E. W. Hornung_A J Raffles 03 Read Online Free PDF Page A

the first place, I
am going to have these rooms freshened up with a potful of paint,
the electric light, and the telephone you've been at me about so
long."
    "Good!" I cried. "Then we shall be able to talk to each other day
and night!"
    "And get overheard and run in for our pains? I shall wait till you
are run in, I think," said Raffles cruelly. "But the rest's a
necessity: not that I love new paint or am pining for electric light,
but for reasons which I will just breathe in your private ear, Bunny.
You must not try to take them too seriously; but the fact is, there
is just the least bit of a twitter against me in this rookery of an
Albany. It must have been started by that tame old bird, Policeman
Mackenzie; it isn't very bad as yet, but it needn't be that to reach
my ears. Well, it was open to me either to clear out altogether,
and so confirm whatever happened to be in the air, or to go off for
a time, under some arrangement which would give the authorities
ample excuse for overhauling every inch of my rooms. Which would
you have done, Bunny?"
    "Cleared out, while I could!" said I devoutly.
    "So I should have thought," rejoined Raffles. "Yet you see the merit
of my plan. I shall leave every mortal thing unlocked."
    "Except that," said I, kicking the huge oak case with the iron
bands and clamps, and the baize lining fast disappearing under
heavy packages bearing the shapes of urns and candelabra.
    "That," replied Raffles, "is neither to go with me nor to remain
here."
    "Then what do you propose to do with it?"
    "You have your banking account, and your banker," he went on. This
was perfectly true, though it was Raffles alone who had kept the one
open, and enabled me to propitiate the other in moments of emergency.
    "Well?"
    "Well, pay in this bundle of notes this afternoon, and say you have
had a great week at Liverpool and Lincoln; then ask them if they
can do with your silver while you run over to Paris for a merry
Easter. I should tell them it's rather heavy - a lot of old family
stuff that you've a good mind to leave with them till you marry and
settle down."
    I winced at this, but consented to the rest after a moment's
consideration. After all, and for more reasons that I need enumerate,
it was a plausible tale enough. And Raffles had no banker; it was
quite impossible for him to explain, across any single counter, the
large sums of hard cash which did sometimes fall into his hands; and
it might well be that he had nursed my small account in view of the
very quandary which had now arisen. On all grounds, it was impossible
for me to refuse him, and I am still glad to remember that my assent
was given, on the whole, ungrudgingly.
    "But when will the chest be ready for me I merely asked, as I stuffed
the notes into my cigarette case. "And how are we to get it out of
this, in banking hours, without attracting any amount of attention at
this end?"
    Raffles gave me an approving nod.
    "I'm glad to see you spot the crux so quickly, Bunny. I have
thought of your taking it round to your place first, under cloud
of night; but we are bound to be seen even so, and on the whole it
would look far less suspicious in broad daylight. It will take
you some twelve or fifteen minutes to drive to your bank in a
growler, so if you are here with one at a quarter to ten to-morrow
morning, that will exactly meet the case. But you must have a
hansom this minute if you mean to prepare the way with those notes
this afternoon!"
    It was only too like the Raffles of those days to dismiss a subject
and myself in the same breath, with a sudden nod, and a brief grasp
of the hand he was already holding out for mine. I had a great mind
to take another of his cigarettes instead, for there were one or
two points on which he had carefully omitted to enlighten me. Thus,
I had still to learn the bare direction of his journey; and it was
all that I could do to drag it from him as I stood buttoning my coat
and gloves.
    "Scotland," he vouchsafed at last.
    "At