Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 75, No. 2. Whole No. 436, February 11, 1980

Raffles in Love by Barry Perowne

© 1979 by Philip Atkey.

Once again we journey back to the life and times of A. J. Raffles, amateur cricketer, professional cracksman, and sophisticated man-about-town, and his chronicler-in-crime, Bunny Manders. The year in this affair is 1907, and the first decade of the twentieth century is depicted in loving and living detail, as exactly as if the story had been written seventy years ago. For example, Raffles rides in a 1907 Darracq landaulette, and through Barry Perowne’s eyes you can almost see that early motor-car.

Now, a strange point has just occurred to us. A story about Sherlock Holmes in love is almost unthinkable. But Holmes’s criminal counterpart, the handsome, charming, debonair Raffles, one of the most eligible bachelors of his time — why not? Why not indeed...

Elated by a win at poker, I dropped in at the Café Royal to treat myself to a champagne supper. Though it was almost one o’clock, I found the fashionable after-theatre resort more than usually crowded.

Taken aback by the din and dazzle of the spacious dining-room, I paused between the curtains of crimson velvet that draped the lofty doorway, where the head waiter, who knew me, greeted me with a look of concern.

“Why, Mr. Manders,” he said, “are you unaware that Signora Luisa Tetrazzini, the great soprano, made her long-awaited London debut tonight? She sang the Violetta role in Signor Verdi’s La Traviata so brilliantly, I’m told, that she had endless curtain calls. In consequence, all the socially-important people who’ve come on here, for supper after the opera, are exceptionally late — and, as you see, I’m afraid I’ve no table to offer you. However,” he added, with a hint of hesitation, “your friend Mr. A. J. Raffles is here.”

“Then there’s no problem,” I said. “Mr. Raffles will naturally wish me to join him.”

“With respect, Mr. Manders, are you quite sure he will?” demurred the head waiter, and with a cryptic glance he directed my attention to a table adjacent to one of the huge, gilt-framed wall-mirrors that, on the far side of the dining-room, reflected the crystal glitter of the chandeliers and the animation of the throng.

I at once understood the head waiter’s doubt. For Raffles was not alone. His evening-dress immaculate, his dark hair crisp, his keen face tanned, he was tête-à-tête with a lady unknown to me.

In our sports-mad country, the captaincy of its representative cricket team, the England XI, involved so many social duties that only some gentleman of independent means who played cricket with skill, from pure love of the game and not for payment, was ever considered suitable for the coveted appointment.

Currently, it was held by A. J. Raffles, who as a result was very well-known, was elected to all the best clubs, was received in the best society — and inevitably, as an agreeable bachelor, was acquainted with many beautiful women.

I often saw him, about town or at the racecourses or at Lord’s Cricket Ground, escorting some notable beauty. But his present supper companion, with her raven hair, perfect profile, and necklace of lustrous rubies, seemed especially to his taste. They were the best-matched couple in the Café Royal dining-room. Smiling warmly into each other’s eyes, they tinkled their champagne glasses together in what was evidently a toast of mutual esteem.

Where women were concerned, Raffles and I respected each other’s right to privacy. To intrude, if one of us happened to see the other in feminine company, was not a thing we did.

“On second thoughts,” I said to the head waiter, “I shall not be joining Mr. Raffles at table. I shall sup elsewhere.”

Bowing his approval of my tact, the head waiter left me. And, myself about to turn and go, I cast a last glance in the direction of Raffles’ table — with the result that, by sheer chance, I saw something that startled me.

I saw, in that big wall-mirror adjacent to Raffles’ table, that he and the lady with him were being watched.

I drew back into partial concealment by the portière curtains and, round the edge of their crimson velvet, had a sharper look across the dining-room at that mirror. It reflected Raffles’ table and several others, including one at which a man sitting alone, his back to Raffles’ table, was smoking a cigar. He was also, it seemed to me, keeping on Raffles’ table, as reflected in the mirror, an intent scrutiny.

Ramrod-backed in evening-dress, he was of military appearance, ruddy of face, a hint of grey in his close-clipped moustache and in the black hair brushed back thickly over his ears. His eyes were a piercing blue. He took from his pocket a notebook and a gold pencil. He jotted down something, pocketed the notebook, took up his coffee-cup and, over its rim, resumed by way of the mirror his unmistakable surveillance of Raffles’ table.

I withdrew to the red-carpeted, chandelier-bright foyer. My heart thumped, my mind raced. What to do? Raffles’ “independent means” were in fact dependent on ventures, when opportunity offered, into crime. In such ventures I was his confederate, and the only other person who knew of them — as far as we were aware — was Raffles’ friend and highly skilful “fence,” Ivor Kern. But now Raffles, in the company of a lady with rubies, was under surveillance. The implications made my blood freeze.

I had to find out who the watcher was.

I reclaimed my topper from the cloakroom. Outside the Café Royal a four-wheeler cab had just dropped a fare. I told the cabbie to drive me fifty yards or so up Regent Street, then wait for my further instructions.

This he did. The streetlamps, brightly gaslit, shone in the clear night, but the interior of the cab was dark. I lowered the window on its strap and kept a sharp eye on the Café Royal. Cabs came to it and went from it. After ten long minutes or thereabouts, I saw Raffles come out, the lady with him. Ignoring a waiting hansom hopeful of hire, they strolled away arm-in-arm toward nearby Piccadilly Circus. Almost at once, the man who worried me emerged from the Café Royal.

Tall, tophatted, he stood lighting a fresh cigar as he watched the receding figures of Raffles and the lady. Then he got into the hansom, which set off in my direction, jingled past my stationary cab, and continued north up Regent Street. I told my cabbie to keep the hansom in sight.

“I’m acting,” I said, to explain my request, “on behalf of a lady.”

“Good on yer, guv’,” said the cabbie.

There was little traffic in the streets as the hansom led us, by way of Bloomsbury, into respectable Southampton Row. Here the hansom turned to the right, into a narrow opening. Fortunately, my cabbie had his wits about him — for, as we reached the opening, he saw what I saw: that the opening was the entry to a cul-de-sac where, before the house at the dead end, the hansom had stopped and my quarry was paying off the driver.

My cabbie drove straight on past the cul-de-sac entry for twenty yards or so before he reined-in. I tipped him liberally and, wishing me luck, he drove off. The hansom reappeared, minus passenger, and jingled away along Southampton Row. I walked to the cul-de-sac entry. It bore a wall-plate, dimly discernible: Finch Court. I entered it.

On the left were three small but dignified houses with shallow porches and iron-barred ground-floor windows. On the right were three more houses. All the houses were identical, as was the house that closed the dead end — the house which, I was sure, the man who worried me had entered.

I approached the house with circumspection. Directly in front of it was Finch Court’s only streetlamp. The gaslight of the lampstandard made the windows of the house shine blankly. On the front door, in the porch, gleamed the polished brass of a numeral, a letter-slot — and a nameplate. I stole up the two whitewashed steps to the porch. The numeral on the door of the house was 5, the name engraved on the plate was: George H. Jay.

I pushed up the flap of the letter-slot, peered through it. Within, all was dark, all silent.

I visited the porches of the other six houses. Striking matches, I examined the nameplates on the doors. I found that here in Finch Court were the premises of two doctors, one dental surgeon, three lawyers, and Mr. George H. Jay — profession unspecified.

Deeply thoughtful, I left Finch Court.

“George H. Jay?” said Raffles, when I reported to him, some hours later. “I’ve never heard of him, Bunny.”

With a splitting headache, for I had not had much sleep, I had walked round from my Mount Street flat to Raffles’ chambers in the renowned Albany, just off Piccadilly. I had found him, looking enviably fresh and rested, wearing a grey suit, a pearl in his cravat, breakfasting in his comfortable living-room.

Frowning over the news I had brought, he told me to help myself to coffee, and he asked, “Was it me this Mr. Jay was watching, or was it the lady I was with?”

“The lady with the rubies?” I said. “I can’t be sure.”

“Let’s get one thing clear, Bunny,” Raffles said. “I wouldn’t lay a finger on that lady’s rubies.” He took a Sullivan from the cigarette-box on the table. “You and I don’t, as a rule, discuss our respective lady friends. But you acted promptly and sensibly last night. You’ve alerted me to a possible danger. So we’ll make an exception. I’ll tell you who the lady is.”

He told me that a few months previously, at midsummer, he had been invited to join a Cricket Week house party at Castle Cleeve, one of the great country homes in the beautiful Cotswold area of Gloucestershire.

“It was a big party,” Raffles said. “There were a lot of important people there — the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition, the First Lord of the Admiralty — people of that calibre. At these very big parties, it sometimes happens that there aren’t enough bedrooms for all the guests. In that case, it’s the custom for the married couples to be allotted the bedrooms, and the bachelor guests are billeted, for sleeping purposes, at largish houses in the immediate neighbourhood. I was billeted at a lovely old Elizabethan manor house called Winchcombe Glebe, where my hostess was a Mrs. Diana Rivenhurst, the lady you saw me with last night. We got along very well together.”

Mrs. Rivenhurst, Raffles told me, had inherited a large fortune — and Winchcombe Glebe — from her late husband, a man much older than herself.

“Diana’s not quite thirty,” Raffles said. “Her husband made his pile out of cotton. He owned spinning-mills in Lancashire and was known as a shrewd buyer of the raw material auctioned at the Cotton Exchange, Atlanta, Georgia, where Diana used often to go with him on his business visits, and where, I gather, she received from Southern society a welcome she’s never had from such circles in this country.”

I understood. Because her late husband had been “in trade,” certain doors were closed to Diana Rivenhurst, for all her wealth, that were open to A. J. Raffles. I fancied that to be asked by the bigwigs of Castle Cleeve if she could receive for a week at her lovely home one of their guests, who happened to be England’s cricket captain, would not likely have induced hesitation on the part of the beautiful owner of Winchcombe Glebe.

“She was awfully kind to me,” Raffles said. “She couldn’t have been more considerate. For instance, she owns a motor-car. It’s a this year’s, 1907, Darracq landaulette. I can’t tell you, Bunny, how keenly I came to look forward, every evening, to the moment when the Castle butler would whisper in my ear, ‘The chauffeur with the Winchcombe Glebe motor-car has come for you, Mr. Raffles.’ Believe me, it was a relief to get away from the endless political and foxhuntin’ and pheasant-shootin’ gossip, at the Castle, and have an hour or two more or less tête-à-tête with Diana. I say ‘more or less’ because, naturally, there was the usual domestic staff at the Glebe, and of course, with a male guest in the house, a meek aunt also was staying there, by way of chaperone for Diana.”

“The chaste Diana,” I murmured, vaguely recalling classical studies from my schooldays.

Actually, Raffles told me, it was only once or twice that he had been alone with Diana — just for a nightcap on the terrace, the midsummer nights so magical, the gardens of Winchcombe Glebe spellbound in the moonlight, and the warm air fragrant with the scent of roses.

“She wore one,” said Raffles, “in her hair.”

His grey eyes remembered how. And, after a moment, he drew in his breath, deeply.

“The week,” he said, “came to an end, and we parted — with a regret that, I think I can say, Bunny, was wholly mutual.”

“But you were with her last night,” I said, “at the Café Royal.” He nodded.

“The London debut of Luisa Tetrazzini,” he said, “gave me an opportunity for some small gesture to show my appreciation of Diana’s hospitality. I obtained, not without difficulty, three Grand Circle tickets for La Traviata, and I wrote to Diana inviting her and her aunt to be my guests for the occasion. They accepted. They motored up to London yesterday in the Darracq landaulette. They’re staying at the Cavendish Hotel in Jermyn Street. The motor journey gave the aunt a migraine, which prostrated her, but Diana didn’t want to disappoint me, which is why I had her to myself at the Opera — and at the Café Royal for supper.”

“What you’ve told me, Raffles,” I said, “perhaps puts a different complexion on what happened last night. The man George H. Jay is a rather impressive figure — in a military kind of way. Could it be that he knows Diana and has aspirations concerning her?”

“And sees in me a possible rival?” Raffles said. He gave me a grim look. “I’ll make a point of finding out.”

He always had told me that he would never marry. He held that to do so, when any day he might be exposed as a criminal, would be an act of treachery to the woman. It could cause her great unhappiness. But I was worried. I never had known him so attracted by a woman as he evidently was by Diana Rivenhurst. Personally, what surprised me about her was that, with her beauty and her wealth, she was not already married again.

Almost unconsciously, troubled by the situation, I was drawn to Jermyn Street next afternoon — vaguely hoping, perhaps, to catch another glimpse of the woman who attracted Raffles. I did not see her. But, as I strolled along Jermyn Street, I saw what I knew must be her Darracq landaulette, for it was standing at the kerb before the dignified entrance of the Cavendish Hotel. The chauffeur was at the wheel, reading a newspaper. A hansom also was standing there.

I strolled on by, on the sidewalk opposite the hotel. About fifty yards on, I paused and, affecting an interest in the cravats in a haberdasher’s window, looked back at the hotel, hoping to see Diana come out. She did not, but somebody else did. It was George H. Jay.

Tall, ramrod-backed, perfectly dressed, vigorous, he stepped into the hansom, which jingled away, right past me, toward St. James’s Street.

I went straight round to Piccadilly, just a few minutes walk away, and found Raffles in his living-room in the Albany. The table was laid for tea, with three cups.

“Raffles,” I said, “I’ve just seen that man Jay again!”

“Have you now,” said Raffles. “Well, I’ve learned a thing or two about him, Bunny. I lunched at my favourite club yesterday, and, oddly enough, I was buttonholed by a fellow member, a stockbroker in the City, who said he felt he should tell me that George H. Jay had been inquiring around, very delicately, trying to find out how much I was worth and in what my capital was invested.”

“Your ‘capital’?” I said.

“Don’t worry,” said Raffles. “My tracks are pretty well covered. I don’t think Jay’s likely to find out anything to my discredit. All the same, as he seems to be spying on me, I’ve returned the compliment. I’ve had our friend and invaluable ‘fence,’ Ivor Kern, put one of his snoops on to doing a little spying on Mr. Jay.”

“But, Raffles — what is Jay?”

“A very confidential person — unique, in fact,” Raffles said. “He’s a secret agent — for the aristocracy.”

I was appalled.

“He seems,” Raffles said, “to have invented his own profession. I gather, from my clubman friend, that George Jay was an Army man, a regular, with Captain’s rank in a socially-good regiment. Apparently, he got younger officers, sprigs of the nobility, out of scrapes from time to time — scrapes over women, cards, money lenders, the usual sort of thing. The word went around, among gilded youth in trouble: ‘Get Jay to handle it.’ Their aristocratic families got to hear of Jay — with gratitude. Some of our great families, Bunny, have secrets — skeletons in the cupboard — disgraces of a kind that their family lawyers are neither competent nor would wish to handle.”

“Understandably,” I said.

“The aristocracy,” Raffles said, “pins its faith to three pillars of society — the Church, the Law, and the Army. Jay was not only an Army man, he was one who’d earned in aristocratic circles a reputation for integrity, secrecy, and skill in the handling of damaging imbroglios. With no war of any size on, he could have remained stuck at Captain’s rank for a decade. He saw a need and a better chance for himself in civilian life. So Captain George Jay, of the Hussars, resigned his commission and became plain Mr. Jay, profession confidential — his receipt of custom, 5 Finch Court, Southampton Row. And I’d like very much,” Raffles said, “to know which of his clients put him on to investigating me.”

“When I saw Jay just now,” I said, and my heart was thumping, “he was coming out of the Cavendish Hotel in Jermyn Street.”

“What?” said Raffles.

“He’d probably been in there,” I said, my throat dry, “to see a client.”

Never before had I seen Raffles so shaken. He drew in his breath, looked at the clock on the mantelpiece.

“She’s due at four,” he said. “She told me she’d love to see my habitation, here in the Albany, so I invited her and her aunt to tea. They’ll be here any minute.”

“Then I’d better go.”

“No!” Raffles said. He frowned, in thought. “Bunny, your presence here, a stranger to them, might make the conversation a bit stilted, but I’d like to get your impression of Diana. Go into my other room there and leave the door slightly ajar. Don’t argue! Go quick! I hear them coming!”

Scarcely had I obeyed him than I heard a knock on his outer door, heard it open, heard the hall porter’s voice: “Mrs. Diana Rivenhurst to see you, Mr. Raffles.”

“Thank you, Bellairs,” said Raffles, adding, as I heard the outer close, “Why, Diana! You’re alone?”

“My aunt still has a migraine headache. She’s in bed with a cold compress.”

“What a shame! But how nice of you to come yourself!”

“I shouldn’t have, really. I can only stay for a minute.”

“Nonsense! You must have some tea. I’ve lighted the spirit-stove, the kettle’s already singing.”

“Well — just one very small cup of tea, perhaps.”

“Let me help you off with your things.”

“I shouldn’t, really. But — oh, well — just for a minute or two.”

Embarrassed as I was at this unexpected situation, Diana coming alone, I put an askance eye to the door-crack. Raffles was helping her off with her things.

“Ah,” he said, “the kettle’s boiling. I’ll make the tea.”

“So this is where you live! What a nice room! Such comfortable saddlebag chairs, and so many books and cricket bats and golf clubs and — is that a sword of some kind?”

“A sabre, Diana. I fence occasionally, rapier and sabre, at the Salle D’Armes in Covent Garden. It strengthens the wrist for cricket. Tea’s ready.”

“Would you like me to pour?”

“Please do. You did it so gracefully at breakfast at Winchcombe Glebe.”

“Did you like my home?”

“I thought it as enchanting as its hostess.”

“What a nice thing to say! And you take one knob of sugar in your tea. I remember that — from your week at Winchcombe Glebe.”

“For me, Diana, a very happy week.”

“For me, too. It was so nice to have a man in the house.”

“Won’t you try one of these Eclairs, Diana? They’re from the DuBarry Buttery in Piccadilly.”

“Well — just a tiny one.” Softly, after a moment: “Arthur?”

I seldom heard Raffles called by his first name or even by his initials. Among men, it was not a thing that was done. To hear him called “Arthur” by a lovely woman sounded so intimate, so almost uxorious, that my embarrassment became insupportable. I felt I had better leave. I tiptoed to the other door of the room I was in. It was a door by which the Albany rear exit, to Vigo Street, could be reached. But the door was locked.

“Yes, Diana?” I heard Raffles say.

“Do you get lonely sometimes? I do. Oh, of course, I know lots of people. And — men — well, quite often they want to marry me.”

“Does that surprise you, Diana?”

“Not really, I suppose — to be honest. But — you see — I’m quite well off, but — are they? I mean, is it honestly me they want to marry? Or is it — well — my money?”

“I see your problem, Diana.”

“I think it’s managed, this sort of thing, so much better on the Continent. There the financial position of the persons concerned is frankly discussed before any betrothal is entered into. But here, in hypocritical England, a woman often has to — well, just leap in the dark. Oh, I’ve thought so much about this! It must be so awful for a woman who finds she’s married a man who has to keep coming to her for money. And it can’t be a very nice situation for a man, d’you think?”

“I should imagine not, Diana — though some men don’t seem to mind.”

“Would you mind, Arthur?”

“Yes. Very much.”

“I knew it! And I’m so glad! Because I’d like to ask your advice about something. May I?”

“Of course.”

In the other room, I now was listening — through the door-crack — quite intently. My embarrassment was forgotten.

“Arthur,” I heard Diana say, “don’t lawyers have a term — ‘in escrow’ — something like that?”

“I think they have some such term, Diana, yes.”

“Well, tell me, in your honest opinion, Arthur, d’you think it would be very awful for a woman to suggest to a man who proposed marriage to her that both he and she each place an agreed cash sum in — sort of escrow for an agreed period, however brief, while they — kind of thought things over? Would such a suggestion seem very dreadful — coming from a woman?”

“It doesn’t seem very dreadful to me, Diana.”

“Really? Truly? I mean, for example — suppose I were to say to you, ‘Let’s each put £5000 in kind of escrow for — let’s say a week.’ Would you do it?”

“Certainly,” said Raffles.

“Then let’s,” said Diana. “It’d be a kind of — earnest. And such fun! I have an absolutely reliable man of business. He acts only for the very best people. He could hold the — sort of escrow money for us. Let’s do it, Arthur, just as a kind of dare! Do let’s!”

“Diana,” Raffles said indulgently, “I can refuse you nothing.”

“To-morrow afternoon, then? Say, at two o’clock? We’ll meet at his office, each of us bringing £5000 in cash to place in his safekeeping for — yes, let’s say just one week. Could we? Or would tomorrow be too soon for you, Arthur?”

“Not in the least, Diana.”

“Then it’s agreed?”

“On one condition — that you have supper with me, alone, at the Café Royal to-morrow night.”

“I will, I will! Oh, Arthur, I’m so excited! We meet first, then, at 5 Finch Court, Southampton Row — at two o’clock. But now I really must fly. I must get back to my poor aunt.”

“Let me help you on with your things. Did you come in your Darracq?”

“Yes, my chauffeur’s waiting in Albany Courtyard.”

“I’ll see you out,” said Raffles.

I heard a door open, close. Their voices and footsteps receded. I emerged from my lurking-place. My mind was in a turmoil. As I helped myself to Raffles’ whisky, he returned.

“Pour me one, as well,” he said. “My need is greater than yours.”

“The chaste Diana,” I said. “Diana the Huntress! She’s madly keen to marry you, Raffles!”

“Not so madly keen, Bunny, that she doesn’t first want to see if I can coolly produce £5000 in cash at short notice — as an ‘earnest’ that I must have much larger private resources to draw on. Obviously, the man Jay’s attempts to find out for her what I’m worth have failed, so Diana’s trying to find out for herself — in her quaintly feminine way.”

“Have you got £5000, Raffles?”

“What an idiotic question, Bunny!”

“Then why, in heaven’s name, did you agree to accept her fantastic ‘dare’?”

“Because I couldn’t do otherwise,” Raffles said, “without possible damage to the general belief that I’m ‘a sporting gentleman of independent means.’ ” He gave me a wicked smile. “And because, unwittingly, my prudent Diana provided me with security, of a kind, on which I think I can raise a loan.”

“What security?” I said, puzzled.

“One often used in aristocratic circles,” said Raffles. “I refer to marriage prospects — specifically, to my own evident prospects of being able to marry the heiress to the Rivenhurst Cottonmills fortune. Drink up, Bunny! We’ve a call to make.”

On the strength of Raffles’ golden prospects, our friend and invaluable “fence,” Ivor Kern, who always kept large cash sums handy for the purchase of stolen property, produced the £5000 there and then, in the cluttered, gaslit sitting-room over his antiques shop in the King’s Road, Chelsea. He was assured that the money was to serve solely as a tangible token of Raffles’ “independent means” and, seven days from now, would be refunded intact to Kern.

“I’m easy,” said Kern, with his cynical grin. “Make it eight days, Raffles.”

This was all very well. But what, I wondered, were Raffles’ intentions regarding Diana Rivenhurst? Though I was not present at their meeting at 5 Finch Court, at two p.m. on the morrow, what worried me about the whole situation was that I simply did not know how Raffles really felt about Diana.

Neither, I suspected, had George H. Jay known on the night I had spotted him watching them together at the Café Royal. He may well have had a reason more intensely and jealously personal than a merely business one for wishing to gauge the depth of feeling between his beautiful and wealthy client, Diana Rivenhurst, and that agreeable bachelor, A. J. Raffles, England’s cricket captain.

If George Jay, ex-Hussar and now confidential agent to the aristocracy, had had hopes of marrying Diana himself, he now knew — because of her quaint “escrow” notion — what his hopes were worth: namely, zero. With the “escrow” established, she clearly was confident that Raffles would propose to her, and, just as clearly, she intended to say yes.

But what were Raffles’ own intentions? This was what worried me. I knew his scruples about marriage, but, despite them, I could not forget the tone in which he had spoken of his sojourn as a guest in Diana’s lovely home, of the garden there enchanted in midsummer moonlight, and Diana with a rose in her hair.

Even after he had learned that she was having inquiries made about his financial worth, he had called her only, with a wicked but amused indulgence, “My prudent Diana!” And he would be with her again, to-night, at the Café Royal.

For a moment, I was tempted to go to the Café Royal again myself, and unobtrusively watch them together. But I did not like the idea. I dismissed it. Instead, I took a lady friend of my own to the Alhambra Music Hall, with supper afterwards at Frascati’s in Oxford Street, and the following evening, just as I was brushing my topper before going out, Raffles turned up at my flat. His expression was strange.

“I’ve had tea to-day with Diana and her aunt, at the Cavendish,” he said. “I stayed on, talking to Diana, and only got back to the Albany about ten minutes ago. I found a note waiting for me.” Frowning, he helped himself to my whisky. “Tell me something. When a man finds that he’s no hope of winning a woman he wanted, what does he do — let’s say, if he’s a Hussar type of chap?”

“Traditionally,” I said, “he goes to Africa to shoot lions or find a small war he can get himself shot decently dead in. It’s rather expected of him.”

“The note I found waiting for me,” Raffles said, “was from Ivor Kern. It was to tell me that the snoop he put on to watching George Jay, at my request, reports that Jay left London this evening on the 5:50 train to Newhaven.”

“Probably he’s gone,” I said, “to see one of his aristocratic clients on some business matter.”

“Alternatively,” said Raffles, “has he gone to board the boat that leaves Newhaven, at nine every evening, for Dieppe? I don’t know. But it was after nine when I found Kern’s note. And what I do know is that there are, or should be, two fat envelopes in ex-Captain Jay’s safe. One envelope contains £5000 of Diana’s money, the other contains £5000 belonging to Ivor Kern. Bunny, if there’s one man in London whose money we dare not lose, it’s Kern. He knows too much about us. And what I’m asking myself is: Are those two envelopes still intact in Jay’s safe?”

My heart pounded. The gaslight seemed to me to turn with a suddenly uncanny brilliance.

“I intend to find out,” Raffles said, his eyes hard. “It shouldn’t be difficult. The night’s turning misty. By the small hours, it’ll be mistier still. Even more to the point — when I saw Jay put those two envelopes into his safe at just after two p.m., day before yesterday, I noted and memorized, by reprehensible habit, his manipulation of the dial. I know the combination of his safe.”

Raffles drained his glass.

“If I find the two envelopes there intact,” he said, “then there, as far as I’m concerned, they shall remain — intact!”

Terrified yet fascinated as I always was on such an occasion as this, I insisted on accompanying Raffles. Our motive, for once, was guiltless and clearly justified, but that would by no means mitigate the penalty if we should be caught in the act we intended as we went, on foot in the small hours, to Finch Court, Southampton Row.

As Raffles had said, the night was misty. Finch Court’s solitary gaslight, on its lampstandard at the kerb of the narrow sidewalk in front of Number 5, at the dead end, was no more than a dim nimbus on the dank vapour. Keeping guard at the entry to the cul-de-sac, I could just discern Raffles as, at the dead end, he climbed up the lampstandard. He opened the door of the glass lampcase. He must have pulled the short chain that reduced the gaslight to its daytime pilot jet, a speck of blue not visible to me. Neither, now, was Raffles visible.

My heart pounded. Diana Rivenhurst had called marriage, for a woman, “a leap in the dark.” Raffles must now be preparing to make a different kind of leap, also in the dark. He must be pulling himself up so that he could straddle the lampcase and, with his feet on the iron bar that protruded slightly to either side, just under the case, balance himself for an instant upright — then make a flying leap, over the narrow sidewalk, and land on all fours on the roof of the shallow porch of Number 5.

The front door of the house being stout and the ground-floor window barred, the easiest way in was by the upper window. Raffles must now be dealing with its catch. And now he must be cautiously raising the window. And by now, surely, he must be ducking into the room there.

Not a sound could I hear. All was still.

From here at the Finch Court entry, I peered out into Southampton Row. To left and to right the streetlamps, in twin lines, burned wanly in dim, diminishing perspective. Nothing else was to be seen. The throb of the pulse in my ears measured the passing minutes — until, at long last, Raffles joined me, and we walked away from there.

All he told me, as I began to breathe normally again, was that George H. Jay had not departed for foreign climes.

“Anything but,” said Raffles.

Something seemed to be amusing him as we walked on. Near the British Museum a late-cruising hansom took us up. Raffles paid off the cabbie in Chelsea. We walked along the King’s Road to Ivor Kern’s antiques shop. Raffles jerked our signal on the bellpull. Pale of face, Kern opened the door to us. He was in his nightshirt and dressing-gown, with a candlestick in his hand. We went upstairs to his sitting-room, where he checked that the window blinds were down before he lighted the gas, pinched out the candle, turned inquiringly to Raffles.

Raffles said, “When Diana handed Jay the envelope containing her £5000, Jay checked the contents, marked the envelope Rivenhurst, gave her a receipt, and put the envelope into his safe. With my envelope, which he marked Mr. Raffles, he followed the same procedure. Diana said she had some other business to discuss with Mr. Jay, so I left them to it. When I opened that safe tonight, both envelopes were there.”

“Thank God for that!” Kern and I said, together.

“But while one envelope had retained its thickness,” said Raffles, “the other was unaccountably thin.”

“Which?” Kern said hoarsely.

“Diana’s was the thin one,” said Raffles. “I looked in it to see why. It contained only the receipt Jay had given her. She wouldn’t have surrendered that receipt unless, after I had left, she had received her money back from Jay. In short, she doesn’t trust him with her money.” A wicked vivacity danced in Raffles’ eyes. “My prudent Diana! She’d drawn that £5000 out of her bank account, and I’ve no doubt that, immediately the money had served her purpose, she put it back into her bank account again.”

“But what about my money?” Kern croaked.

“In the circumstances, Ivor,” said Raffles, “I felt I’d be justified in following Diana’s example. She’d taken prudent steps to safeguard her money, so I took similar steps to safeguard yours.” Raffles laid a fat envelope on the table. “There’s your money, Ivor — intact. And I’m now out of your debt, right?”

“Right!”

“And I’m also, of course,” said A. J. Raffles pleasantly, “still in possession of Mr. George Jay’s receipt for £5000 which I entrusted to him for safekeeping.”

Just before ten, next morning, as I was finishing breakfast in my Mount Street flat, Raffles walked in on me.

“’Morning, Bunny,” he said, helping himself to a cup of coffee. “I’ve just had another note from Kern, enclosing a telegram from his snoop, who followed George H. Jay to Newhaven. Jay spent the night at a country mansion near Newhaven and caught the 9:30 train back to London this morning. He should be arriving within an hour or so, and will probably take a cab to his office.”

“When he opens his safe,” I said uneasily, “he’ll send for the police!”

“That’s the one thing he certainly won’t do, Bunny. He’s a highly fee’d, confidential agent to the aristocracy. There are many documents, no doubt extremely private, in his safe. If his aristocratic clients were to read in the newspapers that Mr. George H. Jay’s safe has been robbed, there’d be a number of cerebral strokes suffered by the landed gentry — and Mr. Jay would never be trusted again. Now, come on,” said Raffles. “You’ve been a great help in this matter, so far. You might as well see it through. If Mr. Jay doesn’t have a stroke himself when he opens his safe presently, I imagine he’ll rush to the Cavendish Hotel to report to his client, Diana. Then either he, or perhaps both of them, will come to the Albany to break the shattering news to me that my £5000 has been stolen. Then it’ll be my turn to have a stroke. Come on!”

With quivering nerves, I walked round with Raffles, through Berkeley Square, to Piccadilly and the Albany. In his living-room, I could not keep my eyes from wandering repeatedly to the clock on his mantelpiece. The hands seemed to me to move with a glacierlike deliberation. When at last a knock sounded on the door, I almost dropped the bound volume of Punch I was pretending to look at.

“Come in,” called Raffles, who was pouring us each a glass of sherry.

It was the hall porter who opened the door, announcing, “Mrs. Diana Rivenhurst and Mr. George H. Jay to see you, Mr. Raffles.”

“Thank you, Bellairs,” said Raffles. “Why, Diana, this is a happy surprise! And Mr. Jay, too? May I introduce Mr. Manders, an old friend and schoolfellow of mine? Do sit down. We were about to have a sherry. You’ll join us, of course.”

“The matter my client and I have come about, Mr. Raffles,” said Jay, tall and commanding of presence, but redder than usual in the face, “is — well, private.”

“Oh, Bunny Manders is the soul of discretion,” said Raffles. “Diana, you like your sherry medium dry — I remember that, from Winchcombe Glebe. And you, Mr. Jay?”

“Immaterial,” said the ex-Hussar. He fingered his close-clipped, slightly greying moustache. “Mr. Raffles, I had occasion yesterday to visit a client at his country home in Sussex. We dined, discussed our business, I spent the night at his home, and returned to London this morning. On going to my office, I discovered that my safe had been rifled. As you know, there were in it two envelopes belonging, respectively, to Mrs. Rivenhurst and yourself, and entrusted to my safekeeping, for a period of seven days, in connection with a — a joint arrangement, of a — highly personal nature between the two of you. Mr. Raffles, I have to tell you, with profound regret, that one of those envelopes has vanished.”

“One?” said Raffles.

“Arthur,” Diana murmured, her eyes downcast to her gloves as she removed them, plucking at one finger at a time, “the intruder — somehow — quite overlooked my envelope. Isn’t that so, Mr. Jay?”

“That is so,” muttered the agent to the aristocracy, going very red indeed — so red, in fact, that I realised he was unaccustomed to lying and had forced himself to do so only because his interest in his client, Diana, was a deeply personal one, as I had suspected all along.

He was covering up for her. He swallowed hard.

“Arthur,” Diana said to Raffles, “this has been a terrible shock to me. How much more so it must be to you!”

Raffles drew in his breath, deeply.

“It’s a bit of a shock, certainly,” he admitted. “Still, I’m relieved to hear that you’ve suffered no loss, Diana. As for my five thousand — well, I imagine it’s covered by Mr. Jay’s insurance. Which reminds me, Mr. Jay — your insurance company will probably want to see the receipt you gave me.” Raffles opened a drawer of his writing-table. “I think I put it—”

“Mr. Raffles,” George H. Jay said heavily, “I carry normal insurance on 5 Finch Court, of course, but the policy, like the policies of most insurance companies, insures everything — except money.”

Raffles, receipt in hand, looked startled.

“You see, Arthur,” said Diana, “how awful it all is?”

“The whole ‘escrow’ notion,” said Mr. Jay, “was a folly, a joint folly by you both. I advised against it, Mrs. Rivenhurst, when you first told me of your unconventional notion. I also told you, Mr. Raffles, that I was surprised at your indulging Dia — Mrs. Rivenhurst in her ‘escrow’ whimsy. I further added, to you both, in my office, that I would only undertake to hold the deposits for you on the understanding that I did so without prejudice to myself.”

“I’m afraid that’s true, Arthur,” said Diana. “Mr. Jay—”

“My dear Mrs. Rivenhurst,” said the ex-Hussar, his manner growing every moment more commanding, “I number among my clients the highest in the land. I am, moreover, privileged to call them my friends. My advice to them, in arranging matters of delicacy, is always: ‘Let me do the talking!’ ”

Diana bowed her lovely head.

“Very well,” said Mr. Jay. “I’ll now take it upon myself to give you both my considered opinion. Your ‘escrow’ agreement was a joint folly. A loss has resulted from it. In my view, the only equitable thing that can be done now is for you jointly to share that loss.”

Diana looked up quickly, in alarm and surprise, at George Jay.

Raffles said, “I respect your suggestion, Mr. Jay.”

My spirits soared. We were going to get £2500!

“But, of course,” Raffles added, the receipt in his hand, “I wouldn’t dream of allowing Diana to do as you suggest.”

He struck a match, set fire to the receipt, tossed it into the grate.

My heart sank. He loved her, then. So £2500 was going up in smoke!

Diana was looking at him with shining eyes. But Mr. Jay had flushed deeply.

“I must say, Mr. Raffles, that your action is consonant,” said the agent to the aristocracy, “with everything that my inqui — everything that I’ve ever heard said of you. You are a gentleman. As one myself, however, I think you’re overlooking something. Surely, if you refuse to share your loss with Dia — Mrs. Rivenhurst, you’re placing her under an unfair moral obligation to you!”

Diana looked down at her gloves. She was biting her lip, seemingly with some vexation.

“Mr. Jay,” Raffles said slowly, “that hadn’t occurred to me. H’m!” He frowned, turned to me. “Bunny, as a gentleman and more or less a bystander in this matter, what do you think? Let’s leave the decision to you.”

“Well, frankly, Raffles,” I said, trying hard to look reluctant, “I’m obliged to agree with Mr. Jay.”

“Then that settles it,” said Raffles. “We’ll dispose of this unfortunate money matter as Mr. Jay, with Bunny Manders’ disinterested support, so sensibly advises — shall we not, Diana?”

“I suppose so,” said Diana.

Her tone was sulky. She omitted to call him “Arthur.” As for myself, a virtual stranger to her as I was, the look I received from her beautiful eyes when, having written a cheque for Raffles, she took her departure with her adviser, ex-Captain George H. Jay, was little short of lethal.

“I’m afraid, Bunny,” Raffles said, as we heard Diana’s landaulette departing, with a honk of its horn, from Albany Courtyard, “that the ex-Hussar is in for a difficult half-hour. But his behaviour was very correct. It was in the highest traditions of the Army. No wonder the aristocracy trust him! He certainly made it easy for me to do what I had to do — for Diana’s own sake.”

“Her own sake?” I said.

“As you know,” said Raffles, “I have certain scruples about marriage. So, for her own sake, I had to discourage Diana from thinking of myself in that connection. I therefore committed what’s clearly, for the prudent Diana, an unpardonable sin. I let myself be persuaded to accept a small part of her great Cottonmills fortune.”

Raffles picked up Diana Rivenhurst’s cheque, looked at it thoughtfully.

“£2500 for us to share,” I said, elated.

“Yes.” Raffles tossed the cheque back on to his writing-table. He shrugged. “Well, that’s life, Bunny,” he said. “For a small gain, a greater loss.”

“Loss?” I said. “Of what?”

“Of an illusion, Bunny. Of an illusion, as old as Eden, about a garden spellbound in moonlight,” Raffles said, “and a woman with a rose in her hair.”