The evening world. Newspaper, May 13, 1905, Page 12

THE WORLD: SATURDA to look for kindnoss from him now; ‘hecause I waa side of the angels. Yet it was whispered in the school that he was in the he rich enough to play cricket all the summer, and do habit of parading the town at night in loud checks and a false beard, It was ‘the rest of the vear, I had fatuously counted or his mercy, his whispered. and disbelleved, I alone knew tt for a fact. for night after night is help! Yes, I had relied on him in my heart, for all my out- had TI pulled the rope up after him when the rest of the dormitory were dence and humility; and I was rightly served. There was as little asicep and kept awake by the hour to let it down again on a given signal ‘au of sympathy in that curling nostril, that rigid jaw, that cold Well. one night he was over-bold and within ap ace of ignominious expul- whioh never glanced my way, I caught up my hat. I blundered sion in the heyday of his fame, Consummate daring and extraordinary } feet, 1 would have gone without a word; but Raffles stood between Derve on his part, aided doubtless by some little presence of mind on mine, Bd. the door. ayortod that untoward result; and no more need be said of a disercditabie in- bére are you going?” sald he. cident But I cannot pretend to have forgotten it In throwing myself on this i's my business,” |] replied. man's merey in my desperation, And | was wondering how much of his how am I to help you?" leniency was owing to the fact that Raffles had not forgotten it either,when ‘@dn't ask your help.” \n why come to me?” ‘g iy, Indeed!” I echoed. “Will you let me pass?” ‘Not until you tell me where you are going and what you mean to do.” on ones8?” IT eried. And for many seconds we stood staring In He smiled, as though he had read my thoughts, jer's eyes, “Well, you were the right sort of little beggar then, Bunny; you didn't # “Have you got the pluck?” sald he, breaking the spell in a tone so talk and you didn't flinch. You asked yi P that it brought my last drop of blood to the boil no questions and you told no tales, ”° p nd the pistol from | wonder if you're like that now? ‘ou shall see,” said I, as I stepped back and whippe @ pisto “1 don't know," sald 1, 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 “I won't trouble you any more,” 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?” “T was thinking of it, too. Hy Overcoat pocket. “Now, will you let me pass or shall I do it here?” Tie barrel touched my temple and my thumb the trigger. Mad with ex- it as 1 was, ruined, dishonored, and now finally determined to make @nq of my misspent life, my only*surprise to this day is that T did not doy trusted by anybody else, Yet f then and there. The despicable satisfaction of involving another in Naver ain my live’ went Hacleront a ie’ Mestrnction added its miserable appeal to my baser egotism; and had ¢iend, 1 will say that, otherwlse, @r horror flown () my companion’s face, I shudder to think | might perhaps 1 mightn't be in such a hole @iaA Atabolically happy with that look for my last impious consola- to-night.” It was the look thit came instead which held my hand. Neither fear “Ixactly,” said Raffles, nodding OF horror were in it; only wonder, admiration, and such a measure of i, himself, as though in assent to Pleased expectuucy as caused me after all to pocket my revolver with ar some hidden train of thought; “ex- h actly what | remember of you, and “You devil!” I eaid, “I believe you wanted me to do it!” Ili bet Ifa) ne: true now as. (twee “Not quite,” was the reply, made with a little start, and a change of ten years ago. We don't alter, Meolor that came too late. ‘To tell the truth, though, I half thought you Bunny. We only develop. I suppose : nt it, and I was never more fascinated in my life. I never dreamt you neither you nor I are really altered guoh stuff in you, Bunny! No, I'm hanged if I let you go now. And since you used to let down that rope '@ better not try that game again, for you won't catch me stand and and I used to come up it hand over ok on a second time. We must think of some way out of the mess. IT hand. You would stick at nothing d no idea you were a chap of that sort! There, let me have the gun. for a pal—what?’ - ‘One of his hands fell kindly on my shoulder, while the other slipped “At nothing in ito my overcoat pocket, and 1 suffered him to deprive me of my weapon Mla rah to ery vated eee thout a murmur. Nor was this simply because Raffles had the sublle Ae cee ata crime?” sal af- 5 er of making himself irresistible at will. He was beyond comparison 4 if ‘ je most masterful man whom I have ever known; yet my acquiesconce was | Vee Be 1 a ou Hdue to more than the mere subjection of the weaker nature to the stronger. chathigste Yai dlniéye denrmed tee The jJeriorn hope which had brought me to Albany was turned as by pale BRENT HET LO TICK DLA rt 9 an almost staggering sense of safety. Raffles would help me after all! part | was in no mood for teservas LJ. Raffles would be my friend! It was as though all the world had come tions, und suddenly to my side; so far therefore from resisting his action, I “No, Bught and clasped his hand with a fervor as uncontrollable as the frenzy olared: fhich had preceded it your man,” “God bless you!’ I cried. ‘Forgive me for everything. I will tell He looked at me one moment in % the truth. I did think you might help me in my extremity, though I wonder and another moment in doubt, knew that I had no claim upon you. Still—for the old school's sake— then turned the matter off with @ sake of old times—I thought you might give me another chance. If shake of his head and the little cyn- U wouldn't I meant to blow out my brains—and will still {f you change ‘cal laugh that was all his ow our mind!” “You're a nice chap, Bunny! A In truth I feared that it was changing, with his expression, even as 1 "eal desperate character—what? Sud- “ppoke, and in spite of his kindly tone and kindlier use of my old schoo) “ide 2e moment. any crime I like the next! What you want is a drag, Mickname. His next words showed me my mistake. my boy, and you aid well to come to a decent law-abiding citizen with a i “What a boy it is for jumping to conclusions! I have my vicos, reputation to lose, None the less we must have that money to-night-—by Bunny, but backing and filling is not one of them. Sit down, my good "0K oF crook. a fellow, and have a cigarette to soothe your nerves. 1 insist. Whiskey? “To-nleb, Tallies? o ; The worst thing for you; hero's some coffee that I was brewing when you ‘The sooner the better, Every hour after 10 o'clock to-morrow morning in. Now listen to me, You speak of ‘another chance’ What do yeu '8 44 hour of risk, Tet one ot those checks get round to your own bank n? Another chance at baccarat? Not if I know it! You think the and you and it are ('shonored together. No, we must raise the wind to- must turn; suppose it didn't? We should only have made bad worse, Mbt and reopen your uccount fret thing to-morrow. And I rather think No, my dear chap, you've plunged enough. Do you put yourself in my | know. where the wind can be raised, nds or do you not? Very well, then you plunge no more, and I under- nat me clock in the morning? take not to present my check. Unfortunately there are the other men; and yes “But how—but where—at such an hour?” : 1] fortunately, Bunny, I'm as hard up at this moment as you ‘ eh more unt i P “From a friend of mine here in Bond street.” “He must be a very intimate friend!” “Intimate’s not the word. 1 have the run of his place and a latch-key all to myself.” “You would knock him up at this hour of the night?” “Tf he’s in bed." “And it's essential that I should go in with you?" “Absolutely,” “Then 1 must; bit I'm bound to aay I don’t like the idea, RafMfies.” ke ee ; this world,” 3 not even at that,” I de- me your crime, and I'm It was my turn to stare at Raffles. “You?” 1 vociferated. “You hari ‘Wp? How am I to sit here and believe that?” “Did I refuse to believe it of you?" he returned, smilingly. ‘And, with your Own experience, do you think that because a fellow has roome ip © this place, and belongs to a club or two, and plays a little cricket, he must F 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.” L! “Together!” 1 jumped at it. “I'll do anything in this world for you, Raflics,” I said, “if you really mean that you won't give me away, Thiik Of anything you like, and I'll do it! I was a desperate man when I came here, and Lin just as des) e now. 1 don't mind what I do if only I can Pget out of this without a scandal,” Again 1 see him, leaning back in one of the luxurious chairs with hich his room was furnished. 1 see his indolent, athletic figure; his pale, Valiarp, clean-shaven featives; his curly black hair; his strong, unserupulons )Mouth, And again | fee! the clear beam of his wonderful eye, cold end Pluminous as a star, shining into my brain—sifting the very secrets of my 4 te “I wonder if you mean all that!" he said at length resent mood; but who can back his mood to the 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, | recollect. Re Member it, Bunny? Well, wait a bit, and perhaps Ill be able to do you ) @ better one. Give me time to think.” : “You do in your 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 perlod in before. Twice he stopped at my chair as though on the point of king, but each time he checkud himself and resumed his stride in e@, Once he threw up the window, which he had shut some time, an! for gome moments leaning out into the fog which filled the Albany Gourtyard. Meanwhile u clock on the chimuney-plece struck one, and one gain for the half hour, without a word between us, Yet 1 not only kept my chalr with patience, but I acquired an incon Bruous equanimity in that half hour. Insensibly I had shifted my burdou with the folding doors, the marble mantelpiece, and the gloomy, of OMed distinction peculiar to Albany, It was charmingly turnished and d, with the righl amount of negligence and the right amount ¢ i ‘What siruck me most, however, was the absence of the usual insign'a EA Giicketer's den. Instead of the conventional rack of war-worn bats, ¥ed oak book-case, with every shelf in « litter, filled the better part of “Do you prefer the alternative?” asked my companion, with a snver, and where I looked for cricketing groups, | found reproductions of “No, hang It, that’s unfair!" he cried apologetically in the same breath. “I fs “Love and Death’ and “The Blessed Damozel,” in dusty quite understand different parailels. ‘The man might have been a minor poet in- siay outside. nf A ofan athlete of the first water. But there had always been a fin MMOL AeAthericisin in bis complex composition; some of these yery ple ad myself dusted In bis study at school; and they set me thinking of hia many sides—and of the little incident to which he had It's a beastly ordeal. But it would never do for you to I tell you what, you shall have a peg before we start—just There's the whiskey, here's u siphon, and I'll be putting on an over- coat 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 |ts apparent inevitability, I must own, however, that it possessed fewer terrors hefore my glass was empty. Mean- how-largely the tone of a public school depends on while Raffles rejoined me, with a covert coat over his blazer, and a soft felt end on the character of the captain of cricket in par- hat set carelessly on the curly head he shook with a smile as I passed him 2 heard {t denied that in A. J, Raffies’s time our the decanter. troubled to exert was on the ‘When we come back," said he, ‘Work first, play afterward, Do you one, a “A burgiar!’’ | gasped. Y EVENING, MAY 13, 1905. see what day it is?” he added, tearing a leaflet from a Shakespearian calon- dar, as I drained my glass, ‘March th. ‘The Ides of March, the Ides of March, remomber.* Ph, 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 chimney-piece was striking two, Il. Piccadilly was a trench of raw, white fog, rimmed wth blurred etreet- 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 sture from the constable of the beat, who, however, touched his helmet on recognizing ny companion, “You see, I'm known to the police,” laughed Raffles as we passed on, “Poor devils, they'e 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 the soason. Here we are, though —and I'm hanged if the beggar isn't in bed and asleep after all!” We had turned into Bond atteet 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 peep- hole 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 to-night.” 1 urged. “Surely the morning will be time enough!" “Not a bit of it.” said Raffles, “T 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 latch-key, and in another moment had shut it swiftly but softly behind us. We stood to- gether In the dark, Outside a meas- ured step was approaching; we had heard it through the fog as we crossed the street; now, as It drew nearer, my companion’s fingers tight- ened on my arm. “It may he 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 con- tinued in the same whisper. “We'll take a rise out of him wherever he int Blip off your shoes and fol- low me.” Well, you may wonder at my doing 80; but you can never have met A, w. Raffles, Half his power lay in a conciliating trick of sinking the come mander in the leader. And it was impossible not to follow one who led with such @ zest, You might question, but you followed tirst. So now, when I heard him kick off his own shoes I did the same, and was on the toirs at hie heele before I realized what an extraordinary way was this of approaching a stranger for money in the dead of night. But obviously Raffies and he were on exceptional terms of intimacy, and | could not but Infer that they were In the habit of playing practical Jokes upon each other, We groped our way so slowly upstaira that I had time to make more than one uote 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 npon me since we entered the house, It in- creased with every step we climbed. What hermit were we going to startle in his cell? We came to a landing. The banlaters 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 uf the match with ona hand and shading it with the other, between bare boards, stripped walls nnd the opem doors of empty rooms, “You—you It took thirty-two separate borings to cut areund that lock, “Where have you brought me?" I cried. ‘The house is unococupied!" “Hush! Wait!" he whispered, and he led the way into one of the empty rooms. His match went out as we crossed the threshold and he struck another without the slightest noise. Then he stood with his back to mo, fumbling with something that I could not see, But when he threw the seoond match away, there was some other light in its stead and a slight smell of oil, I stepped forwnrd to look over his shoulder, but before I could do so he had turned and flashed a tiny lantern in my face. “What's this?” I gasped, ‘What rotten trick are you goiulg to play?” “It's played,” he answered, with his quiet laugh, “On ret” : “Um afraid ea, Biinny,” “No one but ourselves.” “So It was*mere chaff about your friend in Bond street, who could let us have that 1aoney?” “Not altogether. “Danby?” “The Jeweller underneath." “What do you mean?” I whispered, trembling like a leaf as his meaniug dawned upon me, ‘Are we to get the money from the jeweller “Well, rot exactly,” “What then?” \ “The equivalent—from his shop.” There was no need for another question, | understood everything but my own density. He had given me a dozen hints and | had taken none. And there I stood staring at him, in that empty room; and there he stood with bis dark lantern, laughing at me. “A burgla: 1 gasped. “You—you!" \ “IT told you I lived by my wits.” “Why couldn't you tell me what you were going to do? Why couldat you trust me? Why muat you lie?" I demanded, piqued to the quick for al! my horror. “I wanted to tell you,’ said he. “I was on the point of telling you more than once. You may remember how | sounded you about crime, though you have probably forgotten what you sald yourself, I didn’t think you meant it at the time, but 1 thought I'd put you to the test. Now I seo you didn't, and T don’t blame you. T only am to hlims. Get out of it, my dear boy, as quick as you can; leave it to me. You won't give me away, whatever else you do!" Oh, his cleverness! His fiendish cloverness! threats, coercion, sneers, all might have heen different even yet. set me free to leave him in the lurch, He would not blame me. He did not even bind me to secrecy; he trusted me. He knew my weakness and my strength, and was playing on both witb his master’s touch. “Not so fast,” said 1 “Did I put this lifio your head, or were you going 0 do i: in any case?” “Not tn any case,” said Raffles, ‘It's true I've had tho key for days, but when f won to-night I thought of chucking it; for, as a matter of fact, it's not a une-man job." “That settles tt “You mean it'" “Yes—for (o-night,"! “Good old Runny,” he murmured, holding the lantern for one moment to my face; the next he was explaining his pluns, and I was nodding, thougl. we had oeen fellow-cracksmen all our days “I know the shop,” he whispered, "because I've got a few things there. 1 know this upper part too; it’s been to let for a month, and T got an order to view and took » cast of the key before using it. The one thing I don't know is how to make 4 connection between the two; at prosent there's none. We may make it up hero, though | rather fancy the basement myself, If you wait a minnte I'l tell you." He set his lantern on the floor, crept to a back window and opened It with scarcely a sound; only to return, shaking his head, after shutting the Window with the same care It's quite true that Canby is a friend of mine,” Had he fallen back on But he ('m your man." “Taat was our one chance," said he: “a hack window above a back win- dow; but it's tov darn to see anything, and we daren't show An outside light, Come down after me to the basement: and remember, though there's not a soul on the premises, you can’t make too little noise. There—there—listen to thet It was the measured tread that we had heard before on the flagstones outside. Raffles darkened nis lantern, and egnin we stood motionless till it had passed, “Either a policeman,” he muttered, “or a watchman that all these jew- ellers run between them. The wetchman’s the man for us to watch: he's simply paid to spot this kind of thing.” We crept very gingerly down the stairs, which creaked a bit in spite of us, ané we picked up our shoes tn the passage; then down some narrow stone steps, at the foot of which Raffles showed his light and put on his shoes once more, bidding me do the same in a rather louder tone than he had pevmilted himself to employ overhead. We were now cons'derably be- low the level of the street, {n 4 small space with as many doors as tt had Sides. Three were ajur, and we saw through them into empty cellars; but in .he fourth a key was turned and a bolt drawn; and this one presently let us out Into the bottom of a deep, square well of fog, A similar door faced it across this area, and Raffles had the lantern close against it and was hid. ing the light with his kody, wheu a short and sudden crash made my heart stand still. Next moment I saw the door wide open, and Raffles standing within and beckoning me with a jemmy. “Door number one," he whispered. “Deuce knows how many more there'll be, but I know of two at least. We won't have to make much noise over them, either; down here there's lese risk.” Wc were now at the bottom of the exact fellow to the narrow stone Stair which we had just descended; the yard, or well, being the one part com- mon tc both the private and the business premises. But this flight led to no onen passage; instead, a singularly solfd mahogany door confronted us at the top, “IT thought so,” muttered Raffles, handing me the lantern and pocketing 4 burch of skeleton keys, after tampering a few minutes with the lock: “It'll be an hour's work to get through that!" “Can't you pick it?” “No, T know these locks, It’s no use trying, We must cnt it out, and it'll toke us an hour ! Tt cock ns forty-seven minutes by my watch; or, rather, it took Raffles; and nevei In my life have | seen anything more deliberately done. My part was simply to stand ty with the dark lantern in one hand and a small bottle of rock oil in the other, Raffivs had produced a pretty embroidered case, intended obylously yor lis razors, but filled instead with the tools of hie secret crade, inoliling the rock il. From this case he selected a “bit,” eap- able of drilling « hole an inch in diameter, and fitted it to a amall but verp strong “‘brace.' Then he took off his covert cont and his blaser, spread them neatly on the lop step—knelt on them--turned up his shirt cuffe—and weny to work with brace aud bit near the keyhole. Tut first he olled the bit te minimize the noise, and this he did invariably before beginning « fresh hole, and often in the middle of one, It took thirty-two separate borings to ous round that lock, I noticed that through the first circular orifice Raffles thrust @ fore finger; then, as the circular became an ever-lengthening oval, Le got hie hand through up to the thumb, and I heard him swear softly to himaelf. “T was afraid so!” “Whot is it?” “An tron gate on the other site!” “How on earth are we to get through that?" I asked in dismay, “Pick the lock. But there may be two, In that case they'll be top ama bpttom, and we shai} have two fresh holes to make, as the door opens ime ward, It won't opel two inches as it Is.’ I confess I did not feel sanguine about the lock-picking, seeing that one lock hud baffled us ulveady, and my disappointment and impatience must have boen a revélution to me had I stopped to think, The truth is that I wae entering into our nefarious undertaking with an involuntary seal of which I was myself quite unconscious a! the time. The romance'and the peril of ¢he whole proceeding held me spellbound and entranced. My moral sense end my sense of fear were stricken by a common paralysis. And there I stood, shining my light and holding my vial with a keener Interest then I held ever brought to any honest avocation, And there knelt A. J, Raffles, with his black hair (tumbled, and the same watchful, quiet, determined half-emile with which I have seen him send down over after over in a county match! At last the chain of holes was complete, the lock wreneed out bodily, and a splcndid bare arm plunged up to the shoulder through the aperture and through the fron bars of the gate beyond. “Now,” whispered Raffles, ‘‘f there's only one lock it'll be in the mide dle, Joy: Here it is! Only let me pick it and we' , Ho withdrew him arm, 9 skeleton key was te! My thie shi rf .