A Thief in the Night - E. W. Hornung (phonics reader .TXT) 📗

the interval. I’ve been sorry for poor old Nipper Nasmyth. Did you see the idea of being popular dawn upon him for the first time in his life?”

“I did; but you had nothing to do with that, my dear man.”

Raffles shook his head over me as our eyes met. “I had everything to do with it. I tried to make him tell the meanest lie. I made sure he would, and for that matter he nearly did. Then, at the last moment, he saw how to hedge things with his conscience. And his second hundred will be a real gift.”

“You mean under his own name⁠—”

“And with his own free will. My good Bunny, is it possible you don’t know what I did with the hundred we drew from that bank!”

“I knew what you were going to do with it,” said I. “I didn’t know you had actually got further than the twenty-five you told me you were sending as your own contribution.”

Raffles rose abruptly from his chair.

“And you actually thought that came out of his money?”

“Naturally.”

“In my name?”

“I thought so.”

Raffles stared at me inscrutably for some moments, and for some more at the great white numbers over the grandstand.

“We may as well have another look at the cricket,” said he. “It’s difficult to see the board from here, but I believe there’s another man out.”

A Bad Night

There was to be a certain little wedding in which Raffles and I took a surreptitious interest. The bride-elect was living in some retirement, with a recently widowed mother and an asthmatical brother, in a mellow hermitage on the banks of the Mole. The bridegroom was a prosperous son of the same suburban soil which had nourished both families for generations. The wedding presents were so numerous as to fill several rooms at the pretty retreat upon the Mole, and of an intrinsic value calling for a special transaction with the Burglary Insurance Company in Cheapside. I cannot say how Raffles obtained all this information. I only know that it proved correct in each particular. I was not indeed deeply interested before the event, since Raffles assured me that it was “a one-man job,” and naturally intended to be the one man himself. It was only at the eleventh hour that our positions were inverted by the wholly unexpected selection of Raffles for the English team in the Second Test Match.

In a flash I saw the chance of my criminal career. It was some years since Raffles had served his country in these encounters; he had never thought to be called upon again, and his gratification was only less than his embarrassment. The match was at Old Trafford, on the third Thursday, Friday, and Saturday in July; the other affair had been all arranged for the Thursday night, the night of the wedding at East Molesey. It was for Raffles to choose between the two excitements, and for once I helped him to make up his mind. I duly pointed out to him that in Surrey, at all events, I was quite capable of taking his place. Nay, more, I insisted at once on my prescriptive right and on his patriotic obligation in the matter. In the country’s name and in my own, I implored him to give it and me a chance; and for once, as I say, my arguments prevailed. Raffles sent his telegram⁠—it was the day before the match. We then rushed down to Esher, and over every inch of the ground by that characteristically circuitous route which he enjoined on me for the next night. And at six in the evening I was receiving the last of my many instructions through a window of the restaurant car.

“Only promise me not to take a revolver,” said Raffles in a whisper. “Here are my keys; there’s an old life-preserver somewhere in the bureau; take that, if you like⁠—though what you take I rather fear you are the chap to use!”

“Then the rope be round my own neck!” I whispered back. “Whatever else I may do, Raffles, I shan’t give you away; and you’ll find I do better than you think, and am worth trusting with a little more to do, or I’ll know the reason why!”

And I meant to know it, as he was borne out of Euston with raised eyebrows, and I turned grimly on my heel. I saw his fears for me; and nothing could have made me more fearless for myself. Raffles had been wrong about me all these years; now was my chance to set him right. It was galling to feel that he had no confidence in my coolness or my nerve, when neither had ever failed him at a pinch. I had been loyal to him through rough and smooth. In many an ugly corner I had stood as firm as Raffles himself. I was his right hand, and yet he never hesitated to make me his catspaw. This time, at all events, I should be neither one nor the other; this time I was the understudy playing lead at last; and I wish I could think that Raffles ever realized with what gusto I threw myself into his part.

Thus I was first out of a crowded theatre train at Esher next night, and first down the stairs into the open air. The night was close and cloudy; and the road to Hampton Court, even now that the suburban builder has marked much of it for his own, is one of the darkest I know. The first mile is still a narrow avenue, a mere tunnel of leaves at midsummer; but at that time there was not a lighted pane or cranny by the way. Naturally, it was in this blind reach that I fancied I was being followed. I stopped in my stride; so did the steps I made sure I had heard not far behind; and when I went on, they followed suit. I dried my forehead as