The Amateur Cracksman - E. W. Hornung (best ebook reader for pc txt) 📗

“The police?” I whispered aghast.

“Oh, dear, no; only old Baird.”

“Baird! But wasn’t it Baird who took the emeralds?”

“It was.”

“Then how came he to chase you?”

“My dear fellow, I’ll tell you if you give me a chance; it’s really nothing to get in the least excited about. Old Baird has at last spotted that I’m not quite the common cracksman I would have him think me. So he’s been doing his best to run me to my burrow.”

“And you call that nothing!”

“It would be something if he had succeeded; but he has still to do that. I admit, however, that he made me sit up for the time being. It all comes of going on the job so far from home. There was the old brute with the whole thing in his morning paper. He knew it must have been done by some fellow who could pass himself off for a gentleman, and I saw his eyebrows go up the moment I told him I was the man, with the same old twang that you could cut with a paper-knife. I did my best to get out of it⁠—swore I had a pal who was a real swell⁠—but I saw very plainly that I had given myself away. He gave up haggling. He paid my price as though he enjoyed doing it. But I felt him following me when I made tracks; though, of course, I didn’t turn round to see.”

“Why not?”

“My dear Bunny, it’s the very worst thing you can do. As long as you look unsuspecting they’ll keep their distance, and so long as they keep their distance you stand a chance. Once show that you know you’re being followed, and it’s flight or fight for all you’re worth. I never even looked round; and mind you never do in the same hole. I just hurried up to Blackfriars and booked for High Street, Kensington, at the top of my voice; and as the train was leaving Sloane Square out I hopped, and up all those stairs like a lamplighter, and round to the studio by the back streets. Well, to be on the safe side, I lay low there all the afternoon, hearing nothing in the least suspicious, and only wishing I had a window to look through instead of that beastly skylight. However, the coast seemed clear enough, and thus far it was my mere idea that he would follow me; there was nothing to show he had. So at last I marched out in my proper rig⁠—almost straight into old Baird’s arms!”

“What on earth did you do?”

“Walked past him as though I had never set eyes on him in my life, and didn’t then; took a hansom in the King’s Road, and drove like the deuce to Clapham Junction; rushed on to the nearest platform, without a ticket, jumped into the first train I saw, got out at Twickenham, walked full tilt back to Richmond, took the District to Charing Cross, and here I am! Ready for a tub and a change, and the best dinner the club can give us. I came to you first, because I thought you might be getting anxious. Come round with me, and I won’t keep you long.”

“You’re certain you’ve given him the slip?” I said, as we put on our hats.

“Certain enough; but we can make assurance doubly sure,” said Raffles, and went to my window, where he stood for a moment or two looking down into the street.

“All right?” I asked him.

“All right,” said he; and we went downstairs forthwith, and so to the Albany arm-in-arm.

But we were both rather silent on our way. I, for my part, was wondering what Raffles would do about the studio in Chelsea, whither, at all events, he had been successfully dogged. To me the point seemed one of immediate importance, but when I mentioned it he said there was time enough to think about that. His one other remark was made after we had nodded (in Bond Street) to a young blood of our acquaintance who happened to be getting himself a bad name.

“Poor Jack Rutter!” said Raffles, with a sigh. “Nothing’s sadder than to see a fellow going to the bad like that. He’s about mad with drink and debt, poor devil! Did you see his eye? Odd that we should have met him tonight, by the way; it’s old Baird who’s said to have skinned him. By God, but I’d like to skin old Baird!”

And his tone took a sudden low fury, made the more noticeable by another long silence, which lasted, indeed, throughout an admirable dinner at the club, and for some time after we had settled down in a quiet corner of the smoking-room with our coffee and cigars. Then at last I saw Raffles looking at me with his lazy smile, and I knew that the morose fit was at an end.

“I daresay you wonder what I’ve been thinking about all this time?” said he. “I’ve been thinking what rot it is to go doing things by halves!”

“Well,” said I, returning his smile, “that’s not a charge that you can bring against yourself, is it?”

“I’m not so sure,” said Raffles, blowing a meditative puff; “as a matter of fact, I was thinking less of myself than of that poor devil of a Jack Rutter. There’s a fellow who does things by halves; he’s only half gone to the bad; and look at the difference between him and us! He’s under the thumb of a villainous moneylender; we are solvent citizens. He’s taken to drink; we’re as sober as we are solvent. His pals are beginning to cut him; our difficulty is to keep the pal from the door. Enfin, he begs or borrows, which is stealing by halves; and we steal outright and are done with it. Obviously ours is the more honest course. Yet I’m not sure, Bunny, but we’re doing the thing by halves ourselves!”

“Why? What more could we