E. W. Hornung_A J Raffles 02 (12 page)

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 diamonds 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.

"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 lie in wait for the aristocratic
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 loath. I had had just
champagne enough—how Raffles knew my measure!—and I was ready
and eager for anything. 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 economy of space.
We were about to drive into the spacious courtyard when the
gate-keeper 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 thought if it had
not been for his extraordinary effect upon Raffles. 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 stern.

"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 further 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 don't
believe he's getting rid of it; it's all lying low somewhere, 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 antiquity. 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'd 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. Chimney's 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 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 blind and curtains carefully, then switched on the
light 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 chimney, 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 has 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.

"Then we stultify ourselves downstairs," said Raffles. "No, I'll
be shot if I do! He may come in with the Kirkleatham diamonds!
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 emphasized 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 presumed to glance.

In an instant Raffles had seized the clubs, and was whirling
them about his gray 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, softened, 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 electric light.
I saw what he suspected now, and caught the contagion 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 weighted 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 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 counterpane was glittering with diamonds where it
was not shimmering with pearls.

"If this isn't that 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
diamonds. . . . I don't know the history of these pearls. . . .
This looks like one family of rings—left on the basin-stand,
perhaps—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 lugubrious
voice at length.

"Partnership be damned!" cried Raffles, heartily. "Let's get out
quicker than we came in."

We pocketed the things between us, cotton-wool and all, not
because we wanted the latter, but to remove all immediate 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 light, 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 afterwards 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 overcoat 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.