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

“Supposing they trace it to us?” said I.

“There’s not much to catch hold of in a biscuit-box by Huntley & Palmer,” replied Raffles; “that was why I sent you for one. And I didn’t write a word upon a sheet of paper which could possibly be traced. I simply printed two or three on a virginal postcard⁠—another halfpenny to the bad⁠—which might have been bought at any post-office in the kingdom. No, old chap, the G.P.O. was the one real danger; there was one detective I spotted for myself; and the sight of him has left me with a thirst. Whisky and Sullivans for two, Bunny, if you please.”

Raffles was soon clinking his glass against mine.

“The Queen,” said he. “God bless her!”

“Mar⁠—ga⁠—rì,
e perzo a Salvatore!
Mar⁠—ga⁠—rì,
Ma l’ommo è cacciatore!
Mar⁠—ga⁠—rì,
Nun ce aje corpa tu!
Chello ch’ è fatto, è fatto, un ne parlammo cchieù!”

A piano-organ was pouring the metallic music through our open windows, while a voice of brass brayed the words, which I have since obtained, and print above for identification by such as know their Italy better than I. They will not thank me for reminding them of a tune so lately epidemic in that land of aloes and blue skies; but at least it is unlikely to run in their heads as the ribald accompaniment to a tragedy; and it does in mine.

It was in the early heat of August, and the hour that of the lawful and necessary siesta for such as turn night into day. I was therefore shutting my window in a rage, and wondering whether I should not do the same for Raffles, when he appeared in the silk pajamas to which the chronic solicitude of Dr. Theobald confined him from morning to night.

“Don’t do that, Bunny,” said he. “I rather like that thing, and want to listen. What sort of fellows are they to look at, by the way?”

I put my head out to see, it being a primary rule of our quaint establishment that Raffles must never show himself at any of the windows. I remember now how hot the sill was to my elbows, as I leant upon it and looked down, in order to satisfy a curiosity in which I could see no point.

“Dirty-looking beggars,” said I over my shoulder: “dark as dark; blue chins, oleaginous curls, and earrings; ragged as they make them, but nothing picturesque in their rags.”

“Neapolitans all over,” murmured Raffles behind me; “and that’s a characteristic touch, the one fellow singing while the other grinds; they always have that out there.”

“He’s rather a fine chap, the singer,” said I, as the song ended. “My hat, what teeth! He’s looking up here, and grinning all round his head; shall I chuck him anything?”

“Well, I have no reason to love the Neapolitans; but it takes me back⁠—it takes me back! Yes, here you are, one each.”

It was a couple of half-crowns that Raffles put into my hand, but I had thrown them into the street for pennies before I saw what they were. Thereupon I left the Italians bowing to the mud, as well they might, and I turned to protest against such wanton waste. But Raffles was walking up and down, his head bent, his eyes troubled; and his one excuse disarmed remonstrance.

“They took me back,” he repeated. “My God, how they took me back!”

Suddenly he stopped in his stride.

“You don’t understand, Bunny, old chap; but if you like you shall. I always meant to tell you some day, but never felt worked up to it before, and it’s not the kind of thing one talks about for talking’s sake. It isn’t a nursery story, Bunny, and there isn’t a laugh in it from start to finish; on the contrary, you have often asked me what turned my hair gray, and now you are going to hear.”

This was promising, but Raffles’s manner was something more. It was unique in my memory of the man. His fine face softened and set hard by turns. I never knew it so hard. I never knew it so soft. And the same might be said of his voice, now tender as any woman’s, now flying to the other extreme of equally unwonted ferocity. But this was toward the end of his tale; the beginning he treated characteristically enough, though I could have wished for a less cavalier account of the island of Elba, where, upon his own showing, he had met with much humanity.

“Deadly, my dear Bunny, is not the word for that glorified snag, or for the mollusks, its inhabitants. But they started by wounding my vanity, so perhaps I am prejudiced, after all. I sprung myself upon them as a shipwrecked sailor⁠—a sole survivor⁠—stripped in the sea and landed without a stitch⁠—yet they took no more interest in me than you do in Italian organ-grinders. They were decent enough. I didn’t have to pick and steal for a square meal and a pair of trousers; it would have been more exciting if I had. But what a place! Napoleon couldn’t stand it, you remember, but he held on longer than I did. I put in a few weeks in their infernal mines, simply to pick up a smattering of Italian; then got across to the mainland in a little wooden timber-tramp; and ungratefully glad I was to leave Elba blazing in just such another sunset as the one you won’t forget.

“The tramp was bound for Naples, but first it touched at Baiae, where I carefully deserted in the night. There are too many English in Naples itself, though I thought it would make a first happy hunting-ground when I knew the language better and had altered myself a bit more. Meanwhile I got a billet of several sorts on one of the loveliest spots that ever I struck on all my travels. The place was a vineyard, but it overhung the sea, and