E. W. Hornung_A J Raffles 01 (6 page)

"All right, guv'nor," drawled Raffles; "don't excite. It's a
fair cop. We don't sweat to know 'ow you brung it orf. On'y
don't you go for to shoot, 'cos we 'int awmed, s'help me Gord!"

"Ah, you're a knowin' one," said Rosenthall, fingering his
triggers. "But you've struck a knowin'er."

"Ho, yuss, we know all abaht thet! Set a thief to ketch a
thief—ho, yuss."

My eyes had torn themselves from the round black muzzles, from
the accursed diamonds that had been our snare, the pasty pig-face
of the over-fed pugilist, and the flaming cheeks and hook nose of
Rosenthall himself. I was looking beyond them at the doorway
filled with quivering silk and plush, black faces, white
eyeballs, woolly pates. But a sudden silence recalled my
attention to the millionaire. And only his nose retained its
color.

"What d'ye mean?" he whispered with a hoarse oath. "Spit it out,
or, by Christmas, I'll drill you!"

"Whort price thet brikewater?" drawled Raffles coolly.

"Eh?"

Rosenthall's revolvers were describing widening orbits.

"Whort price thet brikewater—old
I.D.B.
?"

"Where in hell did you get hold o' that ?" asked Rosenthall, with
a rattle in his thick neck, meant for mirth.

"You may well arst," says Raffles. "It's all over the plice
w'ere
I
come from."

"Who can have spread such rot?"

"I dunno," says Raffles; "arst the gen'leman on yer left; p'r'aps
'E knows."

The gentleman on his left had turned livid with emotion. Guilty
conscience never declared itself in plainer terms. For a moment
his small eyes bulged like currants in the suet of his face; the
next, he had pocketed his pistols on a professional instinct, and
was upon us with his fists.

"Out o' the light—out o' the light!" yelled Rosenthall in a
frenzy.

He was too late. No sooner had the burly pugilist obstructed his
fire than Raffles was through the window at a bound; while I, for
standing still and saying nothing, was scientifically felled to
the floor.

I cannot have been many moments without my senses. When I
recovered them there was a great to-do in the garden, but I had
the drawing-room to myself. I sat up. Rosenthall and Purvis
were rushing about outside, cursing the Kaffirs and nagging at
each other.

"Over THAT wall, I tell yer!"

"I tell you it was this one. Can't you whistle for the police?"

"Police be damned! I've had enough of the blessed police."

"Then we'd better get back and make sure of the other rotter."

"Oh, make sure o' yer skin. That's what you'd better do. Jala,
you black hog, if I catch YOU skulkin'. . . ."

I never heard the threat. I was creeping from the drawing-room
on my hands and knees, my own revolver swinging by its steel ring
from my teeth.

For an instant I thought that the hall also was deserted. I was
wrong, and I crept upon a Kaffir on all fours. Poor devil, I
could not bring myself to deal him a base blow, but I threatened
him most hideously with my revolver, and left the white teeth
chattering in his black head as I took the stairs three at a
time. Why I went upstairs in that decisive fashion, as though it
were my only course, I cannot explain. But garden and ground
floor seemed alive with men, and I might have done worse.

I turned into the first room I came to. It was a bedroom—empty,
though lit up; and never shall I forget how I started as I
entered, on encountering the awful villain that was myself at
full length in a pier-glass! Masked, armed, and ragged, I was
indeed fit carrion for a bullet or the hangman, and to one or the
other I made up my mind. Nevertheless, I hid myself in the
wardrobe behind the mirror; and there I stood shivering and
cursing my fate, my folly, and Raffles most of all—Raffles first
and last—for I daresay half an hour. Then the wardrobe door was
flung suddenly open; they had stolen into the room without a
sound; and I was hauled downstairs, an ignominious captive.

Gross scenes followed in the hall; the ladies were now upon the
stage, and at sight of the desperate criminal they screamed with
one accord. In truth I must have given them fair cause, though my
mask was now torn away and hid nothing but my left ear.
Rosenthall answered their shrieks with a roar for silence; the
woman with the bath-sponge hair swore at him shrilly in return;
the place became a Babel impossible to describe. I remember
wondering how long it would be before the police appeared.
Purvis and the ladies were for calling them in and giving me in
charge without delay. Rosenthall would not hear of it. He swore
that he would shoot man or woman who left his sight. He had had
enough of the police. He was not going to have them coming there
to spoil sport; he was going to deal with me in his own way.
With that he dragged me from all other hands, flung me against a
door, and sent a bullet crashing through the wood within an inch
of my ear.

"You drunken fool! It'll be murder!" shouted Purvis, getting in
the way a second time.

"Wha' do I care? He's armed, isn't he? I shot him in
self-defence. It'll be a warning to others. Will you stand
aside, or d'ye want it yourself?"

"You're drunk," said Purvis, still between us. "I saw you take a
neat tumblerful since you come in, and it's made you drunk as a
fool. Pull yourself together, old man. You ain't a-going to do
what you'll be sorry for."

"Then I won't shoot at him, I'll only shoot roun' an' roun' the
beggar. You're quite right, ole feller. Wouldn't hurt him.
Great mishtake. Roun' an' roun'. There—like that!"

His freckled paw shot up over Purvis's shoulder, mauve lightning
came from his ring, a red flash from his revolver, and shrieks
from the women as the reverberations died away. Some splinters
lodged in my hair.

Next instant the prize-fighter disarmed him; and I was safe from
the devil, but finally doomed to the deep sea. A policeman was
in our midst. He had entered through the drawing-room window; he
was an officer of few words and creditable promptitude. In a
twinkling he had the handcuffs on my wrists, while the pugilist
explained the situation, and his patron reviled the force and its
representative with impotent malignity. A fine watch they kept;
a lot of good they did; coming in when all was over and the whole
household might have been murdered in their sleep. The officer
only deigned to notice him as he marched me off.

"We know all about YOU, sir," said he contemptuously, and he
refused the sovereign Purvis proffered. "You will be seeing me
again, sir, at Marylebone."

"Shall I come now?"

"As you please, sir. I rather think the other gentleman requires
you more, and I don't fancy this young man means to give much
trouble."

"Oh, I'm coming quietly," I said.

And I went.

In silence we traversed perhaps a hundred yards. It must have
been midnight. We did not meet a soul. At last I whispered:

"How on earth did you manage it?"

"Purely by luck," said Raffles. "I had the luck to get clear
away through knowing every brick of those back-garden walls, and
the double luck to have these togs with the rest over at Chelsea.
The helmet is one of a collection I made up at Oxford; here it
goes over this wall, and we'd better carry the coat and belt
before we meet a real officer. I got them once for a fancy
ball—ostensibly—and thereby hangs a yarn. I always thought
they might come in useful a second time. My chief crux to-night
was getting rid of the hansom that brought me back. I sent him
off to Scotland Yard with ten bob and a special message to good
old Mackenzie. The whole detective department will be at
Rosenthall's in about half an hour. Of course, I speculated on
our gentleman's hatred of the police—another huge slice of luck.
If you'd got away, well and good; if not, I felt he was the man
to play with his mouse as long as possible. Yes, Bunny, it's been
more of a costume piece than I intended, and we've come out of it
with a good deal less credit. But, by Jove, we're jolly lucky to
have come out of it at all!"

Old Raffles may or may not have been an exceptional criminal, but
as a cricketer I dare swear he was unique. Himself a dangerous
bat, a brilliant field, and perhaps the very finest slow bowler
of his decade, he took incredibly little interest in the game at
large. He never went up to Lord's without his cricket-bag, or
showed the slightest interest in the result of a match in which
he was not himself engaged. Nor was this mere hateful egotism on
his part. He professed to have lost all enthusiasm for the game,
and to keep it up only from the very lowest motives.

"Cricket," said Raffles, "like everything else, is good enough
sport until you discover a better. As a source of excitement it
isn't in it with other things you wot of, Bunny, and the
involuntary comparison becomes a bore. What's the satisfaction
of taking a man's wicket when you want his spoons? Still, if you
can bowl a bit your low cunning won't get rusty, and always
looking for the weak spot's just the kind of mental exercise one
wants. Yes, perhaps there's some affinity between the two things
after all. But I'd chuck up cricket to-morrow, Bunny, if it
wasn't for the glorious protection it affords a person of my
proclivities."

"How so?" said I. "It brings you before the public, I should
have thought, far more than is either safe or wise."

"My dear Bunny, that's exactly where you make a mistake. To
follow Crime with reasonable impunity you simply MUST have a
parallel, ostensible career—the more public the better. The
principle is obvious. Mr. Peace, of pious memory, disarmed
suspicion by acquiring a local reputation for playing the fiddle
and taming animals, and it's my profound conviction that Jack the
Ripper was a really eminent public man, whose speeches were very
likely reported alongside his atrocities. Fill the bill in some
prominent part, and you'll never be suspected of doubling it with
another of equal prominence. That's why I want you to cultivate
journalism, my boy, and sign all you can. And it's the one and
only reason why I don't burn my bats for firewood."

Nevertheless, when he did play there was no keener performer on
the field, nor one more anxious to do well for his side. I
remember how he went to the nets, before the first match of the
season, with his pocket full of sovereigns, which he put on the
stumps instead of bails. It was a sight to see the professionals
bowling like demons for the hard cash, for whenever a stump was
hit a pound was tossed to the bowler and another balanced in its
stead, while one man took #3 with a ball that spreadeagled the
wicket. Raffles's practice cost him either eight or nine
sovereigns; but he had absolutely first-class bowling all the
time; and he made fifty-seven runs next day.

It became my pleasure to accompany him to all his matches, to
watch every ball he bowled, or played, or fielded, and to sit
chatting with him in the pavilion when he was doing none of these
three things. You might have seen us there, side by side, during
the greater part of the Gentlemen's first innings against the
Players (who had lost the toss) on the second Monday in July. We
were to be seen, but not heard, for Raffles had failed to score,
and was uncommonly cross for a player who cared so little for the
game. Merely taciturn with me, he was positively rude to more
than one member who wanted to know how it had happened, or who
ventured to commiserate him on his luck; there he sat, with a
straw hat tilted over his nose and a cigarette stuck between lips
that curled disagreeably at every advance. I was therefore much
surprised when a young fellow of the exquisite type came and
squeezed himself in between us, and met with a perfectly civil
reception despite the liberty. I did not know the boy by sight,
nor did Raffles introduce us; but their conversation proclaimed
at once a slightness of acquaintanceship and a license on the
lad's part which combined to puzzle me. Mystification reached
its height when Raffles was informed that the other's father was
anxious to meet him, and he instantly consented to gratify that
whim.

"He's in the Ladies' Enclosure. Will you come round now?"

"With pleasure," says Raffles. "Keep a place for me, Bunny."

And they were gone.

"Young Crowley," said some voice further back. "Last year's
Harrow Eleven."

"I remember him. Worst man in the team."

"Keen cricketer, however. Stopped till he was twenty to get his
colors. Governor made him. Keen breed. Oh, pretty, sir! Very
pretty!"

The game was boring me. I only came to see old Raffles perform.
Soon I was looking wistfully for his return, and at length I saw
him beckoning me from the palings to the right.

"Want to introduce you to old Amersteth," he whispered, when I
joined him. "They've a cricket week next month, when this boy
Crowley comes of age, and we've both got to go down and play."

"Both!" I echoed. "But I'm no cricketer!"

"Shut up," says Raffles. "Leave that to me. I've been lying for
all I'm worth," he added sepulchrally as we reached the bottom of
the steps. "I trust to you not to give the show away."

There was a gleam in his eye that I knew well enough elsewhere,
but was unprepared for in those healthy, sane surroundings; and
it was with very definite misgivings and surmises that I followed
the Zingari blazer through the vast flower-bed of hats and
bonnets that bloomed beneath the ladies' awning.

Lord Amersteth was a fine-looking man with a short mustache and a
double chin. He received me with much dry courtesy, through
which, however, it was not difficult to read a less flattering
tale. I was accepted as the inevitable appendage of the
invaluable Raffles, with whom I felt deeply incensed as I made my
bow.