“Said there were more of them below.”
“Why the devil couldn’t you tell us so before?” he cried, and went leaping downstairs in his turn.
He was followed by nearly all the cricketers, who now burst upon the scene in a body, only to desert it for the chase. Raffles was one of them, and I would gladly have been another, had not the footman chosen this moment to hurl me from him, and to make a dash in the direction from which they had come. Lord Amersteth had him in an instant; but the fellow fought desperately, and it took the two of us to drag him downstairs, amid a terrified chorus from half-open doors. Eventually we handed him over to two other footmen who appeared with their nightshirts tucked into their trousers, and my host was good enough to compliment me as he led the way outside.
“I thought I heard a shot,” he added. “Didn’t you?”
“I thought I heard three.”
And out we dashed into the darkness.
I remember how the gravel pricked my feet, how the wet grass numbed them as we made for the sound of voices on an outlying lawn. So dark was the night that we were in the cricketers’ midst before we saw the shimmer of their pyjamas; and then Lord Amersteth almost trod on Mackenzie as he lay prostrate in the dew.
“Who’s this?” he cried. “What on earth’s happened?”
“It’s Clephane,” said a man who knelt over him. “He’s got a bullet in him somewhere.”
“Is he alive?”
“Barely.”
“Good God! Where’s Crowley?”
“Here I am,” called a breathless voice. “It’s no good, you fellows. There’s nothing to show which way they’ve gone. Here’s Raffles; he’s chucked it, too.” And they ran up panting.
“Well, we’ve got one of them, at all events,” muttered Lord Amersteth. “The next thing is to get this poor fellow indoors. Take his shoulders, somebody. Now his middle. Join hands under him. Altogether, now; that’s the way. Poor fellow! Poor fellow! His name isn’t Clephane at all. He’s a Scotland Yard detective, down here for these very villains!”
Raffles was the first to express surprise; but he had also been the first to raise the wounded man. Nor had any of them a stronger or more tender hand in the slow procession to the house. In a little we had the senseless man stretched on a sofa in the library. And there, with ice on his wound and brandy in his throat, his eyes opened and his lips moved.
Lord Amersteth bent down to catch the words.
“Yes, yes,” said he; “we’ve got one of them safe and sound. The brute you collared upstairs.” Lord Amersteth bent lower. “By Jove! Lowered the jewel-case out of the window, did he? And they’ve got clean away with it! Well, well! I only hope we’ll be able to pull this good fellow through. He’s off again.”
An hour passed: the sun was rising.
It found a dozen young fellows on the settees in the billiard-room, drinking whisky and soda-water in their overcoats and pyjamas, and still talking excitedly in one breath. A time-table was being passed from hand to hand: the doctor was still in the library. At last the door opened, and Lord Amersteth put in his head.
“It isn’t hopeless,” said he, “but it’s bad enough. There’ll be no cricket to-day.”
Another hour, and most of us were on our way to catch the early train; between us we filled a compartment almost to suffocation. And still we talked all together of the night’s event; and still I was a little hero in my way, for having kept my hold of the one ruffian who had been taken; and my gratification was subtle and intense. Raffles watched me under lowered lids. Not a word had we had together; not a word did we have until we had left the others at Paddington, and were skimming through the streets in a hansom with noiseless tyres and a tinkling bell.
“Well, Bunny,” said Raffles, “so the professors have it, eh?”
“Yes,” said I. “And I’m jolly glad!”
“That poor Mackenzie has a ball in his chest?”
“That you and I have been on the decent side for once.”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“You’re hopeless, Bunny, quite hopeless! I take it you wouldn’t have refused your share if the boodle had fallen to us? Yet you positively enjoy coming off second best—for the second time running! I confess, however, that the professors’ methods were full of interest to me. I, for one, have probably gained as much in experience as I have lost in other things. That lowering the jewel-case out of the window was a very simple and effective expedient; two of them had been waiting below for it for hours.”
“How do you know?” I asked.
“I saw them from my own window, which was just above the dear old lady’s. I was fretting for that necklace in particular, when I went up to turn in for our last night—and I happened to look out of my window. In point of fact, I wanted to see whether the one below was open, and whether there was the slightest chance of working the oracle with my sheet for a rope. Of course I took the precaution of turning my light off first, and it was a lucky thing I did. I saw the pros. right down below, and they never saw me. I saw a little tiny luminous disc just for an instant, and then again for an instant a few minutes later. Of course I knew what it was, for I have my own watch-dial daubed with luminous paint; it makes a lantern of sorts when you can get no better. But these fellows were not using theirs as a lantern. They were under the old lady’s window. They were watching the time. The whole thing was arranged with their accomplice inside. Set a thief to catch a thief: in a minute I had guessed what the whole thing proved to be.”
“And you did nothing!” I exclaimed.
“On the contrary, I went downstairs and straight into Lady Melrose’s room—”
“You did?”
“Without a moment’s hesitation. To save her jewels. And I was prepared to yell as much into her ear-trumpet for all the house to hear. But the dear lady is too deaf and too fond of her dinner to wake easily.”
“Well?”
“She didn’t stir.”
“And yet you allowed the professors, as you call them, to take her jewels, case and all!”
“All but this,” said Raffles, thrusting his fist into my lap. “I would have shown it you before, but really, old fellow, your face all day has been worth a fortune to the firm!”
And he opened his fist, to shut it next instant on the bunch of diamonds and of sapphires that I had last seen encircling the neck of Lady Melrose.
The Well
W. W. Jacobs
William Wymark Jacobs (1863–1945) was a Londoner who took a clerical job with the Post Office Savings Bank while trying to establish himself as a writer. By the time he married a suffragette, and moved with her to Loughton in Essex, he had become a well-regarded author of macabre short stories. The most famous is “The Monkey’s Paw”, which has been adapted for stage, radio, film, television, and even operatic performance.
The success of “The Monkey’s Paw” has meant that Jacobs’ other work has tended to suffer from undeserved neglect. Many of his stories benefit from flashes of humour, and his literary style has occasionally been compared to Dickens’. It is, however, his gift for building suspense that is most impressive. He did not write conventional detective stories, but this tale is a study of the consequences of crime.
***
Two men stood in the billiard-room of an old country house, talking. Play, which had been of a half-hearted nature, was over, and they sat at the open window, looking out over the park stretching away beneath them, conversing idly.
“Your time’s nearly up, Jem,” said one at length; “this time six weeks you’ll be yawning out the honeymoon and cursing the man—woman I mean—who invented them.”
Jem Benson stretched his long limbs in the chair and grunted in dissent.
“I’ve never understood it,” continued Wilfred Carr, yawning. “It’s not in my line at all; I never had enough money for my own
wants, let alone for two. Perhaps if I were as rich as you or Croesus I might regard it differently.”
There was just sufficient meaning in the latter part of the remark for his cousin to forbear to reply to it. He continued to gaze out of the window and to smoke slowly.
“Not being as rich as Croesus—or you,” resumed Carr, regarding him from beneath lowered lids, “I paddle my own canoe down the stream of Time, and, tying it to my friends’ door-posts, go in to eat their dinners.”
“Quite Venetian,” said Jem Benson, still looking out of the window. “It’s not a bad thing for you, Wilfred, that you have the door-posts and dinners—and friends.”
Carr grunted in his turn. “Seriously though, Jem,” he said slowly, “you’re a lucky fellow, a very lucky fellow. If there is a better girl above ground than Olive, I should like to see her.”
“Yes,” said the other quietly.
“She’s such an exceptional girl,” continued Carr, staring out of the window. “She’s so good and gentle. She thinks you are a bundle of all the virtues.”
He laughed frankly and joyously, but the other man did not join him.
“Strong sense of right and wrong, though,” continued Carr musingly. “Do you know, I believe that if she found out that you were not—”
“Not what?” demanded Benson, turning upon him fiercely, “not what?”
“Everything that you are,” returned his cousin, with a grin that belied his words, “I believe she’d drop you.”
“Talk about something else,” said Benson slowly; “your pleasantries are not always in the best taste.”
Wilfred Carr rose, and taking a cue from the rack, bent over the board and practised one or two favourite shots. “The only other subject I can talk about just at present is my own financial affairs,” he said slowly, as he walked round the table.
“Talk about something else,” said Benson again bluntly.
“And the two things are connected,” said Carr, and dropping his cue he half sat on the table and eyed his cousin.
There was a long silence. Benson pitched the end of his cigar out of the window, and leaning back closed his eyes.
“Do you follow me?” inquired Carr at length.
Benson opened his eyes and nodded at the window.
“Do you want to follow my cigar?” he demanded.
“I should prefer to depart by the usual way for your sake,” returned the other, unabashed. “If I left by the window all sorts of questions would be asked, and you know what a talkative chap I am.”
“So long as you don’t talk about my affairs,” returned the other, restraining himself by an obvious effort, “you can talk yourself hoarse.”
“I’m in a mess,” said Carr slowly, “a devil of a mess. If I don’t raise fifteen hundred by this day fortnight, I may be getting my board and lodging free.”
“Would that be any change?” questioned Benson.
“The quality would,” retorted the other. “The address also would not be good. Seriously, Jem, will you let me have the fifteen hundred?”
“No,” said the other simply.
Carr went white. “It’s to save me from ruin,” he said thickly.
“I’ve helped you till I’m tired,” said Benson, turning and regarding him, “and it is all to no good. If you’ve got into a mess, get out of it. You should not be so fond of giving autographs away.”
“It’s foolish, I admit,” said Carr deliberately. “I won’t do so any more. By the way, I’ve got some to sell. You needn’t sneer. They’re not my own.”
“Whose are they?” inquired the other.
“Yours.”
Benson got up from his chair and crossed over to him. “What is this?” he asked quietly. “Blackmail?”
“Call it what you like,” said Carr. “I’ve got some letters for sale, price fifteen hundred. And I know a man who would buy them at that price for the mere chance of getting Olive from you. I’ll give you first offer.”
“If you have got any letters bearing my signature, you will be good enough to give them to me,” said Benson very slowly.
“They’re mine,” said Carr lightly; “given to me by the lady you wrote them to. I must say that they are not all in the best possible taste.”
His cousin reached forward suddenly, and catching him by the collar of his coat pinned him down on the table.
“Give me those letters,” he breathed, sticking his face close to Carr’s.
“They’re not here,” said Carr, struggling. “I’m not a fool. Let me go, or I’ll raise the price.”
The other man raised him from the table in his powerful hands, apparently with the intention of dashing his head against it. Then suddenly his hold relaxed as an astonished-looking maid-servant entered the room with letters. Carr sat up hastily.
“That’s how it was done,” said Benson, for the girl’s benefit as he took the letters.
“I don’t wonder at the other man making him pay for it, then,” said Carr blandly.
“You will give me those letters?” said Benson suggestively, as the girl left the room.
“At the price I mentioned, yes,” said Carr; “but so sure as I am a living man, if you lay your clumsy hands on me again, I’ll double it. Now, I’ll leave you for a time while you think it over.”
He took a cigar from the box and lighting it carefully quitted the room. His cousin waited until the door had closed behind him, and then turning to the window sat there in a fit of fury as silent as it was terrible.
The air was fresh and sweet from the park, heavy with the scent of new-mown grass. The fragrance of a cigar was now added to it, and glancing out he saw his cousin pacing slowly by. He rose and went to the door, and then, apparently altering his mind, he returned to the window and watched the figure of his cousin as it moved slowly away into the moonlight. Then he rose again, and, for a long time, the room was empty.
***
It was empty when Mrs. Benson came in some time later to say good-night to her son on her way to bed. She walked slowly round the table, and pausing at the window gazed from it in idle thought, until she saw the figure of her son advancing with rapid strides toward the house. He looked up at the window.
“Good-night,” said she.
“Good-night,” said Benson, in a deep voice.
“Where is Wilfred?”
“Oh, he has gone,” said Benson.
“Gone?”
“We had a few words; he was wanting money again, and I gave him a piece of my mind. I don’t think we shall see him again.”
“Poor Wilfred!” sighed Mrs. Benson. “He is always in trouble of some sort. I hope that you were not too hard upon him.”
“No more than he deserved,” said her son sternly. “Goodnight.”
II
The well, which had long ago fallen into disuse, was almost hidden by the thick tangle of undergrowth which ran riot at that corner of the old park. It was partly covered by the shrunken half of a lid, above which a rusty windlass creaked in company with the music of the pines when the wind blew strongly. The full light of the sun never reached it, and the ground surrounding it was moist and green when other parts of the park were gaping with the heat.
Two people walking slowly round the park in the fragrant stillness of a summer evening strayed in the direction of the well.
“No use going through this wilderness, Olive,” said Benson, pausing on the outskirts of the pines and eyeing with some disfavour the gloom beyond.
“Best part of the park,” said the girl briskly; “you know it’s my favourite spot.”
“I know you’re very fond of sitting on the coping,” said the man slowly, “and I wish you wouldn’t. One day you will lean back too far and fall in.”
“And make the acquaintance of Truth,” said Olive lightly. “Come along.”
> She ran from him and was lost in the shadow of the pines, the bracken crackling beneath her feet as she ran. Her companion followed slowly, and emerging from the gloom saw her poised daintily on the edge of the well with her feet hidden in the rank grass and nettles which surrounded it. She motioned her companion to take a seat by her side, and smiled softly as she felt a strong arm passed about her waist.
“I like this place,” said she, breaking a long silence, “it is so dismal—so uncanny. Do you know I wouldn’t dare to sit here alone, Jem. I should imagine that all sorts of dreadful things were hidden behind the bushes and trees, waiting to spring out on me. Ugh!”
“You’d better let me take you in,” said her companion tenderly; “the well isn’t always wholesome, especially in the hot weather. Let’s make a move.”
The girl gave an obstinate little shake, and settled herself more securely on her seat.
“Smoke your cigar in peace,” she said quietly. “I am settled here for a quiet talk. Has anything been heard of Wilfred yet?”
“Nothing.”
“Quite a dramatic disappearance, isn’t it?” she continued. “Another scrape, I suppose, and another letter for you in the same old strain: ‘Dear Jem, help me out.’”
Jem Benson blew a cloud of fragrant smoke into the air, and holding his cigar between his teeth brushed away the ash from his coat sleeves.
“I wonder what he would have done without you,” said the girl, pressing his arm affectionately. “Gone under long ago, I suppose. When we are married, Jem, I shall presume upon the relationship to lecture him. He is very wild, but he has his good points, poor fellow.”
“I never saw them,” said Benson, with startling bitterness. “God knows I never saw them.”
“He is nobody’s enemy but his own,” said the girl, startled by this outburst.
“You don’t know much about him,” said the other sharply. “He was not above blackmail; not above ruining the life of a friend to do himself a benefit. A loafer, a cur, and a liar!”
The girl looked up at him soberly but timidly and took his arm without a word, and they both sat silent while evening deepened into night and the beams of the moon, filtering through the branches, surrounded them with a silver network. Her head sank upon his shoulder, till suddenly with a sharp cry she sprang to her feet.
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