Mr. Justice Raffles | Page 8

morning. But I ought to have the receipts
for the various instalments you have paid, and perhaps that letter saying
it was your last chance."
"Here they all are," said Garland, producing a bulky envelope. "But of
course I'll come with you--"
"Of course you'll do nothing of the kind, Teddy! I won't have your eye
put out for the match by that old ruffian, and I'm not going to let you sit
up all night either. Where are you staying, my man?"
"Nowhere yet. I left my kit at the club. I was going out home if I'd
caught you early enough."
"Stout fellow! You stay here."
"My dear old man, I couldn't think of it," said Teddy gratefully.
"My dear young man, I don't care whether you think of it or not. Here
you stay, and moreover you turn in at once. I can fix you up with all
you want, and Barraclough shall bring your kit round before you're
awake."
"But you haven't got a bed, Raffles?"
"You shall have mine. I hardly ever go to bed--do I, Bunny?"
"I've seldom seen you there," said I.
"But you were travelling all last night?"
"And straight through till this evening, and I sleep all the time in a
train," said Raffles. "I hardly opened an eye all day; if I turned in
to-night I shouldn't get a wink."
"Well, I shan't either," said the other hopelessly. "I've forgotten how to
sleep!"

"Wait till I learn you!" said Raffles, and went into the inner room and
lit it up.
"I'm terribly sorry about it all," whispered young Garland, turning to
me as though we were old friends now.
"And I'm sorry for you," said I from my heart. "I know what it is."
Garland was still staring when Raffles returned with a tiny bottle from
which he was shaking little round black things into his left palm.
"Clean sheets yawning for you, Teddy," said he. "And now take two of
these, and one more spot of whisky, and you'll be asleep in ten
minutes."
"What are they?"
"Somnol. The latest thing out, and quite the best."
"But won't they give me a frightful head?"
"Not a bit of it; you'll be as right as rain ten minutes after you wake up.
And you needn't leave this before eleven to-morrow morning, because
you don't want a knock at the nets, do you?"
"I ought to have one," said Teddy seriously. But Raffles laughed him to
scorn.
"They're not playing you for runs, my man, and I shouldn't run any
risks with those hands. Remember all the chances they're going to lap
up to-morrow, and all the byes they've not got to let!"
And Raffles had administered his opiate before the patient knew much
more about it; next minute he was shaking hands with me, and the
minute after that Raffles went in to put out his light. He was gone some
little time; and I remember leaning out of the window in order not to
overhear the conversation in the next room. The night was nearly as
fine as ever. The starry ceiling over the Albany Courtyard was only less
beautifully blue than when Raffles and I had come in a couple of hours

ago. The traffic in Piccadilly came as crisply to the ear as on a winter's
night of hard frost. It was a night of wine, and sparkling wine, and the
day at Lord's must surely be a day of nectar. I could not help wondering
whether any man had ever played in the University match with such a
load upon his soul as E.M. Garland was taking to his forced slumbers;
and then whether any heavy-laden soul had ever hit upon two such
brother confessors as Raffles and myself!
CHAPTER III
Council of War
Raffles was humming a snatch of something too choice for me to
recognise when I drew in my head from the glorious night. The
folding-doors were shut, and the grandfather's clock on one side of
them made it almost midnight. Raffles would not stop his tune for me,
but he pointed to the syphon and decanter, and I replenished my glass.
He had a glass beside him also, which was less usual, but he did not sit
down beside his glass; he was far too fidgety for that; even bothering
about a pair of pictures which had changed places under some zealous
hand in his absence, or rather two of Mr. Hollyer's fine renderings of
Watts and Burne-Jones of which I had never seen Raffles take the
slightest notice before. But it seemed that they must hang where he had
hung them, and for once I saw them hanging straight. The books had
also suffered from good intentions; he gave them up with a