A Thief in the Night [62]
to supply. And in the end I was permitted to retire from the scene until required to give further information, or to identify the prisoner whom the good police confidently expected to make before the day was out.
I drove straight to the flat. The porter flew to help me out of my hansom. His face alarmed me more than any I had left in Half-moon Street. It alone might have spelled my ruin.
"Your flat's been entered in the night, sir," he cried. "The thieves have taken everything they could lay hands on."
"Thieves in my flat!" I ejaculated aghast. There were one or two incriminating possessions up there, as well as at the Albany.
"The door's been forced with a jimmy," said the porter. "It was the milkman who found it out. There's a constable up there now."
A constable poking about in my flat of all. others! I rushed upstairs without waiting for the lift. The invader was moistening his pencil between laborious notes in a fat pocketbook; he had penetrated no further than the forced door. I dashed past him in a fever. I kept my trophies in a wardrobe drawer specially fitted with a Bramah lock. The lock was broken - the drawer void.
"Something valuable, sir?" inquired the intrusive constable at my heels.
"Yes, indeed - some old family silver," I answered. It was quite true. But the family was not mine.
And not till then did the truth flash across my mind. Nothing else of value had been taken. But there was a meaningless litter in all. the rooms. I turned to the porter, who had followed me up from the street; it was his wife who looked after the flat.
"Get rid of this idiot as quick as you can," I whispered. "I'm going straight to Scotland Yard myself. Let your wife tidy the place while I'm gone, and have the lock mended before she leaves. I'm going as I am, this minute!"
And go I did, in the first hansom I could find - but not straight to Scotland Yard. I stopped the cab in Picadilly on the way.
Old Raffles opened his own door to me. I cannot remember finding him fresher, more immaculate, more delightful to behold in every way. Could I paint a picture of Raffles with something other than my pen, it would be as I saw him that bright March morning, at his open door in the Albany, a trim, slim figure in matutinal gray, cool and gay and breezy as incarnate spring.
"What on earth did you do it for?" I asked within.
"It was the only solution," he answered, handing me the cigarettes. "I saw it the moment I got outside."
"I don't see it yet."
"Why should a burglar call an innocent gentleman away from home?"
"That's what we couldn't make out."
"I tell you I got it directly I had left you. He called you away in order to burgle you too, of course!"
And Raffles stood smiling upon me in all. his incomparable radiance and audacity.
"But why me?" I asked. "Why on earth should he burgle me?"
"My dear Bunny, we must leave something to the imagination of the police. But we will assist them to a fact or two in due season. It was the dead of night when Maguire first took us to his house; it was at the Imperial Boxing Club we met him; and you meet queer fish at the Imperial Boxing Club. You may remember that he telephoned to his man to prepare supper for us, and that you and he discussed telephones and treasure as we marched through the midnight streets. He was certainly bucking about his trophies, and for the sake of the argument you will be good enough to admit that you probably bucked about yours. What happens? You are overheard; you are followed; you are worked into the same scheme, and robbed on the same night."
"And you really think this will meet the case?" "I am quite certain of it, Bunny, so far as it rests wit us to meet the case at all."
"Then give me another cigarette, my dear fellow, and let me push on to Scotland Yard."
Raffles held up both hands in admiring horror. "Scotland Yard!"
"To give a false description of what you took from that drawer in my wardrobe."
"A false description! Bunny, you have no more to learn from me. Time
I drove straight to the flat. The porter flew to help me out of my hansom. His face alarmed me more than any I had left in Half-moon Street. It alone might have spelled my ruin.
"Your flat's been entered in the night, sir," he cried. "The thieves have taken everything they could lay hands on."
"Thieves in my flat!" I ejaculated aghast. There were one or two incriminating possessions up there, as well as at the Albany.
"The door's been forced with a jimmy," said the porter. "It was the milkman who found it out. There's a constable up there now."
A constable poking about in my flat of all. others! I rushed upstairs without waiting for the lift. The invader was moistening his pencil between laborious notes in a fat pocketbook; he had penetrated no further than the forced door. I dashed past him in a fever. I kept my trophies in a wardrobe drawer specially fitted with a Bramah lock. The lock was broken - the drawer void.
"Something valuable, sir?" inquired the intrusive constable at my heels.
"Yes, indeed - some old family silver," I answered. It was quite true. But the family was not mine.
And not till then did the truth flash across my mind. Nothing else of value had been taken. But there was a meaningless litter in all. the rooms. I turned to the porter, who had followed me up from the street; it was his wife who looked after the flat.
"Get rid of this idiot as quick as you can," I whispered. "I'm going straight to Scotland Yard myself. Let your wife tidy the place while I'm gone, and have the lock mended before she leaves. I'm going as I am, this minute!"
And go I did, in the first hansom I could find - but not straight to Scotland Yard. I stopped the cab in Picadilly on the way.
Old Raffles opened his own door to me. I cannot remember finding him fresher, more immaculate, more delightful to behold in every way. Could I paint a picture of Raffles with something other than my pen, it would be as I saw him that bright March morning, at his open door in the Albany, a trim, slim figure in matutinal gray, cool and gay and breezy as incarnate spring.
"What on earth did you do it for?" I asked within.
"It was the only solution," he answered, handing me the cigarettes. "I saw it the moment I got outside."
"I don't see it yet."
"Why should a burglar call an innocent gentleman away from home?"
"That's what we couldn't make out."
"I tell you I got it directly I had left you. He called you away in order to burgle you too, of course!"
And Raffles stood smiling upon me in all. his incomparable radiance and audacity.
"But why me?" I asked. "Why on earth should he burgle me?"
"My dear Bunny, we must leave something to the imagination of the police. But we will assist them to a fact or two in due season. It was the dead of night when Maguire first took us to his house; it was at the Imperial Boxing Club we met him; and you meet queer fish at the Imperial Boxing Club. You may remember that he telephoned to his man to prepare supper for us, and that you and he discussed telephones and treasure as we marched through the midnight streets. He was certainly bucking about his trophies, and for the sake of the argument you will be good enough to admit that you probably bucked about yours. What happens? You are overheard; you are followed; you are worked into the same scheme, and robbed on the same night."
"And you really think this will meet the case?" "I am quite certain of it, Bunny, so far as it rests wit us to meet the case at all."
"Then give me another cigarette, my dear fellow, and let me push on to Scotland Yard."
Raffles held up both hands in admiring horror. "Scotland Yard!"
"To give a false description of what you took from that drawer in my wardrobe."
"A false description! Bunny, you have no more to learn from me. Time