E. W. Hornung_A J Raffles 01 (17 page)

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 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
properly. 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 the 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 he, 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 scrutinized us keenly; and 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 Crawshay?
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 followed 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
comes arfter rooms, and I sent him to the orfice; 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 yer 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' 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 an' 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 astonishment.
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.

"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 tightly. 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 conseederation; 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 building 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 meaning of
this insane promise? It was wilful, gratuitous, suicidal; it
made me catch at his sleeve in open horror and disgust; but, with
a word of thanks, Mackenzie had returned to his window-sill, and
we sauntered unwatched through the folding-doors into 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 necessary, 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."

"Are you 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-by, 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 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, unrecognizable 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 annex 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."

"Did it hang over a window? Ask him that!" cried the manager.
"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 like to see those rooms, six
windows along."

"Mr. Raffles," announced the manager after a mental calculation.

"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 fact, 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!"

He got up and fixed his keen gray 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."