 Chapter 6 of A Thief in the Night This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. A Thief in the Night by E. W. Horning Chapter 6 A Bad Night There was to be a certain little wedding in which Raffles and I took a surreptitious interest. The bride-elect was living in some retirement with a recently widowed mother and an asthmatical brother in a mellow hermitage on the banks of the Mall. The bridegroom was a prosperous son of the same suburban soil which had nourished both families for generations. The wedding presents were so numerous as to fill several rooms at the pretty retreat upon the Mall and of an intrinsic value calling for a special transaction with the burglary insurance company in Cheapside. I cannot say how Raffles obtained all this information. I only know that it proved correct in each particular. I was not indeed deeply interested before the event. Since Raffles assured me that it was a one-man job and naturally intended to be the one-man himself. It was only at the eleventh hour that our positions were inverted by the wholly unexpected selection of Raffles for the English team in the second test match. In a flash I saw the chance of my criminal career. It was some years since Raffles had served his country in these encounters and he had never thought to be called upon again and his gratification was only less than his embarrassment. The match was at Old Trafford on the third Thursday, Friday and Saturday in July. The other affair had been all arranged for the Thursday night, the night of the wedding at East Molesley. It was for Raffles to choose between the two excitements and for once I helped him to make up his mind. I duly pointed out to him that in Surrey at all events I was quite capable of taking his place. Name more, I insisted at once on my prescriptive right and on his patriotic obligation in the matter. In the country's name and in my own I implored him to give it and me a chance and for once as I say my arguments prevailed. Raffles sent his telegram. It was the day before the match. We then rushed down to Esher and over every inch of the ground by that characteristically circuitous route which he enjoined on me for the next night. And at six in the evening I was receiving the last of my many instructions through a window or the restaurant car. Only promised me not to take a revolver said Raffles in a whisper. Here are my keys. There's an old life preserver somewhere in the bureau. Take that if you like. Though what you take I rather fear you are the chap to use. Then the rope be around my own neck I whispered back. Whatever else I may do Raffles I shan't give you away and you'll find I do better than you think and I'm worth trusting with a little more to do or I'll know the reason why. And I meant to know it as he was born out of Houston with raised eyebrows and eye turned grimly on my heel. I saw his fears for me and nothing could have made me more fearless for myself. Raffles had been wrong about me all these years now was my chance to set him right. It was galling to feel that he had no confidence in my coolness or my nerve when neither had ever failed him at a pinch. I had been loyal to him through rough and smooth in many an ugly corner I had stood as firm as Raffles himself. I was his right hand and yet he never hesitated to make me his cat's paw. This time at all events I should be neither one nor the other. This time I was the understudy playing lead at last and I wish I could think that Raffles ever realised with what gusto I threw myself into his part. Thus I was first out of a crowded theatre train at Escher next night and first down the stairs into the open air. The night was close and cloudy and the road to Hampton Court even now that the suburban builder had marked much of it for his own is one of the darkest I know. The first mile is still a narrow avenue a mere tunnel of leaves at mid-summer but at that time there was not a lighted pain or cranny by the way. Naturally it was in this blind reach that I fancied I was being followed. I stopped in my stride so did the steps I made sure I had heard not far behind and when I went on they followed suit. I dried my forehead as I walked but soon brought myself to repeat the experiment when an exact repetition of the result went to convince me that it had been my own echo all the time. And since I lost it on getting quit of the avenue and coming out upon the straight and open road I was not long in recovering from my scare. But now I could see my way and found the rest of it without mishap though not without another semblance of adventure. Over the bridge across the mall when about to turn to the left I marched straight upon a policeman in Rubber Soles. I had to call him officer as I passed and to pass my turning by a couple of hundred yards before venturing back another way. At last I had crept through a garden gate and round by black windows to a black lawn drenched with dew. It had been a heating walk and I was glad to blunder on a garden seat most considerably placed under a cedar which added its own darkness to that of the night. Here I rested a few minutes putting up my feet to keep them dry, untieing my shoes to save time and generally facing the task before me with a coolness which I strove to make worthy of my absent chief. But mine was a self-conscious quality as far removed from the original as any other deliberate imitation of genius. I actually struck a match on my trousers and lit one of the shorter solovans. Raffles himself would not have done such a thing at such a moment. But I wished to tell him that I had done it and in truth I was not more than pleasurably afraid. I had rather that impersonal curiosity as to the issue which had been the saving of me in still more precarious situations. I even grew impatient for the fray and could not after all sit still as long as I had intended. So it happened that I was finishing my cigarette on the edge of the wet lawn and about to slip off my shoes before stepping across the gravel to the conservatory door when a most singular sound arrested me in the act. It was a muffled gasping somewhere overhead. I stood like stone and my listening attitude must have been visible against the milky sheen of the lawn for a laboured voice hailed me sternly from a window. Who on earth are you? it wheezed. A detective officer, I replied, sent down by the burglary insurance company. Not a moment had I paused for my precious fable. It had been prepared for me by raffles in case of need. I was merely repeating a lesson in which I had been closely schooled. But at the window there was pause enough filled only by the uncanny wheezing of the man I could not see. I don't see why they should have sent you down, he said at length. We are being quite well looked after by the local police. They're giving us a special call every hour. I know that, Mr. Medleycott, I rejoined on my own account. I met one of them at the corner just now and we passed the time of night. My heart was knocking me to bit. I had started for myself at last. Did you get my name from him? Pursued my questioner in a suspicious wheeze. No, they gave me that before I started, I replied. But I'm sorry you saw me, sir. It's a mere matter of routine and not intended to annoy anybody. I proposed to keep a watch on the place all night, but I own it wasn't necessary to trespass as I've done. I'll take myself off the actual premises if you prefer. This again was all my own and it met with a success that might have given me confidence. Not a bit of it, replied young Medleycott with a grim geniality. I've just woke up with the devil of an attack of asthma and may have to sit up in my chair till morning. You'd better come up and see me through and kill two birds while you're at it. Stay where you are and I'll come down and let you in. Here was a dilemma which Raffles himself had not foreseen. Outside in the dark my audacious part was not hard to play, but to carry the improvisation indoors was to double at once the difficulty and the risk. It was true that I had purposely come down in a true detective's overcoat and bowler, but my personal appearance was hardly of the detective type. On the other hand, as the soire du sang guardian of the gifts, one might only excite suspicion by refusing to enter the house where they were. Nor could I forget that it was my purpose to affect such entries first or last. That was the casting consideration. I decided to take my dilemma by the horns. There had been a scraping of matches in the room over the conservatory. The open window had shown for a moment like an empty picture frame, a gigantic shadow wavering on the ceiling. And in the next half minute I remembered to tie my shoes. But the light was slow to reappear through the loaded glasses of an outer door farther along the path. And when the door opened it was a figure of woe that stood within and held an unsteady candle between our faces. I have seen old men look half their age and young men look double theirs. But never before or since have I seen a beardless boy bent into a man of eighty, gasping for every breath, shaken by every gasp, swaying, tottering, and choking as if about to die upon his feet. Yet with it all young medleycott overhauled me shrewdly and it was several moments before he would let me take the candle from him. I shouldn't have come down. Made me worse, he began whispering in spurts. Worse still going up again. You must give me an arm. You will come up. That's right. Not as bad as I look, you know. Got some good whiskey, too. Presents are all right, but if they aren't you'll hear over indoors sooner than out. Now I'm ready. Thanks. Mustn't make more noise than we can help. Wake my mother. It must have taken us minutes to climb that single flight of stairs. There was just room for me to keep his arm in mind with the other he hold on the banisters. And so we mounted, step by step, a panting pause on each, and a pitched battle for breath on the half-landing. In the end we gained a cozy library with an open door leading to a bedroom beyond, but the effort had deprived my poor companion of all power of a speech, his laboring lungs shrieked like the wind. He could just point to the door by which we had entered and which I shut in obedience to his gestures and then to the decanter and its accessories on the table where he had left them overnight. I gave him nearly half a glassful, and his paroxysm resided a little as he sat hunched up in a chair. I was a fool to turn in. He blurted in more whispers between longer pauses. Lying down is the devil when you're in for a real bad night. You might get me the brown cigarette on the table in there. That's right, thanks awfully. And now, a match. The asthmatic had bitten off either end of the stromanium cigarette and was soon choking himself with accrued fumes which he inhaled with desperate gulps to exhale in furious fits of coughing. Never was there more heroic a remedy. It seemed a form of lingering suicide. But by degrees some slight improvement became apparent, and at length the sufferer was able to sit upright and to drain his glass with a sigh of rare relief. I sighed also, for I had witnessed a struggle for dear life by a man in the flower of his youth, whose looks I liked, whose smile came like a sun through the first break in his torments, and whose first words were to thank me for the little I had done in bare humanity. That made me feel the thing I was. But the feeling put me on my guard, and I was not unready for the remark which followed a more exhaustive scrutiny than I had hitherto sustained. "'Do you know,' said young Medleycott, "'that you aren't a bit like the detective of my dreams.' "'Only too proud to hear it,' I replied. "'There would be no point in my being in plain clothes if I looked exactly what I was.' My companion reassured me with a weasy laugh. "'Know something in that,' said he, "'although I do congratulate the insurance people on getting a man of your class to do their dirty work. "'And I congratulate myself,' he was quick enough to add, "'on having you to see me through as bad a night as I've had for a long time. "'You're like flowers in the depths of winter.' "'Got a drink?' "'That's right.' "'I suppose you didn't happen to bring down an evening paper.' "'I said I had brought one down, but had unfortunately left it in the train. "'What about the test match?' cried my asthmatic, shooting forward in his chair. "'I can tell you that,' said I. "'We went in first.' "'Oh, I know all about that,' he interrupted. "'I've seen the miserable score up to lunch. "'How many did we scrape altogether?' "'We're scraping them still.' "'No. How many?' "'Over two hundred for seven wickets. "'Who made the stand?' "'Raffles for one.' "'He was sixty-two not out at close of play. "'And the note of admiration rang in my voice, though I tried in my self-consciousness to keep it out. "'But young medley-cotts enthusiasts "'improved an ample cloak for mine. "'It was he who might have been the personal friend of raffles, "'and in his delight he chuckled till he puffed in blue again. "'Good ol' raffles,' he panted in every pause. "'After being chosen last and as a bollerman. "'That's the cricketer for me, sir. "'By Jove, we must have another drink in his honour.' "'Funny thing, Asthma. "'Your liquor affects your head no more than it does a man with a snakebite. "'But it eases everything else. "'And sees you through. "'Doctors will tell you so, but you've got to ask them first. "'They're no good for Asthma. "'I've only known one who could stop an attack, "'and he knocked me sideways with nitrate of amul. "'Funny complaint in other ways. "'Raises your spirits of anything. "'You can't look beyond the next breath. "'Nothing worries you. "'Well, well, here's luck to A.J. Raffles, "'and may he get his sentry in the morning.' "'And he struggled to his feet for the toast. "'But I drank it sitting down. "'I felt unreasonably wroth with Raffles "'for coming into the conversation as he had done "'for taking sentries in test matches as he was doing "'without bothering his head about me. "'A failure would have been in better taste. "'It would have shown at least some imagination, "'some anxiety on one's account. "'I did not reflect that even Raffles "'could scarcely be expected to picture me in my cups "'with the son of the house that I had come to rob, "'chatting with him, ministering to him, "'admiring his cheery courage "'and honestly attempting to lighten his load. "'Truly it was an infernal position. "'How could I rob him or his after this? "'And yet I had thrust myself into it, "'and Raffles would never, never understand. "'Even that was not the worst. "'I was not quite sure that young medleycott "'was sure of me. "'I had feared this from the beginning, "'and now, over the second glass "'that could not possibly affect a man in his condition, "'he practically admitted as much to me. "'Asma was such a funny thing,' he insisted, "'that it would not worry him a bit to discover "'that I had come to take the presents "'instead of to take care of them. "'I showed a sufficiently faint appreciation "'of the jest, and it was presently punished "'as it deserved by the most violent paroxysm "'that had seized the sufferer yet. "'The fight for breath became faster and more furious, "'and the former weapons of no more avail. "'I prepared a cigarette, "'but the poor brute was too breathless to inhale. "'I poured out yet more whiskey, "'but he put it from him with a gesture. "'Amel, get my amel,' he gasped, "'the tin on the table, by my bed. "'I rushed into his room and returned with a little tin "'of tiny cylinders, done up like miniature crackers "'in scraps of calico. "'The spent youth broke one in his handkerchief, "'in which he immediately buried his face. "'I watched him closely as a subtle odor reached my nostrils, "'and it was like the miracle of oil upon the billows. "'His shoulders rested from long travail, "'the strataurus gasping died away "'to a quick but natural respiration, "'and in the sudden cessation of the cruel contest, "'an uncanny stillness fell upon the scene. "'Meanwhile, the hidden face had flushed to the ears, "'and when at length it was raised to mine, "'its crimson calm was incongruous "'as an optical illusion. "'It takes the blood from the heart,' he murmured, "'and clears the whole chauffeur at the moment, "'if it only lasted. "'But you can't take two without a doctor. "'One's quite enough to make you smell the brimstone. "'I say, what's up? "'You're listening to something. "'If it's the policeman, we'll have a word with him.' "'It was not the policeman. "'It was no outdoor sound that I had caught "'in the sudden cessation of the bout for breath. "'It was a noise, a footstep in the room below us. "'I went to the window and leaned out. "'Right underneath, in the conservatory, "'was the faintest glimmer of a light in the adjoining room. "'One of the rooms where the presents are,' whispered Medleycott at my elbow, "'and as we withdrew together, "'I looked him in the face as I had not done all night. "'I looked him in the face like an honest man, "'for a miracle was to make me one once more. "'My knot was cut, my course inevitable, "'mine after all, to prevent the very thing "'that I had come to do. "'My gorge had long since risen at the deed. "'The unforeseen circumstances "'had rendered it impossible from the first. "'But now I could afford to recognize the impossibility "'and to think of raffles and the asthmatic alike "'without a qualm. "'I could play the game by them both, "'for it was one in the same game. "'I could preserve Thieves' honour "'and yet regain some shred of that "'which I had profited as a man. "'So I thought as we stood face to face, "'our ears straining for the least movement below. "'Our eyes locked in a common anxiety. "'Another muffled footfall fell rather than heard "'and we exchanged grim nods of simultaneous excitement. "'But by this time Medleycott "'was as helpless as he had been before. "'The flush had faded from his face "'and his breathing alone would have spoiled everything. "'In dumb show I had to order him to stay where he was, "'to leave my man to me. "'And then it was that in a gusty whisper "'with the same shrewd look "'that had disconcerted me more than once during our vigil, "'Young Medleycott froze and fired my blood by turns. "'I've been unjust to you,' he said "'with his right hand in his dressing gown pocket. "'I thought for a bit. "'Never mind what I thought. "'I soon saw I was wrong. "'But I've had this thing in my pocket all the time. "'He would have thrust his revolver upon me as a peace offering, "'but I would not even take his hand. "'As I tapped the life preserver in my pocket "'and crept out to earn his honest grip "'or to fall in the attempt. "'On the landing I drew Raffles's little weapon, "'slipped my right wrist through the leather loop "'and held it in readiness over my right shoulder. "'Then downstairs I stole, "'as Raffles himself had taught me, "'close to the wall where the planks are nailed. "'Nor had I made a sound, to my knowledge, "'for a door was open and a light was burning, "'and the light did not flicker as I approached the door. "'I clenched my teeth and pushed it open, "'and here was the various villain waiting for me, "'his little lantern held aloft. "'You black guard!' I cried, "'and with a single thwack, "'I felled the ruffian to the floor. "'There was no question of a foul blow. "'He had been just as ready to pounce on me. "'It was simply my luck to have got the first blow home. "'Yet a fellow feeling touched me with remorse, "'as I stood over the senseless body sprawling prone, "'and perceived that I had struck an unarmed man. "'The lantern only had fallen from his hands. "'It lay on one side, smoking horribly, "'and something in the reek caused me to set it up in haste "'and turn the body over with both hands. "'Shall I ever forget the incredulous horror of that moment? "'It was Raffles himself. "'How it was possible, I did not pause to ask myself. "'If one man on earth could annihilate space and time, "'it was the man lying senseless at my feet, "'and that was Raffles, without an instant stout. "'He was in villainous skies, which I knew of old, "'now that I know the unhappy wearer. "'His face was grimy and dexterously plastered "'with a growth of reddish hair. "'His clothes were a those in which he had followed "'caps from the London Termini. "'His boots were muffled in thick socks, "'and I had laid him low with a bloody scalp "'that filled my cup with horror. "'I groaned aloud as I knelt over him and felt his heart, "'and I was answered by a bronchial whistle from the door. "'Jolly well done,' cheered my asthmatical friend. "'I heard the whole thing, only hoped my mother didn't. "'We must keep it from her if we can. "'I could have cursed the creature's mother from my full heart. "'Yet even with my hand on that of Raffles "'as I felt his feeble pulse, "'I told myself that this served him right. "'Even had I brained him, the fault had been his, not mine. "'And it was a characteristic and inveterate fault "'that galled me for all my anguish, "'to trust, and yet distrust me to the end, "'to race through England in the night, "'to spy upon me at his work, to do it himself after all. "'Is he dead?' wheezed the asthmatic coolly. "'Not he,' I answered with an indignation "'that I did not show. "'You must have hit him pretty hard,' pursued young Medleycott. "'But I suppose it was a case of getting first knock, "'and a good job you got it if this was his,' he added, picking up the murderous little life preserver which Raffles had provided for his own destruction. "'Look here,' I answered, sitting back on my heels. "'He isn't dead, Mr. Medleycott, "'and I don't know how long he'll be as much as stunned. "'He's a powerful brute, and you're not fit to lend a hand. "'But that policeman of yours can't be far away. "'Do you think you could struggle out and look for him?' "'I suppose I am a bit better than I was,' he replied doubtfully. "'The excitement seems to have done me good. "'If you like to leave me on guard with my revolver, "'I'll undertake that he doesn't escape me.' "'I shook my head with an impatient smile. "'I should never hear the last of it,' said I. "'No, in that case, all I can do is handcuff the fellow "'and wait till morning if he won't go quietly, "'and he'll be a fool if he does, "'where there's still a fighting chance.' "'Young Medleycott glanced upstairs "'from his post on the threshold. "'I refrained from watching him too keenly, "'but I knew what was in his mind. "'I'll go,' he said hurriedly. "'I'll go as I am before my mother is disturbed "'and frightened out of her life. "'I owe you something, too, "'not only for what you've done for me, "'but for what I was full enough to think about you "'at the first blush. "'It's entirely through you that I feel as fit "'as I do for the moment. "'So I'll take your tip and go just as I am "'before my poor old pipes strike up another tune.' "'I scarcely looked up until the good fellow "'had turned his back upon the final tableau "'of watchful officer and prostrate prisoner "'and gone out wheezing into the night. "'But I was at the door to hear the last of him "'down the path and round the corner of the house. "'And when I rushed back into the room, "'there was Raffles sitting cross-legged on the floor "'and slowly shaking his broken head "'as he stanched the blood. "'At two, Bunny,' he groaned, "'my known familiar friend. "'Then you weren't even stunned,' I exclaimed. "'Thank God for that.' "'Of course I was stunned,' he murmured, "'and no thanks to you that I wasn't brained. "'Not to know me in the kit you've seen scores of times. "'You never looked at me, Bunny. "'You didn't even give me time to open my mouth. "'I was going to let you run me in so prettily. "'We'd have walked off arm in arm. "'Now it's as tight a place as ever we were in, "'though you did get rid of old blowpipes rather nicely. "'But we shall have the devil's own run for our money.' "'Raffles had picked himself up between his mutterings, "'and I had followed him to the door into the garden, "'where he stood busy with the key in the dark, "'having blown out his lantern and handed it to me. "'But though I followed raffles, as my nature must, "'I was far too embittered to answer him again, "'and so it was for some minutes "'that might furnish forth a thrilling page, "'but not a novel one to those "'who know their raffles and put up with me. "'Suffice it that we left a locked door behind, "'and the key on the garden wall, "'which was the first of half a dozen that we scaled "'before dropping into a lane "'that led to a footbridge higher up the backwater. "'And when we paused upon the footbridge, "'the houses along the bank were still in peace and darkness. "'Knowing my raffles as I did, "'I was not surprised when he dived under one end of this bridge "'and came up with his Inverness cape and opera hat, "'which he had hidden there on his way to the house. "'The thick socks were peeled from his patent leathers, "'the ragged trousers stripped from an evening pair, "'blood stains and new gate fringe removed at the water's edge, "'and the whole sepulcher whited in less time "'than the thing takes to tell. "'Know is that enough for raffles, "'but he must alter me as well "'by wearing my overcoat under his cape "'and putting his Zengari scarf about my neck. "'And now,' he said, "'you may be glad to hear there's a 312 from Serbeten, "'which we could catch on all fours. "'If you like, we'll go separately, "'but I don't think there's the slightest danger now, "'and I begin to wonder what's happening to old blowpipes. "'So indeed did I, and with no small concern. "'Until I read of his adventures "'and of our own in the newspapers. "'It seemed that he had made a gallant spurt into the road, "'and there paid the penalty of his rashness "'by a sudden incapacity to move another inch. "'It had eventually taken him 20 minutes "'to creep back to locked doors "'and another 10 to ring up the inmates. "'His description of my personal appearance "'as reported in the papers "'is the only thing that reconciles me "'to the thought of his sufferings during that half hour. "'But at the time I had other thoughts, "'and they lay too deep for idle words. "'For to me also it was a bitter hour. "'I had not only failed in my self-sort task, "'I had nearly killed my comrade into the bargain. "'I had meant well by friend and foe in turn, "'and I had ended in doing execrably by both. "'It was not all my fault, "'but I knew how much my weakness had contributed to the sum, "'and I must walk with the man whose fault it was, "'who had travelled 200 miles "'to obtain this last proof of my weakness, "'to bring it home to me "'and to make our intimacy intolerable from that hour. "'I must walk with him to Serbetan, but I need not talk. "'All through Thames-Ditton I had ignored his sallies, "'nor yet when he ran his arm through mine on the riverfront "'when we were nearly there "'would I break the seal my pride had set upon my lips? "'Come, Bunny,' he said at last. "'I have been the one to suffer most, "'when all said and done, "'and I'll be the first to say that I deserved it. "'You've broken my head, my hair's all glued up in my gore, "'and what yarn I'm to put up at Manchester "'or how I shall take the field at all, I really don't know. "'Yet I don't blame you, Bunny, and I do blame myself. "'Isn't it rather hard luck "'if I am to go on forgiving into the bargain? "'I admit that I made a mistake, "'but, my dear fellow, I made it entirely for your sake. "'For my sake,' I echoed bitterly. "'Raffles was more generous,' he ignored my term. "'I was miserable about you, frankly, miserable,' he went on. "'I couldn't get it out of my head "'that somehow you would be laid by the heels. "'It was not your pluck that I distrusted, my dear fellow, "'but it was your very pluck that made me tremble for you. "'I couldn't get you out of my head. "'I went in when runs were wanted, "'but I give you my word that I was more anxious about you, "'and no doubt that's why I helped to put on some runs. "'Didn't you see it in the paper, Bunny? "'It's the innings of my life so far.' "'Yes,' I said. "'I saw that you were in that clothes of play, "'but I don't believe it was you. "'I believe you have a double who plays your cricket for you.' "'And at the moment, that seemed less incredible than the fact. "'I'm afraid you didn't read your paper very carefully,' said Raffles with the first trace of peek in his tone. "'It was rain that closed play before five o'clock. "'I hear it was a sultry day in town, "'but at Manchester we got the storm, "'and the ground was under water in ten minutes. "'I never saw such a thing in my life. "'There was absolutely not a ghost of a chance "'of another ball being bowled. "'But I had changed before I thought of doing what I did. "'It was only when I was on my way back to the hotel "'by myself, because I couldn't talk to a soul "'for thinking of you, that on the spur of the moment "'I made the man take me to the station instead, "'and was underway in the restaurant car "'before I had time to think twice about it. "'I am not sure that of all the mad deeds I have ever done, "'this was not the maddest of the lot. "'It was the finest,' I said in a low voice. "'For now I marveled more at the impulse, "'which had prompted his feet, "'and at the circumstances which surrounded it, "'than even at the feet itself. "'Heaven knows,' he went on, "'what they are saying and doing in Manchester. "'But what can they say? "'What business is it of theirs?' "'I was there when play stopped, "'and I shall be there when it starts again. "'We shall be at Waterloo just after half-past three, "'and that's going to give me an hour at the Albany "'on my way to Euston, "'and another hour at Old Trafford before play begins. "'What's the matter with that? "'I don't suppose I shall notch any more, "'but all the better if I don't. "'If we have a hot sun after the storm, "'the sooner they get in the better, "'and may I have a ball at them while the ground bites. "'I'll come up with you,' I said, "'and see you at it.' "'My dear fellow,' replied Raffles, "'that was my whole feeling about you. "'I wanted to see you at it. "'That was absolutely all. "'I wanted to be near enough to lend a hand "'if you got tied up, as the best of us will at times. "'I knew the ground better than you, "'and I simply couldn't keep away from it. "'But I didn't mean you to know that I was there. "'If everything had gone as I hoped it might, "'I should have sneaked back into town "'without ever letting you know that I had been up. "'You should never have dreamt that I had been at your elbow. "'You would have believed in yourself, "'and in my belief in you, "'and the rest would have been silenced till the grave. "'So I dodged you at Waterloo, "'and I tried not to let you know "'that I was following you from the Asher station. "'But you suspected somebody was. "'You stopped to listen more than once. "'After the second time I dropped behind, "'but gained on you by taking the shortcut "'by Inba Court, and over the footbridge "'where I left my coat and hat. "'I was actually in the garden before you were. "'I saw you smoke your Sullivan, "'and I was rather proud of you for it, "'though you must never do that sort of thing again. "'I heard almost every word between you "'and the poor devil upstairs, "'and up to a certain point, Bunny, "'I really thought you played the scene to perfection. "'The station lights were twinkling ahead of us "'in the fading velvet of the summer's night. "'I let them increase and multiply before I spoke. "'And where, I asked, did you think I first went wrong? "'And going indoors at all, said Raffles, "'if I had done that, "'I should have done exactly what you did from that point on. "'You couldn't help yourself with that poor brute in that state, "'and I admired you immensely, Bunny, "'if that's any comfort to you now. "'Comfort, it was wine in every vein, "'for I knew that Raffles meant what he said, "'and with his eyes I soon saw myself in braver colors. "'I ceased to blush for the vacillations of the night "'since he condoned them. "'I could even see that I had behaved with a measure of decency "'in a truly trying situation now that Raffles seemed to think so. "'He had changed my whole view of his proceedings "'and my own in every incident of the night but one. "'There was one thing, however, which he might forgive me, "'but which I felt that I could forgive neither Raffles "'or myself, and that was the contused sculpt wound "'over which I shattered in the train. "'And to think that I did that, I groaned, "'and that you laid yourself open to it, "'and that we have neither of us got another thing "'to show for our night's work. "'That poor chap said it was as bad a night "'as he had ever had in his life, "'but I call it the very worst that you and I ever had in ours.'" Raffles was smiling under the double lamps of the first class compartment that we had to ourselves. I wouldn't say that, Bunny. We have done worse. "'Do you mean to tell me that you did anything at all?' "'My dear Bunny,' replied Raffles, "'you should remember how long I've been maturing "'this felonious little plan, "'what a blow it was to me to have to turn it over to you, "'and how far I traveled to see that you did it "'and yourself as well as might be. "'You know what I did see and how well I understood. "'I tell you again that I should have done "'the same thing myself in your place. "'But I was not in your place, Bunny. "'My hands were not tied like yours. "'Unfortunately, most of the jewels "'have gone on the honeymoon with the happy pair, "'but these emerald links are all right. "'And I don't know what the bride was doing "'to leave this diamond comb behind. "'Here, too, is the old silver skewer "'I've been wanting for years. "'They make the most charming paper knives in the world, "'and this gold cigarette case "'will just do for your smaller solubents.'" Nor were these the only pretty things that Raffles set out in twinkling array upon the opposite cushions. But I do not pretend that this was one of our heavy hauls or deny that its chief interest still resides in the score of the second test match of that Australian tour. End of chapter six. Chapter seven of A Thief in a Night. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Korenka, Bracislava, Korenka.net. A Thief in a Night by E.W. Hornam. Seven. A Trap to Catch a Cracksman. I was just putting out my light when the telephone rang a furious toxin in the next room. I floused out of bed more asleep than awake. In another minute I should have been past ringing up. It was one o'clock in the morning and I had been dining with Swigar Morrison at his club. Hello? That you, Bonnie? Yes, are you Raffles? Who's left of me? Bonnie, I want you quick. And even over the wire, his voice was feigned with anxiety and apprehension. What on earth has happened? Don't ask, you never know. I'll come at once. Are you there, Raffles? What's that? Are you there, man? Yes. At the Albany? No, no, at McGire's. You never said so. And where's McGire? In Half Moon Street. I know that. Is he there now? No, not coming yet. And I'm caught. Caught? You're not a trap you brag about. It serves me right. I didn't believe in it. But I'm caught at last. Caught at last. When he told us he set it every night. Oh, Raffles, what sort of a trap is it? What shall I do? What shall I bring? But his voice had grown fainter and wearier with every answer, and now there was no answer at all. Again and again, I asked Raffles if he was there. The only sound to reach me in reply was the low metallic hum of the live wire between his ear and mine. And then, as I said, gazing destructedly at my four safe walls, with the receiver still pressed to my head, there came a single groan, followed by the dull and dreadful crash of a human body falling in a heap. In utter panic, I rushed back into my bedroom and flung myself into the crumpled shirt and evening clothes that lay where I had cast them off. But I knew no more what I was doing than what to do next. I afterward found that I had taken out a fresh tie and tied it rather better than usual. But I can remember thinking of nothing but Raffles in some diabolical mantrap and of a grinning monster stealing in to strike him senseless when one murders blow. I must have looked in the glass to array myself as I did, but the mind's eye was the seeing eye and it was filled with this frightful vision of the notorious pugilist known to fame and infamy as Barney McGuire. It was only the week before that Raffles and I had been introduced to him at the Imperial Boxing Club. Heavyweight champion of the United States, the fellow was still drunk with his sanguinary triumphs on that side and clamoring for fresh conquests on ours. But his reputation had crossed the Atlantic before McGuire himself. The grandiose hotels had closed their doors to him and he had already taken and sensuously furnished the house in Half Moon Street, which does not relate to this day. Raffles had made friends with the magnificent Brute while I took timid stock of his diamond studs, his jeweled watch chain, his 18 carat bangle and his six inch lower jaw. I had shuddered to see Raffles admiring the geugos in his turn, in his own brazen fashion with that air of the cool connoisseur which had its double meaning for me. I for my part with the sleeve have looked a tiger in the teeth and when we finally went home with McGuire to see his other trophies it seemed to me like entering the tiger's lair. But an astounding lair it proved fitted throughout by one eminent firm and ringing to the rafters with a lost word on fantastic furniture. The trophies were a still greater surprise. They opened my eyes to the rosier aspect of the noble art as presently practiced on the right side of the Atlantic. Among other offerings we were permitted to handle the jeweled belt presented to the Pugels by the state of Nevada, a gold brick from the citizens of Sacramento and a model of himself in solid silver from the Fisticaf Club in New York. I still remember waiting with baited breath for Raffles to ask McGuire if he were not afraid of burglars and McGuire replying that he had a trap to catch the clever Scrocksman alive but flatly refusing to tell us what it was. I could not at the moment conceive a more terrible trap than a heavyweight himself behind a curtain. Yet it was easy to see that Raffles had accepted the Brogards' boast as a challenge, nor did he deny it later when I tax him with his mad resolve. He merely refused to allow me to implicate myself in its execution. Well, there was a spice of savage satisfaction in the thought that Raffles had been obliged to turn to me in the end and but for the dreadful thought which I had heard over the telephone I may have extracted some genuine comfort from the unearing sagacity with which he had chosen his night. Within the last 24 hours Barney McGuire had fought his first great battle on British soil. Obviously he would no longer be the man that he had been on a strict training before the fight. Never as I gathered was such a Raffian more of his guard or less capable of protecting himself and his possessions than in these first hours of relaxation and inevitable debauchery for which Raffles had waited with characteristic foresight. Nor was the terrible Barney likely to be more upstimious for signal punishment sustained in a far from butler's victory. Then what could be the meaning of that sickening and most suggestive thought? Could it be the champion himself who had received the coup de grace in his scarves? Raffles was the very man to administer it but he had not talked like that man through the telephone. And yet, and yet, what else could have happened? I must have asked myself the question between each and all of the above reflections made partly as I dressed and partly in a handsome on the way to Halfmoon Street. It was as yet the only question in my mind. You must know what your emergency is before you can decide how to cope with it. And to this day I sometimes trembled to think of the rashly direct method by which I set about obtaining the requisite information. I drove every yard of the way to the pugilist's very door. You will remember that I had been dining with Swigar Morrison at his club. Yet, at the last, I had a rough idea of what I meant to say when the door was opened. It seemed almost probable that the tragic end of our talk over the telephone had been caused by the sudden arrival and the sudden violence of Barney McGuire. In that case, I was resolved to tell him that Raffles and I had made a bet about his burglar trap and that I had come to see who had won. I might or might not confess that Raffles had wrung me out of bed to this end. If, however, I was wrong about McGuire and he had not come home at all, then my action would depend upon the menial who answered my reckless ring. But it should result in the rescue of Raffles by Hook or Crook. I had the more time to come to some decision since I rang and rang in vain. The hall indeed was in darkness, but when I peeped through the letterbox I could see a faint beam of light from the back room. That was the room in which McGuire kept his trophies and set his trap. All was quiet in the house. Could I have hailed the intruder to Vine Street in the short twenty minutes which had taken me to dress up and to drive to the spot? That was an awful thought. But even as I hoped against hope and rang once more, speculation and suspense were cut short in the last fashion to be foreseen. Abram was coming stately down the street from Piccadilly. To my horror, it stopped behind me as I peered once more through the letterbox and out tumbled the disheveled price fighter and two companions. I was nicely caught in my turn. There was a lamppost right opposite the door and I can still see the three of them regarding me in its light. The pugilist had been at least a fine figure of a bully and a braguard when I saw him before his fight. Now he had a black eye and a bloated lip, hat on the back of his head and made up tie under one ear. His companions were his fellow little Yankee secretary whose name I really forget, but whom I met with McGuire at the boxing club and a very grown person in a second skin of shimmering sequins. I can neither forget nor report the terms in which Barney McGuire asked me who I was and what I was doing there. Thanks, however, to Swigga Morrison's hospitality, I readily reminded him of our former meeting and of more that I only recalled as the words were in my mouth. You remember Raffles, said I. If you don't remember me, you showed us your trophies the other night and asked us both to look you up at any hour of the day or night after the fight. I was going on to add that I had expected to find Raffles there before me to settle a wager that we had made about the Mantrap. But the indiscretion was interrupted by McGuire himself whose dreadful fist became a hand that gripped mine with brute fervour while with the other he clouted me on the back. You don't say, he cried. I took you for some darn crook, but now I remember you perfectly. If you hadn't spoke up slick, I'd have bust your face in, Sonny. I would, sure. Come right in and have a drink to show there's... ...Jewer Shepard! The secretary had turned a latchkey in the door only to be hauled back by the collar as the door stood open and the light from the inner room was seen streaming upon the bannisters at the foot of the narrow stairs. Light in my den, said McGuire in a mighty whisper, and the blame door opened though the keys in my pocket and we left it locked. Talk about crooks, eh? Holy smoke, how I hope we've landed one alive. You ladies and gentlemen, lay around where you are while I see. And the hawking figure advanced on tiptoe like a performing elephant until just at the open door when for a second we saw his left revolving like a piston and his head thrown back at its fighting angle. But in another second his fists were hands again and McGuire was rubbing them together as he stood shaking with laughter in the light of the open door. Walk up, he cried as he beckoned to us three. Walk up and see one of their blame British crooks laid as low as the blame carpet and nail as tight. I imagined my feelings on the mat. The cello secretary went first. The sequence glittered at his heels. And I must own that for one base moment I was on the brink of bolting through the street door. It had never been shut behind us. I shut it myself in the end. Yet it was small credit to me that I actually remained on the same side of the door as raffles. Real homegrown, low down, unwashed white chapel. I had heard McGuire remarked with him. Blamed if our boring boys ain't cock angels to scum like this. Ah, you biter, I wouldn't soil my knuckles on your ugly face. But if I had my thick boots on, I'd dance to soul out of your carcass for two cents. After this it required less courage to join the others in the inner room. And for some moments even I failed to identify the truly repulsive object about which I found them grouped. There was no false hair upon the face, but it was so black as any sweeps. The clothes, on the other hand, were new to me, though older and more pastiferous in themselves than most worn by raffles for professional purposes. And at first, as I say, I was far from sure whether it was raffles at all. But I remembered the crash that cut short our talk of a telephone. And this inanimate heap of rags was lying directly underneath a wall instrument, with the receiver dangling over him. Thank you, you know him, asked the soul secretary as I stooped and peered with my heart in my boots. Good Lord, no! I only wanted to see if he was dead, I explained, having satisfied myself that it was really raffles. And the raffles was really insensible. But what on earth has happened? I asked in my turn. That's what I want to know, why the person in sequence who had contributed various ejaculations unworthy report and finally subsided behind an ostentatious fan. I should judge, observed the secretary, that it's for Mr. McGuire to say or not to say just as he darn pleases. But the celebrated Barney stood upon a Persian hearthrock, beaming upon us all in a triumph too delicious for immediate translation into words. The room was furnished as a study, and most artistically furnished, if you consider outlandish shapes in fumed oak artistic. There was nothing of the traditional price fighter about Barney McGuire, except his vocabulary and his lower jaw. I had seen over his house already and was fitted and decorated throughout by a high art firm which exhibits just such room as that which was the scene of our tragedy. The person in a sequence like glistening like a landed salmon in a quaint chair of enormous nails and tapestry compact. The secretary leaned against an escritoir with huge hinges of beaten metal. The bugilist's own background presented an elaborate scheme of oaken tiles with ingolnook screen from the joiner and the china cupboard with leaded panes behind his bullet head and his bloodshed eyes rolled with rich delight from the decanter and glasses on the octagonal table to another decanter in a quaintest and craftiest of revolving spirit tables. Isn't it bully? Asked the price fighter smiling on us each in turn with his black and bloodshot eyes and his bloated lip. The thing that I've only to invent a trap to catch a crook for a blame crook to walk right into. You, Mr. Man. And he nodded his great head at me. You recollect me telling you that I'd gotten one when you come in that night with the other sport. Say, Pity, he's not with you now. He was a good boy and I liked him a lot but he wanted to know too much and I guess he'd got to want. But I'm liable to tell you now. Or else must see that decanter on the table. I was just looking at it, said the person in sequence. You don't know what a turn I've had or you'd offer me a little something. You shall have a little something in a minute, rejoin McGuire. But if you take a little anything out of that decanter you'll collapse like a friend upon the floor. Good heavens, I cried out with involuntary indignation and his foul skin broke upon me in a clap. Yes, sir, said McGuire, fixing me with his bloodshot orbs. My trap for crooks and cracksmen is a bottle of hoax whiskey and I guess that's it on the table with the silver label around its neck. Now look at this other decanter without any label at all but for that there's a dead spit of each other. I'll put them side by side so you can see. It isn't only the decanters but liquor looks the same in both in taste so you would know the difference till you woke up in your tracks. I got the poison from a blamed Indian away west and it's a rather ticklish stuff so I keep the label around the trap bottle and only leave it now nights. That's the idea and that's all there is to it. I did McGuire putting the label decanter back in the stand. But I figure it's enough for 99 crooks of 100 and 90 out of 20 I'll have the liquor before they go to work. I wouldn't figure on that, observed the secretary with a downward glance as though at the prostrate raffles. Have you looked to see if the trophies are all safe? Not yet, said McGuire with a glance at the pseudo antique cabinet in which he kept them. Then you can save yourself the trouble, rejoined the secretary as he dived under the octagonal table and came up with a small black bag that I knew at a glance. It was the one that raffles had used for heavy plunder ever since I had known him. The bag was so heavy now that the secretary used both hands to get it on the table. In another moment he had taken out the jeweled belt presented to McGuire by the state of Nevada, the solid silver statuette of himself and the gold brick from the citizens of Sacramento. Either the sight of his treasures so nearly lost or the feeling that the thief had dared to temper with them after all suddenly infuriated McGuire to such an extent that he had bestowed a couple of brutal kicks upon the census form of raffles before the secretary and I could interfere. Play like Mr. McGuire, cried the show of secretary. Man's wrote as well as down, he'll be lucky if he ever gets sub-bright and blister him. I should judge it about the time to telephone for the police. Not till I've done with him, wait till he comes to I guess I'll punch his face into a jam pudding. He shall wash down his teeth with his blood before the coppers come in for what's left. You make me feel quite ill, complained the grand lady in the chair. I wish you'd give me a little something and not be more vulgar than you can help. Help yourself, said McGuire un-gallantly, and don't talk through your hat. Say what's the matter with the phone? The secretary had picked up the dangling receiver. It looks to me, said he, as though the crook had rung up somebody before he went off. I turned and assisted the grand lady to the refreshment that she craved. Like his cheek, McGuire thundered, but who in blazes should he ring up? It'll all come out, said the secretary. They'll tell us at the central, and we shall find out fast enough. It don't matter now, said McGuire. Let's have a drink and then rouse the devil up. But now I was shaking in my shoes. I saw quite clearly what this meant. Even if I rescued Raffles for the time being, the police would promptly ascertain that it was I who had been rung up by the burglar. An effect of my not having said a word about it would be directly damning to me, if in the end it did not incriminate us both. It made me quite faint to feel that we might escape the silla of our present peril and yet split on a caribdis of circumstantial evidence. Yet I could see no middle course of conceivable safety if I held my tongue another moment. So I spoke up desperately with a rash resolution which was the novel feature of my whole conduct on this occasion. But any sheep would be resolute and rash after Dinahwood's Vigor Morrison at his club. I wonder if he rang me up, I exclaimed, as if inspired. You, Sonny, according to McGuire, the canter in hand, what in the hell could he know about you? Or what could you know about him? Amended the secretary, fixing me with eyes like drills. Nothing, I admitted, regretting my temerity with all my heart. But someone did ring me up about an hour ago. I thought it was Raffles. I told you I expected to find him here, if you remember. But I don't see what that's got to do with the crook. Pursued the secretary with his relentless eyes boring deeper and deeper into mine. No more do I, was my miserable reply. But there was a certain comfort in his words and some simultaneous promise in the quantity of spirit which McGuire splashed into his glass. Were you cut off sudden? Asked the secretary, reaching for the decanter as the three of us sat round the octagonal table. So suddenly, I replied, that I never knew who it was who rang me up. No, thank you, not any for me. What! cried McGuire, raising a depressed head suddenly. You won't have a drink in my house. Take care, young man, that's not being a good boy. But I've been dining out, I expostulated, and had my whack, I really have. Barney McGuire smote the table with his terrific say, sunny, I like you a lot, said he. But I shan't like you any, if you're not a good boy. Very well, very well, I said hurriedly. One finger, if I must. And the secretary helped me to not more than two. Why should it have been your friend Raffles, he inquired, returning remorselessly to the charge, while McGuire wrote Ringo, and then drooped once more. I was half asleep, I answered, and he was the first person who occurred to me. We are both on the telephone, you see, and we had made a bet. The glass was at my lips. But I was able to set it down untouched. McGuire's huge jaw had dropped upon his spreading shirt front, and beyond him I saw the person in sequence fast asleep in the artistic armchair. What bet? As the voice with a sudden start in it, the secretary was blinking as he drained his glass. About the very thing we've just had explained to us, said I, watching my men intently as I spoke. I made sure it was a mantrap. Raffles thought it must be something else. We had a tremendous argument about it. Raffles said it wasn't a mantrap. I said it was. We had a bet about it in the end. I put my money on the mantrap. Raffles put his upon the other thing. And Raffles was right. It wasn't a mantrap. But it's every bit as good, every little bit. And the whole boiling of you are caught in it, except me. I sang my voice with the last sentence, but I might just as well have raised it instead. I had said the same thing over and over again to see whether the willful tautology would cause the secretary to open his eyes. It seemed to have had the very opposite effect. His head fell forward on the table, with never a kever at the blow, never a twitch when I pillowed it upon one of his own sprawling arms. And there said McGuire bolt upright, but for the jowl upon his shirt front, where the sequence twinkled in a regular rise and fall upon the reclining form of the lady in a fanciful chair. All three were sound asleep. By what accident or by whose design I did not pose to inquire. It was enough to ascertain the fact beyond all chance of error. I turned my attention to Raffles last of all. There was the other side of the medal. Raffles was still sleeping as sound as the enemy. Or so I feared at first I shook him gently. He made no sign. I introduced Vigor into the process. He muttered incoherently. I caught and twisted an unresisting wrist. And at that he yelled profanely. But it was many and many anxious moment before his blinking eyes knew mine. Bully, he yawned, and nothing more until his position came back to him. So, you came to me. He went on in a tone that thrilled me with its affectionate appreciation. As I knew you would. Had they turned up yet? They will any minute, you know. There's not one to lose. No, they warned old man, I whispered. And he set up and saw the comatose trio for himself. Raffles seemed less amazed at the result than I had been as a puzzled witness of the process. On the other hand, I had never seen anything quite so exultant as the smile that broke through his blackened countenance like light. It was all obviously no great surprise and no puzzle at all to Raffles. How much did they have, buddy? Were his first whispered words. McGuire are good three fingers and the others at least two. Then we need lower our voices and we need walk on our toes. Yee-haw! I dreamed somebody was kicking me in the ribs and I believe it must have been true. He had risen with a hand to his side and a right look on his sweeps face. You can guess which of them it was, said I. The beast is jolly well-served and I shook my fist in a paralytic face of the most brutal bruiser of his time. He is safe till the forenoon unless they bring a doctor to him, said Raffles. I don't suppose we could rouse him now if we tried. How much of the fearsome stuff do you suppose I took? About a tablespoon full. I guessed what it was and couldn't resist making sure. The minute I was satisfied I changed the label and the position of the two decanters, little thinking I should stay and see the fun. But in another minute I could hardly keep my eyes open. I realized then that I was fairly poisoned with some subtle drug. If I left the house at all in that state I must have left the spot behind or be found drunk in the gutter with my head on a swag itself. In any case, I should have been picked up and running and that might have led to anything. So you rang me up. It was my last brilliant inspiration. A sort of flash in the brain pan before the end. And I remember very little about it. I was more asleep than awake at the time. You sounded I'd like it, Raffles now that one has the clue. I can't remember word I said or what was the end of it, Bunny. You fell in a heap before you came to the end. You didn't hear that through the telephone? As though we had been in the same room. Only I thought it was McGuire who had stolen the march on you and knocked you out. I had never seen Raffles more interested and impressed but at this point his smile altered, his eyes softened and I found my hand in his. You thought that and yet you came like a shot to the battle for my body with Barney McGuire? Jack the giant killer was in it with you, Bunny. It was no pity to me. It was rather the other thing said I remembering my rashness and my luck and confessing both in a breath. You know old Swigar Morrison? I added in final explanation. I had been dining with him at his club. Raffles shook his long old head and the kindly life in his eyes was still my infinite reward. I don't care, said he. How deeply you had been dining in Vino Veritas Bunny and your pluck would always out. I have never doubted it and I never shall. In fact I rely on nothing else to get us out of this mess. My face must have fallen as my heart sang at these words. I had said to myself that we were out of the mess already that we had merely to make a clean escape from the house. Now the easiest thing in the world. But as I looked at Raffles and as Raffles looked at me on a threshold of the room where the three sleepers slept on without sound or movement was the real problem that lay before us. It was twofold and the funny thing was that I had seen both horns of the dilemma for myself before Raffles came to his senses. But with Raffles in his right mind I had ceased to apply my own or to carry my share of our common burden another inch. It had been an unconscious withdrawal on my part an instinctive tribute to my leader but I was sufficiently ashamed of it as we stood and faced the problem in each other's eyes. If we simply cleared out continued Raffles you would be incriminated in the first place my accomplice and once they had you they would have a compass with a needle pointing straight to me. They mustn't have either of us Bunny or they will get us both and for my part they may as well. I echoed a sentiment that was generosity itself in Raffles but in my case a mere truism. It's easy enough for me who went on. I'm a common housebreaker and I escape they don't know me from Noah but they do know you. And how do you come to let me escape? What has happened to you Bunny? That's the crux what could have happened after they all dropped off. And for a minute Raffles frowned and smiled like a sensation novelist working out a plot then the light broke and just figured him through his burnt cork. I've got it Bunny he exclaimed you took some of the stuff yourself though of course not nearly so much as they did splendid I cried. They really were pressing it upon me at the end and I did say it must be very little you dozed off in your turn but you were naturally the first to come to yourself I had flown so had the gold brick, the jeweled belt and the silver statuette you tried to rouse the others you couldn't succeed nor would you if you did try so what did you do? What's the only real innocent thing you could do in the circumstances? Go for the police I suggested dubiously literally relishing the prospect there's a telephone installed for the purpose said Raffles I should ring them up if I were you try not to look blue about it Bunny they're quite the nicest fellows in the world and what you have to tell them is a mere microbe to the camels I've made them swallow without a grain of salt it's really the most convincing story one could conceive but unfortunately there's another point which will take more explaining away and even Raffles looked grave enough as I noted you mean that they'll find out you rang me up they may said Raffles I see that I managed to replace the receiver all right but still they may I'm afraid they will said I uncomfortably I'm very much afraid I gave something of the kind away you see you had not replaced the receiver it was dangling over you where you lay this very question came up and the brutes themselves seemed so quick to see its possibilities that I thought best to take the bull by the horns and own that I had been rung up by somebody to be absolutely honest I even went so far as to say I thought it was Raffles you didn't Bunny what could I say I was obliged to think of somebody and I saw they were not going to recognize you so I put up a yarn about a wager we had made about this very trap of MacIers you see Raffles I've never properly told you how I got in and there's no time now the only thing that I said was that I half expected to find you here before me that was in case they spotted you at once but it made all that part about the telephone fit in rather well I should think it did Bunny murmured raffles in a tone that added sensibly to my reward I couldn't have done better myself and you will forgive my saying that you have never in your life done half so well talk about that crack you gave me on the head you have made it up to me a hundredfold by all you have done tonight but the bother of it is that there's still so much to do and to hit upon and so precious little time for thought as well as action I took out my watch and showed it to Raffles without a word it was three o'clock in the morning and latter end of March in little more than an hour there would be dim daylight in the streets Raffles roused himself from a reverie sudden decision there's only one thing for it Bunny said he we must trust each other and divide the labour you ring up the police and leave the rest to me you haven't hit upon any reason for the sort of burglar they think you were ringing up the kind of man that know I am not yet Bunny but I shall it may not be wanted for a day or so and after all it isn't for you to give the explanation it would be highly suspicious if you did so it would I agreed then will you trust me to hit on something if possible before morning in any case by the time it's wanted I won't fail you Bunny you must see how I can never never fail you after tonight that settled it I gripped his hand without another word and remained on guard over the three sleepers while Raffles stole upstairs I have since learned that there were servants at the top of the house and in the basement a man who actually heard some of our proceedings but he was mercifully too accustomed to nocturnal orgies and those of a far more a parlorious character to appear unless summoned to the scene I believe he heard Raffles leave but no secret was made of his exit he let himself out and told me afterward that the first person he encountered in the street was the constable on the beat Raffles wished him good morning as well as he might for he had been upstairs to wash his face and hands and in the price fighter's great hat and fur coat he might have marched around Scotland Yard itself in spite of his having the gold brick from Sacramento in one pocket the silver statuette of McGuire in the other and around his ways the jeweled belt presented to that worthy by the state of Nevada my immediate part was a little hard after the excitement of those small hours I will only say that we had agreed that it would be wisest for me to lie like a log among the rest for half an hour before staggering to my feet and rousing house and police and that in that half hour Barney McGuire crashed to the floor without waking either himself or his companions though not without bringing my beating heart into the very roof of my mouth it was daybreak when I gave the alarm with the bell and telephone in a few minutes we had the house congested with the shoveled domestics harassable doctors and arbitrary minions of the law if I told my story once I told it a dozen times and all on an empty stomach but it was certainly a most plausible and consistent tale even without that confirmation which none of the other victims was yet sufficiently recovered to supply and in the end I was permitted to retire from the scene until required to give further information or to identify the prisoner whom the police confidently expected to make before the day was out I drove straight to the flat the porter flew to help me out of my handsome his face alarmingly more than any I had left in Half Moon Street it alone might have spelled my ruin your flat's been entered in the night sir the thieves have taken everything they could lay hands on thieves in my flat I ejaculated aghast there were one or two incriminating possessions up there as well as at the Albany the doors being forced with the Jimmy it was the milkman who found it out there's a constable up there now a constable poking about in my flat of all others I rushed upstairs without waiting for the lift the invader was moistening his pencil between laborious notes in a fat pocketbook he had penetrated no further than a forced door I dashed past him in a fever I kept my trophies in a wardrobe drawer specially fitted with a Brahma lock the lock was broken the drawer void something valuable sir inquired the intrusive constable at my heels yes indeed some old family silver I answered it was quite true but the family was not mine and not till then did a truth flash across my mind nothing else of value had been taken but there was a meaningless litter in all the rooms I turned to the porter who had followed me up from the street it was his wife who looked after the flat get rid of this idiot as quick as you can I whispered I'm going straight to Scotland yard myself let your wife tie the place while I'm gone and have the lock mended before she leaves I'm going as I am this minute and the go I did in the first handsome I could find but not straight to Scotland yard I stopped the cab in Piccadilly on the way old raffles opened his own door to me I cannot remember finding him fresher more immaculate more delightful to behold in every way could I paint a picture of raffles with something other than my pen it would be as I saw him that bright March morning at his open door in the Albany a trim slim figure in matutinal grey cool and gay and breezy as incarnate spring what on earth did you do it for I asked within was the only solution he answered handing me the cigarettes I saw it the moment I got outside I don't see it yet why should a burglar call an innocent gentleman away from home that's what we could make out I tell you I got it directly I had left you he called you away in order to burgle you too of course and raffles stood smiling upon me in all his incomparable radiance and audacity but why me I asked why on earth should he burgle me my dear bunny we must leave something to the imagination of the police but we will assist them to a factor to induce season it was the day of night when McGuire fish took us to his house it was at the imperial boxing club we met him and you meet queer fish at the imperial boxing club you may remember that he telephoned to his man to prepare supper for us and that you and he discussed telephones and treasure as we marched through the midnight streets he was certainly bucking about his trophies for the sake of the argument you will be good enough to admit that you probably bucked about yours what happens you are overheard you are followed you are worked into the same scheme and robbed on the same night and you really think this will meet the case I am quite certain of it bunny so far as it rests with us to meet the case at all they give me another cigarette my dear fellow and let me push on to Scotland Yard raffles held up both hands in admiring horror Scotland Yard to give a false description of what you took from that drawer in my wardrobe a false description bunny you have no more to learn from me time was when I wouldn't have let you go there without me to retrieve lost umbrella let alone lost cause and for once I was not sorry for raffles to have the last unworthy word as he stood once more at his outer door and gaily waved me down the stairs end of chapter 7 chapter 8 of A Thief in the Night this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Michelle Fry Battenridge, Louisiana A Thief in the Night Chapter 8 The Spoils of Sacrilege There was one deed of those days which deserved a place in our original annals it is the deed of which I am personally most ashamed I have traced the course of a score of felonies from their source in the brain of raffles to their issue in his hands I have omitted all mention of the one which emanated from my own miserable mind but in these supplementary memoirs wherein I pledged myself to extenuate nothing more than I might have to tell of raffles it is only fair that I should make a clean breast of my own baseness it was I then and I alone who outraged natural sentiment and trampled the expiring embers of elementary decency by proposing and planning the raid upon my own old home I would not accuse myself the more vehemently making excuses at this point yet I feel bound to state that it was already many years since the place had passed from our possession into that of an utter alien against whom I harbored a prejudice which was some excuse in itself he had enlarged and altered the dear old place out of knowledge nothing had been good enough for him as it stood in our day the man was a hunting maniac and where my dear father used to grow prized peaches under glass and the candle was soon stabling his hot house thoroughbreds which took prizes in their turn at all the country shows it was a southern county and I never went down there without missing another greenhouse and noting a corresponding extension to the stables not that I ever set foot in the grounds from the day we left but for some years I used to visit old friends in the neighborhood and could never resist the temptation seen from the road which it stood to near the house itself appeared to be the one thing that the horsey purchaser had left much as he found it my only other excuse may be none at all in any eyes but mine it was my passionate desire at this period to keep up my end with raffles in every department of the game felonious he would insist upon an equal division of all proceeds it was for me to earn my share although only at a pinch the whole credit of any real success belonged invariably to raffles it had always been his idea that was the tradition which I sought to end and no means could compare with that of my unscrupulous choice there was the one house in England of which I knew every inch and raffles only what I told him for once I must lead and raffles follow whether he liked it or not and I think he liked it better than he liked me for the desecration in view but I had hardened my heart and his feelings were too fine for actual remonstrance on such a point I in my obduracy went to fowl extremes I drew plans of all the floors from memory I actually descended upon my friends in the neighborhood with the sole object of obtaining snapshots over our own garden wall even raffles could not keep his eyebrows down when I showed him to Prince one morning in the Albany but he can find his open criticisms to the house built in the late 60s I see said raffles or else very early in the 70s exactly when it was built I replied but that's worthy of a six penny detective raffles how on earth did you know that slight tower bang over the porch with the dorm of windows and the iron railing and flag staff atop makes us the present of the period you see them on almost every house of a certain size built about 30 years ago they are quite the most useless excresiences I know ours wasn't I answered with some warmth it was my sanctum sanctorium in the holidays I smoked my first pipe up there and wrote my first verses raffles laid a kindly hand upon my shoulder bunny bunny you can rob the old place and yet you can't hear a word against it that's different said I relentlessly the tower was there in my time but the man I mean to rob was not you really do mean it bunny by myself if necessary I avert not again bunny not again rejoined raffles laughing as he shook his head but do you think the man has enough to make it worth our while to go so far afield far afield it's not 40 miles on the London and Brighton well that's as bad as a hundred on most lawns but when did you say it was to be friday week I don't much like a friday bunny why make it one it's the night of their hunt point to point they wind up the season with it every year and the bloated glutamate usually sweeps the board with his fancy flowers you mean the man in your old house yes and he tops up with no end of dinner there I went on to his hunting pals and the bloods who ride for him if the festive board doesn't groan under the new regiment of challenge cups it will be no fault of theirs and old willomard will have to do them top hole all the same so it's a case of common pot hunting remark raffles I ain't me shrewdly through the cigarette smoke now for us my dear fellow I made answer in his own tone I wouldn't ask you to break into the next set of chambers here in the Albany for a few pieces of modern silver raffles not that we need scorn the cups if we get a chance of lifting them and if willomard does so in the first instance it's by no means certain that he will but it is pretty certain to be a lively knight for him and his pals and a vulnerable one for the best bedroom capital said raffles throwing coals of smoke between his smiles still if it's a dinner party the hostess won't leave her jewels upstairs she'll wear them my boy not all of them raffles she has far too many for that besides it isn't an ordinary dinner party they say that mrs. willomard is generally the only lady there and that she's quite charming in herself now no charming woman would clap on all sale in jewels for a room full of fox hunters it depends what jewel she has well she might wear her rope of pearls I should have said so and of course her rings exactly bunny but not necessarily her diamonds yet has she got one and certainly not her emerald and diamond necklace on top of all raffles snatched the sullivan from his lips and his eyes burned like its end bunny do you mean to tell me there are all these things of course I do said I they are rich people and he's not such a brute as to spend everything on his stable her jewels are as much to talk as his hunters my friends told me all about both the other day when I was down making inquiries they thought my curiosity is natural is my wish for a few snapshots of the old place in their opinion the emerald necklace alone must be worth thousands of pounds raffles rubbed his hands and playful pantomime I only hope you didn't ask too many questions bunny but if your friends are such old friends you will never enter their heads when they hear what has happened unless you are seen down there on the night which might be fatal your approach will require some thought if you like I can work out the shot for you I shall go down independently and the best thing may be to meet outside the house itself on the night of nights but from that moment I am in your hands and on these refreshing lines our plan of campaign was gradually developed and elaborated into the finished study on which raffles would rely like any artist of the footlights none were more capable than he of coping with the occasion as it rose of rising himself with the emergency of the moment of snatching a victory from the very dust of defeat yet for choice every detail was premeditated and an alternate expedient at each fingers and for as many bear and awful possibilities in this case however the finished study stopped short at the garden gate or wall there I was to assume and though raffles carry the actual tools of trade of which he alone was master it was on the understanding that for once I should control and direct their use I had gone down in evening clothes by an evening train but a carefully overshot old landmarks and the lighted at a small station some miles south of the one where I was still remembered this committed me to a solitary and somewhat lengthy tramp but the night was mild and starry and I marched into it with a high stomach for this was to be no costume crime and yet I should have raffles at my elbow all the night long before I reached my destination indeed he stood and wait for me on the white highway and we finished with linked arms I came down early said raffles and had a look at the races I always prefer to measure my man money and you needn't sit in the front row of the stalls to take stock of your friend willamard no wonder he doesn't ride his own horses the steeple chaser isn't fold that would carry him around that course but he's a fine monument of a man and he takes his troubles in a way that makes me blush to add to them did he lose a horse I inquired cheerfully no bunny but he didn't win a race his horses were by chalks the best there and his pals rode them like the foul fiend but with the worst of luck every time not that you'd think it from the row they're making I've been listening to them from the road you always did say the house stood too near it then you didn't go in when it's your show you should know me better not a fool would set on the premises behind your back but here they are so perhaps you'll lead the way and I let it without a moment's hesitation through the unpretentious six-barred gate into the long but shallow crescent of the drive there were two such gates one at each end of the drive but no lodge at either and not a light nearer than those of the house the shape and altitude of the lighted windows the whisper of the laurels on either hand the very feel of the gravel underfoot were at once familiar to my senses as the sweet relaxing immemorial air that one drank deeper at every breath our stealthy advance was to me like stealing back into one's childhood and yet I could conduct it without compunction I was too excited to feel immediate remorse albeit not too lost in excitement to know that remorse for every step that I was taking would be my portion soon enough I mean every word that I have written of my peculiar shame for this night's work and it was all to come over me before the night was out but in the garden I never felt it once the dining room windows blazed in the side of the house facing the road that was an objection to peeping through the Venetian blinds as we nevertheless did at our peril of observation from the road raffles would never have led me into danger so gratuitous and unnecessary but he followed me into it without a word I can only plead that we both had our reward there was a sufficient chink in the obsolete Venetians and through it we saw every inch of the picturesque board Mrs. Guilemard was still in her place but she really was the only lady and dressed as quietly as I had prophesied round her neck was her rope of pearls but not a glimmer of an emerald nor a glint of a diamond nor yet the flashing constellation of a tiara in her hair I gripped raffles in token of my triumph and he nodded as he scanned the overwhelming majority of flushed fox hunters with the exception of one stripling evidently the son of the house they were in evening pink to a man and as I say their faces matched their coats an enormous fellow with a great red face and cropped moustache occupied my poor father's place he it was who had replaced our fruitful vineries with his stinking stables but I am bound to own he looked a genial clawed as he sat in his fat and listened to the young bloods boasting of their prowess or elaborately explaining their mishaps and for a minute we listened also before I remembered my responsibilities and led raffles round to the back of the house there was never an easier house to enter I used to feel that keenly as a boy when by a prophetic irony burglars were my bugbear and I looked under my bed every night in life the bow windows on the ground floor finished in inane balconies to the first floor windows these balconies had ornamental iron railings the less ingenious rope ladder than ours could have been hitched with equal ease raffles had brought it with him round his waist and he carried the telescopic stick for fixing it in place the one was unwound and the other put together in a secluded corner of the red brick walls where of old I had played my own game of squash rackets in the holidays I made further investigations in the starlight and even found a trace of my original white line along the red wall not until we had affected our entry through the room which had been my very own and made our poloist way across the lighted landing to the best bedroom of those days and these that I really felt myself a worm twin brass bedsteads occupied the site of the old four poster from which I had first beheld the light the doors were the same my childish hands had grasped these very handles and there was raffles securing the landing door the red gened gimlet the very second after softly closing it behind us the other leads into the dressing room of course then you might be fixing the outer dressing room door he whispered at his work but not the middle one bunny unless you want to the stuff will be in there you see if it isn't in here my door was done in a moment being fitted with a powerful bolt but now an aching conscience made me busier than I need have been I had raised the rope ladder after us into my own old room and while raffles wedged his door I lowered the ladder from one of the best bedroom windows in order to prepare that way of escape which was a fundamental feature of his own strategy I meant to show raffles that I had not followed in his train for nothing but I left it to him to unearth the jewels I had begun by turning up the gas there appeared to be no possible risk in that and raffles went to work with a will in the excellent light good pieces in the room including an ancient tall boy and fruity mahogany every drawer of which was turned out on the bed without a veil a few of the drawers had locks to pick yet not one trifle to our taste within the situation became serious as the minutes flew we had left the party at its suites the solitary lady might be free to roam her house at any minute in the end we turned our attention to the dressing room and no sooner did raffles behold the door than up when his hands a bathroom bolt he cried below his breath and no bath in the room why didn't you tell me bunny a bolt like that speaks volumes there's none on the bedroom door remember and this one's worthy of a strong room what if it is the strong room bunny oh bunny, what if this is there safe raffles had dropped upon his knees before a carved oak chest of indisputable antiquity its panels were delightfully irregular its angles faultlessly faulty its one modern defilement a strong lock to the lid raffles was smiling as he produced his jimmy rip went lock or lid in another ten seconds I was not there to see which I had wandered back into the bedroom in a paroxysm of excitement and suspense I must keep busy as well as raffles and it was not too soon to see whether the rope ladder was all right in another minute I stood frozen to the floor I had hooked the ladder beautifully to the inner sill of wood and it also let down the extended rod for the more expeditious removal of both on our return to terra firma conceived my cold horror in arriving at the open window just in time to see the last of hooks and bending rod as they floated out of sight and reach into the outer darkness of the night removed by some silent and invisible hand below raffles raffles they've spotted us and moved the ladder this very instant so I panted as I rushed on tiptoe to the dressing room raffles had the working end of his jimmy under the lid of a leather and jewel case it flew open at the vicious twist of his wrist that preceded his reply did you let them see that you've spotted that no good pocket some of these cases no time to open them which doors nearest the back stairs the other come on then no no I'll lead the way I know every inch of it and as I leaned against the bedroom door handle in hand while raffles stooped unscrew the gimlet and withdraw the wedge I hit upon the ideal port in the storm that was evidently about to burst on our devoted heads it was the last place in which they would look for a couple of expert cracksman with no previous knowledge of the house if only we could gain my haven unobserved there we might lie by an unsuspected hiding and by the hour if not for days and nights alas for that sanguine dream the wedge was out and raffles on his feet behind me I opened the door and for a second the pair of us stood upon the threshold creeping up the stairs before us each on the tip of his silken shoes was a seried file of pink barbarians redder in the face than anywhere else and armed with crops carried by the wrong end until person with the short moustache led the advance the fool stood still upon the top step to let out the loudest and chearest view halloa that ever smote my ears it cost him more than he may know until I tell him there was the wide part of the landing between us we adjust that much start along the narrow part with the walls and doors upon our left the banisters on our right and the bay's door at the end but if the great gullimard had not stopped to live up to his sporting reputation he would assuredly have laid one or other of us by the heels and either would have been tantamount to both as I gave raffles ahead long lead to the bay's door I glanced down to the great well of stairs and up came the daft yells of these sporting oafs gone away gone away yike yike yike yonder they go and gone I had through the bay's door to the back landing with raffles at my heels I held the swing door for him and heard him bang it in the face of the spluttering and blustering master of the house other feet were already in the lower flight of the back stairs but the upper flight was the one for me and in an instant we were racing along the upper corridor with the chuckle headed back at our heels here it was all but dark they were the servants bedrooms that we were passing now but I knew what I was doing I run the last corner to the right through the first door to the left and we were in the room underneath the tower in our time a long step ladder had led to the tower itself I rushed in the dark to the old corner thank God the ladder was still there it leaped under us as we rushed aloft like one quadruped the break neck trapdoor was still protected by a curved brass stanchion and this I grasped with one hand and then raffles with the other as I felt my feet upon the tower floor in he sprawled after me and down went the trapdoor with the bang upon the leading hound I hoped to feel his dead weight shake the house as he crashed upon the floor below but the fellow must have ducked and no crash came meanwhile not a word passed between raffles and me he had followed me as I had led him without waste of breath upon a single syllable but the merry lot below were still yelling and bellowing in full cry gone to ground screamed one where's the terrier? screeched another but their host of the mighty girth the man like a soda water bottle from my one glimpse of him on his feet seemed sobered rather than stunned by the crack on that head of his we heard his fine voice no more but we could feel him straining every few against the trapdoor upon which raffles and I stood side by side at least I thought raffles was standing until he asked me to strike a light when I found him on his knees instead of on his feet busy screwing down the trapdoor with his gimlet he carried three or four gimlets for wedging doors and he drove them all into the handle while I pulled at the stanchion and pushed with my feet but the upward pressure ceased before our efforts we heard the latter creak again under a ponderous and slow descent and we stood upright in the dim flicker of a candle end that I had lit and left burning on the floor raffles glanced at the four small windows in turn and then at me is there any way out at all he whispered as no other being would or could have whispered to the man who had led him into such a trap we have no rope ladder you know thanks to me I ground the whole things my fault nonsense bunny there was no other way to run but what about these windows his magnanimity took me by the throat without a word I led him into the one window looking inward upon sloping slats and level leads often as a boy I had clambered over them for the fearful fun of risking life and limb or the fascination of peering through the great square skylight down the well of the house into the hall below there were however several smaller skylights for the benefit of the top floor through any one of which I thought we might have made a dash but at a glance I saw we were way too late one of these skylights became a brilliant square before our eyes opened and admitted a flushed face on flaming shoulders I'll give them a fright said raffles through his teeth in an instant he had plucked out his revolver smashed the window with its butt and the slates with the bullet not a yard from the protruding head and that I believe was the only shot that raffles ever fired in his whole career good night marauder you didn't hit him I gasped as the head disappeared and we heard a crash in the corridor of course I didn't bunny you replied backing into the tower but no one will believe I didn't mean to and it'll stick on ten years if we're caught that's nothing if it gives us an extra five minutes now while they hold a council of war is that a working flagstaff overhead it used to be then there'll be halyards they were as thin as clotheslines and they're sure to be rotten and we should be seen cutting them down no bunny that won't do wait a bit is there a lightning conductor there was I opened one of the side windows and reached out as far as I could you'll be seen from that starlight cried raffles in a warning undertone no I won't I can't see it myself but here's the lightning conductor where it always was asked raffles as I drew in and rejoined him rather thicker than a lead pencil they sometimes bear you said raffles slipping on a pair of white kid gloves and stuffing his handkerchief into the palm of one the difficulty is to keep a grip but I've been up and down them before tonight and it's our only chance I'll go first bunny you watch me and do exactly as I do if I get down alright but if you don't if I don't whispered raffles as he warmed through the window feet foremost I'm afraid you'll have to face the music where you are and I shall have the best of it down in Acheron and he slid out of reach without another word leaving me to shudder alike at his levity and his peril nor could I follow him very far by the wind light of the April stars but I saw his forearms resting a moment in the spout that ran around the tower between bricks and slates on the level of the floor and the walls of him lower still on the eaves over the very room that we had ransacked since the conductor ran straight to earth at an angle of the facade and since it had borne him thus far without mishap I felt that raffles was as good as down but I had neither his muscles nor his nerves and my head swam as I mounted to the window and prepared to creep out backward in my turn so it was that at the last moment I had my first unobstructed view of the little old tower of other days raffles was out of the way a bit of candle was still burning on the floor and in its dim light the familiar haunt was cruelly like itself of innocent memory a lesser ladder still ascended to a tinier trap door in the apex of the tower the fixed seats looked to me to be wearing their old, old coat of grained varnish nay, the varnish had its ancient smell and the very veins outside had a message to my ears I remembered whole days that I had spent whole books that I had read here in this favorite fastness of my boyhood the dirty little place with the dorma window and each of its four sloping sides became a gallery hung with poignant pictures of the past and here was I leaving it with my life in my hands and my pockets full of stolen jewels a superstition seized me a conductor came down with me suppose I slipped and was picked up dead with the proceeds of my shameful crime upon me under the very windows where the sun came peeping in at dawn I hardly remember what I did or left undone I only know that nothing broke and somehow I kept my hold and that in the end the wire ran red hot through my palms so that both were torn and bleeding when I stood panting beside raffles there was no time for thinking then already there was a fresh commotion indoors the tidal wave of excitement which had swept all before it to the upper regions was subsiding in as swift to rush downstairs and I raced after raffles along the edge of the drive without daring to look back we came out by the opposite gate to that by which we had stolen in sharp to the right ran the private lane behind the stables and sharp to the right dashed raffles instead of straight along the open road it was not the course I should have chosen but I followed raffles without a murmur only too thankful that he had assumed the lead at last already the stables were lit up like a chandelier there was a staccato rattle of horseshoes in the stable yard and the great gates were opening as we skimmed past in the nick of time in another minute we were sculpting in the shadow of the kitchen garden a road rang with a dying tattoo of galloping hooves that's for the police said raffles waiting for me by the funds only beginning in the stables hear the uproar and see the lights in another minute they'll be turning out the hunters for the last run of the season we mustn't give them one raffles of course we mustn't but that means stopping where we are we can't do that if they're wise they'll send a man to a railway station within 10 miles and draw every cover inside the radius I can only think of one that's not likely to occur to them what's that? the other side of this wall how big is the garden bunny six or seven acres well you must take me to another of your old haunts where we can lie low till morning and then? sufficient for the night bunny the first thing is to find a burrow at the end of this lane St. Leonard's forest magnificent they'll scour every inch of that before they come back to their own garden come bunny give me a leg up and I'll pull you after me in two ticks there was indeed nothing better to be done and much as I loathed and dreaded entering the place again I had already thought of a second sanctuary of old days which might as well be put to the base uses of this disgraceful night in a far corner of the garden over a hundred yards from the house a little ornamental lake had been dug within my own memory its shores were shelving lawn and steep banks of Rotodendrons and among the Rotodendrons nestled a tiny boat house which had been my childish joy it was half a dock for the dinghy in which one plowed these miniature waters and half a bathing box for those who preferred their morning tub among the goldfish it was safer asylum than this if we must spend the night upon the premises and Raffles agreed with me when I had led him by sheltering shrubbery and perilous lawn to the diminutive chalet between the Rotodendrons and the water but what a night it was the little bathing box had two doors one to the water, the other to the path to hear all that could be heard it was necessary to keep both doors open and quite imperative not to talk the damp night air of April filled the place and crept through our evening clothes and light overcoats into the very marrow the mental torture of the situation was renewed and multiplied in my brain and all the time one's ears were pricked for footsteps on the path between the Rotodendrons the only sounds we could at first identify came one and all from the stables yet there the excitement subsided sooner than we had expected and it was Raffles himself who breathed a doubt as to whether they were turning out the hunters after all on the other hand we heard wheels in the drive not long after midnight and Raffles who was beginning to scout among the shrubberies stole back to tell me that the guests were departing and being sped with an unimpaired conviviality which he failed to understand I said I could not understand it either I suggested the general influence of liquor and expressed my envy of their state I had drawn my knees up to my chin on the bench where one used to dry one's self after bathing and there I sat in a seeming stolidity at other variants with my inward temper I heard Raffles creep forth again and I let him go without a word I never doubted that he would be back again in a minute and so let many minutes elapse before I realized his continued absence and finally crept out myself to look for him even then I only supposed that he had posted himself outside in some more commanding position I took a cat-like stride and breathed his name there was no answer I ventured further till I could overlook the lawns they lay like clean slates in the starlight there was no sign of living thing nearer than the house I left now was it a cunning and deliberate quiet assumed as a snare had they caught Raffles and were they waiting for me I returned to the boathouse in an agony of fear and indignation it was fear for the long hours that I sat there waiting for him it was indignation when at last I heard his stealthy step upon the gravel I would not go out to meet him I sat where I was while the stealthy step came nearer and there I was sitting when the door opened and a huge man in riding clothes stood before me in the steely dawn I leaped to my feet and the huge man clapped me playfully on the shoulder sorry I've been so long Bunny but we should never have got away as we were this riding suit makes a new man of me on top of my own and here's a youth's kit that should do you down to the ground so you broke into the house again I was obliged to Bunny but I had to watch the lights out one by one and give them a good hour after that I went through that dressing room at my leisure this time the only difficulty was to spot the sun's quarters at the back of the house but I overcame it as you see in the end I only hope they'll fit Bunny give me your patent leathers and I'll fill them with stones and sink them in the pond here's a brown pair apiece and we mustn't let the grass grow under them if we're to get to the station in time for the early train while the coast's still clear the early train leaves the station in question at 6.20 a.m. and that fine spring morning there was a police officer in a peaked cap to see it off but he was too busy peering into the compartments for a pair of very swell mobsmen that he took no notice of the huge man in the riding clothes or the more insignificant but less horsey character who had him in hand the early train is due at Victoria at 8.28 but these were these left it at Clapham Junction and changed cabs more than once between Battersea and Piccadilly and a few of their garments in each four-wheeler it was barely nine o'clock when they sat together in the Albany and might have been recognized once more as raffles and myself and now, said raffles before we do anything else let us turn out those little cases that we hadn't time to open when we took them I mean the ones I handed to you Bunny I had a look into mine in the garden and I'm sorry to say there was nothing in them the lady must have been wearing their proper contents raffles held out his hand for the substantial leather cases which I had produced at his request but that was the extent of my compliance instead of handing them over I looked boldly into the eyes that seemed to have discerned my Richard's secret at one glance it's no use my giving them to you I said they are empty also when did you look into them in the tower well let me see for myself as you like my dear Bunny this one must have contained the necklaces you boasted about very likely and this one the tiara I dare say yet she was wearing neither as you prophesied and as we both saw for ourselves I had not taken my eyes from his raffles I said I'll be frank with you after all I meant you never to know but it's easier than telling you a lie I left both things behind me in the tower I won't attempt to explain or defend myself it was probably the influence of the tower and nothing else the whole thing came over me at the last moment when you had gone and I was going I felt that I should very probably break my neck that I carried very little whether I did or not but that it would be frightful to break it at that house with those things in my pocket you may say I ought to have thought of all that before you may say what you like and you won't say more than I deserve it was hysterical and it was mean for I kept the cases to impose on you you were always a bad liar bunny said raffles smiling will you think me one when I tell you that I can understand what you felt and even what you did as a matter of fact I have understood for several hours now you mean what I felt raffles and what you did I guessed it in the boathouse I knew that something must have happened or been discovered to disperse that truculent party of sportsmen so soon they had such good terms with themselves they had not got us they might have got something better worth having and your phlegmatic attitude suggested what as luck would have it the cases that I personally had collared were the empty ones the two prizes had fallen to you well to allay my horrid suspicion I went and had another peep through the lighted venetians and what do you think I saw I shook my head or was I very eager for enlightenment the two poor people whom it was your own idea to spoil cloth raffles prematurely gloating over these two pretty things he withdrew his hand from either pocket of his crumpled dinner jacket and opened the pair under my nose in one was a diamond tiara and in the other a necklace of fine emerald set in clusters of brilliance you must try to forgive me bunny continued raffles before I could speak I don't say a word against what you did or undid in fact now it's all over I'm rather glad to think that you did try to undo it but my dear fellow we had both risked life, limb, and liberty and I had not your sentimental scruples why should I go empty away if you want to know the inner history of my second visit to that good fellow's dressing room drive home for a fresh kit and meet me at the Turkish Bath in twenty minutes I feel more than a little grubby and we can have our breakfast in the cooling gallery besides after a whole night in your old haunt's bunny it's only an order to wind up in northumberland avenue end of chapter 8 the spoils of sacrilege