The Black Mask E. W. Hornung (mobile ebook reader .TXT) š
- Author: E. W. Hornung
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āNo, Iām half-poisoned by Theobaldās prescriptions and putrid cigarettes, and as weak as a cat from lying in bed.ā
āThen why on earth lie in bed, Raffles?ā
āBecause itās better than lying in gaol, as I am afraid you know, my poor dear fellow. I tell you I am dead; and my one terror is of coming to life again by accident. Canāt you see? I simply dare not show my nose out of doorsā āby day. You have no idea of the number of perfectly innocent things a dead man darenāt do. I canāt even smoke Sullivans, because no one man was ever so partial to them as I was in my lifetime, and you never know when you may start a clue.ā
āWhat brought you to these mansions?ā
āI fancied a flat, and a man recommended these on the boat; such a good chap, Bunny; he was my reference when it came to signing the lease. You see I landed on a stretcherā āmost pathetic caseā āold Australian without a friend in old countryā āordered Engadine as last chanceā āno goā ānot an earthlyā āsentimental wish to die in Londonā āthatās the history of Mr. Maturin. If it doesnāt hit you hard, Bunny, youāre the first. But it hit friend Theobald hardest of all. Iām an income to him. I believe heās going to marry on me.ā
āDoes he guess thereās nothing wrong?ā
āKnows, bless you! But he doesnāt know I know he knows, and there isnāt a disease in the dictionary that he hasnāt treated me for since heās had me in hand. To do him justice, I believe he thinks me a hypochondriac of the first water; but that young man will go far if he keeps on the wicket. He has spent half his nights up here, at guineas apiece.ā
āGuineas must be plentiful, old chap!ā
āThey have been, Bunny. I canāt say more. But I donāt see why they shouldnāt be again.ā
I was not going to inquire where the guineas came from. As if I cared! But I did ask old Raffles how in the world he had got upon my tracks; and thereby drew the sort of smile with which old gentlemen rub their hands, and old ladies nod their noses. Raffles merely produced a perfect oval of blue smoke before replying.
āI was waiting for you to ask that, Bunny; itās a long time since I did anything upon which I plume myself more. Of course, in the first place, I spotted you at once by these prison articles; they were not signed, but the fist was the fist of my sitting rabbit!ā
āBut who gave you my address?ā
āI wheedled it out of your excellent editor; called on him at dead of night, when I occasionally go afield like other ghosts, and wept it out of him in five minutes. I was your only relative; your name was not your own name; if he insisted I would give him mine. He didnāt insist, Bunny, and I danced down his stairs with your address in my pocket.ā
āLast night?ā
āNo, last week.ā
āAnd so the advertisement was yours, as well as the telegram!ā
I had, of course, forgotten both in the high excitement of the hour, or I should scarcely have announced my belated discovery with such an air. As it was I made Raffles look at me as I had known him look before, and the droop of his eyelids began to sting.
āWhy all this subtlety?ā I petulantly exclaimed. āWhy couldnāt you come straight away to me in a cab?ā
He did not inform me that I was hopeless as ever. He did not address me as his good rabbit.
He was silent for a time, and then spoke in a tone which made me ashamed of mine.
āYou see, there are two or three of me now, Bunny: oneās at the bottom of the Mediterranean, and oneās an old Australian desirous of dying in the old country, but in no immediate danger of dying anywhere. The old Australian doesnāt know a soul in town; heās got to be consistent, or heās done. This sitter Theobald is his only friend, and has seen rather too much of him; ordinary dust wonāt do for his eyes. Begin to see? To pick you out of a crowd, that was the game; to let old Theobald help to pick you, better still! To start with, he was dead against my having anybody at all; wanted me all to himself, naturally; but anything rather than kill the goose! So he is to have a fiver a week while he keeps me alive, and heās going to be married next month. Thatās a pity in some ways, but a good thing in others; he will want more money than he foresees, and he may always be of use to us at a pinch. Meanwhile he eats out of my hand.ā
I complimented Raffles on the mere composition of his telegram, with half the characteristics of my distinguished kinsman squeezed into a dozen odd words; and let him know how the old ruffian had really treated me. Raffles was not surprised; we had dined together at my relativeās in the old days, and filed for reference a professional valuation of his household gods. I now learnt that the telegram had been posted, with the hour marked for its despatch, at the pillar nearest Vere Street, on the night before the advertisement was due to appear in the Daily Mail. This also had been carefully prearranged; and Rafflesās only fear had been lest it might be held over despite his explicit instructions, and so drive me to the doctor for an explanation of his telegram. But the adverse chances had been weeded out and weeded out to the irreducible minimum of risk.
His greatest risk, according to Raffles, lay nearest home: bedridden invalid that he was supposed to be, his nightly terror was of running into Theobaldās arms in the immediate neighborhood of the flat. But Raffles had characteristic methods of minimizing even that danger, of which something anon; meanwhile
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