The evening world. Newspaper, May 13, 1905, Page 26

the rest of the year, I had fatuously counted or his merey, his his help! Yes, I had relied on him in my heart, for all my out- ince and humility; and I was rightly served. There was as little ‘as of sympathy in that curling nostri), that rigid jaw, that cold which never glanced my way, 1 caught up my hat. I blundered feet. 1 would have gone without a word; but Raffles stood between (the door, Vuere are you going?” said he. my business,” 1 reptied, how am I to help you?” n't ask your help.” \n why come to me?” y, indeed!" I echoed, “Will you let me pass?” Be 6 ay ‘Not until you tell me where you are going and what vou mean to do.” By) Gent oy ones?” I orled, And for many seconds we stood staring In ‘btber's eyes. “Have you got the pluck?” sald he, breaking the spell in a tone so mioal that it brought my last drop of blood to the boil i (OU shall se6,” sald I, as I stepped back and whipped the pistol from ‘mg ‘Overcoat pocket. “Now, will you let me pass or shall I do it here?” ‘Bho barrel touched my temple and my thumb the trigger. Mad with ex ment as 1 was, ruined, dishonored, and now finally determined to mae é @nd of my misspent lite, my only*surprise to this day is that 1 did not do @ then and there, The despicable satisfaction of involving another {n @estrnction added its miserable appeal to my baser egotism; and had ‘or horror flown (> my companion’s face, I shudder to think | might @iaA Aiabolically happy with that look for my last impious consola- It was the look thit came instead which held my hand. Neither fear horror were in it; only wonder, admiration, and such a measure of lds@d expectaicy as caused me after all to pocket my revolver with ar “I won't trouble you any more,” © You devil!” I eaid. “I believe you wanted me to do it!" “Not quite,” was the reply, made with a little start, and a change of that came too late. ‘To tell the truth, though, I half thought you nt it, and I was never more fascinated in my life. I never dreamt you fuoh stuff in you, Bunny! No, I'm hanged If I let you go now, And u'd better not try that game again, for you won't catch me stand and on a second time, We must think of some way out of the meas, T d 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 ito my overcoat pocket, and 1 suffered him to deprive me of my weapon Hthout a murmur. Nor was this simply because Raffles had the suble 1 er of making himself irresistible at will. He was beyond comparison a © most masterful man whom I have ever known; yet my acquiescence was / ue to more than the mere subjection of the weaker nature to the stronger. She iorlorn hope which had brought me to Albany was turned as by magic i 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 ind suddenly to my side; so far therefore from resisting his action, T ught and clasped his hand with a fervor as uncontrollable as the frenzy ich 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 i knew that I had no claim upon you. Still—for the old school's sake— fake of old times—I thought you might give me another chance, If wouldn't I meant to blow out my brains—and will still if you change ‘your mina!" In truth I feared that it was changing, with his expression, even as 1 poke, and in spite of his kindly tone and kindlier use of my old school /Mickname. His next words showed me my mistake. > “What a boy it is for jumping to conclusions! 1 have my vicos, ) Bunny, but backing and filling is not one of them. Sit down, my good low, and have a cigarette to soothe your nerves. 1 insist. Whiskey” worst thing for you; here's some coffee that I was brewing when you @me in. Now listen to me. You speak of ‘another chanc! What do yeu B? Another chance at baccarat? Not if 1 know it! You think the Must turn; suppose it didn't? We should only have made bad worse 1 lo, my dear chap, you've plunged enough. Do you put yourself in my /hhands or do you not? Very well, then yon plunge no more, and | under- take not to present my check. Unfortunately there are the other men; and wtill more unfortunately, Bunny, I'm as hard up at this moment as you ) are yourself!” Yt was my turn to stare at Raffles. You?” 1 vociferated. “You har (@p? 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 rooms in © 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. 1 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 boul, » Bunny; we'd better pull together.” “Together! I jumped at it. “I'll do anything in this world for you, Rafiics,” I said, “if you really mean that you won't give me away, Thli.k P of anything you like, and I'll do it! 1 was a desperate man when I came ere, and Jin just as desperate now. 1 don't mind what | do if only I can fot 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, P, clean-shaven {patives; his curly black hair; his strong, unserupulons Mouth, And again I fee! the clear beam of his wonderful eye, cold end Muminous as a star, shining into my brain—sifting the very secrets of my beart. 4 “1 wonder if you mean all that!" he said at length. “You do in your B Present 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 vHiotle devil at school; you once did me rather a good turn, | recollect. Re- momber it, Bunny? Well, wait a bit, and perhaps I'll be able to do you | B better one. Give me time to think.” ‘ 9g He gt 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 q Ban before. Twice he stopped at my chair as though on the point of peaking, but cach time he checkod himself and resumed his stride in ‘silence. Once he threw up the window, which he had shut some time, an’ Pe for some moments leaning out into the fog which filled the Albaay p eourtyard. Meanwhile i clock on the chimuey-plece struck one, and one Pggain for the half hour, without a word between us. » Yet 1 not only kept my chalr with patience, but I acquired an incon p> ruous equanimity in that half hour. Isensibly [ had shifted my burdeu ) to the broad shoulders of this splendid friend, and my thoughts wandered with my eyes ax the minutes passed. The room was the good-sized square wiih the folding doors, the marble mantelpiece, and the gloomy, 0 d' distinction peculiar to Albany, Jt was charmingly furnished and d, with the right amount of negligence and the right amount ¢ }tileketer'n den. Instead of the conventional rack of war-worn bats, different paruilels. Lan athlete of the first water But there had always been a fin ‘What siruck ine most, however, was the absence of the usual insignia 7 oak book-case, with every shelf in a litter, filled the better part of j,and where I looked for cricketing groups, | found reproductions of “No, hang it, that’s unfair!" he cried apologetically in the same breath. “I rt as “Love and Death” and “The Blessed Damozel,” in dusty ‘The man might have been a minor poet in- (meathericisin in his complex composition; some of these yery pic: Anyself dusted in bis study at school; and they set me thinking of his many sides—and of the little incident to which he had how-largely the tone of a public school depends on ‘end on the character of the captain of cricket in par- heard (t denied that in A. J, Raffies’s time our 8 he troubled to exert was on the THE WORLD: SATURDAY EV “ta look for ‘kindnoss from him now; because I was 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 whispered, and disbelleved, T 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 asicep and kept awake by the hour to let it down again on a given signal Well, one night he was over-bold and within an ace of Ignominious expul- sion in the heyday of his fame, Consummate daring and extraordinary nerve on his part, alded doubtless by some little presence of mind on mine, averted that untoward result; and no more need be said of a discreditalic in- cident But f cannot pretend to have forgotten {t in throwing myself on this mins merey in my desperation And | 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 amiled, 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,” sald 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 @ friend. I will say that, otherwise, perhaps | mightn't be In such a hole to-night.” “Rxactly,” said Raffles, nodding to himself, as though in assent to some hidden train of thought; “ex- actly what 1 remember of you, and I'll bet it's as true now as it wae ten years ago. We don't alter, Bunny, We only develop, I suppose neither you nor | 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 was pleased to ery “Not even at a crime?" said Rafe fles, smiling I stopped to think, for his tone had changed, and I felt sure he was chafing me. Yet his eye seemed as much in earnest as ever, and for my part | was in no mood for reservas tions. “No, not even at that,” I de- clared; ‘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 @ shake of his head and the little cyn- {eal laugh that was all his own, “You're a nice chap, Bunny! real desperate character—what? Sud- cide one moment, 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 to-night—by hook or crook.” “To-night, Raflles?”" “The sooner the better. Every hour after 10 o'clock to-morrow morning is au hour of risk, It one ot those checks get round to your own bank and you and it are «'shonored together. No, we must raise the wind Lo night and reopen your «ccount first thing to-morrow. And I rather think I know where the wind can be raised.” “At 2 o'clock in the morning?” “Yes,” “Dut how—but where—at such an hour?” “From a friend of mine here in Bond street,” “He nual be a very intimate friend!” “Intimate’s not the word. I 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; but I'm bound to gay I don’t like the idea, RaMes,” in this world,” & “A burglar!” I gasped. NG, MAY 13, 1905, see what day it is?" he added, tearing a leaflet from a Shakespearian calen- dar, as I drained my glass. ‘March 15th. ‘The Ides of March, the Ides of March, remomber?* Dh, 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. I. Piccadilly was a trench of raw, white fog, rimmed wth blurred street- lamps and lined with a thin coating of adhesive mud, We met no other Wayfarere on the deserted flagstones and were ourselves favored with a yery hard stare from the constable of the beat, who, however, touched his helmet on recognizing iny 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 season. Here we are, though —and I'm banged 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 atreet door next the shop, was black and blank as the sky Itself. “Better give it up for to-night.” I 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 lateh-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 ist Slip off your shoes and fol- low me.” Well, you may wonder at my doing 80; but you can never have met A, J. Raffles, Half his power lay in @ conciliating trick of sinking the com. mander in the leader, And it was impossible not to follow one who led with such @ zest. You might question, but you followed tirat. 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 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 1 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 well, those of my left trailed through a dust that could be felt on the banisters. An eerje sensation had been upon me since we entered the house. !t in- creased with every step we climbed. What hermit were we going to startle in his cell? We came to a landing. The baniaters 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 biinding. When my eyes became accustomed to the light there was Raffles holding ufi the match with one hand and shading it with the other, between bare bonrds, stripped walls nnd the open doors of empty rooms. “You—you!’’ It took thirty-two separate borings to cut areund that lock, “Do you prefer the alternative?" asked my companion, with a sn-ver, 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 # 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 its apparent Inevitability. I must own, however, that it possessed fewer terrors before my glass was empty. Mean- while 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 “Where have you brought me?" I cried. *The house is unococupled!" “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 me, fumbling with something that I could not see. But when he threw the second match away, there was some other light In its stead and a slight smell of oil. I stepped forwird to look over his shoulder, but before I coulé do so he had turned and flashed a tiny lantern In my face. “What's this?" I gasped, “What rotten trick are you goiug to play?” “It's played,” he answered, with his quiet laugh, “On roe?” . “I'm afrald go, liinny, “Ig there no ons in the Ney ale “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 mo a dozen hints and | had taken none. And there I stood ting at him, in that empty room; and there he stood with his dark lantern, laughing at me. “A burglar!” I gasped. “You—you!"” “I 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 must 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 I sounded you about crime, though you have probably forgotten what you said yourself, I didn't think you meant it at the time, but 1 thought I'd put you to the test, Now I sea you didn't, and T don't blame you, I only am to blame. 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 flendish cloverness! threats, coercion, sneers, all might have been different even yet. But he 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 piaying on both with his master’s touch. “Not so fast,” said 1, “Did I put this itfto your head, or were you going O do i: in any case?” “Not tn any case," said Raffles. ‘It's true I've had the key for days, but when I won to-night I thought of chucking it; for. as a matter of fact, It's not a one-man job." “That settles tt You mean it?" “Yes—for lo-might.” “Good old Runny,” he murmured, holding the lantern for one moment to my face; the next he was explaining his plans, and I was nodding, thougl. we had oeon fellow-cracksinen all our days “I know the shop,” he whispered, “because I've got a few things there. I know this upper part too; it's been to let for a month, and t got an order fo view and took 4 cast of the key before using it. The one thing I don't know is how to make 4 vonnection between the two; at present there's none. We may make it up hero, though I rather fancy the basoment myself. If you wait a minute I'll 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 “Toat was our one chance, dow; It’s quite true that Danby is a friend of mine.” \ Had he fallen back on ('m your man,” sald he: “a back widow above a back win- but It's tou darn to see anything, and we daren't show an onteide 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 ther! It was the measured tread that we had heard before on the flagstones outside, Rafiles darkened nis lantern, and egiin we stood motionless till it had passed, “Either a policeman,” he muttered, ‘or a wetchman that all these jew ellers run between them. The wotchman’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 croaked a bit. in spite of us, an¢ we picked up our shoes tn the Passage; then down some narrow Stone steps, al the foot of which Roffies showed his light and put on his Shoes once more, bidding me do the same in a rather louder tone than he had pevmiltcd himself to employ overhead, We were now cons'derably be- low the level of tne street, in a small Space with as many doorw as {t had Sides, Three were ajur, and we saw through them into empty cellars; but in che fourth a key was turned and a bolt drawn; and this one Dresently 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 Lody, 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 nolee 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 vom- mon tc both the private and the business premises. But this flight led to no onen passage; Instead, a singularly sulfd mahogany door confronted us at the top, “I thought so,” muttered Raffles, handing me the lantern and pocketing # bunch of skeleton keys, after tampering a few minutes with the loek: “IUH de an hour's work to get through that “Can't you pick it?” "No. T know these locks, ‘vl toke us an hour" It's no use trying. We must cut it out, and Tt cock us forty-seven minutes by my watch; or, rather, it took Raffles: and nevei in my life have T seen anything more deliberately done, My part was simply to stand ty with the dark lantern in one hand and @ small bottle of rock oil in the other, Raffics had produced a pretty embroidered case, intended obviously for tis razors, but filled instead with the tools of his secret crade, Inoluding the rock oll. From this case he selected a “bit,'’ cap> able of drilling « hole an inch in diameter, and fitted it toa Hl but ver> strong “brace.' Then he took off his covert coxt and his blager, spread them neatly on the lop step—knelt on them-—-turned up his shirt cuffe—and weny to work with braze and bit near the keyhole. [ut first he olled the bit te minimize the nolse, and this he did invariably before beginning u fresh bole, and often in the middle of one, It took thirty-two separate borings to cur round that lock, I noticed that through the first circular orifice Rafflee 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 himeelf, “'T was afraid so!” hot ts 1t? “An lron gate on the other side!" “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 amd bpttom, and we shai! bave two fresh holes to make, as the door opens im- ward, It won't open two inches as it ts,” I confess I did not feel sanguine about the lock-picking, seeing that one Jock hud baffled 8 ulready; and my disappointment and impatience must have boen a revélation to me had I stopped to think. The truth (s that [wee entering into our nefarious undertaking with an involuntary seal of which t was myself quite unconscious a! the time. The romance'and the peril of the whole proceeding held me spellbound and entranced. My moral sense agd my sense of fear were stricken by a common paralysis. And there I stood, shining my Hght and holding my vial with a keener Interest then I haid ever brought to any honest avocation. And there knelt A, J, Raffles, with his black hair (umbled, 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, tho lock wreneked out bodily, and a splcndid bare arm plunged up to the shoulder through the aperture and through the iron bara of the gate beyond. "Mf there's only one lock it'll be in the mide Here it is! Only let me pick it and we're thi