E. W. Hornung_A J Raffles 01 (13 page)

But three doors presented themselves; the first opened into a
bedroom with the bed turned down but undisturbed; the second room
was empty in every sense; the third door was locked.

Raffles lit the landing gas.

"He's in there," said he, cocking his revolver. "Do you remember
how we used to break into the studies at school? Here goes!"

His flat foot crashed over the keyhole, the lock gave, the door
flew open, and in the sudden draught the landing gas heeled over
like a cobble in a squall; as the flame righted itself I saw a
fixed bath, two bath-towels knotted together—an open window—a
cowering figure—and Raffles struck aghast on the threshold.

"JACK—RUTTER?"

The words came thick and slow with horror, and in horror I heard
myself repeating them, while the cowering figure by the bathroom
window rose gradually erect.

"It's you!" he whispered, in amazement no less than our own;
"it's you two! What's it mean, Raffles? I saw you get over the
gate; a bell rang, the place is full of them. Then you broke in.
What's it all mean?"

"We may tell you that, when you tell us what in God's name you've
done, Rutter!"

"Done? What have I done?" The unhappy wretch came out into the
light with bloodshot, blinking eyes, and a bloody shirt-front.
"You know—you've seen—but I'll tell you if you like. I've
killed a robber; that's all. I've killed a robber, a usurer, a
jackal, a blackmailer, the cleverest and the cruellest villain
unhung. I'm ready to hang for him. I'd kill him again!"

And he looked us fiercely in the face, a fine defiance in his
dissipated eyes; his breast heaving, his jaw like a rock.

"Shall I tell you how it happened?" he went passionately on.
"He's made my life a hell these weeks and months past. You may
know that. A perfect hell! Well, to-night I met him in Bond
Street. Do you remember when I met you fellows? He wasn't
twenty yards behind you; he was on your tracks, Raffles; he saw
me nod to you, and stopped me and asked me who you were. He
seemed as keen as knives to know, I couldn't think why, and
didn't care either, for I saw my chance. I said I'd tell him all
about you if he'd give me a private interview. He said he
wouldn't. I said he should, and held him by the coat; by the
time I let him go you were out of sight, and I waited where I was
till he came back in despair. I had the whip-hand of him then.
I could dictate where the interview should be, and I made him
take me home with him, still swearing to tell him all about you
when we'd had our talk. Well, when we got here I made him give
me something to eat, putting him off and off; and about ten
o'clock I heard the gate shut. I waited a bit, and then asked
him if he lived alone.

"'Not at all,' says he; 'did you not see the servant?'

"I said I'd seen her, but I thought I'd heard her go; if I was
mistaken no doubt she would come when she was called; and I
yelled three times at the top of my voice. Of course there was
no servant to come. I knew that, because I came to see him one
night last week, and he interviewed me himself through the gate,
but wouldn't open it. Well, when I had done yelling, and not a
soul had come near us, he was as white as that ceiling. Then I
told him we could have our chat at last; and I picked the poker
out of the fender, and told him how he'd robbed me, but, by God,
he shouldn't rob me any more. I gave him three minutes to write
and sign a settlement of all his iniquitous claims against me, or
have his brains beaten out over his own carpet. He thought a
minute, and then went to his desk for pen and paper. In two
seconds he was round like lightning with a revolver, and I went
for him bald-headed. He fired two or three times and missed; you
can find the holes if you like; but I hit him every time—my God!
I was like a savage till the thing was done. And then I didn't
care. I went through his desk looking for my own bills, and was
coming away when you turned up. I said I didn't care, nor do I;
but I was going to give myself up to-night, and shall still; so
you see I sha'n't give you fellows much trouble!"

He was done; and there we stood on the landing of the lonely
house, the low, thick, eager voice still racing and ringing
through our ears; the dead man below, and in front of us his
impenitent slayer. I knew to whom the impenitence would appeal
when he had heard the story, and I was not mistaken.

"That's all rot," said Raffles, speaking after a pause; "we
sha'n't let you give yourself up."

"You sha'n't stop me! What would be the good? The woman saw me;
it would only be a question of time; and I can't face waiting to
be taken. Think of it: waiting for them to touch you on the
shoulder! No, no, no; I'll give myself up and get it over."

His speech was changed; he faltered, floundered. It was as though
a clearer perception of his position had come with the bare idea
of escape from it.

"But listen to me," urged Raffles; "We're here at our peril
ourselves. We broke in like thieves to enforce redress for a
grievance very like your own. But don't you see? We took out a
pane—did the thing like regular burglars. Regular burglars will
get the credit of all the rest!"

"You mean that I sha'n't be suspected?"

"I do."

"But I don't want to get off scotfree," cried Rutter
hysterically. "I've killed him. I know that. But it was in
self-defence; it wasn't murder. I must own up and take the
consequences. I shall go mad if I don't!"

His hands twitched; his lips quivered; the tears were in his
eyes. Raffles took him roughly by the shoulder.

"Look here, you fool! If the three of us were caught here now,
do you know what those consequences would be? We should swing in
a row at Newgate in six weeks' time! You talk as though we were
sitting in a club; don't you know it's one o'clock in the
morning, and the lights on, and a dead man down below? For God's
sake pull yourself together, and do what I tell you, or you're a
dead man yourself."

"I wish I was one!" Rutter sobbed. "I wish I had his revolver to
blow my own brains out. It's lying under him. O my God, my God!"

His knees knocked together: the frenzy of reaction was at its
height. We had to take him downstairs between us, and so through
the front door out into the open air.

All was still outside—all but the smothered weeping of the
unstrung wretch upon our hands. Raffles returned for a moment to
the house; then all was dark as well. The gate opened from
within; we closed it carefully behind us; and so left the
starlight shining on broken glass and polished spikes, one and
all as we had found them.

We escaped; no need to dwell on our escape. Our murderer seemed
set upon the scaffold—drunk with his deed, he was more trouble
than six men drunk with wine. Again and again we threatened to
leave him to his fate, to wash our hands of him. But incredible
and unmerited luck was with the three of us. Not a soul did we
meet between that and Willesden; and of those who saw us later,
did one think of the two young men with crooked white ties,
supporting a third in a seemingly unmistakable condition, when
the evening papers apprised the town of a terrible tragedy at
Kensal Rise?

We walked to Maida Vale, and thence drove openly to my rooms.
But I alone went upstairs; the other two proceeded to the Albany,
and I saw no more of Raffles for forty-eight hours. He was not
at his rooms when I called in the morning; he had left no word.
When he reappeared the papers were full of the murder; and the
man who had committed it was on the wide Atlantic, a steerage
passenger from Liverpool to New York.

"There was no arguing with him," so Raffles told me; "either he
must make a clean breast of it or flee the country. So I rigged
him up at the studio, and we took the first train to Liverpool.
Nothing would induce him to sit tight and enjoy the situation as
I should have endeavored to do in his place; and it's just as
well! I went to his diggings to destroy some papers, and what do
you think I found. The police in possession; there's a warrant
out against him already! The idiots think that window wasn't
genuine, and the warrant's out. It won't be my fault if it's
ever served!"

Nor, after all these years, can I think it will be mine.

Well," said Raffles, "what do you make of it?"

I read the advertisement once more before replying. It was in
the last column of the Daily Telegraph, and it ran:

TWO THOUSAND POUNDS REWARD—The above sum may be earned by any
one qualified to undertake delicate mission and prepared to run
certain risk.—Apply by telegram, Security, London.

"I think," said I, "it's the most extraordinary advertisement
that ever got into print!"

Raffles smiled.

"Not quite all that, Bunny; still, extraordinary enough, I grant
you."

"Look at the figure!"

"It is certainly large."

"And the mission—and the risk!"

"Yes; the combination is frank, to say the least of it. But the
really original point is requiring applications by telegram to a
telegraphic address! There's something in the fellow who thought
of that, and something in his game; with one word he chokes off
the million who answer an advertisement every day—when they can
raise the stamp. My answer cost me five bob; but then I prepaid
another."

"You don't mean to say that you've applied?"

"Rather," said Raffles. "I want two thousand pounds as much as
any man."

"Put your own name?"

"Well—no, Bunny, I didn't. In point of fact I smell something
interesting and illegal, and you know what a cautious chap I am.
I signed myself Glasspool, care of Hickey, 38, Conduit Street;
that's my tailor, and after sending the wire I went round and
told him what to expect. He promised to send the reply along the
moment it came. I shouldn't be surprised if that's it!"

And he was gone before a double-knock on the outer door had done
ringing through the rooms, to return next minute with an open
telegram and a face full of news.

"What do you think?" said he. "Security's that fellow
Addenbrooke, the police-court lawyer, and he wants to see me
INSTANTER!"

"Do you know him, then?"

"Merely by repute. I only hope he doesn't know me. He's the
chap who got six weeks for sailing too close to the wind in the
Sutton-Wilmer case; everybody wondered why he wasn't struck off
the rolls. Instead of that he's got a first-rate practice on the
seamy side, and every blackguard with half a case takes it
straight to Bennett Addenbrooke. He's probably the one man who
would have the cheek to put in an advertisement like that, and
the one man who could do it without exciting suspicion. It's
simply in his line; but you may be sure there's something shady
at the bottom of it. The odd thing is that I have long made up
my mind to go to Addenbrooke myself if accidents should happen."

"And you're going to him now?"

"This minute," said Raffles, brushing his hat; "and so are you."

"But I came in to drag you out to lunch."

"You shall lunch with me when we've seen this fellow. Come on,
Bunny, and we'll choose your name on the way. Mine's Glasspool,
and don't you forget it."

Mr. Bennett Addenbrooke occupied substantial offices in
Wellington Street, Strand, and was out when we arrived; but he
had only just gone "over the way to the court"; and five minutes
sufficed to produce a brisk, fresh-colored, resolute-looking man,
with a very confident, rather festive air, and black eyes that
opened wide at the sight of Raffles.

"Mr.—Glasspool?" exclaimed the lawyer.

"My name," said Raffles, with dry effrontery.

"Not up at Lord's, however!" said the other, slyly. "My dear
sir, I have seen you take far too many wickets to make any
mistake!"

For a single moment Raffles looked venomous; then he shrugged and
smiled, and the smile grew into a little cynical chuckle.

"So you have bowled me out in my turn?" said he. "Well, I don't
think there's anything to explain. I am harder up than I wished
to admit under my own name, that's all, and I want that thousand
pounds reward."

"Two thousand," said the solicitor. "And the man who is not
above an alias happens to be just the sort of man I want; so
don't let that worry you, my dear sir. The matter, however, is
of a strictly private and confidential character." And he looked
very hard at me.

"Quite so," said Raffles. "But there was something about a
risk?"

"A certain risk is involved."

"Then surely three heads will be better than two. I said I
wanted that thousand pounds; my friend here wants the other. We
are both cursedly hard up, and we go into this thing together or
not at all. Must you have his name too? I should give him my
real one, Bunny."

Mr. Addenbrooke raised his eyebrows over the card I found for
him; then he drummed upon it with his finger-nail, and his
embarrassment expressed itself in a puzzled smile.

"The fact is, I find myself in a difficulty," he confessed at
last. "Yours is the first reply I have received; people who can
afford to send long telegrams don't rush to the advertisements in
the Daily Telegraph; but, on the other hand, I was not quite
prepared to hear from men like yourselves. Candidly, and on
consideration, I am not sure that you ARE the stamp of men for
me—men who belong to good clubs! I rather intended to appeal to
the—er—adventurous classes."

"We are adventurers," said Raffles gravely.

"But you respect the law?"

The black eyes gleamed shrewdly.

"We are not professional rogues, if that's what you mean," said
Raffles, smiling. "But on our beam-ends we are; we would do a
good deal for a thousand pounds apiece, eh, Bunny?"

"Anything," I murmured.