Mr. Justice RafflesHornung, E. W. (Ernest William)
General
Mr. Justice Raffles
Hornung, E. W. (Ernest William)
Criminals -- England -- Fiction; Raffles (Fictitious character) -- Fiction
"No. I was naturally curious on the point. But he refused to tell me."
"What a chap!" murmured Teddy, with a tender enthusiasm that made me love
him. "What a friend for a fellow! Well, Manders, if you don't write all
this I certainly shall. So I may as well tell you where I was."
"I must say it would interest me to know."
My companion resumed his smile where he had left it off. "I wonder if you
would ever guess?" he speculated, looking down into my face.
"I don't suppose I should."
"No more do I; not in a month of Sundays; for I spent that day on the
very sofa I was on a minute ago!"
I looked at the striped divan opposite. I looked at Teddy Garland
sitting on mine. His smile was a little wry with the remnant of his
bygone shame; he hurried on before I could find a word.
"You remember that drug I had? Somnol I think it was. That was a risky
game to play with any head but one's own; still A. J. was right in
thinking I should have been worse without any sleep at all. I should,"
said Teddy, "but I should have rolled up at Lord's! The beastly stuff put
me asleep all right, but it didn't keep me asleep long enough! I was
awake before four, heard you both talking in the next room, remembered
everything in a flash! But for that flash I should have dropped off again
in a minute; but if you remember all I had to remember, Manders, you
won't wonder that I lay madly awake all the rest of the night. My head
was rotten with sleep, but my heart was in such hell as I couldn't
describe to you if I tried."
"I've been there," said I, briefly.
"Well, then, you can imagine my frightful thoughts. Suicide was one; but
to get out of that came first, to get away without looking either of you
in the face in broad daylight. So I shammed sleep when Raffles looked in,
and when you both went out I dressed in five minutes and slunk out too.
I had no idea where I was going. I don't remember what brought me down
into this street. It may have been my debt to Dan Levy. All I remember is
finding myself opposite this place, my head splitting, and the sudden
idea that a bath might freshen me up and couldn't make me worse. I
remembered A.J. telling me he had once taken six wickets after one. So in
I came. I had my bath, and some tea and toast in the hot-rooms; we were
all to have a late breakfast together, if you recollect. I felt I should
be in plenty of time for that and Lord's--if only I hadn't boiled all the
cricket out of me. So I came up here and lay down there. But what I
hadn't boiled out was that beastly drug. It got back on me like a
boomerang. I closed my eyes for a minute--and it was well on in the
afternoon when I awoke!"
Here Teddy interrupted himself to order whiskies and soda of a
metropolitan Bashi-Bazouk who happened to pass along the gallery; and to
go stumbling over to his pockets, in his swaddling towels, for cigarettes
and matches. And the rest of his discourse was less coherent.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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