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My charges focussed on my assistance in committing multiple robberies. I was given a chance to defend myself. There was nothing for me to say. My sentence was not long, nothing compared to if Raffles had been in my place. I took comfort in that, as I stood up in the stands.
The night was silent. Nothing except for our footsteps, and Raffles had advised me to wear rubber soles. I could see our breath smoke in the cold night air. It was definitely approaching winter, the sky was darker than the sins of all the cracksmen in London.
My heart was beating hard in my chest, I knew what was coming but I still was not quite used to the rush. Raffles was smiling beside me. He knew just where we were going--I did not. Then he took my hand, all of a sudden, pulled me into a dark alley. My friend gave me a leg up over a wall then followed me with the ease of a sportsman. We were in a large garden and I could see in the distance a house. The lights were out except for those that I guessed to be the servants quarters. I know that the moon was not out that night, but I still remember Raffles’ smile illuminated in the moonlight.
I cannot say what they expected to hear. That I regretted all, I suspect. That I had been led astray by a charming man. Inspector Mackenzie had stood on the stands and said as much. Said that I was at little fault, a very short sentence would be sufficient. And yet, I still held loyalty to my friend. I always had done.
Stick at nothing for a pal
. The words tasted bitter in my mouth as I stood up in that courtroom.
My time in prison was not the first time I had wished to hate my closest friend. Perhaps the first time I truly understood why that was. I sat there, day and night, for the first week. Searching my heart for the hatred that I knew must be there, that I had been half expecting since that fateful night in March so many years ago. It would have made the time without Raffles easier.
He darted from the shadow of the wall to the house. It was not so great a distance as it had seemed. From the garden wall I could only see him when he moved. When we reached the house, he opened the catch of a ground floor window and slipped in as though he had been there a thousand times. The room was a library, bookcases with locked fronts, lined with woven wire. I had been right earlier. My friend knew just where to go, there wa not a hesitation in his movement. I wondered when he had been here before, when he had become so familiar with with the house.
I remember what Mackenzie said clearly, as though I was still on those stands, still on trial, still awaiting my years in prison. I do not care to recount it. Like the rest of my trial, Mackenzie’s statement had been more about Raffles than myself. ‘Mr Manders is harmless, merely led astray’ by the excitement, the thrill, the money. The crime. As I sat there I considered the truth. So much worse in the eyes of the court.
True, I was ‘led astray’ by my friend’s charm, but never the excitement. How could I explain to them that the crime did not interest me? That the danger was not what bound me to Raffles side all those cold nights.
What could I say to the jury, how could I plead my case? “I wa not led to crime by the want of riches, or excitement. I was
driven
to it by the fear of debt, and kept to it by friendship--by love. By Raffles. I went along willingly, most of the time. I loved him too much to leave him, to even hate him for the life he had pulled me to. To hate him for who he was, for who I became. I spent the best years of my life with him, my dearest friend. I wouldn’t take back a moment, even of the worst nights. I am now facing my greatest loss at his death. You, who were never so close to AJ Raffles, can not understand why I did what I did and why I was who I was, in that time.”
It would have been a foolish defence, likely landed me in far more trouble than it could have saved me from. I had been a criminal. I knew as much as I sat in that cell. I did not know that I would be one once more, did not dare hope. For while I resented the crime as it seemed to be all around me, how did I miss it in it’s absence.
It was three am when we returned to the Albany. Raffles was smiling wider than before, his eyes dancing in the gas light. The blue smoke rising from his cigarette clouded above his head as he laughed so freely. It was rare I saw him so free and easy. He kissed me that night, then handed me a cigarette and a whiskey to steady my heart, my limbs, as the adrenaline crashed from my system. I remember Raffles so clearly that night.
I would have said it again, in that prison cell. Name your crime and I’m your man. Those words were as much my salvation as they were my downfall.