E. W. Hornung_A J Raffles 01 (3 page)

"That was our one chance," said he; "a back window above a back
window; but it's too dark to see anything, and we daren't show an
outside light. Come down after me to the basement; and remember,
though there's not a soul on the premises, you can't make too
little noise. There—there—listen to that!"

It was the measured tread that we had heard before on the
flagstones outside. Raffles darkened his lantern, and again we
stood motionless till it had passed.

"Either a policeman," he muttered, "or a watchman that all these
jewellers run between them. The watchman's the man for us to
watch; he's simply paid to spot this kind of thing."

We crept very gingerly down the stairs, which creaked a bit in
spite of us, and we picked up our shoes in the passage; then down
some narrow stone steps, at the foot of which Raffles showed his
light, and put on his shoes once more, bidding me do the same in
a rather louder tone than he had permitted himself to employ
overhead. We were now considerably below the level of the
street, in a small space with as many doors as it had sides.
Three were ajar, and we saw through them into empty cellars; but
in the fourth a key was turned and a bolt drawn; and this one
presently let us out into the bottom of a deep, square well of
fog. A similar door faced it across this area, and Raffles had
the lantern close against it, and was hiding the light with his
body, when a short and sudden crash made my heart stand still.
Next moment I saw the door wide open, and Raffles standing within
and beckoning me with a jimmy.

"Door number one," he whispered. "Deuce knows how many more
there'll be, but I know of two at least. We won't have to make
much noise over them, either; down here there's less risk."

We were now at the bottom of the exact fellow to the narrow stone
stair which we had just descended: the yard, or well, being the
one part common to both the private and the business premises.
But this flight led to no open passage; instead, a singularly
solid mahogany door confronted us at the top.

"I thought so," muttered Raffles, handing me the lantern, and
pocketing a bunch of skeleton keys, after tampering for a few
minutes with the lock. "It'll be an hour's work to get through
that!"

"Can't you pick it?"

"No: I know these locks. It's no use trying. We must cut it out,
and it'll take us an hour."

It took us forty-seven minutes by my watch; or, rather, it took
Raffles; and never in my life have I seen anything more
deliberately done. My part was simply to stand by with the dark
lantern in one hand, and a small bottle of rock-oil in the other.

Raffles had produced a pretty embroidered case, intended
obviously for his razors, but filled instead with the tools of
his secret trade, including the rock-oil. From this case he
selected a "bit," capable of drilling a hole an inch in diameter,
and fitted it to a small but very strong steel "brace." Then he
took off his covert-coat and his blazer, spread them neatly on
the top step—knelt on them—turned up his shirt cuffs—and went
to work with brace-and-bit near the key-hole. But first he oiled
the bit to minimize the noise, and this he did invariably before
beginning a fresh hole, and often in the middle of one. It took
thirty-two separate borings to cut around that lock.

I noticed that through the first circular orifice Raffles thrust
a forefinger; then, as the circle became an ever-lengthening
oval, he got his hand through up to the thumb; and I heard him
swear softly to himself.

"I was afraid so!"

"What is it?"

"An iron gate on the other side!"

"How on earth are we to get through that?" I asked in dismay.

"Pick the lock. But there may be two. In that case they'll be
top and bottom, and we shall have two fresh holes to make, as the
door opens inwards. It won't open two inches as it is."

I confess I did not feel sanguine about the lock-picking, seeing
that one lock had baffled us already; and my disappointment and
impatience must have been a revelation to me had I stopped to
think. The truth is that I was entering into our nefarious
undertaking with an involuntary zeal of which I was myself quite
unconscious at the time. The romance and the peril of the whole
proceeding held me spellbound and entranced. My moral sense and
my sense of fear were stricken by a common paralysis. And there
I stood, shining my light and holding my phial with a keener
interest than I had ever brought to any honest avocation. And
there knelt A. J. Raffles, with his black hair tumbled, and the
same watchful, quiet, determined half-smile with which I have
seen him send down over after over in a county match!

At last the chain of holes was complete, the lock wrenched out
bodily, and a splendid bare arm plunged up to the shoulder
through the aperture, and through the bars of the iron gate
beyond.

"Now," whispered Raffles, "if there's only one lock it'll be in
the middle. Joy! Here it is! Only let me pick it, and we're
through at last."

He withdrew his arm, a skeleton key was selected from the bunch,
and then back went his arm to the shoulder. It was a breathless
moment. I heard the heart throbbing in my body, the very watch
ticking in my pocket, and ever and anon the tinkle-tinkle of the
skeleton key. Then—at last—there came a single unmistakable
click. In another minute the mahogany door and the iron gate
yawned behind us; and Raffles was sitting on an office table,
wiping his face, with the lantern throwing a steady beam by his
side.

We were now in a bare and roomy lobby behind the shop, but
separated therefrom by an iron curtain, the very sight of which
filled me with despair. Raffles, however, did not appear in the
least depressed, but hung up his coat and hat on some pegs in the
lobby before examining this curtain with his lantern.

"That's nothing," said he, after a minute's inspection; "we'll be
through that in no time, but there's a door on the other side
which may give us trouble."

"Another door!" I groaned. "And how do you mean to tackle this
thing?"

"Prise it up with the jointed jimmy. The weak point of these
iron curtains is the leverage you can get from below. But it
makes a noise, and this is where you're coming in, Bunny; this is
where I couldn't do without you. I must have you overhead to
knock through when the street's clear. I'll come with you and
show a light."

Well, you may imagine how little I liked the prospect of this
lonely vigil; and yet there was something very stimulating in the
vital responsibility which it involved. Hitherto I had been a
mere spectator. Now I was to take part in the game. And the
fresh excitement made me more than ever insensible to those
considerations of conscience and of safety which were already as
dead nerves in my breast.

So I took my post without a murmur in the front room above the
shop. The fixtures had been left for the refusal of the incoming
tenant, and fortunately for us they included Venetian blinds
which were already down. It was the simplest matter in the world
to stand peeping through the laths into the street, to beat twice
with my foot when anybody was approaching, and once when all was
clear again. The noises that even I could hear below, with the
exception of one metallic crash at the beginning, were indeed
incredibly slight; but they ceased altogether at each double rap
from my toe; and a policeman passed quite half a dozen times
beneath my eyes, and the man whom I took to be the jeweller's
watchman oftener still, during the better part of an hour that I
spent at the window. Once, indeed, my heart was in my mouth, but
only once. It was when the watchman stopped and peered through
the peep-hole into the lighted shop. I waited for his whistle—I
waited for the gallows or the gaol! But my signals had been
studiously obeyed, and the man passed on in undisturbed serenity.

In the end I had a signal in my turn, and retraced my steps with
lighted matches, down the broad stairs, down the narrow ones,
across the area, and up into the lobby where Raffles awaited me
with an outstretched hand.

"Well done, my boy!" said he. "You're the same good man in a
pinch, and you shall have your reward. I've got a thousand
pounds' worth if I've got a penn'oth. It's all in my pockets.
And here's something else I found in this locker; very decent
port and some cigars, meant for poor dear Danby's business
friends. Take a pull, and you shall light up presently. I've
found a lavatory, too, and we must have a wash-and-brush-up
before we go, for I'm as black as your boot."

The iron curtain was down, but he insisted on raising it until I
could peep through the glass door on the other side and see his
handiwork in the shop beyond. Here two electric lights were left
burning all night long, and in their cold white rays I could at
first see nothing amiss. I looked along an orderly lane, an
empty glass counter on my left, glass cupboards of untouched
silver on my right, and facing me the filmy black eye of the
peep-hole that shone like a stage moon on the street. The
counter had not been emptied by Raffles; its contents were in the
Chubb's safe, which he had given up at a glance; nor had he
looked at the silver, except to choose a cigarette case for me.
He had confined himself entirely to the shop window. This was in
three compartments, each secured for the night by removable
panels with separate locks. Raffles had removed them a few hours
before their time, and the electric light shone on a corrugated
shutter bare as the ribs of an empty carcase. Every article of
value was gone from the one place which was invisible from the
little window in the door; elsewhere all was as it had been left
overnight. And but for a train of mangled doors behind the iron
curtain, a bottle of wine and a cigar-box with which liberties
had been taken, a rather black towel in the lavatory, a burnt
match here and there, and our finger-marks on the dusty
banisters, not a trace of our visit did we leave.

"Had it in my head for long?" said Raffles, as we strolled
through the streets towards dawn, for all the world as though we
were returning from a dance. "No, Bunny, I never thought of it
till I saw that upper part empty about a month ago, and bought a
few things in the shop to get the lie of the land. That reminds
me that I never paid for them; but, by Jove, I will to-morrow,
and if that isn't poetic justice, what is? One visit showed me
the possibilities of the place, but a second convinced me of its
impossibilities without a pal. So I had practically given up the
idea, when you came along on the very night and in the very
plight for it! But here we are at the Albany, and I hope there's
some fire left; for I don't know how you feel, Bunny, but for my
part I'm as cold as Keats's owl."

He could think of Keats on his way from a felony! He could
hanker for his fireside like another! Floodgates were loosed
within me, and the plain English of our adventure rushed over me
as cold as ice. Raffles was a burglar. I had helped him to
commit one burglary, therefore I was a burglar, too. Yet I could
stand and warm myself by his fire, and watch him empty his
pockets, as though we had done nothing wonderful or wicked!

My blood froze. My heart sickened. My brain whirled. How I had
liked this villain! How I had admired him! Now my liking and
admiration must turn to loathing and disgust. I waited for the
change. I longed to feel it in my heart. But—I longed and I
waited in vain!

I saw that he was emptying his pockets; the table sparkled with
their hoard. Rings by the dozen, diamonds by the score;
bracelets, pendants, aigrettes, necklaces, pearls, rubies,
amethysts, sapphires; and diamonds always, diamonds in
everything, flashing bayonets of light, dazzling me—blinding
me—making me disbelieve because I could no longer forget. Last
of all came no gem, indeed, but my own revolver from an inner
pocket. And that struck a chord. I suppose I said something—my
hand flew out. I can see Raffles now, as he looked at me once
more with a high arch over each clear eye. I can see him pick
out the cartridges with his quiet, cynical smile, before he would
give me my pistol back again.

"You mayn't believe it, Bunny," said he, "but I never carried a
loaded one before. On the whole I think it gives one confidence.
Yet it would be very awkward if anything went wrong; one might
use it, and that's not the game at all, though I have often
thought that the murderer who has just done the trick must have
great sensations before things get too hot for him. Don't look
so distressed, my dear chap. I've never had those sensations,
and I don't suppose I ever shall."

"But this much you have done before?" said I hoarsely.

"Before? My dear Bunny, you offend me! Did it look like a first
attempt? Of course I have done it before."

"Often?"

"Well—no! Not often enough to destroy the charm, at all events;
never, as a matter of fact, unless I'm cursedly hard up. Did you
hear about the Thimbleby diamonds? Well, that was the last
time—and a poor lot of paste they were. Then there was the
little business of the Dormer house-boat at Henley last year.
That was mine also—such as it was. I've never brought off a
really big coup yet; when I do I shall chuck it up."

Yes, I remembered both cases very well. To think that he was
their author! It was incredible, outrageous, inconceivable.
Then my eyes would fall upon the table, twinkling and glittering
in a hundred places, and incredulity was at an end.

"How came you to begin?" I asked, as curiosity overcame mere
wonder, and a fascination for his career gradually wove itself
into my fascination for the man.

"Ah! that's a long story," said Raffles. "It was in the
Colonies, when I was out there playing cricket. It's too long a
story to tell you now, but I was in much the same fix that you
were in to-night, and it was my only way out. I never meant it
for anything more; but I'd tasted blood, and it was all over with
me. Why should I work when I could steal? Why settle down to
some humdrum uncongenial billet, when excitement, romance, danger
and a decent living were all going begging together? Of course
it's very wrong, but we can't all be moralists, and the
distribution of wealth is very wrong to begin with. Besides,
you're not at it all the time. I'm sick of quoting Gilbert's
lines to myself, but they're profoundly true. I only wonder if
you'll like the life as much as I do!"