E. W. Hornung_A J Raffles 03 (7 page)

"Let's only hope it would give him an apoplexy," said I shuddering.

"I shouldn't build on it," replied Raffles. "That's a big man's
trouble, and neither you nor I could get into the old chap's clothes.
But come into the best bedroom, Bunny. You won't think me selfish
if I don't give it up to you? Look at this, my boy, look at this!
It's the only one I use in all. the house."

I had followed him into a good room, with ample windows closely
curtained, and he had switched on the light in a hanging lamp at
the bedside. The rays fell from a thick green funnel in a plateful
of strong light upon a table deep in books. I noticed several
volumes of the "Invasion of the Crimea."

"That's where I rest the body and exercise the brain," said Raffles.
"I have long wanted to read my Kinglake from A to Z, and I manage
about a volume a night. There's a style for you, Bunny! I love the
punctilious thoroughness of the whole thing; one can understand its
appeal to our careful colonel. His name, did you say? Crutchley,
Bunny - Colonel Crutchley, R.E., V.C."

"We'd put his valor to the test!" said I, feeling more valiant
myself after our tour of inspection.

"Not so loud on the stairs," whispered Raffles. "There's only one
door between us and - "

Raffles stood still at my feet, and well he might! A deafening
double knock had resounded through the empty house; and to add to
the utter horror of the moment, Raffles instantly blew out the light.
I heard my heart pounding. Neither of us breathed. We were on our
way down to the first landing, and for a moment we stood like mice;
then Raffles heaved a deep sigh, and in the depths I heard the gate
swing home.

"Only the postman, Bunny! He will come now and again, though they
have obviously left instructions at the post-office. I hope the
old colonel will let them have it when he gets back. I confess it
gave me a turn."

"Turn!" I gasped. "I must have a drink, if I die for it."

"My dear Bunny, that's no part of my Rest Cure."

"Then good-by! I can't stand it; feel my forehead; listen to my
heart! Crusoe found a footprint, but he never heard a double-knock
at the street door!"

"'Better live in the midst of alarms,'" quoted Raffles, "'than dwell
in this horrible place.' I must confess we get it both ways, Bunny.
Yet I've nothing but tea in the house."

"And where do you make that? Aren't you afraid of smoke?"

"There's a gas-stove in the dining-room."

"But surely to goodness," I cried, "there's a cellar lower down!"

"My dear, good Bunny," said Raffles, "I've told you already that I
didn't come in here on business. I came in for the Cure. Not a
penny will these people be the worse, except for their washing and
their electric light, and I mean to leave enough to cover both
items."

"Then," said I, "since Brutus is such a very honorable man, we will
borrow a bottle from the cellar, and replace it before we go."

Raffles slapped me softly on the back, and I knew that I had gained
my point. It was often the case when I had the presence of heart
and mind to stand up to him. But never was little victory of mine
quite so grateful as this. Certainly it was a very small cellar,
indeed a mere cupboard under the kitchen stairs, with a most
ridiculous lock. Nor was this cupboard overstocked with wine. But
I made out a jar of whiskey, a shelf of Zeltinger, another of claret,
and a short one at the top which presented a little battery of
golden-leafed necks and corks. Raffles set his hand no lower. He
examined the labels while I held folded hat and naked light.

"Mumm, '84!" he whispered. "G. H. Mumm, and A.D. 1884! I am no
wine-bibber, Bunny, as you know, but I hope you appreciate the
specifications as I do. It looks to me like the only bottle, the
last of its case, and it does seem a bit of a shame; but more shame
for the miser who hoards in his cellar what was meant for mankind!
Come, Bunny, lead the way. This baby is worth nursing. It would
break my heart if anything happened to it now!"

So we celebrated my first night in the furnished house; and I slept
beyond belief, slept as I never was to sleep there again. But it
was strange to hear the milkman in the early morning, and the
postman knocking his way along the street an hour later, and to be
passed over by one destroying angel after another. I had come down
early enough, and watched through the drawing-room blind the
cleansing of all. the steps in the street but ours. Yet Raffles had
evidently been up some time; the house seemed far purer than
overnight as though he had managed to air it room by room; and from
the one with the gas-stove there came a frizzling sound that
fattened the heart.

I only would I had the pen to do justice to the week I spent in-doors
on Campden Hill! It might make amusing reading; the reality for me
was far removed from the realm of amusement. Not that I was denied
many a laugh of suppressed heartiness when Raffles and I were
together. But half our time we very literally saw nothing of each
other. I need not say whose fault that was. He would be quiet; he
was in ridiculous and offensive earnest about his egregious Cure.
Kinglake he would read by the hour together, day and night, by the
hanging lamp, lying up-stairs on the best bed. There was daylight
enough for me in the drawing-room below; and there I would sit
immersed in criminous tomes weakly fascinated until I shivered and
shook in my stocking soles. Often I longed to do something
hysterically desperate, to rouse Raffles and bring the street about
our ears; once I did bring him about mine by striking a single note
on the piano, with the soft pedal down. His neglect of me seemed
wanton at the time. I have long realized that he was only wise to
maintain silence at the expense of perilous amenities, and as fully
justified in those secret and solitary sorties which made bad blood
in my veins. He was far cleverer than I at getting in and out; but
even had I been his match for stealth and wariness, my company
would have doubled every risk. I admit now that he treated me with
quite as much sympathy as common caution would permit. But at the
time I took it so badly as to plan a small revenge.

What with his flourishing beard and the increasing shabbiness of
the only suit he had brought with him to the house, there was no
denying that Raffles had now the advantage of a permanent disguise.
That was another of his excuses for leaving me as he did, and it
was the one I was determined to remove. On a morning, therefore,
when I awoke to find him flown again, I proceeded to execute a plan
which I had already matured in my mind. Colonel Crutchley was a
married man; there were no signs of children in the house; on the
other hand, there was much evidence that the wife was a woman of
fashion. Her dresses overflowed the wardrobe and her room; large,
flat, cardboard boxes were to be found in every corner of the upper
floors. She was a tall woman; I was not too tall a man. Like
Raffles, I had not shaved on Campden Hill. That morning, however,
I did my best with a very fair razor which the colonel had left
behind in my room; then I turned out the lady's wardrobe and the
cardboard boxes, and took my choice.

I have fair hair, and at the time it was rather long. With a pair
of Mrs. Crutchley's tongs and a discarded hair-net, I was able to
produce an almost immodest fringe. A big black hat with a wintry
feather completed a headdress as unseasonable as my skating skirt
and feather boa; of course, the good lady had all. her summer frocks
away with her in Switzerland. This was all. the more annoying from
the fact that we were having a very warm September; so I was not
sorry to hear Raffles return as I was busy adding a layer of powder
to my heated countenance. I listened a moment on the landing, but
as he went into the study I determined to complete my toilet in
every detail. My idea was first to give him the fright he deserved,
and secondly to show him that I was quite as fit to move abroad as
he. It was, however, I confess, a pair of the colonel's gloves that
I was buttoning as I slipped down to the study even more quietly
than usual. The electric light was on, as it generally was by day,
and under it stood as formidable a figure as ever I encountered in
my life of crime.

Imagine a thin but extremely wiry man, past middle age, brown and
bloodless as any crabapple, but as coolly truculent and as casually
alert as Raffles at his worst. It was, it could only be, the
fire-eating and prison-inspecting colonel himself! He was ready for
me, a revolver in his hand, taken, as I could see, from one of those
locked drawers in the pedestal desk with which Raffles had refused
to tamper; the drawer was open, and a bunch of keys depended from
the lock. A grim smile crumpled up the parchment face, so that one
eye was puckered out of sight; the other was propped open by an
eyeglass, which, however, dangled on its string when I appeared.

"A woman, begad!" the warrior exclaimed. "And where's the man, you
scarlet hussy?"

Not a word could I utter. But, in my horror and my amazement, I
have no sort of doubt that I acted the part I had assumed in a manner
I never should have approached in happier circumstances.

"Come, come, my lass," cried the old oak veteran, "I'm not going to
put a bullet through you, you know! You tell me all. about it, and
it'll do you more good than harm. There, I'll put the nasty thing
away and - God bless me, if the brazen wench hasn't squeezed into
the wife's kit!"

A squeeze it happened to have been, and in my emotion it felt more
of one than ever; but his sudden discovery had not heightened the
veteran's animosity against me. On the contrary, I caught a glint
of humor through his gleaming glass, and he proceeded to pocket his
revolver like the gentleman he was.

"'Well, well, it's lucky I looked in," he continued. "I only came
round on the off-chance of letters, but if I hadn't you'd have had
another week in clover. Begad, though, I saw your handwriting the
moment I'd got my nose inside! Now just be sensible and tell me
where your good man is.

I had no man. I was alone, had broken in alone. There was not a
soul in the affair (much less the house) except myself. So much I
stuttered out in tones too hoarse to betray me on the spot. But
the old man of the world shook a hard old head.

"Quite right not to give away your pal," said he. "But I'm not one
of the marines, my dear, and you mustn't expect me to swallow all.
that. Well, if you won't say, you won't, and we must just send
for those who will."

In a flash I saw his fell design. The telephone directory lay open
on one of the pedestals. He must have been consulting it when he
heard me on the stairs; he had another look at it now; and that gave
me my opportunity. With a presence of mind rare enough in me to
excuse the boast, I flung myself upon the instrument in the corner
and hurled it to the ground with all. my might. I was myself sent
spinning into the opposite corner at the same instant. But the
instrument happened to be a standard of the more elaborate pattern,
and I flattered myself that I had put the delicate engine out of
action for the day.

Not that my adversary took the trouble to ascertain. He was looking
at me strangely in the electric light, standing intently on his
guard, his right hand in the pocket where he had dropped his
revolver. And I - I hardly knew it - but I caught up the first
thing handy for self-defence, and was brandishing the bottle which
Raffles and I had emptied in honor of my arrival on this fatal
scene.

"Be shot if I don't believe you're the man himself!" cried the
colonel, shaking an armed fist in my face. "You young wolf in
sheep's clothing. Been at my wine, of course! Put down that
bottle; down with it this instant, or I'll drill a tunnel through
your middle. I thought so! Begad, sir, you shall pay for this!
Don't you give me an excuse for potting you now, or I'll jump at
the chance! My last bottle of '84 - you miserable blackguard - you
unutterable beast!"

He had browbeaten me into his own chair in his own corner; he was
standing over me, empty bottle in one hand, revolver in the other,
and murder itself in the purple puckers of his raging face. His
language I will not even pretend to indicate: his skinny throat
swelled and trembled with the monstrous volleys. He could smile
at my appearance in his wife's clothes; he would have had my blood
for the last bottle of his best champagne. His eyes were not hidden
now; they needed no eyeglass to prop them open; large with fury,
they started from the livid mask. I watched nothing else. I could
not understand why they should start out as they did. I did not try.
I say I watched nothing else - until I saw the face of Raffles over
the unfortunate officer's shoulder.

Raffles had crept in unheard while our altercation was at its height,
had watched his opportunity, and stolen on his man unobserved by
either of us. While my own attention was completely engrossed, he
had seized the colonel's pistol-hand and twisted it behind the
colonel's back until his eyes bulged out as I have endeavored to
describe. But the fighting man had some fight in him still; and
scarcely had I grasped the situation when he hit out venomously
behind with the bottle, which was smashed to bits on Raffles's shin.
Then I threw my strength into the scale; and before many minutes we
had our officer gagged and bound in his chair. But it was not one
of our bloodless victories. Raffles had been cut to the bone by
the broken glass; his leg bled wherever he limped; and the fierce
eyes of the bound man followed the wet trail with gleams of sinister
satisfaction.

I thought I had never seen a man better bound or better gagged. But
the humanity seemed to have run out of Raffles with his blood. He
tore up tablecloths, he cut down blind-cords, he brought the
dust-sheets from the drawing-room, and multiplied every bond. The
unfortunate man's legs were lashed to the legs of his chair, his
arms to its arms, his thighs and back fairly welded to the leather.
Either end of his own ruler protruded from his bulging cheeks - the
middle was hidden by his moustache - and the gag kept in place by
remorseless lashings at the back of his head. It was a spectacle I
could not bear to contemplate at length, while from the first I
found myself physically unable to face the ferocious gaze of those
implacable eyes. But Raffles only laughed at my squeamishness, and
flung a dust-sheet over man and chair; and the stark outline drove me
from the room.