'You may laugh,' said Levy. 'I'm too old a bird for your chaff; the only wonder is I didn't spot you right off when we were abroad.' He grinned malevolently. 'Shall I tell you when I did tumble to it—Mr. Ananias J. Raffles?'
'Daniel in the liars' den,' murmured Raffles, wiping the tears from his eyes. 'Oh, yes, do tell us anything you like; this is the best entertainment we've had for a long time, isn't it, Bunny?'
'Chalks!' said I.
'I thought of it this morning,' proceeded the money-lender, with a grim contempt for all our raillery, 'when you played your pretty trick upon me, so glib and smooth, and up to every move, the pair of you! One borrowing the money, and the other paying me back in my very own actual coin!'
'Well,' said I, 'there was no crime in that.'
'Oh, yes, there was,' replied Levy, with a wide wise grin; 'there was the one crime you two ought to know better than ever to commit, if you call yourselves what I called you just now. The crime that you committed was the crime of being found out; but for that I should never have suspected friend Ananias of that other job at Carlsbad; no, not even when I saw his friends so surprised to hear that he'd been out there—a strapping young chap like 'im! Yes,' cried the money-lender, lifting the chair and jobbing it down on the floor; 'this morning was when I thought of it, but this afternoon was when I jolly well knew.'
Raffles was no longer smiling; his eyes were like points of steel, his lips like a steel trap.
'I saw what you thought,' said he, disdainfully. 'And you still seriously think I took your wife's necklace and hid it in the woods?'
'I know you did.'
'Then what the devil are you doing here alone?' cried Raffles. 'Why didn't you bring along a couple of good men and true from Scotland Yard? Here I am, Mr. Levy, entirely at your service. Why don't you give me in charge?'
Levy chuckled consumedly—ventriloquously—behind his three gold buttons and his one diamond stud.
'P'r'aps I'm not such a bad sort as you think,' said he. 'An' p'r'aps you two gentlemen are not such bad sorts as
'Gentlemen once more, eh?' said Raffles. 'Isn't that rather a quick recovery for swell magsmen, or whatever we were a minute ago?'
'P'r'aps I never really thought you quite so bad as all that, Mr.
Raffles.'
'Perhaps you never really thought I took the necklace, Mr. Levy?'
'I know you took it,' returned Levy, his new tone of crafty conciliation softening to a semblance of downright apology. 'But I believe you did put it back where you knew it'd be found. And I begin to think you only took it for a bit o' fun!'
'If he took it at all,' said I. 'Which is absurd.'
'I only wish I had!' exclaimed Raffles, with gratuitous audacity. 'I agree with you, Mr. Levy, it would have been more like a bit of fun than anything that came my way on the human rubbish-heap we were both inhabiting for our sins.'
'The kind of fun that appeals to you?' suggested Levy, with a very shrewd glance.
'It would,' said Raffles, 'I feel sure.'
''Ow would you care for another bit o' fun like it, Mr. Raffles?'
'Don't say 'another,' please.'
'Well, would you like to try your 'and at the game again?'
'Not 'again,' Mr. Levy; and my 'prentice' hand, if you don't mind.'
'I beg pardon; my mistake,' said Levy, with becoming gravity.
'How would I like to try my prentice hand on picking and stealing for the pure fun of the thing? Is that it, Mr. Levy?'
Raffles was magnificent now; but so was the other in his own way. And once more I could but admire the tact with which Levy had discarded his favourite cudgels, and the surprising play that he was making with the buttoned foil.
'It'd be more picking than stealing,' said he. 'Tricky picking too,
Raffles, but innocent enough even for an amatoor.'
'I thank you, Mr. Levy. So you have a definite case in mind?'
'I have—a case of recovering a man's own property.'
'You being the man, Mr. Levy?'
'I being the man, Mr. Raffles.'
'Bunny, I begin to see why he didn't bring the police with him!'
I affected to have seen it for some time; thereupon our friend the enemy protested that in no circumstances could he have taken such a course. By the searchlight of the present he might have detected things which had entirely escaped his notice in the past—incriminating things—things that would put together into a Case. But, after all, what evidence had he against Raffles as yet? Mr. Levy himself propounded the question with unflinching candour. He might inform the Metropolitan Police of his strong suspicions; and they might communicate with the Austrian police, and evidence beyond the belated evidence of his own senses be duly forthcoming; but nothing could be done at once, and if Raffles cared to endorse his theory of the practical joke, by owning up to that and nothing more, then, so far as Mr. Levy was concerned, nothing should ever be done at all.
'Except this little innocent recovery of your own property,' suggested
Raffles. 'I suppose that's the condition?'
'Condition's not the word I should have employed,' said Levy, with a shrug.
'Preliminary, then?'
'Indemnity is more the idea. You put me to a lot of trouble by abstracting Mrs. Levy's jewels for your own amusement—'
'So you assert, Mr. Levy.'
'Well, I may be wrong; that remains to be seen—or not—as you decide,' rejoined the Jew, lifting his mask for the moment. 'At all events you admit that it's the sort of adventure you would like to try. And so I ask you to amuse yourself by abstracting something else of mine that 'appens to have got into the wrong hands; then, I say, we shall be quits.'
'Well,' said Raffles, 'there's no harm in our hearing what sort of property it is, and where you think it's to be found.'
The usurer leant forward in his chair; he had long been sitting in the one which at first he had seemed inclined to wield as a defensive weapon. We all drew together into a smaller triangle. And I found our visitor looking specially hard at me for the first time.
'I've seen you, too, before to-day,' said he. 'I thought I had, after you'd gone this morning, and when we met in the afternoon I made sure. It was at the Savoy when me and my wife were dining there and you gentlemen were at the next table.' There was a crafty twinkle in his eye, but the natural allusion to the necklace was not made. 'I suppose,' he continued, 'you are partners in—amusement? Otherwise I should insist on speaking to Mr. Raffles alone.'
'Bunny and I are one,' said Raffles airily.
'Though two to one—numerically speaking,' remarked Levy, with a disparaging eye on me. 'However, if you're both in the job, so much the more chance of bringing it off, I daresay. But you'll never 'ave to 'andle a lighter swag, gentlemen!'
'More jewellery?' inquired Raffles, as one thoroughly enjoying the joke.
'No—lighter than that—a letter!'
'One little letter?'
