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

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Speaker 1: I e. W Hornum, Chapter sixteen, Watch and Ward. I
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Speaker 1: well remember as I set reluctant foot upon the wooden stair,
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Speaker 1: taking a last and somewhat lingering look at the dust
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Speaker 1: and dirt of the lower chamber, as one who knew
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Speaker 1: not what might happen before he saw it again. The
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Speaker 1: stain as of red rust in the lavatory basin, the
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Speaker 1: gritty deposit in the bath, the very degree on all
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Speaker 1: the taps, the foul opacity of the windows, or among
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Speaker 1: the trivialities that somehow stamped themselves upon my mind. One
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Speaker 1: of the windows was open at the top, had been
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Speaker 1: so long open that the aperture was curtained with cobwebs
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Speaker 1: at each extremity. But in between I got quite a
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Speaker 1: poignant picture of the Thames. As I went upstairs. It
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Speaker 1: was only a sinuous perspective of suddenent ripples twinkling between
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Speaker 1: wooded gardens and open meadows, a fisherman or two upon
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Speaker 1: the tow path, a canoe in mid stream, a gaunt
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Speaker 1: church crowning all against the sky. But in set in
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Speaker 1: such surroundings it was like a flash from a magic
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Speaker 1: lantern in a coal cellar. And very loth was I
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Speaker 1: to exchange that sunny peep for an indefinite prospect of
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Speaker 1: my prisoner's person at close quarters. Yet the first stage
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Speaker 1: of my vigil proved such a sinecure as to give
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Speaker 1: me some confidence for all the rest. Dan Levy opened
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Speaker 1: neither his lips nor his eyes at my approach, but
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Speaker 1: lay on his back, with the red ensign drawn up
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Speaker 1: to his chin and the peaceful countenance of profound oblivion.
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Speaker 1: I remember taking a good look at him, and thinking
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Speaker 1: that his face improved remarkably in repose, that in death
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Speaker 1: he might look fine. The forehead was higher and broader
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Speaker 1: than I had realized. The thick lips were firm enough now,
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Speaker 1: But the closing of the crafty little eyes was the
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Speaker 1: greatest gain of all. On the whole, not only a
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Speaker 1: better but a stronger face than it had been all
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Speaker 1: the morning, a more formidable face by far. But the
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Speaker 1: man had fallen asleep in his bonds and forgotten them.
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Speaker 1: He would wake up abject enough, if not I had
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Speaker 1: the means to reduce him to docility. Meanwhile, I was
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Speaker 1: in no hurry to show my power, but stole on
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Speaker 1: tiptoe to the locker and took my seat by inches,
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Speaker 1: Levee did not move him up. No sound escaped him either,
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Speaker 1: and somehow or other I should have expected him to snore. Indeed,
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Speaker 1: it might have come as a relief, for the silence
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Speaker 1: of the tower soon got upon my nerves. It was
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Speaker 1: not a complete silence. That was and always is the
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Speaker 1: worst of it. The wooden stairs creaked more than once.
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Speaker 1: There were little rattlings, faint and distant, as of a
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Speaker 1: dried leaf or a loose window in the bowels of
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Speaker 1: the house. And though nothing came of any of these
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Speaker 1: noises except a fresh period of tension on my part,
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Speaker 1: they made the skin aft on my forehead every time.
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Speaker 1: Then I remember a real anxiety over a blue bottle
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Speaker 1: that must have come in through the open window just below,
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Speaker 1: for suddenly it buzzed into my ken and looked like
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Speaker 1: attacking levee on the spot. Somehow I slew it with
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Speaker 1: less noise than the brute itself was making. And not
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Speaker 1: until after that breathless achievement did I realize how anxious
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Speaker 1: I was to keep my prisoner asleep. Yet I had
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Speaker 1: the revolver, and he lay handcuffed and bound down. It
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Speaker 1: was in the next long silence that I became sensitive
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Speaker 1: to another sound, which, indeed I had heard it in
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Speaker 1: intervals already, only to dismiss it from my mind as
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Speaker 1: one of the signs of extraneous life which were bound
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Speaker 1: to penetrate even to the top of my tower. It
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Speaker 1: was a slow and regular beat, as of a sledge
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Speaker 1: hammer in a distant forge or some sort of machinery,
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Speaker 1: only audible when there was absolutely nothing else to be heard.
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Speaker 1: It could hardly be near at hand, for I could
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Speaker 1: not hear it properly unless I held my breath. Then. However,
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Speaker 1: it was always there, a sound that never ceased or altered,
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Speaker 1: so that in the end I sat and listened to
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Speaker 1: it and nothing else. I was not even looking at
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Speaker 1: Levey when he asked me if I knew what it was.
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Speaker 1: His voice was quiet and civil enough, but it undoubtedly
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Speaker 1: made me jump, and that brought a malicious twinkle into
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Speaker 1: the little eyes that looked as though they had been
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Speaker 1: studying me at their leisure. They were perhaps less violently
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Speaker 1: bloodshot than before, the massive features, calm and strong as
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Speaker 1: they had been in slumber or its artful counterfeit. I
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Speaker 1: thought you were asleep, I snapped, and knew better for
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Speaker 1: certain before he spoke, you see that pint o pop
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Speaker 1: did me prouder than intended? He explained, it's made a
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Speaker 1: new man, O me. You'll be sorry to hear I
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Speaker 1: should have been sorrier to believe it, but I did
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Speaker 1: not say so or anything else. Just then the dull
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Speaker 1: and distant beat came back to my ear, and Levy
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Speaker 1: again inquired if I knew what it was? Do you?
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Speaker 1: I demanded, Rather, he replied with cheerful certitude. It's the clock,
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Speaker 1: of course. What clock? The one on the tower a
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Speaker 1: bit lower down facing the road. How do you know?
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Speaker 1: I demanded, with uneasy credulity. My good young man, said Dan, letty,
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Speaker 1: I know the face of that clock as well as
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Speaker 1: I know the inside of this tower. Then you do
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Speaker 1: know where you are? I cried, in such surprise that
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Speaker 1: Levee grinned in a way that ill became a captive. Why,
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Speaker 1: said he, I sold the last tenant up, nearly took
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Speaker 1: the ouse myself instead of the place I got. It
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Speaker 1: was what first attracted me to the neighborhood. Why couldn't
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Speaker 1: you tell us the truth before? I demanded? But my
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Speaker 1: warmth merely broadened his grin. Why should I it's sometimes
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Speaker 1: pays to seem more at a loss than you are.
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Speaker 1: It won't in this case, said I, through my teeth.
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Speaker 1: But for all my austerity and all his bonds, the
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Speaker 1: prisoner continued to regard me with quiet but most disquieting amusement.
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Speaker 1: I'm not so sure of that, he observed at length.
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Speaker 1: It rather paid to my way of thinking. When Raffles
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Speaker 1: went off to cash my check and left you to
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Speaker 1: keep an eye on me. Oh did it, said I,
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Speaker 1: with pregnant emphasis. And my right hand found comfort in
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Speaker 1: my jacket pocket on the butt of the old brute's
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Speaker 1: own weapon. I only mean, he rejoined, in a more
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Speaker 1: conciliatory voice, that you strike me as being more open
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Speaker 1: to reason than your flash friend. I said nothing to that. Ma.
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Speaker 1: On the other end, continued Levy, still more deliberately, as
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Speaker 1: though he really was comparing us in his mind. On
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Speaker 1: the other hand, stooping to pick up what he had dropped.
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Speaker 1: You don't take so many risks. Raffles take so many
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Speaker 1: that he's bound to lend you both in the jug
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Speaker 1: some day if he hasn't done it this time. I
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Speaker 1: believe he has myself. There's no use hollering before you
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Speaker 1: are out of the wood, I agreed, with more confidence
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Speaker 1: than I felt. Doud I wonder he never thought of it.
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Speaker 1: My prisoner went on, as if to himself, thought of
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Speaker 1: what only the clock. You must have seen it before.
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Speaker 1: If you never did, you don't tell me this little
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Speaker 1: bit of kidnapping was a sudden idea. It's all been
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Speaker 1: thought out, and the ground gone over, and the clock seen,
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Speaker 1: as I say, seemed going. Yet it never strikes our
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Speaker 1: flash friend that a going clock got to be wound
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Speaker 1: up once a week, and it might be as well
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Speaker 1: to find out which day. How do you know? He didn't,
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Speaker 1: because this happens to be the day, And Levy lay
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Speaker 1: back in the bunk with the internal chuckle that I
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Speaker 1: was beginning to know so well, but had little thought
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Speaker 1: to hear from him in his present predicament. It galled
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Speaker 1: me the more because I felt that Raffles would certainly
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Speaker 1: not have heard it in my place. But at least
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Speaker 1: I had the satisfaction of flatly and profanely refusing to
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Speaker 1: believe the prisoner's statement that be blowed for a bluff
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Speaker 1: was more or less what I said. It's too much
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Speaker 1: of a quint. It's to be anything else. The odds
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Speaker 1: are only six to one against it, said Levee, indifferently.
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Speaker 1: One of you takes them with his eyes open. It
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Speaker 1: seems rather a pity that the others should feel bound
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Speaker 1: to follow him a certain ruin. But I suppose you
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Speaker 1: know your own business best at all events, I boasted.
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Speaker 1: I know better than to be bluffed by the most
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Speaker 1: obvious lie I ever heard in my life. You tell
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Speaker 1: me how you know about the man coming to wind
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Speaker 1: the clock, and I may listen to you. I know
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Speaker 1: because I know the man, little scotchman, he is nothing
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Speaker 1: to run away from. Though he looks as hard as nails.
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Speaker 1: What is of him? Said Levy, in a circumstantial and
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Speaker 1: impartial flow that could not but carry some conviction. He
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Speaker 1: comes over from Kingston every Tuesday on his bike, some
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Speaker 1: time before lunch. He comes and sees to my own
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Speaker 1: clocks on the same trip. That's how I know. But
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Speaker 1: you needn't believe me if you don't like. And where
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Speaker 1: exactly does he come to wind this clock? I see
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Speaker 1: nothing that can possibly have to do with it up here, no,
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Speaker 1: said Levee. He comes no higher than the floor below.
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Speaker 1: I seem to remember a kind of cupboard at the
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Speaker 1: head of the spiral stare. But that's near enough. You
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Speaker 1: mean that we shall hear him? And he as added
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Speaker 1: Levy with unmistakable determination. Look here, mister Levy, said I
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Speaker 1: showing him his own revolver. If we do hear anybody,
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Speaker 1: I shall hold this to your head, and if he
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Speaker 1: does hear us, I shall blow out your beastly brains.
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Speaker 1: The mere feeling that I was perhaps the last person
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Speaker 1: capable of any such deed enabled me to grind out
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Speaker 1: this shocking threat in a voice worthy of it, and
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Speaker 1: with a face I hoped not less in keeping. It
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Speaker 1: was all the more mortifying when Dan Levy treated my
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Speaker 1: tragedy as far as In fact, if anything could have
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Speaker 1: made me as bad as my word, it would have
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Speaker 1: been the guttural laugh with which he greeted it. Excuse me,
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Speaker 1: he said, dabbing his red eyes with the edge of
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Speaker 1: the red bunting. But the thought, if you are letting
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Speaker 1: that thing off in order to preserve silence, why it's
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Speaker 1: a stroll as your whole attempt to play the cold
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Speaker 1: blooded villain you, I shall play him to some purpose,
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Speaker 1: I hissed. If you drive me to it, I laid
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Speaker 1: you out last night. Remember and for two pins. I'll
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Speaker 1: do the same thing again this morning. So now you
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Speaker 1: know that wasn't in cold blood, said Letty, rolling his
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Speaker 1: head from side to side. That was when the lot
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Speaker 1: of us were brawling in our cups. I don't count
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Speaker 1: that you're in a false position, my dear sir. I
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Speaker 1: don't mean last night or this morning. Though I can
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Speaker 1: see that you're no brigand or blackmailer at bottom. And
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Speaker 1: I shouldn't wonder if you never forgave raffles for letting
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Speaker 1: you in for this particular part of this particular job.
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Speaker 1: But that isn't what I mean. You've got in with
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Speaker 1: a villain, but you ain't one yourself. That's where you're
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Speaker 1: in the false position. He's the magsman, you're only the swell.
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Speaker 1: I can see that, but the judge won't. You'll both
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Speaker 1: get served the same time, and in your case it'll
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Speaker 1: be a thousand shames. He had propped himself on one
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Speaker 1: elbow and was speaking eagerly, persuasively, with almost a fatherly solicitude.
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Speaker 1: Yet I felt that both his words and their effect
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Speaker 1: on me were being weighed and measured with particulous discretion.
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Speaker 1: And I encourage you him with the countenance as deliberately
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Speaker 1: rueful and depressed to an end which had only occurred
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Speaker 1: to me with the significance of his altered tone. I
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Speaker 1: can't help it, I muttered, I must go through with
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Speaker 1: the whole thing, now. Why must you? Demanded Levy. You've
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Speaker 1: been led into a job that's none of your business
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Speaker 1: on behalf of folks or no friends of yours, and
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Speaker 1: the jobs developed into a serious crime, and the crime's
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Speaker 1: going to be found out before you are an hour older.
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Speaker 1: Why go through with it? To certain quad there's nothing
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Speaker 1: else for it, I answered with a sulky resignation, though
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Speaker 1: my pulse was quick with eagerness for what I felt
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Speaker 1: was coming. And then it came. Why not get out
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Speaker 1: of the whole thing, suggested Levee boldly, before it's too late?
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Speaker 1: How can I said, I to lead him on with
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Speaker 1: the more explicit proposition, by first releasing me and then
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Speaker 1: clearing out yourself. I looked at him as though this
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Speaker 1: was certainly an idea, as though I were actually considering
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Speaker 1: it in spite of myself and raffles, and his eagerness
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Speaker 1: fed upon my apparent indecision. He held up his fettered hands,
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Speaker 1: begging and cajoling me to remove his handcuffs, and I,
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Speaker 1: instead of telling him it was not in my power
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Speaker 1: to do so until raffles return, pretended to hesitate on
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Speaker 1: quite different grounds. That's all very well, I said, But
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Speaker 1: are you going to make it worth my while? Certainly
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Speaker 1: cried he Give me my check book out of my
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Speaker 1: own pocket, where you were good enough to stow it
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Speaker 1: before that blagguard left. And I'll write to one check
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Speaker 1: for a hundred now, and another for another hundred before
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Speaker 1: I leave this tower. You really will, I temporized. I
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Speaker 1: swear it, he severated, And I still believe he might
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Speaker 1: have kept his word about that. But now I knew
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Speaker 1: where he had been lying to me, and now was
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Speaker 1: the time to let him know I knew it. Two
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Speaker 1: hundred pounds, said I, for the liberty you are bound
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Speaker 1: to get for nothing, as you yourself have pointed out,
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Speaker 1: when the man turns up to wind the clock, a
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Speaker 1: couple of hundred to save less than a couple of hours.
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Speaker 1: Levy changed color as he saw his mistake, and his
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Speaker 1: eyes flashed with sudden fury. Otherwise, his self command was
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Speaker 1: only less admirable than his presence of mind. It wasn't
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Speaker 1: to save time, said he. It was to save my
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Speaker 1: face in the neighborhood the well known money lender found
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Speaker 1: bound and handcuffed in an empty house. It means the
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Speaker 1: first laugh at my expense whoever has the last laugh.
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Speaker 1: But you're quite right, it wasn't worth two hundred golden sovereigns.
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Speaker 1: Let them laugh at any rate. You and your flash
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Speaker 1: friend'll be laughing on the wrong side of your mouths
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Speaker 1: before the day's out. So that's all there is to it.
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Speaker 1: And you'd better start screwing up your courage if you
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Speaker 1: want to do me in. I did mean to give
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Speaker 1: you another chance in life, but by god, I wouldn't
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Speaker 1: know if you were to go down on your knees.
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Speaker 1: For one, considering that he was bound and I was free,
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Speaker 1: that I was armed and he defenseless, there was perhaps
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Speaker 1: more humor than the prisoner saw in his picture of
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Speaker 1: me upon my knees to him, not that I saw
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Speaker 1: it all at once myself. I was too busy wondering
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Speaker 1: whether there could be anything in his clock winding story.
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Speaker 1: After all. Certainly it was inconsistent with the big bribe
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Speaker 1: offered for his immediate freedom, but it was with something
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Speaker 1: more than mere a droitness that the money lender had
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Speaker 1: reconciled the two things in his I should have been
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Speaker 1: no less anxious to keep my humiliating experience a secret
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Speaker 1: from the world. With his means, I could conceive myself
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Speaker 1: prepared to pay as dearly for such secrecy. On the
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Speaker 1: other hand, if his idea was to stop the huge
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Speaker 1: check already given to Raffles, then there was indeed no
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Speaker 1: time to be lost. And the only wonder was that
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Speaker 1: Levee should have waited so long before making overtures to me.
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Speaker 1: Raffles had now been gone a very long time, as
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Speaker 1: it seemed to me, But my watch had run down,
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Speaker 1: and the clock on the tower did not strike. Why
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Speaker 1: they kept it going at all was a mystery to me.
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Speaker 1: But now that dan Levy was lying still again with
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Speaker 1: set teeth and inexorable eyes, I heard it beating out
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Speaker 1: the seconds more than ever, like a distant sledge hammer,
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Speaker 1: And sixty of these I counted up into a minute
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Speaker 1: of such portentous duration that what had seemed many hours
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Speaker 1: to me might easily have been less than one. I
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Speaker 1: only knew that the sun, which had begun by pouring
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Speaker 1: in at one porthole and out at the other, which
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Speaker 1: had bathed the prisoner in his bunk about the time
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Speaker 1: of his trial by raffles, now crowned me with fire
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Speaker 1: if I sat upon the locker and made it varnish sticky.
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Speaker 1: If I did not, the atmosphere of the place was
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Speaker 1: fast becoming unendurable in its unwholesome heat and sour stagnation.
14:08
Speaker 1: I sat in my shirt sleeves at the top of
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Speaker 1: the stairs, where one got such air as entered by
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Speaker 1: the open window below. Levy had kicked off his covering
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Speaker 1: of scarlet bunting with a sudden note, which must have
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Speaker 1: been the only sound within the tower for an hour
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Speaker 1: at least. All the rest of the time he lay
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Speaker 1: with fettered fists clenched upon his breast, with fierce eyes
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Speaker 1: fixed upon the top of the bunk, and something about
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Speaker 1: the whole man that I was forced to watch, something
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Speaker 1: indomitable and intensely alert, a curious suggestion of smoldering fires
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Speaker 1: on the point of leaping into flame. I feared this
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Speaker 1: man in my heart of hearts. I may as well
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Speaker 1: admit it, frankly, It was not that he was twice
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Speaker 1: my size, for I had the like advantage in point
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Speaker 1: of years. It was not that I had any reason
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Speaker 1: to distrust the strength of his bonds or the efficacy
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Speaker 1: of the weapon in my possession. It was a question
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Speaker 1: of personality, not of material advantage or disadvantage, or physical
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Speaker 1: fear at all. It was the spirit of the man
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Speaker 1: that dominated mine. I felt that my mere flesh and
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Speaker 1: blood would at any moment give a good account of his,
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Speaker 1: as well they might with the odds that were on
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Speaker 1: my side. Yet that did not lessen the sense of
15:11
Speaker 1: subtle and essential inferiority which grew upon my nerves with
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Speaker 1: almost every minute of that endless morning, and made me
15:17
Speaker 1: long for the relief of physical contest. Even on equal terms.
15:21
Speaker 1: I could have set the old Ruffian free and thrown
15:23
Speaker 1: his revolver out of the window, and then said to him,
15:26
Speaker 1: come on your weight against my age, and may the
15:29
Speaker 1: devil take the worst man. Instead, I must sit glaring
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Speaker 1: at him to mask my qualms, And after much thinking
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Speaker 1: about the kind of conflict that could never be, in
15:38
Speaker 1: the end, came one of a less heroic, but not
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Speaker 1: less desperate type. Before there was time to think at all,
15:45
Speaker 1: Letty had raised his head, ever so little, but yet
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Speaker 1: enough for my vigilance. I saw him listening. I listened too,
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Speaker 1: and down below, in the core of the tower, I heard,
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Speaker 1: or thought I heard a step like a feather, and then,
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Speaker 1: after some moments another, But I had spent those moments
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Speaker 1: in gazing instinctively down the stair. It was the least
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Speaker 1: rattle of the handcuffs that brought my eyes like lightning,
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Speaker 1: back to the bunk. And there was Levee, with hollow
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Speaker 1: palms about his mouth, and his mouth wide open for
16:13
Speaker 1: the roar that my own palms stifled in his throat. Indeed,
16:16
Speaker 1: I had leapt upon him once more, like a fiend,
16:19
Speaker 1: and for an instant I enjoyed a shameful advantage. It
16:22
Speaker 1: can hardly have lasted longer. The brute first bit me
16:25
Speaker 1: through the hand, so that I carry his mark to
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Speaker 1: this day. Then with his own hands he took me
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Speaker 1: by the throat, and I thought that my last moments
16:32
Speaker 1: were come. He squeezed so hard that I thought my
16:35
Speaker 1: windpipe must burst, thought my eyes must leave their sockets.
16:39
Speaker 1: It was the grip of a gorilla, and it was
16:41
Speaker 1: accompanied by a spate of curses and the grin of
16:43
Speaker 1: a devil incarnate. All my dreams of equal combat had
16:47
Speaker 1: not prepared me for superhuman power on his part, such
16:50
Speaker 1: utter impotence on mine. I tried to wrench myself from
16:53
Speaker 1: his murderous clasp, and was nearly filled by the top
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Speaker 1: of the bunk. I hurled myself out sideways and out.
16:59
Speaker 1: He came out after me, tearing down the peg to
17:01
Speaker 1: which his handcuffs were tethered. That only gave him the
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Speaker 1: better grip upon my throat, and he never relaxed it
17:06
Speaker 1: for an instant, scrambling to his feet when I staggered
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Speaker 1: to mine. For by them alone was he fast now
17:11
Speaker 1: to the banisters. Meanwhile, I was feeling in an empty
17:15
Speaker 1: pocket for his revolver, which had fallen out as we
17:17
Speaker 1: struggled on the floor. I saw it there now, with
17:20
Speaker 1: my starting eyeballs kicked about by her shuffling feet. I
17:23
Speaker 1: tried to make a dive for it, but Levy had
17:25
Speaker 1: seen it also, and he kicked it through the banisters
17:28
Speaker 1: without relaxing his murderous hold. I could have sworn afterwards
17:32
Speaker 1: that I heard the weapon fall with a clatter on
17:34
Speaker 1: the wooden stairs. But what I still remember, hearing most distinctly,
17:38
Speaker 1: and feeling hot upon my face, is the stertorous breathing
17:41
Speaker 1: that was unbroken by a single syllable after the first
17:44
Speaker 1: few seconds. It was a brutal encounter, not short and
17:48
Speaker 1: sharp like the one over night, but horribly protracted. Nor
17:52
Speaker 1: was all the brutality by any means on one side.
17:55
Speaker 1: Neither will I pretend that I was getting much more
17:57
Speaker 1: than my deserts in the defeat that threatened to end
17:59
Speaker 1: in my extinction. Not for an instant had my enemy
18:03
Speaker 1: loosened his deadly clutch, And now he had me penned
18:05
Speaker 1: against the banisters. And my one hope was that they
18:08
Speaker 1: would give way before a united weight and precipitate us
18:11
Speaker 1: both into the room below. That would be better than
18:13
Speaker 1: being slowly throttled, even if it were only a better death.
18:17
Speaker 1: Other chance there was none, and I actually was trying
18:20
Speaker 1: to fling myself over, beating the air with both hands wildly,
18:23
Speaker 1: when one of them closed upon the butt of the
18:25
Speaker 1: revolver that I thought had been kicked into the room below.
18:29
Speaker 1: I was too far gone to realize that a miracle
18:31
Speaker 1: had happened to be so much as puzzled by it then.
18:34
Speaker 1: But I was not too far gone to use that revolver,
18:36
Speaker 1: and to use it as I would have done on
18:38
Speaker 1: cool reflection. I thrust it under my opponent's armpit, and
18:41
Speaker 1: I fired through into space. The report was deafening. It
18:45
Speaker 1: did its work. Letty let go of me and staggered
18:48
Speaker 1: back as though I had really shot him, and that
18:51
Speaker 1: instant I was brandishing his weapon in his face. You
18:55
Speaker 1: tried to shoot me. You tried to shoot me, he
18:59
Speaker 1: gasped twice through a livid mask. No I didn't, I panted.
19:04
Speaker 1: I try to frighten you, and I jolly well succeeded.
19:07
Speaker 1: But I'll shoot you like a dog if you don't
19:09
Speaker 1: get back to your kennel and light out. He sat
19:12
Speaker 1: and gasped upon the side of the bunk. There was
19:15
Speaker 1: no more fight in him. His very lips were blue.
19:18
Speaker 1: I put the pistol back in my pocket and retracted
19:20
Speaker 1: my threat in a sudden panic. There it's your own fault,
19:24
Speaker 1: of you so much as see it again, I promised him,
19:27
Speaker 1: in a breathless disorder only second to his own. But
19:31
Speaker 1: you jolly near strangled me, and now we're a pretty pair.
19:35
Speaker 1: His hands grasped the edge of the bunk and he
19:37
Speaker 1: leaned his weight on them, breathing very hard. It might
19:40
Speaker 1: have been an attack of asthma. Or it might have
19:42
Speaker 1: been a more serious seizure. But it was a case
19:44
Speaker 1: for stimulants if ever I saw one, and in the
19:47
Speaker 1: nick of time I remembered the flask that Raffles had
19:49
Speaker 1: left with me. It was the work of a very
19:51
Speaker 1: few seconds to pour out a goodly ration, and of
19:53
Speaker 1: but another for Daniel Levy to toss off the raw
19:56
Speaker 1: spirit like water. He was begging for more before I
19:59
Speaker 1: had helped myself, and more I gave him in the end,
20:02
Speaker 1: for it was no small relief to me to watch
20:04
Speaker 1: the leaden hue disappearing from the flabby face and the
20:07
Speaker 1: labored breathing gradually subside, even if it meant a renewal
20:10
Speaker 1: of our desperate hostilities. But all that was at an end.
20:14
Speaker 1: The man was shaken to the corps by his perfectly
20:16
Speaker 1: legitimate attempt at my destruction. He looked dreadfully old and
20:20
Speaker 1: hideous as he got bodily back into the bunk of
20:22
Speaker 1: his own accord. There, when I had yielded to his
20:25
Speaker 1: further importunities and the flask was empty, he fell at
20:28
Speaker 1: length into a sleep as genuine as the last was not.
20:31
Speaker 1: And I was still watching over the poor devil, keeping
20:34
Speaker 1: the flies off him, and sometimes fanning him with a
20:36
Speaker 1: flag less perhaps from humane motives, than to keep him
20:40
Speaker 1: quiet as long as possible. When Raffles returned to light
20:42
Speaker 1: up the tableau like a sinister sunbeam. Raffles had his
20:46
Speaker 1: own adventures in town, and I soon had reason to
20:49
Speaker 1: feel thankful that I had not gone up instead of him.
20:52
Speaker 1: It seemed he had foreseen from the first the possibility
20:54
Speaker 1: of trouble at the bank over a large and absolutely
20:56
Speaker 1: open check, so he had gone first to the Chelsea studio,
21:00
Speaker 1: in which he played the painter who never painted, but
21:02
Speaker 1: kept a whole wardrobe of disguises for the models he
21:05
Speaker 1: never hired. Thence he had issued on this occasion in
21:08
Speaker 1: the living image of a well known military man about town,
21:11
Speaker 1: who was also well known to be a client of
21:12
Speaker 1: Dan Levy's. Raffles said. The cashier stared at him, but
21:16
Speaker 1: the check was cashed without a word. The unfortunate part
21:19
Speaker 1: of it was that in returning to his cab, he
21:21
Speaker 1: had encountered an acquaintance both of his own and of
21:24
Speaker 1: the spendthrift soldier, and had been greeted evidently in the
21:27
Speaker 1: latter capacity. It was a jolly difficult little moment bunny.
21:31
Speaker 1: I had to say there was some mistake, and I
21:33
Speaker 1: had to remember to say it in a manner equally
21:35
Speaker 1: unlike my own and the other beggars. But all's well,
21:37
Speaker 1: that ends well, And if you'll do exactly what I
21:40
Speaker 1: tell you, I think we may flatter ourselves that a
21:42
Speaker 1: happy issue is at last in sight. What am I
21:45
Speaker 1: to do now, I asked, with some misgiving, Clear out
21:49
Speaker 1: of this, bunny, and wait for me in town. You've
21:51
Speaker 1: done jolly well, old fellow, and so have I in
21:54
Speaker 1: my own department of the game. Everything's in order, down
21:56
Speaker 1: to those fifteen hundred guineas which are now concealed about
21:59
Speaker 1: my person in as hard cash as I can carry.
22:02
Speaker 1: I've seen Old Garland and given him back his promissory
22:04
Speaker 1: note myself with Levy's undertaking about the mortgage. It was
22:08
Speaker 1: a pretty trying interview, as you can understand, but I
22:10
Speaker 1: couldn't help wondering what the poor old boy would say
22:12
Speaker 1: if he dreamt what sort of pressure I've been applying
22:14
Speaker 1: on his behalf. Well, it's all over now, except our
22:17
Speaker 1: several exits from the surreptitious stage. I can't make mine
22:21
Speaker 1: without our sleeping partner. But you would really simplify matter's
22:24
Speaker 1: bunny by not waiting for us. There was a good
22:27
Speaker 1: deal to be said for such a course, though it
22:29
Speaker 1: went not a little against my grain. Raffles had changed
22:32
Speaker 1: his clothes and had a bath in town, to say
22:34
Speaker 1: nothing of his luncheon. I was by this time indescribably
22:38
Speaker 1: dirty and disheveled. Besides feeling fairly famished now that mental
22:41
Speaker 1: relief allowed a thought for one's lower man. Raffles had
22:44
Speaker 1: foreseen my plight and had actually prepared a way of
22:47
Speaker 1: escape for me by the front door in broad daylight.
22:50
Speaker 1: I need not recapitulate the elaborate story he had told
22:53
Speaker 1: the caretaking gardener across the road, but he had borrowed
22:56
Speaker 1: the gardener's keys as a probable purchaser of the property,
22:59
Speaker 1: who had to meet his bilder and a business friend
23:01
Speaker 1: at the house during the course of the afternoon. I
23:03
Speaker 1: was to be the builder, and in that capacity to
23:06
Speaker 1: give the gardener an ingenious message. Calculated to leave Raffles
23:09
Speaker 1: and Levee in uninterrupted possession until my return, and of
23:12
Speaker 1: course I was never to return it. All the whole
23:15
Speaker 1: thing seemed to me a super subtle means to a
23:18
Speaker 1: far simpler end. Than the one we had achieved by
23:20
Speaker 1: stealth in the dead of the previous night. But it
23:22
Speaker 1: was Raffles all over, and I ultimately acquiesced on the
23:25
Speaker 1: understanding that we were to meet again in the Albany
23:27
Speaker 1: at seven o'clock, preparatory to dining somewhere in final celebration
23:31
Speaker 1: of the whole affair. But much was to happen before
23:34
Speaker 1: seven o'clock, and it began happening. I shook the dust
23:38
Speaker 1: of that derelict tower from my feet, for one of
23:40
Speaker 1: them trod on something at the darkest point of the descent,
23:43
Speaker 1: and the thing went tinkling down ahead on his own account,
23:46
Speaker 1: until it lay shimmering in the light on a lower landing,
23:48
Speaker 1: where I picked it up. Now, I had not said
23:51
Speaker 1: much to Raffles about my hitherto inexplicable experience with the revolver.
23:54
Speaker 1: When I thought it had gone through the banisters, but
23:57
Speaker 1: found it afterwards in my hand. Raffles said it would
24:00
Speaker 1: have gone through that I must have been all but
24:02
Speaker 1: over the banisters myself when I grasped the butt as
24:05
Speaker 1: it protruded through them on the level of the floor. This,
24:08
Speaker 1: he said, like many another thing, as though it made
24:10
Speaker 1: an end of the matter. But it was not the
24:12
Speaker 1: end of the matter in my own mind. And now
24:14
Speaker 1: I could have told him what the explanation was, or
24:16
Speaker 1: at least to what conclusion I had jumped. I had
24:19
Speaker 1: half a mind to climb all the way up again
24:21
Speaker 1: on purpose to put him in the wrong. Upon the point,
24:24
Speaker 1: then I remembered how anxious he had seemed to get
24:25
Speaker 1: rid of me, and for other reasons also, I decided
24:28
Speaker 1: to let him wait a bit for his surprise. Meanwhile,
24:31
Speaker 1: my own plans were altered, And when I had delivered
24:34
Speaker 1: my egregious message to the gardener across the road, I
24:36
Speaker 1: sought the nearest shops on my way to the nearest station,
24:39
Speaker 1: and at one of the shops I got me a
24:41
Speaker 1: clean collar, at another a tooth brush. And all I
24:44
Speaker 1: did at the station was to utilize my purchases in
24:46
Speaker 1: the course of such scanty toilet as the lavatory accommodation
24:49
Speaker 1: would permit. A few minutes later I was inquiring my
24:53
Speaker 1: way to a house, which it took me another twenty
24:55
Speaker 1: or twenty five to find. And of chapter sixteen,