Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 19, No. 99, February 1952

A Costume Piece by Barry Perowne

Barry Perowne first read E. W. Hornung’s stories about Raffles when he was, at the tender age of eight, an inmate of Gosport Prison. He had been living, in the absence of both his parents who were serving overseas in World War I, with a worthy couple residing in Portsmouth. The husband of the couple was a sparring partner to the British heavyweight champion, Joe Beckett, then in training for his fight with Georges Carpentier. Well, one day young Perowne ran away from home and got as far as Lee-on-the-Solent, where he was picked up by a suspicious bobby and led by the ear to Gosport Gaol. The lad-on-the-lam refused to divulge his name, so he was given bread and butter, a mug of cocoa, and some books to read — Hesketh Prichard’s DON Q and THE CASES OF INSPECTOR WESTMACOTT (which your Editors have never succeeded in tracking down) and RAFFLES. The boy sat up all night devouring RAFFLES, and perhaps, because of the unusually susceptible circumstances, the Hornung book made a lasting impression on his sensibilities. Before the night was out, he determined on a future career as a gentleman-burglar.

The next evening, his pugilist guardian turned up, wearing his familiar checked cap and turtleneck sweater, his ears much eroded, and his Easter Island face embellished with criss-crosses of court-pi aster. But the running-away brought an end to Barry’s living with the fisticuff-man, and he was forced to say farewell to all the pictures of John L. Sullivan, Jess Willard, and Jack Johnson, and sent to his uncle who owned a livery stable in town. Now, near the livery stable was the old house where Conan Doyle had written his first Sherlock Holmes story, and after hearing many anecdotes about the big, hearty doctor, young Barry found himself tom between becoming a gentleman-crook and a gentleman-detective. He spent most of his time concealed in the stable, reading and rereading the adventures of Raffles and Sherlock, finding it harder and harder to make up his mind. Finally, he decided to become a writer, and through writing live both lives — for, vicariously, he could be both a cracksman and a criminologist.

Then later, when he was past twenty and already launched on his writing career, he went to live at an old inn in the New Forest. There he was taken to a fascinating house which he learned from the caretaker to be Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s. That gave him one of the greatest thrills of his life. Many a morning, as he sat writing in the old pub, he used to peer out through the leaded panes under the thatched and dripping eaves, and see a burly, elderly, white-mustached man striding vigorously across the winter heath; and it seemed to Barry Perowne that the world was indeed full of bright wonder and queer chance and deep magic, and that the true wine of life was blue-black ink.

A few years later, in Majorca, he received a cable from a London editor, offering him a strange assignment. The editor had conceived the idea of reviving Raffles in modern form. Immediately, Barry Perowne’s mind flew back to that night in Gosport Gaol, and it seemed to him that many odd convergences — wheels within wheels — had linked his life permanently with that dashing, chivalrous cracksman of old. Arrangements were quickly made with the Executors of the Hornung Estate, and Mr. Perowne began to resurrect Raffles and his worshipful amanuensis and chronicler, Bunny. And as the years went by, Mr. Perowne wrote nearly a million words about Raffles and Bunny, and enjoyed every one of them.

Then, out of the blue sky, the auctorial heir of Hornung received a suggestion from your Editors: Why not, we asked, resume the Raffles stories, not in modern dress as Mr. Perowne had been writing them, but as nearly as possible in the true Hornung period, with that genuine aura of decadence and fin-de-siècle flavor which stills hangs over the original Hornung tales? The reviver of Raffles, despite his now vast intimacy with the character, had misgivings. Could he really do it? — the authentic Raffles, with his flair and flash, with his hedonism and public-school spirit, with his nonchalance and his nerve?

Well, here it is: a reverent and reverie-like pastiche of the one and only Raffles. But the author, Barry Perowne, can’t help wondering: Whatever is he going to say when, in the fullness of the hereafter, he finally meets Mr. Hornung?

In the cockney phrase, it was “Queen’s weather.” From a cloudless blue sky, the sun blazed down on the multi-windowed pile of Buckingham Palace. The royal standard shimmered red and gold in visible heat currents. Her Majesty was in residence, receiving distinguished guests to the midsummer military manuœvres due to begin on the morrow.

From the balcony of my club, near Carlton House Terrace, I looked down on the trees, vividly green, which lined the broad, straight Mall. Holding back a multitude of spectators, twin ranks of the Brigade of Guards were rigid in scarlet coats and towering bearskins, their bayonets torrid points of dazzle.

Fanfares, cannonading, and roars of welcome greeted the appearance of Europe’s kings and princes in a martial setting of square-jawed chiefs-of-staff and debonair aides-de-camp, with sovereigns’ escorts clattering in advance and in the rear.

Polished hooves drummed an intricate tattoo on woodblocks and melting asphalt as I looked down on the successive groups passing in a splendour of brass-glinting helmets and gold-gleaming spurs, of jewel-flashing orders and gemmed sword-hilts.

“Kings’ ransoms,” I told myself enviously, over and over — and I fingered the five miserable coppers in the pockets of my Savile Row trousers and wondered where on earth Raffles was.

Intuition told me that he must be somewhere among the crowd, taking note of the plunder, marking down his quarry. Impossible to believe that he would not seek to improve this shining hour! But in what guise might he be? He had so many. He revelled in what he called “a costume piece.” He was capable of as many impersonations as a music-hall artist.

I searched the crowd below in the Mall for some glimpse of him. The crowd was family England in its Sunday best. Overheated small boys in naval suits and straw sailor hats sucked sticks of “rock”; ladies in bustled dimity and sprigged muslin twirled their sunshades with a refined languour; flushed gentlemen lifted silk hats to mop brows glistening with perspiration and pomade. With Europe currently in a period of tension, one and all were eager to catch a glimpse of the monarch who disquieted a continent.

When, at last, he approached, it was to a scatter of cheers grown meagre and dubious. That he was aware of this diminished delight, and scorned it, I had no doubt as I watched him pass in the midst of his sovereign’s escort. His face was a grey, harsh mask of hauteur; his jet moustache was twisted up to points under his eyes; his spiked helmet flashed in the sun; his withered arm was thrust into the breast of his tunic. A falling hush accompanied his progress up the Mall toward the Palace.

His passing was the climax of the morning, the signal for a flow of movement in the Mall. Eager husbandmen with small barrows hastened out to glean where foreign horses had sown an alien corn to the enrichment of sylvan England. From the crowded balcony of my club, where on this special day ladies were tolerated, a drift started through the French windows to the dining-room for luncheon.

Fingering my wretched coppers, I stayed where I was. To seat myself in the dining-room would be only to invite a whispered excommunication from the old headwaiter. My credit was blown. And it was in vain that I sought to catch — as it were, casually — the eyes of opulent acquaintances.

No genial voice cried, “Are you lunching, Manders? Come and pick a chop with me.”

Most members, today, had resting caressingly on their sleeves the slender, gloved fingers of feminine guests. Those who had not were confirmed curmudgeons, or paupers like myself, or gruel-fed dodderers briefly resurrected from bath-chairs to quaver plaudits at a royal occasion.

I swung my stick moodily between my fingers, gazing down on the flow of saunterers and brilliance of banners along the Mall. Savoury aromas and convivial cork-poppings tantalized me from the dining-room. I was vulgarly ravenous. Prolonged deprivation had given me a figure on which my frockcoat never had sat better, but had brought no corresponding sense of well-being. A crust of bread and a cup of weak coffee full of grounds had been my breakfast. I had been seeking Raffles all morning without success.

I wanted to apologize for the lofty platitudes I had flung at him a few months before, when I had severed our felonious relationship. One of his burglarious exploits had brought us precious close to disaster; and I had mistaken my aftermath of tremors for the stirring of a belated virtue. My pockets full of my share of the loot, I had had the hypocrisy to reproach Raffles for his way of life. And when he only chuckled, I had flung out the Albany, where he had his rooms, vowing that I would earn an honest living by my pen.

I blushed for myself, now. My pen had proved a broken reed. I had been obliged to move from my pleasant flat in Mount Street to a hideous garret near Tattersall’s. On the one or two occasions when I had seen Raffles since our rupture, he had been his usual friendly self. But he had made no suggestion that I rejoin him, and I had lacked the effrontery to propose it myself. Today, however, I was desperate, down to my last five-pence, hungry enough to eat the words I had flung at him. My garret was a litter of bills, sordid rejection slips, and pawn-tickets. There was no one but Raffles to whom I could turn. And I could not find him. I had been to the Albany; he was not there. I had been to Lord’s Cricket Ground; he was not playing. I was convinced he was, or had been, somewhere among the crowd in the Mall, planning some coup; and the thought that I might be with him, lining my pockets, galled me.

I jammed on my silk hat, quit the balcony and the club, and strode again up St. James’s Street to Piccadilly — and the Albany. By now, surely, Raffles must have returned.

The porter shook his head.

“Sorry, Mr. Manders — haven’t seen Mr. Raffles all day.”

What was he doing?

Evening came. Eight o’clock. Nine o’clock. The white globes of gas-lamps shone in the purple dusk after the day’s heat. I had been to all his usual haunts; I still had not found him. I was down to my last penny. I was at my wit’s end. The West End was crowded, en fête for a night of kings. The sidewalks were thronged; hansoms and four-wheelers plied a roaring trade. Actual physical weakness compelled me to turn my footsteps toward my garret overlooking Tattersall’s, scene of many a famous horse auction.

I abominated that garret. It reeked of the stables. My sleep in it, troubled enough, heaven knew, by dreams of Raffles’ silk hat and black mask, his deft hands now busy with jemmy and skeleton key, now clamped by manacles, was made a mockery by the clinking of restless hooves in the stalls below, by sudden kicks and midnight munchings. I loathed the garret for these night alarms, for its meanness and mouse-droppings, and the sense it gave me of my degrading inability to gain a living without working.

Reluctantly, now, I walked past the grey-arched doors of Tattersall’s, turned into the mean street where I had this garret. On the near corner was a baker’s small shop, still open. On the opposite corner was a pub, jammed with redcoats roaring a chorus over their pots, while their admirers, seductive in ostrich-plumed hats, fastidiously sipped port-and-lemon.

I paused, fingering my penny, to peer into the baker’s window. Here a broken gas-mantel, roaring bluely amid festoons of flypaper, lit a display of halfpenny rolls and Sally Lunns. I knew I ought to save my penny to put in my gas-meter. The light would be necessary if I were to write a description, scintillant with fancy and apt allusion, of the day’s royal doings, to hawk round the Fleet Street editors tomorrow. But I was tempted by the baker’s. I was torn between the claims of an appetite and a gas-meter, and as I stood there irresolute, a hand fell on my shoulder.

My heart gave a sick heave and sank to my boots. I awaited the long-dreaded formula, “I have to warn you, Manders, that anything you may say—” But this convention of doom remained unuttered. Instead, a voice said cheerfully:

“All alone, Bunny?”

I spun round. Tall, faultlessly frock-coated, a pearl in his cravat, his face clean-cut, handsome, his eyes grey and keen, A. J. Raffles stood smiling at me. I seized his hand. My spirits soared. The very silk hat he wore thrilled me with a memory of the unforgettable occasion when he had walked blandly out of the British Museum with, balanced on his head under that same topper, the priceless gold cup from the Etrurian Collection.

“This is a warm welcome, Bunny,” he said now, smilingly, as I wrung his hand.

“I’ve been hunting you all day long,” I explained.

“Really?” He gave me a shrewd glance, but asked no question. Instead, he nodded at a dog which he was leading by means of a white handkerchief knotted to its collar. “Recognize him, Bunny?”

The dog, an elderly black spaniel, panted a sedate welcome at me.

“Surely,” I said, “it’s old J. Benjamin’s dog?”

“Just so,” said Raffles — “his dog named Captain. I had a fancy for a chat with old Benjamin, J., this evening, so I looked in at Florian’s for a welsh rarebit and a tankard. They told me Mr. Benjamin had been in earlier, and gone. As I was leaving, I found Captain whining round the door, evidently on the stray. I thought I’d better take him in tow before some demon hansom bowled him over. They didn’t know Mr. Benjamin’s address, at Florian’s, but I thought you might know, so I was coming to your lodgings. You’re a particular friend of his—”

This was quite true. I was. But at his first mention of J. Benjamin, there had flashed into my mind a vivid vignette from the day’s magnificence — an emperor with a grey face set in a rigour of arrogance, a withered arm thrust in his tunic, a jet moustache twisted up to his eyes, and two ramrod generals with spiked helmets for his grim, inseparable shadows.

I looked at Raffles with a sudden, excited conjecture. For between the emperor in the Mall and Florian’s Restaurant round the corner there was a link, and a strange one...

Florian’s Restaurant, opposite Knightsbridge Barracks, was a dim little panelled place with leather-padded settles, a wealth of sporting prints from Pickwick and Jorrocks, and a pewter-laden sideboard. Since my decline and fall from Mount Street, I had been a frequent diner at Florian’s, for its economy and its convenience to my garret.

Another regular at Florian’s was a neat little man with a leathery, snub, wrinkled face, a severe upper lip, grey mutton-chop whiskers, and very blue eyes under bristly hair brushed straight down in a bang across his forehead. He wore always a square, brown, hard hat, a suit of covert cloth cut tight in the leg, and a heavy watch-chain embellished with small silver whips. Intuitively, I had associated him with horses.

He always came into Florian’s in company with a sedate black spaniel — the very spaniel Raffles was now leading.

The old man and the oldish dog were a self-sufficient couple. Watching them in their booth at Florian’s, the spaniel with flopping ears looking up unwinkingly at his master as he divided their joint dinner into two exact parts, to hand down the dog’s share on a special plate, I had felt a liking for them. When the dog had licked the plate clean, groomed his chops with a connoisseur’s tongue, and reflected upon the repast with the detached air of a bewigged judge savouring a redolent tit-bit of evidence, he always arose and gave the old man a prod of thanks by way of grace after eating.

I had not spoken to them until one night when, running into Raffles soon after our dissolution of partnership, I had taken him into Florian’s to demonstrate a solvency in literature by buying him supper. The place chancing to be full, we had shared a booth with the old man with the dog. Perhaps because he was lonely, the old man had been communicative about himself, had introduced himself as Mr. Benjamin.

“Benjamin, J.,” he had said. “I’ve got a younger brother — Benjamin, T.”

The difference in age, it had transpired, between him and his “younger” brother was barely a year. And they were as like as “two peas in a pod.” This happy circumstance had gained them employment in the stables of a sporting Duke, who, proud of his “spanking turnouts,” liked the touch of uniformity provided by the brothers Benjamin on the jehu’s box, in their white whipcord breeches, bottle-green livery coats, white stocks, and grey tophats with yellow cockades.

They had remained in the ducal service until their mutton-chop whiskers had grown as grey as their hats, when a turf miscalculation at Ascot and a baccarat catastrophe at Homburg had obliged the Duke to curtail his stables. Much of his bloodstock, auctioned at Tattersall’s, had been bought en bloc.

“By order,” said Benjamin, J., with a discreet cough as he fingered his watch-chain, “of a reigning monarch.”

The fraternal coachmen had accompanied the horses on their journey abroad to the imperial stables, where the two diminutive, dignified men had made such a favourable impression that it had been intimated to the Duke that it would be convenient if he released them to the imperial service.

Settling down in the magnificence of the foreign capital, the brothers had lodged together near the palace stables; and, as seems to happen by a kind of fate to small men with mutton-chop whiskers and severe upper lips, both had conceived a passion for a bosomy blonde widow — their landlady.

“We fell out,” Mr. Benjamin told us, patting his dog’s head laid in sympathy on his knee, “over Emmy.”

For a year and more they had been at daggers drawn — until suddenly the capricious widow had bundled them both out of the house and married an interloping farrier-sergeant.

“You’d ’ave thought this would ’ave ’ealed the breach,” said, Mr. Benjamin, “but not a bit of it. No, gentlemen. We blamed it on each other, and it rankled.”

Matters had come to a head in a strange way. Late one snowy night, a landau had been ordered to report to a side door of the palace to take a passenger to the station to catch the St. Petersburg express. Benjamin, J., being on duty, had reported with the landau accordingly, and two men — one a civilian in a heavy black overcoat and black felt hat, wearing pince-nez and carrying a dispatch-case, the other a squat, thickset officer in spiked helmet and military cloak, known to Mr. Benjamin as Colonel Saxe — had emerged quickly from the side door of the palace. Colonel Saxe had told the coachman to wait a minute, there was a third person to come; and both men had ducked into the landau.

“The night was still,” said Mr. Benjamin. “Just the flakes comin’ down thick, an’ sizzlin’ on the ’ot brass of the coach-lamps, an’ the ’osses givin’ a thump an’ jingle now an’ then. The gentlemen seemed excited an’ pleased with theirselves. They was talkin’ away inside the landau while we waited. I’d been takin’ lessons in the language from Emmy for a year, nigh on, to inwaygle myself. I could ’ear every word the gentlemen said, an’ I could understand about ’alf of it.”

What he had heard and understood had made Mr. Benjamin’s stock feel tight about his throat, and his heart thump sultry, as he sat there on the box, a rug over his knees, the flakes whirling grey in the wan shine of the coach-lamps.

“You see, sirs,” said Mr. Benjamin, “I’m English born — native of Seven-oaks — an’ what I ’eard didn’t bode no good to them at ’ome, an’ I felt it ought to be knowed of in London.”

So when the third person had emerged from the palace and ducked into the landau, and Mr. Benjamin had driven through the wide, deserted, snowy streets to the station, then back again — the Russian gentleman with pince-nez having been seen off on the St. Petersburg express — to set down the other two at the palace, Mr. Benjamin had gone on to the stables, put up his horses, and walked off through the night and the snow to the British Embassy.

“They listens to my story,” said Mr. Benjamin, “then they ses, ‘You’re goin’ to London, Mr. Benjamin, an’ you’re goin’ quick an’ secret.’ So I ses, ‘What about Benjamin, T.?’ There was no love lost between us, sirs, not since Emmy. Still, I didn’t ’ate ’im, not the way ’e ’ated me. An’ when it got out where the leak come from, I didn’t relish the thought of their takin’ it out on ’im — bein’ my brother, all said and done. The Embassy gent ses, ‘Don’t worry about ’im,’ he ses. ‘We’ll give ’im the tip an’ do as much for ’im as we’re doin’ for you. ’E won’t be to London far be’ind you.’ ”

“They have ways and means,” Raffles had murmured.

“Yessir,” said Mr. Benjamin. “All the same, I bin back two years now, come Hallowe’en, an’ ain’t never ’eard a word from ’im from that day to this!”

“What happened?” Raffles had said, frowning.

“All I know,” said Mr. Benjamin, “when I got back an’ told my story to various official gentlemen, they was uncommon put out by it, but they ses, ‘You done right an’ proper, Mr. Benjamin, an’ we’ll block that little manoeuvre of ’Is Imperial Majesty ’ere an’ now,’ they ses. An’ I reckon they done it, they was that vexed. What’s more, they must’ve mentioned your ’umble servant to the Queen ’erself, for the next I know — God bless ’er — I’m awarded a pension an’ a lifelong tenancy of one of the Queen’s Grace and Favour ’ouses, in ’Er Majesty’s personal gift.”

“And you’ve never heard from your brother at all?” Raffles had said.

“No, sir. I was told the Embassy done like they promised, an’ warned him an’ offered to get ’im ’ome. But no,” said Mr. Benjamin, “ ’e refused. ’E said ’e wouldn’t stoop to soil ’is ’ands with any doings of mine. ’E was like that, sir — after Emmy. Fair ’ated me, ’e did. Anything I done, that was wrong — an’ ’e ’ad to do the opposite. ‘Let ’im go,’ he ses, ‘I’m stayin’ where I am.’ An’ ’e stayed. But I’ve often wondered whatever become of ’im,” Mr. Benjamin had said, shaking his head, his blue eyes guileless under his bang. “ ’Is Imperial Majesty was never one to take an injury without somebody payin’ for it.”

I thought of that grey, rigid face of hauteur I had seen today in the Mall — and I looked searchingly, now, at Raffles, in the dim light from the baker’s window.

“Yes,” I said, “Mr. Benjamin is a particular friend of mine. I’ve often talked to him at Florian’s, since that night he told us about himself.”

“Did he ever mention Colonel Saxe again?” said Raffles.

“Colonel Saxe?” I said. “No. Why?”

“I just wondered,” Raffles said. “You know Mr. Benjamin’s address?”

“Yes. It’s a stone’s throw from here,” I said. “But, Raffles, what made you come looking for him tonight, particularly?”

“Just a fancy,” he said. “I’ve been in the Mall today—”

I snapped my fingers. “I knew it!”

“Some pretty baubles, Bunny,” he said, chuckling.

“And your fingers itched,” I said, “particularly when His Imperial Majesty rode past, scorning everybody and everything! That’s what made you think of Mr. Benjamin?”

“I had a fancy,” said Raffles, “to hear him ramble and reminisce. These ex-royal servants know a lot about the habits of the exalted.”

I drew in my breath. “Raffles,” I whispered, “whatever you’re planning, I’m with you!”

He threw an arm delightedly about my shoulders. “Had enough of the sheepfold, Bunny? Good man! Welcome home to the wolf lair! Not,” he added, “that I’m planning anything. Just sniffing the air, eh? These purple midsummer nights, Bunny, with a hint of thunder in them — they make one tingle. A night of kings and diamonds!”

A thrill fled up my spine. “Let’s take the dog home,” I said. “The old man’s probably missed him. He’ll be so relieved, he’ll certainly ask us in. You can talk to him. Come on!”

We passed up a dark alley which brought us out opposite Knightsbridge Barracks, where in rooms yellow-lit behind rows of barred windows redcoats moved with glint of steel and gleam of brass, preparing to mount guard over the crowned heads of Europe. Nearby, on the side of the street on which we stood, was the dim little entrance of Florian’s. Further down, to the right and on the opposite side, a bracket-lamp burned on the arch above the entrance to a courtyard.

“That’s Park Yard,” I told Raffles. “Benjamin, J., lives in Number Four.”

Crossing the street, we passed under the arch with the bracket-lamp into a small, cobbled courtyard enclosed by six narrow little three-storey houses, attached and identical.

“These royalists are out seeing the sights,” said Raffles. “Only one window has a light.”

The light, in one of the two houses across the end, glimmered on a yellow front door with an iron knocker and the number 4.

“That’s Mr. Benjamin’s,” I said, in relief, and I mounted the steps with Raffles behind me leading the dog.

I beat a tattoo with the knocker; the reverberations rang hollow through the dark courtyard. From the far side of the house, which backed on Hyde Park, came a jingling and clip-clopping of carriages. The dog whined, and Raffles, a step below me, stooped to pat him. The lighted window was close to my elbow; flowers in the window-box made a delicate, dark frescoe against the primrose glow through the drawn curtains. I heard no sound within the house.

“Try him again,” Raffles said softly.

But as I raised my hand to the knocker, I heard the bolt shot and the chain rattle. The door opened. Mr. Benjamin’s short, erect figure, in shirt-sleeves, his watch-chain draped across his checked waistcoat, appeared against the dim light within. He peered at us under his bang, his jaws moving on a mouthful.

“Good evening, Mr. Benjamin,” I said cordially. “I’m afraid we’ve taken you away from your supper, but—”

Suddenly Raffles’ hand was on my arm, gripping hard, checking me.

“We were passing, Mr. Benjamin,” he said, “and thought you might be lonely and would like to come and see the sights with us. A big night in the West End! But perhaps,” he added doubtfully, “it’s a bit late for you — past your bedtime?”

“Sirs,” said Mr. Benjamin, making valiant efforts to gulp his mouthful, “much appreciate. Unexpected — take it kindly. A bit late, per’aps — as you say—”

“Never mind,” said Raffles cheerily. “Some other time. Just a passing thought. Good night, Mr. Benjamin.”

“Good night to ’ee, gentlemen.” Mr. Benjamin knuckled his bang. “An’ thank’ee — honoured, I’m sure—”

Raffles’ iron grip on my arm drew me down the steps. I heard the door closed and bolted behind us. I was totally bewildered by the transaction.

“But the dog, Raffles,” I protested. “What—”

“Just so,” said Raffles, “the dog. Didn’t you notice?”

“Notice what?”

“That the dog didn’t know his master,” said Raffles, “and the master didn’t know his dog!” I would have stopped dead, but his arm, now linked in mine, hurried me on out under the arch. “And look at this,” he said. “I saw it lying on the steps when I stooped down to pat the dog.”

His arm still linked in mine, as we crossed the street toward Florian’s, he opened his hand. I saw on the palm a section of silver watch-chain embellished by miniature coach-whips.

“But Mr. Benjamin’s chain wasn’t broken,” I said blankly. “He was wearing it. I saw it. He always wears it. He told me the Duke gave them both a half-hunter and chain when—” I stopped suddenly.

“Exactly,” said Raffles, with a kind of icy vivacity. “The old fox! Coming to the door with his mouthful, to disguise any slight possible discrepancy of intonation — oh, pretty!”

I was thunderstruck. “You mean — that wasn’t our Mr. Benjamin?”

“It was Mr. Benjamin, all right,” said Raffles, “Mr. Benjamin, T.! Brother Jehu!” His tone was suddenly grim. “I’m afraid our Mr. Benjamin is now in alien hands — at the disposal of a monarch who never forgives an injury!”

He pushed open the door of Florian’s.

At once, there was wafted to my nostrils the aroma of Florian’s pies, those succulent concoctions of hare, beefsteak, kidneys, and mushrooms, swimming in a rich burgundy sauce and topped with a crisp, golden crust. My knees wavered. I knew that, before I could bring my mind to bear on the situation which confronted us, I must dine; and I said as much.

Raffles looked at me with concern. “My dear old chap, of course you must dine! I had no idea — Here, let’s take this booth. Richmond!” He beckoned the old waiter, who, a napkin over his arm, hobbled up with such alacrity that his stiff dickey burst from his waistcoat. “The menu, Richmond, and the wine list.”

“Yes, sir,” said Richmond. “Still got Mr. Benjamin’s dog, I see, sir.”

“Yes, we’re looking after him,” said Raffles. “Bring him a bone or something, Richmond. He’s a patient old dog.”

“That he is,” said Richmond, one side of his collar detonating from his stud as he stooped wheezingly to pat the dog. “I like to see them together — Mr. Benjamin and Captain. It does your ’eart good.”

I met Raffles’ grey, keen eyes across the table.

He took out his cigarette-case, selected a Sullivan. While I ate, he leaned back in the settle, sending adrift at the gas-globe on the panelled wall those leisurely smoke-rings which always, with him, were the overt evidence of meditation.

Breaking a silence, he said, “You know, Bunny, I think I’ve always half expected something like this might happen — ever since Benjamin, J., told us his story, and mentioned Colonel Saxe.”

His dark, fine head leaning back against leather, his silk hat gleaming on its hook above him, he narrowed his eyes at the drifting smoke-rings.

“As you know,” he said, “I’ve always made it my business to keep informed as to who’s who at the various Embassies. About eighteen months ago, one Colonel Saxe appeared in London, as an officer on the staff of the military attache at the Embassy of His Imperial Majesty. In actual fact, Colonel Saxe’s real function — as it is the function of some official or other in all Embassies — is clandestine intelligence. In short, he’s in charge of the dirty work. When I heard Mr. Benjamin mention him as having been working at the Palace, at the fountain-head, I wondered whether the Colonel’s banishment to an Embassy might not be due to the leak through Mr. Benjamin. One of His Imperial Majesty’s moves on the European chessboard was spoiled by that leak, and he’d want someone’s head on a charger for it. I fancy the Colonel may have paid the price — and the Colonel is no man to forgive an injury, either!”

He relapsed into thought. Richmond brought the ripe, napkin-wrapped Stilton. He set it down with a slight snapping sound as he shed a rear trouser-button. Raffles crushed out his Sullivan, called for ink and paper. He dipped a pen in the ink-bottle, began to write.

His pen scratched swiftly in the quiet. It was eleven o’clock by the ticking wall-clock, too early for the late-supper trade, and Florian’s was almost empty. Monsieur Florian was clinking sovereigns in the cash-cage; imperfectly concealed by the frosted-glass screen before the service hatch, Richmond, patiently holding up his coat-tails, was having his button sewn on by Madame Florian. Captain rasped at his bone. Raffles folded his letter, tucked it into an envelope, glanced at me as he flicked the gummed edge along his tongue-tip.

“Feeling better, Bunny?”

“Ready for anything.”

He nodded, started on a second letter. He sealed this one, addressed both envelopes, untied Captain from the leg of the settle. He walked up to the cash-cage, gave the envelopes to Monsieur Florian, together with some earnest instructions. Florian nodded his shock of grizzled hair.

“You there, Reechmon’!”

“Sir?” said Richmond, with a start that caused his bowtie to come undone and dangle.

Raffles handed over Captain to him, and the old dog trotted off obediently with Richmond to the kitchen. Raffles came back to take his hat from the hook.

“Where are we going?” I said.

“To the Imperial Embassy,” said Raffles. And in the hansom, bowling up toward Hyde Park Corner, he explained, “You can see what happened, Bunny. When it was realized that Benjamin, J., was responsible for the leak, Colonel Saxe would have had Benjamin, T., up on the carpet. Benjamin, T., would have denied any hand in the business, and he’d have revealed his hatred for his brother. The Colonel’s a clever man. He’d have docketed that hatred, and Benjamin, T.’s, physical likeness to his brother, for reference. The Colonel would have had Benjamin, T., put aside to simmer till he could see how best to make use of him.”

“And then?” I said.

“The Colonel is banished to an Embassy job,” Raffles said. “Meantime, he hears how well Benjamin, J. — our Mr. Benjamin — has come off. A pension, a lifelong tenancy under the Queen’s Grace and Favour. How His Imperial Majesty and the Colonel must have gritted their teeth over that! And then, Bunny, this imperial visit comes up, and the Colonel sees his chance. He arranges for Benjamin, T., to be brought over as a groom with the horses of the imperial suite. Then he puts his scheme to Benjamin, T. — that he take his brother’s place, draw the Queen’s pension, live rent-free for the rest of his life under the Queen’s Grace and Favour, while his brother is shipped back in his place to face whatever punishment His Imperial Majesty may order privily meted out. Probably life imprisonment. The poetry of it, Bunny! Benjamin, T., spending the rest of his life as the Queen’s pensioner, and Benjamin, J., the rest of his incarcerated secretly in His Imperial Majesty’s dungeon! And no one the wiser. The imperial suite has diplomatic immunity. I doubt whether our Mr. Benjamin has ever been able to put more than X — his mark — as a receipt for his pension. Can’t you see them chuckling, rubbing their hands — the Emperor, the Colonel, and the Vengeful Coachman? It’s a score over the Queen. It’s one in the eye for England. By Jove,” said Raffles, “they were really deuced unlucky to trip up over the dog!”

“How do you think that happened?” I asked.

“Pretty obvious,” said Raffles. “We know Mr. Benjamin and Captain went to Florian’s for their dinner, as usual. When they came strolling back, the dog at Mr. Benjamin’s heel, I fancy there must have been a four-wheeler drawn up in Park Yard. Our Mr. Benjamin walks up his steps, and is seized by the Colonel’s men. The little chap must have put up a fight, to judge from that bit of broken watch-chain. But they bundle him into the four-wheeler, and away with him. Unluckily for them, nobody notices the dog, which is probably scared and bolts back to the only place it knows where it has friends, the place where I find him sniffing forlornly round the door — Florian’s.”

The hansom bowled round a corner just then, and there ahead, between the jogging ears of the horse, was a shine of lights from the lofty windows of the Imperial Embassy.

The hatch in the roof of our hansom opened. The cabbie screwed a purple face into the orifice to breathe down on us a reminiscence of breweries.

“Right up to the hentrance, sir?” he said.

“Right up to the entrance,” said Raffles, and he handed up a coin. “There’s another half-bar for you if you wait for us.”

“You’re a toff,” said the cabbie.

He dropped the flap, his whip cracked, and we went past the waiting carriages at a jingling trot, to pull up with a flourish at the red carpet laid across the sidewalk under a canopy. Raffles threw back the apron. A flunkey gorgeous in knee-breeches hastened forward to hand him down.

The flunkey seemed taken aback by our morning dress. From the open windows of the second floor came the strains of an orchestra. A ball was in progress.

“Kindly inform Colonel Saxe,” Raffles said to the flunkey, “that two gentlemen who prefer to be nameless are here to see him in the matter of the coachman’s dog.”

“The coachman’s dog, sir?” said the flunkey.

“Just so,” said Raffles.

The flunkey hesitated only for a moment. Then he motioned us to follow him. We mounted the steps, crossed a vast hall and were ushered into a spacious morning room.

I turned quickly to Raffles as the door closed. “What are you planning?” I said. I was uneasy; it seemed to me that we had thrust our heads gratuitously into the lions’ den.

He put a warning finger to his lips. “An admirable likeness, Bunny,” he said conversationally, and nodded toward a huge portrait in a gilt frame above the lofty marble mantelpiece.

The crystal door-knob rattled. The door opened and a squat, broad-shouldered man strode in. He had a jutting, ivory-hard jaw, heavily-pouched and stony eyes, and greying, thin hair brushed straight back from a massive forehead. He wore a dark blue uniform, the skin-tight trousers strapped under patent-leather shoes. Behind him was a tall, pale-faced, aquiline man, younger, with sleek black hair and a contemptuous expression, wearing a more striking uniform glittering with jewelled orders.

Raffles addressed the shorter man. “Good evening, Colonel Saxe.”

The Colonel stood with legs straddled, his hands behind him, his jaw jutting pugnaciously. “You have the advantage of me, sir,” he said harshly.

“And I propose,” Raffles said, in an icy voice, “to use it. I give you two minutes, Colonel, to produce the person of Her Majesty’s subject, Mr. J. Benjamin.”

The squat Colonel stood as though rooted. I did not breathe. So still was the great room that the ticking of the marble clock on the mantelpiece was audible.

The Colonel broke the silence with an effort. “Sir,” he said thickly, “you are talking in riddles.”

“A riddle of two coachmen, Colonel,” said Raffles. “You’re unlucky in your agents. They bungled their job. They substituted T. Benjamin for J. Benjamin, but they overlooked J. Benjamin’s dog. The dog unmasked the impostor. Unfortunate for you, Colonel. That dog is now in safe hands, for delivery to Scotland Yard, together with a letter exposing your manoeuvre, in the event that my friend here and I do not report back, bringing Mr. J. Benjamin, by midnight precisely.”

A vein swelled, throbbing, on the Colonel’s massive brow. “Who are you?” he said hoarsely.

“Private gentlemen,” Raffles said, “and, I trust, sportsmen. You’ve played and lost. We’ve no desire to make trouble. Whether a certain august personage—” he glanced fleetingly at the portrait above the mantelpiece — “is aware of your manoeuvre, or whether it’s a brilliant bit of initiative on your own part, you know better than I. You are also in a better position to judge of the possible effects, diplomatically, if this unfortunate affair should become publicly known.”

The Colonel opened his mouth, closed it. His neck thickened, flushing darkly, above the tight, gold-crusted collar of his uniform. Suddenly he turned on his gorgeous lieutenant.

“Your bungling,” said the Colonel. “Your mismanagement, you titled nincompoop! This is what happens when they send me high-well-born halfwits as recruits to Intelligence! Get out! Get the man. Bring him here.”

The blue, close-set eyes of the younger man glittered as icily as the gemmed orders on his breast. But without a word he clicked his heels and strode from the room. Colonel Saxe walked across the parquet floor, his heavy shoulders hunched, his hands clasping and unclasping behind his back. He turned on the hearthrug, his pouched, stony eyes on Raffles.

“As you have said, sir,” said Colonel Saxe, speaking with difficulty, “I have played and lost. I am prepared—” he breathed hard through his nose — “I am prepared, in order to ensure that this affair remains between ourselves, to meet any reasonable monetary claim you may—”

“Sir,” Raffles said dangerously, “do you take us for common blackmailers? I have the honour to inform you that this matter will go no further, except in one event.”

“And that event?”

“Any interference hereafter,” Raffles said, “with the private life of Mr. J. Benjamin, retired under the Queen’s Grace and Favour.”

The Colonel ground his teeth. “You have my word, sir.”

“Then you have mine, sir,” said Raffles. “As to Benjamin, T., he is your responsibility. It would seem advisable to remove him from Park Yard without delay.”

“He will be removed,” said the Colonel.

I was astonished at Raffles’ remark about Benjamin, T. But I had no time to reflect upon it, for the door opened, and there — with the Colonel’s glittering and furious lieutenant behind him — stood our Mr. Benjamin, with his respectable mutton-chop whiskers, turning his square brown hard hat round and round in his gnarled coachman’s hands. Except for the dangling end of his broken watch-chain, and for the fact that an extensive area round his left eye, under his bang, was turning rapidly black, he seemed none the worse.

“Gentlemen!” he exclaimed, when he saw us. “You here?”

Colonel Saxe gave a savage jerk at a bell-pull to the right of the mantelpiece. “I need not detain you further,” he said harshly.

With Mr. Benjamin between us, we followed a flunkey back across the hall, out onto the red carpet. Our hansom, with the purple-faced old ruffian in the debauched topper on the box, jingled up instantly. We mounted, and, as the horse clip-clopped off, the cabbie lifted the flap in the roof to treat us to a blast of malted vapours.

“Where to, sir?”

“Through Hyde Park,” said Raffles. “Pull up at the back of Park Yard, near the Barracks. And drive like fury!”

The cabbie cracked his whip. For a moment, I was at a loss to understand Raffles’ sudden air of urgency. He was glancing back, now, through the rear oval window of the hansom.

“Gentlemen,” said Mr. Benjamin, “I ain’t altogether clear about what’s bin ’appenin’ — except my brother, Benjamin, T., is in it some way. Whatever ’e may feel about me, sirs, an’ whatever ’e’s bin up to, I wouldn’t like nothing to ’appen to ’im.”

“That’s all right, Mr. Benjamin,” said Raffles cheerfully. “Don’t you worry about a thing.”

Suddenly the reason for Raffles’ haste dawned on me. It was not that he thought we might be followed, but that he knew the Colonel would waste no time in having Benjamin T., brought in. Raffles had made a mistake in reminding the Colonel that a scapegoat for his failure was conveniently at hand. He had forgotten that our Mr. Benjamin, goodhearted little man that he was, would wish no harm to befall his “younger” brother. Raffles was anxious, now, to repair that slip he had made, and to warn Benjamin, T., before the Colonel’s men came to Park Yard for him.

Sure enough, Raffles said, “Have you got a back door, Mr. Benjamin — a door on the Park side?”

“Yessir.”

“Got a key to it?”

“Yessir.”

“Give it to me,” Raffles said. “Good.” He lifted the hatch. “When we get out at Park Yard,” he told the cabbie, “you’ll drive Mr. Benjamin round to Florian’s Restaurant.” He dropped the hatch. “You hear, Mr. Benjamin? You’re to wait for us at Florian’s. You’ll find Captain there.”

The hansom swung to the right, round the Achilles statue. A sudden lilac flare in the sky westward lit the trees in the park to brief, black silhouette. A roll of thunder trundled across the sky, and was detonating overhead as the hansom reined in at the back of Park Yard. Raffles leaped out, with myself close behind him. The hansom moved off at once, with Mr. Benjamin; and Raffles darted across a strip of lawn to the railing at the back of Mr. Benjamin’s house. A gate in the railing gave on a short flight of steps leading down to a back door. Thunder was squeezing the first fat rain drops down on us as Raffles unlocked the door.

He stepped in, struck a match, held it aloft. We were in a narrow passage leading to a short flight of stairs. Raffles led the way up the stairs, dropped the spent match, struck another. Its reflection glimmered redly in the glass of many photographs, in Oxford frames, of the Benjamin brothers on the boxes of phaetons, dogcarts, traps, landaus, victorias, and shooting-brakes. The walls of this tiny hall were covered with them; and over a shelf laden with silver cups and faded blue ribands, an imposing mezzotint of Her Majesty presided with benign approval in a draping of red-white-and-blue bunting.

I had expected Raffles to wake and warn T. Benjamin at once. But he did not. Instead, I saw a triangle of lightning, electric-blue, where Raffles, having dropped the match, was holding the window-curtain aside to peer out into the courtyard.

“Here they come,” he said. “Bunny, feel for the bolt of the door. When the knock comes, open instantly!”

I was at a loss to divine his intention, but I felt for the door, found it, slipped the bolt and chain. I waited tensely, my hand on the knob, and listened. The thunder reverberated over the Queen’s Grace and Favour house. A fierce deluge was slashing down in the courtyard. Then I heard the clack of hooves on cobbles, the rumble of a four-wheeler. Footsteps ran up to the door; the knocker was furiously pounded. I jerked the door wide.

Against the dim glow from the four-wheeler’s lamps, swimming in the downpour, I saw a tall figure in a dark military cloak.

“Benjamin?” a voice said peremptorily.

Raffles’ hand shot out, clamped on the breast of the cloak, jerked the man in.

“For Mr. Benjamin’s black eye,” said Raffles, and I heard the thud of his fist as he struck. “Bolt that door, Bunny!”

I had it bolted in an instant.

“Strike a match!”

I struck one. Raffles was down on one knee beside the sprawling figure of the aquiline, pale-faced, contemptuous man with the sleek black hair who had been present at our interview with Colonel Saxe.

“I fancied the Colonel would send this fellow,” said Raffles, “and that he’d lose no time about it, if I jogged his mind a little!” He threw open the unconscious man’s cloak, and jewelled orders on the breast of his tunic caught the match-flame with a faceted, dazzling radiance. I saw the sheen of Raffles’ silk hat as he glanced up at me with the smile I knew so well. “It would have been gross neglect,” said Raffles, “not to provide this walking jeweller’s window with a little reception committee!”

His hands moved the glittering tunic with the deft certainty of a master craftsman. The match burned my fingers. I dropped it. Simultaneously, above the cannonading of thunder overhead, and the lash of the downpour, a shout rang out from the courtyard. Feet stamped up the steps. The doorknob rattled. The knocker was pounded violently.

“His men must have noticed something,” said Raffles, and I heard his chuckle ironic in the darkness. “All right, Bunny, it’s a clean sweep and a rich haul. Come on! Out the back way!”

Even as shoulders were hurled with dislocating vigour against the front door, we regained the Park by way of the back. The thunder rumbled in reluctant retreat across the sky, taking with it the night’s heat. Through the slackening rain and the refreshed foliage, the globes of the gas-lamps shone white and clear. I felt braced and uplifted, alike by the cleansed air, by the sense of a sterile rectitude irrevocably shed, by the resumption of a felonious compact with my friend, and — not least — by the thought of what he carried in his impeccable pockets.

I trod the London asphalt with a step more buoyant than for months past. And it was not until, after a circuitous walk, we were approaching Florian’s, where Mr. Benjamin and his spaniel awaited us, that a monstrous omission occurred to my mind. In my consternation, I stopped dead.

“Raffles! What about Benjamin, T.?”

Raffles’ gesture dismissed an irrelevance. “Miles away by now,” he said. “He was warned earlier in the evening — not that he deserved it. But that was the second letter I wrote — for Richmond to push under the door of the Queen’s Grace and Favour house while we were at the Embassy.”

I drew in a deep breath. “Raffles,” I said, “I take off my hat to you.”

“Thank you, Bunny,” he said, but I saw his slight frown. “I can tell you one thing, though—”

“Yes?”

“I was devilish annoyed when Colonel Saxe offered us his disgusting bribe. He may/be an officer,” added A. J. Raffles, as lie pushed open the door of Florian’s, “but he doesn’t know a gentleman when he sees one.”