piccadilly was a trench of raw white fog, rimmed with blurred street-lamps, and lined with a thin coating of adhesive mud. we met no other wayfarers on the deserted flagstones, and were ourselves favored with a very hard stare from the constable of the beat, who, however, touched his helmet on recognizing my companion.
"you see, i'm known to the police," laughed raffles as we passed on. "poor devils, they've got to keep their weather eye open on a night like this! a fog may be a bore to you and me, bunny, but it's a perfect godsend to the criminal classes, especially so late in their season. here we are, though—and i'm hanged if the beggar isn't in bed and asleep after all!"
we had turned into bond street, and had halted on the curb a few yards down on the right. raffles was gazing up at some windows across the road, windows barely discernible through the mist, and without the glimmer of a light to throw them out. they were over a jeweller's shop, as i could see by the peep-hole in the shop door, and the bright light burning within. but the entire "upper part," with the private street-door next the shop, was black and blank as the sky itself.
"better give it up for to-night," i urged. "surely the morning will be time enough!"
"not a bit of it," said raffles. "i have his key. we'll surprise him. come along."
and seizing my right arm, he hurried me across the road, opened the door with his latch-key, and in another moment had shut it swiftly but softly behind us. we stood together in the dark. outside, a measured step was approaching; we had heard it through the fog as we crossed the street; now, as it drew nearer, my companion's fingers tightened on my arm.
"it may be the chap himself," he whispered. "he's the devil of a night-bird. not a sound, bunny! we'll startle the life out of him. ah!"
the measured step had passed without a pause. raffles drew a deep breath, and his singular grip of me slowly relaxed.
"but still, not a sound," he continued in the same whisper; "we'll take a rise out of him, wherever he is! slip off your shoes and follow me."
well, you may wonder at my doing so; but you can never have met a. j. raffles. half his power lay in a conciliating trick of sinking the commander in the leader. and it was impossible not to follow one who led with such a zest. you might question, but you followed first. so now, when i heard him kick off his own shoes, i did the same, and was on the stairs at his heels before i realized what an extraordinary way was this of approaching a stranger for money in the dead of night. but obviously raffles and he were on exceptional terms of intimacy, and i could not but infer that they were in the habit of playing practical jokes upon each other.
we groped our way so slowly upstairs that i had time to make more than one note before we reached the top. the stair was uncarpeted. the spread fingers of my right hand encountered nothing on the damp wall; those of my left trailed through a dust that could be felt on the banisters. an eerie sensation had been upon me since we entered the house. it increased with every step we climbed. what hermit were we going to startle in his cell?
we came to a landing. the banisters led us to the left, and to the left again. four steps more, and we were on another and a longer landing, and suddenly a match blazed from the black. i never heard it struck. its flash was blinding. when my eyes became accustomed to the light, there was raffles holding up the match with one hand, and shading it with the other, between bare boards, stripped walls, and the open doors of empty rooms.
"where have you brought me?" i cried. "the house is unoccupied!"
"hush! wait!" he whispered, and he led the way into one of the empty rooms. his match went out as we crossed the threshold, and he struck another without the slightest noise. then he stood with his back to me, fumbling with something that i could not see. but, when he threw the second match away, there was some other light in its stead, and a slight smell of oil. i stepped forward to look over his shoulder, but before i could do so he had turned and flashed a tiny lantern in my face.
"what's this?" i gasped. "what rotten trick are you going to play?"
"it's played," he answered, with his quiet laugh.
"on me?"
"i am afraid so, bunny."
"is there no one in the house, then?"
"no one but ourselves."
"so it was mere chaff about your friend in bond street, who could let us have that money?"
"not altogether. it's quite true that danby is a friend of mine."
"danby?"
"the jeweller underneath."
"what do you mean?" i whispered, trembling like a leaf as his meaning dawned upon me. "are we to get the money from the jeweller?"
"well, not exactly."
"what, then?"
"the equivalent—from his shop."
there was no need for another question. i understood everything but my own density. he had given me a dozen hints, and i had taken none. and there i stood staring at him, in that empty room; and there he stood with his dark lantern, laughing at me.
"a burglar!" i gasped. "you—you!"
"i told you i lived by my wits."
"why couldn't you tell me what you were going to do? why couldn't you trust me? why must you lie?" i demanded, piqued to the quick for all my horror.
"i wanted to tell you," said he. "i was on the point of telling you more than once. you may remember how i sounded you about crime, though you have probably forgotten what you said yourself. i didn't think you meant it at the time, but i thought i'd put you to the test. now i see you didn't, and i don't blame you. i only am to blame. get out of it, my dear boy, as quick as you can; leave it to me. you won't give me away, whatever else you do!"
oh, his cleverness! his fiendish cleverness! had he fallen back on threats, coercion, sneers, all might have been different even yet. but he set me free to leave him in the lurch. he would not blame me. he did not even bind me to secrecy; he trusted me. he knew my weakness and my strength, and was playing on both with his master's touch.
"not so fast," said i. "did i put this into your head, or were you going to do it in any case?"
"not in any case," said raffles. "it's true i've had the key for days, but when i won to-night i thought of chucking it; for, as a matter of fact, it's not a one-man job."
"that settles it. i'm your man."
"you mean it?"
"yes—for to-night."
"good old bunny," he murmured, holding the lantern for one moment to my face; the next he was explaining his plans, and i was nodding, as though we had been fellow-cracksmen all our days.
"i know the shop," he whispered, "because i've got a few things there. i know this upper part too; it's been to let for a month, and i got an order to view, and took a cast of the key before using it. the one thing i don't know is how to make a connection between the two; at present there's none. we may make it up here, though i rather fancy the basement myself. if you wait a minute i'll tell you."
he set his lantern on the floor, crept to a back window, and opened it with scarcely a sound: only to return, shaking his head, after shutting the window with the same care.
"that was our one chance," said he; "a back window above a back window; but it's too dark to see anything, and we daren't show an outside light. come down after me to the basement; and remember, though there's not a soul on the premises, you can't make too little noise. there—there—listen to that!"
it was the measured tread that we had heard before on the flagstones outside. raffles darkened his lantern, and again we stood motionless till it had passed.
"either a policeman," he muttered, "or a watchman that all these jewellers run between them. the watchman's the man for us to watch; he's simply paid to spot this kind of thing."
we crept very gingerly down the stairs, which creaked a bit in spite of us, and we picked up our shoes in the passage; then down some narrow stone steps, at the foot of which raffles showed his light, and put on his shoes once more, bidding me do the same in a rather louder tone than he had permitted himself to employ overhead. we were now considerably below the level of the street, in a small space with as many doors as it had sides. three were ajar, and we saw through them into empty cellars; but in the fourth a key was turned and a bolt drawn; and this one presently let us out into the bottom of a deep, square well of fog. a similar door faced it across this area, and raffles had the lantern close against it, and was hiding the light with his body, when a short and sudden crash made my heart stand still. next moment i saw the door wide open, and raffles standing within and beckoning me with a jimmy.
"door number one," he whispered. "deuce knows how many more there'll be, but i know of two at least. we won't have to make much noise over them, either; down here there's less risk."
we were now at the bottom of the exact fellow to the narrow stone stair which we had just descended: the yard, or well, being the one part common to both the private and the business premises. but this flight led to no open passage; instead, a singularly solid mahogany door confronted us at the top.
"i thought so," muttered raffles, handing me the lantern, and pocketing a bunch of skeleton keys, after tampering for a few minutes with the lock. "it'll be an hour's work to get through that!"
"can't you pick it?"
"no: i know these locks. it's no use trying. we must cut it out, and it'll take us an hour."
it took us forty-seven minutes by my watch; or, rather, it took raffles; and never in my life have i seen anything more deliberately done. my part was simply to stand by with the dark lantern in one hand, and a small bottle of rock-oil in the other.
raffles had produced a pretty embroidered case, intended obviously for his razors, but filled instead with the tools of his secret trade, including the rock-oil. from this case he selected a "bit," capable of drilling a hole an inch in diameter, and fitted it to a small but very strong steel "brace." then he took off his covert-coat and his blazer, spread them neatly on the top step—knelt on them—turned up his shirt cuffs—and went to work with brace-and-bit near the key-hole. but first he oiled the bit to minimize the noise, and this he did invariably before beginning a fresh hole, and often in the middle of one. it took thirty-two separate borings to cut around that lock.
i noticed that through the first circular orifice raffles thrust a forefinger; then, as the circle became an ever-lengthening oval, he got his hand through up to the thumb; and i heard him swear softly to himself.
"i was afraid so!"
"what is it?"
"an iron gate on the other side!"
"how on earth are we to get through that?" i asked in dismay.
"pick the lock. but there may be two. in that case they'll be top and bottom, and we shall have two fresh holes to make, as the door opens inwards. it won't open two inches as it is."
i confess i did not feel sanguine about the lock-picking, seeing that one lock had baffled us already; and my disappointment and impatience must have been a revelation to me had i stopped to think. the truth is that i was entering into our nefarious undertaking with an involuntary zeal of which i was myself quite unconscious at the time. the romance and the peril of the whole proceeding held me spellbound and entranced. my moral sense and my sense of fear were stricken by a common paralysis. and there i stood, shining my light and holding my phial with a keener interest than i had ever brought to any honest avocation. and there knelt a. j. raffles, with his black hair tumbled, and the same watchful, quiet, determined half-smile with which i have seen him send down over after over in a county match!
at last the chain of holes was complete, the lock wrenched out bodily, and a splendid bare arm plunged up to the shoulder through the aperture, and through the bars of the iron gate beyond.
"now," whispered raffles, "if there's only one lock it'll be in the middle. joy! here it is! only let me pick it, and we're through at last."
he withdrew his arm, a skeleton key was selected from the bunch, and then back went his arm to the shoulder. it was a breathless moment. i heard the heart throbbing in my body, the very watch ticking in my pocket, and ever and anon the tinkle-tinkle of the skeleton key. then—at last—there came a single unmistakable click. in another minute the mahogany door and the iron gate yawned behind us; and raffles was sitting on an office table, wiping his face, with the lantern throwing a steady beam by his side.
we were now in a bare and roomy lobby behind the shop, but separated therefrom by an iron curtain, the very sight of which filled me with despair. raffles, however, did not appear in the least depressed, but hung up his coat and hat on some pegs in the lobby before examining this curtain with his lantern.
"that's nothing," said he, after a minute's inspection; "we'll be through that in no time, but there's a door on the other side which may give us trouble."
"another door!" i groaned. "and how do you mean to tackle this thing?"
"prise it up with the jointed jimmy. the weak point of these iron curtains is the leverage you can get from below. but it makes a noise, and this is where you're coming in, bunny; this is where i couldn't do without you. i must have you overhead to knock through when the street's clear. i'll come with you and show a light."
well, you may imagine how little i liked the prospect of this lonely vigil; and yet there was something very stimulating in the vital responsibility which it involved. hitherto i had been a mere spectator. now i was to take part in the game. and the fresh excitement made me more than ever insensible to those considerations of conscience and of safety which were already as dead nerves in my breast.
so i took my post without a murmur in the front room above the shop. the fixtures had been left for the refusal of the incoming tenant, and fortunately for us they included venetian blinds which were already down. it was the simplest matter in the world to stand peeping through the laths into the street, to beat twice with my foot when anybody was approaching, and once when all was clear again. the noises that even i could hear below, with the exception of one metallic crash at the beginning, were indeed incredibly slight; but they ceased altogether at each double rap from my toe; and a policeman passed quite half a dozen times beneath my eyes, and the man whom i took to be the jeweller's watchman oftener still, during the better part of an hour that i spent at the window. once, indeed, my heart was in my mouth, but only once. it was when the watchman stopped and peered through the peep-hole into the lighted shop. i waited for his whistle—i waited for the gallows or the gaol! but my signals had been studiously obeyed, and the man passed on in undisturbed serenity.
in the end i had a signal in my turn, and retraced my steps with lighted matches, down the broad stairs, down the narrow ones, across the area, and up into the lobby where raffles awaited me with an outstretched hand.
"well done, my boy!" said he. "you're the same good man in a pinch, and you shall have your reward. i've got a thousand pounds' worth if i've got a penn'oth. it's all in my pockets. and here's something else i found in this locker; very decent port and some cigars, meant for poor dear danby's business friends. take a pull, and you shall light up presently. i've found a lavatory, too, and we must have a wash-and-brush-up before we go, for i'm as black as your boot."
the iron curtain was down, but he insisted on raising it until i could peep through the glass door on the other side and see his handiwork in the shop beyond. here two electric lights were left burning all night long, and in their cold white rays i could at first see nothing amiss. i looked along an orderly lane, an empty glass counter on my left, glass cupboards of untouched silver on my right, and facing me the filmy black eye of the peep-hole that shone like a stage moon on the street. the counter had not been emptied by raffles; its contents were in the chubb's safe, which he had given up at a glance; nor had he looked at the silver, except to choose a cigarette case for me. he had confined himself entirely to the shop window. this was in three compartments, each secured for the night by removable panels with separate locks. raffles had removed them a few hours before their time, and the electric light shone on a corrugated shutter bare as the ribs of an empty carcase. every article of value was gone from the one place which was invisible from the little window in the door; elsewhere all was as it had been left overnight. and but for a train of mangled doors behind the iron curtain, a bottle of wine and a cigar-box with which liberties had been taken, a rather black towel in the lavatory, a burnt match here and there, and our finger-marks on the dusty banisters, not a trace of our visit did we leave.
"had it in my head for long?" said raffles, as we strolled through the streets towards dawn, for all the world as though we were returning from a dance. "no, bunny, i never thought of it till i saw that upper part empty about a month ago, and bought a few things in the shop to get the lie of the land. that reminds me that i never paid for them; but, by jove, i will to-morrow, and if that isn't poetic justice, what is? one visit showed me the possibilities of the place, but a second convinced me of its impossibilities without a pal. so i had practically given up the idea, when you came along on the very night and in the very plight for it! but here we are at the albany, and i hope there's some fire left; for i don't know how you feel, bunny, but for my part i'm as cold as keats's owl."
he could think of keats on his way from a felony! he could hanker for his fireside like another! floodgates were loosed within me, and the plain english of our adventure rushed over me as cold as ice. raffles was a burglar. i had helped him to commit one burglary, therefore i was a burglar, too. yet i could stand and warm myself by his fire, and watch him empty his pockets, as though we had done nothing wonderful or wicked!
my blood froze. my heart sickened. my brain whirled. how i had liked this villain! how i had admired him! now my liking and admiration must turn to loathing and disgust. i waited for the change. i longed to feel it in my heart. but—i longed and i waited in vain!
i saw that he was emptying his pockets; the table sparkled with their hoard. rings by the dozen, diamonds by the score; bracelets, pendants, aigrettes, necklaces, pearls, rubies, amethysts, sapphires; and diamonds always, diamonds in everything, flashing bayonets of light, dazzling me—blinding me—making me disbelieve because i could no longer forget. last of all came no gem, indeed, but my own revolver from an inner pocket. and that struck a chord. i suppose i said something—my hand flew out. i can see raffles now, as he looked at me once more with a high arch over each clear eye. i can see him pick out the cartridges with his quiet, cynical smile, before he would give me my pistol back again.
"you mayn't believe it, bunny," said he, "but i never carried a loaded one before. on the whole i think it gives one confidence. yet it would be very awkward if anything went wrong; one might use it, and that's not the game at all, though i have often thought that the murderer who has just done the trick must have great sensations before things get too hot for him. don't look so distressed, my dear chap. i've never had those sensations, and i don't suppose i ever shall."
"but this much you have done before?" said i hoarsely.
"before? my dear bunny, you offend me! did it look like a first attempt? of course i have done it before."
"often?"
"well—no! not often enough to destroy the charm, at all events; never, as a matter of fact, unless i'm cursedly hard up. did you hear about the thimbleby diamonds? well, that was the last time—and a poor lot of paste they were. then there was the little business of the dormer house-boat at henley last year. that was mine also—such as it was. i've never brought off a really big coup yet; when i do i shall chuck it up."
yes, i remembered both cases very well. to think that he was their author! it was incredible, outrageous, inconceivable. then my eyes would fall upon the table, twinkling and glittering in a hundred places, and incredulity was at an end.
"how came you to begin?" i asked, as curiosity overcame mere wonder, and a fascination for his career gradually wove itself into my fascination for the man.
"ah! that's a long story," said raffles. "it was in the colonies, when i was out there playing cricket. it's too long a story to tell you now, but i was in much the same fix that you were in to-night, and it was my only way out. i never meant it for anything more; but i'd tasted blood, and it was all over with me. why should i work when i could steal? why settle down to some humdrum uncongenial billet, when excitement, romance, danger and a decent living were all going begging together? of course it's very wrong, but we can't all be moralists, and the distribution of wealth is very wrong to begin with. besides, you're not at it all the time. i'm sick of quoting gilbert's lines to myself, but they're profoundly true. i only wonder if you'll like the life as much as i do!"
"like it?" i cried out. "not i! it's no life for me. once is enough!"
"you wouldn't give me a hand another time?"
"don't ask me, raffles. don't ask me, for god's sake!"
"yet you said you would do anything for me! you asked me to name my crime! but i knew at the time you didn't mean it; you didn't go back on me to-night, and that ought to satisfy me, goodness knows! i suppose i'm ungrateful, and unreasonable, and all that. i ought to let it end at this. but you're the very man for me, bunny, the—very—man! just think how we got through to-night. not a scratch—not a hitch! there's nothing very terrible in it, you see; there never would be, while we worked together."
he was standing in front of me with a hand on either shoulder; he was smiling as he knew so well how to smile. i turned on my heel, planted my elbows on the chimney-piece, and my burning head between my hands. next instant a still heartier hand had fallen on my back.
"all right, my boy! you are quite right and i'm worse than wrong. i'll never ask it again. go, if you want to, and come again about mid-day for the cash. there was no bargain; but, of course, i'll get you out of your scrape—especially after the way you've stood by me to-night."
i was round again with my blood on fire.
"i'll do it again," i said, through my teeth.
he shook his head. "not you," he said, smiling quite good-humoredly on my insane enthusiasm.
"i will," i cried with an oath. "i'll lend you a hand as often as you like! what does it matter now? i've been in it once. i'll be in it again. i've gone to the devil anyhow. i can't go back, and wouldn't if i could. nothing matters another rap! when you want me, i'm your man!"
and that is how raffles and i joined felonious forces on the ides of march.
