The Black Mask - E. W. Hornung (10 best books of all time txt) 📗

this was unanswerable; indeed, the whole affair had passed the pale of useful comment; and the one course left to a practical person was to shrug his shoulders and enjoy the joke. This was not a little enhanced by the newspaper reports, which described Raffles as a handsome youth, and his unwilling accomplice as an older man of blackguardly appearance and low type.

“Hits us both off rather neatly, Bunny,” said he. “But what none of them do justice to is my dear cup. Look at it; only look at it, man! Was ever anything so rich and yet so chaste? St. Agnes must have had a pretty bad time, but it would be almost worth it to go down to posterity in such enamel upon such gold. And then the history of the thing. Do you realize that it’s five hundred years old and has belonged to Henry the Eighth and to Elizabeth among others? Bunny, when you have me cremated, you can put my ashes in yonder cup, and lay us in the deep-delved earth together!”

“And meanwhile?”

“It is the joy of my heart, the light of my life, the delight of mine eye.”

“And suppose other eyes catch sight of it?”

“They never must; they never shall.”

Raffles would have been too absurd had he not been thoroughly alive to his own absurdity; there was nevertheless an underlying sincerity in his appreciation of any and every form of beauty, which all his nonsense could not conceal. And his infatuation for the cup was, as he declared, a very pure passion, since the circumstances debarred him from the chief joy of the average collector, that of showing his treasure to his friends. At last, however, and at the height of his craze, Raffles and reason seemed to come together again as suddenly as they had parted company in the Room of Gold.

“Bunny,” he cried, flinging his newspaper across the room, “I’ve got an idea after your own heart. I know where I can place it after all!”

“Do you mean the cup?”

“I do.”

“Then I congratulate you.”

“Thanks.”

“Upon the recovery of your senses.”

“Thanks galore. But you’ve been confoundedly unsympathetic about this thing, Bunny, and I don’t think I shall tell you my scheme till I’ve carried it out.”

“Quite time enough,” said I.

“It will mean your letting me loose for an hour or two under cloud of this very night. Tomorrow’s Sunday, the Jubilee’s on Tuesday, and old Theobald’s coming back for it.”

“It doesn’t much matter whether he’s back or not if you go late enough.”

“I mustn’t be late. They don’t keep open. No, it’s no use your asking any questions. Go out and buy me a big box of Huntley & Palmer’s biscuits; any sort you like, only they must be theirs, and absolutely the biggest box they sell.”

“My dear man!”

“No questions, Bunny; you do your part and I’ll do mine.”

Subtlety and success were in his face. It was enough for me, and I had done his extraordinary bidding within a quarter of an hour. In another minute Raffles had opened the box and tumbled all the biscuits into the nearest chair.

“Now newspapers!”

I fetched a pile. He bid the cup of gold a ridiculous farewell, wrapped it up in newspaper after newspaper, and finally packed it in the empty biscuit-box.

“Now some brown paper. I don’t want to be taken for the grocer’s young man.”

A neat enough parcel it made, when the string had been tied and the ends cut close; what was more difficult was to wrap up Raffles himself in such a way that even the porter should not recognize him if they came face to face at the corner. And the sun was still up. But Raffles would go, and when he did I should not have known him myself.

He may have been an hour away. It was barely dusk when he returned, and my first question referred to our dangerous ally, the porter. Raffles had passed him unsuspected in going, but had managed to avoid him altogether on the return journey, which he had completed by way of the other entrance and the roof. I breathed again.

“And what have you done with the cup?”

“Placed it!”

“How much for? How much for?”

“Let me think. I had a couple of cabs, and the postage was a tanner, with another twopence for registration. Yes, it cost me exactly five-and-eight.”

“It cost you! But what did you get for it, Raffles?”

“Nothing, my boy.”

“Nothing!”

“Not a crimson cent.”

“I am not surprised. I never thought it had a market value. I told you so in the beginning,” I said, irritably. “But what on earth have you done with the thing?”

“Sent it to the Queen.”

“You haven’t!”

Rogue is a word with various meanings, and Raffles had been one sort of rogue ever since I had known him; but now, for once, he was the innocent variety, a great gray-haired child, running over with merriment and mischief.

“Well, I’ve sent it to Sir Arthur Bigge, to present to her Majesty, with the loyal respects of the thief, if that will do for you,” said Raffles. “I thought they might take too much stock of me at the G.P.O. if I addressed it to the Sovereign herself. Yes, I drove over to St. Martin’s-le-Grand with it, and I registered the box into the bargain. Do a thing properly if you do it at all.”

“But why on earth,” I groaned, “do such a thing at all?”

“My dear Bunny, we have been reigned over for sixty years by infinitely the finest monarch the world has ever seen. The world is taking the present opportunity of signifying the fact for all it is worth. Every nation is laying of its best at her royal feet; every class in the community is doing its little level⁠—except ours. All I have done is to remove one reproach from our fraternity.”

At this I came round, was infected with his spirit, called him the sportsman he always was and would be, and shook his daredevil hand in mine; but, at the same time, I