: E. W. Hornung
: Mr. Justice Raffles
: Seltzer Books
: 9781455354344
: 1
: CHF 0.70
:
: Krimis, Thriller, Spionage
: English
: 589
: DRM
: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
: ePUB
Classic mystery/detective novel. According to Wikipedia: 'Ernest William Hornung (June 7, 1866 - March 22, 1921)... was an English author, most famous for writing the Raffles series of novels about a gentleman thief in late Victorian London. Hornung was the third son of John Peter Hornung, a Hungarian, and was born in Middlesbrough, England. He was educated at Uppingham School during some of the later years of its great headmaster, Edward Thring. He spent most of his life in England and France, but in 1884 left for Australia and stayed for two years where he working as a tutor at Mossgiel station. Although his Australian experience had been so short, it coloured most of his literary work from A Bride from the Bush published in 1899, to Old Offenders and a few Old Scores, which appeared after his death. He returned from Australia in 1886, and married Constance ('Connie') Doyle (1868-1924), the sister of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in 1893. Hornung published the poems Bond and Free and Wooden Crosses in The Times. The character of A. J. Raffles, a 'gentleman thief', first appeared in Cassell's Magazine in 1898 and the stories were later collected as The Amateur Cracksman (1899). Other titles in the series include The Black Mask (1901), A Thief in the Night (1905), and the full-length novel Mr. Justice Raffles (1909). He also co-wrote the play Raffles, The Amateur Cracksman with Eugene Presbrey in 1903.'

 CHAPTER XII. A Midsummer Night's Work


 

 The dense and total darkness was broken in one place, and one only, by a plateful of light proceeding from a tiny bulb of incandescence in its centre. This blinding atom of white heat lit up a hand hardly moving, a pen continually poised, over a disc of snowy paper; and on the other side, something that lay handy on the table, reflecting the light in its plated parts. It was Raffles at his latest deviltry. He had not heard me, and he could not see; but for that matter he never looked up from his task. Sometimes his face bent over it, and I could watch its absolute concentration. The brow was furrowed, and the mouth pursed, yet there was a hint of the same quiet and wary smile with which Raffles would bowl an over or drill holes in a door.

 

I stood for some moments fascinated, entranced, before creeping in to warn him of my presence in a whisper. But this time he heard my step, snatched up electric torch and glittering revolver, and covered me with the one in the other's light.

 

"A.J.!" I gasped.

 

"Bunny!" he exclaimed in equal amazement and displeasure."What the devil do you mean by this?"

 

"You're in danger," I whispered."I came to warn you!"

 

"Danger? I'm never out of it. But how did you know where to find me, and how on God's earth did _you_ get here?"

 

"I'll tell you some other time. You know those two brutes you dodged the other day?"

 

"I ought to."

 

"They're waiting below for you at this very moment."

 

Raffles peered a few moments through the handful of white light between our faces.

 

"Let them wait!" said he, and replaced the torch upon the table and put down his revolver for his pen.

 

"They're detectives!" I urged.

 

"Are they, Bunny?"

 

"What else could they be?"

 

"Wh