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

he, ruefully. “That’s the trouble. It makes all the difference in the world!”

I saw the difference, but said I did not see how it could make any now. He had eluded the lady, after all; had we not seen her off upon a scent as false as scent could be? There was occasion for redoubled caution in the future, but none for immediate anxiety. I quoted the bedside Theobald, but Raffles did not smile. His eyes had been downcast all this time, and now, when he raised them, I perceived that my comfort had been administered to deaf ears.

“Do you know who she is?” said he.

“Not from Eve.”

“Jacques Saillard,” he said, as though now I must know.

But the name left me cold and stolid. I had heard it, but that was all. It was lamentable ignorance, I am aware, but I had specialized in Letters at the expense of Art.

“You must know her pictures,” said Raffles, patiently; “but I suppose you thought she was a man. They would appeal to you, Bunny; that festive piece over the sideboard was her work. Sometimes they risk her at the Academy, sometimes they fight shy. She has one of those studios in the same square; they used to live up near Lord’s.”

My mind was busy brightening a dim memory of nymphs reflected in woody pools. “Of course!” I exclaimed, and added something about “a clever woman.” Raffles rose at the phrase.

“A clever woman!” he echoed, scornfully; “if she were only that I should feel safe as houses. Clever women can’t forget their cleverness, they carry it as badly as a boy does his wine, and are about as dangerous. I don’t call Jacques Saillard clever outside her art, but neither do I call her a woman at all. She does man’s work over a man’s name, has the will of any ten men I ever knew, and I don’t mind telling you that I fear her more than any person on God’s earth. I broke with her once,” said Raffles, grimly, “but I know her. If I had been asked to name the one person in London by whom I was keenest not to be bowled out, I should have named Jacques Saillard.”

That he had never before named her to me was as characteristic as the reticence with which Raffles spoke of their past relations, and even of their conversation in the back drawing-room that evening.

It was a question of principle with him, and one that I like to remember. “Never give a woman away, Bunny,” he used to say; and he said it again tonight, but with a heavy cloud upon him, as though his chivalry was sorely tried.

“That’s all right,” said I, “if you’re not going to be given away yourself.”

“That’s just it, Bunny! That’s just⁠—”

The words were out of him, it was too late to recall them. I had hit the nail upon the head.

“So she threatened you,” I said, “did she?”

“I didn’t say so,” he replied, coldly.

“And she is mated with a clown!” I pursued.

“How she ever married him,” he admitted, “is a mystery to me.”

“It always is,” said I, the wise man for once, and rather enjoying the role.

“Southern blood?”

“Spanish.”

“She’ll be pestering you to run off with her, old chap,” said I.

Raffles was pacing the room. He stopped in his stride for half a second. So she had begun pestering him already! It is wonderful how acute any fool can be in the affairs of his friend. But Raffles resumed his walk without a syllable, and I retreated to safer ground.

“So you sent her to Earl’s Court,” I mused aloud; and at last he smiled.

“You’ll be interested to hear, Bunny,” said he, “that I am now living in Seven Dials, and Bill Sikes couldn’t hold a farthing dip to me. Bless you, she had my old police record at her fingers’ ends, but it was fit to frame compared with the one I gave her. I had sunk as low as they dig. I divided my nights between the open parks and a thieves’ kitchen in Seven Dials. If I was decently dressed it was because I had stolen the suit down the Thames Valley beat the night before last. I was on my way back when first that sleepy square, and then her open window, proved too much for me. You should have heard me beg her to let me push on to the devil in my own way; there I spread myself, for I meant every word; but I swore the final stage would be a six-foot drop.”

“You did lay it on,” said I.

“It was necessary, and that had its effect. She let me go. But at the last moment she said she didn’t believe I was so black as I painted myself, and then there was the balcony scene you missed.”

So that was all. I could not help telling him that he had got out of it better than he deserved for ever getting in. Next moment I regretted the remark.

“If I have got out of it,” said Raffles, doubtfully. “We are dreadfully near neighbors, and I can’t move in a minute, with old Theobald taking a grave view of my case. I suppose I had better lie low, and thank the gods again for putting her off the scent for the time being.”

No doubt our conversation was carried beyond this point, but it certainly was not many minutes later, nor had we left the subject, when the electric bell thrilled us both to a sudden silence.

“The doctor?” I queried, hope fighting with my horror.

“It was a single ring.”

“The last post?”

“You know he knocks, and it’s long past his time.”

The electric bell rang again, but now as though it never would stop.

“You go, Bunny,” said Raffles, with decision. His eyes were sparkling. His smile was firm.

“What am I to say?”

“If it’s the lady let her in.”

It was the lady, still in her evening cloak, with her fine dark head half-hidden by the hood, and an