The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, August 6, 1905, Page 2

CA on we went without Sharp to the left on side, sharper still up little tacking west and e across High street and were home si.” said Raffles with ¥ as though it mattered as it 1 till T came i » find the auto- trouble? cwed down my e { llowing us them!” Gardens.” 8 1 nd about coming ack the \ thelesz one cf them's in the r elow at this moment.” N w it fooling me. He was t « d be had not taken off a erhaps he 8id not think it worth es?" 1 sighed, following the thought even to the had decorated my ¥ for @ little aeon. would give me double. n my stomach when I was the police, Bunny?" ine Italians. They're only t n°t hurt a hair of your lone eropping it! Have a drink t mind me. 1 sball score them I'm done.” U heln % o, 0ld chap, This is my tie show. I've known about it for 1 first tumbled to it the day hose Neapolitane came back with their organg, thyugh I didn't seriously suspect thingh then: they never came again, hose two, they had dome their part, hat's the Camorra all over, from all coynts, The Count T told you about is pretty up in it by the way he will be grades and im and the organ-grind- 3 ed if he had Neapolitan ice-creamer my tracks! The organi- creutbie. Then do you remem- erior foreigner who came to n g0 a few days afterward? You eyes.” him with those “Of course you didn’t. Bunny, so you threatened to kick the feilow downstairs, ¢ made them keener on the scent. ds too late to say anvthing when you told me. But the very next time I showed my mnose outside 1 heard a era click as I passed, and the fiend rson with velvet . Then a Jull. That b ed weeks had sent me to Italy .for By Count Corbucel. all theory,” I exclaimed. th can you know?" w,” sal@ Raffles, “but I should like to bet. Our friend the blood- hound is hanging about the corner near the pillar box. Look through my win- dow, it's dark in there, and tell me who he is."” The man was too far away for me to swear to his face, but he wore a covert t of un-English length; and the lamp across ¢ roed. played steadily on his boots. They were very yellow amnd they fnade no noise when he took a turn. I strained my eyes, and all at once T re- membered the, thin-soled, low-heeled spluy vellow boots of the insidious for- cigner with the soft eyes and the brown- paper face whom I had turned from ‘the dcor as a palpable frand. The ring at the bell was the first I had heard- of him, therc had been no warning step upen the stairs and my suspiclous eye had searched his feet for rubber soles. “It's the fellow,” T safd, returning to Raffies, and I described his boots. Raffles was delighted. “Well done, Bunny; you're comnig on,” said be. “Now I wonder if he's been over here all the time or if they sent him over expressly. You did better than you think in spotting those +boots, for they can only have been made in Italy, and that looks like the special envoy. But iU's no use speculating. I must find out.” “How can.you® “He won't stay there all night.” “Well 2 ‘“When he gets tired of it 1 shall re- turn the compliment and follow him.” “Not alone,” sajd I firmly. ““Well, we'll see; we'll see at once,” sald Reffles, rising. “Out with the gas, Bup- ny, while I take a look. Thank. you. . Now wait a bit * * * yes! He's chucked it; he's off already, and so am II"” But 1 slipped to our outer door and held the passage. “1 doii't let you go alone, you know."” “You can’t come with me in pajamas.” ouw 1 see why you made me put them on!” "I'VE_ BEEN \WAITING TOB IT T\JELVE HOUES \JATCHING- THE CLOCK FOUND UVEATH AT THAE END OF THE LAP” THE . SAN.: FRANCISCO SUNDA e P “Bunny if you don’t shift I shall have This is my very private one- But T'll be back in an hour— “By all my gods.” 1 gave in. How could I help giving in? He did not look the man that he had been, but you never knew with Raffles, and ¥ could not have him lay a hand on: me. I let him go with a shrug and my blessing, then ran into his room to see the last of him from the window, The creature in the coat and boots had reached the end of our littic street, where he appeared to have hesitated, so that Raffies was just in time to sce which, way he turned. And Raffles was after him at an easy pace, and had himself almost reached the. corner when my ‘at- tention was distracted from the alert nonchalaneé of his gait. T was marveling that it alone had not long ago betrayed him, for nothing about him was so_um- consciously characteristic, when sudden- Iy 1 realized that ‘Rafiles was not the only person in the little lonely street. Anather pedestrian had entered from the other end, a man heavily’ built and ‘clad, with an astrakban collar to his coat on this warm night and a black slouch hat that hid his features from my birdseye view. His steps were the short and shuffling ones of a man advanced in years and in fatty" degeneration, but of a sudden they stopped beneath my very- eyes. I could have dropped a marble into the dentcd crown of’ the black felt hat. Then at the same moment Raffles turn- cd the corner without looking round, and the big man below raised both his hande and his fiace. Of the latter -1 saw only the huge white mustache, ke a flylng gull, as Raffles had described it, for at a glance I divined "that this was his arch-enemy, the Count Corbucci himself. 1 did not stop to gonsider the subtleties of the system by which the real bunter lagged behind whue his subordinate pointed the quarry like a sporting dog. I left the Count shuffling onward faster than before, and I jumped into some clothes as‘though the flats were on fire. If the Count was going to follow Raffles in his turn then 1 would follow the Count in minc, and there would be a mitdnight procession of us through the town. But 1 found no sign of him in the empty street and no sign in the Earl's Court road, that lpoked &5 empty for all its len; save for a natural enemy stand- ing like a waxwork with a glimmer at his “*Officer,” 1 gasped, “haye you seen any- thing of an old gentleman with a big white mustache?” The unlicked cub of a common con- stable seemed to eye me the more suspi- ciously for the flattering form of my address. e e “Took a hansom,” said he at length. A hansom! Then he was not fol- short minutes. lowing the other on foot; there was no guessing his game. But something must be said or done. “He's a friend of mine,” T explained. “and’ T want ‘to ‘overtake him. Did you hear where he told the fellow to drive?” A curt negative was the polteman’s re- ply to that, and if ever I take part In a night assault-at-arms, reyolver versus baton In the back kitchen, I know which member of the Mstroplitan police force 1 should like for my opponent. If there was no ovértaking the Count. however, it should be a comparatively simple matter in ‘the case of the couple on foot, and 1 wildly hailed the first han som that crawled into my ken- I must tell Raffles who 1t was that I had seen. The Earl's Court road was long and e time since he’ vanished in it but a few 1 drove down the length of that useful thoroughfare with an eye apiece on either pavement, sweeping each as with a brush,.but, never a Raffles came into the pan, Then I trfed the Fulham road, first to the west, then to the east, and in the-end drove home to the flat as bold as brass. [ did not realize my in- discrétion until I had pald the man and was on the stalrs, Raffles never dreamed of drivimg" all the way back, but I was hoping now to find him waiting up above. He had €aid an hour. I had remembered it suddenly. And now the hour Wwas more than-up. But the flat was as. empty as 1 mad left it. The very light that had encouraged me, pale though it was, as. 1 turried the corner in my hansom, was but the light that I myself. had left burajng in the degolate passage. 1 can give ypu.no concéption of the night that I spent. Most of it 1 hung acrese the sil, throwing a wide net with my ears, catching every footstep afar off, every hansom bell further still, only to’ gather in some alien whom I seldom ever landed in our street. Then I would listen at the door. He might come over the réof, and’ eventually Some one did, but now it was broad ‘daylight; and I flung the door "open in the milkman's fuce, which whitened at the shock -as though 1 had:ducked him in his own pail. “You're late,” I thugdered, as the:fifst xcuse for my execitement. “Beg your pédrden,” ‘said he indig- nantly, “but I'm half an hour before my usual ' time."" “ “Then 1 beg yours,” sai@ I, “but the fact is Mr. Maturin has had one of his bad nights, and 1 Seem to have been waltjrig’ hours for milk to make him a cup of tea.” ok This littlg fib (ready enough for a Raf- fles, though I say it) earned me not only forgiveness but that obliging sympathy whieh is a Branch of the business of the man at the door. The good fellow said that he could see 1 had. been sitting up ali night, and he left me pluming myself upon the aceidental art with which I had told my vefy necessaty tarradiddle.. On reflection I gave the credit to in- stinet;- not - accideat, and. ghea,-‘-u'w afresh as I realized how the influence of the magster was sinking into me,- and he heaven knew where! But ry punish- ment was swift to follow, for within the hour the bell rang imperiously twice, and there was Dr. Theobald on our mat in a yellow Jaeger suit, with a chin- as yellow jutting over the flaps that he had turned up to hide his- pajamas. 2 “What's this about a bad night?” said he. f couldn’t sleep and he wouldn't let me,” 1 whispgred, never loosening my grasp of the door and standing tight against the other wall.. “But he's slecp- ing like a baby now.” “I must sce him.” ‘‘He gave strict orders that you should net." - “I'm . his ‘'medical ‘man and T “You know what he is,” 1 said, shrug- ging; ‘‘the least ‘think wakes him, and yeu will if you {nsist on seeing him now. It will be the last time, I warn you! I knaw what he said and you don't.” The doctor cursed me under his fiery mustache. “'I shall.come up during the course of the morning." he snarled. ““And . T shall tie up the bell.” T said, “and if it doesn’t ring he'll be, sleeping still, but I.will not risk waking him by coming to the door again.” : g And with that 1 shut it in his face. I was improving, as Raffles had said, but what would it profit me if some evil had befallen him?. And now I was prepared for the worst. A boy came up whistling and leaving papers on the mats. It was getting on for 8§ o'clock, and the whisky and soda of half-past 12 stood untouched and stagnant in.the tumbler. If the worst had happencd to Raffles I felt that I would éither never drink again or else seldom do anything else. g Meanwhile I could not even break my fast, but roamed the flat in a misery not to be described, my very linen still un- changed, my cheeks and chin now tawny from the unwholesome night. How long . °F ame ‘would it go on? I wondered for Then I changed 1 endure {t?. : 3 It went on actually untll the forenoon only, hut my endurance cannot be meas- my tume; how long could in I dragged him, though against his will, 2 new glarm in his one wild eye. “Non capite?” he cried when T had him inside and had withstood the torrent. “No, I'm bathered if I do!” T answered, guessing his question from his tone. “Vostro amico,” he repeated over and over.again; and then, “Poco tempo, poco tempo,, poco tempo!” Fer once in- my life the classical edu- cation of my public-school days was of real value. “My pal, my pal, and no time. to. be lost!” I translated freely and flew for my hat. “Ecco, signore!” cried the fellow, snatching the watch from my waistcoat pocket and putting one black thumb nail on the long hand, the -other ‘on the ezzogiorno—poco tempo— And again I selzed his meaning ..at it was twenty past 11 and we must be there by 12. - But where, but where? It was maddening to be sum- moned Ifke this and not to know what kad hapgened nor to have any means of finaing” out. But my presence of mind stood by me stil, I was improving by seven-league strides, and I crammed my handkerchief between the drum and hammier of the béll before leaving. The doctor could ring now till he was black in the face, but.I was not coming, and he need not’ think it. 1 half expected to find a hansom wait- ing, but there w3s none, and we had gone some distance down the ~ Earl's Court road beféfe we ‘got ome; in fact, we had. to.run to the stand. Opposite is the church with the clock upon it, as everybody . knows, and at sight of the dial my eompanion had- wrung his hands. 1t was close upon the half hour. “Poco tempo—pochissimo!” he wailed. “Bloomburee Ske-warr,” he then cried to the eabman—“numerro tremtatte!™ “Bloomsbury Square,” I roared on my own account, “1'll show you the house when ‘we gt there, only drive like be- damneq!” g My companion lay back gasping in his corner. 'The small glass told me that my own face was pretty red. “A nice show!” I cried; “and mnot a word can you tell me. Didn't you bring me a note?” 3 L I might have Enown by. this time-that he had_ mbt, still I went. through the pantomime of writing with my finger on my cuff. But he shrugged and shook his head. “Nijente,” said he. vita, di vita™ “What's that?’ I snapped, my early “Say it slowly— al —rallentando.™ % m for the stage instructions “Una quistione di ured by the time, for to me every hour e u urder! of it was an arctic night. . ¥et it cannot ’,,"m‘,‘,,' et T;Fm::“o‘:}x,m o have been much after 11 when the ring | = uistione—di—vita." : - came at -the bell, which I had forgottéen “Of .mors, eh?" [ shouted, and up went to tie up after ail. But this was 10t 1, frapdoor over Gur heads. the ddetor; neither, well 1 lm was .avantl, avantl, avanti!” cried the Ital- it the wanderer mmd. Our. was g, rn up his one-ayed face. the pneumatic one that tells it the . iyell-to-leather,” 1 translated. “and touch:be light or heavy; the 1t now was tentative and shy. The gwner of the hand J. had . never seen ‘before. He was young and ragged, with;one eye Nng. but the other ablaze. with some fell excitement. And straigh and upon way he burst inte a totrent of word: of which all - g&v‘q:u that the{:;‘m and {fi Italian, and therefore s of Ral only I had known language! m show might help us somewhat, and doub -1t you do it by 12 oclock.” But | e stréets of London how is one to know the time? Tn ‘the Karl's Court | -it had not been half-past, and at Barker's in High street it was but a minute latér. long halt-mile a min that was going like the wind, ed we had done much of it at a gallop. ' But: thew next hundred yards took us five minutes by the next clock, and which was one to believe? ‘T felr back upon my own old watch (It waas my own), which made it eighteen utes to the hour as we sSwung across Serpentine bridge, and by the quarter wa were in the Bayswater road—not y for once. “Presto, presto!” my pale guide muyr. mured. “Affretatevi—avanti!” “Ten bob if you do it,” I cried through the trap, without the slightest notion of what we werg to do. But it was “una quistione di ¥ita,” ‘and ‘“vestro amico™ could only be my miserable Raffles. Wiat a very godsend is the perfeet hansom to the man or woman in & hurry! It had been our great good for- tune to jump into a perfect hansom. There was no choice; we had to take the first upon the rank, but it must have deserved its place with the rest ne- where. New tires, superb-springs, a horse in a thousand and a driver up to every trick of his trade! In and out ww went like a fast half-back at-the Rug- by game, yet where the trafie was thin- nest there were we. And how he knew his way! At the Marble Arch he siip- ped out of the main stream, and so into ‘Wigmore street, then up and in and out and on until I saw the gold tips of the Museum palisade gleaming beétween the horse's ears in the sun. Plop, plop, plop; ting, lips, ling; bell and horse- shoes, horseshoes and bell, until the colossal figure of C. J. Fox In a grimy toga spelled Bloomsbury square, with my watch still wanting three minutes to the hour. “What number?” cried the good fel- low overhead. “Trentotto, trentotto,” sald my guide, but he was looking to the right, and I bundled him out to show the ho on foot.- I had not half a soyereign after all, but I flung our dear driver a whole one instead, and only wish that it had been a hundred. Already the Italian had his latch key in the door of 38, and in anether mo- ment weé were rushing up the narrow stairs of as dingy a London house as prejudiced countryman can conceive. It was paneled, but it was dark and evil- smelling, and how we should have found our way even to the stairs but for an unwholesome jet of yellow gas in the hall I cannot myself imagine. However, up we went peli-mell to the right about on the half landing, and 80 ltke a whirlwind Into the drawing- room a few steps higher. There the ®as was also burning behind closed shutters, and the scene is photographed upon my brain, though I cannot have looked upon it for a whole instant as 1 sprang In at my leader's L This room also was paneled, and in the middle of the wall on our left, his hands lashed to a ring-bolt high above his head, his toes barely touching the floor, his neck pinioned by a strap passing through smaller ringbolts under either ear and every inch of him secured on the same prineiple, stood, or rather hung, all that was left of Raffles, for at the first glance 1 believed him dead. A black ruler gagsed him, the ends lashed behind his neck, the blood upon It caked to bro in the guslight. And in front of h ticking like- a sledgehammgqr, its on! hand upen the stroke of 12, stood a sim ple;, old-fashioned "grandfather's clock— but mot for half an. instant er—on!> until my guide could hur! himseif upon it and send the whele thing crashing int the cormer. An ear-splitting report 2 companied the crash, a white cloud lifte from the faflen clock, and I saw 2 volver smoking in a vise screwed the dial. an a; t of wires s ing from the d'al ltself, and the = hand at once at its zenith and in tact with these. “Tumble to it, Bunny?" He was alive: these were his words the Italian had the bloed-caked ruler his hand, and with his knife was reac ing up to cut the thongs that lashed th hands. 'He was not tall emough. seized and lifted him up, then fell to work with my own knife on the straps. — “ontinued on Page Three.