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

“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.