Free E. W. Hornung_A J Raffles 01 by The Amateur Cracksman Page A

and
staggering in a silent tussle with some powerful adversary.
    "Hold this man!" he cried, as I appeared. "Hold the rascal!"
    But I stood like a fool until the pair of them backed into me,
when, with a deep breath I flung myself on the fellow, whose face
I had seen at last. He was one of the footmen who waited at
table; and no sooner had I pinned him than the detective loosed
his hold.
    "Hang on to him," he cried. "There's more of 'em below."
    And he went leaping down the stairs, as other doors opened and
Lord Amersteth and his son appeared simultaneously in their
pyjamas. At that my man ceased struggling; but I was still
holding him when Crowley turned up the gas.
    "What the devil's all this?" asked Lord Amersteth, blinking.
"Who was that ran downstairs?"
    "Mac—Clephane!" said I hastily.
    "Aha!" said he, turning to the footman. "So you're the
scoundrel, are you? Well done! Well done! Where was he
caught?"
    I had no idea.
    "Here's Lady Melrose's door open," said Crowley. "Lady Melrose!
Lady Melrose!"
    "You forget she's deaf," said Lord Amersteth. "Ah! that'll be her
maid."
    An inner door had opened; next instant there was a little shriek,
and a white figure gesticulated on the threshold.
    "Ou donc est l'ecrin de Madame la Marquise? La fenetre est
ouverte. Il a disparu!"
    "Window open and jewel-case gone, by Jove!" exclaimed Lord
Amersteth. "Mais comment est Madame la Marquise? Est elle
bien?"
    "Oui, milor. Elle dort."
    "Sleeps through it all," said my lord. "She's the only one,
then!"
    "What made Mackenzie—Clephane—bolt?" young Crowley asked me.
    "Said there were more of them below."
    "Why the devil couldn't you tell us so before?" he cried, and
went leaping downstairs in his turn.
    He was followed by nearly all the cricketers, who now burst upon
the scene in a body, only to desert it for the chase. Raffles
was one of them, and I would gladly have been another, had not
the footman chosen this moment to hurl me from him, and to make a
dash in the direction from which they had come. Lord Amersteth
had him in an instant; but the fellow fought desperately, and it
took the two of us to drag him downstairs, amid a terrified
chorus from half-open doors. Eventually we handed him over to
two other footmen who appeared with their nightshirts tucked into
their trousers, and my host was good enough to compliment me as
he led the way outside.
    "I thought I heard a shot," he added. "Didn't you?"
    "I thought I heard three."
    And out we dashed into the darkness.
    I remember how the gravel pricked my feet, how the wet grass
numbed them as we made for the sound of voices on an outlying
lawn. So dark was the night that we were in the cricketers'
midst before we saw the shimmer of their pyjamas; and then Lord
Amersteth almost trod on Mackenzie as he lay prostrate in the
dew.
    "Who's this ?" he cried. "What on earth's happened?"
    "It's Clephane," said a man who knelt over him. "He's got a
bullet in him somewhere."
    "Is he alive?"
    "Barely."
    "Good God! Where's Crowley?"
    "Here I am," called a breathless voice. "It's no good, you
fellows. There's nothing to show which way they've gone. Here's
Raffles; he's chucked it, too." And they ran up panting.
    "Well, we've got one of them, at all events," muttered Lord
Amersteth. "The next thing is to get this poor fellow indoors.
Take his shoulders, somebody. Now his middle. Join hands under
him. All together, now; that's the way. Poor fellow! Poor
fellow! His name isn't Clephane at all. He's a Scotland Yard
detective, down here for these very villains!"
    Raffles was the first to express surprise; but he had also been
the first to raise the wounded man. Nor had any of them a
stronger or more tender hand in the slow procession to the house.
    In a little we had the senseless man stretched on a sofa in the
library. And there, with ice on his wound and brandy in his
throat, his eyes opened and his lips moved.
    Lord Amersteth bent down to catch the words.
    "Yes, yes," said he; "we've got one of them safe