E. W. Hornung_A J Raffles 03 (11 page)

"Exactly!" said Raffles in answer to my exclamation. "And that's
the window I have been watching these last few weeks. By daylight
you can see the whole lot above the ground floor on this side of
the house; and by good luck one of them is the room in which the
master of the house arrays himself in all. his nightly glory. It
was easily spotted by watching at the right time. I saw him shaved
one morning before you were up! In the evening his valet stays
behind to put things straight; and that has been the very mischief.
In the end I had to find out something about the man, and wire to
him from his girl to meet her outside at eight o'clock. Of course
he pretends he was at his post at the time: that I foresaw, and
did the poor fellow's work before my own. I folded and put away
every garment before I permitted myself to rag the room."

"I wonder you had time!"

"It took me one more minute, and it put the clock on exactly
fifteen. By the way, I did that literally, of course, in the case
of the clock they found. It's an old dodge, to stop a clock and
alter the time; but you must admit that it looked as though one had
wrapped it up all. ready to cart away. There was thus any amount of
prima-fade evidence of the robbery having taken place when we were
all. at table. As a matter of fact, Lord Thornaby left his
dressing-room one minute, his valet followed him the minute after,
and I entered the minute after that."

"Through the window?"

"To be sure. I was waiting below in the garden. You have to pay
for your garden in town, in more ways than one. You know the wall,
of course, and that jolly old postern? The lock was beneath
contempt."

"But what about the window? It's on the first floor, isn't it?"

Raffles took up the cane which he had laid down with his overcoat.
It was a stout bamboo with a polished ferule. He unscrewed the
ferule, and shook out of the cane a diminishing series of smaller
canes, exactly like a child's fishing-rod, which I afterward found
to have been their former state. A double hook of steel was now
produced and quickly attached to the tip of the top joint; then
Raffles undid three buttons of his waistcoat; and lapped round and
round his waist was the finest of Manila ropes, with the neatest
of foot-loops at regular intervals.

"Is it necessary to go any further?" asked Raffles when he had
unwound the rope. "This end is made fast to that end of the hook,
the other half of the hook fits over anything that comes its way,
and you leave your rod dangling while you swarm up your line. Of
course, you must know what you've got to hook on to; but a man who
has had a porcelain bath fixed in his dressing-room is the man for
me. The pipes were all. outside, and fixed to the wall in just the
right place. You see I had made a reconnaissance by day in addition
to many by night; it would hardly have been worth while constructing
my ladder on chance."

"So you made it on purpose!"

"My dear Bunny," said Raffles, as he wound the hemp girdle round
his waist once more, "I never did care for ladder work, but I always
said that if I ever used a ladder it should be the best of its kind
yet invented. This one may come in useful again."

"But how long did the whole thing take you?"

"From mother earth, to mother earth? About five minutes, to-night,
and one of those was spent in doing another man's work."

"What!" I cried. "You mean to tell me you climbed up and down, in
and out, and broke into that cupboard and that big tin box, and
wedged up the doors and cleared out with a peer's robes and all. the
rest of it in five minutes?"

"Of course I don't, and of course I didn't."

"Then what do you mean, and what did you do?"

"Made two bites at the cherry, Bunny! I had a dress rehearsal in
the dead of last night, and it was then I took the swag. Our noble
friend was snoring next door all. the time, but the effort may still
stand high among my small exploits, for I not only took all. I wanted,
but left the whole place exactly as I found it, and shut things
after me like a good little boy. All. that took a good deal longer;
to-night I had simply to rag the room a bit, sweep up some studs
and links, and leave ample evidence of having boned those rotten
robes to-night. That, if you come to think of it, was what you
writing chaps would call the quintessential Q.E.F. I have not only
shown these dear Criminologists that I couldn't possibly have done
this trick, but that there's some other fellow who could and did,
and whom they've been perfect asses to confuse with me."

You may figure me as gazing on Raffles all. this time in mute and
rapt amazement. But I had long been past that pitch. If he had
told me now that he had broken into the Bank of England, or the
Tower, I should not have disbelieved him for a moment. I was
prepared to go home with him to the Albany and find the regalia
under his bed. And I took down my overcoat as he put on his. But
Raffles would not hear of my accompanying him that night.

"No, my dear Bunny, I am short of sleep and fed up with excitement.
You mayn't believe it - you may look upon me as a plaster devil -
but those five minutes you wot of were rather too crowded even for
my taste. The dinner was nominally at a quarter to eight, and I
don't mind telling you now that I counted on twice as long as I had.
But no one came until twelve minutes to, and so our host took his
time. I didn't want to be the last to arrive, and I was in the
drawing-room five minutes before the hour. But it was a quicker
thing than I care about, when all. is said."

And his last word on the matter, as he nodded and went his way, may
well be mine; for one need be no criminologist, much less a member
of the Criminologists' Club, to remember what Raffles did with the
robes and coronet of the Right Hon. the Earl of Thornaby, K.G. He
did with them exactly what he might have been expected to do by the
gentlemen with whom he had foregathered; and he did it in a manner
so characteristic of himself as surely to remove from their minds
the last aura of the idea that he and himself were the same person.
Carter Paterson was out of the question, and any labelling or
addressing to be avoided on obvious grounds. But Raffles stabled
the white elephants in the cloak-room at Charing Cross - and sent
Lord Thornaby the ticket.

Nipper Nasmyth had been head of our school when Raffles was captain
of cricket. I believe he owed his nickname entirely to the popular
prejudice against a day-boy; and in view of the special reproach
which the term carried in my time, as also of the fact that his
father was one of the school trustees, partner in a banking firm of
four resounding surnames, and manager of the local branch, there
can be little doubt that the stigma was undeserved. But we did not
think so then, for Nasmyth was unpopular with high and low, and
appeared to glory in the fact. A swollen conscience caused him to
see and hear even more than was warranted by his position, and his
uncompromising nature compelled him to act on whatsoever he heard
or saw: a savage custodian of public morals, he had in addition a
perverse enthusiasm for lost causes, loved a minority for its own
sake, and untenable tenets for theirs. Such, at all. events, was my
impression of Nipper Nasmyth, after my first term, which was also
his last I had never spoken to him, but I had heard him speak with
extraordinary force and fervor in the school debates. I carried a
clear picture of his unkempt hair, his unbrushed coat, his dominant
spectacles, his dogmatic jaw. And it was I who knew the combination
at a glance, after years and years, when the fateful whim seized
Raffles to play once more in the Old Boys' Match, and his will took
me down with him to participate in the milder festivities of
Founder's Day.

It was, however, no ordinary occasion. The bicentenary loomed but
a year ahead, and a movement was on foot to mark the epoch with an
adequate statue of our pious founder. A special meeting was to be
held at the school-house, and Raffles had been specially invited by
the new head master, a man of his own standing, who had been in the
eleven with him up at Cambridge. Raffles had not been near the old
place for years; but I had never gone down since the day I left;
and I will not dwell on the emotions which the once familiar journey
awakened in my unworthy bosom. Paddington was alive with Old Boys
of all. ages - but very few of ours - if not as lively as we used to
make it when we all. landed back for the holidays. More of us had
moustaches and cigarettes and "loud" ties. That was all. Yet of
the throng, though two or three looked twice and thrice at Raffles,
neither he nor I knew a soul until we had to change at the junction
near our journey's end, when, as I say, it was I who recognized
Nipper Nasmyth at sight.

The man was own son of the boy we both remembered. He had grown
a ragged beard and a moustache that hung about his face like a
neglected creeper. He was stout and bent and older than his years.
But he spurned the platform with a stamping stride which even I
remembered in an instant, and which was enough for Raffles before
he saw the man's face.

"The Nipper it is!" he cried. "I could swear to that walk in a
pantomime procession! See the independence in every step: that's
his heel on the neck of the oppressor: it's the nonconformist
conscience in baggy breeches. I must speak to him, Bunny. There
was a lot of good in the old Nipper, though he and I did bar each
other."

And in a moment he had accosted the man by the boy's nickname,
obviously without thinking of an affront which few would have read
in that hearty open face and hand.

"My name's Nasmyth," snapped the other, standing upright to glare.

"Forgive me," said Raffles undeterred. "One remembers a nickname
and forgets all. it never used to mean. Shake hands, my dear fellow!
I'm Raffles. It must be fifteen years since we met."

"At least," replied Nasmyth coldly; but he could no longer refuse
Raffles his hand. "So you are going down," he sneered, "to this
great gathering?" And I stood listening at my distance, as though
still in the middle fourth.

"Rather!" cried Raffles. "I'm afraid I have let myself lose touch,
but I mean to turn over a new leaf. I suppose that isn't necessary
in your case, Nasmyth?"

He spoke with an enthusiasm rare indeed in him: it had grown upon
Raffles in the train; the spirit of his boyhood had come rushing
back at fifty miles an hour. He might have been following some
honorable calling in town; he might have snatched this brief respite
from a distinguished but exacting career. I am convinced that it
was I alone who remembered at that moment the life we were really
leading at that time. With me there walked this skeleton through
every waking hour that was to follow. I shall endeavor not to refer
to it again. Yet it should not be forgotten that my skeleton was
always there.

"It certainly is not necessary in my case," replied Nasmyth, still
as stiff as any poker. "I happen to be a trustee."

"Of the school?"

"Like my father before me."

"I congratulate you, my dear fellow!" cried the hearty Raffles - a
younger Raffles than I had ever known in town.

"I don't know that you need," said Nasmyth sourly.

"But it must be a tremendous interest. And the proof is that
you're going down to this show, like all. the rest of us."

"No, I'm not. I live there, you see."

And I think the Nipper recalled that name as he ground his heel
upon an unresponsive flagstone.

"But you're going to this meeting at the school-house, surely?"

"I don't know. If I do there may be squalls. I don't know what
you think about this precious scheme Raffles, but I . . ."

The ragged beard stuck out, set teeth showed through the wild
moustache, and in a sudden outpouring we had his views. They were
narrow and intemperate and perverse as any I had heard him advocate
as the firebrand of the Debating Society in my first term. But
they were stated with all. the old vim and venom. The mind of
Nasmyth had not broadened with the years, but neither had its
natural force abated, nor that of his character either. He spoke
with great vigor at the top of his voice; soon we had a little
crowd about us; but the tall collars and the broad smiles of the
younger Old Boys did not deter our dowdy demagogue. Why spend
money on a man who had been dead two hundred years? What good
could it do him or the school? Besides, he was only technically
our founder. He had not founded a great public school. He had
founded a little country grammar school which had pottered along
for a century and a half. The great public school was the growth
of the last fifty years, and no credit to the pillar of piety.
Besides, he was only nominally pious. Nasmyth had made researches,
and he knew. And why throw good money after a bad man?

"Are there many of your opinion?" inquired Raffles, when the
agitator paused for breath. And Nasmyth beamed on us with flashing
eyes.

"Not one to my knowledge as yet," said he. "But we shall see after
to-morrow night. I hear it's to be quite an exceptional gathering
this year; let us hope it may contain a few sane men. There are
none on the present staff, and I only know of one among the trustees!"

Raffles refrained from smiling as his dancing eye met mine.

"I can understand your view," he said. "I am not sure that I don't
share it to some extent. But it seems to me a duty to support a
general movement like this even if it doesn't take the direction or
the shape of our own dreams. I suppose you yourself will give
something, Nasmyth?"

"Give something? I? Not a brass farthing!" cried the implacable
banker. "To do so would be to stultify my whole position. I
cordially and conscientiously disapprove of the whole thing, and
shall use all. my influence against it. No, my good sir, I not only
don't subscribe myself, but I hope to be the means of nipping a good
many subscriptions in the bud."