"The Raffles Relics" is a short story by

E. W. Hornung Ernest William Hornung (7 June 1866 – 22 March 1921) was an English author and poet known for writing the A. J. Raffles (character), A. J. Raffles series of stories about a gentleman thief in late 19th-century London. Hornung was educa ...

, and features the gentleman thief

A. J. Raffles Arthur J. Raffles (usually called A. J. Raffles) is a fictional character created in 1898 by E. W. Hornung, brother-in-law of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes. Raffles is, in many ways, an inversion of Holmeshe is a "gentlem ...

, and his companion and biographer,

Bunny Manders Harry Manders (almost exclusively known as Bunny Manders) is a fictional character in the popular series of Raffles stories by E. W. Hornung. He is the companion of A. J. Raffles, a cricketer and gentleman thief, who makes a living robbing the r ...

. The story was published in September 1905 by ''

Pall Mall Magazine ''The Pall Mall Magazine'' was a monthly British literary magazine published between 1893 and 1914. Begun by William Waldorf Astor as an offshoot of ''The Pall Mall Gazette'', the magazine included poetry, short stories, serialized fiction, and ge ...

'' in London. The story was also included as the eighth story in the collection '' A Thief in the Night'', published by

Chatto & Windus Chatto & Windus is an imprint of Penguin Random House that was formerly an independent book publishing company founded in London in 1855 by John Camden Hotten. Following Hotten's death, the firm would reorganize under the names of his business ...

in London, and

Charles Scribner's Sons Charles Scribner's Sons, or simply Scribner's or Scribner, is an American publisher based in New York City, known for publishing American authors including Henry James, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Kurt Vonnegut, Marjorie Kinnan Rawli ...

in New York, both in 1905.

Plot

It is December 1899, at which time the reputations of Raffles and Bunny are ruined and they are secretly living in Ham Common. They read in a magazine about the so-called Raffles Relics on display at the

Black Museum The Crime Museum is a collection of criminal memorabilia kept at New Scotland Yard, headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service in London, England. Known as the Black Museum until the early 21st century, the museum came into existence at S ...

New Scotland Yard Scotland Yard (officially New Scotland Yard) is the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police, the territorial police force responsible for policing Greater London's 32 boroughs, but not the City of London, the square mile that forms London's ...

. Excited, Raffles passive-aggressively persuades Bunny, now a journalist, to get a journalist's pass for two to visit the museum. They enter the museum without incident. An enthusiastic young clerk arrives to give them a tour, though he is less knowledgeable than Raffles and Bunny on the museum's inventory, which includes the infamous cigarette box of two criminals who were never caught. Eventually, the clerk shows them the Raffles Relics, taken from Raffles's Albany rooms after his apparent death. He points out several objects, including Raffles's old revolver, which Raffles had once fired at a man on a roof and had once hidden a pearl inside of, the rope-ladder and telescope walking-stick he used at the house of Lord Thornaby, the velvet bag whose use is unknown, the life-preserver that Bunny had once hit Raffles with, and Raffles's chest. The clerk speaks poorly of Raffles's partner, to Bunny's chagrin. A well-known detective and two other guests also browse the museum. Raffles, wary of the detective, tells Bunny to hide his face in some photographs; Bunny does so, until he realizes that Raffles has vanished. Irritated, he nonetheless tells the clerk that Raffles had to catch a train. Bunny lingers until the detective's party leaves, then tips the clerk and leaves. He searches for Raffles for four hours, in vain. At home, he anxiously waits hours for Raffles. Bunny wakes abruptly in the morning to see Raffles, and the entire collection of Raffles Relics, except for the chest. Raffles had hid himself in the chest, using its secret side door. He had replaced his relics with items from other collections, so that the robbery will not be noticed for weeks. Raffles wonders about putting his relics to use again, but also speaks prophetically about the competing excitement that the ongoing

war War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...

might soon offer them.

Adaptations

BBC Radio adapted the story into the first half of the sixteenth episode of its Raffles radio drama, "The Raffles Relics", which first aired on 20 August 1992. The drama features

Jeremy Clyde Michael Jeremy Thomas Clyde (born 22 March 1941) is an English actor and musician. During the 1960s, he was one-half of the folk duo Chad & Jeremy (with Chad Stuart), who had little success in the UK, but were an object of interest to American ...

as Raffles and

Michael Cochrane Michael Cochrane is an English actor. Biography Cochrane was born in Brighton, East Sussex. He was educated at Cranleigh School. He has had many television and radio roles including Oliver Sterling in the Radio 4 soap opera ''The Archers'', ...

as Bunny. The episode faithfully follows the plot of the original story, with a minor change: * In the drama, the stealing of the Raffles Relics is their first Ham Common crime, rather than their last. In the episode, Raffles and Bunny use the stolen items to carry out the burglary in "

The Wrong House "The Wrong House" is a short story by E. W. Hornung, and features the gentleman thief A. J. Raffles, and his companion and biographer, Bunny Manders. The story was first published in ''Scribner's Magazine'' in September 1901. The story was also i ...

References

;Notes ;Sources * *

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Raffles Relics, The 1905 short stories A. J. Raffles short stories Works originally published in The Pall Mall Magazine