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

he recounted more than one of his nocturnal adventures, all, however, of a singularly innocent type; and one thing I noticed while he talked. His room was the first as you entered the flat. The long inner wall divided the room not merely from the passage but from the outer landing as well. Thus every step upon the bare stone stairs could be heard by Raffles where he lay; and he would never speak while one was ascending, until it had passed his door. The afternoon brought more than one applicant for the post which it was my duty to tell them that I had already obtained. Between three and four, however, Raffles, suddenly looking at his watch, packed me off in a hurry to the other end of London for my things.

“I’m afraid you must be famishing, Bunny. It’s a fact that I eat very little, and that at odd hours, but I ought not to have forgotten you. Get yourself a snack outside, but not a square meal if you can resist one. We’ve got to celebrate this day this night!”

“Tonight?” I cried.

“Tonight at eleven, and Kellner’s the place. You may well open your eyes, but we didn’t go there much, if you remember, and the staff seems changed. Anyway we’ll risk it for once. I was in last night, talking like a stage American, and supper’s ordered for eleven sharp.”

“You made as sure of me as all that!”

“There was no harm in ordering supper. We shall have it in a private room, but you may as well dress if you’ve got the duds.”

“They’re at my only forgiving relative’s.”

“How much will get them out, and square you up, and bring you back bag and baggage in good time?”

I had to calculate.

“A tenner, easily.”

“I had one ready for you. Here it is, and I wouldn’t lose any time if I were you. On the way you might look up Theobald, tell him you’ve got it and how long you’ll be gone, and that I can’t be left alone all the time. And, by Jove, yes! You get me a stall for the Lyceum at the nearest agent’s; there are two or three in High Street; and say it was given you when you come in. That young man shall be out of the way tonight.”

I found our doctor in a minute consulting-room and his shirtsleeves, a tall tumbler at his elbow; at least I caught sight of the tumbler on entering; thereafter he stood in front of it, with a futility which had my sympathy.

“So you’ve got the billet,” said Dr. Theobald. “Well, as I told you before, and as you have since probably discovered for yourself, you won’t find it exactly a sinecure. My own part of the business is by no means that; indeed, there are those who would throw up the case, after the kind of treatment that you have seen for yourself. But professional considerations are not the only ones, and one cannot make too many allowances in such a case.”

“But what is the case?” I asked him. “You said you would tell me if I was successful.”

Dr. Theobald’s shrug was worthy of the profession he seemed destined to adorn; it was not incompatible with any construction which one chose to put upon it. Next moment he had stiffened. I suppose I still spoke more or less like a gentleman. Yet, after all, I was only the male nurse. He seemed to remember this suddenly, and he took occasion to remind me of the fact.

“Ah,” said he, “that was before I knew you were altogether without experience; and I must say that I was surprised even at Mr. Maturin’s engaging you after that; but it will depend upon yourself how long I allow him to persist in so curious an experiment. As for what is the matter with him, my good fellow, it is no use my giving you an answer which would be double Dutch to you; moreover, I have still to test your discretionary powers. I may say, however, that that poor gentleman presents at once the most complex and most troublesome case, which is responsibility enough without certain features which make it all but insupportable. Beyond this I must refuse to discuss my patient for the present; but I shall certainly go up if I can find time.”

He went up within five minutes. I found him there on my return at dusk. But he did not refuse my stall for the Lyceum, which Raffles would not allow me to use myself, and presented to him offhand without my leave.

“And don’t you bother any more about me till tomorrow,” snapped the high thin voice as he was off. “I can send for you now when I want you, and I’m hoping to have a decent night for once.”

III

It was half-past ten when we left the flat, in an interval of silence on the noisy stairs. The silence was unbroken by our wary feet. Yet for me a surprise was in store upon the very landing. Instead of going downstairs, Raffles led me up two flights, and so out upon a perfectly flat roof.

“There are two entrances to these mansions,” he explained between stars and chimney-stacks: “one to our staircase, and another round the corner. But there’s only one porter, and he lives on the basement underneath us, and affects the door nearest home. We miss him by using the wrong stairs, and we run less risk of old Theobald. I got the tip from the postmen, who come up one way and down the other. Now, follow me, and look out!”

There was indeed some necessity for caution, for each half of the building had its L-shaped well dropping sheer to the base, the parapets so low that one might easily have tripped over them into eternity. However, we were soon upon the second staircase, which opened on the roof like the first. And twenty minutes of the next twenty-five