E. W. Hornung_A J Raffles 03 (22 page)

It was in one of the magazines for December, 1899, that an article
appeared which afforded our minds a brief respite from the then
consuming excitement of the war in South Africa. These were the
days when Raffles really had white hair, and when he and I were
nearing the end of our surreptitious second innings, as
professional cracksmen of the deadliest dye. Piccadilly and
the Albany knew us no more. But we still operated, as the spirit
tempted us, from our latest and most idyllic base, on the borders
of Ham Common. Recreation was our greatest want; and though we
had both descended to the humble bicycle, a lot of reading was
forced upon us in the winter evenings. Thus the war came as a
boon to us both. It not only provided us with an honest interest
in life, but gave point and zest to innumerable spins across
Richmond Park, to the nearest paper shop; and it was from such an
expedition that I returned with inflammatory matter unconnected
with the war. The magazine was one of those that are read (and
sold) by the million; the article was rudely illustrated on every
other page. Its subject was the so-called Black Museum at
Scotland Yard; and from the catchpenny text we first learned that
the gruesome show was now enriched by a special and elaborate
exhibit known as the Raffles Relics.

"Bunny," said Raffles, "this is fame at last! It is no longer
notoriety; it lifts one out of the ruck of robbers into the society
of the big brass gods, whose little delinquencies are written in
water by the finger of time. The Napoleon Relics we know, the
Nelson Relics we've heard about, and here are mine!"

"Which I wish to goodness we could see," I added, longingly. Next
moment I was sorry I had spoken. Raffles was looking at me across
the magazine. There was a smile on his lips that I knew too well,
a light in his eyes that I had kindled.

"What an excellent idea? he exclaimed, quite softly, as though
working it out already in his brain.

"I didn't mean it for one," I answered, "and no more do you."

"Certainly I do," said Raffles. "I was never more serious in my
life."

"You would march into Scotland Yard in broad daylight?"

"In broad lime-light," he answered, studying the magazine again,
"to set eyes on my own once more. Why here they all. are, Bunny
- you never told me there was an illustration. That's the chest
you took to your bank with me inside, and those must be my own
rope-ladder and things on top. They produce so badly in the baser
magazines that it's impossible to swear to them; there's nothing
for it but a visit of inspection."

"Then you can pay it alone," said I grimly. "You may have altered,
but they'd know me at a glance."

"By all. means, Bunny, if you'll get me the pass."

"A pass? I cried triumphantly. "Of course we should have to get
one, and of course that puts an end to the whole idea. Who on
earth would give a pass for this show, of all. others, to an old
prisoner like me?"

Raffles addressed himself to the reading of the magazine with a
shrug that showed some temper.

"The fellow who wrote this article got one," said he shortly. "He
got it from his editor, and you can get one from yours if you tried.
But pray don't try, Bunny: it would be too terrible for you to risk
a moment's embarrassment to gratify a mere whim of mine. And if I
went instead of you and got spotted, which is so likely with this
head of hair, and the general belief in my demise, the consequences
to you would be too awful to contemplate! Don't contemplate them,
my dear fellow. And do let me read my magazine."

Need I add that I set about the rash endeavor without further
expostulation? I was used to such ebullitions from the altered
Raffles of these later days, and I could well understand them. All.
the inconvenience of the new conditions fell on him. I had purged
my known offences by imprisonment, whereas Raffles was merely
supposed to have escaped punishment in death. The result was that
I could rush in where Raffles feared to tread, and was his
plenipotentiary in all. honest dealings with the outer world. It
could not but gall him to be so dependent upon me, and it was for
me to minimize the humiliation by scrupulously avoiding the least
semblance of an abuse of that power which I now had over him.
Accordingly, though with much misgiving, I did his ticklish behest
in Fleet Street, where, despite my past, I was already making a
certain lowly footing for myself. Success followed as it will when
one longs to fail; and one fine evening I returned to Ham Common
with a card from the Convict Supervision Office, New Scotland Yard,
which I treasure to this day. I am surprised to see that it was
undated, and might still almost "Admit Bearer to see the Museum,"
to say nothing of the bearer's friends, since my editor's name
"and party" is scrawled beneath the legend.

"But he doesn't want to come," as I explained to Raffles. "And it
means that we can both go, if we both like."

Raffles looked at me with a wry smile; he was in good enough humor
now.

"It would be rather dangerous, Bunny. If they spotted you, they
might think of me."

"But you say they'll never know you now."

"I don't believe they will. I don't believe there's the slightest
risk; but we shall soon see. I've set my heart on seeing, Bunny,
but there's no earthly reason why I should drag you into it."

"You do that when you present this card," I pointed out. "I shall
hear of it fast enough if anything happens."

"Then you may as well be there to see the fun?"

"It will make no difference if the worst comes to the worst."

"And the ticket is for a party, isn't it?"

"It is."

"It might even look peculiar if only one person made use of it?"

"It might."

"Then we're both going, Bunny! And I give you my word," cried
Raffles, "that no real harm shall come of it. But you mustn't ask
to see the Relics, and you mustn't take too much interest in them
when you do see them. Leave the questioning to me: it really will
be a chance of finding out whether they've any suspicion of one's
resurrection at Scotland Yard. Still I think I can promise you a
certain amount of fun, old fellow, as some little compensation for
your pangs and fears?

The early afternoon was mild and hazy, and unlike winter but for
the prematurely low sun struggling through the haze, as Raffles
and I emerged from the nether regions at Westminster Bridge, and
stood for one moment to admire the infirm silhouettes of Abbey and
Houses in flat gray against a golden mist. Raffles murmured of
Whistler and of Arthur Severn, and threw away a good Sullivan
because the smoke would curl between him and the picture. It is
perhaps the picture that I can now see clearest of all. the set
scenes of our lawless life. But at the time I was filled with
gloomy speculation as to whether Raffles would keep his promise
of providing an entirely harmless entertainment for my benefit at
the Black Museum.

We entered the forbidding precincts; we looked relentless officers
in the face, and they almost yawned in ours as they directed us
through swing doors and up stone stairs. There was something even
sinister in the casual character of our reception. We had an
arctic landing to ourselves for several minutes, which Raffles
spent in an instinctive survey of the premises, while I cooled my
heels before the portrait of a late commissioner.

"Dear old gentleman? exclaimed Raffles, joining me. "I have met
him at dinner, and discussed my own case with him, in the old days.
But we can't know too little about ourselves in the Black Museum,
Bunny. I remember going to the old place in Whitehall, years ago,
and being shown round by one of the tip-top 'tecs. And this may
be another."

But even I could see at a glance that there was nothing of the
detective and everything of the clerk about the very young man who
had joined us at last upon the landing. His collar was the tallest
I have ever seen, and his face was as pallid as his collar. He
carried a loose key, with which he unlocked a door a little way
along the passage, and so ushered us into that dreadful repository
which perhaps has fewer visitors than any other of equal interest
in the world. The place was cold as the inviolate vault; blinds
had to be drawn up, and glass cases uncovered, before we could see
a thing except the row of murderers' death-masks - the placid
faces with the swollen necks - that stood out on their shelves to
give us ghostly greeting.

"This fellow isn't formidable," whispered Raffles, as the blinds
went up; "still, we can't be too careful. My little lot are round
the corner, in the sort of recess; don't look till we come to them
in their turn."

So we began at the beginning, with the glass case nearest the door;
and in a moment I discovered that I knew far more about its contents
than our pallid guide. He had some enthusiasm, but the most
inaccurate smattering of his subject. He mixed up the first murderer
with quite the wrong murder, and capped his mistake in the next
breath with an intolerable libel on the very pearl of our particular
tribe.

"This revawlver," he began, "belonged to the celebrited burgular,
Chawles Peace. These are his spectacles, that's his jimmy, and this
here knife's the one that Chawley killed the policeman with."

Now I like accuracy for its own sake, strive after it myself, and
am sometimes guilty of forcing it upon others. So this was more
than I could pass.

"That's not quite right," I put in mildly. "He never made use of
the knife."

The young clerk twisted his head round in its vase of starch.

"Chawley Peace killed two policemen," said he.

"No, he didn't; only one of them was a policeman; and he never
killed anybody with a knife."

The clerk took the correction like a lamb. I could not have
refrained from making it, to save my skin. But Raffles rewarded
me with as vicious a little kick as he could administer unobserved.
"Who was Charles Peace?" he inquired, with the bland effrontery of
any judge upon the bench.

The clerk's reply came pat and unexpected. "The greatest burgular
we ever had," said he, "till good old Raffles knocked him out!"

"The greatest of the pre-Raffleites," the master murmured, as we
passed on to the safer memorials of mere murder. There were
misshapen bullets and stained knives that had taken human life;
there were lithe, lean ropes which had retaliated after the live
letter of the Mosaic law. There was one bristling broadside of
revolvers under the longest shelf of closed eyes and swollen throats.
There were festoons of rope-ladders - none so ingenious as ours -
and then at last there was something that the clerk knew all. about.
It was a small tin cigarette-box, and the name upon the gaudy
wrapper was not the name of Sullivan. Yet Raffles and I knew even
more about this exhibit than the clerk.

"There, now," said our guide, "you'll never guess the history of
that! I'll give you twenty guesses, and the twentieth will be no
nearer than the first"

"I'm sure of it, my good fellow," rejoined Raffles, a discreet
twinkle in his eye. "Tell us about it, to save time."

And he opened, as he spoke, his own old twenty-five tin of purely
popular cigarettes; there were a few in it still, but between the
cigarettes were jammed lumps of sugar wadded with cotton-wool. I
saw Raffles weighing the lot in his hand with subtle satisfaction.
But the clerk saw merely the mystification which he desired to
create.

"I thought that'd beat you, sir," said he. "It was an American
dodge. Two smart Yankees got a jeweller to take a lot of stuff
to a private room at Keliner's, where they were dining, for them to
choose from. When it came to paying, there was some bother about
a remittance; but they soon made that all. right, for they were far
too clever to suggest taking away what they'd chosen but couldn't
pay for. No, all. they wanted was that what they'd chosen might be
locked up in the safe and considered theirs until their money came
for them to pay for it. All. they asked was to seal the stuff up
in something; the jeweller was to take it away and not meddle with
it, nor yet break the seals, for a week or two. It seemed a fair
enough thing, now, didn't it, sir?"

"Eminently fair," said Raffles sententiously.

"So the jeweller thought," crowed the clerk. "You see, it wasn't
as if the Yanks had chosen out the half of what he'd brought on
appro.; they'd gone slow on purpose, and they'd paid for all. they
could on the nail, just for a blind. Well, I suppose you can guess
what happened in the end? The jeweller never heard of those
Americans again; and these few cigarettes and lumps of sugar were
all. he found."

"Duplicate boxes? I cried, perhaps a thought too promptly.

"Duplicate boxes!" murmured Raffles, as profoundly impressed as a
second Mr. Pickwick.

"Duplicate boxes!" echoed the triumphant clerk. "Artful beggars,
these Americans, sir! You've got to crawss the 'Erring Pond to
learn a trick worth one o' that?"

"I suppose so," assented the grave gentleman wit the silver hair.
"Unless," he added, as if suddenly inspired, "unless it was that
man Raffles."

"It couldn't 've bin," jerked the clerk from his conning-tower of
a collar. "He'd gone to Davy Jones long before."

"Are you sure?" asked Raffles. "Was his body ever found?"

"Found and buried," replied our imaginative friend. "Malter, I
think it was; or it may have been Giberaltar. I forget which."

"Besides," I put in, rather annoyed at all. this wilful work, yet
not indisposed to make a late contribution - "besides, Raffles
would never have smoked those cigarettes. There was only one
brand for him. It was - let me see - "

"Sullivans? cried the clerk, right for once. "It's all. a matter
of 'abit," he went on, as he replaced the twenty-five tin box with
the vulgar wrapper. "I tried them once, and I didn't like 'em
myself. It's all. a question of taste. Now, if you want a good
smoke, and cheaper, give me a Golden Gem at quarter of the price."