Raffles
It's always the third time, I've noticed, that does the trick. The third drawer, the third door, the third skeleton key in the lock… it's a universal pattern, or at least a universal pattern local to me, that the third time will more often than not be the one that gains me entry into places I really have no right to be. Three's the charm, lucky or unlucky, for A. J. Raffles.
I went to Thames Ditton for a third time, and the pattern held true.
There's little to tell… what would you have me say? I had already seen him twice since he'd left (what had I been playing at?), but still had yet to find in sight alone the closure I sought. And so, failing in my first two attempts and refusing to accept defeat (how could I?), I instead foolishly convinced myself that all I really needed was to speak to him. I only needed to prove to myself that I could speak to him, and then I would be free of him. I only needed to hear him say good-by, and say those words myself, to him, and then—and then—it would be over. Then I could get on with my life.
The trouble is, one can't say very well good-by without first saying hello.
That was all it was meant to be—a simple hello. But somehow, inevitably perhaps, my simple hello turned into a more-than-simple conversation, which itself multiplied and mutated and filled the hours until they spilled into a long and equivocating day. A difficult day; a pleasant day; what else can I say of it? As I say, there's nothing much to tell. The weather was hot and bright, he looked pale and thin and driven, we took a pretty little canoe out on the river… that's all. It was a good day, even if it was a day that we should never have had. Stolen things are always sweeter.
Our talk came easily enough; not as easily as it once had, perhaps, but still more easily than might be expected. The whole day was easier than it might have been, in fact, right from the moment I found myself knocking against the wood of his fence post to catch his attention. Even in that moment, even once I had committed that cardinal sin of walking up to his gate in the first place (for when I'd gone down there first I'd sworn to myself I'd not even get so close as that, let alone anything else. Never trust a thief, eh?), I had no plan to speak to him. Not truly speak to him. I would just say hello, I had thought, nothing more. I would ask how he was faring, enquire politely after his health, engage in a little meaningless, safe small talk from the road. Maybe, I thought, I would make a few jokes, enough to see him smile, enough to let us leave it all on a bright note. I knew what I was doing—or so I thought—and I was confident enough in my convictions, and in his, that I'd have neither opportunity nor desire to wander from my planned path.
But then Bunny was … Bunny. What man could stay strong in the face of that? In the face of him as he spoke my name with such endearing charm, as he gazed up at me with such light in those golden-green eyes, such fire in that smile, such hope? What on earth was I supposed to do? I'm not made of ice. And even had I been, the warmth which radiated from him when he turned round to greet me would have been enough to melt Antarctica, let alone my faltering heart. It was certainly enough to set sparks firing through my brain, igniting that trail of gunpowder which led me to think things which were very, very foolish, and do things which were very, very reckless. Things which would result in everyone nearby getting burned.
Still, at fault as I was, I refuse to shoulder all of the blame for that day and all that which followed. Yes, I went there in the first place, yes, I initiated contact, and yes, all of that was very wrong of me—but it was Bunny who bade me stay, and him for whom I stayed. Would I have done as I did, if not? I tried several times to make those good-bys which were the ostensible purpose of that foolish visit. I offered him easy excuses with which to send me on my way, on the off chance that mere politeness had persuaded him to tolerate my presence. But he took none of them! Bunny kept me there; he would hardly let me leave. I know I overstepped boundaries, but Bunny encouraged me. Bunny showed me a mercy I never deserved, and in doing so gave me back hope . ...In doing so he sealed his own fate.
Not that he was enthusiastic about it the whole time, I confess. His moods always were mercurial, and that day the Bunny Barometer was swinging around the dial like a blindfolded batsman. One minute he would be happily telling me some anecdote or another, and the next would stop himself short and shrug off my attempts at reply in a sulk. One moment he would smile, the next grow cold; his hand would fall upon my arm, only to be sharply withdrawn; a cutting comment would about-turn at the last, and become so soft and melancholic and dear that it was all I could do not to pull him into my arms and no doubt topple us both out of the skiff and into the water in the process.
Bunny, as ever, kept me on my toes. I couldn't predict him—I didn't want to predict him (I had well-learnt my lesson against relying on my ability to do that without error…). He defied every expectation, even in occasionally fulfilling them; for there is a tedious type of predictability in reliable unpredictability, after all, and Bunny never was tedious in his life. He was fascinating. He was thrilling. He kept my attention as he always had, as little else in my life had ever been able to do so consistently, and he did it amidst the most bucolic, wholesome, quiet of settings. I felt more alive that day in that derelict suburban idyll than I'd felt for weeks—months. Nothing could hold a candle to him; for Bunny there was simply no comparison. And it was only in seeing him again after being so long in his absence that the starkness of that truth made itself plainly felt: without him, the most thrilling of exploits were dulled; with him, even the dull became thrilling.
My decision was made before I even recognised it: if Bunny needed stability, safety, and security, they were what I would give him. And that would be an adventure in itself, would it not? At my best I was bored and lonely without him; at my worst—I'm sure you can imagine, and I am afraid you will have to. Why waste my time on a life that was failing to amuse me? Why remain so doggedly clinging onto a thing which brought no joy—and for what? I had always claimed that I loved adventure, yet when Bunny had sought for us the greatest adventure of all, I had conservatively refused him. I, A. J. Raffles, daredevil, thrill-seeker, cracksman extraordinaire, had chosen the safety of the known over the thrill of the unknown; the comfort of habit over the freedom of discovery; my own stubborn self over him. What a poor exchange that was!
Suddenly it seemed that it would hardly be a compromise at all, to give up the life I'd worked so hard for—the life I had grown accustomed to and excelled at—for his. For this. For simplicity, honesty, freedom through redemption... these were all adventures of a life I'd never yet had opportunity to sample. Before Bunny had shown me otherwise, I never considered that I could . But that day I found myself thinking—no, believing that such an about-turn was not only possible, but desirable. What, after all, could ever be more thrilling than watching his face change with the seasons? No diamond existed that was more faceted than his spirit; no prize more worth stealing than a life alongside him. Was simplicity really so dull? Was wholesomeness really so bland? Was an honest life really so much of a challenge—and if it was, what kind of a sportsman would I be to refuse it? My life of glamour and danger was failing to fulfill me; I began to wonder whether it ever truly had. Wasn't it worth the gamble, wasn't it worth the risk, to play it all on the hand he had dealt me? Bunny had once let me drag him into my world when he was desperate; could I not let him do the same for me? Could he not rescue me from myself?
I don't know whether I could have lived like that for good. Whether I wouldn't, after a year, five years, ten, have grown bored and complacent and ungrateful, longing once more for the thrill of the chase, for danger, for excitement and distraction at any cost. I don't know whether I really could have given him—could have given myself —anything near a whole life like the glimpse I'd had on that day; but for the first time in my life I felt that I might. And that was more than enough for me. That was more than enough to set my thoughts cascading, crashing onward like a mountain river until, as all waterfalls unerringly do, they and I both met our end in that great sweet Mother and lover of men.
I would like to say that this was all premeditated; half-tempted to rewrite my own history and better cast myself as the villain I know in my heart I am. I would like nothing more than to say I went to Thames Ditton that day with the express purpose of whisking Bunny away; of seducing my rabbit back to both burglary and my bed with wilful and Machiavellan premeditation. What a headline that would make: The Villain A. J. Raffles Strikes Again(!)—stealing pearls and hearts and virtues, all in one fell swoop!
...But that would defeat the object of this exercise. I am sworn to tell the truth, and so I reiterate: I had not gone down there with any of this in mind. I had only gone to see him. I had only approached the gate to say hello—only to say good-by. And I'd only stayed so long l because he seemed so pleased to see me—and so reluctant to let me go. I had no plan. I had no intention of doing what I did, or saying what I said, let alone offering what I offered. But then the night was drawing to a close, and my window of opportunity along with it. All day I had held my tongue and stayed my hand, allowing the shaky nobler side of my heart to win out over the selfish, until, at the last, I faltered.
I don't know whether that makes it better or worse, come to think of it. Perhaps things might have turned out differently had I gone into them more deliberately, more prepared... but as it was, I had no more of a plan than a moth to a flame. As Bunny and I stood together on the station platform, near but never quite near enough, waiting for the last train of the night to arrive and deliver me back to my empty Inferno, a panic seized me. I was going to lose him again, forever, for good, if I didn't do something; if I didn't do that which I should have done back in the uncertain glory of April when he'd asked me first. And now I had more motivation to do so than merely my own fears and wants.
For as I watched him, as he watched anxiously for my train, I couldn't help but note with renewed interest that which I had been noticing throughout the day: Bunny did not look well. Cheeks that were usually so deliciously dimpled had become drawn, and his colour, sallow. His movements were skittish; his energy, wavering; his bright eyes, dimmed. When he had rolled up his sleeves to row, I noticed new marks upon his forearms, an old habit dying hard—and one upon which I knew better than to let my eyes linger. In his rooms in the later evening, I couldn't help but tally the bottles of whiskey, none full, increasingly cheap, his tantalus evidently never locked. When I cast my wandering eye over leaves of his scattered work, I found it's quality erratic, with more lines scored through than not. Snippets of half-formed, melancholic poetry lay interspersed between paragraphs of soulless copy; my writing rabbit's pen for sale to whoever was buying. And I had little doubt he was still gambling. Bunny was always gambling; betting on losing horses was his forte; something we shared in common. That should have warned me, really.
Still, it wasn't for me to judge him, and I had no interest in doing so. But observation is not the same as criticism, and though I did my best not to let him catch me look, still I couldn't help but see, and what I saw was that Bunny was thin. Not merely in a physical sense, which would have been bad enough on him, but metaphysically, as Aristotle would put it—as though his very soul itself was being starved. As though the little left of whatever it was that made him him was struggling to hold his poor body together. Accuse me of waxing morbidly poetic, if you must, but there is no apter way of putting it: the colours that made him were washing away.
I might have been able to out-reason the enthusiasm with which he had received and kept me there; I may have been able to convince myself that I had not read lingering affection in his smile and glance; I could, probably, have held my tongue and suffered on in silence for his sake, if all else was well with him. But nothing on earth could have persuaded me to ignore the state of Bunny's health—and the gods Themselves could not have kept me from stepping in to do what I could to help. Whether or not Bunny cared for me, whether or not he wanted me—none of that mattered. ...Or, it was not, at least, my primary concern in that moment. All I knew was that Bunny was killing himself by slow poison. I'd have no more suffered him this than had he (once again) held a pistol to his golden head with the same intent. All I wanted, all I dared to want, was the opportunity to set right my wrongs; to give him the chance to recover and to start afresh in good health and good credit. I only wanted to protect him.
This was, at least, how I justified it to myself in the aftermath. It was a good justification, for it was true; but it was far from the whole truth. It was far from my sole reason—it was merely my most selfless one, and, perhaps, my most foolish. Bunny always inspired my maddest deeds.
I asked him to go away with me to the Mediterranean.
I asked, and he said yes.
From the moment I left that train station in Thames Ditton, a fire was lighted beneath me. I hardly stopped. I didn't dare stop. If I had stopped, all of my doubts would have caught up with me. If I'd stopped, I would have had time to think about what I was doing—and that was the last thing I wanted to do. Thinking would only give me chance to see how recklessly I was behaving. I had done entirely too much thinking over the past months, most of it about Bunny, and what good had that done me? The time was to act. If I acted enough, I might rewrite the script before the curtain fell.
I would take Bunny to Italy. That much was decided before I even got back to the Albany that same night. Out of England and it's unsatisfactory climate his health would improve, and the novelty of change would bring him out of himself, brighten his dark mood, bring colour back to his cheeks. Whatever Bunny was doing at present was clearly doing him no good; a change, I thought, no matter what it was, could only be beneficial. It couldn't be worse than the state he was already in. I could only make it better, I thought, if I set my mind to it. I would make it better. I had to. And I would begin by taking him away.
Still, that alone would not be enough. The improved climate, both seasonal and social which Italy could provide would help , but without the funds to maintain it, little good that would do. A pauper in Rome is hardly better off than a pauper in London, and I would see Bunny be neither. And money can buy all sorts of things other than the obvious. Money buys status, money buys friends, money buys safety and security—money buys freedom. These things I was determined that Bunny must have. These things he would have. These things I would give him.
I was not entirely without cash, of course. I had enough for the short term, enough to pay both our fares to the continent first class, and enough for us both to live in comfort and luxury out there for a good while. Long enough, probably, to restore Bunny back to his old self—temporarily. What good would that do! No, I needed a more permanent fix. And I needed the money to pay for it.
Bunny had sworn off crime? So be it. I'd be his criminal. I'd bear all of the guilt, take on all of the risk all alone so that he might remain innocent. One last time, that was all I needed. One last big one and then I'd give it up. I'd give it all to him, and then I'd give it all up for him—or he would give me up. Either way, I would ensure Bunny had the money he needed to be set up properly on his pious path. Either way, I was honour bound to make certain Bunny would never need to be reduced to either poverty or crime again. Come what may, I was honour bound to protect him.
As to my specific plan , the seeds of that had, naturally, long since taken root in my brain, watered now to blossoming by that day on the river: I would take the pearl.
The pearl, of course, was that Polynesian marvel which was at that time the centerpoint of a political ruckus kicking off between our glorious monarch and her jumped up German grandson, who was snubbing his nose at us quite deliberately. That pearl was—still is, I suppose—worth at least one hundred thousand pounds. Nothing else in this world could boast so high a price tag upon something so small and so easily concealed. One hundred thousand pounds! Now that was a haul worth taking. That was a haul one might retire on.
The pearl had additional appeals to me. For one thing, the taking of it would truly cock a snook at the Kaiser just as he tried to cock his own at our Empress; a prospect which appealed to my patriotic sensibilities. And, more personally and poetically than that, Bunny had himself written about the cursed little thing in a marvellous little verse—a verse which, so Bunny confessed to me, some cheap newspaper editor had failed to pay him for. By Jove, I would get him payment! That pearl had been put into my head by none other than my writing rabbit's penning paw; what could have been more fitting than that I take it with my own light fingers to deliver back to him?
And, of course, aside from all the rest of it, the very challenge of it all in its own right was deeply attractive to me. If I were to retire, what better last hurrah to go out on? What final victory could be grander? What lasting legacy could be finer? It was, in so many words, the perfect prize, and it was all but waiting to be taken by anyone clever enough to pull it off.
Within three days of leaving Bunny in Thames Ditton, I was headed to Berlin. I knew a man in newspapers there, a chap I'd been up at Cambridge with, who couldn't play cricket for nuts, but was nevertheless a thoroughly good sport. We'd been rather close friends for a spell, and had parted on good terms. He was a long shot, but as good a start as any; and as it turned out he didn't let me down—far from that! It was all I could do to keep my expression one of disinterested amusement as he, unwitting, told me everything I needed to know and more—it was all I could do not to throw back my head and laugh! For what my old acquaintance had informed me was that that politically volatile little pearl was headed to Italy. And it was heading there via England! I couldn't have planned it better myself—and once again I feel half compelled to lie and say that I had planned it, for the sheer serendipity of the thing barely warrants belief in the retelling. But luck, as it had so often been throughout my career, was once again on my side. Still, luck is only worth its salt if one knows how to properly use it—by Jove, I knew how to do that.
I had originally planned to get the thing before Bunny set eyes on me again—that, after all, was why I'd gone to Germany in the first place. Information was not the only thing I had hoped to pick up on the continent. But Fate, it seemed, had a different plan laid out for me, and I would have been a fool to look that particular gift horse in the mouth. The pearl was going to Italy, the very place I had almost arbitrarily decided to take Bunny (though, of course, not entirely arbitrarily, which speaks to the deep-harboured hopes I nursed even as I refused to admit to them). The luck of the thing was staggering, and it seemed to me that the gods in their very heavens must have been cheering me on! I could take Bunny and the pearl on one and the same voyage. What could be neater?
That's not to say I believed it would be plain sailing; I was confident, but not a complete fool. The stealing of the pearl under these new circumstances would pose an entirely different set of challenges to those I had originally begun to prepare for, and challenges which I could not entirely anticipate until I was aboard the liner to Italy. Only aboard the ship could I get a better lay of the land—or of the sea, I suppose—and figure out the best plan of action. But that was no problem for me. There are always opportunities, if one knows where to look for them, and I've always had a good eye.
More of a concern was how I would keep Bunny safely in the dark—or the light, as it were—whilst I went to work all but beneath his sun-freckled nose. For kept in the light he must be; that was (other than not getting run in myself, naturally) my top priority. There was no reason for Bunny to know, after all. It would only worry him, only weigh on his conscience ever after, and what would be the good in that? Bunny never had been cut out for the criminal life, and now he'd had the strength to leave it, I wasn't keen to drag him back. I could do the job by myself; he need be none the wiser. When the money finally came in, Bunny could believe in our good luck as a reward for living the honest life—and in a sense that is what it would be; only the reward would come by my hand, rather than that of the gods'.
As much as I missed his—moral support, still, part of me couldn't help but reluctantly admire Bunny his fortitude and determination in going straight. I admired his strength of character, his strength of heart—I admired, as I had always admired, that tenacious streak of passionate righteousness which he'd never quite lost, and which I had, in some ways if not all, come to depend upon in keeping my own outrages in check. Bunny for his part may once have been a villain-worshipper, but I for mine worshipped a hero of the old breed. I had neither the desire nor intent to change him, nor give him any cause to change. I'd don the armour so he could stick to his guns, and the gods help any Hector who tried to strike me down. Bunny needed to be kept out of it.
I was confident I could manage it, but it would be cutting the thing deucedly fine. But then, I thought, sometimes cutting things fine worked out better. A fine margin allowed less room for error; it necessitated all the more precision; demanded so much more intellectual care, the very pressure itself spurring one on to higher planes of greatness. I'd done some of my very best work under such conditions; I had no reason to believe I would not be able to do so again.
All things considered, it was just the kind of job I loved best, and with the best of motives at heart, and the best of my wits at work, I was almost certain of my own success. That was the story. That was the only ending that made sense—the only ending I would accept. The gods were (so it seemed) on my side, after all. Ulysses had to triumph.
I wired to Bunny the moment I had secured our tickets to Naples.
Everything seemed to be falling into place.
I had soon figured out the rest of the details—the details for next disposing of the pearl, once I'd got it (so convinced was I that I would). I planned them out during those long train journeys chasing around Das Land der Dichter und Denker. I'd barely slept for thinking on them.
We, Bunny and I, would take a fishery in Syracuse—or Catanzaro, or Naples, or Ravenna; where didn't matter; wherever Bunny preferred. We would buy a schooner and rent a dock, fish all day, and lose money like it was going out of fashion. And in the sunsets of the pink-and-gold Italian evenings, we would sit on the deck of our boat—green, in my mind; I'd paint flowers on the side and name her Victoria II—and drink cheap Italian wine together, Bunny and I, in the sublimest and most comfortable of rustic styles, growing beards, getting bronzed, and being all-round ruffians of the most wholesome sort.
And then, just as our last few lira were about to be lost—along with our hopes and dreams for piscine pecuniary success—that's when we'd pull it up: such a pearl as the world had (almost) never before seen! We would have nearly missed it, so used to failure as we were, and we would come within a hare's whisker of chucking the thing overboard with the rest for a cause as lost as our own. But at the last moment, and in the most miraculous twist of fate, we would realise just what we had. I could picture Bunny's face.
Then, of course, we would auction it off to the highest bidder, become wealthy beyond our wildest dreams, and buy a villa on an island fit for a Caesar himself—or whatever it was Bunny decided he wanted, wherever it was he wanted it. And from thereon out, I would give up crime for good. What more could any man want, after all? I was, admittedly, rather young to retire, but Alexander left his Empire at thirty-two, why should I not do the same? But unlike that great man I should leave on my own terms and with my Hephaestion still by my side. I would reap the rewards of Paradise whilst still alive to enjoy them.
It would be a retirement that even the lotos-eaters should envy; and the analogy was apt, for even then I was keeping myself in wilful ignorance of the serious flaws undercutting my plan. I didn't concern myself over the coincidence of that distinctive pearl being "lost at sea" and then another so suddenly reappearing in its place, miraculously from the depths. It would be an unlikely fortuity, certainly, but those happen practically all the time, if you look at it in the broader scheme of things. Million-to-one chances occur nine times out of ten, if you know where to look for them. And though it might, I supposed, bring a measure of unwanted attention to my already popular door, I refused to worry about that, just then. That was another bridge to be burned upon reaching it. If one spent one's entire life worrying over ever-multiplying potentialities instead of facing down those already standing before you, one would never get anything done. Action, that's what was needed. Don't fight fires until they'd been set—until you had set them. I was on the brink of some serious arson.
Unforgivably foolish, in retrospect—don't think for a second I'm not fully aware of it. And I doubt I should have been able to pull it all off as neatly as all that in the end, even had everything gone to plan. No one in their right mind would have ever entertained so reckless an undertaking—and therein lay my problem. I was three sheets to the wind on a potent cocktail of desperation, ambition, and the promises of wrongs righted. I had space in neither my head nor my heart for doubt; I made sure of it. Failure was never part of my equation. To fail would be to lose everything. To fail was not an option. And if it was not an option, why dwell?
I wrote Bunny a letter, riding high as I was on the crest of a wave which would break long before I reached the shore. It was a letter full of hope, and of poetry, and of promise borne aloft on the viewless wings of poesy. I wrote of forgetfulness and luxurious neglect; of the abdication of responsibility, the abandonment of regret, the aberrations of rigorous modern life. I wrote of leaving this world for one of our own, departing for the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie reclined, where the heartache of waking from dreams should never be felt. I wrote of Ruth's sad heart and faery lands forlorn, of loneliness, and losses restored on far and sunny shores. Life was too short, I said, too cruel, and too beautiful to waste upon toil and worry and doubt and debt; let us instead break out and taste the morning prime. Let us instead throw ourselves full sail at life, love, and liberty, before the bony hand of Death snatched us away with the fading of the night.
The thing was brimming over with flowery sentiment, melancholy half-confessions, and disjointed romantic poetry until it was as abstruse as the Voynich manuscripts—and every bit as pretty. But I was as pleased with it as I was with myself, and so sent it on ahead of me the day before my return voyage.
I was so full of foolish hope as I stepped aboard that cursed ship, returning to England for what would be my final time. Would I have imagined, in that rare happy hour, that before the month was out I would have not only lost Bunny once again, but everything else along with him? Everything but my life; everything but my self; everything but that which I would be most willing now to lose, washed up on the shores of Ogygia, prisoner of my own consequence…
For, as is quite obvious, my rare happy hour proved only too short.
