The Black Mask by E. W. Hornung (read after .TXT) 📕

better. There was not an instant’s demur. Lord Ernest Belville’s rooms were at the top of the building, but we were in them as quickly as lift could carry and pageboy conduct us. And there was no need for the skeleton key after all; the boy opened the outer door with one of his own, and switched on the lights before leaving us.

“Now that’s interesting,” said Raffles, as soon as we were alone; “they can come in and clean when he is out. What if he keeps his swag at the bank? By Jove, that’s an idea for him! I don’t believe he’s getting rid of it; it’s all lying low somewhere, if I’m not mistaken, and he’s not a fool.”

While he spoke he was moving about the sitting-room, which was charmingly furnished in the antique style, and making as many remarks as though he were an auctioneer’s clerk with an inventory to prepare and a day to do it in, instead of a cracksman who might be surprised in his crib at any moment.

“Chippendale of sorts, eh, Bunny? Not genuine, of course; but where can you get genuine Chippendale now, and who knows it when they see it? There’s no merit in mere antiquity. Yet the way people pose on the subject! If a thing’s handsome and useful, and good cabinetmaking, it’s good enough for me.”

“Hadn’t we better explore the whole place?” I suggested nervously. He had not even bolted the outer door. Nor would he when I called his attention to the omission.

“If Lord Ernest finds his rooms locked up he’ll raise Cain,” said Raffles; “we must let him come in and lock up for himself before we corner him. But he won’t come yet; if he did it might be awkward, for they’d tell him down below what I told them. A new staff comes on at midnight. I discovered that the other night.”

“Supposing he does come in before?”

“Well, he can’t have us turned out without first seeing who we are, and he won’t try it on when I’ve had one word with him. Unless my suspicions are unfounded, I mean.”

“Isn’t it about time to test them?”

“My good Bunny, what do you suppose I’ve been doing all this while? He keeps nothing in here. There isn’t a lock to the Chippendale that you couldn’t pick with a penknife, and not a loose board in the floor, for I was treading for one before the boy left us. Chimney’s no use in a place like this where they keep them swept for you. Yes, I’m quite ready to try his bedroom.”

There was but a bathroom besides; no kitchen, no servant’s room; neither are necessary in King John’s Mansions. I thought it as well to put my head inside the bathroom while Raffles went into the bedroom, for I was tormented by the horrible idea that the man might all this time be concealed somewhere in the flat. But the bathroom blazed void in the electric light. I found Raffles hanging out of the starry square which was the bedroom window, for the room was still in darkness. I felt for the switch at the door.

“Put it out again!” said Raffles fiercely. He rose from the sill, drew blind and curtains carefully, then switched on the light himself. It fell upon a face creased more in pity than in anger, and Raffles only shook his head as I hung mine.

“It’s all right, old boy,” said he; “but corridors have windows too, and servants have eyes; and you and I are supposed to be in the other room, not in this. But cheer up, Bunny! This is the room; look at the extra bolt on the door; he’s had that put on, and there’s an iron ladder to his window in case of fire! Way of escape ready against the hour of need; he’s a better man than I thought him, Bunny, after all. But you may bet your bottom dollar that if there’s any boodle in the flat it’s in this room.”

Yet the room was very lightly furnished; and nothing was locked. We looked everywhere, but we looked in vain. The wardrobe was filled with hanging coats and trousers in a press, the drawers with the softest silk and finest linen. It was a camp bedstead that would not have unsettled an anchorite; there was no place for treasure there. I looked up the chimney, but Raffles told me not to be a fool, and asked if I ever listened to what he said. There was no question about his temper now. I never knew him in a worse.

“Then he has got it in the bank,” he growled. “I’ll swear I’m not mistaken in my man!”

I had the tact not to differ with him there. But I could not help suggesting that now was our time to remedy any mistake we might have made. We were on the right side of midnight still.

“Then we stultify ourselves downstairs,” said Raffles. “No, I’ll be shot if I do! He may come in with the Kirkleatham diamonds! You do what you like, Bunny, but I don’t budge.”

“I certainly shan’t leave you,” I retorted, “to be knocked into the middle of next week by a better man than yourself.”

I had borrowed his own tone, and he did not like it. They never do. I thought for a moment that Raffles was going to strike me⁠—for the first and last time in his life. He could if he liked. My blood was up. I was ready to send him to the devil. And I emphasized my offence by nodding and shrugging toward a pair of very large Indian clubs that stood in the fender, on either side of the chimney up which I had presumed to glance.

In an instant Raffles had seized the clubs, and was whirling them about his gray head in a mixture of childish pique and puerile bravado which I should have thought him altogether above.

And suddenly as I watched him