Free E. W. Hornung_A J Raffles 03 by A Thief in the Night Page B

me than I
can hope to render him to another human being.
    And I saw a good deal of Raffles just then; it was, in fact, the one
period at which I can remember his coming round to see me more
frequently than I went round to him. Of course he would come at his
own odd hours, often just as one was dressing to go out and dine,
and I can even remember finding him there when I returned, for I had
long since given him a key of the flat. It was the inhospitable
month of February, and I can recall more than one cosy evening when
we discussed anything and everything but our own malpractices;
indeed, there were none to discuss just then. Raffles, on the
contrary, was showing himself with some industry in the most
respectable society, and by his advice I used the club more than
ever.
    "There is nothing like it at this time of year," said he. "In the
summer I have my cricket to provide me with decent employment in
the sight of men. Keep yourself before the public from morning to
night, and they'll never think of you in the still small hours."
    Our behavior, in fine, had so long been irreproachable that I rose
without misgiving on the morning of Lord Thornaby's dinner to the
other Criminologists and guests. My chief anxiety was to arrive
under the aegis of my brilliant friend, and I had begged him to pick
me up on his way; but at five minutes to the appointed hour there
was no sign of Raffles or his cab. We were bidden at a quarter to
eight for eight o'clock, so after all. I had to hurry off alone.
    Fortunately, Thornaby House is almost at the end of my street that
was; and it seemed to me another fortunate circumstance that the
house stood back, as it did and does, in its own August courtyard;
for, as I was about to knock, a hansom came twinkling in behind me,
and I drew back, hoping it was Raffles at the last moment. It was
not, and I knew it in time to melt from the porch, and wait yet
another minute in the shadows, since others were as late as I. And
out jumped these others, chattering in stage whispers as they paid
their cab.
    "Thornaby has a bet about it with Freddy Vereker, who can't come,
I hear. Of course, it won t be lost or won to-night. But the dear
man thinks he's been invited as a cricketer!"
    "I don't believe he's the other thing," said a voice as brusque as
the first was bland. "I believe it's all. bunkum. I wish I didn't,
but I do!"
    "I think you'll find it's more than that," rejoined the other, as
the doors opened and swallowed the pair.
    I flung out limp hands and smote the air. Raffles bidden to what
he had well called this "gruesome board," not as a cricketer but,
clearly, as a suspected criminal! Raffles wrong all. the time, and
I right for once in my original apprehension! And still no Raffles
in sight - no Raffles to warn - no Raffles, and the clocks striking
eight!
    Well may I shirk the psychology of such a moment, for my belief is
that the striking clocks struck out all. power of thought and feeling,
and that I played my poor part the better for that blessed surcease
of intellectual sensation. On the other hand, I was never more
alive to the purely objective impressions of any hour of my existence,
and of them the memory is startling to this day. I hear my mad knock
at the double doors; they fly open in the middle, and it is like some
sumptuous and solemn rite. A long slice of silken-legged lackey is
seen on either hand; a very prelate of a butler bows a benediction
from the sanctuary steps. I breathe more freely when I reach a
book-lined library where a mere handful of men do not overflow the
Persian rug before the fire. One of them is Raffles, who is talking
to a large man with the brow of a demi-god and the eyes and jowl of
a degenerate bulldog. And this is our noble host.
    Lord Thornaby stared at me with inscrutable stolidity as we shook
hands, and at once handed me over to a tall, ungainly man whom he
addressed as Ernest, but whose surname I never learned. Ernest in
turn introduced me, with a shy and clumsy