E. W. Hornung_A J Raffles 03 (21 page)

"It used to be."

"Then there'll be halliards."

"They were as thin as clothes-lines.".

"And they're sure to be rotten, and we should be seen cutting them
down. No, Bunny, that won't do. Wait a bit. Is there a lightning
conductor?"

"There was."

I opened one of the side windows and reached out as far as I could.
xyz
"You'll be seen from that skylight? cried Raffles in a warning
undertone.

"No, I won't. I can't see it myself. But here's the
lightning-conductor, where it always was."

"How thick," asked Raffles, as I drew in and rejoined him.

"Rather thicker than a lead-pencil."

"They sometimes bear you," said Raffles, slipping on a pair of
white kid gloves, and stuffing his handkerchief into the palm of one.
"The difficulty is to keep a grip; but I've been up and down them
before to-night. And it's our only chance. I'll go first, Bunny:
you watch me, and do exactly as I do if I get down all. right."

"But if you don't?"

"If I don't," whispered Raffles, as he wormed through the window
feet foremost, "I'm afraid you'll have to face the music where you
are, and I shall have the best of it down in Acheron!"

And he slid out of reach without another word, leaving me to shudder
alike at his levity and his peril; nor could I follow him very far
by the wan light of the April stars; but I saw his forearms resting
a moment in the spout that ran around the tower, between bricks and
slates, on the level of the floor; and I had another dim glimpse of
him lower still, on the eaves over the very room that we had
ransacked. Thence the conductor ran straight to earth in an angle
of the facade. And since it had borne him thus far without mishap,
I felt that Raffles was as good as down. But I had neither his
muscles nor his nerves, and my head swam as I mounted to the window
and prepared to creep out backward in my turn.

So it was that at the last moment I had my first unobstructed view
of the little old tower of other days. Raffles was out of the way;
the bit of candle was still burning on the floor, and in its dim
light the familiar haunt was cruelly like itself of innocent memory.
A lesser ladder still ascended to a tinier trap-door in the apex of
the tower; the fixed seats looked to me to be wearing their old,
old coat of grained varnish; nay the varnish had its ancient smell,
and the very vanes outside creaked their message to my ears. I
remembered whole days that I had spent, whole books that I had read,
here in this favorite fastness of my boyhood. The dirty little
place, with the dormer window in each of its four sloping sides,
became a gallery hung with poignant pictures of the past. And here
was I leaving it with my life in my hands and my pockets full of
stolen jewels! A superstition seized me. Suppose the conductor
came down with me . . . suppose I slipped . . . and was picked
up dead, with the proceeds of my shameful crime upon me, under the
very windows

. . . where the sun
Came peeping in at dawn . . .

I hardly remember what I did or left undone. I only know that
nothing broke, that somehow I kept my hold, and that in the end the
wire ran red-hot through my palms so that both were torn and
bleeding when I stood panting beside Raffles in the flower-beds.
There was no time for thinking then. Already there was a fresh
commotion in-doors; the tidal wave of excitement which had swept
all. before it to the upper regions was subsiding in as swift a
rush downstairs; and I raced after Raffles along the edge of the
drive without daring to look behind.

We came out by the opposite gate to that by which we had stolen in.
Sharp to the right ran the private lane behind the stables and
sharp to the right dashed Raffles, instead of straight along the
open road. It was not the course I should have chosen, but I
followed Raffles without a murmur, only too thankful that he had
assumed the lead at last. Already the stables were lit up like
a chandelier; there was a staccato rattle of horseshoes in the
stable yard, and the great gates were opening as we skimmed past
in the nick of time. In another minute we were skulking in the
shadow of the kitchen-garden wall while the high-road rang with
the dying tattoo of galloping hoofs.

"That's for the police," said Raffles, waiting for me. "But the
fun's only beginning in the stables. Hear the uproar, and see
the lights! In another minute they'll be turning out the hunters
for the last run of the season

"We mustn't give them one, Raffles?"

"Of course we mustn't; but that means stopping where we are."

"We can't do that?"

"If they're wise they'll send a man to every railway station
within ten miles and draw every cover inside the radius. I can
only think of one that's not likely to occur to them."

"What's that?"

"The other side of this wall. How big is the garden, Bunny?"

"Six or seven acres."

"Well, you must take me to another of your old haunts, where we can
lie low till morning."

"And then?"

"Sufficient for the night, Bunny! The first thing is to find a
burrow. What are those trees at the end of this lane?"

"St. Leonard's Forest."

"Magnificent! They'll scour every inch of that before they come
back to their own garden. Come, Bunny, give me a leg up, and I'll
pull you after me in two ticks?

There was indeed nothing better to be done; and, much as I loathed
and dreaded entering the place again, I had already thought of a
second sanctuary of old days, which might as well be put to the
base uses of this disgraceful night. In a far corner of the garden,
over a hundred yards from the house, a little ornamental lake had
been dug within my own memory; its shores were shelving lawn and
steep banks of rhododendrons; and among the rhododendrons nestled
a tiny boathouse which had been my childish joy. It was half a
dock for the dingy in which one plowed these miniature waters and
half a bathing-box for those who preferred their morning tub among
the goldfish. I could not think of a safer asylum than this, if
we must spend the night upon the premises; and Raffles agreed with
me when I had led him by sheltering shrubbery and perilous lawn
to the diminutive chalet between the rhododendrons and the water.

But what a night it was! The little bathing-box had two doors,
one to the water, the other to the path. To hear all. that could
be heard, it was necessary to keep both doors open, and quite
imperative not to talk. The damp night air of April filled the
place, and crept through our evening clothes and light overcoats
into the very marrow; the mental torture of the situation was
renewed and multiplied in my brain; and all. the time one's ears
were pricked for footsteps on the path between the rhododendrons.
The only sounds we could at first identify came one and all. from
the stables. Yet there the excitement subsided sooner than we
had expected, and it was Raffles himself who breathed a doubt as
to whether they were turning out the hunters after all. On the
other hand, we heard wheels in the drive not long after midnight;
and Raffles, who was beginning to scout among the shrubberies,
stole back to tell me that the guests were departing, and being
sped, with an unimpaired conviviality which he failed to understand.
I said I could not understand it either, but suggested the general
influence of liquor, and expressed my envy of their state. I had
drawn my knees up to my chin, on the bench where one used to dry
one's self after bathing, and there I sat in a seeming stolidity
at utter variance with my inward temper. I heard Raffles creep
forth again and I let him go without a word. I never doubted that
he would be back again in a minute, and so let many minutes elapse
before I realized his continued absence, and finally crept out
myself to look for him.

Even then I only supposed that he had posted himself outside in
some more commanding position. I took a catlike stride and
breathed his name. There was no answer. I ventured further, till
I could overlook the lawns: they lay like clean slates in the
starlight: there was no sign of living thing nearer than the house,
which was still lit up, but quiet enough now. Was it a cunning
and deliberate quiet assumed as a snare? Had they caught Raffles,
and were they waiting for me? I returned to the boat-house in an
agony of fear and indignation. It was fear for the long hours
that I sat there waiting for him; it was indignation when at last
I heard his stealthy step upon the gravel. I would not go out to
meet him. I sat where I was while the stealthy step came nearer,
nearer; and there I was sitting when the door opened, and a huge
man in riding-clothes stood before me in the steely dawn.

I leaped to my feet, and the huge man clapped me playfully on
the shoulder.

"Sorry I've been so long, Bunny, but we should never have got away
as we were; this riding-suit makes a new man of me, on top of my
own, and here's a youth's kit that should do you down to the ground."

"So you broke into the house again?

"I was obliged to, Bunny; but I had to watch the lights out one by
one, and give them a good hour after that I went through that
dressing room at my leisure this time; the only difficulty was to
spot the son's quarters at the back of the house; but I overcame it,
as you see, in the end. I only hope they'll fit, Bunny. Give me
your patent leathers, and I'll fill them with stones and sink them
in the pond. I'm doing the same with mine. Here's a brown pair
apiece, and we mustn't let the grass grow under them if we're to
get to the station in time for the early train while the coast's
still clear."

The early train leaves the station in question at 6.20 A.M.; and
that fine spring morning there was a police officer in a peaked cap
to see it off; but he was too busy peering into the compartments
for a pair of very swell mobsmen that he took no notice of the
huge man in riding-clothes, who was obviously intoxicated, or the
more insignificant but not less horsy character who had him in
hand. The early train is due at Victoria at 8.28, but these
worthies left it at Clapham Junction, and changed cabs more than
once between Battersea and Piccadilly, and a few of their garments
in each four-wheeler. It was barely nine o'clock when they sat
together in the Albany, and might have been recognized once more
as Raffles and myself.

"And now," said Raffles, "before we do anything else, let us turn
out those little cases that we hadn't time to open when we took
them. I mean the ones I handed to you, Bunny. I had a look into
mine in the garden, and I'm sorry to say there was nothing in them.
The lady must have been wearing their proper contents."

Raffles held out his hand for the substantial leather cases which
I had produced at his request. But that was the extent of my
compliance; instead of handing them over, I looked boldly into the
eyes that seemed to have discerned my wretched secret at one glance.

"It is no use my giving them to you," I said. "They are empty also."

"When did you look into them?"

"In the tower."

"Well, let me see for myself."

"As you like."

"My dear Bunny, this one must have contained the necklace you
boasted about."

"Very likely."

"And this one the tiara."

"I dare say."

"Yet she was wearing neither, as you prophesied, and as we both
saw for ourselves?

I had not taken my eyes from his.

"Raffles," I said, "I'll be frank with you after all. I meant you
never to know, but it's easier than telling you a lie. I left both
things behind me in the tower. I won't attempt to explain or defend
myself; it was probably the influence of the tower, and nothing
else; but the whole thing came over me at the last moment, when you
had gone and I was going. I felt that I should very probably break
my neck, that I cared very little whether I did or not, but that it
would be frightful to break it at that house with those things in my
pocket. You may say I ought to have thought of all. that before!
you may say what you like, and you won't say more than I deserve.
It was hysterical, and it was mean, for I kept the cases to impose
on you."

"You were always a bad liar, Bunny," said Raffles, smiling. "Will
you think me one when I tell you that I can understand what you
felt, and even what you did? As a matter of fact, I have understood
for several hours now."

"You mean what I felt, Raffles?"

"And what you did. I guessed it in the boathouse. I knew that
something must have happened or been discovered to disperse that
truculent party of sportsmen so soon and on such good terms with
themselves. They had not got us; they might have got something
better worth having; and your phlegmatic attitude suggested what.
As luck would have it, the cases that I personally had collared
were the empty ones; the two prizes had fallen to you. Well, to
allay my horrid suspicion, I went and had another peep through
the lighted venetians. And what do you think I saw?"

I shook my head. I had no idea, nor was I very eager for
enlightenment.

"The two poor people whom it was your own idea to despoil," quoth
Raffles, "prematurely gloating over these two pretty things?

He withdrew a hand from either pocket of his crumpled dinner-jacket,
and opened the pair under my nose. In one was a diamond tiara, and
in the other a necklace of fine emeralds set in clusters of
brilliants.

"You must try to forgive me, Bunny," continued Raffles before I
could speak. "I don't say a word against what you did, or undid;
in fact, now it's all. over, I am rather glad to think that you did
try to undo it. But, my dear fellow, we had both risked life,
limb, and liberty; and I had not your sentimental scruples. Why
should I go empty away? If you want to know the inner history of
my second visit to that good fellow's dressing-room, drive home
for a fresh kit and meet me at the Turkish bath in twenty minutes.
I feel more than a little grubby, and we can have our breakfast
in the cooling gallery. Besides, after a whole night in your old
haunts, Bunny, it's only in order to wind up in Northumberland
Avenue."