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

do. But it is
pleasing to believe that at the time I looked - what I felt - as
though all I valued upon earth were in jeopardy.
    I should have got through the rest of that day happily enough, such
was the load off my mind and hands, but for an extraordinary and
most disconcerting note received late at night from Raffles himself.
He was a man who telegraphed freely, but seldom wrote a letter.
Sometimes, however, he sent a scribbled line by special messenger;
and overnight, evidently in the train, he had scribbled this one to
post in the small hours at Crewe:
    "'Ware Prince of Professors! He was in the offing when I left.
If slightest cause for uneasiness about bank, withdraw at once
and keep in own rooms Like good chap,
    "A. J. R.
    "P. 8. - Other reasons, as you shall hear."
    There was a nice nightcap for a puzzled head! I had made rather an
evening of it, what with increase of funds and decrease of anxiety,
but this cryptic admonition spoiled the remainder of my night. It
had arrived by a late post, and I only wished that I had left it all
night in my letter-box. What exactly did it mean? And what exactly
must I do? These were questions that confronted me with fresh force
in the morning.
    The news of Crawshay did not surprise me. I was quite sure that
Raffles had been given good reason to bear him in mind before his
journey, even if he had not again beheld the ruffian in the flesh.
That ruffian and that journey might be more intimately connected
than I had yet supposed. Raffles never told me all. Yet the solid
fact held good - held better than ever - that I had seen his plunder
safely planted in my bank. Crawshay himself could not follow it
there. I was certain he had not followed my cab: in the acute
self-consciousness induced by that abominable drive, I should have
known it in my bones if he had. I thought of the porter's friend
who had helped me with the chest. No, I remember him as well as
I remembered Crawshay; they were quite different types.
    To remove that vile box from the bank, on top of another cab, with
no stronger pretext and no further instructions, was not to be
thought of for a moment. Yet I did think of it, for hours. I was
always anxious to do my part by Raffles; he had done more than his
by me, not once or twice, to-day or yesterday, but again and again
from the very first. I need not state the obvious reasons I had
for fighting shy of the personal custody of his accursed chest.
Yet he had run worse risks for me, and I wanted him to learn that
he, too, could depend on a devotion not unworthy of his own.
    In my dilemma I did what I have often done when at a loss for light
and leading. I took hardly any lunch, but went to Northumberland
Avenue and had a Turkish bath instead. I know nothing so cleansing
to mind as well as body, nothing better calculated to put the finest
possible edge on such judgment as one may happen to possess. Even
Raffles, without an ounce to lose or a nerve to soothe, used to own
a sensuous appreciation of the peace of mind and person to be gained
in this fashion when all others failed. For me, the fun began before
the boots were off one's feet; the muffled footfalls, the thin sound
of the fountain, even the spent swathed forms upon the couches, and
the whole clean, warm, idle atmosphere, were so much unction to my
simpler soul. The half-hour in the hot-rooms I used to count but a
strenuous step to a divine lassitude of limb and accompanying
exaltation of intellect. And yet - and yet - it was in the hottest
room of all, in a temperature of 270ø Fahrenheit, that the bolt fell
from the Pall Mall Gazette which I had bought outside the bath.
    I was turning over the hot, crisp pages, and positively revelling in
my fiery furnace, when the following headlines and leaded paragraphs
leapt to my eye with the force of a veritable blow:
    BANK ROBBERS IN THE WEST END -
     DARING AND MYSTERIOUS CRIME
    An audacious burglary and dastardly assault have been committed
on the premises of the City and