Chapter I
An
Inaugural BanquetRaffles
had vanished from the face of the town, and even I had no conception
of his whereabouts until he cabled to me to meet the 7.31 at Charing
Cross next night. That was on the Tuesday before the 'Varsity match,
or a full fortnight after his mysterious disappearance. The telegram
was from Carlsbad, of all places for Raffles of all men! Of course
there was only one thing that could possibly have taken so rare a
specimen of physical fitness to any such pernicious spot. But to my
horror he emerged from the train, on the Wednesday evening, a
cadaverous caricature of the splendid person I had gone to meet."Not
a word, my dear Bunny, till I have bitten British beef!" said
he, in tones as hollow as his cheeks. "No, I'm not going to stop
to clear my baggage now. You can do that for me to–morrow, Bunny,
like a dear good pal.""Any
time you like," said I, giving him my arm. "But where shall
we dine? Kellner's? Neapolo's? The Carlton or the Club?"But
Raffles shook his head at one and all."I
don't want to dine at all," he said. "I know what I want!"And
he led the way from the station, stopping once to gloat over the
sunset across Trafalgar Square, and again to inhale the tarry scent
of the warm wood–paving, which was perfume to his nostrils as the
din of its traffic was music to his ears, before we came to one of
those political palaces which permit themselves to be included in the
list of ordinary clubs. Raffles, to my surprise, walked in as though
the marble hall belonged to him, and as straight as might be to the
grill–room where white–capped cooks were making things hiss upon
a silver grill. He did not consult me as to what we were to have. He
had made up his mind about that in the train. But he chose the fillet
steaks himself, he insisted on seeing the kidneys, and had a word to
say about the fried potatoes, and the Welsh rarebit that was to
follow. And all this was as uncharacteristic of the normal Raffles
(who was least fastidious at the table) as the sigh with which he
dropped into the chair opposite mine, and crossed his arms upon the
cloth."I
didn't know you were a member of this place," said I, feeling
really rather shocked at the discovery, but also that it was a safer
subject for me to open than that of his late mysterious movements."There
are a good many things you don't know about me, Bunny," said he
wearily. "Did you know I was in Carlsbad, for instance?""Of
course I didn't.""Yet
you remember the last time we sat down together?""You
mean that night we had supper at the Savoy?""It's
only three weeks ago, Bunny.""It
seems months to me.""And
years to me!" cried Raffles. "But surely you remember that
lost tribesman at the next table, with the nose like the village
pump, and the wife with the emerald necklace?""I
should think I did," said I; "you mean the great Dan Levy,
otherwise Mr. Shylock? Why, you told me all about him, A. J.""Did
I? Then you may possibly recollect that the Shylocks were off to
Carlsbad the very next day. It was the old man's last orgy before his
annual cure, and he let the whole room know it. Ah, Bunny, I can
sympathise with the poor brute now!""But
what on earth took you there, old fellow?""Can
you ask? Have you forgotten how you saw the emeralds under their
table when they'd gone, and how
I forgot myself and
ran after them with the best necklace I'd handled since the days of
Lady Melrose?"I
shook my head, partly in answer to his question, but partly also over
a piece of perversity which still rankled in my recollection. But now
I was prepared for something even more perverse."You
were quite right," continued Raffles, recalling my
recriminations at the time; "it was a rotten thing to do. It was
also the action of a tactless idiot, since anybody could have seen
that a heavy necklace like that couldn't have dropped off without the
wearer's knowledge.""You
don't mean to say she dropped it on purpose?" I exclaimed with
more interest, for I suddenly foresaw the remainder of his tale."I
do," said Raffles. "The poor old pet did it deliberately
when stooping to pick up something else; and all to get it stolen and
delay their trip to Carlsbad, where her swab of a husband makes her
do the cure with him."I
said I always felt that we had failed to fulfil an obvious destiny in
the matter of those emeralds; and there was something touching in the
way Raffles now sided with me against himself."But
I saw it the moment I had yanked them up," said he, "and
heard that fat swine curse his wife for dropping them. He told her
she'd done it on purpose, too; he hit the nail on the head all right;
but it was her poor head, and that showed me my unworthy impulse in
its true light, Bunny. I didn't need your reproaches to make me
realise what a skunk I'd been all round. I saw that the necklace was
morally yours, and there was one clear call for me to restore it to
you by hook, crook, or barrel. I left for Carlsbad as soon after its
wrongful owners as prudence permitted.""Admirable!"
said I, overjoyed to find old Raffles by no means in such bad form as
he looked. "But not to have taken me with you, A. J., that's the
unkind cut I can't forgive.""My
dear Bunny, you couldn't have borne it," said Raffles solemnly.
"The cure would have killed you; look what it's done to me.""Don't
tell me you went through with it!" I rallied him."Of
course I did, Bunny. I played the game like a prayer–book.""But
why, in the name of all that's wanton?""You
don't know Carlsbad, or you wouldn't ask. The place is squirming with
spies and humbugs. If I had broken the rules one of the prize humbugs
laid down for me I should have been spotted in a tick by a spy, and
bowled out myself for a spy and a humbug rolled into one. Oh, Bunny,
if old man Dante were alive to–day I should commend him to that
sink of salubrity for the redraw material of another and a worse
Inferno!"The
steaks had arrived, smoking hot, with a kidney apiece and lashings of
fried potatoes. And for a divine interval (as it must have been to
him) Raffles's only words were to the waiter, and referred to
successive tankards of bitter, with the superfluous rider that the
man who said we couldn't drink beer was a liar. But indeed I never
could myself, and only achieved the impossible in this case out of
sheer sympathy with Raffles. And eventually I had my reward, in such
a recital of malignant privation as I cannot trust myself to set down
in any words but his."No,
Bunny, you couldn't have borne it for half a week; you'd have looked
like that all the time!" quoth Raffles. I suppose my face had
fallen (as it does too easily) at his aspersion on my endurance.
"Cheer up, my man; that's better," he went on, as I did my
best. "But it was no smiling matter out there. No one does smile
after the first week; your sense of humour is the first thing the
cure eradicates. There was a hunting man at my hotel, getting his
weight down to ride a special thoroughbred, and no doubt a cheery dog
at home; but, poor devil, he hadn't much chance of good cheer there!
Miles and miles on his poor feet before breakfast; mud–poultices
all the morning; and not the semblance of a drink all day, except
some aerated muck called Gieshübler. He was allowed to lap that up
an hour after meals, when his tongue would be hanging out of his
mouth. We went to the same weighing machine at cock–crow, and
though he looked quite good–natured once when I caught him asleep
in his chair, I have known him tear up his weight ticket when he had
gained an ounce or two instead of losing one or two pounds. We began
by taking our walks together, but his conversation used to get so
physically introspective that one couldn't get in a word about one's
own works edgeways.""But
there was nothing wrong with your works," I reminded Raffles; he
shook his head as one who was not so sure."Perhaps
not at first, but the cure soon sees to that! I closed in like a
concertina, Bunny, and I only hope I shall be able to pull out like
one. You see, it's the custom of the accursed place for one to
telephone for a doctor the moment one arrives. I consulted the
hunting man, who of course recommended his own in order to make sure
of a companion on the rack. The old arch–humbug was down upon me in
ten minutes, examining me from crown to heel, and made the most
unblushing report upon my general condition. He said I had a liver!
I'll swear I hadn't before I went to Carlsbad, but I shouldn't be a
bit surprised if I'd brought one back."And
he tipped his tankard with a solemn face, before falling to work upon
the Welsh rarebit which had just arrived."It
looks like gold, and it's golden eating," said poor old Raffles.
"I only wish that sly dog of a doctor could see me at it! He had
the nerve to make me write out my own health–warrant, and it was so
like my friend the hunting man's that it dispelled his settled gloom
for the whole of that evening. We used to begin our drinking day at
the same well of German damnably defiled, and we paced the same
colonnade to the blare of the same well–fed band. That wasn't a
joke, Bunny; it's not a thing to joke about; mud–poultices and dry
meals, with teetotal poisons in between, were to be my portion too.
You stiffen your lip at that, eh, Bunny? I told you that you never
would or could have stood it; but it was the only game to play for
the Emerald Stakes. It kept one above suspicion all the time. And
then I didn't mind that part as much as you would, or as my hunting
pal did; he was driven to fainting at the doctor's place one day, in
the forlorn hope of a toothful of brandy to bring him round. But all
he got was a glass of cheap Marsala.""But
did you win those stakes after all?""Of
course I did, Bunny," said Raffles below his breath, and with a
look that I remembered later. "But the waiters are listening as
it is, and I'll tell you the rest some other time. I suppose you know
what brought me back so soon?""Hadn't
you finished your cure?""Not
by three good days. I had the satisfaction of a row royal with the
Lord High Humbug to account for my hurried departure. But, as a
matter of fact, if Teddy Garland hadn't got his Blue at the eleventh
hour I should be at Carlsbad still."E.M.
Garland (Eton and Trinity) was the Cambridge wicketkeeper, and one of
the many young cricketers who owed a good deal to Raffles. They had
made friends in some country–house week, and foregathered afterward
in town, where the young fellow's father had a house at which Raffles
became a constant guest. I am afraid I was a little prejudiced both
against the father, a retired brewer whom I had never met, and the
son whom I did meet once or twice at the Albany. Yet I could quite
understand the mutual attraction between Raffles and this much
younger man; indeed he was a mere boy, but like so many of his school
he seemed to have a knowledge of the world beyond his years, and
withal such a spontaneous spring of sweetness and charm as neither
knowledge nor experience could sensibly pollute. And yet I had a
shrewd suspicion that wild oats had been somewhat freely sown, and
that it was Raffles who had stepped in and taken the sower in hand,
and turned him into the stuff of which Blues are made. At least I
knew that no one could be sounder friend or saner counsellor to any
young fellow in need of either. And many there must be to bear me out
in their hearts; but they did not know their Raffles as I knew mine;
and if they say that was why they thought so much of him, let them
have patience, and at last they shall hear something that need not
make them think the less."I
couldn't let poor Teddy keep at Lord's," explained Raffles, "and
me not there to egg him on! You see, Bunny, I taught him a thing or
two in those little matches we played together last August. I take a
fatherly interest in the child.""You
must have done him a lot of good," I suggested, "in every
way."Raffles
looked up from his bill and asked me what I meant. I saw he was not
pleased with my remark, but I was not going back on it."Well,
I should imagine you had straightened him out a bit, if you ask me.""I
didn't ask you, Bunny, that's just the point!" said Raffles. And
I watched him tip the waiter without the least
arrière–pensée
on either side."After
all," said I, on our way down the marble stair, "you have
told me a good deal about the lad. I remember once hearing you say he
had a lot of debts, for example.""So
I was afraid," replied Raffles, frankly; "and between
ourselves, I offered to finance him before I went abroad. Teddy
wouldn't hear of it; that hot young blood of his was up at the
thought, though he was perfectly delightful in what he said. So don't
jump to rotten conclusions, Bunny, but stroll up to the Albany and
have a drink."And
when we had reclaimed our hats and coats, and lit our Sullivans in
the hall, out we marched as though I were now part–owner of the
place with Raffles."That,"
said I, to effect a thorough change of conversation, since I felt at
one with all the world, "is certainly the finest grill in
Europe.""That's
why we went there, Bunny.""But
must I say I was rather surprised to find you a member of a place
where you tip the waiter and take a ticket for your hat!"I
was not surprised, however, to hear Raffles defend his own
caravanserai."I
would go a step further," he remarked, "and make every
member show his badge as they do at Lord's.""But
surely the porter knows the members by sight?""Not
he! There are far too many thousands of them.""I
should have thought he must.""And
I know he doesn't.""Well,
you ought to know, A.J., since you're a member yourself.""On
the contrary, my dear Bunny, I happen to know because I never was
one!"