E. W. Hornung_A J Raffles 03 (15 page)

I have seen old men look half their age, and young men look double
theirs; but never before or since have I seen a beardless boy bent
into a man of eighty, gasping for every breath, shaken by every
gasp, swaying, tottering, and choking, as if about to die upon his
feet. Yet with it all., young Medlicott overhauled me shrewdly, and
it was several moments before he would let me take the candle from
him.

"I shouldn't have come down - made me worse," he began whispering
in spurts. "Worse still going up again. You must give me an arm.
You will come up? That's right! Not as bad as I look, you know.
Got some good whiskey, too. Presents are all. right; but if they
aren't you'll hear of it in-doors sooner than out. Now I'm ready
- thanks! Mustn't make more noise than we can help - wake my
mother."

It must have taken us minutes to climb that single flight of stairs.
There was just room for me to keep his arm in mine; with the other
he hauled on the banisters; and so we mounted, step by step, a
panting pause on each, and a pitched battle for breath on the
half-landing. In the end we gained a cosey library, with an open
door leading to a bedroom beyond. But the effort had deprived my
poor companion of all. power of speech; his laboring lungs shrieked
like the wind; he could just point to the door by which we had
entered, and which I shut in obedience to his gestures, and then to
the decanter and its accessories on the table where he had left
them overnight. I gave him nearly half a glassful, and his paroxysm
subsided a little as he sat hunched up in a chair.

"I was a fool ... to turn in," he blurted in more whispers between
longer pauses. "Lying down is the devil ... when you're in for a
real bad night. You might get me the brown cigarettes ... on the
table in there. That's right ... thanks awfully ... and now a match!"

The asthmatic had bitten off either end of the stramonium cigarette,
and was soon choking himself with the crude fumes, which he inhaled
in desperate gulps, to exhale in furious fits of coughing. Never
was more heroic remedy; it seemed a form of lingering suicide; but
by degrees some slight improvement became apparent, and at length
the sufferer was able to sit upright, and to drain his glass with a
sigh of rare relief. I sighed also, for I had witnessed a struggle
for dear life by a man in the flower of his youth, whose looks I
liked, whose smile came like the sun through the first break in his
torments, and whose first words were to thank me for the little I
had done in bare humanity.

That made me feel the thing I was. But the feeling put me on my
guard. And I was not unready for the remark which followed a more
exhaustive scrutiny than I had hitherto sustained.

"Do you know," said young Medlicott, "that you aren't a bit like
the detective of my dreams?"

"Only to proud to hear it," I replied. "There would be no point in
my being in plain clothes if I looked exactly what I was."

My companion reassured me with a wheezy laugh.

"There's something in that," said he, "although I do congratulate
the insurance people on getting a man of your class to do their
dirty work. And I congratulate myself," he was quick enough to add,
"on having you to see me through as bad a night as I've had for a
long time. You're like flowers in the depths of winter. Got a
drink? That's right! I suppose you didn't happen to bring down an
evening paper?"

I said I had brought one, but had unfortunately left it in the train.

"What about the Test Match?" cried my asthmatic, shooting forward
in his chair.

"I can tell you that," said I. "We went in first - "

"Oh, I know all. about that," he interrupted. "I've seen the
miserable score up to lunch. How many did we scrape altogether?"

"We're scraping them still."

"No! How many?"

"Over two hundred for seven wickets."

"Who made the stand?"

"Raffles, for one. He was 62 not out at close of play!"

And the note of admiration rang in my voice, though I tried in my
self-consciousness to keep it out. But young Medlicott's enthusiasm
proved an ample cloak for mine; it was he who might have been the
personal friend of Raffles; and in his delight he chuckled till he
puffed and blew again.

"Good old Raffles!" he panted in every pause. "After being chosen
last, and as a bowler-man! That's the cricketer for me, sir; by Jove,
we must have another drink in his honor! Funny thing, asthma; your
liquor affects your head no more than it does a man with a snake-bite;
but it eases everything else, and sees you through. Doctors will
tell you so, but you've got to ask 'em first; they're no good for
asthma! I've only known one who could stop an attack, and he knocked
me sideways with nitrite of amyl. Funny complaint in other ways;
raises your spirits, if anything. You can't look beyond the next
breath. Nothing else worries you. Well, well, here's luck to A. J.
Raffles, and may he get his century in the morning!"

And he struggled to his feet for the toast; but I drank it sitting
down. I felt unreasonably wroth with Raffles, for coming into the
conversation as he had done - for taking centuries in Test Matches
as he was doing, without bothering his head about me. A failure
would have been in better taste; it would have shown at least some
imagination, some anxiety on one's account I did not reflect that
even Raffles could scarcely be expected to picture me in my cups
with the son of the house that I had come to rob; chatting with him,
ministering to him; admiring his cheery courage, and honestly
attempting to lighten his load! Truly it was an infernal position:
how could I rob him or his after this? And yet I had thrust myself
into it; and Raffles would never, never understand!

Even that was not the worst. I was not quite sure that young
Medlicott was sure of me. I had feared this from the beginning,
and now (over the second glass that could not possibly affect a
man in his condition) he practically admitted as much to me.
Asthma was such a funny thing (he insisted) that it would not
worry him a bit to discover that I had come to take the presents
instead of to take care of them! I showed a sufficiently faint
appreciation of the jest. And it was presently punished as it
deserved, by the most violent paroxysm that had seized the sufferer
yet: the fight for breath became faster and more furious, and the
former weapons of no more avail. I prepared a cigarette, but the
poor brute was too breathless to inhale. I poured out yet more
whiskey, but he put it from him with a gesture.

"Amyl - get me amyl!" he gasped. "The tin on the table by my bed."

I rushed into his room, and returned with a little tin of tiny
cylinders done up like miniature crackers in scraps of calico; the
spent youth broke one in his handkerchief, in which he immediately
buried his face. I watched him closely as a subtle odor reached my
nostrils; and it was like the miracle of oil upon the billows. His
shoulders rested from long travail; the stertorous gasping died
away to a quick but natural respiration; and in the sudden cessation
of the cruel contest, an uncanny stillness fell upon the scene.
Meanwhile the hidden face had flushed to the ears, and, when at
length it was raised to mine, its crimson calm was as incongruous
as an optical illusion.

"It takes the blood from the heart," he murmured, "and clears the
whole show for the moment. If it only lasted! But you can't take
two without a doctor; one's quite enough to make you smell the
brimstone.... I say, what's up? You're listening to something!
If it's the policeman we'll have a word with him."

It was not the policeman; it was no out-door sound that I had
caught in the sudden cessation of the bout for breath. It was a
noise, a footstep, in the room below us. I went to the window
and leaned out: right underneath, in the conservatory, was the
faintest glimmer of a light in the adjoining room.

"One of the rooms where the presents are!" whispered Medlicott at
my elbow. And as we withdrew together, I looked him in the face
as I had not done all. night.

I looked him in the face like an honest man, for a miracle was to
make me one once more. My knot was cut - my course inevitable.
Mine, after all., to prevent the very thing that I had come to do!
My gorge had long since risen at the deed; the unforeseen
circumstances had rendered it impossible from the first; but now
I could afford to recognize the impossibility, and to think of
Raffles and the asthmatic alike without a qualm. I could play the
game by them both, for it was one and the same game. I could
preserve thieves' honor, and yet regain some shred of that which
I had forfeited as a man!

So I thought as we stood face to face, our ears straining for the
least movement below, our eyes locked in a common anxiety. Another
muffled foot-fall - felt rather than heard - and we exchanged grim
nods of simultaneous excitement. But by this time Medlicott was
as helpless as he had been before; the flush had faded from his
face, and his breathing alone would have spoiled everything. In
dumb show I had to order him to stay where he was, to leave my man
to me. And then it was that in a gusty whisper, with the same
shrewd look that had disconcerted me more than once during our vigil,
young Medlicott froze and fired my blood by turns.

"I've been unjust to you," he said, with his right hand in his
dressing-gown pocket. "I thought for a bit - never mind what I
thought - I soon saw I was wrong. But - I've had this thing in my
pocket all. the time!"

And he would have thrust his revolver upon me as a peace-offering,
but I would not even take his hand, as I tapped the life-preserver
in my pocket, and crept out to earn his honest grip or to fall in
the attempt. On the landing I drew Raffles's little weapon, slipped
my right wrist through the leathern loop, and held it in readiness
over my right shoulder. Then, down-stairs I stole, as Raffles
himself had taught me, close to the wall, where the planks are
nailed. Nor had I made a sound, to my knowledge; for a door was
open, and a light was burning, and the light did not flicker as I
approached the door. I clenched my teeth and pushed it open; and
here was the veriest villain waiting for me, his little lantern
held aloft.

"You blackguard!" I cried, and with a single thwack I felled the
ruffian to the floor.

There was no question of a foul blow. He had been just as ready
to pounce on me; it was simply my luck to have got the first blow
home. Yet a fellow-feeling touched me with remorse, as I stood
over the senseless body, sprawling prone, and perceived that I had
struck an unarmed man. The lantern only had fallen from his hands;
it lay on one side, smoking horribly; and a something in the reek
caused me to set it up in haste and turn the body over with both
hands.

Shall I ever forget the incredulous horror of that moment?

It was Raffles himself!

How it was possible, I did not pause to ask myself; if one man on
earth could annihilate space and time, it was the man lying
senseless at my feet; and that was Raffles, without an instant's
doubt. He was in villainous guise, which I knew of old, now that
I knew the unhappy wearer. His face was grimy, and dexterously
plastered with a growth of reddish hair; his clothes were those in
which he had followed cabs from the London termini; his boots were
muffled in thick socks; and I had laid him low with a bloody scalp
that filled my cup of horror. I groaned aloud as I knelt over him
and felt his heart. And I was answered by a bronchial whistle
from the door.

"Jolly well done!" cheered my asthmatical friend. "I heard the
whole thing - only hope my mother didn't. We must keep it from
her if we can."

I could have cursed the creature's mother from my full heart; yet
even with my hand on that of Raffles, as I felt his feeble pulse,
I told myself that this served him right. Even had I brained him,
the fault had been his, not mine. And it was a characteristic, an
inveterate fault, that galled me for all. my anguish: to trust and
yet distrust me to the end, to race through England in the night,
to spy upon me at his work - to do it himself after all.!

"Is he dead?" wheezed the asthmatic coolly.

"Not he," I answered, with an indignation that I dared not show.

"You must have hit him pretty hard," pursued young Medlicott, "but
I suppose it was a case of getting first knock. And a good job you
got it, if this was his," he added, picking up the murderous little
life-preserver which poor Raffles had provided for his own
destruction.

"Look here," I answered, sitting back on my heels. "He isn't dead,
Mr. Medlicott, and I don't know how long he'll be as much as stunned.
He's a powerful brute, and you're not fit to lend a hand. But that
policeman of yours can't be far away. Do you think you could
struggle out and look for him?"

"I suppose I am a bit better than I was," he replied doubtfully.
"The excitement seems to have done me good. If you like to leave
me on guard with my revolver, I'll undertake that he doesn't
escape me."

I shook my head with an impatient smile.

"I should never hear the last of it," said I. "No, in that case
all. I can do is to handcuff the fellow and wait till morning if he
won't go quietly; and he'll be a fool if he does, while there's a
fighting chance."

Young Medlicott glanced upstairs from his post on the threshold.
I refrained from watching him too keenly, but I knew what was in
his mind.

"I'll go," he said hurriedly. "I'll go as I am, before my mother
is disturbed and frightened out of her life. I owe you something,
too, not only for what you've done for me, but for what I was fool
enough to think about you at the first blush. It's entirely through
you that I feel as fit as I do for the moment. So I'll take your
tip, and go just as I am, before my poor old pipes strike up another
tune."