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

his face changed, softened, lit up, and he swung the clubs gently down upon the bed.

“They’re not heavy enough for their size,” said he rapidly; “and I’ll take my oath they’re not the same weight!”

He shook one club after the other, with both hands, close to his ear; then he examined their butt-ends under the electric light. I saw what he suspected now, and caught the contagion of his suppressed excitement. Neither of us spoke. But Raffles had taken out the portable toolbox that he called a knife, and always carried, and as he opened the gimlet he handed me the club he held. Instinctively I tucked the small end under my arm, and presented the other to Raffles.

“Hold him tight,” he whispered, smiling. “He’s not only a better man than I thought him, Bunny; he’s hit upon a better dodge than ever I did, of its kind. Only I should have weighted them evenly⁠—to a hair.”

He had screwed the gimlet into the circular butt, close to the edge, and now we were wrenching in opposite directions. For a moment or more nothing happened. Then all at once something gave, and Raffles swore an oath as soft as any prayer. And for the minute after that his hand went round and round with the gimlet, as though he were grinding a piano-organ, while the end wormed slowly out on its delicate thread of fine hard wood.

The clubs were as hollow as drinking-horns, the pair of them, for we went from one to the other without pausing to undo the padded packets that poured out upon the bed. These were deliciously heavy to the hand, yet thickly swathed in cotton-wool, so that some stuck together, retaining the shape of the cavity, as though they had been run out of a mould. And when we did open them⁠—but let Raffles speak.

He had deputed me to screw in the ends of the clubs, and to replace the latter in the fender where we had found them. When I had done the counterpane was glittering with diamonds where it was not shimmering with pearls.

“If this isn’t that tiara that Lady May was married in,” said Raffles, “and that disappeared out of the room she changed in, while it rained confetti on the steps, I’ll present it to her instead of the one she lost.⁠ ⁠… It was stupid to keep these old gold spoons, valuable as they are; they made the difference in the weight.⁠ ⁠… Here we have probably the Kenworthy diamonds.⁠ ⁠… I don’t know the history of these pearls.⁠ ⁠… This looks like one family of rings⁠—left on the basin-stand, perhaps⁠—alas, poor lady! And that’s the lot.”

Our eyes met across the bed.

“What’s it all worth?” I asked, hoarsely.

“Impossible to say. But more than all we ever took in all our lives. That I’ll swear to.”

“More than all⁠—”

My tongue swelled with the thought.

“But it’ll take some turning into cash, old chap!”

“And⁠—must it be a partnership?” I asked, finding a lugubrious voice at length.

“Partnership be damned!” cried Raffles, heartily. “Let’s get out quicker than we came in.”

We pocketed the things between us, cotton-wool and all, not because we wanted the latter, but to remove all immediate traces of our really meritorious deed.

“The sinner won’t dare to say a word when he does find out,” remarked Raffles of Lord Ernest; “but that’s no reason why he should find out before he must. Everything’s straight in here, I think; no, better leave the window open as it was, and the blind up. Now out with the light. One peep at the other room. That’s all right, too. Out with the passage light, Bunny, while I open⁠—”

His words died away in a whisper. A key was fumbling at the lock outside.

“Out with it⁠—out with it!” whispered Raffles in an agony; and as I obeyed he picked me off my feet and swung me bodily but silently into the bedroom, just as the outer door opened, and a masterful step strode in.

The next five were horrible minutes. We heard the apostle of Rational Drink unlock one of the deep drawers in his antique sideboard, and sounds followed suspiciously like the splash of spirits and the steady stream from a siphon. Never before or since did I experience such a thirst as assailed me at that moment, nor do I believe that many tropical explorers have known its equal. But I had Raffles with me, and his hand was as steady and as cool as the hand of a trained nurse. That I know because he turned up the collar of my overcoat for me, for some reason, and buttoned it at the throat. I afterwards found that he had done the same to his own, but I did not hear him doing it. The one thing I heard in the bedroom was a tiny metallic click, muffled and deadened in his overcoat pocket, and it not only removed my last tremor, but strung me to a higher pitch of excitement than ever. Yet I had then no conception of the game that Raffles was deciding to play, and that I was to play with him in another minute.

It cannot have been longer before Lord Ernest came into his bedroom. Heavens, but my heart had not forgotten how to thump! We were standing near the door, and I could swear he touched me; then his boots creaked, there was a rattle in the fender⁠—and Raffles switched on the light.

Lord Ernest Belville crouched in its glare with one Indian club held by the end, like a footman with a stolen bottle. A good-looking, well-built, iron-gray, iron-jawed man; but a fool and a weakling at that moment, if he had never been either before.

“Lord Ernest Belville,” said Raffles, “it’s no use. This is a loaded revolver, and if you force me I shall use it on you as I would on any other desperate criminal. I am here to arrest you for a series of robberies at the Duke of Dorchester’s, Sir John Kenworthy’s,