“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 imagined) 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 sha’n’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 go and 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 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 treacherous 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 unintelligent 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 behavior by 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 curtained, 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 mistaken…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, genuine, twin-screw, double-funnelled, copper-bottomed Old Master”; it was to “go one better” than some rival legislator of pictorial proclivities. But even an epitome of his monologue 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 impending 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 speechless first by my relief, I continued silent from a very different cause. A new tangle of emotions tied my tongue. Raffles had failed—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. Whiskey and soda-water became the order of the hour. I scarcely touched it, but he drank copiously, 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 handkerchief with the chloroform I had brought, and laid it gently over his mouth. Two or three stertorous breaths, and the man was a log.
I removed the handkerchief; I extracted the keys from his pocket.
In less than five minutes I put them back, after winding the picture about my body beneath my Inverness cape. I took some whiskey 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 lit a cigarette, and the lights of Waterloo reeled out behind.
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 R
affles 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 without a conscientious qualm; I had but robbed a robber, when all was said. And I had done it myself, single-handed—ipse egomet!
I pictured Raffles, his surprise, his delight. He would think a little more of me in future. And that future, it should be different. 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 story 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 blackest 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 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 jealous 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 check 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.
“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 ever 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.”
THE RETURN MATCH
I had turned into Piccadilly, one thick evening in the following 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 amusement, 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 anybody 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 mastery. And even while I argued we were on his staircase in the Albany.
His fire had fallen low. He poked and replenished it after lighting 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 whiskey and soda. Then he went out into 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, over-dressed 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 got away without a scratch under heavy fire. All honor 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 gayly 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—cynically unperturbed—characteristically enjoying the situation 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.”
The Raffles Megapack Page 12