by Graeme Davis
I had, however, one rather strong point. I possessed the gift of dismissing unpleasant considerations, not intimately connected with the passing moment, entirely from my mind. Through the exercise of this faculty I had lately been living my frivolous life in town with as much ignoble enjoyment as I had derived from it the year before; and similarly, here at Milchester, in the long-dreaded cricket-week, I had after all a quite excellent time.
It is true that there were other factors in this pleasing disappointment. In the first place, mirabile dictu,§§§ there were one or two even greater duffers than I on the Abbey cricket-field. Indeed, quite early in the week, when it was of most value to me, I gained considerable kudos for a lucky catch; a ball, of which I had merely heard the hum, stuck fast in my hand, which Lord Amersteth himself grasped in public congratulation. This happy accident was not to be undone even by me, and, as nothing succeeds like success, and the constant encouragement of the one great cricketer on the field was in itself an immense stimulus, I actually made a run or two in my very next innings. Miss Melhuish said pretty things to me that night at the great ball in honor of Viscount Crowley’s majority; she also told me that was the night on which the robbers would assuredly make their raid, and was full of arch tremors when we sat out in the garden, though the entire premises were illuminated all night long. Meanwhile the quiet Scotchman took countless photographs by day, which he developed by night in a dark room admirably situated in the servants’ part of the house; and it is my firm belief that only two of his fellow-guests knew Mr. Clephane of Dundee for Inspector Mackenzie of Scotland Yard.
The week was to end with a trumpery match on the Saturday, which two or three of us intended abandoning early in order to return to town that night. The match, however, was never played. In the small hours of the Saturday morning a tragedy took place at Milchester Abbey.
Let me tell of the thing as I saw and heard it. My room opened upon the central gallery, and was not even on the same floor as that on which Raffles—and I think all the other men—were quartered. I had been put, in fact, into the dressing-room of one of the grand suites, and my too near neighbors were old Lady Melrose and my host and hostess. Now, by the Friday evening the actual festivities were at an end, and, for the first time that week, I must have been sound asleep since midnight, when all at once I found myself sitting up breathless. A heavy thud had come against my door, and now I heard hard breathing and the dull stamp of muffled feet.
“I’ve got ye,” muttered a voice. “It’s no use struggling.”
It was the Scotch detective, and a new fear turned me cold. There was no reply, but the hard breathing grew harder still, and the muffled feet beat the floor to a quicker measure. In sudden panic I sprang out of bed and flung open my door. A light burnt low on the landing, and by it I could see Mackenzie swaying and staggering in a silent tussle with some powerful adversary.
“Hold this man!” he cried, as I appeared. “Hold the rascal!”
But I stood like a fool until the pair of them backed into me, when, with a deep breath I flung myself on the fellow, whose face I had seen at last. He was one of the footmen who waited at table; and no sooner had I pinned him than the detective loosed his hold.
“Hang on to him,” he cried. “There’s more of ’em below.”
And he went leaping down the stairs, as other doors opened and Lord Amersteth and his son appeared simultaneously in their pyjamas. At that my man ceased struggling; but I was still holding him when Crowley turned up the gas.
“What the devil’s all this?” asked Lord Amersteth, blinking. “Who was that ran downstairs?”
“Mac—Clephane!” said I hastily.
“Aha!” said he, turning to the footman. “So you’re the scoundrel, are you? Well done! Well done! Where was he caught?”
I had no idea.
“Here’s Lady Melrose’s door open,” said Crowley. “Lady Melrose! Lady Melrose!”
“You forget she’s deaf,” said Lord Amersteth. “Ah! that’ll be her maid.”
An inner door had opened; next instant there was a little shriek, and a white figure gesticulated on the threshold.
“Ou donc est l’ecrin de Madame la Marquise? La fenetre est ouverte. Il a disparu!”¶¶¶
“Window open and jewel-case gone, by Jove!” exclaimed Lord Amersteth. “Mais comment est Madame la Marquise? Est elle bien?”
“Oui, milor. Elle dort.”###
“Sleeps through it all,” said my lord. “She’s the only one, then!”
“What made Mackenzie—Clephane—bolt?” young Crowley asked me.
“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. All together, 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 whiskey 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 stil
l 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 tires 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 disk 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 RETURN MATCH
I had turned into Piccadilly, one thick evening in the following November, when my guilty heart stood still at the sudden grip of a hand upon my arm. I thought—I was always thinking—that my inevitable hour was come at last. It was only Raffles, however, who stood smiling at me through the fog.
“Well met!” said he. “I’ve been looking for you at the club.”
“I was just on my way there,” I returned, with an attempt to hide my tremors. It was an ineffectual attempt, as I saw from his broader smile, and by the indulgent shake of his head.
“Come up to my place instead,” said he. “I’ve something amusing to tell you.”
I made excuses, for his tone foretold the kind of amusement, and it was a kind against which I had successfully set my face for months. I have stated before, however, and I can but reiterate, that to me, at all events, there was never anybody in the world so irresistible as Raffles when his mind was made up. That we had both been independent of crime since our little service to Sir Bernard Debenham—that there had been no occasion for that masterful mind to be made up in any such direction for many a day—was the undeniable basis of a longer spell of honesty than I had hitherto enjoyed during the term of our mutual intimacy. Be sure I would deny it if I could; the very thing I am to tell you would discredit such a boast. I made my excuses, as I have said.
But his arm slid through mine, with his little laugh of light-hearted mastery. And even while I argued we were on his staircase in the Albany.
His fire had fallen low. He poked and replenished it after lighting the gas. As for me, I stood by sullenly in my overcoat until he dragged it off my back.
“What a chap you are!” said Raffles, playfully. “One would really think I had proposed to crack another crib this blessed night! Well, it isn’t that, Bunny; so get into that chair, and take one of these Sullivans and sit tight.”
He held the match to my cigarette; he brought me a whiskey and soda. Then he went out into the lobby, and, just as I was beginning to feel happy, I heard a bolt shot home. It cost me an effort to remain in that chair; next moment he was straddling another and gloating over my discomfiture across his folded arms.
“You remember Milchester, Bunny, old boy?”
His tone was as bland as mine was grim when I answered that I did.
“We had a little match there that wasn’t down on the card. Gentlemen and Players, if you recollect?”
“I don’t forget it.”
“Seeing that you never got an innings, so to speak, I thought you might. Well, the Gentlemen scored pretty freely, but the Players were all caught.”
“Poor devils!”
“Don’t be too sure. You remember the fellow we saw in the inn? The florid, over-dressed chap who I told you was one of the cleverest thieves in town?”
“I remember him. Crawshay his name turned out to be.”
“Well, it was certainly the name he was convicted under, so Crawshay let it be. You needn’t waste any pity on HIM, old chap; he escaped from Dartmoor**** yesterday afternoon.”
“Well done!”
Raffles smiled, but his eyebrows had gone up, and his shoulders followed suit.
“You are perfectly right; it was very well done indeed. I wonder you didn’t see it in the paper. In a dense fog on the moor yesterday good old Crawshay made a bolt for it, and got away without a scratch under heavy fire. All honor to him, I agree; a fellow with that much grit deserves his liberty. But Crawshay has a good deal more. They hunted him all night long; couldn’t find him for nuts; and that was all you missed in the morning papers.”
He unfolded a Pall Mall,†††† which he had brought in with him.
“But listen to this; here’s an account of the escape, with just the addition which puts the thing on a higher level. ‘The fugitive has been traced to Totnes, where he appears to have committed a peculiarly daring outrage in the early hours of this morning. He is reported to have entered the lodgings of the Rev. A. H. Ellingworth, curate of the parish, who missed his clothes on rising at the usual hour; later in the morning those of the convict were discovered neatly folded at the bottom of a drawer. Meanwhile Crawshay had made good his second escape, though it is believed that so distinctive a guise will lead to his recapture during the day.’ What do you think of that, Bunny?”
“He is certainly a sportsman,” said I, reaching for the paper.
“He’s more,” said Raffles, “he’s an artist, and I envy him. The curate, of all men! Beautiful—beautiful! But that’s not all. I saw just now on the board at the club that there’s been an outrage on the line near Dawlish. Parson found insensible in the six-foot way.‡‡‡‡ Our friend again! The telegram doesn’t say so, but it’s obvious; he’s simply knocked some other fellow out, changed clothes again, and come on gayly to town. Isn’t it great? I do believe it’s the best thing of the kind that’s ever been done!”
“But why should he come to town?”
In an instant the enthusiasm fa
ded from Raffles’s face; clearly I had reminded him of some prime anxiety, forgotten in his impersonal joy over the exploit of a fellow-criminal. He looked over his shoulder towards the lobby before replying.
“I believe,” said he, “that the beggar’s on MY tracks!”
And as he spoke he was himself again—quietly amused—cynically unperturbed—characteristically enjoying the situation and my surprise.
“But look here, what do you mean?” said I. “What does Crawshay know about you?”
“Not much; but he suspects.”
“Why should he?”
“Because, in his way he’s very nearly as good a man as I am; because, my dear Bunny, with eyes in his head and brains behind them, he couldn’t help suspecting. He saw me once in town with old Baird. He must have seen me that day in the pub on the way to Milchester, as well as afterwards on the cricket-field. As a matter of fact, I know he did, for he wrote and told me so before his trial.”
“He wrote to you! And you never told me!”
The old shrug answered the old grievance.
“What was the good, my dear fellow? It would only have worried you.”
“Well, what did he say?”
“That he was sorry he had been run in before getting back to town, as he had proposed doing himself the honor of paying me a call; however, he trusted it was only a pleasure deferred, and he begged me not to go and get lagged§§§§ myself before he came out. Of course he knew the Melrose necklace was gone, though he hadn’t got it; and he said that the man who could take that and leave the rest was a man after his own heart. And so on, with certain little proposals for the far future, which I fear may be the very near future indeed! I’m only surprised he hasn’t turned up yet.”
He looked again towards the lobby, which he had left in darkness, with the inner door shut as carefully as the outer one. I asked him what he meant to do.
“Let him knock—if he gets so far. The porter is to say I’m out of town; it will be true, too, in another hour or so.”
