Raffles: The Amateur Cracksman | Page 6

rooms. His match went out as we crossed the threshold, and he struck
another without the slightest noise. Then he stood with his back to me,
fumbling with something that I could not see. But, when he threw the
second match away, there was some other light in its stead, and a slight
smell of oil. I stepped forward to look over his shoulder, but before I
could do so he had turned and flashed a tiny lantern in my face.
"What's this?" I gasped. "What rotten trick are you going to play?"
"It's played," he answered, with his quiet laugh.
"On me?"
"I am afraid so, Bunny."
"Is there no one in the house, then?"
"No one but ourselves."
"So it was mere chaff about your friend in Bond Street, who could let
us have that money?"
"Not altogether. It's quite true that Danby is a friend of mine."
"Danby?"
"The jeweller underneath."
"What do you mean?" I whispered, trembling like a leaf as his meaning
dawned upon me. "Are we to get the money from the jeweller?"
"Well, not exactly."

"What, then?"
"The equivalent--from his shop."
There was no need for another question. I understood everything but
my own density. He had given me a dozen hints, and I had taken none.
And there I stood staring at him, in that empty room; and there he stood
with his dark lantern, laughing at me.
"A burglar!" I gasped. "You--you!"
"I told you I lived by my wits."
"Why couldn't you tell me what you were going to do? Why couldn't
you trust me? Why must you lie?" I demanded, piqued to the quick for
all my horror.
"I wanted to tell you," said he. "I was on the point of telling you more
than once. You may remember how I sounded you about crime, though
you have probably forgotten what you said yourself. I didn't think you
meant it at the time, but I thought I'd put you to the test. Now I see you
didn't, and I don't blame you. I only am to blame. Get out of it, my dear
boy, as quick as you can; leave it to me. You won't give me away,
whatever else you do!"
Oh, his cleverness! His fiendish cleverness! Had he fallen back on
threats, coercion, sneers, all might have been different even yet. But he
set me free to leave him in the lurch. He would not blame me. He did
not even bind me to secrecy; he trusted me. He knew my weakness and
my strength, and was playing on both with his master's touch.
"Not so fast," said I. "Did I put this into your head, or were you going
to do it in any case?"
"Not in any case," said Raffles. "It's true I've had the key for days, but
when I won to-night I thought of chucking it; for, as a matter of fact,
it's not a one-man job."

"That settles it. I'm your man."
"You mean it?"
"Yes--for to-night."
"Good old Bunny," he murmured, holding the lantern for one moment
to my face; the next he was explaining his plans, and I was nodding, as
though we had been fellow-cracksmen all our days.
"I know the shop," he whispered, "because I've got a few things there. I
know this upper part too; it's been to let for a month, and I got an order
to view, and took a cast of the key before using it. The one thing I don't
know is how to make a connection between the two; at present there's
none. We may make it up here, though I rather fancy the basement
myself. If you wait a minute I'll tell you."
He set his lantern on the floor, crept to a back window, and opened it
with scarcely a sound: only to return, shaking his head, after shutting
the window with the same care.
"That was our one chance," said he; "a back window above a back
window; but it's too dark to see anything, and we daren't show an
outside light. Come down after me to the basement; and remember,
though there's not a soul on the premises, you can't make too little noise.
There--there--listen to that!"
It was the measured tread that we had heard before on the flagstones
outside. Raffles darkened his lantern, and again we stood motionless till
it had passed.
"Either a policeman," he muttered, "or a watchman that all these
jewellers run between them. The watchman's the man for us to watch;
he's simply paid to spot this kind of thing."
We crept very gingerly down the stairs, which creaked a bit in spite of
us, and we picked up our shoes in the passage; then down some narrow
stone steps, at the foot of