"Hornung, E W - A J Raffles 02 - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman (The Black Mask)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hornung E. W)

RAFFLES

FURTHER ADVENTURES OF THE AMATEUR CRACKSMAN

BY E. W. HORNUNG




RAFFLES

NO SINECURE



I

I am still uncertain which surprised me more, the telegram
calling my attention to the advertisement, or the advertisement
itself. The telegram is before me as I write. It would appear
to have been handed in at Vere Street at eight o'clock in the
morning of May 11, 1897, and received before half-past at
Holloway B.O. And in that drab region it duly found me, unwashen
but at work before the day grew hot and my attic insupportable.

"See Mr. Maturin's advertisement Daily Mail might suit you
earnestly beg try will speak if necessary ---- ----"

I transcribe the thing as I see it before me, all in one
breath that took away mine; but I leave out the initials at the
end, which completed the surprise. They stood very obviously for
the knighted specialist whose consulting-room is within a
cab-whistle of Vere Street, and who once called me kinsman for
his sins. More recently he had called me other names. I was a
disgrace, qualified by an adjective which seemed to me another.
I had made my bed, and I could go and lie and die in it. If I
ever again had the insolence to show my nose in that house, I
should go out quicker than I came in. All this, and more, my
least distant relative could tell a poor devil to his face;
could ring for his man, and give him his brutal instructions on
the spot; and then relent to the tune of this telegram! I have
no phrase for my amazement. I literally could not believe my
eyes. Yet their evidence was more and more conclusive: a very
epistle could not have been more characteristic of its sender.
Meanly elliptical, ludicrously precise, saving half-pence at
the expense of sense, yet paying like a man for "Mr." Maturin,
that was my distinguished relative from his bald patch to his
corns. Nor was all the rest unlike him, upon second thoughts.
He had a reputation for charity; he was going to live up to it
after all. Either that, or it was the sudden impulse of which