old gen­
tleman with a big white moustache?’
The unlicked cub of a common constable seemed to eye
me the more suspiciously for the flattering form of my
address.
‘Took a hansom,’ said he at length.
A hansom! Then he was not following the others on foot;
there was no guessing his game. But some thingmust be said
or done.
‘He’s a friend of mine,’ I explained, ‘and I want to overtake
him. Did you hear where he told the fellow to drive?’
A curt negative was the policeman’s reply to that; and if
ever I take part in a night assault-at-arms, revolver versus
baton in the back kitchen, I know which member of the Met­
ropolitan Police Force I should like for my opponent.
If there was no overtaking the Count, however, it should be
a comparatively simple matter in the case of the couple on
foot, and I wildly hailed the first hansom that crawled into my
ken. I must tell Raffles who it was that I had seen; the Earl’s
Court Road was long, and the time since he vanished in it but
a few short minutes. I drove down the length of that useful
thoroughfare, with an eye apiece on either pavement, sweep­
ing each as with a brush, but never a Raffles came into the
pan. Then I tried the Fulham Road, first to the west, then to
the east, and in the end drove home to the flat as bold as brass.
I did not realise my indiscretion until I had paid the man and

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was on the stairs. Raffles never dreamt of driving all the way
back; but I was hoping now to find him waiting up above. He
had said an hour. I had remembered it suddenly. And now the
hour was more than up But the flat was as empty as I had left
it; the very light that had encouraged me, pale though it was,
as I turned the comer in my hansom, was but the light that I
myself had left burning in the desolate passage.
I can give you no conception of the night that I spent.
Most of it I hung across the sill, throwing a wide net with my
ears, catching every footstep afar off, every hansom bell far­
ther still, only to gather in some alien whom I seldom even
landed in our street. Then I would listen at the door. He
might come over the roof; and eventually some one did; but
now it was broad daylight, and I flung the door open in the
milkman’s face, which whitened at the shock as though I had
ducked him in his own pail.
*You’re late,’ I thundered as the first excuse for my excite­
ment.
‘Beg your pardon,’ said he indignantly, ‘but I’m half an
hour before my usual time.’
‘Then I beg yours,’ said I; ‘but the fact is, Air. Maturin has
had one of his bad nights, and I seem to have been waiting
hours for milk to make him a cup of tea.’ This little fib (ready
enough for a Raffles, though I say it) earned me not only for­
giveness but that obliging sympathy which is a branch of the
business of the man at the door. The good fellow said that he
could see I had been sitting up all night, and he left me plum­
ing myself upon the accidental art with which I had told my
very necessary tarradiddle. On reflection I gave the credit to
instinct, not accident, and then sighed afresh as I realised how
the influence of the master was sinking into me, and he
heaven knew where! But my punishment was swift to follow,
for within the hour the bell rang imperiously twice, and there
was Dr. Theobald on our mat, in a yellow Jaeger suit, with a
chin as yellow jutting over the flaps that he had turned up to
hide his pyjamas.

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‘What’s this about a bad night?’ said he.

‘He couldn’t sleep, and he wouldn’t let me,’ I whispered,
never loosening my grasp of the door, and standing tight
against the other wall. ‘But he’s sleeping like a baby now.’
‘I must see him.’
‘He gave strict orders that you should not.’
‘I’m his medical man, and I -’
‘You know what he is,’ I said, shrugging; ‘the least thing
wakes him, and you will if you insist on seeing him now. It
will be the last time, I warn you! I know what he said, and you
don’t.’
The doctor cursed me under his fiery moustache.
‘I shall come up during the course of the morning,’ he
snarled.
‘And I shall tie up the bell,’ I said, ‘and if it doesn’t ring
he’ll be sleeping still, but I will not risk waking him by
coming to the door again.’
And with that I shut it in his face. I was improving as Raf­
fles had said; but what would it profit me if some evil had
befallen him? And now I was prepared for the worst A boy
came up whistling and leaving papers on the mats; it was get­
ting on for eight o’clock, and the whisky and soda of half-past
twelve stood untouched and stagnant in the tumbler. If the
worst had happened to Raffles, I felt that I would either never
drink again, or else seldom do anything else.
Meanwhile I could not even break my fast, but roamed the
flat in a misery not to be described, my very line still
unchanged, my cheeks and chin now tawny from the
unwholesome night. How long would it go on I wondered for
a time. Then I changed my tune: how long could I endure it?
It went on actually until the forenoon only, but my
endurance cannot be measured by the time, for to me every
hour of it was an arctic night. Yet it cannot have been much
after eleven when the ring came at the bell, which I had for­
gotten to tie up after all. But this was not the doctor; neither,
too well I knew, was it the wanderer returned. Our bell was

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the pneumatic one that tells you if the touch be light or

heavy; the hand upon it now was tentative and shy.
The owner of the hand I had never seen before. He was
young and ragged, with one eye blank, but the other ablaze
with some fell excitement. And straight-way he bursts into a
low torrent of words, of which all I knew was that they were
Italian, and therefore news of Raffles, if only I had known the
language! But dumb-show might help us somewhat, and in I
dragged him, though against his will, a new alarm in his one
wild eye.
‘Non capite'Y he cried when I had him inside and had with­
stood the torrent.
‘No, I’m bothered if I do!’ I answered, guessing his ques­
tion from his tone.
‘Vostro amico,’ he repeated over and over again; and then,
‘Poco tempo, poco tempo, poco tempoY
For once in my life the classical education of my public­
school days was of real value. ‘My pal, my pal, and no time to
be lost!’ I translated freely, and flew, for my hat.
‘Ecco, signoreY cried the fellow, snatching the watch from
my waistcoat pocket, and putting one black thumb-nail on
the long hand, the other on the numeral twelve. ‘Mezzogiomo
-poco tempo -poco tempoY And again I seized his meaning, that
it was twenty past eleven, and we must be there by twelve.
But where, but where? It was maddening to be summoned
like this, and not to know what had happened, nor to have
any means of finding out. But my presence of mind stood by
me still, I was improving by seven-league strides, and I
crammed my handkerchief between the drum and hammer of
the bell before leaving. The doctor could ring now till he was
black in the face, but I was not coming, and he need not think
it.
I half expected to find a hansom waiting, but there was
none, and we had gone some distance down the Earl’s Court
Road before we got one; in fact, we had to run to the stand.
Opposite is the church with the clock upon it, as everybody

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knows, and at sight of the dial my companion had wrung his

hands; it was close upon the half-hour.
‘Poco tempo — pochissimol’ he wailed. ‘Bloom buree Ske-
warr,’ he then cried to the cabman - 'minero trentotto'.’
‘Bloomsbury Square,’ I roared on my own account! ‘I’ll
show you the house when we get there, only drive like be-
damned!’
My companion lay back gasping in his corner. The small
glass told me that my own face was pretty red.
‘A nice show!’ I cried; ‘and not a word can you tell me.
Didn’t you bring me a note?’
I might have known by this time that he had not, still I
went through the pantomime of writing with my finger on
my cuff. But he shrugged and shook his head.
‘Niente,’ said he. ‘Una quistione di vita, di vital’
‘What’s that?’ I snapped, my early training coming in
again. ‘Say it slowly - andante - rallentando.’
Thank Italy for the stage instructions in the songs one used
to murder! The fellow actually understood.
'Una -quistione - di - vita.’
‘Or mors, eh?’ I shouted, and up went the trap door over
our heads.
'Avanti, avanti, avantil’ cried the Italian, turning up his
one-eyed face.
‘Hell-to-leather,’ I translated, ‘and double fare if you do it
by twelve o’clock.’
But in the streets of London how is one to know the time?
In the Earl’s Court Road it had not been half past, and at
Barker’s in High Street it was but a minute later. A long half-
mile a minute, that was going like the wind, and indeed we
had done much of it at a gallop. But the next hundred yards
took us five minutes by the next clock, and which was one to
believe? I fell back upon my own old watch (it was my own),
which made it eighteen minutes to the hour as we swung
across the Serpentine bridge, and by the quarter we were in
the Bayswater Road - not up for once.

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'Presto, presto,’ my pale guide murmured. ‘Ajfretatevi -

avantiV
‘Ten bob if you do it,’ I cried through the trap, without the
slightest notion of what we were to do. But it was 'una quis-
tione di vita,’ and 'vostro amico’ must and could only be my
miserable Raffles.
What a very godsend is the perfect hansom to the man or
woman in a hurry! It had been our great good fortune to
jump into a perfect hansom; there was no choice, we had to
take the first upon the rank, but it must have deserved its
place with the rest nowhere. New tires, superb springs, a
horse in a thousand, and a driver up to every trick of his
trade! In and out we went like a fast half-back at the Rugby
game, yet where the traffic was thinnest, there were we. And
how he knew his way! At the Marble Arch he slipped out of
the main stream, and so into Wigmore Street, then up and in
and out and on until I saw the gold tips of the Museum pal­
isade gleaming between the horse’s ears in the sun. Plop,
plop, plop; ting, ling, ling; bell and horse-shoes, horse-shoes
and bell, until the colossal figure of C. J. Fox in a grimy toga
spelt Bloomsbury Square with my watch still wanting three
minutes to the hour.
‘What number?’ cried the good fellow overhead.
'Trentotto, trentotto,’ said my guide, but he was looking to
the right, and I bundled him out to show the house on foot. I
had not half a sovereign after all, but I flung our dear driver a
whole one instead, and only wished that it had been a hun­
dred.
Already the Italian had his latchkey in the door of 38, and
in another moment we were rushing up the narrow stairs of
as dingy a London house as prejudiced countryman can con­
ceive. It was panelled, but it was dark and evil-smelling, and
how we should have found our way even to the stairs but for
an unwholesome jet of yellow gas in the hall, I cannot myself
imagine. However, up we went pell-mell, to the right-about
on the half-landing, and so like a whirlwind into the drawing­

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room a few steps higher. There the gas was also burning
behind closed shutters, and the scene is photographed upon
my brain, though I cannot have looked upon it for a whole
instant as I sprang in at my leader’s heels.
This room also was panelled, and in the middle of the wall
on our left, his hands lashed to a ring-bolt high above his
head, his toes barely touching the floor, his neck pinioned by
a strap passing through smaller ring-bolts under either ear,
and every inch of him secured on the same principle, stood,
or rather hung, all that was left of Raffles, for at the first
glance I believed him dead. A black ruler gagged him, the
ends lashed behind his neck, the blood upon it caked to
bronze in the gaslight. And in front of him, ticking like a
sledgehammer, its only hand upon the stroke of twelve, stood
a simple, old-fashioned, grandfather’s clock - but not for half
an instant longer - only until my guide could hurl himself
upon it and send the whole thing crashing into the corner. An
ear-splitting report accompanied the crash, a white cloud
lifted from the fallen clock, and I saw a revolver smoking in a
vice screwed below the dial, an arrangement of wires sprout­
ing from the dial itself, and the single hand at once at its
zenith and in contact with these.
‘Tumble to it, Bunny?’
He was alive; these were his first words; die Italian had the
blood-caked ruler in his hand, and with his knife was reach­
ing up to cut the thongs that lashed the hands. He was not
tall enough, I seized him and lifted him up, then fell to work
with my own knife upon the straps. And Raffles smiled faintly
upon us through his blood-stains.
‘I want you to tumble to it,’ he whispered; ‘the neatest
thing in revenge I ever knew, and another minute would have
fixed it. I’ve been waiting for it twelve hours, watching the
clock round, death at the end of the lap! Electric connection.
Simple enough. Hour hand only - O Lord!’
We had cut the last strap. He could not stand. We sup­
ported him between us to a horse-hair sofa, for the room was

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furnished, and I begged him not to speak, while his one-eyed

deliverer was at the door before Raffles recalled him with a
sharp word in Italian.
‘He wants to get me a drink, but that can wait,’ said he in
firmer voice; ‘I shall enjoy it the more when I’ve told you
what happened. Don’t let him go, Bunny; put your back'
against the door. He’s a decent soul, and it’s lucky for me I
got a word with him before they trussed me up. I’ve promised
to set him up in life, and I will, but I don’t want him out of
my sight for the moment.’
‘If you squared him last night,’ I exclaimed, Vhy the blazes
didn’t he come to me till the eleventh hour?’
‘Ah, I knew he’d have to cut it fine, though I hoped not
quite so fine as all that. But all’s well that ends well, and I
declare I don’t feel so much the worse. I shall be sore about
the gills for a bit - and what do you think?’
He pointed to the long black ruler with the bronze stain; it
lay upon the floor; he held out his hand for it, and I gave it to
him.
‘The same one I gagged him with,’ said Raffles, with his
still ghastly smile; ‘he was a bit of an artist, old Corbucci,
after all!’
‘Now let’s hear how you fell into his clutches,’ said I briskly,
for I was as anxious to hear as he seemed to tell me, only for
my part I could have waited until we were safe in the flat.
‘I do want to get it off my chest, Bunny,’ old Raffles admit­
ted, ‘and yet I hardly can tell you after all. I followed your
friend with the velvet eyes. I followed him all the way here.
Of course I came up to have a good look at the house when
he’d let himself in, and damme if he hadn’t left the door ajar!
Who could resist that? I had pushed it half open and had just
one foot on the mat when I got such a crack on the head as I
hope never to get again. When I came to my wits they were
hauling me up to that ring-bolt by the hands, and old Cor­
bucci himself was bowing to me, but how he got here I don’t
know yet.’

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‘I can tell you that,’ said I, and told how I had seen the
Count for myself on the pavement underneath our windows.
‘Moreover,’ I continued, ‘I saw him spot you, and five min­
utes after in Earl’s Court Road I was told he’d driven off in a
cab. He would see you following his man, drive home ahead,
and catch you by having the door left open in the way you
describe.’
‘Well,’ said Raffles, ‘he deserved to catch me somehow, for
he’d come from Naples on purpose, ruler and all, and the
ring-bolts were ready fixed, and even this house taken fur­
nished for nothing else! He meant catching me before he’d
done, and scoring me off in exactly the same way that I
scored off him, only going one better of course. He told me
so himself, sitting where I am sitting now, at three o’clock
this morning, and smoking a most abominable cigar that I’ve
smelt ever since. It appears he sat twenty-four hours when I
left him trussed up, but he said twelve would content him in
my case, as there was certain death at the end of them, and I
mightn’t have life enough left to appreciate my end if he
made it longer. But I wouldn’t have trusted him if he could
have got the clock to go twice round without firing off the
pistol. He explained the whole mechanism of that to me; he
had thought it all out on the vineyard I told you about; and
then he asked if I remembered what he had promised me in
the name of the Camorra. I only remembered some vague
threats, but he was good enough to give me so many particu­
lars of that institution that I could make a European reputa­
tion by exposing the whole show if it wasn’t for my
unfortunate resemblance to that infernal rascal Raffles. Do
you think they would know me at the Yard, Bunny, after all
this time? Upon my soul I’ve a good mind to risk it!’
I offered no opinion on the point. How could it interest me
then? But interested I was in Raffles, never more so in my
life. He had been tortured all night and half a day, yet he
could sit and talk like this the moment we cut him down; he
had been within a minute of his death, yet he was as full of

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life as ever; ill-treated and defeated at the best, he could still

smile through his blood as though the boot were on the other
leg. I had imagined that I knew my Raffles at last. I was not
likely so to flatter myself again.
‘But what has happened to these villains?’ I burst out, and
my indignation was not only against them for their cruelty,
but also against their victim for his phlegmatic attitude
toward them. It was difficult to believe that this was Raffles.
‘Oh,’ said he, ‘they were to go off to Italy instanter, they
should be crossing now. But do listen to what I am telling
you; it’s interesting, my dear man. This old sinner Corbucci
turns out to have been no end of a boss in the Camorra — says
so himself. One of the capi paranze, my boy, no less; and the
velvety Johnny a giovano onorato, Anglice, fresher. This fellow
here was also in it, and I’ve sworn to protect him from them
ever more; and it’s just as I said, half the organ-grinders in
London belong, and the whole lot of them were put on my
tracks by secret instructions. This excellent youth manufac­
tures iced poison on Saffron Hill when he’s at home.’
‘And why on earth didn’t he come to me quicker?’
‘Because he couldn’t talk to you, he could only fetch you,
and it was as much as his life was worth to do that before our
friends had departed. They were going by the eleven o’clock
from Victoria, and that didn’t leave much chance, but he cer­
tainly oughtn’t to have run it as fine as he did. Still you must
remember that I had to fix things up with him in the fewest
possible words, in a single minute that the other two were
indiscreet enough to leave us alone together.’
The ragamuffin in question was watching us with all his
solitary eye, as though he knew that we were discussing him.
Suddenly he broke out in agonised accents, his hands clasped,
and a face so full of fear that every moment I expected to see
him on his knees. But Raffles answered kindly, reassuringly, I
could tell from his tone, and then turned to me with a com­
passionate shrug.
‘He says he couldn’t find the mansions, Bunny, and really

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it’s not to be wondered at. I had only time to tell him to hunt
you up and bring you here by hook or crook before twelve
to-day, and after all he has done that. But now the poor devil
thinks you’re riled with him, and that we’ll give him away to
the Camorra.’
‘Oh, it’s not with him I’m riled,’ I said frankly, ‘but with
those other blackguards, and - and with you, old chap, for
taking it all as you do, while such infamous scoundrels have
the last laugh, and are safely on their way to France!’
Raffles looked up at me with a curiously open eye, an eye
that I never saw when he was not in earnest. I fancied he did
not like my last expression but one. After all, it was no laugh­
ing matter to him.
‘But are they?’ said he. ‘I’m not so sure.’
‘You said they were!’
‘I said they should be.’
‘Didn’t you hear them go?’
‘I heard nothing but the clock all night. It was like Big Ben
striking at the last - striking nine to the fellow on the drop.’
And in that open eye I saw at last a deep glimmer of the
ordeal through which he had passed.
‘But, my dear old Raffles, if they’re still on the premises -’
The thought was too thrilling for a finished sentence.
‘I hope they are,’ he said grimly, going to the door.
‘There’s a gas on! Was that burning when you came in?’
Now that I thought of it, yes, it had been.
‘And there’s a frightfully foul smell,’ I added, as I followed
Raffles down the stairs. He turned to me gravely with his
hand upon the front-room door, and at the same moment I
saw a coat with an astrakhan collar hanging on the pegs.
‘They are in here, Bunny,’ he said, and turned the handle.
The door would only open a few inches. But a detestable
odour came out, with a broad bar of yellow gaslight. Raffles
put his handkerchief to his nose. I followed his example, sign­
ing to our ally to do the same, and in another minute we had
all three squeezed into the room.

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The man with the yellow boots was lying against the door,
the Count’s great carcase sprawled upon the table, and at a
glance it was evident that both men had been dead some
hours. The old Camorrist had the stem of a liqueur-glass
between his swollen blue fingers, one of which had been cut
in the breakage, and the livid flesh was also brown with the
last blood that it would ever shed. His face was on the table,
the huge moustache projecting from under either leaden
cheek, yet looking itself strangely alive. Broken bread and
scraps of frozen macaroni lay upon the cloth and at the
bottom of two soup-plates and a tureen; the macaroni had a,
tinge of tomato; and there was a crimson dram left in the
tumblers, with an empty fiasco to show whence it came. But
near the great grey head upon the table another liqueur-glass
stood, unbroken, and still full of some white and stinking
liquid; and near that a tiny silver flask, which made me recoil
from Raffles as I had not from the dead; for I knew it to be
his.
‘Come out of this poisonous air,’ he said sternly, ‘and I will
tell you how it has happened.’
So we all three gathered together in the hall. But it was
Raffles who stood nearest the street-door, his back to it, his
eyes upon us two. And though it was to me only that he spoke
at first, he would pause from point to point, and translate into
Italian for the benefit of the one-eyed alien to whom he owed
his life.
‘You probably don’t even know the name, Bunny,’ he
began, ‘of the deadliest poison yet known to science. It is
cyanide of cacodyl, and I have carried that small flask of it
about with me for months. Where I got it matters nothing;
the whole point is that a mere sniff reduces flesh to clay. I
have never had any opinion of suicide, as you know, but I
always felt it worth while to be forearmed against the very
worst. Well, a bottle of this stuff is calculated to stiffen an
ordinary roomful of ordinary people within five minutes; and
I remembered my flask when they had me as good as cruci­

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fied in the small hours of this morning. I asked them to take

it out of my pocket. I begged them to give me a drink before
they left me. And what do you suppose they did?’
I thought of many things but suggested none, while Raffles
turned this much of his statement into sufficiently fluent Ital­
ian. But when he faced me again his face was still flaming.
‘That beast Corbucci!’ said he - ‘how can I pity him? He
took the flask; he would give me none; he flicked me in the
face instead. My idea was that he, at least, should go with me
- to sell my life as dearly as that - and a sniff would have set­
tled us both. But no, he must tantalise and torment me; he
thought it brandy; he must take it downstairs to drink to my
destruction! Can you have any pity for a hound like that?’
‘Let us go,’ I at last said hoarsely, as Raffles finished speak­
ing in Italian, and his second listener stood open-mouthed.
‘We will go,’ said Raffles, ‘and we will chance being seen; if
the worst comes to the worst this good chap will prove that I
have been tied up since one o’clock this morning, and the
medical evidence will decide how long those dogs have been
dead.’
But the worst did not come to the worst, more power to
my unforgotten friend the cabman, who never came forward
to say what manner of men he had driven to Bloomsbury
Square at top speed on the very day upon which the tragedy
was discovered there, or whence he had driven them. To be
sure, they had not behaved like murderers, whereas the evi­
dence at the inquest all went to show that the defunct Cor­
bucci was little better. His reputation, which transpired with
his identity, was that of a fibertine and a renegade, while the
infernal apparatus upstairs revealed the fiendish arts of the
anarchist to boot. The inquiry resulted eventually in an open
verdict, and was chiefly instrumental in killing such compas­
sion as is usually felt for the dead who die in their sins.
But Raffles would not have passed this title for this tale.

227
 CHAPTER Xin

To Catch a Thief

Society persons ARE not likely to have forgotten the

series of audacious robberies by which so many of themselves
suffered in turn during the brief course of a recent season.
Raid after raid was made upon the smartest houses in town,
and within a few weeks more than one exalted head had been
shorn of its priceless tiara. The Duke and Duchess of Dorch­
ester lost half the portable pieces of their historic plate on the
very night of their Graces’ almost equally historic costume
ball. The Kenworthy diamonds were taken in broad daylight,
during the excitement of a charitable meeting on the ground
floor, and the gifts of her belted bridegroom to Lady May
Paulton while the outer air was thick with a prismatic shower
of confetti. It was obvious that all this was the work of no
ordinary thief, and perhaps inevitable that the name of Raf­
fles should have been dragged from oblivion by callous disre-
specters of the departed and unreasoning apologists for the
police. These wiseacres did not hesitate to bring a dead man
back to life because they knew of no living one capable of
such feats; it is their heedless and inconsequent calumnies
that the present paper is partly intended to refute. As a matter
of fact, our joint innocence in this matter was only exceeded
by our common envy, and for a long time, like the rest of the
world, neither of us had the slightest clue to the identity of
the person who was following in our steps with such irritating
results.
‘I should mind less,’ said Raffles, ‘if the fellow were really
playing my game. But abuse of hospitality was never one of

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my strokes, and it seems to be the only shot he’s got. When

we took old Lady Melrose’s necklace, Bunny, we were not
staying with the Melroses, if you recollect.’
We were discussing the robberies for the hundredth time,
but for once under conditions more favourable to animated
conversation than our unique circumstances permitted in the
flat. We did not often dine out. Dr. Theobald was one
impediment, the risk of recognition was another. But there
were exceptions, when the doctor was away or the patient
defiant, and on these rare occasions we frequented a certain
unpretentious restaurant in the Fulham quarter, where the
cooking was plain but excellent, and the cellar a surprise. Our
bottle of ’89 champagne was empty to the label when the
subject arose, to be touched by Raffles in the reminiscent
manner indicated above. I can see his clear eye upon me now,
reading me, weighing me. But I was not so sensitive to his
scrutiny at the time. His tone was deliberate, calculating,
preparatory; not as I heard it then, through a head full of
wine, but as it floats back to me across the gulf between that
moment and this.
‘Excellent fillet!’ said I grossly. ‘So you think this chap is as
much in society as we were, do you?’
I preferred not to think so myself. We had cause enough
for jealousy without that. But Raffles raised his eyebrows an
eloquent half-inch.
‘As much, my dear Bunny? He is not only in it, but of it;
there’s no comparison between us there. Society is in rings
like a target, and we never were in the bull’s-eye, however
thick you may lay on the ink! I was asked for my cricket. I
haven’t forgotten it yet. But this fellow’s one of themselves,
with the right of entree into houses which we could only
“enter” in a professional sense. That’s obvious unless all these
little exploits are the work of different hands, which they as
obviously are not. And it’s why I’d give five hundred pounds
to put salt on him to-night!’
‘Not you,’ said I, as I drained my glass in festive incredulity.

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‘But I would, my dear Bunny. - Waiter! another half-bottle

of this,’ and Raffles leant across the table as the empty one
was taken away. ‘I never was more serious in my life,’ he con­
tinued below his breath. ‘Whatever else our successor may
be, he’s not a dead man like me, or a marked man like you. If
there’s any truth in my theory, he’s one of the last people
upon whom suspicion is ever likely to rest; and oh, Bunny,
what a partner he would make for you and me!’
Under less genial influences the very idea of a third partner
would have filled my soul with offence; but Raffles had
chosen his moment unerringly, and his arguments lost noth­
ing by the flowing accompaniment of the extra pint. They
were, however, quite strong in themselves. The gist of them
was that thus far we had remarkably little to show for what
Raffles would call ‘our second innings.’ This even I could not
deny. We had scored a few ‘long singles,’ but our ‘best shots’
had gone ‘straight to hand,’ and we were ‘playing a deuced
slow game.’ Therefore we needed a new partner — and the
metaphor failed Raffles. It had served its turn. I already
agreed with him. In truth I was tired of my false position as
hireling attendant, and had long fancied myself an object of
suspicion to that other impostor the doctor. A fresh, untram­
melled start was a fascinating idea to me, though two was
company, and three in our case might be worse than none.
But I did not see how we could hope, with our respective
handicaps, to solve a problem which was already the despair
of Scotland Yard.
‘Suppose I have solved it,’ observed Raffles, cracking a
walnut in his palm.
‘How could you?’ I asked, without believing for an instant
that he had.
‘I have been taking the Morning Post for some time now.’
‘Well?’
‘You have got me a good many odd numbers of the less
base society papers.’
‘I can’t for the fife of me see what you’re driving at.

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Raffles smiled indulgently as he cracked another nut.

‘That’s because you’ve neither observation nor imagina­
tion, Bunny - and yet you try to write! Well you wouldn’t
think it, but I have a fairly complete list of the people who
were at the various functions under cover of which these dif­
ferent little coups were brought off.’
I said very stolidly that I did not see how that could help
him. It was the only answer to his good-humoured but self-
satisfied contempt; it happened also to be true.
‘Think,’ said Raffles, in a patient voice.
‘When thieves break in and steal,’ said I, ‘upstairs. I don’t
see much point in discovering who was downstairs at the
time.’
‘Quite,’ said Raffles - ‘when they do break in.’
‘But that’s what they have done in all these cases. An
upstairs door found screwed up, when things were at their
height below; thief gone and jewels with him before alarm
could be raised. Why, the trick’s so old that I never knew you
condescend to play it.’
‘Not so old as it looks,’ said Raffles, choosing the cigars
and handing me mine. ‘Cognac or Benedictine, Bunny?’
‘Brandy,’ I said coarsely.
‘Besides,’ he went on, ‘the rooms were not screwed up; at
Dorchester House, at any rate, the door was only locked, and
the key missing, so that it might have been done on either
side.’
‘But that was where he left his rope-ladder behind him!’ I
exclaimed in triumph; but Raffles only shook his head.
‘I don’t believe in that rope-ladder, Bunny, except as a
blind.’
‘Then what on earth do you believe?’
‘That every one of these so-called burglaries has been done
from the inside, by one of the guests; and what’s more, I’m
very much mistaken if I haven’t spotted the right sportsman.’
I began to believe that he really had, there was such a
wicked gravity in the eyes that twinkled faintly into mine. I

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raised my glass in convivial congratulation, and still remem­

ber the somewhat anxious eye with which Raffles saw it emp­
tied.
‘I can only find one likely name,’ he continued, ‘that fig­
ures in all these lists, and it is anything but a likely one at first
sight. Lord Ernest Belville was at all those functions. Know
anything about him, Bunny?’
‘Not the Rational Drink fanatic?’
■Yes.’
‘That’s all I want to know.’
‘Quite,’ said Raffles; ‘and yet what could be more promis­
ing? A man whose views are so broad and moderate, and so
widely held already (saving your presence, Bunny), does not
bore the world with them without ulterior motives. So far so
good. What are this chap’s motives? Does he want to adver­
tise himself? No, he’s somebody already. But is he rich? On
the contrary, he’s as poor as a rat for his position, and appar­
ently without the least ambition to be anything else; certainly
he won’t enrich himself by making a public fad of what all
sensible people are agreed upon as it is. Then suddenly one
gets one’s own old idea - the alternative profession! My
cricket - his Rational Drink! But it is no use jumping to con­
clusions. I must know' more than the newspapers can tell me.
Our aristocratic friend is forty, and unmarried. What has he
been doing all these years? How the devil was I to find out?’
‘How did you?’ I asked, declining to spoil my digestion
with a conundrum, as it was his evident intention that I
should.
‘Interviewed him!’ said Raffles, smiling slowly on my
amazement.
‘You - interviewed him?’ I echoed. “When - and where?’
‘Last Thursday night, when, if you remember, we kept
early hours, because I felt done. What was the use of telling
you what I had up my sleeve, Bunny? It might have ended in
fizzle, as it still may. But Lord Ernest Belville was addressing
the meeting at Exeter Hall; I waited for him when the show

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was over, dogged him home to King John’s Mansions, and

interviewed him in his own rooms there before he turned in.’
My journalistic jealousy was piqued to the quick. Affecting a
scepticism I did not feel (for no outrage was beyond the pale
of his impudence), I inquired dryly which journal Raffles had
pretended to represent. It is unnecessary to report his answer.
I could not believe him without further explanation.
‘I should have thought,’ he said, ‘that even you would have
spotted a practice I never omit upon certain occasions. I
always pay a visit to the drawing-room and fill my waistcoat
pocket from the card-tray. It is an immense help in any little
temporary impersonation. On Thursday night I sent up the
card of a powerful writer connected with a powerful paper; if
Lord Ernest had known him in the flesh I should have been
obliged to confess to a journalistic ruse; luckily he didn’t -
and I had been sent by my editor to get the interview for next
morning. What could be better for the alternative profes­
sion?’
I inquired what the interview had brought forth.
‘Everything,’ said Raffles. ‘Lord Ernest has been a wan­
derer these twenty years. Texas, Fiji, Australia. I suspect him
of wives and families in all three. But his manners are a liberal
education. He gave me some beautiful whisky, and forgot all
about his fad. He is strong and subtle, but I talked him off his
guard. He is going to the Kirkleathams’ to-night - I saw the
card stuck up. I stuck some wax into his keyhole as he was
switching off the fights.’
And, with an eye upon the waiters, Raffles showed me a
skeleton key, newly twisted and filed; but my share of the
extra pint (I am afraid no fair share) had made me dense. I
looked from the key to Raffles with puckered forehead - for I
happened to catch sight of it in the mirror behind him.
‘The Dowager Lady Kirkleatham,’ he whispered, ‘has dia­
monds as big as beans, and likes to have ’em all on - and goes
to bed early - and happens to be in town!’
And now I saw.

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‘The villain means to get them from her!’

‘And I mean to get them from the villain,’ said Raffles; ‘or,
rather, your share and mine.’
‘Will he consent to a partnership?’
‘We shall have him at our mercy. He daren’t refuse.’
Raffles’s plan was to gain access to Lord Ernest’s rooms
before midnight; there we were to Be in wait for the aristo­
cratic rascal, and if I left all details to Raffles, and simply
stood by in case of a rumpus, I should be playing my part and
earning my share. It was a part that I had played before, not
always with a good grace, though there had never been any
question about the share. But to-night I was nothing loth. I
had had just champagne enough - how Raffles knew my mea­
sure! - and I was ready and eager for any thing. Indeed, I did
not wish to wait for the coffee, which was to be especially
strong by order of Raffles. But on that he insisted, and it was
between ten and eleven when at last we were in our cab.
‘It would be fatal to be too early,’ he said as we drove; ‘on
the other hand, it would be dangerous to leave it too late.
One must risk something. How I should love to drive down
Piccadilly and see the lights! But unnecessary risks are
another story.’

King John’s Mansions, as everybody knows, are the oldest,

the ugliest, and the tallest block of flats in all London. But
they are built upon a more generous scale than has since
become the rule, and with a less studious regard for the econ­
omy of space. We were about to drive into the spacious
courtyard when the gatekeeper checked us in order to let
another hansom drive out. It contained a middle-aged man of
the military type, like ourselves in evening dress. That much I
saw as his hansom crossed our bows, because I could not help
seeing it, but I should not have given the incident a second

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thought if it had not been for its extraordinary effect upon

Rallies. In an instant he was out upon the curb, paying the
cabby, and in another he was leading me across the street,
away from the mansions.
‘Where on earth are you going?’ I naturally exclaimed.
‘Into the park,’ said he. ‘We are too early.’
His voice told me more than his words. It was strangely
stem.
‘Was that him - in the hansom?’
‘It was.’
‘Well, then, the coast’s clear,’ said I comfortably. I was for
turning back, then and there, but Raffles forced me on with a
hand that hardened on my arm.
‘It was a nearer thing than I care about,’ said he. ‘This seat
will do; no, the next one’s farther from a lamp-post. We will
give him a good half-hour, and I don’t want to talk.’
We had been seated some minutes when Big Ben sent a
languid chime over our heads to the stars. It was half-past
ten, and a sultry night. Eleven had struck before Raffles
awoke from his sullen reverie, and recalled me from mine
with a slap on the back. In a couple of minutes we were in the
lighted vestibule at the inner end of the courtyard of King
John’s Mansions.
‘Just left Lord Ernest at Lady Kirkleatham’s,’ said Raffles.
‘Gave me his key and asked us to wait for him in his rooms.
Will you send us up in the lift?’
In a small way, I never knew old Raffles do anything better.
There was not an instant’s demur. Lord Ernest Belville’s
rooms were at the top of the building, but we were in them as
quickly as lift could carry and page-boy conduct us. And there
was no need for the skeleton key after all; the boy opened the
outer door with one of his own, and switched on the lights
before leaving us.
‘Now that’s interesting,’ said Raffles, as soon as we were
alone; ‘they can come in and clean when he is out. What if he
keeps his swag at the bank? By Jove, that’s an idea for him! I

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don’t believe he’s getting rid of it; it’s all lying low some­
where, if I’m not mistaken, and he’s not a fool.’
While he spoke he was moving about the sitting-room,
which was charmingly furnished in the antique style, and
making as many remarks as though he were an auctioneer’s
clerk with an inventory to prepare and a day to do it in,
instead of a cracksman who might be surprised in his crib at
any moment.
‘Chippendale of sorts, eh, Bunny? Not genuine, of course;
but where can you get genuine Chippendale now, and who
knows it when they see it? There’s no merit in mere antiq­
uity. Yet the way people pose on the subject! If a thing’s
handsome and useful, and good cabinet-making, it’s good
enough for me.’
‘Hadn’t we better explore the whole place?’ I suggested
nervously. He had not even bolted the outer door. Nor
would he when I called his attention to the omission.’
If Lord Ernest finds his rooms locked up he’ll raise Cain",’
said Raffles; ‘we must let him come in and lock up for himself
before we corner him. But he won’t come yet; if he did it
might be awkward, for they’ll tell him down below what I
told them. A new staff comes on at midnight. I discovered
that the other night.’
‘Supposing he does come in before?’
‘Well, he can’t have us turned out without first seeing who
we are, and he won’t try it on when I’ve had one word with
him. Unless my suspicions are unfounded, I mean.’
‘Isn’t it about time to test them?’
‘My good Bunny, what do you suppose I’ve been doing all
this while? He keeps nothing in here. There isn’t a lock to
the Chippendale that you couldn’t pick with a penknife, and
not a loose board in the floor, for I was treading for one
before the boy left us. Chimneys no use in a place like this
where they keep them swept for you. Yes, I’m quite ready to
try his bedroom.’
There was but a bathroom besides; no kitchen, no servant’s

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room; neither are necessary in King John’s Mansions. I

thought it as well to put my head inside the bathroom while
Raffles went into the bedroom, for I was tormented by the
horrible idea that the man might all this time be concealed
somewhere in the flat. But the bathroom blazed void in the
electric light. I found Raffles hanging out of the starry square
which was the bedroom window, for the room was still in
darkness. I felt for the switch at the door.
‘Put it out again!’ said Raffles fiercely. He rose from the
sill, drew blinds and curtains carefully, then switched on the
fight himself. It fell upon a face creased more in pity than in
anger, and Raffles only shook his head as I hung mine.
‘It’s all right, old boy,’ said he; ‘but corridors have windows
too, and servants have eyes; and you and I are supposed to be
in the other room, not in this. But cheer up, Bunny! This is
the room; look at the extra bolt on the door; he’s had that put
on, and there’s an iron ladder to his window in case of fire!
Way of escape ready against the hour of need; he’s a better
man than I thought him, Bunny, after all. But you may bet
your bottom dollar that if there’s any boodle in the flat it’s in
this room.’
Yet the room was very' lightly furnished; and nothing was
locked. We looked everywhere, but we looked in vain. The
wardrobe was filled with hanging coats and trousers in a
press, the drawers with the softest silk and finest linen. It was
a camp bedstead that would not have unsettled an anchorite;
there was no place for treasure there. I looked up the chim­
ney, but Raffles told me not to be a fool, and asked if I ever
listened to what he said. There was no question about his
temper now. I never knew him in a worse.
‘Then he’s got it in the bank,’ he growled. ‘I’ll swear I’m
not mistaken in my man!’
I had the tact not to differ with him there. But I could not
help suggesting that now was our time to remedy any mistake
we might have made. We were on the right side of midnight
still.

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Then we’ll stultify ourselves downstairs,’ said Raffles. ‘No,

I’ll be shot if I do! He may come in with the Kirkleatham dia­
monds! You do what you like, Bunny, but I don’t budge.’
‘I certainly shan’t leave you,’ I retorted, ‘to be knocked into
the middle of next week by a better man than yourself.’
I had borrowed his own tone, and he did not like it. They
never do. I thought for a moment that Raffles was going to
strike me - for the first and last time in his life. He could if he
liked. My blood was up. I was ready to send him to the devil.
And I emphasised my offence by nodding and shrugging
toward a pair of very large Indian clubs that stood in the
fender, on either side of the chimney up which I had pre-'
sumed to glance.
In an instant Raffles had seized the clubs, and was whirling
them about his grey head in a mixture of childish pique and
puerile bravado which I should have thought him altogether
above. And suddenly as I watched him his face changed, soft­
ened, lit up, and he swung the clubs gently down upon the
bed.
‘They’re not heavy enough for their size,’ said he rapidly;
‘and I’ll take my oath they’re not the same weight!’
He shook one club after the other, with both hands, close
to his ear; then he examined their butt-ends under the elec­
tric light. I saw what he suspected now, and caught the conta­
gion of his suppressed excitement. Neither of us spoke. But
Raffles had taken out the portable tool-box that he called a
knife, and always carried, and as he opened the gimlet he
handed me the club he held. Instinctively I tucked the small
end under my arm, and presented the other to Raffles.
‘Hold him tight,’ he whispered, smiling. ‘He’s not only a
better man than I thought him, Bunny; he’s hit upon a better
dodge than ever I did, of its kind. Only I should have weighed
them evenly - to a hair.’
He had screwed the gimlet into the circular butt, close to
the edge, and now we were wrenching in opposite directions,
For a moment or more nothing happened. Then all at once

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something gave, and Raffles swore an oath as soft as any

prayer. And for the minute after that his hand went round
and round with the gimlet, as though he were grinding a
piano-organ, while the end wormed slowly out on its delicate
thread of fine hard wood.
The clubs were as hollow as drinking-horns, the pair of
them, for we went from one to the other without pausing to
undo the padded packets that poured out upon the bed.
These were deliciously heavy to the hand, yet thickly swathed
in cotton-wool, so that some stuck together, retaining the
shape of the cavity, as though they had been run out of a
mould. And when we did open them - but let Raffles speak.
He had deputed me to screw in the ends of the clubs, and
to replace the latter in the fender where we had found them.
When I had done the counterpance was glittering with dia­
monds where it was not shimmering with pearls.
‘If this isn’t the tiara that Lady May was married in,’ said
Raffles, ‘and that disappeared out of the room she changed in,
while it rained confetti on the steps, I’ll present it to her
instead of the one she lost... It was stupid to keep these old
gold spoons, valuable as they are; they made the difference in
the weight . . . Here we have probably the Kenworthy dia­
monds ... I don’t know the history of these pearls . . . This
looks like one family of rings - left on the basin-stand, per­
haps - alas! poor lady! And that’s the lot.’
Our eyes met across the bed.
‘What’s it all worth?' I asked hoarsely.
‘Impossible to say. But more than all we ever took in all
our lives. That I’ll swear to.’
‘More than all -’
My tongue swelled with the thought.
‘But it’ll take some turning into cash, old chap!’
‘And - must it be a partnership?’ I asked, finding a lugubri­
ous voice at length.
‘Partnership be damned!’ cried Raffles heartily. ‘Let’s get
out quicker than we came in.’

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We pocketed the things between us, cotton-wool and all,

not because we wanted the latter, but to remove all immedi­
ate traces of our really meritorious deed.
‘The sinner won’t dare to say a word when he does find
out,’ remarked Raffles of Lord Ernest; ‘but that’s no reason
why he should find out before he must. Everything’s straight
in here, I think; no, better leave the window open as it was,
and the blind up. Now out with the light. One peep at the
other room. That’s all right, too. Out with the passage fight,
Bunny, while I open -’
His words died away in a whisper. A key was fumbling at
the lock outside.
‘Out with it - out with it!’ whispered Raffles in an agony,
and as I obeyed he picked me off my feet and swung me
bodily but silently into the bedroom, just as the outer door
opened, and a masterful step strode in.
The next five were horrible minutes. We heard the apostle
of Rational Drink unlock one of the deep drawers in his
antique sideboard, and sounds followed suspiciously like the
splash of spirits and the steady stream from a siphon. Never
before or since did I experience such a thirst as assailed me at
that moment, nor do I believe that many tropical explorers
have known its equal. But I had Raffles with me, and his hand
was as steady and as cool as the hand of a trained nurse. That
I know because he turned up the collar of my overcoat for
me, for some reason, and buttoned it at the throat. I after­
wards found that he had done the same to his own, but I did
not hear him doing it. The one thing I heard in the bedroom
was a tiny metallic click, muffled and deadened in his over­
coat pocket, and it not only removed my last tremor, but
strung me to a higher pitch of excitement than ever. Yet I had
then no conception of the game that Raffles was deciding to
play, and that I was to play with him in another minute.
It cannot have been longer before Lord Ernest came into
his bedroom. Heavens, but my heart had not forgotten how
to thump! We were standing near the door, and I could swear

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he touched me; then his boots creaked, there was a rattle in

the fender - and Raffles switched on the light.
Lord Ernest Belville crouched in its glare with one Indian
club held by the end, like a footman with a stolen bottle. A
good-looking, well-built, iron-grey, iron-jawed man; but a
fool and a weakling at that moment, if he had never been
either before.
‘Lord Ernest Belville,’ said Raffles, ‘it’s no use. This is a
loaded revolver, and if you force me I shall use it on you as I
would on any other desperate criminal. I am here to arrest
you for a series of robberies at the Duke of Dorchester’s, Sir
John Kenworthy’s, and other noblemen’s and gentlemen’s
houses during the present season. You’d better drop what
you’ve got in your hand. It’s empty.’
Lord Ernest lifted the club an inch or two, and with it his
eyebrows - and after it his stalwart frame as the club crashed
back into the fender. And as he stood at his full height, a
courteous but ironic smile under the cropped moustache, he
looked what he was, criminal or not.
‘Scotland Yard?’ said he.
‘That’s our affair, my lord.’
‘I didn’t think they’d got it in them,’ said Lord Ernest.
‘Now I recognise you. You’re my interviewer. No, I didn’t
think any of you fellows had got all that in you. Come into
the other room, and I’ll show you something else. Oh, keep
me covered by all means. But look at this!’
On the antique sideboard, their size doubled by reflection
in the polished mahogany, lay a coruscating cluster of pre­
cious stones, that fell in festoons about Lord Ernest’s fingers
as he handed them to Raffles with scarcely a shrug.
‘The Kirkleatham diamonds,’ said he. ‘Better add ’em to
the bag.’
Raffles did so without a smile, with his overcoat buttoned
up to the chin, his tall hat pressed down to his eyes, and
between the two, his incisive features and his keen, stem
glance, he looked the ideal detective of fiction and the stage.

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What I looked God knows, but I did my best to glower and

show my teeth at his side. I had thrown myself into the game,
and it was obviously a winning one.
‘Wouldn’t take a share, I suppose?’ Lord Ernest said casu­
ally.
Raffles did not condescend to reply. I rolled back my lips
like a bull-pup.
‘Then a drink, at least!’ My mouth watered, but Raffles
shook his head impatiently.
‘We must be going, my lord, and you will have to come
with us.’
I wondered what in the world we should do with him when
we had got him.
‘Give me time to put some things together? Pair of pyja­
mas and toothbrush, don’t you know?’
‘I cannot give you many minutes, my lord, but I don’t want
to cause a disturbance here, so I’ll tell them to call a cab if
you like. But I shall be back in a minute and you must be
ready in five. - Here, Inspector, you’d better keep this while I
am gone.’
And I was left alone with that dangerous criminal! Raffles
nipped my arm as he handed me the revolver, but I got small
comfort out of that.
‘ “Sea-green Incorruptible?” ’ inquired Lord Ernest, as we
stood face to face.
‘You don’t corrupt me,’ I replied through naked teeth.
‘Then come into my room. I’ll lead the way. Think you
can hit me if I misbehave?’
I put the bed between us without a second’s delay. My pris­
oner flung a suit-case upon it, and tossed things into it with a
dejected air; suddenly, as he was fitting them in, without rais­
ing his head (which I was watching), his right hand closed
over the barrel with which I covered him.
‘You’d better not shoot,’ he said, a knee upon his side of
the bed; ‘if you do it may be as bad for you as it will be for
me!’

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I tried to wrest the revolver from him.’

‘I will if you force me,’ I hissed.
‘You’d better not,’ he repeated, smiling; and now I saw that
if I did I should only shoot into the bed or my own legs. His
hand was on the top of mine, bending it down, and the
revolver with it. The strength of it was as the strength of ten
of mine; and now both his knees were on the bed; and sud­
denly I saw his other hand, doubled into a fist, coming up
slowly over the suit-case.
‘Help!’ I called feebly.
‘Help, forsooth! I begin to believe you are from the Yard,’
he said - and his uppercut came with the ‘yard.’ It caught me
under the chin. It lifted me off my legs. I have a dim recollec­
tion of the crash that I made in falling.

Raffles was standing over me when I recovered conscious­

ness. I lay stretched upon the bed across which that black­
guard Belville had struck his knavish blow. The suit-case was
on the floor, but its dastardly owner had disappeared.
‘Is he gone?’ was my first faint question.
‘Thank God you’re not, anyway!’ replied Raffles with what
struck me then as mere flippancy. I managed to raise myself
upon one elbow.
‘I meant Lord Ernest Belville,’ said I with dignity. ‘Are you
quite sure that he’s cleared out?’
Raffles waved a hand towards the window, which stood
wide open to the summer stars.
‘Of course,’ said he, ‘and by the route I intended him to
take; he’s gone by the iron ladder, as I hoped he would. What
on earth should we have done with him? My poor dear
Bunny, I thought you’d take a bribe! But it’s really more con­
vincing as it is, and just as well for Lord Ernest to be con­
vinced for the time being.’

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 RAFFLES

‘Are you sure he is?’ I questioned, as I found a rather shaky

pair of legs.
‘Of course!’ cried Raffles again, in the tone to make one
blush for the least misgiving on the point. ‘Not that it matters
one bit,’ he added, airily, ‘for we have him either way; and
when he does tumble to it, as he may any minute, he won’t
dare to open his mouth.’
‘Then the sooner we clear out the better,’ said I, but I
looked askance at the open window, for my head was spin­
ning still.
‘When you feel up to it,’ returned Raffles, ‘we shall stroll
out, and I shall do myself the honour of ringing for the lift.
The force of habit is too strong in you, Bunny. I shall shut
the window and leave everything exactly as we found it. Lord
Ernest will probably tumble before he is badly missed; and
then he may come back to put salt on us; but I should like to
know what he can do even if he succeeds! Come, Bunny, pull
yourself together, and you’ll be a different man when you’re
in the open air.’
And for a while I felt one, such was my relief at getting out
of those infernal mansions with unfettered wrists; this we
managed easily enough; but once more Raffles’s performance
of a small part was no less perfect than his more ambitious
work upstairs, and something of the successful artist’s elation
possessed him as we walked arm-in-arm across St. James’s
Park. It was long since I had known him so pleased with him­
self, and only too long since he had had such reason.
‘I don’t think I ever had a brighter idea in my life,’ he said;
‘never thought of it till he was in the next room; never dreamt
of its coming off so ideally even then, and didn’t much care,
because we had him all ways up. I’m only sorry you let him
knock you out. I was waiting outside the door all the time,
and it made me sick to hear it. But I once broke my own
head, Bunny, if you remember, and not in half such an excel­
lent cause!’
Raffles touched all his pockets in his turn, the pockets that

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contained a small fortune apiece, and he smiled in my face as

we crossed the lighted avenues of the Mall. Next moment he
was hailing a hansom - for I suppose I was still pretty pale -
and not a word would he let me speak until we had alighted
as near as was prudent to the flat.
‘What a brute I’ve been, Bunny!’ he whispered then; ‘but
you take half the swag, old boy, and right well you’ve earned
it. No, we’ll go in by the wrong door and over the roof; it’s
too late for old Theobald to be still at the play, and too early
for him to be safely in his cups.’
So we climbed the many stairs with cat-like stealth, and
like cats crept out upon the grimy leads. But to-night they
were no blacker than their canopy of sky; not a chimney-stack
stood out against the starless night; one had to feel one’s way
in order to avoid tipping over the low parapets of the L-
shaped wells that ran from roof to basement to light the inner
rooms. One of these wells was spanned by a flimsy bridge
with iron handrails that felt warm to the touch as Raffles led
the way across; a hotter and a closer night I have never
known.
‘The flat will be like an oven,’ I grumbled, at the head of
Our own staircase.
‘Then we won’t go down,’ said Raffles, promptly; ‘we’ll
slack it up here for a bit instead. No, Bunny, you stay where
you are! I’ll fetch you a drink and a deck-chair, and you shan’t
come down till you feel more fit.’
And I let him have his way, I will not say as usual, for I had
even less than my normal power of resistance that night.
That villainous uppercut! My head still sang and throbbed, as
I seated myself on one of the aforesaid parapets, and buried it
in my hot hands. Nor was the night one to dispel a headache;
there was distinct thunder in the air. Thus I sat in a heap, and
brooded over my misadventure, a pretty figure of a subordi­
nate villain, until the step came for which I waited; and it
never struck me that it came from the wrong direction.
‘You have been quick,’ said I, simply.

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 RAFFLES

‘Yes,’ hissed a voice I recognised; ‘and you’ve got to be

quicker still! Here, out with your wrists; no, one at a time;
and if you utter a syllable you’re a dead man.’
It was Lord Ernest Belville; his close-cropped, iron-grey
moustache gleamed through the darkness, drawn up over his
set teeth. In his hand glittered a pair of handcuffs, and before
I knew it one had snapped its jaws about my right wrist.
‘Now come this way,’ said Lord Ernest, showing me a
revolver also, ‘and wait for your friend. And, recollect, a
single syllable of warning will be your death!’ With that the
ruffian led me to the very bridge I had just crossed at Raffles’s
heels, and handcuffed me to the iron rail midway across the
chasm. It no longer felt warm to my touch, but icy as the
blood in all my veins.
So this high-born hypocrite had beaten us at our game and
his, and Raffles had met his match at last! That was the most
intolerable thought, that Raffles should be down in the flat
on my account, and that I could not warn him of his impend­
ing fate; for how was it possible without making such an
outcry as should bring the mansions about our ears? And
there I shivered on that wretched plank, chained like
Andromeda to the rock, with a black infinity above and
below; and before my eyes, now grown familiar with the
peculiar darkness, stood Lord Ernest Belville, waiting for
Raffles to emerge with full hands and unsuspecting heart!
Taken so horribly unawares, even Raffles must fell an easy
prey to a desperado in resource and courage scarcely second
to himself, but one whom he had fatally underrated from the
beginning. Not that I paused to think how the thing had hap­
pened; my one concern was for what was to happen next.
And what did happen was worse than my worst foreboding,
for first a fight came flickering into the sort of companion­
hatch at the head of the stairs, and finally Raffles in his shirt­
sleeves! He was not only carrying a candle to put the finishing
touch to him as a target he had dispensed with coat and waist­
coat downstairs, and was at once full-handed and unarmed.

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‘Where are you, old chap?’ he cried softly, himself blinded

by the light he carried; and he advanced a couple of steps
towards Belville. ‘This isn’t you, is it?’
And Raffles stopped, his candle held on high, a folding
chair under the other arm.
‘No, I am not your friend,’ replied Lord Ernest, easily; ‘but
kindly remain standing exactly where you are, and don’t
lower that candle an inch, unless you want your brains blown
into the street.’
Raffles said never a word, but for a moment did as he was
bid; and the unshaken flame of the candle was testimony alike
to the stillness of the night and to the finest set of nerves in
Europe. Then, to my horror, he coolly stooped, placing
candle and chair on the leads, and his hands in his pockets, as
though it were but a pop-gun that covered him.
‘Why didn’t you shoot?’ he asked insolently, as he rose.
‘Frightened of the noise? I should be, too, with an old-pat­
tern machine like that. All very well for service in the field -
but on the house-tops at dead of night’’
‘I shall shoot, however,’ replied Lord Ernest, as quietly in
his turn, and with less insolence, ‘and chance the noise, unless
you instantly restore my property. I am glad you don’t dis­
pute the last word,’ he continued after a slight pause. ‘There
is no keener honour than that which subsists, or ought to
subsist, among thieves; and I need hardly say that I soon spot­
ted you as one of the fraternity. Not in the beginning, mind
you! For the moment I did think you were one of these smart
detectives jumped to life from some sixpenny magazine; but
to preserve the illusion you ought to provide yourself with a
worthier lieutenant. It was he who gave your show away,’
chuckled the wretch, dropping for a moment the affected
style of speech which seemed intended to enhance our humil­
iation; ‘smart detectives don’t go about with little innocents
to assist them. You needn’t be anxious about him, by the way,
it wasn’t necessary to pitch him into the street; he is to be
seen though not heard, if you look in the right direction. Nor

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must you put all the blame upon your friend; it was not he,
but you, who made so sure that I had got out by the window.
You see, I was in my bathroom all the time - with the door
open.’
‘The bathroom, eh?’ Raffles echoed with professional
interest. ‘And you followed us on foot across the park?’
‘Of course.’
‘And then in a cab?’
‘And afterwards on foot once more.’
‘The simplest skeleton would let you in down below.’
I saw the lower half of Lord Ernest’s face grinning in the
light of the candle set between them on the ground.
‘You follow every move,’ said he; ‘there can be no doubt
you are one of the fraternity; and I shouldn’t wonder if we
had formed our style upon the same model. Ever know A. J.
Raffles?’
The abrupt question took my breath away; but Raffles
himself did not lose an instant over his answer.
‘Intimately,’ said he.
‘That accounts for you, then,’ laughed Lord Ernest, ‘as it
does for me, though I never had the honour of the master’s
acquaintance. Nor is it for me to say which is the worthier
disciple. Perhaps, however, now that your friend is hand­
cuffed in mid-air, and you yourself are at my mercy, you will
concede me some little temporary advantage?’
And his face split in another grin from the cropped mous­
tache downward, as I saw no longer by candle-light, but by a
flash of lightning which tore the sky in two before Raffles
could reply.
‘You have the bulge at present,’ admitted Raffles; ‘but you
have still to lay hands upon your, or our, ill-gotten goods. To
shoot me is not necessarily to do so; to bring either one of us
to a violent end is only to court a yet more violent and infi­
nitely more disgraceful one for yourself. Family considera­
tions alone should rule that risk out of your game. Now, an
hour or two ago, when the exact opposite -’

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The remainder of Raffles’s speech was drowned from my

ears by the belated crash of thunder which the lightning had
foretold. So loud, however, was the crash when it came, that
the storm was evidently approaching us at a high velocity; yet
as the last echo rumbled away, I heard Raffles talking as
though he had never stopped.
‘You offered us a share,’ he was saying; ‘unless you mean to
murder us both in cold blood, it will be worth your while to
repeat that offer. We should be dangerous enemies; you had
far better make the best of us as friends.’
‘Lead the way down to your flat,’ said Lord Ernest, with a
flourish of his service revolver, ‘and perhaps we may talk
about it. It is for me to make the terms, I imagine, and in the
first place I am not going to get wet to the skin up here.’
The rain was beginning in great drops, even as he spoke,
and by a second flash of lightning I saw Raffles pointing to
me.
‘But what about my friend?’ said he.
And then came the second peal.
‘Oh, he’s all right,’ the great brute replied; ‘do him good!
You don’t catch me letting myself in for two to one!’
‘You will find it equally difficult,’ rejoined Raffles, ‘to
induce me to leave my friend to the mercy of a night like this.
He has not recovered from the blow you struck him in your
own rooms. I am not such a fool as to blame you for that, but
you are a worse sportsman than I take you for if you think of
leaving him where he is. If he stays, however, so do I.’
And, just as it ceased, Raffles’s voice seemed distinctly
nearer to me; but in the darkness and the rain, which was
now as heavy as hail, I could see nothing clearly. The rain
had already extinguished the candle. I heard an oath from
Belville, a laugh from Raffles, and for a second that was all.
Raffles was coming to me, and the other could not even see
to fire; that was all I knew in the pitchy interval of invisible
rain before the next crash and the next flash.
And then!

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This time they came together, and not till my dying hour
shall I forget the sight that the lightning lit and the thunder
applauded. Raffles was on one of the parapets of the gulf that
my foot-bridge spanned, and in the sudden illumination he
stepped across it as one might across a garden path. The
width was scarcely greater, but the depth! In the sudden flare
I saw to the concrete bottom of the well, and it looked no
larger than the hollow of my hand. Raffles was laughing in
my ear; he had the iron railing fast; it was between us, but his
foothold was as secured as mine. Lord Ernest Belville, on the
contrary, was the fifth of a second late for the light, and half a
foot short in his spring. Something struck our plank bridge so
hard as to set it quivering like a harp-string; there was half a
gasp and half a sob in mid-air beneath our feet; and then a
sound far below that I prefer not to describe. I am not sure
that I could hit upon the perfect simile; it is more than
enough for me that I can hear it still. And with that sickening
sound came the loudest clap of thunder yet, and a great white
glare that showed us our enemy’s body far below, with one
white hand spread like a starfish, but the head of him merci­
fully twisted underneath.
‘It was his own fault, Bunny. Poor devil! May he and all of
us be forgiven; but pull yourself together for your own sake.
Well, you can’t fall; stay where you are a minute.’
I remember the uproar of the elements while Raffles was
gone; no other sound mingled with it; not the opening of a
single window, not the uplifting of a single voice. Then came
Raffles with soap and water, and the gyve was wheedled from
one wrist, as you withdraw a ring for which the finger has
grown too large. Of the rest, I only remember shivering till
morning in a pitch-dark flat, whose invalid occupier was for
once the nurse, and I his patient.
And that is the true ending of the episode in which we two
set ourselves to catch one of our own kidney, albeit in
another place I have shirked the whole truth. It is not a grate­
ful task to show Raffles as completely at fault as he really was

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on that occasion; nor do I derive any subtle satisfaction from

recounting my own twofold humiliation, or from having
assisted never so indirectly in the death of a not uncongenial
sinner. The truth, however, has after all a merit of its own,
and the great kinsfolk of poor Lord Ernest have but little to
lose by its divulgence. It would seem that they knew more of
the real character of the apostle of Rational Drink than was
known at Exeter Hall. The tragedy was indeed hushed up, as
tragedies only are when they occur in such circles. But the
rumour that did get abroad, as to the class of enterprise
which the poor scamp was pursuing when he met his death,
cannot be too soon exploded, since it breathed upon the fair
feme of some of the most respectable flats in Kensington.

251
 CHAPTER XIV

An oldflame

The square SHALL be NAMELESS, but if you drive due west

from Piccadilly the cabman will eventually find it on his left,
and he ought to thank you for two shillings. It is not a fash­
ionable square, but there are few with a finer garden, while
the studios on the south side lend distinction of another sort.
The houses, however, are small and dingy, and about the last
to attract the expert practitioner in search of a crib. Heaven
knows it was with no such thought I trailed Raffles thither,
one unlucky evening at the latter end of that same season,
when Dr. Theobald had at last insisted upon the bath-chair
which I had foreseen in the beginning. Trees whispered in
the green garden aforesaid, and the cool smooth lawns looked
so inviting that I wondered whether some philanthropic resi­
dent could not be induced to lend us the key. But Raffles
would not listen to the suggestion, when I stopped to make it,
and what was worse, I found him looking wistfully at the little
houses instead.
‘Such balconies, Bunny! A leg up, and there you would be!’
I expressed a conviction that there would be nothing worth
taking in the square, but took care to have him under way
again as I spoke.
‘I daresay you’re right,’ sighed Raffles. ‘Rings and watches,
I suppose, but it would be hard luck to take them from people
who live in houses like these. I don’t know, though. Here’s
one with an extra story. Stop, Bunny; if you don’t stop I’ll
hold on to the railings! This is a good house; look at the
knocker and the electric bell. They’ve had that put in.

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There’s some money here, my rabbit! I dare bet there’s a

silver-table in the drawing-room; and the windows are wide
open. Electric light, too, byJove!’
Since stop I must, I had done so on the other side of the
road, in the shadow of the leafy palings, and as Raffles spoke
the ground-floor windows opposite had flown alight, showing
as pretty a little dinner-table as one could wish to see, with a
man at his wine at the far end, and the back of a lady in
evening dress toward us. It was like a lantern-picture thrown
upon a screen. There were only the pair of them, but the
table was brilliant with silver and gay with flowers, and the
maid waited with the indefinable air of a good servant. It cer­
tainly seemed a good house.
‘She’s going to let down the blind!’ whispered Raffles, in
high excitement. ‘No, confound them, they’ve told her not
to. Mark down her necklace, Bunny, and invoice his stud.
What a brute he looks! But I like the table, and that’s her
show. She has the taste; but he must have money. See the fes­
tive picture over the sideboard? Looks to me like a Jacques
Saillard. But that silver-table would be good enough for me.’
‘Get on,’ said I. ‘You’re in a bath-chair.’
‘But the whole square’s at dinner! We should have the ball
at our feet. It wouldn’t take two twos!’
‘With those blinds up, and the cook in the kitchen under­
neath?’
He nodded, leaning forward in the chair, his hands upon
the wraps about his legs.
‘You must be mad,’ said I, and got back to my handles with
the word, but when I tugged the chair ran light.
‘Keep an eye on the rug,’ came in a whisper from the
middle of the road; and there stood my invalid his pale face in
a quiver of pure mischief, yet set with his insane resolve. ‘I’m
only going to see whether that woman has a silver-table -’
‘We don’t want it -’
‘It won’t take a minute -’
‘It’s madness, madness -’

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‘Then don’t you wait!’

It was like him to leave me with that, and this time I had
taken him at his last word, had not my own given me an idea.
Mad I had called him, and mad I could declare him upon oath
if necessary. It was not as though the thing had happened far
from home. They could learn all about us at the nearest man­
sions. I referred them to Dr. Theobald; this was a Mr.
Maturin, one of his patients, and I was his keeper, and he had
never given me the slip before. I heard myself making these
explanations on the doorstep, and pointing to the deserted
bath-chair as the proof, while the pretty parlourmaid ran for
the police. It would be a more serious matter for me than for
my charge. I should lose my place. No, he had never done
such a thing before, and I would answer for it that he never
should again.
I saw myself conducting Raffles back to his chair, with a
firm hand and a stern tongue. I heard him thanking me in
whispers on the way home. It would be the first tight place I
had ever got him out of, and I was quite anxious for him to
get into it, so sure was I of every move. My whole position
had altered in the few seconds that it took me to follow this
illuminating train of ideas; it was now so strong that I could
watch Raffles without much anxiety. And he was worth
watching.
He had stepped boldly but sofdy to the front door, and
there he was still waiting, ready to ring if the door opened or
a face appeared in the area, and doubtless to pretend that, he
had rung already. But he had not to ring at all; and suddenly I
saw his foot in the letter-box, his left hand on the lintel over­
head. It was thrilling, even to a hardened accomplice with an
explanation up his sleeve! A tight grip with that left hand of
his, as he leant backward with all his weight upon those five
fingers; a right arm stretched outward and upward to its last
inch; and the base of the low, projecting balcony was safely
caught.
I looked down and took breath. The maid was removing

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the crumbs in the lighted room, and the square was empty as
before. What a blessing it was the end of the season! Many of
the houses remained in darkness. I looked up again, and Raf­
fles was drawing his left leg over the balcony railing. In
another moment he had disappeared through one of the
French windows which opened upon the balcony, and in yet
another he had switched on the electric light within. This was
bad enough, for now I, at least, could see everything he did;
but the crowning folly was still to come. There was no point
in it; the mad thing was done for my benefit, as I knew at
once and he afterwards confessed; but the lunatic reappeared
on the balcony, bowing like a mountebank - in his crape
mask!
I set off with the empty chair, but I came back. I could not
desert old Raffles, even when I would, but must try to explain
away his mask as well, if he had not the sense to take it off in
time. It would be difficult, but burglaries are not usually com­
mitted from a bath-chair, and for the rest I put my faith in
Dr. Theobald. Meanwhile Raffles had at least withdrawn
from the balcony, and now I could only see his head as he
peered into a cabinet at the other side of the room. It was like
the opera of Aida, in which two scenes are enacted simultane­
ously, one in the dungeon below, the other in the temple
above. In the same fashion my attention now became divided
between the picture of Raffles moving stealthily about the
upper room and that of the husband and wife at table under­
neath. And all at once, as the man replenished his glass with a
shrug of the shoulders, the woman pushed back her chair and
sailed to the door.
Raffles was standing before the fireplace upstairs. He had
taken one of the framed photographs from the chimney­
piece, and was scanning it at suicidal length through the eye­
holes in the hideous mask which he still wore. He would need
it after all. The lady had left the room below opening and
shutting the door for herself; the man was filling his glass
once more. I would have shrieked my warning to Raffles, so

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fatally engrossed overhead, but at this moment (of all others)

a constable (of all men) was marching sedately down our side
of the square. There was nothing for it but to turn a melan­
choly eye upon the bath-chair, and to ask the constable the
time. I was evidently to be kept there all night, I remarked,
and only realized with the words that they disposed of my
other explanations before they were uttered. It was a horrible
moment for such a discovery. Fortunately the enemy was on
the pavement, from which he could scarcely have seen more
than the drawing-room ceiling, had he looked; but he was not
many houses distant when a door opened and a woman
gasped so that I heard both across the road. And never shall I
forget the subsequent tableaux in the lighted room behind
the low balcony and the French windows.
Raffles stood confronted by a dark and handsome woman
whose profile, as I saw it first in the electric light, is cut like a
cameo in my memory. It had the undeviating line of brow
and nose, the short upper lip, the perfect chin, that are united
in marble oftener than in the flesh; and like marble she stood,
or rather like some beautiful pale bronze; for that was her
colouring, and she lost none of it that I could see, neither
trembled; but her bosom rose and fell, and that was all. So
she stood without flinching before a masked ruffian, who, I
felt, would be the first to appreciate her courage; to me it was
so superb that I could think of it in this way even then, and
marvel how Raffles himself could stand unabashed before so
brave a figure. He had not to do so long. The woman scorned
him, and he stood unmoved, a framed photograph still in his
hand. Then, with a quick, determined movement she turned,
not to the door or to the bell, but to the open window by
which Raffles had entered; and this with that accursed police­
man still in view. So far no word had passed between the pair.
But at this point Raffles said something, I could not hear
what, but at the sound of his voice the woman wheeled. And
Raffles was looking humbly in her face, the crape mask
snatched from his own.

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‘Arthur!’ she cried; and that might have been heard in the
middle of the square garden.
Then they stood gazing at each other, neither unmoved
any more, and while they stood the street-door opened and
banged. It was the husband leaving the house, a fine figure of
a man, but a dissipated face, and a step even now distin­
guished by the extreme caution which precedes unsteadiness.
He broke the spell. His wife came to the balcony, then
looked back into the room, and yet again along the road, and
this time I saw her face. It was the face of one glancing indeed
from Hyperion to a satyr. And then I saw the rings flash, as
her hand fell gently upon Raffles’s arm.
They disappeared from that window. Their heads showed
for an instant in the next. Then they dipped out of sight, and
an inner ceiling flashed out under a new light; they had gone
into the back drawing-room beyond my ken. The maid came
up with coffee; her mistress hastily met her at the door, and
once more disappeared. The square was as quiet as ever. I
remained some minutes where I was. Now and then I
thought I heard their voices in the back drawing-room. I was
seldom sure.
My state of mind may be imagined by those readers who
take an interest in my personal psychology. It does not amuse
me to look back upon it. But at length I had the sense to put
myself in Raffles’s place. He had been recognised at last, he
had come to fife. Only one person knew as yet, but that person
was a woman, and a woman who had once been fond of him, if
the human face could speak. Would she keep his secret?
Would he tell her where he lived? It was terrible to think we
were such neighbours, and with the thought that it was terrible
came a little enlightenment as to what could still be done for
the best. He would not tell her where he lived. I knew him too
well for that. He would run for it when he could, and the bath­
chair and I must not be there to give him away. I dragged the
infernal vehicle round the nearer corner. Then I waited - there
could be no harm in that - and at last he came.

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He was walking briskly, so I was right, and he had not

played the invalid to her; yet I heard him cry out with plea­
sure as he turned the corner, and he flung himself into the
chair with a long-drawn sigh that did me good.
‘Well done, Bunny - well done! I am on my way to Earl’s
Court; she’s capable of following me, but she won’t look for
me in a bath-chair. Home, home, home, and not another
word till we get there!’
Capable of following him? She overtook us before we were
past the studios on the south side of the square, the woman
herself, in a hooded opera-cloak. But she never gave us a
glance, and we saw her turn safely in the right direction for
Earl’s Court, and the wrong one for our humble mansions.
Raffles thanked his gods in a voice that trembled, and five
minutes later we were in the flat. Then for once it was Raffles
who filled the tumblers and found the cigarettes, and for once
(and once only in all my knowledge of him) did he drain his
glass at a draught.
‘You didn’t see the balcony scene?’ he asked at length; and
they were his first words since the woman passed us on his
track.
‘Do you mean when she came in?’
‘No, when I came down.’
‘I didn’t.’
‘I hope nobody else saw it,’ said Raffles devoutly. ‘I don’t
say that Romeo and Juliet were brother and sister to us. But
you might have said so, Bunny!’
He was staring at the carpet with as wry a face as lover ever
wore.
‘An old flame?’ said I, gently.
‘A married woman,’ be groaned.
‘So I gathered.’
‘But she always was one, Bunny,’ said he, ruefully. ‘That’s
the trouble. It makes all the difference in the world!’
I saw the difference, but said I did not see how it could
make any now. He had eluded the lady, after all; had we not

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seen her off upon a scent as false as scent could be? There
was occasion for redoubled caution in the future, but none
for immediate anxiety. I quoted the bedside Theobald, but
Raffles did not smile. His eyes had been downcast all this
time, and now, when he raised them, I perceived that my
comfort had been administered to deaf ears.
‘Do you know who she is?’ said he.
‘Not from Eve.’
‘Jacques Saillard,’ he said, as though now I must know.
But the name left me cold and stolid. I had heard it, but
that was all. It was lamentable ignorance, I am aware, but I
had specialised in Letters at the expense of Art.
‘You must know her pictures,’ said Raffles, patiently; ‘but I
suppose you thought she was a man. They would appeal to
you, Bunny; that festive piece over the sideboard was her
work. Sometimes they risk her at the Academy, sometimes
they fight shy. She has one of those studios in the same
square; they used to live up near Lord’s.’
My mind was busy brightening a dim memory of nymphs
reflected in woody pools. ‘Of course!’ I exclaimed, and added
something about ‘a clever woman.’ Raffles rose at the phrase.
‘A clever woman!’ echoed he scornfully; ‘if she were only
that I should feel safe as houses. Clever women can’t forget
their cleverness, they carry it as badly as a boy does his wine,
and are about as dangerous. I don’t call Jacques Saillard
clever outside her art, but neither do I call her a woman at all.
She does man’s work over a man’s name, has the will of any
ten men I ever knew, and I don’t mind telling you that I fear
her more than any person on God’s earth. I broke with her
once,’ said Raffles grimly, ‘but I know her. If I had been asked
to name the one person in London by whom I was keenest
not to be bowled out, I should have named Jacques Saillard.’
That he had never before named her to me was as charac­
teristic as the reticence with which Raffles spoke of their past
relations, and even of their conversation in the back drawing­
room that evening; it was a question of principle with him,

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and one that I like to remember. ‘Never give a woman away,

Bunny,’ he used to say; and he said it again to-night, but with
a heavy cloud upon him, as though his chivalry was sorely
tried.
‘That’s all right,’ said I, ‘if you’re not going to be given
away yourself.’
‘That’s just it, Bunny! That’s just -’
The words were out of him, it was too late to recall them. I
had hit the nail upon the head.
‘So she threatened you,’ I said, ‘did she?’
‘I didn’t say so,’ he replied coldly.
‘And she is mated with a clown!’ I pursued.
‘How she ever married him,’ he admitted, ‘is a mystery to
me.’
‘It always is,’ said I’ the wise man for once, and rather
enjoying the role. ‘Southern blood?’
‘Spanish.’
‘She’ll be pestering you to run off with her, old chap,’ said I.
Raffles was pacing the room. He stopped in his stride for
half a second. So she had begun pestering him already! It is
wonderful how acute any fool can be in the affairs of his
friend. But Raffles resumed his walk without a syllable, and I
retreated to safer ground.
‘So you sent her to Earl’s Court,’ I mused aloud; and at last
he smiled.
‘You’ll be interested to hear, Bunny,’ said he, ‘that I’m now
living in Seven Dials, and Bill Sykes couldn’t hold a farthing
dip to me. Bless you, she had my old police record at her fin­
gers’ ends, but it was fit to frame compared with the one I
gave her. I had sunk as low as they dig. I divided my nights
between the open parks and a thieves’ kitchen in Seven Dials.
If I was decently dressed it was because I had stolen the suit
down the Thames Valley beat the night before last. I was on
my way back when first that sleepy square, and then her open
window, proved too much for me. You should have heard me
beg her to let me push on to the devil in my own way, there I

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spread myself, for I meant every word; but I swore the final
stage would be a six-foot drop.’
‘You did lay it on,’ said I.
‘It was necessary, and that had its effect. She let me go. But
at the last moment she said she didn’t believe I was so black
as I painted myself, and then there was the balcony scene you
missed.’
So that was all. I could not help telling him that he had got
out of it better than he deserved for ever getting in. Next
moment I regretted the remark.
‘If I have got out of it,’ said Raffles, doubtfully. ‘We are
dreadfully near neighbours, and I can’t move in a minute,
with old Theobald taking a grave view of my case. I suppose I
had better lie low, and thank the gods again for putting her
off the scent for the time being.’
No doubt our conversation was carried beyond this point,
but it certainly was not many minutes later, nor had we left
the subject, when the electric bell thrilled us both to a sudden
silence.
‘The doctor?’ I queried, hope fighting with my horror.
‘It was a single ring.’
‘The last post?’
‘You know he knocks, and it’s long past his time.’
The electric bell rang again, but now as though it never
would stop.
‘You go, Bunny,’ said Raffles, with decision. His eyes were
sparkling. His smile was firm.
‘What am I to say?’
‘If it’s the lady let her in.’
It was the lady, still in her evening cloak, with her fine dark
head half hidden by the hood, and an engaging contempt of
appearances upon her angry face. She was even handsomer
than I had thought, and her beauty of a bolder type, but she
was also angrier than I had anticipated when I came so readily
to the door. The passage into which it opened was an exceed­
ingly narrow one, as I have often said, but I never dreamt of

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barring this woman’s way, though not a word did she stoop to
say to me. I was only too glad to flatten myself against the
wall, as the rustling fury strode past me into the lighted room
with the open door.
‘So this is your thieves’ kitchen!’ she cried, in high-pitched
scorn.
I was on the threshold myself, and Raffles glanced toward
me with raised eyebrows.
‘I have certainly had better quarters in my day,’ said he,
‘but you need not call them absurd names before my man.’
‘Then send your “man” about his business,’ said Jacques
Saillard, with an unpleasant stress upon the word indicated.
But when the door was shut I heard Raffles assuring her
that I knew nothing, that he was a real invalid overcome by a
sudden mad temptation, and all he had told her of his life a
lie to hide his whereabouts, but all he was telling her now she
could prove for herself without leaving that building. It
seemed, however, that she had proved it already by going first
to the porter below stairs. Yet I do not think she cared one
atom which story was the truth.
‘So you thought I could pass you in your chair,’ she said,
‘or ever in this world again, without hearing from my heart
that it was you!’

‘Bunny,’ said Raffles, ‘I’m awfully sorry, old chap, but

you’ve got to go.’
It was some weeks since the first untimely visitation of
Jacques Saillard, but there had been many others at all hours
of the day, while Raffles had been induced to pay at least one
to her studio in the neighbouring square. These intrusions he
had endured at first with an air of humorous resignation
which imposed upon me less than he imagined. The woman
meant well, he said, after all, and could be trusted to keep his

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secret loyally. It was plain to me, however, that Raffles did

not trust her, and that his pretence upon the point was a
deliberate pose to conceal the extent to which she had him in
her power. Otherwise there would have been little point in
hiding anything from the one person in possession of the car­
dinal secret of his identity. But Raffles thought it worth his
while to hoodwink Jacques Saillard in the subsidiary matter
of his health, in which Dr. Theobald lent him unwitting
assistance, and, as we have seen, to impress upon her that I
was actually his attendant, and as ignorant of his past as the
doctor himself. ‘So you’re right, Bunny,’ he had assured me;
‘she thinks you knew nothing the other night. I told you she
wasn’t a clever woman outside her work. But hasn’t she a
will!’ I told Raffles it was very considerate of him to keep me
out of it, but that it seemed to me like tying up the bag when
the cat had escaped. His reply was an admission that one
must be on the defensive with such a woman and in such a
case. Soon after this, Raffles, looking far from well, fell back
upon his own last line of defence, namely, his bed; and now,
as always in the end, I could see some sense in his subtleties,
since it was comparatively easy for me to turn even Jacques
Saillard from the door, with Dr. Theobald’s explicit injunc­
tions, and with my own honesty unquestioned. So for a day
we had peace once more. Then came letters, then the doctor
again and again, and finally my dismissal in the incredible
words which have necessitated these explanations.
‘Go?’ I echoed. ‘Go where?’
‘It’s that ass Theobald,’ said Raffles ‘He insists.’
‘On my going altogether?’
He nodded.
‘And you mean to let him have his way?’
I had no language for my mortification and disgust, though
neither was as yet quite so great as my surprise. I had fore­
seen almost every conceivable consequence of the mad act
which brought all this trouble to pass, but a voluntary divi­
sion between Raffles and me had certainly never entered my

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calculations. Nor could I think that it had occurred to him

before our egregious doctor’s last visit, this very morning.
Raffles had looked irritated as he broke the news to me from
his pillow, and now there was some sympathy in the way he
sat up in bed, as though he felt the thing himself.
‘I am obliged to give in to the fellow,’ said he. ‘He’s saving
me from my friend, and I’m bound to humour him. But I can
tell you that we’ve been arguing about you for the last half­
hour, Bunny. It was no use; the idiot has had his knife in you
from the first; and he wouldn’t see me through on any other
conditions.’
‘So he is going to see you through, is he?’
‘It tots up to that,’ said Raffles, looking at me rather hard.
‘At all events he has come to my rescue for the time being,
and it’s for me to manage the rest. You don’t know what it
has been, Bunny, these last few weeks; and gallantry forbids
that I should tell you even now. But would you rather elope
against your will, or have your continued existence made
known to the world in general and the police in particular?
That is practically the problem which I have had to solve, and
the temporary solution was to fall ill. As a matter of fact I am
ill; and now what do you think? I owe it to you to tell you,
Bunny, though it goes against the grain. She would take me
“to the dear, warm underworld, where the sun really shines,”
and she would “nurse me back to life and love!” The artistic
temperament is a fearsome thing, Bunny, in a woman with
the devil’s own will!’
Raffles tore up the letter from which he had read these
piquant extracts, and lay back on the pillow, with the tired air
of the veritable invalid which he seemed able to assume at
will. But for once he did look as though bed was the best
place for him; and I used the fact as an argument for my own
retention in defiance of Dr. Theobald. The town was full of
typhoid, I said, and certainly that autumnal scourge was in
the air. Did he want me to leave him at the very moment
when he might be sickening for a serious illness?’

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You know I don’t, my good fellow,’ said Raffles, wearily,

‘but Theobald does, and I can’t afford to go against him now.
Not that I really care what happens to me now that that
woman knows I’m in the land of the living; she’ll let it out, to
a dead certainty, and at the best there’ll be a hue and cry,
which is the very thing I have escaped all these years. Now,
what I want you to do is to go and take some quiet place
somewhere, and then let me know, so that I may have a port
in the storm when it breaks.’
‘Now you’re talking!’ I cried, recovering my spirits. ‘I
thought you meant to go and drop a fellow altogether!’
‘Exactly the sort of thing you would think,’ rejoined Raf­
fles, with a contempt that was welcome enough after my late
alarm. ‘No, my dear rabbit, what you’ve got to do is to make
a new burrow for us both. Try down the Thames, in some
quiet nook that a literary man would naturally select. I’ve
often thought that more use might be made of a boat, while
the family are at dinner, than there ever has been yet. If Raf­
fles is to come to life, old chap, he shall go a-Raffling for all
he’s worth! There’s something to be done with a bicycle, too.
Try Ham Common or Roehampton, or some such sleepy
hollow a trifle off the line; and say you’re expecting your
brother from the colonies.’
Into this arrangement I entered without the slightest hesi­
tation, for we had funds enough to carry it out on a comfort­
able scale, and Raffles placed a sufficient share at my disposal
for the nonce. Moreover, I for one was only too glad to seek
fresh fields and pastures new - a phrase which I determined
to interpret literally in my choice of fresh surroundings. I was
tired of our submerged life in the poky little flat, especially
now that we had money enough for better things. I myself
had of late had dark dealings with the receivers, with the
result that poor Lord Ernest Belville’s successes were now
indeed ours. Subsequent complications had been the more
galling on that account, while the wanton way in which they
had been created was the most irritating reflection of all. But

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it had brought its own punishment upon Raffles, and I fan­

cied the lesson would prove salutary when we again settled
down.
‘If ever we do, Bunny!’ said he, as I took his hand and told
him how I was already looking forward to the time.
‘But of course we will,’ I cried, concealing the resentment
at leaving him which his tone and appearance renewed in my
breast.
‘I’m not so sure of it,’ he said, gloomily. ‘I’m in somebody’s
clutches, and I’ve got to get out of them first.’
‘I’ll sit tight until you do.’
‘Well,’ he said, ‘if you don’t see me in ten days you never
will.’
‘Only ten days?’ I echoed. ‘That’s nothing at all.’
‘A lot may happen in ten days,’ replied Raffles, in the same
depressing tone, so very depressing in him; and with that he
held out his hand a second time, and dropped mine suddenly
after as sudden a pressure for farewell.
I left the flat in considerable dejection after all, unable to
decide whether Raffles was really ill, or only worried as I
knew him to be. And at the foot of the stairs the author of my
dismissal, that confounded Theobald, flung open his door
and waylaid me.
‘Are you going?’ he demanded.
The traps in my hands proclaimed that I was, but I
dropped them at his feet to have it out with him then and
there.
‘Yes,’ I answered, fiercely, ‘thanks to you!’
‘Well, my good fellow,’ he said, his full-blooded face light­
ening and softening at the same time as though a load were
off his mind, ‘it’s no pleasure to me to deprive any man of his
billet, but you never were a nurse, and you know that as well
as I do.’
I began to wonder what he meant, and how much he did
know, and my speculations kept me silent. ‘But come ill here
a moment,’ he continued, just as I decided that he knew noth­

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ing at all. And leading me into his minute consulting-room,

Dr. Theobald solemnly presented me with a sovereign by
way of compensation, which I pocketed as solemnly, and with
as much gratitude as if I had not fifty of them distributed over
my person as it was. The good fellow had quite forgotten my
social status, about which he himself had been so particular at
our earliest interview; but he had never accustomed himself
to treat me as a gentleman, and I do not suppose he had been
improving his memory by the tall tumbler which I saw him
poke behind a photograph-frame as we entered.
‘There’s one thing I should like to know before I go,’ said
I, turning suddenly on the doctor’s mat, ‘and that is whether
Mr. Maturin is really ill or not!’
I meant, of course, at the present moment, but Dr.
Theobald braced himself like a recruit at the drill-sergeant’s
voice.
‘Of course he is,’ he snapped - ‘so ill as to need a nurse
who can nurse, by way of a change.’
With that his door shut in my face, and I had to go my
way, in the dark as to whether he had mistaken my meaning,
and was telling me a lie, or not.
But for my misgivings upon this point I might have
extracted some very genuine enjoyment out of the next few
days. I had decent clothes to my back, with money, as I say, in
most of the pockets, and more freedom to spend it than was
possible in the constant society of a man whose personal lib­
erty depended on a universal supposition that he was dead.
Raffles was as bold as ever, and I as fond of him, but whereas
he would run any risk in a professional exploit, there were
many innocent recreations still open to me which would have
been sheer madness in him. He could not even watch a
match, from the sixpenny seats, at Lord’s Cricket ground,
where the Gentlemen were every year in a worse way without
him. He never travelled by rail, and dining out was a risk only
to be run with some ulterior object in view. In fact, much as it
had changed, Raffles could no longer show his face with per­

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feet impunity in any quarter or at any hour. Moreover, after

the lesson he had now learnt, I foresaw increased caution on
his part in this respect. But I myself was under no such per­
petual disadvantage, and, while what was good enough for
Raffles was quite good enough for me, so long as we were
together, I saw no harm in profiting by the present opportu­
nity of ‘doing myself well.’
Such were my reflections on the way to Richmond in a
hansom cab. Richmond had struck us both as the best centre
of operations in search of the suburban retreat which Raffles
wanted, and by road, in a well appointed, well-selected
hansom, was certainly the most agreeable way of getting
there. In a week or ten days Raffles was to write to me at the
Richmond post-office, but for at least a week I should be ‘on
my own.’ It was not an unpleasant sensation as I leant back in
the comfortable hansom, and rather to one side, in order to
have a good look at myself in the bevelled mirror that is
almost as great an improvement in these vehicles as the
rubber tyres. Really I was not an ill-looking youth, if one may
call oneself such at the age of thirty. I could lay no claim
either to the striking cast of countenance or to the peculiar
charm of expression which made the face of Raffles like no
other in the world. But this very distinction was in itself a
danger, for its impression was indelible, whereas I might still
have been mistaken for a hundred other young fellows at
large in London. Incredible as it may appear to the moralists,
I had sustained no external hallmark by my term of imprison­
ment, and I am vain enough to believe that the evil which I
did had not a separate existence in my face. This afternoon,
indeed, I was struck by the purity of my fresh complexion,
and rather depressed by the general innocence of the visage
which peered into mine from the little mirror. My straw-
coloured moustache, grown in the flat after a protracted holi­
day, again preserved the most disappointing dimensions, and
was still invisible in certain lights without wax. So far from
discerning the desperate criminal who has ‘done time’ once,

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and deserved it over and over again, the superior but superfi­
cial observer might have imagined that he detected a certain
element of folly in my face.
At all events, it was not the face to shut the doors of a first-
class hotel against me, without accidental evidence of a more
explicit kind, and it was with no little satisfaction that I
directed the man to drive to the Star and Garter. I also told
him to go through Richmond Park, though he warned me
that it would add considerably to the distance and his fare. It
was autumn, and it struck me that the tints would be fine.
And I had learnt from Raffles to appreciate such things, even
amid the excitement of an audacious enterprise.
If I dwell upon my appreciation of this occasion it is
because, like most pleasures, it was exceedingly short-lived. I
was very comfortable at the Star and Garter, which was so
empty that I had a room worthy of a prince, where I could
enjoy the finest of all views (in patriotic opinion) every morn­
ing while I shaved. I walked many miles through the noble
park, over the commons of Ham and Wimbledon, and one
day as far as that of Esher, where I was forcibly reminded of a
service we once rendered to a distinguished resident in this
delightful locality. But it was on Ham Common, one of the
places which Raffles had mentioned as specially desirable,
that I actually found an almost ideal retreat. This was a cot­
tage where I heard, on inquiry, that rooms were to be let in
the summer. The landlady, a motherly body, of visible excel­
lence, was surprised indeed at receiving an application for the
winter months; but I have generally found that the title of
‘author,’ claimed with an air, explains every little innocent
irregularity of conduct or appearance, and even requires
something of the kind to carry conviction to the lay intelli­
gence. The present case was one in point, and when I said
that I could only write in a room facing north, on mutton
chops and milk, with a cold ham in the wardrobe in case of
nocturnal inspiration, to which I was liable, my literary char­
acter was established beyond dispute. I secured the rooms,

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paid a month’s rent in advance at my own request, and

moped in them dreadfully until the week was up and Raffles
due any day. I explained that the inspiration would not come,
and asked abruptly if the mutton was New Zealand.
Thrice had I made fruitless inquiries at the Richmond
post-office; but on the tenth day I was in and out almost
every hour. Not a word was there for me up to the last post at
night. Home I trudged to Ham with horrible forebodings,
and back again to Richmond after breakfast next morning.
Still there was nothing. I could bear it no more. At ten min­
utes to eleven I was climbing the station stairs at Earl’s
Court.
It was a wretched morning there, a weeping mist shrouding
the long straight street, and clinging to one’s face in clammy
caresses. I felt how much better it was down at Ham, as I
turned into our side street, and saw the flats looming like
mountains, the chimney-pots hidden in the mist. At our
entrance stood a nebulous conveyance, that I took at first for
a tradesman’s van; to my horror it proved to be a hearse; and
all at once the white breath ceased upon my Ups.
I had looked up at our windows, and the blinds were down!
I rushed within. The doctor’s door stood open. I neither
knocked nor rang, but found him in his consulting-room with
red eyes and a blotchy face. Otherwise he was in solemn black
from head to heel.
‘Who is dead?’ I burst out, ‘Who is dead?’
The red eyes looked redder than ever as Dr. Theobald
opened them at the unwarrantable sight of me; and he was
terribly slow in answering. But in the end he did answer, and
did not kick me out as he evidently had a mind.
‘Mr. Maturin,’ he said, and sighed like a beaten man. I said
nothing. It was no surprise to me. I had known it all these
minutes. Nay, I had dreaded this from the first, had divined it
at the last, though to the last also I had refused to entertain
my own conviction. Raffles dead! A real invalid after all! Raf­
fles dead, and on the point of burial!

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‘What did he die of?’ I asked, unconsciously drawing on

that fund of grim self-control which the weakest of us seem
to hold in reserve for real calamity.
‘Typhoid,’ he answered. ‘Kensington is full of it.’
‘He was sickening for it when I left, and you knew it, and
could get rid of me then!’
‘My good fellow, I was obliged to have a more experienced
nurse for that very reason.’
The doctor’s tone was so conciliatory that I remembered in
an instant what a humbug the man was, and became suddenly
possessed with the vague conviction that he was imposing
upon me now.
‘Are you sure it was typhoid at all?’ I cried fiercely to his
face. ‘Are you sure it wasn’t suicide - or murder?’
I confess that I can see little point in this speech as I write
it down, but it was what I said in a burst of grief and of wild
suspicion; nor was it without effect upon Dr. Theobald, who
turned bright scarlet from his well-brushed hair to his
immaculate collar.
‘Do you want me to throw you out into the street?’ he
cried; and all at once I remembered that I had come to Raf­
fles as a perfect stranger, and for his sake might as well pre­
serve that character to the last.
‘I beg your pardon,’ I said brokenly. ‘He was so good to me
- I became so attached to him. You forget I am originally of
his class.’
‘I did forget it,’ replied Theobald, looking relieved at my
new tone, ‘and I beg your pardon for doing so. Hush! They
are bringing him down. I must have a drink before we start,
and you’d better join me.’
There was no pretence about his drink this time, and a
pretty stiff one it was, but I fancy my own must have run it
hard. In my case it cast a merciful haze over much of the next
hour, which I can truthfully describe as one of the most
painful of my whole existence. I can have known very little of
what I was doing. I only remember finding myself in a

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hansom, suddenly wondering why it was going so slowly, and

once more awaking to the truth. But it was to the truth itself
more than to the liquor that I must have owed my dazed con­
dition. My next recollection is of looking down into the open
grave, in a sudden passionate anxiety to see the name for
myself. It was not the name of my friend, of course, but it was
the one under which he had passed for many months.
I was still stupefied by a sense of inconceivable loss, and
had not raised my eyes from that which was slowly forcing
me to realise what had happened, when there was a rustle at
my elbow, and a shower of hothouse flowers passed before
them, falling like huge snowflakes where my gaze had rested.
I looked up, and at my side stood a majestic figure in deep
mourning. The face was carefully veiled, but I was too close
not to recognise the masterful beauty whom the world knew
as Jacques Saillard. I had no sympathy with her; on the con­
trary, my blood boiled with the vague conviction that in some
way she was responsible for this death. Yet she was the only
woman present - there were not half a dozen of us altogether
- and her flowers were the only flowers.
The melancholy ceremony was over, and Jacques Saillard
had departed in a funereal brougham, evidently hired for the
occasion. I had watched her drive away, and the sight of my
own cabman, making signs to me through the fog, had sud­
denly reminded me that I had bidden him to wait. I was the
last to leave, and had turned my back upon the grave-diggers
already at their final task, when a hand fell lightly but firmly
upon my shoulder.
‘I don’t want to make a scene in a cemetery,’ said a voice, in
a not unkindly, almost confidential whisper. ‘Will you get
into your own cab and come quietly?’
‘Who on earth are you?’ I exclaimed.
I now remembered having seen the fellow hovering about
during the funeral, and subconsciously taking him for the
undertaker’s head man. He had certainly that appearance, and
even now I could scarcely believe that he was anything else.

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‘My name won’t help you,’ he said, pityingly. ‘But you will
guess where I come from when I tell you I have a warrant for
your arrest.’
My sensations at this announcement may not be believed,
but I solemnly declare that I have seldom experienced so
fierce a satisfaction. Here was a new excitement in which to
drown my grief; here was something to think about; and I
should be spared the intolerable experience of a solitary
return to the little place at Ham. It was as though I had lost a
limb and some one had struck me so hard in the face that the
greater agony was forgotten. I got into the hansom without a
word, my captor following at my heels, and giving his own
directions to the cabman before taking his seat. The word
‘station’ was the only one I caught, and I wondered whether
it was to be Bow Street again. My companion’s next words,
however, or rather the tone in which he uttered them,
destroyed my capacity for idle speculation.
‘Mr. Maturin!’ said he. ‘Air. Maturin indeed!’
‘Well,’ said I, ‘what about him?’
‘Do you think we don’t know who he was?’
‘Who was he?’ I asked defiantly.
‘You ought to know,’ said he. ‘You got locked up through
him the other time, too. His favourite name was Raffles,
then.’
‘It was his real name,’ I said indignantly. ‘And he has been
dead for years.’
Aly captor simply chuckled.
‘He’s at the bottom of the sea, I tell you.’
But I do not know why I should have told him with such
spirit, for what could it matter to Raffles now? I did not
think; instinct was still stronger than reason, and, fresh from
his funeral, I had taken up the cudgels for my dead friend as
though he were still alive. Next moment I saw this for myself,
and my tears came nearer the surface than they had been yet;
but the fellow at my side laughed outright.
‘Shall I tell you something else?’ said he.

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‘As you like.’

‘He’s not even at the bottom of that grave! He’s no more
dead than you or I, and a sham burial is his latest piece of vil­
lainy!’
I doubt whether I could have spoken if I had tried. I did
not try. I had no use for speech. I did not even ask him if he
was sure, I was so sure myself. It was all as plain to me as rid­
dles usually are when one has the answer. The doctor’s
alarms, his unscrupulous venality, the simulated illness, my
own dismissal, each fitted in its obvious place, and not even
the last had power as yet to mar my joy in the one central fact
to which all the rest were as tapers to the sun.
‘He is alive!’ I cried. ‘Nothing else matters - he is alive!’
At last I did ask whether they had got him too; but thankful
as I was for the greater knowledge, I confess that I did not
much care what answer I received. Already I was figuring out
how much we might each get, and how old we should be
when we came out. But my companion tilted his hat to the
back of his head, at the same time putting his face close to
mine, and compelling my scrutiny. And my answer, as you
have already guessed, was the face of Raffles himself, superbly
disguised (but less superbly than his voice), and yet so thinly
that I should have known him in a trice had I not been too
miserable in the beginning to give him a second glance.
Jacques Saillard had made his fife impossible, and this was
the one escape. Raffles had bought the doctor for a thousand
pounds, and the doctor had bought a ‘nurse’ of his own
kidney, on his own account; me, for some reason, he would
not trust; he had insisted upon my dismissal as an essential
preliminary to his part in the conspiracy. Here the details
were half humorous, half gruesome, each in turn as Raffles
told me the story. At one period he had been very daringly
drugged indeed, and, in his own words, ‘as dead as a man
need be;’ but he had left strict instructions that nobody but
the nurse and ‘my devoted physician’ should ‘lay a finger on
me’ afterwards; and by virtue of this proviso a library of

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books (largely acquired for the occasion) had been impiously

interred at Kensal Green. Raffles had definitely undertaken
not to trust me with the secret, and, but for my untoward
appearance at the funeral (which he had attended for his own
final satisfaction), I was assured and am convinced that he
would have kept his promise to the letter. In explaining this
he gave me the one explanation I desired, and in another
moment we turned into Praed Street, Paddington.
‘And I thought you said Bow Street!’ said I. ‘Are you
coming straight down to Richmond with me?’
‘I may as well,’ said Raffles, ‘though I did mean to get my
kit first, so as to start in fair and square as the long-lost
brother from the bush. That’s why I hadn’t written. The
function was a day later than I calculated. I was going to write
to-night.’
‘But what are we to do?’ said I, hesitating, when he had
paid the cab. ‘I have been playing the colonies for all they are
worth!’
‘Oh, I’ve lost my luggage,’ said he, ‘or a wave came into my
cabin and spoilt every stitch, or I had nothing fit to bring
ashore. We’ll settle that in the train.’

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 CHAPTER XV

The Wrong House

My brother Ralph, who now lived with me on the edge of

Ham Common, had come home from Australia with a curi­
ous affection of the eyes, due to long exposure to the glare
out there, and necessitating the use of clouded spectacles in
the open air. He had not the rich complexion of the typical
colonist, being indeed peculiarly pale, but it appeared that he
had been confined to his berth for the greater part of the
voyage, while his prematurely grey hair was sufficient proof
that the rigours of bush life had at last undermined an origi­
nally tough constitution. Our landlady, who spoilt my
brother from the first, was much concerned on his behalf,
and wished to call in the local doctor; but Ralph said dreadful
things about the profession, and quite frightened the good
woman by arbitrarily forbidding her ever to let a doctor
inside her door. I had to apologise to her for the painful prej­
udices and violent language of ‘these colonists,’ but the old
soul was easily mollified. She had fallen in love with my
brother at first sight, and she never could do too much for
him. It was owing to our landlady that I took to calling him
Ralph, for the first time in our lives, on her beginning to
speak of and to him as ‘Mr. Raffles.’
‘This won’t do,’ said he to me. ‘It’s a name that sticks.’
‘It must be my fault! She must have heard it from me,’ said
I self-reproachfully.
‘You must tell her it’s the short for Ralph.’
‘But it’s longer.’
‘It’s the short,’ said he; ‘and you’ve got to tell her so.’

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Henceforth I heard as much of ‘Mr. Ralph,’ his likes and

his dislikes, what he would fancy and what he would not, and
oh, what a dear gentleman he was, that I often remembered
to say ‘Ralph, old chap,’ myself.
It was an ideal cottage, as I said when I found it, and in it
our delicate man became rapidly robust. Not that the air was
also ideal, for when it was not raining we had the same faith­
ful mist from November to March. But it was something to
Ralph to get any air at all, other than night air, and the bicy­
cle did the rest. We taught ourselves, and may I never forget
our earlier rides, through and through Richmond Park when
the afternoons were shortest, upon the incomparable Ripley
Road when we gave a day to it. Raffles rode a Beeston
Humber, a Royal Sunbeam was good enough for me, but he
insisted on our both having Dunlop tyres.
‘They seem the most popular brand. I had my eye on the
road all the way from Ripley to Cobham, and there were
more Dunlop marks than any other kind. Bless you, yes, they
all leave their special tracks, and we don’t want ours to be
extra special; the Dunlop’s like a ratdesnake, and the Palmer
leaves telegraph wires, but surely the serpent is more in our
line.’
That was the winter when there were so many burglaries in
the Thames Valley from Richmond upward. It was said that
the thieves used bicycles in every case, but what is not said?
They were sometimes on foot to my knowledge, and we took
a great interest in the series, or rather sequence of successful
crimes. Raffles would often get his devoted old lady to read
him the latest local accounts, while I was busy with my writ­
ing (much I wrote) in my own room.
We even rode out by night ourselves, to see if we could not
get on the tracks of the thieves, and never did we fail to find
hot coffee on the hob for our return. We had indeed fallen
upon our feet. Also, the misty nights might have been made for
the thieves. But their success was not so consistent, and never
so enormous, as people said, especially the sufferers, who lost

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more valuables than they had ever been known to possess. Fail­
ure was often the caitiffs’ portion, and disaster once; owing,
ironically enough, to that very mist which should have served
them. But I am going to tell the story with some particularity,
and perhaps some gusto; you will see why who read.
The right house stood on high ground near the river, with
quite a drive (in at one gate and out at the other) sweeping
past the steps. Between the two gates was a half-moon of
shrubs, to the left of the steps a conservatory, and to their
right the walk leading to the tradesmen’s entrance and the
back premises; here also was the pantry window, of which
more anon. The right house was the residence of an opulent
stockbroker who wore a heavy watch-chain and seemed fair
game. There would have been two objections to it had I been
the stockbroker. The house was one of a row, though a
goodly row, and an army-crammer had established himself
next door. There is a type of such institutions in the suburbs;
the youths go about in knickerbockers, smoking pipes, except
on Saturday nights, when they lead each other home from
the last train. It was none of our business to spy upon these
boys, but their manners and customs fell within the field of
observation. And we did not choose the night upon which the
whole row was likely to be kept awake.
The night that we did choose was as misty as even the
Thames Valley is capable of making them. Raffles smeared
vaseline upon the plated parts of his Beeston Humber before
starting, and our dear landlady cosseted us both, and prayed
we might see nothing of the nasty burglars, not denying as
the reward would be very handy to them that got it, to say
nothing of the honour and glory. We had promised her a lib­
eral perquisite in the event of our success, but she must not
give other cyclists our idea by mentioning it to a soul. It was
about midnight when we cycled through Kingston to Sur­
biton, having trundled our machines across Ham Fields
mournful in the mist as those by Acheron, and so over Ted-
dington Bridge.

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I often wonder why the pantry window is the vulnerable

point of nine houses out of ten. This house of ours was
almost the tenth, for the window in question had bars of
sorts, but not the right sort. The only bars that Raffles
allowed to beat him were the kind that are let into the stone
outside; those fixed within are merely screwed to the wood­
work, and you can unscrew as many as necessary if you take
the trouble and have the time. Barred windows are usually
devoid of other fasteners worthy the name; this one was no
exception to that foolish rule, and a push with the penknife
did its business. I am giving householders some valuable
hints, and perhaps deserving a good mark from the critics.
These, in any case, are the points that I would see to, were I a
rich stockbroker in a riverside suburb. In giving good advice,
however, I should not have omitted to say that we had left
our machines in the semicircular shrubbery in front, or that
Raffles had most ingeniously fitted our lamps with dark
slides, which enabled us to leave them burning.
It proved sufficient to unscrew the bars at the bottom only,
and then to wrench them to either side. Neither of us had
grown stout with advancing years, and in a few minutes we
had both wormed through into the sink, and thence to the
floor. It was not an absolutely noiseless process, but once in
the pantry we were mice, and no longer blind mice. There
was a gas-bracket, but we did not meddle with that. Raffles
went armed these nights with a better light than gas; if it
were not immoral, I might recommend a dark-lantern which
was more or less his patent. It was that handy invention, the
electric torch, fitted by Raffles with a dark hood to fulfil the
functions of a slide. I had held it through the bars while he
undid the screws, and now he held it to the keyhole, in which
a key was turned upon the other side.
There was a pause for consideration, and in the pause we
put on our masks. It was never known that these Thames
Valley robberies were all committed by miscreants decked in
the livery of crime, but that was because until this night we

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had never even shown our masks. It was a point upon which
Raffles had insisted on all feasible occasions since his furtive
return to the world. To-night it twice nearly lost us every­
thing - but you shall hear.
There is a forceps for turning keys from the wrong side of
the door, but the implement is not so easy of manipulation as
it might be. Raffles for one preferred a sharp knife and the
comer of the panel. You go through the panel because that is
thinnest, of course in the corner nearest the key, and you use
a knife when you can, because it makes least noise. But it does
take minutes, and even I can remember shifting the electric
torch from one hand to the other before the aperture was
large enough to receive the hand and wrist of Raffles.
He had at such times a motto of which I might have made
earlier use, but the fact is that I have only once before
described a downright burglary in which I assisted, and that
without knowing it at the time. The most solemn student of
these annals cannot affirm that he has cut through many
doors in our company, since (what was to me) the maiden
effort to which I allude, I, however, have cracked only too
many a crib in conjunction with A. J. Raffles, and at the cru­
cial moment he would whisper ‘Victory or Wormwood
Scrubbs, Bunny!’ or instead of Wormwood Scrubbs it might
be Portland Bill. This time it was neither one nor the other,
for with that very word ‘victory’upon his lips they whitened
and parted with the first taste of defeat.
‘My hand’s held!’ gasped Raffles, and the white of his eyes
showed all round the iris, a rarer thing than you may think.
At the same moment I heard the shuffling feet and the low,
excited young voices on the other side of the door, and a faint
light shone round Raffles’s wrist.
‘Well done, Beefy!’
‘Hang on to him!’
‘Good old Beefy!’
‘Beefy’s got him!’
‘So have I - so have I!’

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And Raffles caught my arm with his one free hand.

‘They’ve got me tight,’ he whispered. ‘I’m done.’
‘Blaze through the door,’ I urged, and might have done it
had I been armed. But I never was. It was Raffles who
monopolised that risk.
‘I can’t - it’s the boys - the wrong house!’ he whispered.
‘Curse the fog - it’s done me. But you get out, Bunny, while
you can; never mind me; it’s my turn, old chap.’
His one hand tightened in affectionate farewell. I put the
electric torch in it before I went, trembling in every inch, but
without a word.
Get out! His turn! Yes, I would get out, but only to come
in again, for it was my turn - mine - not his. Would Raffles
leave me held by a hand through a hole in a door? What he
would have done in my place was the thing for me to do now.
I began by diving head first through the pantry window and
coming-to earth upon all fours. But even as I stood up, and
brushed the gravel from the palms of my hands and the knees
of my knickerbockers, I had no notion what to do next. And
yet I was half-way to the front door before I remembered the
vile crape mask upon my face, and tore it off as the door flew
open and my feet were on the steps.
‘He’s into the next garden,’ I cried to a bevy of pyjamas
with bare feet and young faces at either end of them.
‘Who? Who?’ said they, giving way before me.
‘Some fellow who came through one of your windows head
first.’
‘The other Johnny, the other Johnny,’ the cherubs cho­
rused.
‘Biking past - saw the light - why, what have you there?’
Of course it was Raffles’s hand that they had, but now I
was in the hall among them. A red-faced barrel of a boy did
all the holding, one hand round the wrist, the other palm to
palm, and his knees braced up against the panel. Another was
rendering ostentatious but ineffectual aid, and three or four
others danced about in their pyjamas. After all, they were not

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more than four to one. I had raised my voice, so that Raffles

might hear me and take heart, and now I raised it again. Yet
to this day I cannot account for my inspiration, that proved
nothing less.
‘Don’t talk so loud,’ they were crying below their breath;
‘don’t wake ’em upstairs, this is our show.’
‘Then I see you’ve got one of them,’ said I as desired.
‘Well, if you want the other you can have him too. I believe
he’s hurt himself.’
‘After him, after him!’ they exclaimed as one.
‘But I think he got over the wall -’
‘Come on, you chaps, come on!’
And there was a soft stampede to the hall door.
‘Don’t all desert me, I say!’ gasped the red-faced hero who
held Raffles prisoner.
‘We must have them both, Beefy -
‘That’s all very well -’
‘Look here,’ I interposed, ‘I’ll stay by you. I’ve a friend out­
side, I’ll get him too.’
‘Thanks awfully,’ said the valiant Beefy. The hall was
empty now. My heart beat high.
‘How did you hear them?’ I inquired, my eye running over
him.
‘We were down having drinks - game o’ nap - in there.’
Beefy jerked his great head towards an open door, and the
tail of my eye caught the glint of glasses in the firelight, but
the rest of it was otherwise engaged.
‘Let me relieve you,’ I said, trembling.
‘No, I’m all right.’
‘Then I must insist.’
And before he could answer I had him round the neck with
such a will that not a gurgle passed my fingers, for they were
almost buried in his hot smooth flesh. Oh, I am not proud of
it, the act was as vile as act could be; but I was not going to
see Raffles taken, my one desire was to be the saving of him,
and I tremble even now to think to what lengths I might have

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gone for its fulfilment. As it was I squeezed and tugged until

one strong hand gave way after the other and came feeling
round for me, but feebly because they had held on so long.
And what do you suppose was happening at the same
moment? The pinched white hand of Raffles, reddening with
the returning blood, and with a clot of blood upon the wrist,
was craning upward and turning the key in the lock without a
moment’s loss.
‘Steady on, Bunny!’
And I saw that Beefy’s ears were blue; but Raffles was feeling
in his pockets as he spoke. ‘Now let him breathe,’ said he, clap­
ping his handkerchief over the poor youth’s mouth. An empty
phial was in his other hand, and the first few stertorous breaths
that the poor boy took were the end of him for the time being.
Oh, but it was villainous, my part especially, for he must
have been far gone to go the rest of the way so readily. I
began by saying I was not proud of this deed, but its dastardly
character has come home to me more than ever with the
penance of writing it out. I see in myself, at least my then self,
things that I never saw quite so clearly before. Yet let me be
quite sure that I would not do the same again. I had not the
smallest- desire to throttle this innocent lad (nor did I), but
only to extricate Raffles from the most hopeless position he
was ever in; and after all it was better than a blow from
behind. On the whole, I will not alter a word, nor whine
about the thing any more.
We lifted the plucky fellow into Raffles’s place in the
pantry, locked the door on him, and put the key through the
panel. Now was the moment for thinking of ourselves, and
again that infernal mask which Raffles swore by came near
the undoing of us both. We had reached the steps when we
were hailed by a voice, not from without but from within, and
I had just time to tear the accursed thing from Raffles’s face
before he turned.
A stout man with a blonde moustache was on the stairs, in
his pyjamas like the boys.

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‘What are you doing here?’ said he.

‘There has been an attempt upon your house,’ said I, still
spokesman for the night, and still on the wings of inspiration.
‘Your sons -’
‘My pupils.’
‘Indeed. Well, they heard it, drove off the thieves and have
given chase.’
‘And where do you come in?’ inquired the stout man,
descending.
‘We were bicycling past, and I actually saw one fellow
come head first through your pantry window. I think he got
over the wall.’
Here a breathless boy returned.
‘Can’t see anything of him,’ he gasped.
‘It’s true, then,’ remarked the crammer.
‘Look at that door,’ said I.
But unfortunately the breathless boy looked also, and now
he was being joined by others equally short of wind.
‘Where’s Beefy?’ he screamed. ‘What on earth’s happened
to Beefy?’
‘My good boys,’ exclaimed the crammer, ‘will one of you
be kind enough to tell me what you’ve been doing, and what
these gentlemen have been doing for you? Come in all,
before you get your death. I see lights in the classroom, and
more than lights. Can these be signs of a carouse?’
‘A very innocent one, sir,’ said a well-set-up youth with
more moustache than I have yet.
‘Well, Olphert, boys will be boys. Suppose you tell me
what happened, before we come to recriminations.’
The bad old proverb was my first warning. I caught two of
the youths exchanging glances under raised eyebrows. Yet
their stout easy-going mentor had given me such a reassuring
glance of sidelong humour, as between man of the world and
man of the world, that it was difficult to suspect him of suspi­
cion. I was nevertheless itching to be gone.
Young Olphert told his story with engaging candour. It

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was true that they had come down for an hour’s nap and ciga­
rettes; well, and there was no denying that was whisky in the
glasses. The boys were now all back in their classroom, I
think entirely for the sake of warmth; but'Raffles and I were
in knickerbockers and Norfolk jackets, and very naturally
remained without, while the army-crammer (who wore bed­
room slippers) stood on the threshold, with an eye each way.
The more I saw of the man the better I liked and the more I
feared him. His chief annoyance thus far was that they had
not called him when they heard the noise; that they had
dreamt of leaving him out of the fun. But he seemed more
hurt than angry about that.
‘Well, sir,’ concluded Olphert, ‘we left old Beefy Smith
hanging on to his hand, and this gentleman with him, so per­
haps he can tell us what happened next?’
‘I wish I could,’ I cried, with all their eyes upon me, for I
had had time to think. ‘Some of you must have heard me say
I’d fetch my friend in from the road?’
‘Yes, I did,’ piped an innocent from within.
‘Well, and when I came back with him things were exactly
as you see them now. Evidently the man’s strength was too
much for the boy’s; but whether he ran upstairs or outside I
know no more than you do.’
‘It wasn’t like that boy to run either way,’ said the cram­
mer, cocking a clear blue eye on me.
‘But if he gave chase!’
‘It wasn’t like him even to let go.’
‘I don’t believe Beefy ever would,’ put in Olphert.
‘That’s why we gave him the billet.’
‘He may have followed him through the pantry window,’ I
suggested wildly.
‘But the door’s shut,’ put in a boy.
‘I’ll have a look at it,’ said the crammer.
And the key no longer in the lock, and the insensible youth
within! The key would be missed, the door kicked in; nay,
with the man’s eye still upon me, I thought I could smell

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chloroform; I thought I could hear a moan, and prepared for

either any moment. And how he did stare! I have detested
blue eyes ever since, and blonde moustaches, and the whole
stout easy-going type that is not such a fool as it looks. I had
brazened it out with the boys, but the first grown man was
too many for me, and the blood ran out of my heart as
though there was no Raffles at my back. Indeed, I had forgot­
ten him. I had so longed to put this thing through by myself!
Even in my extremity it was almost a disappointment to me
when his dear cool voice fell like a delicious draught upon my
ears. But its effect upon the others is more interesting to
recall. Until now the crammer had the centre of the stage,
but at this point Raffles usurped a place which was always his
at will. People would wait for what he had to say, as these
people waited now for the simplest and most natural thing in
the world.
‘One moment!’ he had begun.
‘Well ?’ said the crammer, relieving me of his eyes at last.
‘I don’t want to lose any of the fun -’
‘Nor must you,’ said the crammer, with emphasis.
‘But we’ve left our bikes outside, and mine’s a Beeston
Humber,’ continued Raffles. ‘If you don’t mind we’ll bring
’em in before these fellows get away on them.’
And out he went without a look to see the effect of his
words, I after him with a determined imitation of his self­
control. But I would have given something to turn round. I
believe that for one moment the shrewd instructor was taken
in, but as I reached the steps I heard him asking his pupils
whether any of them had seen any bicycles outside.
That moment, however, made the difference. We were in
the shrubbery, Raffles with his electric torch drawn and blaz­
ing, when we heard them kicking at the pantry door, and in
the drive with our bicycles before man and boys poured pell-
mell down the steps.
We rushed our machines to the nearer gate, for both were
shut, and we got through and swung it home behind us in the

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nick of time. Even I could mount before they could reopen

the gate, which Raffles held against them for half an instant
with unnecessary gallantry. But he would see me in front of
him, and so it fell to me to lead the way.
Now, I have said that it was a very misty night (hence the
whole thing), and also that these houses were on a hill. But
they were not nearly on the top of the hill, and I did what I
firmly believe that almost everybody would have done in my
place. Raffles, indeed, said he would have done it himself, but
that was his generosity, and he was the one man who would
not. What I did was to turn in the opposite direction to the
other gate, where we might so easily have been cut off, and to
pedal for my life - up-hill!
‘My God!’ I shouted when I found it out.
‘Can you turn in your own length?’ asked Raffles, follow­
ing loyally.
‘Not certain.’
‘Then stick to it. You couldn’t help it. But it’s the devil of a
hill!’
‘And here they come!’
‘Let them,’ said Raffles, and brandished his electric torch,
our only fight as yet
A hill seems endless in the dark, for you cannot see the
end, and with the patter of bare feet gaining on us, I thought
this one could have no end at all. Of course the boys could
charge up it quicker than we could pedal but I even heard the
voice of their stout instructor growing louder through the
mist.
‘Oh, to think I’ve let you in for this!’ I groaned, my head
over the handle-bars, every ounce of my weight first on one
foot and then on the other. I glanced at Raffles, and in the
white light of his torch he was doing it all with his ankles,
exactly as though he had been riding in a Gymkhana.
‘It’s the most sporting chase I was ever in,’ said he. ‘All my
fault!’
‘My dear Bunny, I wouldn’t have missed it for the world!’

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Nor would he forge ahead of me, though he could have

done so in a moment, he who from his boyhood had done
everything of the kind so much better than anybody else. No,
he must ride a wheel’s length behind me, and now we could
not only hear the boys running, but breathing also. And then
of a sudden I saw Raffles on my right striking with his torch;
a face flew out of the darkness to meet the thick glass bulb
with the glowing wire enclosed; it was the face of the boy
Olphert, with his enviable moustache, but it vanished with
the crash of glass, and the naked wire thickened to the eye
like a tuning-fork struck red-hot.
I saw no more of that. One of them had crept up on my
side also; as I looked, hearing him pant, he was grabbing at
my left handle, and I nearly sent Raffles into the hedge by the
sharp turn I took to the right. His wheel’s length saved him.
But my boy Could run, was overhauling me again, seemed
certain of me this time, when all at once the Sunbeam ran
easily; every ounce of my weight with either foot once more,
and I was over the crest of the hill, the grey road reeling out
from under me as I felt for my brake. I looked back at Raffles.
He had put up his feet. I screwed my head round still further,
and there were the boys in their pyjamas, their hands upon
their knees, like so many wicket-keepers, and a big man shak­
ing his fist. There was a lamp-post on the hill-top, and that
was the last I saw.
We sailed down to the river, then on through Thames
Ditton as far as Esher station, when we turned sharp to the
right, and from the dark stretch by Imber Court came to light
in Molesey, and were soon pedalling like gentlemen of leisure
through Bushey Park, our lights turned up, the broken torch
put out and away. The big gates had long been shut, but you
can manoeuvre a bicycle through the others. We had no fur­
ther adventures on the way home, and our coffee was still
warm upon the hob.
‘But I think it’s an occasion for Sullivans,’ said Raffles, who
now kept them for such. ‘By all my gods, Bunny, it’s been the

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most sporting night we ever had in our lives! And do you

know which was the most sporting part of it?’
‘That up-hill ride!’
‘I wasn’t thinking of it.’
‘Turning your torch into a truncheon?’
‘My dear Bunny! A gallant lad -1 hated hitting him.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘The way you got us out of the house!’
‘No, Bunny,’ said Raffles, blowing rings. ‘It came before
that, you sinner, and you know it!’
‘You don’t mean anything I did?’ said I, self-consciously,
for I began to see that this was what he did mean. And now at
last it will also be seen why this story has been told with
undue and inexcusable gusto; there is none other like it for
me to tell; it is my one ewe-lamb in all these annals. But Raf­
fles had a ruder name for it.
‘It was the Apotheosis of the Bunny,’ said he, but in a tone
I never shall forget.
‘I hardly knew what I was doing or saying,’ I said. ‘The
whole thing was a fluke.’
‘Then,’ said Raffles, ‘it was the kind of fluke I always
trusted you to make when runs were wanted.’
And he held out his dear old hand.

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 CHAPTER XVI

The Knees of the Gods

‘The WORST of this war,’ said Raffles, ‘is the way it puts a
fellow off his work.’
It was, of course, the winter before last, and we had done
nothing dreadful since the early autumn. Undoubtedly the
war was the cause. Not that we were among the earlier vic­
tims of the fever. I took disgracefully little interest in the
Negotiations, while the Ultimatum appealed to Raffles as a
sporting flutter. Then we gave the whole thing till Christmas.
We still missed the cricket in the papers. But one russet after­
noon we were in Richmond, and a terrible type was shouting
himself hoarse with ‘ ’Eavy British lorsses! - orful slorter o’
the Bo-wers! Orful slorter! Orful slorter! ’Eavy British
lorsses!’ I thought the terrible type had invented it, but Raf­
fles gave him more than he asked, and then I held the bicycles
while he tried to pronounce Eland’s Laagte. We were never
again without our sheaf of evening papers, and Raffles
ordered three morning ones, and I gave up mine in spite of
its literary page. We became strategists. We knew exactly
what Buller was to do on landing, and, still better, what the
other Generals should have done. Our map was the best that
could be bought, with flags that deserved a better fate than
standing still. Raffles woke me to hear The Absent-Minded
Beggar on the morning it appeared; he was one of the first
substantial subscribers to the fund. By this time our dear
landlady was more excited than we. To our enthusiasm for
Thomas she added a personal bitterness against the Wild
Boars, as she persisted in calling them, each time as though it

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were the first. I could linger over our landlady’s attitude in

the whole matter. That was her only joke about it, and the
true humorist never smiled at it herself. But you had only to
say a syllable for a venerable gentleman, declared by her to be
at the bottom of it all, to hear what she could do to him if she
caught him. She could put him in a cage and go on tour with
him, and make him howl and dance for his food like a
debased bear before a fresh audience every day. Yet a more
kind-hearted woman I have never known. The war did not
uplift our landlady as it did her lodgers.
But presently it ceased to have that precise effect upon us.
Bad was being made worse and worse; and then came more
than Englishmen could endure in that black week across
which the names of three African villages are written for ever
in letters of blood. ‘All three pegs,’ groaned Raffles on the
last morning of the week; ‘neck-and-crop, neck-and-crop!’ It
was his first word of cricket since the beginning of the war.
We were both depressed. Old schoolfellows had fallen, and
I know Raffles envied them; he spoke so wistfully of such an
end. To cheer him up I proposed to break into one of the
many more or less royal residences in our neighbourhood; a
tough crib was what he needed; but I will not trouble you
with what he said to me. There was less crime in England
that winter than for years past; there was none at all in Raf­
fles. And yet there were those who could denounce the war!
So we went on for a few of those dark days, Raffles very
glum and grim, till one fine morning the Yeomanry idea put
new heart into us all. It struck me at once as the glorious
scheme it was to prove, but it did not hit me where it hit
others. I was not a fox-hunter, and the gentlemen of England
would scarcely have owned me as one of them. The case of
Raffles was in that respect still more hopeless (he who had
even played for them at Lord’s), and he seemed to feel it. He
would not speak to me all the morning; in the afternoon he
went a walk alone. It was another man who came home,
flourishing a small bottle packed in white paper.

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‘Bunny,’ said he, ‘I never did lift my elbow; it’s the one vice
I never had. It has taken me all these years to find my tipple,
Bunny; but here it is, my panacea, my elixir, my magic
philtre!’
I thought he had been at it on the road, and asked him the
name of the stuff.
‘Look and see, Bunny.’
And if it wasn’t a bottle of ladies’ hair-dye, warranted to
change any shade into the once fashionable yellow within a
given number of applications!
‘What on earth,’ said I, ‘are you going to do with this?’
‘Dye for my country,’ he cried, swelling. ‘Dulce et decorum
est, Bunny, my boy!’
‘Do you mean that you’re going to the Front?’
‘If I can without coming to it.’
I looked at him as he stood in the firefight, straight as a
dart, spare but wiry, alert, laughing, flushed from his wintry
walk; and as I looked, all the years that I had known him, and
more besides, slipped from him in my eyes. I saw him captain
of the eleven at school. I saw him running with the muddy
ball on days like this, running round the other fifteen as a
sheep-dog round a flock of sheep. He had his cap on still, and
but for the grey hairs underneath - but here I lost him in a
sudden mist. It was not sorrow at his going, for I did not
mean to let him go alone. It was enthusiasm, admiration,
affection, and also, I believe, a sudden regret that he had not
always appealed to that part of my nature to which he was
appealing now. It was a little thrill of penitence. Enough of it.
‘I think it great of you.’ I said, and at first that was all.
How he laughed at me! He had had his innings; there was
no better way of getting out. He had scored off an African
millionaire, the Players, a Queensland Legislator, the
Camorra, the late Lord Ernest Belville, and again and again
off Scotland Yard. What more could one man do in one life­
time? And at the worst it was the death to die no bed, no
doctor, no temperature - and Raffles stopped himself.

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‘No pinioning, no white cap,’ he added, ‘if you like that

better.’
‘I don’t like any of it,’ I cried cordially; ‘you’ve simply got
to come back.’
‘To what?’ he asked, a strange look on him. And I won­
dered - for one instant - whether my little thrill had gone
through him. He was not a man of little thrills.
Then for a minute I was in misery. Of course I wanted to
go too - he shook my hand without a word - but how could
I? They would never have me, a branded jail-bird, in the
Imperial Yeomanry! Raffles burst out laughing; he had been
looking very hard at me for about three seconds.
‘You rabbit,’ he cried, ‘even to think of it! We might as
well offer ourselves to the Metropolitan Police Force. No,
Bunny, we go out to the Cape on our own, and that’s where
we enlist. One of these regiments of irregular horse is the
thing for us; you spent part of your pretty penny on horse­
flesh, I believe, and you remember how I rode in the bush!
We’re the very men for them, Bunny, and they won’t ask to
see our birth-marks out there. I don’t think even my hoary
locks would put them off, but it would be too conspicuous in
the ranks.’
Our landlady first wept on hearing our determination, and
then longed to have the pulling of certain whiskers (with the
tongs, and they should be red-hot); but from that day, and for
as many as were left to us, the good soul made more of us
than ever. Not that she was at all surprised; dear brave gen­
tlemen who could look for burglars on their bicycles at dead
of night, it was only what you might expect of them, bless
their lion hearts. I wanted to wink at Raffles, but he would
not catch my eye. He was a ginger-headed Raffles by the end
of January, and it was extraordinary what a difference it
made. His most elaborate disguises had not been more effec­
tual than this simple expedient, and, with khaki to complete
the subdual of his individuality, he had every hope of escap­
ing recognition in the field. The man he dreaded was the

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officer he had known in old days; there were ever so many of

him at the Front; and it was to minimise this risk that we
went out second class at the beginning of February.
It was a weeping day, a day in a shroud, cold as clay, yet for
that very reason an ideal day upon which to leave England for
the sunny Front. Yet my heart was heavy as I looked my last
at her; it was heavy as the raw thick air, until Raffles came and
leant upon the rail at my side.
‘I know what you are thinking, and you’ve got to stop,’ said
he. ‘It’s on the knees of the gods, Bunny, whether we do or
we don’t, and thinking won’t make us see over their shoul­
ders.’

Now I made as bad a soldier (except at heart) as Raffles

made a good one, and I could not say a harder thing of
myself. My ignorance of matters military was up to that time
unfathomable, and is still profound. I was always a fool with
horses, though I did not think so at one time, and I had never
been any good with a gun. The average Tommy may be my
intellectual inferior, but he must know some part of his work
better than I ever knew any of mine. I never even learnt to be
killed. I do not mean that I ever ran away. The South African
Field Force might have been strengthened if I had.
The foregoing remarks do not express a pose affected out
of superiority to the usual spirit of the conquering hero, for
no man was keener on the war than I, before I went to it. But
one can only write with gusto of events (like that little affair
at Surbiton) in which one has acquitted oneself without dis­
credit, and I cannot say that of my part in the war, of which I
now loathe the thought for other reasons. The battlefield was
no place for me, and neither was the camp. My ineptitude
made me the butt of the looting, cursing, swashbuckling lot
who formed the very irregular squadron which we joined; and

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it would have gone hard with me but for Raffles, who was
soon the darling devil of them all, but never more loyally my
friend. Your fireside fire-eater does not think of these things.
He imagines all the fighting to be with the enemy. He will
probably be horrified to hear that men can detest each other
as cordially in khaki as in any other wear, and with a virulence
seldom inspired by the bearded dead-shot in the opposite
trench. To the fireside fire-eater, therefore (for you have seen
me one myself), I dedicate the story of Corporal Connal,
Captain Bellingham, the General, Raffles, and myself.
I must be vague, for obvious reasons. The troop is fighting
as I write; you will soon hear why I am not; but neither is
Raffles nor Corporal Connal. They are fighting as well as
ever, those other hard-living, harder-dying sons of all soils;
but I am not going to say wdiere it was that we fought with
them. I believe that no body of men of equal size has done
half so much heroic work. But they have got themselves a bad
name off the field, so to speak; and I am not going to make it
worse by saddling them before the world with Raffles and
myself, and that ruffian Connal.
The fellow was a mongrel type, a Glasgow Irishman by
birth and upbringing, but he had been in South Africa for
years, and he certainly knew the country very well. This cir­
cumstance, coupled with the fact that he was a very handy
man with horses, as all colonists are, had procured him the
first small step from the ranks which facilitates bullying if a
man be a bully by nature, and is physically fitted to be a suc­
cessful one. Connal was a hulking ruffian, and in me had ideal
game. The brute was offensive to me from the hour I joined.
The details are of no importance, but I stood up to him at
first in words, and finally for a few seconds on my feet. Then
I went down like an ox, and Raffles came out of his tent.
Their fight lasted twenty minutes, and Raffles was marked,
but the net result was dreadfully conventional, for the bully
was a bully no more.
But I began gradually to suspect that he was something

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worse. All this time we were fighting every day, or so it seems

when I look back. Never a great engagement, and yet never a
day when we were wholly out of touch with the enemy. I had
thus several opportunities of watching the other enemy under
fire, and had almost convinced myself of the systematic harm­
lessness of his own shooting, when a more glaring incident
occurred.
One night three troops of our squadron were ordered to a
certain point whither they had patrolled the previous week;
but our own particular troop was to stay behind, and in
charge of no other than the villainous corporal, both our offi­
cer and sergeant having gone into hospital with enteric. Our
detention, however, was very temporary, and Connal would
seem to have received the usual vague orders to proceed in
the early morning to the place where the other three compa­
nies had camped. It appeared that we were to form an escort
to two squadron waggons containing kits, provisions, and
ammunition.
Before daylight Connal had reported his departure to the
commanding officer, and we passed the outposts at grey
dawn. Now, though I was perhaps the least observant person
in the troop, I was not the least wide awake where Corporal
Connal was concerned, and it struck me at once that we were
heading in the wrong direction. My reasons are not material,
but as a matter of fact our last week’s patrol had pushed its
khaki tentacles both east and west; and eastward they had met
with resistance so determined as to compel them to retire; yet
it was eastward that we were travelling now. I at once spurred
alongside Raffles, as he rode, bronzed and bearded, with war­
worn wide-awake over eyes grown keen as a hawk’s, and a
cutty-pipe sticking straight out from his front teeth. I can see
him now, so gaunt and grim and debonnaire, yet already with
much of the nonsense gone out of him, though I thought he
only smiled on my misgivings.
‘Did he get the instructions, Bunny, or did we? Very well,
then; give the devil a chance.’

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There was nothing further to be said, but I felt more

crushed than convinced; so we jogged along into broad day­
light, until Raffles himself gave a whistle of surprise.
‘A white flag, Bunny, by all my gods!’ I could not see it; he
had the longest sight in all our squadron; but in a little the
fluttering emblem, which had gained such a sinister signifi­
cance in most of our eyes, was patent even to mine. A little
longer, and the shaggy Boer was in our midst upon his shaggy
pony, with a half-scared, half-incredulous look in his deep-set
eyes. He was on his way to our lines with some missive, and
had little enough to say to us, though frivolous and flippant
questions were showered upon him from most saddles.
‘Any Boers over there?’ asked one, pointing in the direc­
tion in which we were still heading.
‘Shut up!’ interjected Raffles in crisp rebuke.
The Boer looked stolid but sinister.
‘Any of our chaps?’ added another.
The Boer rode on with an open grin.
And the incredible conclusion of the matter was that we
were actually within their lines in another hour; saw them as
large as life within a mile and a half on either side of us; and
must every man of us have been taken prisoner had not every
man but Connal refused to go one inch further, and had not
the Boers themselves obviously suspected some subtle ruse as
the only conceivable explanation of so madcap a manoeuvre.
They allowed us to retire without firing a shot; and retire you
may be sure we did, the Kaffirs flogging their teams in a fury
of fear, and our precious corporal sullen but defiant.
I have said this was the conclusion of the matter, and I
blush to repeat that it practically was. Connal was indeed
wheeled up before the colonel, but his instructions were not
written instructions, and he bed his way out with equal hardi­
hood and tact.
‘You said “over there,” sir,’ he stoutly reiterated; and the
vagueness with which such orders were undoubtedly given
was the saving of him for the time being.

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 RAFFLES

I need not tell you how indignant I felt, for one.

‘The fellow is a spy!’ I said to Raffles, with no nursery oath,
as we strolled within the lines that night.
He merely smiled in my face.
‘And have you only just found it out, Bunny? I have known
it almost ever since we joined; but this morning I did think
we had him on toast.’
‘It’s disgraceful that we had not,’ cried I. ‘He ought to have
been shot like a dog.’
‘Not so loud, Bunny, though I quite agree; but I don’t
regret what has happened as much as you do. Not that I’m
less blood-thirsty than you are in this care, but a good deal
more so! Bunny, I’m mad-keen on bowling him out with my
own unaided hand - though I may ask you to take the wicket.
Meanwhile, don’t wear all your animosity upon your sleeve;
the fellow has friends who still believe in him; and there is no
need for you to be more openly his enemy than you were
before.’
Well, I can only vow that I did my best to follow this sound
advice; but who but a Raffles can control his every look? It
was never my forte, as you know, yet to this day I cannot con­
ceive what I did to excite the treacherous corporal’s suspi­
cions. He was clever enough, however, not to betray them,
and lucky enough to turn the tables on us, as you shall hear.

ni

Bloemfontein had fallen since our arrival, but there was

plenty of fight in the Free Staters still, and I will not deny
that it was these gentry who were showing us the sport for
which our corps came in. Constant skirmishing was our por­
tion, with now and then an action that you would know at
least by name, did I feel free to mention them. But I do not,
and indeed it is better so. I have not to describe the war even
as I saw it, I am thankful to say, but only the martial story of

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 RAFFLES

us two and those others of whom you wot Corporal Connal

was the dangerous blackguard you have seen. Captain
Bellingham is best known for his position in the batting aver­
ages a year or two ago, and for his subsequent failure to
obtain a place in any of the five Test Matches. But I only
think only of him as the officer who recognised Raffles.
We had taken a village, making quite a little name for it
and for ourselves, and in the village our division was rein­
forced by a fresh brigade of the Imperial troops. It was a day
of rest, our first for weeks, but Raffles and I spent no small
part of it in seeking high and low for a worthy means of
quenching the kind of thirst which used to beset Yeomen and
others who had left good cellars for the veldt. The old knack
came back to us both, though I believe that I alone was con­
scious of it at the time; and we were leaving the house, splen­
didly supplied, when we almost ran into the arms of an
infantry officer, with a scowl upon his red-hot face, and an
eye-glass flaming at us in the sun.
‘Peter Bellingham!’ gasped Raffles, under his breath, and
then we saluted and tried to pass on, with the bottles ringing
like church bells under our khaki. But Captain Bellingham
was a hard man.
‘What have you men been doin’?’ drawled he.
‘Nothing, sir,’ we protested like innocence with an injury.
‘Lootin’’s forbidden,’ said he. ‘You had better let me see
those bottles.’
‘We are done,’ whispered Raffles, and straightway we made
a sideboard of the stoop across which we had crept at so inop­
portune a moment. I had not the heart to raise my eyes again,
yet it was many moments before the officer broke silence.
‘Uam Vari’ he murmured reverentially at last. ‘And Long
John of Ben Nevis! The first drop that’s been discovered in
the whole psalm-singing show! What lot do you two belong
to?’
I answered.
‘I must have your names.’

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 RAFFLES

In my agitation I gave my real one. Raffles had turned

away, as though in heart-broken contemplation of our lost
loot. I saw the officer studying his half profile with an alarm­
ing face.
‘What’syour name?’ he rapped out at last.
But his strange, low voice said plainly that he knew, and
Raffles faced him with the monosyllable of confession and
assent. I did not count the seconds until the next word, but it
was Captain Bellingham who uttered it at last.
‘I thought you were dead.’
‘Now you see I am not.’
‘But you are at your old games!’
‘I am not!’ cried Raffles, and his tone was new to me. I have
seldom heard one more indignant. ‘Yes,’ he continued, ‘this is
loot, and the wrong ’un will out. That’s what you’re thinking,
Peter - I beg your pardon - sir. But he isn’t let out in the
field. We’re playing the game as much as you are, old - sir.’
The plural number caused the captain to toss me a con­
temptuous look. ‘Is this the fellah who was taken when you
swam for it?’ he inquired, relapsing into his drawl. Raffles
said I was, and with that took a passionate oath upon our
absolute rectitude as volunteers. There could be no doubting
him; but the officer’s eyes went back at the bottles on the
stoop.
‘But look at those,’ said he; and as he looked himself the
light eye melted in his fiery face. ‘And I’ve got Sparklets in
my tent,’ he sighed. ‘You make it in a minute!’
Not a word from Raffles, and none, you may be sure, from
me. Then suddenly Bellingham told me where his tent was,
and, adding that our case was one for serious consideration,
strode in its direction without an other word until some
sunlit paces separated us.
‘You can bring that stuff with you,’ he then flung over a
shoulder-strap, ‘and I advise you to put it where you had it
before.’
A trooper saluted him some yards further on, and looked

300
 RAFFLES

evilly at us as we followed with our loot. It was Corporal

Connal of ours, and the thought of him takes my mind off the
certainly gallant captain who only that day had joined our
division with the reinforcements. I could not stand the man
myself. He added soda-water to our whisky in his tent, and
would only keep a couple of bottles when we came away.
Softened by the spirit, to which disuse made us all a little sen­
sitive, our officer was soon convinced of the honest part that
we were playing for once, and for fifty minutes of the hour
we spent with him he and Raffles talked cricket without a
break. On parting they even shook hands; that was Long
John in the captain’s head; but the snob never addressed a
syllable to me.
And now to the gallows-bird who was still corporal of our
troop; it was not long before Raffles was to have his wish and
the traitor’s wicket. We had resumed our advance, or rather
our humble part in the great surrounding movement then
taking place, and were under pretty heavy fire once more,
when Connal was shot in the hand. It was a curious casualty in
more than one respect, and nobody seems to have seen it
happen. Though a flesh-wound, it was a bloody one, and that
may be why the surgeon did not at once detect those features
which afterwards convinced him that the injury had been self-
inflicted. It was the right hand, and until it healed the man
could be of no further use in the firing-line; nor was the case
serious enough for admission to a crowded field-hospital; and
Connal himself offered his services as custodian of a number
of our horses which we were keeping out of harm’s way in a
donga. They had come there in the following manner. That
morning we had been heliographed to reinforce the C.M.R.,
only to find that the enemy had the range to a nicety when we
reached the spot. There were trenches for us men, but no
place of safety for our horses nearer than this long and narrow
donga which ran from within our lines towards those of the
Boers. So some of us galloped them thither, six-in-hand, amid
the whine of shrapnel and the whistle of shot. I remember the

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 RAFFLES

man next me being killed by a shell with all his team, and the
tangle of flying harness, torn horse-flesh, and crimson khaki
that we left behind us on the veldt; also that a small red flag,
ludicrously like those used to indicate a putting green, marked
the single sloping entrance to the otherwise precipitous
donga, which I for one was duly thankful to reach alive.
The same evening Connal, with a few other light casualties
to assist him, took over the charge for which he had volun­
teered, and for which he was so admirably fitted by his
knowledge of horses and his general experience of the coun­
try; nevertheless, he managed to lose three or four fine charg­
ers in the course of the first night; and, early in the second,
Raffles shook me out of a heavy slumber in the trenches
where we had been firing all day.
‘I have found the spot Bunny,’ he whispered; ‘we ought to
out him before the night is over.’
‘Connal?’
Raffles nodded.
‘You know what happened to some of his horses last night?
Well, he let them go himself.’
‘Never!’
‘I’m as certain of it,’ said Raffles, ‘as though I’d seen him
do it; and if he does it again I shall see him. I can even tell
you how it happened. Connal insisted on having one end of
the donga to himself, and of course his end is the one nearest
the Boers. Well, then, he tells the other fellows to go to sleep
at their end - I have it direct from one of them - and you bet
they don’t need a second invitation. The rest I hope to see to­
night.’
‘It seems almost incredible,’ said I.
‘Not more so than the Light Horseman’s dodge of poison­
ing the troughs; that happened at Ladysmith before Christ­
mas; and two kind friends did for that blackguard what you
and I are going to do for this one and a firing-party did the
rest. Brutes! A mounted man’s worth a file on foot in this
country, and well they know it. But this beauty goes one

302
 RAFFLES

better than the poison; that was wilful waste; but I’ll eat my
wide awake if our loss last night wasn’t the enemy’s double
gain! What we’ve got to do, Bunny, is to catch him in the act.
It may mean watching him all night, but was ever game so
well worth the candle?’
One may say in passing that, at this particular point of con­
tact, the enemy were in superior force, and for once in a
mood as aggressive as our own. They were led with a dash,
and handled with a skill which did not always characterise
their commanders at this stage of the war. Their position was
very similar to ours, and indeed we were to spend the whole
of next day in trying with an equal will to turn each other out.
The result will scarcely be forgotten by those who recognise
the occasion from these remarks. Meanwhile it was the eve of
battle (most evenings were), and there was that villain with
the horses in the donga, and here were we two upon his track.
Raffles’s plan was to reconnoitre the place, and then take
up a position from which we could watch our man and
pounce upon him if he gave us cause. The spot that we even­
tually chose and stealthily occupied was behind some bushes
through which we could see down into the donga; there were
the precious horses; and there, sure enough, was our
wounded corporal, sitting smoking in his cloak, some glim­
mering thing in his lap.
‘That’s his revolver, and it’s a Mauser,’ whispered Raffles.
‘He shan’t have a chance of using it on us; either we must be
on him before he knows we are anywhere near, or simply
report. It’s easily proved once we are sure; but I should like to
have the taking of him too.’
There was a setting moon. Shadows were sharp and black.
The man smoked steadily, and the hungry horses did what I
never saw horses do before; they stood and nibbled at each
other’s tails. I was used to sleeping in the open, under the
jewelled dome that seems so much vaster and grander in
these wide spaces of the earth. I lay listening to the horses,
and to the myriad small strange voices of the veldt, to which I

303
 RAFFLES

cannot even now put a name, while Raffles watched. ‘One

head is better than two,’ he said, ‘when you don’t want it to
be seen.’ We were to take watch and watch about, however,
and the other might sleep if he could: it was not my fault that
I did nothing else; it was Raffles who could trust nobody but
himself. Nor was there any time for recriminations when he
did rouse me in the end.
But a moment ago, as it seemed to me, I had been gazing
upward at the stars and listening to the dear minute sounds of
peace; and in another the great grey slate was clean, and every
bone of me set in plaster of Paris, and sniping beginning
between pickets with the day. It was an occasional crack, not a
constant crackle, but the whistle of a bullet as it passed us by,
or a tiny transitory flame for the one bit of detail on a blue hill­
side, was an unpleasant warning that we two on ours were a
target in ourselves. But Raffles paid no attention to their fire;
he was pointing downward through the bushes to where Cor­
poral Connal stood with his back to us, shooing a last charger
out of the mouth of the donga towards the Boer trenches.
‘That’s his third,’ whispered Raffles, ‘but it’s the first I’ve
seen distinctly, for he waited for the blind spot before the
dawn. It’s enough to land him, I fancy, but we mustn’t lose
time. Are you ready for a creep?’
I stretched myself, and said I was; but I devoutly wished it
was not quite so early in the morning.
‘Like cats, then, till he hears, and then into him for all
we’re worth. He’s stowed his iron safe away, but he mustn’t
have time even to feel for it. You take his left arm, Bunny,
and hang on to that like a ferret, and I’ll do the rest. Ready?
Then now!’
And in less time than it would take to tell, we were over the
lip of the donga and had fallen upon the fellow before he
could turn his head; nevertheless, for a few instants he fought
like a wild beast, striking, kicking, and swinging me off my
feet as I obeyed my instructions to the letter, and stuck to his
left like a leech. But he soon gave that up, and, panting and

304
 RAFFLES

blaspheming, demanded explanations in his hybrid tongue

that had half a brogue and half a burr. What were we doing?
What had he done? Raffles at his back, with his right wrist
twisted round and pinned into the small of it, soon told him
that, and I think the words must have been the first intima­
tion that he had as to who his assailants were.
‘So it’s you two!’ he cried, and a light broke over him. He
was no longer trying to shake us off, and now he dropped his
curses also, and stood chuckling to himself instead. ‘Well,’ he
went on, ‘you’re bloody liars both, but I know something else
that you are, so you’d better let go.’
A coldness ran through me, and I never saw Raffles so
taken aback. His grip must have relaxed for a fraction of time,
for our captive broke out in a fresh and desperate struggle,
but now we pinned him tighter than ever, and soon I saw him
turning green and yellow with the pain.
‘You’re breaking my wrist!’ he yelled at last.
‘Then stand still and tell us who we are.’ And he stood still
and told us our real names. But Raffles insisted on hearing
how he found us out, and smiled as though he had known
what was coming when it came. I was dumbfounded. The
accursed hound had followed us that evening to Captain
Bellingham’s tent, and his undoubted cleverness in his own
profession of spy had done the rest.
‘And now you’d better let me go,’ said the master of the
situation, as I for one could not help regarding him.
‘I’ll see you damned,’ said Raffles savagely.
‘Then you’re damned and done for yourself, my cocky
criminal. Raffles the burglar! Raffles the society thief! Not
dead after all, but ’live and ’listed! Send him home and give
him fourteen years, and won’t he like ’em, that’s all!’
‘I shall have the pleasure of hearing you shot first,’ retorted
Raffles, through his teeth, ‘and that alone will make them
bearable. - Come on, Bunny. Let’s drive the swine along and
get it over.’
And drive him we did, he cursing, cajoling, struggling,

305
 RAFFLES

gloating, and blubbering by turns. But Raffles never wavered

for an instant though his face was tragic, and it went to my
heart, where that look stays still. I remember at the time,
though I never let my hold relax, there was a moment when I
added my entreaties to those of our prisoner. Raffles did not
even reply to me. But I was thinking of him, I swear. I was
thinking of that grey set face that I never saw before or after.
‘Your story will be tested,’ said the commanding officer,
when Connal had been marched to the guard tent. ‘Is there
any truth in his?’
‘It is perfectly true, sir.’
‘And the notorious Raffles has been alive all these years,
and you are really he?’
‘I am, sir.’
‘And what are you doing at the Front?’
Somehow I thought that Raffles was going to smile, but
the grim set of his mouth never altered, neither was there any
change in the ashy pallor which had come over him in the
donga when Connal mouthed his name. It was only his eyes
that lighted up at the last question.
‘I am fighting, sir,’ said he, as simply as any subaltern in the
army. The commanding officer inclined a grizzled head per­
ceptibly, and no more. He was not one of any school, our
General; he had his own ways, and we loved both him and
them; and I believe that he loved the rough but gallant corps
that bore his name. He once told us that he knew something
about most of us, and there were things that Raffles had done
of which he must have heard. But he only moved his grizzled
head. ‘Did you know he was going to give you away?’ he
asked at length, with a jerk of it toward the guard tent.
“Yes, sir.’
‘But you thought it worth while, did you?’
‘I thought it necessary, sir.’
The General paused, drumming on his table, making up
his mind. Then his chin came up with the decision that we
loved in him.

306
 RAFFLES

‘I shall sift all this,’ said he. ‘An officer’s name was men­
tioned, and I shall see him myself. Meanwhile you had better
go on - fighting.’

IV

Corporal Connal paid the penalty of his crime before the

sun was far above the hill held by the enemy. There was
abundance of circumstantial evidence against him besides the
direct testimony of Raffles and myself, and the wretch was
shot at last with little ceremony and less shrift. And that was
the one good thing that happened on the day that broke upon
us hiding behind the bushes overlooking the donga; by noon
it was my own turn.
I have avoided speaking of my wound before I need, and
from the preceding pages you would not gather that I am
more or less lame for fife. You will soon see now why I was in
no hurry to recall the incident. I used to think of a wound
received in one’s country’s service as the proudest trophy a
man could acquire. But the sight of mine depresses me every
morning of my life; it was due for one thing to my own slow
eye for cover, in taking which (to aggravate my case) our
hardy little corps happened to excel.
The bullet went clean through my thigh, drilling the bone,
but happily missing the sciatic nerve; thus the mere pain was
less than it might have been, but of course I went over in a
light brown heap. We were advancing on our stomachs to
take the hill, and thus extend our position, and it was at this
point that the fire became too heavy for us, so that for hours
(in the event) we moved neither forward nor back. But it was
not a minute before Raffles came to me through the whistling
scud, and in another I was on my back behind a shallow rock,
with him kneeling over me and unrolling my bandage in the
teeth of that murderous fire. It was on the knees of the gods,
he said, when I begged him to bend lower, but for the

307
 RAFFLES

moment I thought his tone as changed as his face had been

earlier in the morning. To oblige me, however, he took more
care; and, when he had done all that one comrade could for
another, he did avail himself of the cover he had found for
me. So there we lay together on the veldt, under blinding sun
and withering fire, and I suppose it is the veldt that I should
describe, as it swims and flickers before wounded eyes. I shut
mine to bring it back, but all that comes is the keen brown
face of Raffles, still a shade paler than its wont, now bending
to sight and fire; now peering to see results, brows raised,
eyes widened; anon turning to me with the word to set my
tight lips grinning. He was talking all the time, but for my
sake, and I knew it. Can you wonder that I could not see an
inch beyond him? He was the battle to me then; he is the
whole war to me as I look back now.
‘Feel equal to a cigarette? It will buck you up, Bunny. No,
that one in the silver paper, I’ve hoarded it for this. Here’s a
light; and so Bunny takes the Sullivan! All honotir to the
sporting rabbit!’
‘At least I went over like one,’ said I, sending the only
clouds into the blue, and chiefly wishing for their longer
endurance. I was as hot as a cinder from my head to one foot;
the other leg was ceasing to belong to me.
‘Wait a bit,’ says Raffles, puckering; ‘there’s a grey felt hat at
deep long-on and I want to add it to the bag for vengeance.__
Wait - yes - no, no luck I must pitch ’em up a bit more.
Hallo! magazine empty. How goes the Sullivan, Bunny? Rum
to be smoking one on the veldt with a hole in your leg!’
‘It’s doing me good,’ I said, and I believe it was. But Raffles
lay looking at me as he lightened his bandolier.
‘Do you remember,’ he said softly, ‘the day we first began
to think about the war? I call see that pink misty river light,
and feel the first bite there was in the air when one stood
about; don’t you wish we had either here? “Orful slorter,
orful slorter;” that fellow’s face, I see it too; and here we have
the thing he cried. Can you believe it’s only six months ago?’

308
 RAFFLES

‘Yes,’ I sighed, enjoying the thought of that afternoon less

than he did; ‘yes, we were slow to catch fire at first.’
‘Too slow,’ he said quickly.
‘But when we did catch,’ I went on, wishing we never had,
‘we soon burnt up.’
‘And then went out,’ laughed Raffles gaily. He was loaded
up again. ‘Another over at the grey felt hat,’ said he; ‘by Jove,
though, I believe he’s having an over at me!’
‘I wish you’d be careful,’ I urged. ‘I heard it too.’
‘My dear Bunny, it’s on the knees you wot of. If anything’s
down in the specifications surely that is. Besides - that was
nearer!’
‘To you?’
‘No, to him. Poor devil, he has his specifications too; it’s
comforting to think that. ... I can’t see where that one
pitched; it may have been a wide; and it’s very nearly the end
of the over again. Feeling worse, Bunny?’
‘No, I’ve only closed my eyes. Go on talking.’
‘It was I who let you in for this,’ he said, at his bandolier
again.
‘No, I’m glad I came out.’
And I believe I still was, in a way; for it was rather fine to
be wounded, just then, with the pain growing less; but the
sensation was not to last me many minutes, and I can truth­
fully say that I have never felt it since. ‘Ah, but you haven’t
had such a good time as I have!’
‘Perhaps not.’
Had his voice vibrated, or had I imagined it? Pain waves
and loss of blood were playing tricks with my senses; now
they were quite dull, and my leg alive and throbbing; now I
had no leg at all, but more than all my ordinary senses in
every other part of me. And the devil’s orchestra was playing
all the time, and all around me, on every class of fiendish
instrument, which you have been made to hear for yourselves
in every newspaper. Yet all that I heard was Raffles talking.
‘I have had a good time, Bunny.’

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 RAFFLES

Yes, his voice was sad; but that was all; the vibration must
have been in me.
‘I know you have, old chap,’ said I.
‘I am grateful to the General for giving me to-day. It may
be the last. Then I can only say it’s been the best - by Jove!’
‘What is it?’
And I opened my eyes. His were shining. I can see them
now.
‘Got him - got the hat! No, I’m hanged if I have; at least
he wasn’t in it. The crafty cuss, he must have stuck it up on
purpose. Another over ... scoring’s slow.... I wonder if he’s
sportsman enough to take a hint? His hat-trick’s foolish. Will
he show his face if I show mine?’
I lay with closed ears and eyes. My leg had come to life
again, and the rest of me was numb.
‘Bunny!’
His voice sounded higher. He must have been sitting
upright.
‘Well?’
But it was not well with me; that was all I thought as my
lips made the word.
‘It’s not only been the best time I ever had, old Bunny, but
I’m not half sure -’
Of what I can but guess; the sentence was not finished, and
never could be in this world.

THE END

310
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 E.W HORNUNG ♦ Raffles :The Amateur Cracksman
WORDSWORTH CLASSICS

Raffles:
The Amateur Cracksman
E. W. HORNUNG

A J Raffles is undoubtedly a gentleman. He lives in Albany in

Piccadilly, and as one of England’s finest cricketers he is courted
during the day by the great, the rich and the fashionable, and
invited to their houses. By night he robs them.

Raffles, The Amateur Cracksman is the account of his adventures

told by Bunny Danvers, his admiring accomplice. These classic
tales of ingenuity and subtle revenge provide a vivid and
thrilling picture of high-class villainy when Victoria
was Queen and Britain had an Empire.

Cover Design by Robert Mathias, Publishing Workshop

Cover Illustration
Man in a Fur Coat by Robert Oswald Moser (1874-1953)
Christopher Wood Gallery, London
Courtesy of Bridgeman Art Library, London

ISBN 1-85326-094-0

9 781853 260940