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11 - Mr Justice Raffles by E W Hornung · Mr. Justice Raffles

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  Speaker 1: Raffles by E. W. Hornham, Chapter eleven, A dash in
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  Speaker 1: the dark in a few lines, which I found waiting
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  Speaker 1: for me at the club, and have somewhat imprudently preserved.
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  Speaker 1: Raffles professes to have known he was being shadowed even
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  Speaker 1: before we met at Lord's, but it was no use
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  Speaker 1: talking about it until the foe were in the cart.
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  Speaker 1: He goes on to explain the simple means by which
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  Speaker 1: he reduced a gentleman in Billycock's to the pitch of
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  Speaker 1: discomfiture implied in his metaphor. He had taken a hansom
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  Speaker 1: to the Burlington Garden's entrance to the Albany, and kept
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  Speaker 1: it waiting while he went in and changed his clothes.
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  Speaker 1: Then he had sent Baraklov to pay off the cab,
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  Speaker 1: and himself marched out into Piccadilly. What time the Billicock
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  Speaker 1: brims were still shading watchful eyes in Burlington Gardens. There
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  Speaker 1: to be sure, I myself had spotted one of the
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  Speaker 1: precious pair when I drove up after vain exertions at
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  Speaker 1: the call office outside Lords, But by that time his
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  Speaker 1: confederate was on guard at the Piccadilly end, and Raffles
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  Speaker 1: had not only shown a clean pair of wings, but
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  Speaker 1: left the poor brutes to watch an empty cage. He
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  Speaker 1: dismisses them not unfairly with the epithet amateurish. Thus I
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  Speaker 1: was the more surprised, but not the less relieved, to
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  Speaker 1: learn that he was running down into the country for
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  Speaker 1: the week end to be out of their way, but
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  Speaker 1: he would be back on the Monday night to keep
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  Speaker 1: an engagement. You want off, bunny, and if you like,
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  Speaker 1: you may meet me under the clock at Waterloo in
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  Speaker 1: flannel kit and tennis shoes for choice, at the witching
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  Speaker 1: hour of twelve sharp. If I liked, I had a
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  Speaker 1: premature drink in honor of an invitation more gratifying to
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  Speaker 1: my vanity than any compliment Old Raffles had paid me. Yet,
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  Speaker 1: for I could still hear his ironical undertaking to let
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  Speaker 1: me know if he could not do without me, And
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  Speaker 1: there was obviously no irony in this delightfully early intimation
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  Speaker 1: of that very flattering fact, it altered my whole view
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  Speaker 1: of the case. I might disapprove of the risks Raffles
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  Speaker 1: was running for his other friends, but the more I
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  Speaker 1: was allowed to share in them, the less critical I
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  Speaker 1: was inclined to be Besides, I was myself clearly implicated
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  Speaker 1: in the issue as between my own friend and the
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  Speaker 1: common enemy. It was no more palatable to me than
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  Speaker 1: it was to Raffles to be beaten by Dan Levy
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  Speaker 1: after for our initial victory over him. So I drank
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  Speaker 1: like a man to his destruction, and subsequently stole forth
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  Speaker 1: to spy upon his foolish mermidons, who flattered themselves that
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  Speaker 1: they were spying on Raffles. The imbeciles were at it still.
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  Speaker 1: The one hanging about Burlington Gardens looked unutterably bored, but
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  Speaker 1: with his blots of whisper and his grimy jowl, as
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  Speaker 1: flagrant a detective officer as ever I saw, even if
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  Speaker 1: he had not so considerately dressed the part. The other
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  Speaker 1: bruiser was an equally distinctive type, with a formidable fighting
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  Speaker 1: face and a chest like a barrel. But in Piccadilly
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  Speaker 1: he seemed to me less occupied in taking notice than
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  Speaker 1: in avoiding it. In innocuous futility, one could scarcely excel
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  Speaker 1: the other, and between them they raised my spirits to
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  Speaker 1: the zenith. I spent the rest of the afternoon at
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  Speaker 1: their own game, dogging Miss Belsize about lords, until at
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  Speaker 1: last I had an opportunity of informing her that Raffles
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  Speaker 1: was quite safe. It may be that I made my
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  Speaker 1: report with too much gusto when my chance came. At
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  Speaker 1: any rate, it was only the fact that appeared to
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  Speaker 1: interest Miss Bell's size. The details over which I gloated
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  Speaker 1: seemed to inspire in her a repugnance consistent with the
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  Speaker 1: prejudice she had displayed against Raffles yesterday, but not with
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  Speaker 1: her grateful solicitude on his behalf, as revealed to me
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  Speaker 1: that very morning. I could only feel that gratitude was
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  Speaker 1: the beginning and the end of her new regard for him.
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  Speaker 1: Raffles had never fascinated this young girl as he did
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  Speaker 1: the rest of us. Ordinarily engaged to an ordinary man,
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  Speaker 1: she was proof against the glamor that dazzled us, Nay,
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  Speaker 1: though she would not admit it, even to me his friend.
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  Speaker 1: Though like Levy she pretended to embrace the theory of
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  Speaker 1: the practical joke, making it the pretext for her anxiety,
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  Speaker 1: I felt more certain than ever that she now guessed,
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  Speaker 1: and had long suspected, what manner of man Raffles really was,
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  Speaker 1: and that her natural antipathy was greater even than before.
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  Speaker 1: Still more certain was I that she would never betray
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  Speaker 1: him by word or deed, that whatever harm might come
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  Speaker 1: of his present proceedings, it would not be through Camilla
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  Speaker 1: Bell's size. But I was now determined to do my
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  Speaker 1: own utmost to minimize the dangers, to be a real
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  Speaker 1: help to Raffles in the act of ault truth, whistick
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  Speaker 1: depravity to which he had committed himself, and not merely
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  Speaker 1: a fifth wheel to his dashing chariot. Accordingly, I went
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  Speaker 1: into solemn training for the event before us a Turkish
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  Speaker 1: bath on the Saturday, a quiet Sunday between Mount Street
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  Speaker 1: and the Club, and most of Monday lying like a
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  Speaker 1: log in cold blooded preparation for the night's work. And
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  Speaker 1: when night fell, I took it upon me to reconnoiter
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  Speaker 1: the ground myself before meeting Raffles at Waterloo. Another cool
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  Speaker 1: and starry evening seemed to have tempted all the town
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  Speaker 1: and his wife into the streets. The great streams of
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  Speaker 1: traffic were busier than ever, the back waters emptier and
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  Speaker 1: grays in a basin drained to the last dreg of
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  Speaker 1: visible humanity. In one moment, I passed through Gateway and
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  Speaker 1: Alley from the voices and lights of Halborn into a
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  Speaker 1: perfectly deserted square of bare ground and bright stars. The
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  Speaker 1: contrast was altogether startling, for I had never been there before.
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  Speaker 1: But for the same reason I had already lost my bearings,
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  Speaker 1: believing myself to be in Gray's Inn Square when I
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  Speaker 1: was only in South Square Gray's In. Here I entered
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  Speaker 1: upon a hopeless search for the office of Burroughs and
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  Speaker 1: Burroughs door after door had I tried in vain, and
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  Speaker 1: was beginning to realize my mistake when a stray molecule
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  Speaker 1: of the population drifted in from Halborn as I had done,
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  Speaker 1: but with the quick step of the man who knows
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  Speaker 1: his way. I darted from a doorway to inquire mine,
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  Speaker 1: but he was across the square before I could cut
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  Speaker 1: him off, and as he passed through the rays of
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  Speaker 1: a lamp beside a second archway, I fell back, thanking
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  Speaker 1: Providence and Raffles for my rubber souls. The man had
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  Speaker 1: neither seen nor heard me, but at the last moment
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  Speaker 1: I had recognized him as the burlier of the two
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  Speaker 1: blockheads who had shadowed Raffles three days before. He passed
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  Speaker 1: under the arch without looking round. I flattened myself against
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  Speaker 1: the wall on my side of the arch, and in
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  Speaker 1: so standing I was all but eye witness of a
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  Speaker 1: sudden encounter in the square beyond the quick steps stopped,
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  Speaker 1: and there was a here you are on one side,
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  Speaker 1: and a well where is he on the other, both
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  Speaker 1: very eager and below the breath on the job, whispered
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  Speaker 1: the first voice up.
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  Speaker 2: To the neck. When did he go?
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  Speaker 1: In?
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  Speaker 2: Nearly an hour ago? When I said the messenger, which
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  Speaker 2: way up through number seventeen? Next door? Eh, that's right
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  Speaker 2: over the roof. Can't say he's left no tracks I've
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  Speaker 2: been up to see. I suppose there's the usual ladder
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  Speaker 2: and trap door. Yes, but the ladder's hanging in its
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  Speaker 2: proper place. He couldn't have put it back there, could he?
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  Speaker 2: The other grunted. Presently, he expressed a doubt whether Raffles,
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  Speaker 2: and it thrilled me to hear the very name had
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  Speaker 2: succeeded in breaking into the lawyer's office at all. The
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  Speaker 2: first man on the scene, however, was quite sure of it,
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  Speaker 2: and so was I. And we've got to hang about,
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  Speaker 2: grumbled the newcomer, till he comes out again. That's it.
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  Speaker 2: We can't miss him. He must come back into the
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  Speaker 2: square or through into the gardens. And if he does that,
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  Speaker 2: he'll have to come over these here railings into field court.
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  Speaker 2: We got him either way, and there's a step just
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  Speaker 2: here where we can sit and see both ways, as
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  Speaker 2: though it had been made for us. You come and
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  Speaker 2: try a door into the old hall. That was all
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  Speaker 2: I heard, distinctly, First their footsteps, and then the few
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  Speaker 2: extra yards made the rest unintelligible. But I had heard
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  Speaker 2: enough the usual ladder and trap door. Those blessed words
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  Speaker 2: alone might prove worth their weight in great letters of
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  Speaker 2: solid gold. Now I relaxed my body and turned my
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  Speaker 2: head and peered through the arch with impunity, and along
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  Speaker 2: the whole western side of Gray's Inn Square, with its
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  Speaker 2: dusky fringe of plane trees, and its vivid line of lamps,
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  Speaker 2: its strip of pavement, and its wall of many windowed houses.
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  Speaker 2: Under one unbroken roof dim light smoldered in the column
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  Speaker 2: of landing windows over every door. Otherwise there was no
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  Speaker 2: break in the blackness of that gaunt facade. Yet in
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  Speaker 2: some dark room or other behind those walls, I seemed
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  Speaker 2: to see raffles at work as plainly as I had
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  Speaker 2: just heard our natural enemies plotting his destruction. I saw
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  Speaker 2: him at a safe I saw him at a desk.
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  Speaker 2: I saw him leaving everything as he had found it,
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  Speaker 2: only to steal down and out into the very arms
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  Speaker 2: of the law. And I felt that even that desperate
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  Speaker 2: de nument was little more than he deserved for letting
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  Speaker 2: me think myself accessory before the fact, when all the
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  Speaker 2: time he meant me to have nothing whatever to do
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  Speaker 2: with it. Well, I should have everything to do with
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  Speaker 2: it now. If Raffles was to be saved from the
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  Speaker 2: consequences of his own insanity, I and I alone must
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  Speaker 2: save him. It was the chance of my life to
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  Speaker 2: show him my real worth. And yet the difficulty of
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  Speaker 2: the thing might have daunted Raffles himself. I knew what
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  Speaker 2: to do, if only I could gain the house which
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  Speaker 2: he had made the base of his own operations. At
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  Speaker 2: least I knew what to attempt, and what Raffles had
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  Speaker 2: done I might do. So far, the wily couple within
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  Speaker 2: earshot had helped me out of their own mouths, but
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  Speaker 2: they were only just round the corner that hid them
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  Speaker 2: from my view. Stray words still reached me, and they
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  Speaker 2: knew me by sight would recognize me at a glance,
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  Speaker 2: might pounce upon me as I passed. Unless I had it.
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  Speaker 1: The crowd in Halborn seemed strange and unreal as I
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  Speaker 1: jostled in its midst once more. I was out of
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  Speaker 1: it in a moment, however, and into a bus and
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  Speaker 1: out of the bus in a couple of minutes by
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  Speaker 1: my watch. One more minute, and I was seeing how
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  Speaker 1: far back I could sit in a hansom bound for
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  Speaker 1: Gray's Inn Square. I forget the number I had told
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  Speaker 1: the cabman, but it's three or four doors beyond Burrows
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  Speaker 1: and Burroughs. The solicitors the gate into Halborn had to
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  Speaker 1: be opened for me, but the gate keeper had not
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  Speaker 1: seen me on my previous entrance and exit afoot through
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  Speaker 1: the postern. It was when we drove under the further
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  Speaker 1: arch into the actual square that I pressed my head
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  Speaker 1: hard against the back of the hansom and turned my
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  Speaker 1: face towards field Court. The enemy might have abandoned our position,
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  Speaker 1: that might meet me face to face as I landed
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  Speaker 1: on the pavement. That was my risk, and I ran
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  Speaker 1: it without disaster. We passed the only house with an
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  Speaker 1: outer door to it in the square now there is none,
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  Speaker 1: and on the plate beside it, I read burrows and
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  Speaker 1: burrows with a thrill. Up went my stick, my shilling
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  Speaker 1: with a peculiarly superfluous sixpence for luck. I thrust through
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  Speaker 1: the trap with the other hand, and I was across
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  Speaker 1: the pavement and on the stairs four clear doors beyond
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  Speaker 1: the lawyer's office before the driver had begun to turn
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  Speaker 1: his horse. They were broad, bare stairs, with great office
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  Speaker 1: doors right and left on every landing, and in the
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  Speaker 1: middle the landing window looking out into the square. I
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  Speaker 1: waited well within the window on the first floor, and
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  Speaker 1: as my hansom drove out under the arch, the light
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  Speaker 1: of its near lamp flashed across two figures lounging on
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  Speaker 1: the steps of that entrance to the hall. But there
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  Speaker 1: was no stopping or challenging the cabman, no sound at
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  Speaker 1: all but those of hoofs and bell, and soon only
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  Speaker 1: that of my own heart beating. As I fled up
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  Speaker 1: the rest of the stairs in my rubber soles. Near
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  Speaker 1: the top, I paused to thank my kindly stars. Sure
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  Speaker 1: enough there was a long step ladder hanging on a
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  Speaker 1: great nail over the last half landing, and a square
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  Speaker 1: trap door right over the landing proper I ran up
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  Speaker 1: just to see the names on the two top doors.
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  Speaker 1: One was evidently that of some pettyfogging firm of solicitors,
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  Speaker 1: while the other bespoke a private resident whom I judged
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  Speaker 1: to be out of town by the congestion of postal
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  Speaker 1: matter that met my fingers in his letter box. Neither
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  Speaker 1: had any terrors for me. The step ladder was unhooked
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  Speaker 1: without another moment's hesitation. Care alone was necessary to place
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  Speaker 1: it in position without making a noise. Then up I went,
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  Speaker 1: and up went the trap door next, without mishap or hindrance,
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  Speaker 1: until I tried to stand up in the loft and
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  Speaker 1: caught my head of track against the tiles instead. This
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  Speaker 1: was disconcerting in more ways than one, for I could
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  Speaker 1: not leave the ladder where it was, and it was
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  Speaker 1: nearly twice my height. I struck a match and lit
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  Speaker 1: up a sufficient perspective of lumber and cobwebs to reassure
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  Speaker 1: me the loft was long enough and the trap door
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  Speaker 1: plumb under the apex of the roof. Where as I
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  Speaker 1: had stepped sideways off the ladder, it was to be
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  Speaker 1: got up, And I got it up, though not by
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  Speaker 1: any means as silently as I could have wished. I
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  Speaker 1: knelt and listened at the open trap door for a
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  Speaker 1: good minute before closing it with great caution. A squeak
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  Speaker 1: and a scuttle in the loft itself being the only
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  Speaker 1: sign that I had disturbed a living creature. There was
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  Speaker 1: a grimy dormer window, not looking down into the square,
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  Speaker 1: but leading like a companion hatchway into a valley of
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  Speaker 1: once red tiles, now stained blue black in the starlight.
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  Speaker 1: It was great to stand up here in the pure
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  Speaker 1: night air, out of sight of man or beast. Smokeless
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  Speaker 1: chimney stacks deleted whole pages of stars, but put me
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  Speaker 1: more in mind of pollards rising out of these rigid
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  Speaker 1: valleys and sprouting with telephone wires that interlaced for foliage.
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  Speaker 1: The valley I was in ended fore and aft in
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  Speaker 1: a similar slope to that at either side. The length
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  Speaker 1: of it doubtless tallied with the frontage of a single house,
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  Speaker 1: And when I had clambered over the southern extremity into
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  Speaker 1: a precisely similar valley, I saw that this must be
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  Speaker 1: the case. I had entered the fourth house beyond Burrows
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  Speaker 1: and Burrows, or was it the fifth? I threaded three valleys,
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  Speaker 1: and then I knew in all three there had been
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  Speaker 1: dormer windows on either hand, that on the square side
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  Speaker 1: leading into the loft the other, or others forming a
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  Speaker 1: sort of skylight to some top floor room. Suddenly I
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  Speaker 1: struck one of these, standing very wide open, and trod
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  Speaker 1: upon a rope's end curled like a snake on the leads.
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  Speaker 1: I stooped down, and at a touch I knew that
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  Speaker 1: I had hold of raffles favorite Manila, which united a
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  Speaker 1: silken flexibility with the strength of any hauser. It was
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  Speaker 1: tied to the window post, and it dangled into a
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  Speaker 1: room in which there was a dull red glow of fire,
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  Speaker 1: an inhabited room. If ever I put my nose in one,
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  Speaker 1: my body must follow. However, where Raffles had led the way,
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  Speaker 1: and when it did, I came to ground sooner than
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  Speaker 1: I expected, on some thing less secure. The dying firelight.
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  Speaker 1: Struggling through the bars of a kitchen range showed my
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  Speaker 1: tennis shoes. In the middle of the kitchen table, a
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  Speaker 1: cat was stretching itself on the hearth rug. As I
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  Speaker 1: made a step of a wooden chair and came down
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  Speaker 1: like a cat myself, I found the kitchen door found
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  Speaker 1: a passage so dark that the window at the end
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  Speaker 1: hung like a picture slashed across the middle. Yet it
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  Speaker 1: only looked into the square. For I peered out when
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  Speaker 1: I had crept along the passage, and even thought I
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  Speaker 1: both heard and saw the enemy at their old post.
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  Speaker 1: But I was in another enemy's country.
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  Speaker 2: Now.
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  Speaker 1: At every step I stopped to listen for the thlat
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  Speaker 1: of feet bounding out of bed. Hearing nothing, I had
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  Speaker 1: the temerity at last to strike a match upon my trousers,
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  Speaker 1: and by its light I found the outer door. This
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  Speaker 1: was not bolted nor yet shut. It was merely a jar,
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  Speaker 1: and so I left it. The room's opposite appeared to
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  Speaker 1: be an empty set. Those on the second and first
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  Speaker 1: floors were only partially shut off by swing doors leading
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  Speaker 1: to different departments of the mighty offices of Burrows and Burrows.
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  Speaker 1: There were no lights upon these landings, and I gathered
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  Speaker 1: my infr by means of successive matches, whose tell tale
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  Speaker 1: ends I carefully concealed about my person, and from copious
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  Speaker 1: legends painted on the walls. Thus I had little difficulty
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  Speaker 1: in groping my way to the private offices of Sir
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  Speaker 1: John Burrough's head of the celebrated firm. But I looked
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  Speaker 1: in vain for a layer of light under any of
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  Speaker 1: the mass of mahogany doors with which this portion of
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  Speaker 1: the premises was glorified. Then I began softly trying doors
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  Speaker 1: that proved to be locked. Only one yielded to my hand,
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  Speaker 1: and when it was a few inches open, all was
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  Speaker 1: still black. But the next few brought me to the
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  Speaker 1: end of my quest and the close of my solitary adventures.
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  Speaker 1: End of Chapter eleven.