Part 23 (1/2)

I know that I rose exultant from my deed....

CHAPTER XIV

Corpus Delicti

Raffles was still stamping and staggering with his knuckles in his eyes, and I heard him saying, ”The letter, Bunny, the letter!” in a way that made me realise all at once that he had been saying nothing else since the moment of the foul a.s.sault. It was too late now and must have been from the first; a few filmy sc.r.a.ps of blackened paper, stirring on the hearth, were all that remained of the letter by which Levy had set such store, for which Raffles had risked so much.

”He's burnt it,” said I. ”He was too quick for me.”

”And he's nearly burnt my eyes out,” returned Raffles, rubbing them again. ”He was too quick for us both.”

”Not altogether,” said I, grimly. ”I believe I've cracked his skull and finished him off!”

Raffles rubbed and rubbed until his bloodshot eyes were blinking out of a blood-stained face into that of the fallen man. He found and felt the pulse in a wrist like a s.h.i.+p's cable.

”No, Bunny, there's some life in him yet! Run out and see if there are any lights in the other part of the house.”

When I came back Raffles was listening at the door leading into the long gla.s.s pa.s.sage.

”Not a light!” said I.

”Nor a sound,” he whispered. ”We're in better luck than we might have been; even his revolver didn't go off.” Raffles extracted it from under the prostrate body. ”It might just as easily have gone off and shot him, or one of us.” And he put the pistol in his own pocket.

”But have I killed him, Raffles?”

”Not yet, Bunny.”

”But do you think he's going to die?”

I was overcome by reaction now; my knees knocked together, my teeth chattered in my head; nor could I look any longer upon the great body sprawling p.r.o.ne, or the insensate head twisted sideways on the parquet floor.

”He's all right,” said Raffles, when he had knelt and felt and listened again. I whimpered a pious but inconsistent e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n. Raffles sat back on his heels, and meditatively wiped a smear of his own blood from the polished floor. ”You'd better leave him to me,” he said, looking and getting up with sudden decision.

”But what am I to do?”

”Go down to the boathouse and wait in the boat.”

”Where is the boathouse?”

”You can't miss it if you follow the lawn down to the water's edge.

There's a door on this side; if it isn't open, force it with this.”

And he pa.s.sed me his pocket jimmy as naturally as another would have handed over a bunch of keys.

”And what then?”

”You'll find yourself on the top step leading down to the water; stand tight, and lash out all round until you find a windla.s.s. Wind that windla.s.s as gingerly as though it were a watch with a weak heart; you will be raising a kind of portcullis at the other end of the boathouse, but if you're heard doing it at dead of night we may have to run or swim for it. Raise the thing just high enough to let us under in the boat, and then lie low on board till I come.”

Reluctant to leave that ghastly form upon the floor, but now stricken helpless in its presence, I was softer wax than ever in the hands of Raffles, and soon found myself alone in the dew upon an errand in which I neither saw nor sought for any point. Enough that Raffles had given me something to do for our salvation; what part he had a.s.signed to himself, what he was about indoors already, and the nature of his ultimate design, were questions quite beyond me for the moment. I did not worry about them. Had I killed my man? That was the one thing that mattered to me, and I frankly doubt whether even it mattered at the time so supremely as it seemed to have mattered now. Away from the corpus delicti, my horror was already less of the deed than of the consequences, and I had quite a level view of those. What I had done was barely even manslaughter at the worst. But at the best the man was not dead. Raffles was bringing him to life again. Alive or dead, I could trust him to Raffles, and go about my own part of the business, as indeed I did in a kind of torpor of the normal sensibilities.

Not much do I remember of that dreamy interval, until the dream became the nightmare that was still in store. The river ran like a broad road under the stars, with hardly a glimmer and not a floating thing upon it. The boathouse stood at the foot of a file of poplars, and I only found it by stooping low and getting everything over my own height against the stars. The door was not locked; but the darkness within was such that I could not see my own hand as it wound the windla.s.s inch by inch. Between the slow ticking of the cogs I listened jealously for foreign sounds, and heard at length a gentle dripping across the breadth of the boathouse; that was the last of the ”portcullis,” as Raffles called it, rising out of the river; indeed, I could now see the difference in the stretch of stream underneath, for the open end of the boathouse was much less dark than mine; and when the faint band of reflected starlight had broadened as I thought enough, I ceased winding and groped my way down the steps into the boat.