Mr Justice Raffles by E. W. Hornung

Author:E. W. Hornung [Hornung, E. W.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General, Fiction, Literary Collections, Mystery & Detective
ISBN: 9781421845234
Publisher: 1st World Library
Published: 2007-07-15T06:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XII.

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S WORK

THE dense and total darkness was broken in one place, and one only, by a plateful of light proceeding from a tiny bulb of incandescence in its centre. This blinding atom of white heat lit up a hand hardly moving, a pen continually poised, over a disc of snowy paper; and on the other side, something that lay handy on the table, reflecting the light in its plated parts. It was Raffles at his latest deviltry. He had not heard me, and he could not see; but for that matter he never looked up from his task. Sometimes his face bent over it, and I could watch its absolute concentration. The brow was furrowed, and the mouth pursed, yet there was a hint of the same quiet and wary smile with which Raffles would bowl an over or drill holes in a door.

I stood for some moments fascinated, entranced, before creeping in to warn him of my presence in a whisper. But this time he heard my step, snatched up electric torch and glittering revolver, and covered me with the one in the other’s light.

“A.J.!” I gasped.

“Bunny!” he exclaimed, in equal amazement and displeasure. “What the devil do you mean by this?”

“You’re in danger,” I whispered. “I came to warn you!”

“Danger? I’m never out of it. But how did you know where to find me, and how on God’s earth did you get here?”

“I’ll tell you some other time. You know those two brutes you dodged the other day?”

“I ought to.”

“They’re waiting below for you at this very moment.”

Raffles peered through the handful of white light between our faces.

“Let them wait!” said he, and replaced the torch upon the table and put down his revolver for his pen.

“They’re detectives!” I urged.

“Are they, Bunny?”

“What else could they be?”

“What indeed!” murmured Raffles, as he fell to work again with bent head and deliberate pen.

“You gave them the slip on Friday, but they must have known your game and lain in wait for you here, one or other of them, ever since. It’s my belief Dan Levy put them up to it, and the yarn about the letter was just to tempt you into this trap and get you caught in the act. He didn’t want a copy one bit; for God’s sake don’t stop to finish it now!”

“I don’t agree with you,” said Raffles, without looking up, “and I don’t do things by halves. Your plucky detectives must have patience, Bunny, and so must you.” He held his watch to the bulb. “In about twenty minutes there’ll be real danger, but we couldn’t be safer in our beds for the next ten. So perhaps you’ll let me finish without further interruption, or else get out by yourself as you came in.”

I turned away from Raffles and his light, and blundered back to the landing. The blood boiled in my veins. Here had I fought and groped my way to his side, through difficulties it might have taxed even

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