juna

bunny’s post facto self-reproach. reading the opening scene of tcat feels like being caught in the middle of a fight between narrator bunny and narrative bunny. ordinary actions are appended with strangely visceral adverbs; bunny asks for brandy “coarsely”, he comments on the fillet “grossly” etc. this along with the explicit understanding discrepancy between narrator/narrative bunny: narrator bunny is conscious of raffles’ scrutinizing eye/calculating tone etc, narrative bunny is drunk and unawares. if i were to guess at what exactly bunny seems to take so much issue with, i’d say bunny seems to see his past self as sort of focusing on the wrong things—ie the wine and dine instead of the impending job raffles is obviously suggesting

raffles’ jealousy! finally the turn tables. raffles and bunny are both quite clearly missing their old indulgent life, but seem to approach it in different ways. bunny chases the high via their rare night out, making the best of the “unpretentious restaurant”; raffles is dissatisfied with this—as per his wont, it’s about the robbery as much as it is about the wealth, and he wants to take from someone else to fill the hole. this little mental rift is exaggerated by bunny literally missing raffles’ hints as he implicitly suggests burglary over dinner half a dozen different ways and is met repeatedly by a bunny who is, to put it nicely, more than usually meandering on the uptake

a propos above the specific ire raffles seems to have towards belville—this is very much a one-sided rivalry for him; he picks at belville’s lack of hospitality and his taste in furnishing and is not at all subtle about his envy of belville’s position in society. add this to how the comparison practically draws itself—even the newspapers are making it! another man is being credited as his resurrection while raffles lies low, of course the once heralded compliment spoiled raffles is bitter beyond belief. at one point in the story, bunny refers to belville as “a better man than yourself [raffles]”—this is the point at which bunny thinks raffles is going to strike him. he’s hit at raffles’ sorest spot (possibly intentionally? raffles gets his own in at the underbelly by suggesting bunny abandon him during a job just prior to this)

a propos squared: the third ingredient is raffles’ now throughly neglected competitive spirit and love of the chase: he hasn’t had a cricket competition in ages at this point (the longest cricket sobriety stretch in well over a decade if he started playing in school) and his recent heists are probably nowhere near the adrenaline highs of his heyday plus this is the earl’s court era, which means he spends most of his day lying in bed pretending to be sick. raffles is taut like tug-of-war rope in this story (moreso than he has ever been before; bunny says as much explicitly) and it is not terribly difficult to see why.

the insane strain on their relationship. presumably sigma (everything above). raffles is more than ordinarily stern, reproachful, angry, etc for the the entire intro. for once, bunny is the chill one (quite possibly because he’s absolutely sloshed) and raffles, over-cautious and nervous. i’ve mentioned the climactic raffles/bunny spat in #3 but there’re loads of little tiffs in between: raffles refuses to talk to bunny for a half hour at one point (harsh punishment if rest cure is any indication), bunny affects skepticism on a raffles exploit at another (unclear if this is actually effective or if bunny just thinks it is)

everything in the rooms! odd conduct through and through. it is an odd job: far less in-and-out compared to previous operations but they’re also just so ?? languorous about it all. raffles sizes up the furniture like it’s for sale. bunny makes a snide comment about the building and a complimentary one about the linens. they have the lights on. they dump their haul on the bed, and in the illustration, are literally sitting on the covers when they size it all up. it’s like they’re at an open house—and ofc! that’s exactly where they want to be! belville’s flat, for all its apparent faults, is closer to the albany than any place bunny and raffles’ll live post-disgrace

parallel to this: avoidance of the earl’s court flat. they are not in it the whole of the story (it’s implied that they go back between dinner and the heist for champagne and coffee but like. basicallyyy); sharp disconnect from the halcyon albany days when they pre’d and after-partied jobs in raffles’ reception. here the post is on the roof of all places, despite a coming storm. the flat is theobald’s territory—they have to sneak past him if they want to get in, like a sort of tower dragon—the roof is freer, bunny can relax in a chair with a drink and it’s not five million degrees as apparently their room is (a shoddier “little inferno”! shock horror)

the aforementioned alcohol thing. it’s really at its worst in this story, as far as i can remember. raffles seems to be well aware of whatever’s going on and seems to go back and forth in his response to it. he prescribes bunny alcohol pre-job and encourages it pre-proposal but in the flat we have the “hand of a trained nurse thing” and on the roof when he offers bunny a drink he never retrieves it—in one hand he brings a chair and the other a candle and the drink is never brought up again. bunny seems retrospectively aware but it’s not clear how conscious he is in the moment

raffles is as nice in the closing as he is mean in the opening, continuing on a trend of being nicest to bunny when he’s sustained a particularly bad injury (ref also offering the last sullivan to bunny in knees). the anger’s gone as soon as the jewels are found but post-crack it’s to the point a role swap, with raffles fagging for bunny with the chair and the candle so on so forth etc

the milverton parallels! there’s a good smattering of little holmesisms in this one generally (belville calling raffles a six-penny mag detective comes to mind) but milverton is the definitely the strongest association. tcat is broadly a sort of milverton reversal: in milverton, the detectives become thieves and, in tcat, the thieves become detectives. see also: the “if he stays, so i do” quote, reminiscent of the milverton “both or none”, and the unwitting but witnessed death of both antagonists