E. W. Hornung_A J Raffles 03 (23 page)

"What we really do want," remarked Raffles mildly, "is to see
something else as clever as that last."

"Then come this way," said the clerk, and led us into a recess
almost monopolized by the iron-clamped chest of thrilling memory,
now a mere platform for the collection of mysterious objects under
a dust-sheet on the lid. "These," he continued, unveiling them
with an air, are the Raffles Relics, taken from his rooms in the
Albany after his death and burial, and the most complete set
we've got. That's his centre-bit, and this is the bottle of
rock-oil he's supposed to have kept dipping it in to prevent
making a noise. Here's the revawlver he used when he shot at a
gentleman on the roof down Horsham way; it was afterward taken
from him on the P. & O. boat before he jumped overboard."

I could not help saying I understood that Raffles had never shot at
anybody. I was standing with my back to the nearest window, my hat
jammed over my brows and my overcoat collar up to my ears.

"That's the only time we know about," the clerk admitted; "and it
couldn't be brought 'ome, or his precious pal would have got more
than he did. This empty cawtridge is the one he 'id the Emperor's
pearl in, on the Peninsular and Orient. These gimlets and wedges
were what he used for fixin' doors. This is his rope-ladder, with
the telescope walking-stick he used to hook it up with; he's said
to have 'ad it with him the night he dined with the Earl of
Thornaby, and robbed the house before dinner. That's his
life-preserver; but no one can make out what this little thick
velvet bag's for, with the two holes and the elawstic round
each. Perhaps you can give a guess, sir?"

Raffles had taken up the bag that he had invented for the noiseless
filing of keys. Now he handled it as though it were a tobacco-pouch,
putting in finger and thumb, and shrugging over the puzzle with a
delicious face; nevertheless, he showed me a few grains of steel
filing as the result of his investigations, and murmured in my ear,
"These sweet police! I, for my part, could not but examine the
life-preserver with which I had once smitten Raffles himself to the
ground: actually, there was his blood upon it still; and seeing my
horror, the clerk plunged into a characteristically garbled version
of that incident also. It happened to have come to light among
others at the Old Bailey, and perhaps had its share in promoting
the quality of mercy which had undoubtedly been exercised on my
behalf. But the present recital was unduly trying, and Raffles
created a noble diversion by calling attention to an early photograph
of himself, which may still hang on the wall over the historic chest,
but which I had carefully ignored. It shows him in flannels, after
some great feat upon the tented field. I am afraid there is a
Sullivan between his lips, a look of lazy insolence in the half-shut
eyes. I have since possessed myself of a copy, and it is not Raffles
at his best; but the features are clean-cut and regular; and I often
wish that I had lent it to the artistic gentlemen who have battered
the statue out of all. likeness to the man.

"You wouldn't think it of him, would you?" quoth the clerk. "It
makes you understand how no one ever did think it of him at the
time."

The youth was looking full at Raffles, with the watery eyes of
unsuspecting innocence. I itched to emulate the fine bravado of
my friend.

"You said he had a pal," I observed, sinking deeper into the collar
of my coat. "Haven't you got a photograph of him?"

The pale clerk gave such a sickly smile, I could have smacked some
blood into his pasty face.

"You mean Bunny?" said the familiar fellow. "No, sir, he'd be out
of place; we've only room for real criminals here. Bunny was neither
one thing nor the other. He could follow Raffles, but that's all. he
could do. He was no good on his own. Even when he put up the
low-down job of robbing his old 'ome, it's believed he hadn't the
'eart to take the stuff away, and Raffles had to break in a second
time for it. No, sir, we don't bother our heads about Bunny; we
shall never hear no more of 'im. He was a harmless sort of rotter,
if you awsk me."

I had not asked him, and I was almost foaming under the respirator
that I was making of my overcoat collar. I only hoped that Raffles
would say something, and he did.

"The only case I remember anything about," he remarked, tapping the
clamped chest with his umbrella, "was this; and that time, at all.
events, the man outside must have had quite as much to do as the
one inside. May I ask what you keep in it?"

"Nothing, sir.

"I imagined more relics inside. Hadn't he some dodge of getting in
and out without opening the lid?"

"Of putting his head out, you mean," returned the clerk, whose
knowledge of Raffles and his Relics was really most comprehensive
on the whole. He moved some of the minor memorials and with his
penknife raised the trap-door in the lid.

"Only a skylight," remarked Raffles, deliciously unimpressed.

"Why, what else did you expect?" asked the clerk, letting the
trap-door down again, and looking sorry that he had taken so much
trouble.

"A backdoor, at least!" replied Raffles, with such a sly look at
me that I had to turn aside to smile. It was the last time I
smiled that day.

The door had opened as I turned, and an unmistakable detective had
entered with two more sight-seers like ourselves. He wore the hard,
round hat and the dark, thick overcoat which one knows at a glance
as the uniform of his grade; and for one awful moment his steely
eye was upon us in a flash of cold inquiry. Then the clerk emerged
from the recess devoted to the Raffles Relics, and the alarming
interloper conducted his party to the window opposite the door.

"Inspector Druce," the clerk informed us in impressive whispers,
"who had the Chalk Farm case in hand. He'd be the man for Raffles,
if Raffles was alive to-day!"

"I'm sure he would," was the grave reply. "I should be very sorry
to have a man like that after me. But what a run there seems to be
upon your Black Museum!"

"There isn't reelly, sir," whispered the clerk. "We sometimes go
weeks on end without having regular visitors like you two gentlemen.
I think those are friends of the Inspector's, come to see the Chalk
Farm photographs, that helped to hang his man. We've a lot of
interesting photographs, sir, if you like to have a look at them."

"If it won't take long," said Raffles, taking out his watch; and as
the clerk left our side for an instant he gripped my arm. "This is
a bit too hot," he whispered, "but we mustn't cut and run like
rabbits. That might be fatal. Hide your face in the photographs,
and leave everything to me. I'll have a train to catch as soon as
ever I dare."

I obeyed without a word, and with the less uneasiness as I had time
to consider the situation. It even struck me that Raffles was for
once inclined to exaggerate the undeniable risk that we ran by
remaining in the same room with an officer whom both he and I knew
only too well by name and repute. Raffles, after all., had aged and
altered out of knowledge; but he had not lost the nerve that was
equal to a far more direct encounter than was at all. likely to be
forced upon us. On the other hand, it was most improbable that a
distinguished detective would know by sight an obscure delinquent
like myself; besides, this one had come to the front since my day.
Yet a risk it was, and I certainly did not smile as I bent over the
album of horrors produced by our guide. I could still take an
interest in the dreadful photographs of murderous and murdered men;
they appealed to the morbid element in my nature; and it was
doubtless with degenerate unction that I called Raffles's attention
to a certain scene of notorious slaughter. There was no response.
I looked round. There was no Raffles to respond. We had all. three
been examining the photographs at one of the windows; at another
three newcomers were similarly engrossed; and without one word, or
a single sound, Raffles had decamped behind all. our backs.

Fortunately the clerk was himself very busy gloating over the
horrors of the album; before he looked round I had hidden my
astonishment, but not my wrath, of which I had the instinctive sense
to make no secret.

"My friend's the most impatient man on earth!" I exclaimed. "He
said he was going to catch a train, and now he's gone without a word!"

"I never heard him," said the clerk, looking puzzled.

"No more did I; but he did touch me on the shoulder," I lied,
"and say something or other. I was too deep in this beastly book
to pay much attention. He must have meant that he was off. Well,
let him be off! I mean to see all. that's to be seen."

And in my nervous anxiety to allay any suspicions aroused by my
companion's extraordinary behavior, I outstayed even the eminent
detective and his friends, saw them examine the Raffles Relics,
heard them discuss me under my own nose, and at last was alone
with the anemic clerk. I put my hand in my pocket, and measured
him with a sidelong eye. The tipping system is nothing less than
a minor bane of my existence. Not that one is a grudging giver,
but simply because in so many cases it is so hard to know whom
to tip and what to tip him. I know what it is to be the parting
guest who has not parted freely enough, and that not from
stinginess but the want of a fine instinct on the point. I made
no mistake, however, in the case of the clerk, who accepted my
pieces of silver without demur, and expressed a hope of seeing the
article which I had assured him I was about to write. He has had
some years to wait for it, but I flatter myself that these
belated pages will occasion more interest than offense if they
ever do meet those watery eyes.

Twilight was falling when I reached the street; the sky behind St.
Stephen's had flushed and blackened like an angry face; the lamps
were lit, and under every one I was unreasonable enough to look
for Raffles. Then I made foolishly sure that I should find him
hanging about the station, and hung thereabouts myself until one
Richmond train had gone without me. In the end I walked over
the bridge to Waterloo, and took the first train to Teddington
instead. That made a shorter walk of it, but I had to grope my
way through a white fog from the river to Ham Common, and it was
the hour of our cosy dinner when I reached our place of retirement.
There was only a flicker of firelight on the blinds: I was the
first to return after all. It was nearly four hours since Raffles
had stolen away from my side in the ominous precincts of Scotland
Yard. Where could he be? Our landlady wrung her hands over him;
she had cooked a dinner after her favorite's heart, and I let it
spoil before making one of the most melancholy meals of my life.

Up to midnight there was no sign of him; but long before this time
I had reassured our landlady with a voice and face that must have
given my words the lie. I told her that Mr. Ralph (as she used to
call him) had said something about going to the theatre; that I
thought he had given up the idea, but I must have been mistaken,
and should certainly sit up for him. The attentive soul brought
in a plate of sandwiches before she retired; and I prepared to make
a night of it in a chair by the sitting-room fire. Darkness and
bed I could not face in my anxiety. In a way I felt as though
duty and loyalty called me out into the winter s night; and yet
whither should I turn to look for Raffles? I could think of but
one place, and to seek him there would be to destroy myself without
aiding him. It was my growing conviction that he had been
recognized when leaving Scotland Yard, and either taken then and
there, or else hunted into some new place of hiding. It would all.
be in the morning papers; and it was all. his own fault. He had
thrust his head into the lion's mouth, and the lion's jaws had
snapped. Had he managed to withdraw his head in time?

There was a bottle at my elbow, and that night I say deliberately
that it was not my enemy but my friend. It procured me at last
some surcease from my suspense. I fell fast asleep in my chair
before the fire. The lamp was still burning, and the fire red,
when I awoke; but I sat very stiff in the iron clutch of a wintry
morning. Suddenly I slued round in my chair. And there was Raffles
in a chair behind me, with the door open behind him, quietly taking
off his boots.

"Sorry to wake you, Bunny," said he. "I thought I was behaving
like a mouse; but after a three hours' tramp one's feet are all.
heels."

I did not get up and fall upon his neck. I sat back in my chair
and blinked with bitterness upon his selfish insensibility. He
should not know what I had been through on his account.

"Walk out from town?" I inquired, as indifferently as though he
were in the habit of doing so.

"From Scotland Yard," he answered, stretching himself before the
fire in his stocking soles.

"Scotland Yard?" I echoed. "Then I was right; that's where you
were all. the time; and yet you managed to escape!"

I had risen excitedly in my turn.

"Of course I did," replied Raffles. "I never thought there would
be much difficulty about that, but there was even less than I
anticipated. I did once find myself on one side of a sort of
counter, and an officer dozing at his desk at the other side. I
thought it safest to wake him up and make inquiries about a mythical
purse left in a phantom hansom outside the Carlton. And the way
the fellow fired me out of that was another credit to the
Metropolitan Police: it's only in the savage countries that they
would have troubled to ask how one had got in."

"And how did you?" I asked. "And in the Lord's name, Raffles,
when and why?"

Raffles looked down on me under raised eyebrows, as he stood with
his coat tails to the dying fire.