A Thief in the Night | Page 4

close of such a May as we had
never had since, and I was too miserable even to follow the heavy
scoring in the papers. Raffles was the only man who could get a wicket
up at Lord's, and I never once went to see him play. Against Yorkshire,
however, he helped himself to a hundred runs as well; and that brought
Raffles round to me, on his way home to the Albany.
"We must dine and celebrate the rare event," said he. "A century takes
it out of one at my time of life; and you, Bunny, you look quite as much
in need of your end of a worthy bottle. Suppose we make it the Caf‚
Royal, and eight sharp? I'll be there first to fix up the table and the
wine."
And at the Caf‚ Royal I incontinently told him of the trouble I was in. It
was the first he had ever heard of my affair, and I told him all, though
not before our bottle had been succeeded by a pint of the same
exemplary brand. Raffles heard me out with grave attention. His
sympathy was the more grateful for the tactful brevity with which it
was indicated rather than expressed. He only wished that I had told him
of this complication in the beginning; as I had not, he agreed with me
that the only course was a candid and complete renunciation. It was not
as though my divinity had a penny of her own, or I could earn an
honest one. I had explained to Raffles that she was an orphan, who
spent most of her time with an aristocratic aunt in the country, and the
remainder under the repressive roof of a pompous politician in Palace
Gardens. The aunt had, I believed, still a sneaking softness for me, but
her illustrious brother had set his face against me from the first.
"Hector Carruthers!" murmured Raffles, repeating the detested name
with his clear, cold eye on mine. "I suppose you haven't seen much of
him?"
"Not a thing for ages," I replied. "I was at the house two or three days
last year, but they've neither asked me since nor been at home to me

when I've called. The old beast seems a judge of men."
And I laughed bitterly in my glass.
"Nice house?" said Raffles, glancing at himself in his silver
cigarette-case.
"Top shelf," said I. "You know the houses in Palace Gardens, don't
you?"
"Not so well as I should like to know them, Bunny."
"Well, it's about the most palatial of the lot. The old ruffian is as rich as
Croesus. It's a country-place in town."
"What about the window-fastenings?" asked Raffles casually.
I recoiled from the open cigarette-case that he proffered as he spoke.
Our eyes met; and in his there was that starry twinkle of mirth and
mischief, that sunny beam of audacious devilment, which had been my
undoing two months before, which was to undo me as often as he chose
until the chapter's end. Yet for once I withstood its glamour; for once I
turned aside that luminous glance with front of steel. There was no
need for Raffles to voice his plans. I read them all between the strong
lines of his smiling, eager face. And I pushed back my chair in the
equal eagerness of my own resolve.
"Not if I know it!" said I. "A house I've dined in - a house I've seen her
in - a house where she stays by the month together! Don't put it into
words, Raffles, or I'll get up and go."
"You mustn't do that before the coffee and liqueur," said Raffles
laughing. "Have a small Sullivan first: it's the royal road to a cigar. And
now let me observe that your scruples would do you honor if old
Carruthers still lived in the house in question."
"Do you mean to say he doesn't?"
Raffles struck a match, and handed it first to me. "I mean to say, my
dear Bunny, that Palace Gardens knows the very name no more. You
began by telling me you had heard nothing of these people all this year.
That's quite enough to account for our little misunderstanding. I was
thinking of the house, and you were thinking of the people in the
house."
"But who are they, Raffles? Who has taken the house, if old Carruthers
has moved, and how do you know that it is still worth a visit?"
"In answer to your first question - Lord Lochmaben," replied Raffles,
blowing bracelets of smoke toward the ceiling. "You look as though

you had never heard of him; but as the cricket and racing are the only
part of your paper that you condescend to read, you can't be expected