The evening world. Newspaper, July 29, 1905, Page 9

The Adventures of RAFFLES. No, 12. wn FICTION SUPPLEMENT, NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JULY 29 1905. (Copyright 1905, by the Prevw Publishing Company.) Twelfth Adventure. windows which opened upon the balcony, and tn yet another he had switched on the electric light within. This was bad enough. for now I at least could see everything he did; but | the crowning folly was still to come. There was no point in | a Price 1 Cent, Including Fiction Supplement y it; the mad thing was done for my benefit, as I knew at once and he afterward confessed, but the lunatic reappeared on the balcony bowing like a mountebank—in his crepe mask! I set off with the empty chair, but I came back. I could not desert old Raffles even when I would, but must try to - NOLDF LAME By E. W. HORNUNG. ‘ (opr 1800, Ly Charles Scribner's Sons.) explain away his mask as well, if he had not the senge to take 1 it off in time. It would be difficult, but burglaries are not NHI equare aialinemamerseesune treed usually committed from a bath chair, and for the rest T put rive due west from Picendilly th my faith in Dr Theobald. Meanwhile Raffles had at least rah vill ey ; 4 withdrawn from the balcony, and now I could only see his cabman will eventually find it on his left, and he ough: to thank you for head as he peered into a cabinet at the other side of the room. two shillings. It is not a fashionable It was like the opera of “Aida.” in which two ecenes are uare, but there are few with a finer enacted simultaneously, one in the dungeon below, the other Jen, while the studios on the south in the temple above. In the same fashion my attention now side lend distinction of another sort became divided between the picture of Raffles moving stealth- " The houses. however, are small and ily about the upper room and that of the husband and wife at e dingy snd about the last to attract table underneath. And all at once, as the man replenished the expert practitioner in search of a crib. Heaven knows, it his glass with a shrug of the shoulders, the woman pushed | was with no such thought I trailed Raffles thither one unlucky back her chair and salled to the door. | evening at the latter end of that same season, when Dr. Theo- Raffles was standing before the fireplace upstairs. He had | bald had at last insisted upon the bath chair, which I had fore- taken one of the framed photographs from the chimney-plece seen in the beginning. Trees whispered in the green garden and was scanning it at suicidal length through the eyeholes afore: and the cool, smooth lawns looked so inviting that in the hideous mask which he still wore. We would need it I wondered whether some philanthropic resident could not be after all. ‘The lady had left the room below, opening and Induced to lend us the key, But Raffles would not listen to the shutting the door for herself; the man was filling his glass { ¢ suggestion, when I stopped to make it, and what was worse, I once more. I would have shricked my warning to Raffles, so | found him looking wistfully at the little houses instead fatally engrossed overhead, but at this moment (of all others) | “Such balconies, Bunny! A leg up, and there you a constable (of all men) was marching sedately down our side | ag CRIES of the square. ‘There was nothing for it but to turn a melan- | a I expressed a conviction that there would be nothing choly eye upon the bath chair and to ask the constable the ) worth taking in the square, but took care to have him under time. I was evidently to be kept there all night, I remarked, afd only realized with the words that they disposed of my | wa gain as I spoke. ‘I dare say you're right,” sighed Raffles. “Rings and Watches, I suppose, but it would be hard luck to take them from people who live in houses like these. I don‘ other explanations vefore they were uttered. It was a horrible moment for such a discovery. Fortunately the enemy was on the pavement, from which he could scarcely have seen more * know, though. Here's one with an extra story. Stop. Bunny; if yon than the drawing room ceiling had he looked, but he was not don't stop I'll hold on to the railings! H y s 5 good house; many houses distant when a door opened and a woman gasped look at the knocker and the electric bell, They've had that so that I heard hoth across the road. And never shall I forget put in. There's some money here, my rabbit! I dare bot the subsequent tableaux in the lighted room behind the low balcony and the French windows. Raffles stood confronted by a dark and handsom* woman. whose profile as I saw it first in the electric light is cnt like & | cameo in my memory. It had the undeviating line of hrow | =’ and nose, the short upper lip. the perfect chin, that are vnited | >in marble oftener than in the flesh, and like marble she steod, or rather like some beautiful pale bronze, for that was her coloring, and she lost none of it that I could see, neither a trembled, but her bosom rose and fell, and that was all. 89 she stood without flinching before a masked ruffian, who, ¢ | felt, would be the first to appreciate her courage; to me it ws | so superb that I could think of it in this way even then and marvel how Raffles himself could stand unabashed before oo brave a figure. He had not to do so long. The woman scorned him, and he stood unmoved, a framed photograph still in his hand. Then, with 1 quick, determined movement she turned, not to the door or to the bell, but to the open window by which Raffles had entered, and this with that accursed police- man still in view. So far no word had passed between the pair. But at this point Raffles said something, I could not hear what, but at the sound of his voice the woman wheeled. And Raffles was looking humbly in her face, the crepe mask snatched from his own, “Arthur!” she cried; and that might have been heard in the middle of the square garden. Then they stood gazing at cach other, neither unmoved any more, and while they stood the street door opened and banged. It was the husband leaving the house, a fine figure of a man, but a dissipated face and a step even now distinguished by the extreme caution which precedes unsteadiness. He broke the spell. His wife came to the balcony, then looked back into the room, and yet again along the road, and this time I saw her face. It was the face of one glancing, indeed, from Hyperion to a satyr. And then I saw the rings flash as her hands fell gently upon Raffles’s arm, They disappeared from that window. Their heads showed for an instant in the next. Then they dipped out of sight, and an inner ceiling flashed ont under a new light; they had gone into the back drawing-room, beyond my ken. The maid came up with coffee, her mistress hastily met her at the door, and once more disappeared. The square was as quiet as ever, I remained some minutes where I was. Now and then I thought I heard their voices in the back drawing-reom, I was seldom sure. My state of mind may be imagined by those readers who take an interest in my personal psychology. It does not amuse ime to look back upon it, But at length I had the sense to put myself in Raffles’s place. He had been recognized at last, he had come to life. Only one person knew as yet, but that person was a woman, and a woman who had once been fond of him, if the human face could speak. Would she keep his secret? Would he tell her where he lived? It was terrible to think we were such neighbors, and with the thought that it was terrible came a little enlightenment as to what could still be done for the best. He would not tell her where he lived. I knew him too well for that. He would run for it when he could, and the bath chair and I must not be there to give him away. I dragged the infernal yehicle round the nearer corner, Then I waited—there could be no harm in that—and at last he came, He was walking briskly, so I was right, and he had not played the invalid to her; yet 1 heard him cry out with pleas- ure as he turned the corner, and he flung himself into the chair with a long-drawn sigh that did me good, “Well done, Buany—well done! I am on my way to Earl's Cuurt, she’s capable of following me, but she won't look for me | in a bath chair, Home, home, home, and not another word till we get there! Capable of following him? She overtook us hefore we were past the studios on the south side of the square, the woman herself in a hooded opera-cloak, But she never gave us a glance, and we saw her turn safely in the right direction for Harl's Court, and the wrong one for our humble mansions, Raffles thanked his gods in a voice that trembled, and Aye minutes later we wore in the flat. ‘Then for once it was Raffles who filled the tumblers and found the cigarettes, and for eave there's a silver table in the drawing-room; _ are wide open. Electric light, too, by Jove!” Since stop I must, I had done so on the other side of the road, in the shadow of the leafy palings, and as Raffles spoke the ground floor windows opposite had flown alight, showing UJ as pretty a dittle dinner table as one could wish to see, with a man at his wine at the far end, and the back of a ly in evening dress toward us. It was like a lantern picture thrown upon a screen. There were only the pair of them, but the table was brilliant with silver and gay with flowe: and the maid waited with the Indetinable air of a good servant. It certainly seemed a good house. “She's going to let down the blind!” whispered Raffles in high excitement. “No, confound them, they've told her not to, Mark down her nec! e, Bunny, and invoice his stud. What a brute he looks! Sut I like the table, and that's her show. She has the taste, but he must have money. See the festive Picture over the sideboard? Looks to me like Jacques Saillard. But that silver table would be good enough for me." “Get on.” said I. “You're in a bath chair.” “But the whole square’s at dinner! We should have the ball at our feet. It wouldn't take two twos!" a “With those blinds up and the kitchen unflerneath?” He nodded, leaning forward in the chair, his hands upon ‘aps about his legs. ou must be mad,” said I, and got back to my handles with the word, but when I tugged the chair ran light. “Keep an eye on the rug," came in a whisper from the middle of the road, and there stood my invalid, his pale face in a quiver of pure mischief, yet with his insane resolye, “I'm only going to see whether that woman has a silver table’—— “We don't want it”?—— ‘It won't take a minute.” and the windows the “It's madness, madness’ “Then don't you wait!" It was like him to leave me like that, and this time I had taken him at his last word, had not my own given me an idea. Mad I had called him, and mad I could declare him upon oath if necessary. It was not as though the thing had happened far from home, They could learn all about us at the nearest mansions, I referred them to Dr. Theobald; this was a Mr. Maturin, one of his patients, and I was his keeper, and he had ‘ never given me the slip before, I heard myself making these explanations on the doorstep, and pointing to the deserted bath chair as the proof, while the pretty parlor maid ran for the police. It would be a more serious matter for me than for my charge I should lose my place. No, he hod never done such a thing before, and I would answer for it that he never should again. T saw myself conducting Raffles back to his chair with a firm hand and a stern tongue. 1 heard him thanking me in whispers on the way home, It would be the first tight place T had ever got him out of, and I was quite anxious for him to get into It, so sure was I of every move. My whole position had ultered in the few seconds that {t took me to follow this illuminating train of ideas; it was now so strong that I could watch Raffles without much anxiety, And he was worth watching, He had stepped boldly hut softly to the front door, and there he was still waiting, ready to ring if the door opencd or a face appeared in the area, and doubtless to pretend that he had rung already, But he had not to ring at all; and sud- denly I saw his foot in the letter-box, his left hand on the lintel overhead, It was thrilling, even to a hardened accom- plice with an explanation up his sleeve! A tight grip with that left hand of his, us he leaned forward with all his weight upon those five finvers; a right arm stretched outward and upward to Its last inch, and the base of the low, projecting balcony was safely caught. 1 looked down and took breath. The maid was removing the crumbs in the lighted room, and the square was empty as before, What a blessing It was the end of the season! Many of the houses remained in darkness, 1 looked up again and Raffles was drawing his left leg over the balcony ralling, In Qnother moment he had disappeared through one of the Frenel 1s ithe vt ye