I
It was half-past twelve when I
returned to the Albany as a last desperate resort. The scene of my
disaster was much as I had left it. The baccarat-counters still
strewed the table, with the empty glasses and the loaded ashtrays.
A window had been opened to let the smoke out, and was letting in
the fog instead. Raffles himself had merely discarded his dining
jacket for one of his innumerable blazers. Yet he arched his
eyebrows as though I had dragged him from his bed.
“Forgotten something?” said he,
when he saw me on his mat.
“No,” said I, pushing past him
without ceremony. And I led the way into his room with an impudence
amazing to myself.
“Not come back for your revenge,
have you? Because I’m afraid I can’t give it to you single-handed.
I was sorry myself that the others—”
We were face to face by his
fireside, and I cut him short.
“Raffles,” said I, “you may well
be surprised at my coming back in this way and at this hour. I
hardly know you. I was never in your rooms before tonight. But I
fagged for you at school, and you said you remembered me. Of course
that’s no excuse; but will you listen to me—for two minutes?”
In my emotion I had at first to
struggle for every word; but his face reassured me as I went on,
and I was not mistaken in its expression.
“Certainly, my dear man,” said
he; “as many minutes as you like. Have a Sullivan and sit down.”
And he handed me his silver cigarette-case.
“No,” said I, finding a full
voice as I shook my head; “no, I won’t smoke, and I won’t sit down,
thank you. Nor will you ask me to do either when you’ve heard what
I have to say.”
“Really?” said he, lighting his
own cigarette with one clear blue eye upon me. “How do you
know?”
“Because you’ll probably show me
the door,” I cried bitterly; “and you will be justified in doing
it! But it’s no use beating about the bush. You know I dropped over
two hundred just now?”
He nodded.
“I hadn’t the money in my
pocket.”
“I remember.”
“But I had my checkbook, and I
wrote each of you a check at that desk.”
“Well?”
“Not one of them was worth the
paper it was written on, Raffles. I am overdrawn already at my
bank!”
“Surely only for the
moment?”
“No. I have spent
everything.”
“But somebody told me you were so
well off. I heard you had come in for money?”
“So I did. Three years ago. It
has been my curse; now it’s all gone—every penny! Yes, I’ve been a
fool; there never was nor will be such a fool as I’ve been. … Isn’t
this enough for you? Why don’t you turn me out?” He was walking up
and down with a very long face instead.
“Couldn’t your people do
anything?” he asked at length.
“Thank God,” I cried, “I have no
people! I was an only child. I came in for everything there was. My
one comfort is that they’re gone, and will never know.”
I cast myself into a chair and
hid my face. Raffles continued to pace the rich carpet that was of
a piece with everything else in his rooms. There was no variation
in his soft and even footfalls.
“You used to be a literary little
cuss,” he said at length; “didn’t you edit the mag before you left?
Anyway I recollect fagging you to do my verses; and literature of
all sorts is the very thing nowadays; any fool can make a living at
it.”
I shook my head. “Any fool
couldn’t write off my debts,” said I.
“Then you have a flat somewhere?”
he went on.
“Yes, in Mount Street.”
“Well, what about the
furniture?”
I laughed aloud in my misery.
“There’s been a bill of sale on every stick for months!”
And at that Raffles stood still,
with raised eyebrows and stern eyes that I could meet the better
now that he knew the worst; then, with a shrug, he resumed his
walk, and for some minutes neither of us spoke. But in his
handsome, unmoved face I read my fate and death-warrant; and with
every breath I cursed my folly and my cowardice in coming to him at
all. Because he had been kind to me at school, when he was captain
of the eleven, and I his fag, I had dared to look for kindness from
him now; because I was ruined, and he rich enough to play cricket
all the summer, and do nothing for the rest of the year, I had
fatuously counted on his mercy, his sympathy, his help! Yes, I had
relied on him in my heart, for all my outward diffidence and
humility; and I was rightly served. There was as little of mercy as
of sympathy in that curling nostril, that rigid jaw, that cold blue
eye which never glanced my way. I caught up my hat. I blundered to
my feet. I would have gone without a word; but Raffles stood
between me and the door.
“Where are you going?” said
he.
“That’s my business,” I replied.
“I won’t trouble you any more.”
“Then how am I to help
you?”
“I didn’t ask your help.”
“Then why come to me?”
“Why, indeed!” I echoed. “Will
you let me pass?”
“Not until you tell me where you
are going and what you mean to do.”
“Can’t you guess?” I cried. And
for many seconds we stood staring in each other’s eyes.
“Have you got the pluck?” said
he, breaking the spell in a tone so cynical that it brought my last
drop of blood to the boil.
“You shall see,” said I, as I
stepped back and whipped the pistol from my overcoat pocket. “Now,
will you let me pass or shall I do it here?”
The barrel touched my temple, and
my thumb the trigger. Mad with excitement as I was, ruined,
dishonored, and now finally determined to make an end of my
misspent life, my only surprise to this day is that I did not do so
then and there. The despicable satisfaction of involving another in
one’s destruction added its miserable appeal to my baser egoism;
and had fear or horror flown to my companion’s face, I shudder to
think I might have died diabolically happy with that look for my
last impious consolation. It was the look that came instead which
held my hand. Neither fear nor horror were in it; only wonder,
admiration, and such a measure of pleased expectancy as caused me
after all to pocket my revolver with an oath.
“You devil!” I said. “I believe
you wanted me to do it!”
“Not quite,” was the reply, made
with a little start, and a change of color that came too late. “To
tell you the truth, though, I half thought you meant it, and I was
never more fascinated in my life. I never dreamt you had such stuff
in you, Bunny! No, I’m hanged if I let you go now. And you’d better
not try that game again, for you won’t catch me stand and look on a
second time. We must think of some way out of the mess. I had no
idea you were a chap of that sort! There, let me have the
gun.”
One of his hands fell kindly on
my shoulder, while the other slipped into my overcoat pocket, and I
suffered him to deprive me of my weapon without a murmur. Nor was
this simply because Raffles had the subtle power of making himself
irresistible at will. He was beyond comparison the most masterful
man whom I have ever known; yet my acquiescence was due to more
than the mere subjection of the weaker nature to the stronger. The
forlorn hope which had brought me to the Albany was turned as by
magic into an almost staggering sense of safety. Raffles would help
me after all! A. J. Raffles would be my friend! It was as though
all the world had come round suddenly to my side; so far therefore
from resisting his action, I caught and clasped his hand with a
fervor as uncontrollable as the frenzy which had preceded it.
“God bless you!” I cried.
“Forgive me for everything. I will tell you the truth. I did think
you might help me in my extremity, though I well knew that I had no
claim upon you. Still—for the old school’s sake—the sake of old
times—I thought you might give me another chance. If you wouldn’t I
meant to blow out my brains—and will still if you change your
mind!”
In truth I feared that it was
changing, with his expression, even as I spoke, and in spite of his
kindly tone and kindlier use of my old school nickname. His next
words showed me my mistake.
“What a boy it is for jumping to
conclusions! I have my vices, Bunny, but backing and filling is not
one of them. Sit down, my good fellow, and have a cigarette to
soothe your nerves. I insist. Whiskey? The worst thing for you;
here’s some coffee that I was brewing when you came in. Now listen
to me. You speak of ‘another chance.’ What do you mean? Another
chance at baccarat? Not if I know it! You think the luck must turn;
suppose it didn’t? We should only have made bad worse. No, my dear
chap, you’ve plunged enough. Do you put yourself in my hands or do
you not? Very well, then you plunge no more, and I undertake not to
present my check. Unfortunately there are the other men; and still
more unfortunately, Bunny, I’m as hard up at this moment as you are
yourself!”
It was my turn to stare at
Raffles. “You?” I vociferated. “You hard up? How am I to sit here
and believe that?”
“Did I refuse to believe it of
you?” he returned, smiling. “And, with your own experience, do you
think that because a fellow has rooms in this place, and belongs to
a club or two, and plays a little cricket, he must necessarily have
a balance at the bank? I tell you, my dear man, that at this moment
I’m as hard up as you ever were. I have nothing but my wits to live
on—absolutely nothing else. It was as necessary for me to win some
money this evening as it was for you. We’re in the same boat,
Bunny; we’d better pull together.”
“Together!” I jumped at it. “I’ll
do anything in this world for you, Raffles,” I said, “if you really
mean that you won’t give me away. Think of anything you like, and
I’ll do it! I was a desperate man when I came here, and I’m just as
desperate now. I don’t mind what I do if only I can get out of this
without a scandal.”
Again I see him, leaning back in
one of the luxurious chairs with which his room was furnished. I
see his indolent, athletic figure; his pale, sharp, clean-shaven
features; his curly black hair; his strong, unscrupulous mouth. And
again I feel the clear beam of his wonderful eye, cold and luminous
as a star, shining into my brain—sifting the very secrets of my
heart.
“I wonder if you mean all that!”
he said at length. “You do in your present mood; but who can back
his mood to last? Still, there’s hope when a chap takes that tone.
Now I think of it, too, you were a plucky little devil at school;
you once did me rather a good turn, I recollect. Remember it,
Bunny? Well, wait a bit, and perhaps I’ll be able to do you a
better one. Give me time to think.”
He got up, lit a fresh cigarette,
and fell to pacing the room once more, but with a slower and more
thoughtful step, and for a much longer period than before. Twice he
stopped at my chair as though on the point of speaking, but each
time he checked himself and resumed his stride in silence. Once he
threw up the window, which he had shut some time since, and stood
for some moments leaning out into the fog which filled the Albany
courtyard. Meanwhile a clock on the chimneypiece struck one, and
one again for the half-hour, without a word between us.
Yet I not only kept my chair with
patience, but I acquired an incongruous equanimity in that
half-hour. Insensibly I had shifted my burden to the broad
shoulders of this splendid friend, and my thoughts wandered with my
eyes as the minutes passed. The room was the good-sized, square
one, with the folding doors, the marble mantelpiece, and the
gloomy, old-fashioned distinction peculiar to the Albany. It was
charmingly furnished and arranged, with the right amount of
negligence and the right amount of taste. What struck me most,
however, was the absence of the usual insignia of a cricketer’s
den. Instead of the conventional rack of war-worn bats, a carved
oak bookcase, with every shelf in a litter, filled the better part
of one wall; and where I looked for cricketing groups, I found
reproductions of such works as Love and Death and The Blessed
Damozel, in dusty frames and different parallels. The man might
have been a minor poet instead of an athlete of the first water.
But there had always been a fine streak of aestheticism in his
complex composition; some of these very pictures I had myself
dusted in his study at school; and they set me thinking of yet
another of his many sides—and of the little incident to which he
had just referred.
Everybody knows how largely the
tone of a public school depends on that of the eleven, and on the
character of the captain of cricket in particular; and I have never
heard it denied that in A. J. Raffles’s time our tone was good, or
that such influence as he troubled to exert was on the side of the
angels. Yet it was whispered in the school that he was in the habit
of parading the town at night in loud checks and a false beard. It
was whispered, and disbelieved. I alone knew it for a fact; for
night after night had I pulled the rope up after him when the rest
of the dormitory were asleep, and kept awake by the hour to let it
down again on a given signal. Well, one night he was overbold, and
within an ace of ignominious expulsion in the heyday of his fame.
Consummate daring and extraordinary nerve on his part, aided,
doubtless, by some little presence of mind on mine, averted the
untoward result; and no more need be said of a discreditable
incident. But I cannot pretend to have forgotten it in throwing
myself on this man’s mercy in my desperation. And I was wondering
how much of his leniency was owing to the fact that Raffles had not
forgotten it either, when he stopped and stood over my chair once
more.
“I’ve been thinking of that night
we had the narrow squeak,” he began. “Why do you start?”
“I was thinking of it too.”
He smiled, as though he had read
my thoughts.
“Well, you were the right sort of
little beggar then, Bunny; you didn’t talk and you didn’t flinch.
You asked no questions and you told no tales. I wonder if you’re
like that now?”
“I don’t know,” said I, slightly
puzzled by his tone. “I’ve made such a mess of my own affairs that
I trust myself about as little as I’m likely to be trusted by
anybody else. Yet I never in my life went back on a friend. I will
say that, otherwise perhaps I mightn’t be in such a hole
tonight.”
“Exactly,” said Raffles, nodding
to himself, as though in assent to some hidden train of thought;
“exactly what I remember of you, and I’ll bet it’s as true now as
it was ten years ago. We don’t alter, Bunny. We only develop. I
suppose neither you nor I are really altered since you used to let
down that rope and I used to come up it hand over hand. You would
stick at nothing for a pal—what?”
“At nothing in this world,” I was
pleased to cry.
“Not even at a crime?” said
Raffles, smiling.
I stopped to think, for his tone
had changed, and I felt sure he was chaffing me. Yet his eye seemed
as much in earnest as ever, and for my part I was in no mood for
reservations.
“No, not even at that,” I
declared; “name your crime, and I’m your man.”
He looked at me one moment in
wonder, and another moment in doubt; then turned the matter off
with a shake of his head, and the little cynical laugh that was all
his own.
“You’re a nice chap, Bunny! A
real desperate character—what? Suicide one moment, and any crime I
like the next! What you want is a drag, my boy, and you did well to
come to a decent law-abiding citizen with a reputation to lose.
None the less we must have that money tonight—by hook or
crook.”
“Tonight, Raffles?”
“The sooner the better. Every
hour after ten o’clock tomorrow morning is an hour of risk. Let one
of those checks get round to your own bank, and you and it are
dishonored together. No, we must raise the wind tonight and reopen
your account first thing tomorrow. And I rather think I know where
the wind can be raised.”
“At two o’clock in the
morning?”
“Yes.”
“But how—but where—at such an
hour?”
“From a friend of mine here in
Bond Street.”
“He must be a very intimate
friend!”
“Intimate’s not the word. I have
the run of his place and a latchkey all to myself.”
“You would knock him up at this
hour of the night?”
“If he’s in bed.”
“And it’s essential that I should
go in with you?”
“Absolutely.”
“Then I must; but I’m bound to
say I don’t like the idea, Raffles.”
“Do you prefer the alternative?”
asked my companion, with a sneer. “No, hang it, that’s unfair!” he
cried apologetically in the same breath. “I quite understand. It’s
a beastly ordeal. But it would never do for you to stay outside. I
tell you what, you shall have a peg before we start—just one.
There’s the whiskey, here’s a syphon, and I’ll be putting on an
overcoat while you help yourself.”
Well, I daresay I did so with
some freedom, for this plan of his was not the less distasteful to
me from its apparent inevitability. I must own, however, that it
possessed fewer terrors before my glass was empty. Meanwhile
Raffles rejoined me, with a covert coat over his blazer, and a soft
felt hat set carelessly on the curly head he shook with a smile as
I passed him the decanter.
“When we come back,” said he.
“Work first, play afterward. Do you see what day it is?” he added,
tearing a leaflet from a Shakespearian calendar, as I drained my
glass. “March 15th. ‘The Ides of March, the Ides of March,
remember.’ Eh, Bunny, my boy? You won’t forget them, will
you?”
And, with a laugh, he threw some
coals on the fire before turning down the gas like a careful
householder. So we went out together as the clock on the
chimneypiece was striking two.
II
Piccadilly was a trench of raw
white fog, rimmed with blurred street-lamps, and lined with a thin
coating of adhesive mud. We met no other wayfarers on the deserted
flagstones, and were ourselves favored with a very hard stare from
the constable of the beat, who, however, touched his helmet on
recognizing my companion.
“You see, I’m known to the
police,” laughed Raffles as we passed on. “Poor devils, they’ve got
to keep their weather eye open on a night like this! A fog may be a
bore to you and me, Bunny, but it’s a perfect godsend to the
criminal classes, especially so late in their season. Here we are,
though—and I’m hanged if the beggar isn’t in bed and asleep after
all!”
We had turned into Bond Street,
and had halted on the curb a few yards down on the right. Raffles
was gazing up at some windows across the road, windows barely
discernible through the mist, and without the glimmer of a light to
throw them out. They were over a jeweller’s shop, as I could see by
the peephole in the shop door, and the bright light burning within.
But the entire “upper part,” with the private street-door next the
shop, was black and blank as the sky itself.
“Better give it up for tonight,”
I urged. “Surely the morning will be time enough!”
“Not a bit of it,” said Raffles.
“I have his key. We’ll surprise him. Come along.”
And seizing my right arm, he
hurried me across the road, opened the door with his latchkey, and
in another moment had shut it swiftly but softly behind us. We
stood together in the dark. Outside, a measured step was
approaching; we had heard it through the fog as we crossed the
street; now, as it drew nearer, my companion’s fingers tightened on
my arm.
“It may be the chap himself,” he
whispered. “He’s the devil of a night-bird. Not a sound, Bunny!
We’ll startle the life out of him. Ah!”
The measured step had passed
without a pause. Raffles drew a deep breath, and his singular grip
of me slowly relaxed.
“But still, not a sound,” he
continued in the same whisper; “we’ll take a rise out of him,
wherever he is! Slip off your shoes and follow me.”
Well, you may wonder at my doing
so; but you can never have met A. J. Raffles. Half his power lay in
a conciliating trick of sinking the commander in the leader. And it
was impossible not to follow one who led with such a zest. You
might question, but you followed first. So now, when I heard him
kick off his own shoes, I did the same, and was on the stairs at
his heels before I realized what an extraordinary way was this of
approaching a stranger for money in the dead of night. But
obviously Raffles and he were on exceptional terms of intimacy, and
I could not but infer that they were in the habit of playing
practical jokes upon each other.
We groped our way so slowly
upstairs that I had time to make more than one note before we
reached the top. The stair was uncarpeted. The spread fingers of my
right hand encountered nothing on the damp wall; those of my left
trailed through a dust that could be felt on the banisters. An
eerie sensation had been upon me since we entered the house. It
increased with every step we climbed. What hermit were we going to
startle in his cell?
We came to a landing. The
banisters led us to the left, and to the left again. Four steps
more, and we were on another and a longer landing, and suddenly a
match blazed from the black. I never heard it struck. Its flash was
blinding. When my eyes became accustomed to the light, there was
Raffles holding up the match with one hand, and shading it with the
other, between bare boards, stripped walls, and the open doors of
empty rooms.
“Where have you brought me?” I
cried. “The house is unoccupied!”