there was to be a certain little wedding in which raffles and i took a surreptitious interest. the bride-elect was living in some retirement, with a recently widowed mother and an asthmatical brother, in a mellow hermitage on the banks of the mole. the bridegroom was a prosperous son of the same suburban soil which had nourished both families for generations. the wedding presents were so numerous as to fill several rooms at the pretty retreat upon the mole, and of an intrinsic value calling for a special transaction with the burglary insurance company in cheapside. i cannot say how raffles obtained all this information. i only know that it proved correct in each particular. i was not indeed deeply interested before the event, since raffles assured me that it was "a one-man job," and naturally intended to be the one man himself. it was only at the eleventh hour that our positions were inverted by the wholly unexpected selection of raffles for the english team in the second test match.

in a flash i saw the chance of my criminal career. it was some years since raffles had served his country in these encounters; he had never thought to be called upon again, and his gratification was only less than his embarrassment. the match was at old trafford, on the third thursday, friday, and saturday in july; the other affair had been all arranged for the thursday night, the night of the wedding at east molesey. it was for raffles to choose between the two excitements, and for once i helped him to make up his mind. i duly pointed out to him that in surrey, at all events, i was quite capable of taking his place. nay, more, i insisted at once on my prescriptive right and on his patriotic obligation in the matter. in the country's name and in my own, i implored him to give it and me a chance; and for once, as i say, my arguments prevailed. raffles sent his telegram—it was the day before the match. we then rushed down to esher, and over every inch of the ground by that characteristically circuitous route which he enjoined on me for the next night. and at six in the evening i was receiving the last of my many instructions through a window of the restaurant car.

"only promise me not to take a revolver," said raffles in a whisper. "here are my keys; there's an old life-preserver somewhere in the bureau; take that, if you like—though what you take i rather fear you are the chap to use!"

"then the rope be round my own neck!" i whispered back. "whatever else i may do, raffles, i shan't give you away; and you'll find i do better than you think, and am worth trusting with a little more to do, or i'll know the reason why!"

and i meant to know it, as he was borne out of euston with raised eyebrows, and i turned grimly on my heel. i saw his fears for me; and nothing could have made me more fearless for myself. raffles had been wrong about me all these years; now was my chance to set him right. it was galling to feel that he had no confidence in my coolness or my nerve, when neither had ever failed him at a pinch. i had been loyal to him through rough and smooth. in many an ugly corner i had stood as firm as raffles himself. i was his right hand, and yet he never hesitated to make me his catspaw. this time, at all events, i should be neither one nor the other; this time i was the understudy playing lead at last; and i wish i could think that raffles ever realized with what gusto i threw myself into his part.

thus i was first out of a crowded theatre train at esher next night, and first down the stairs into the open air. the night was close and cloudy; and the road to hampton court, even now that the suburban builder has marked much of it for his own, is one of the darkest i know. the first mile is still a narrow avenue, a mere tunnel of leaves at midsummer; but at that time there was not a lighted pane or cranny by the way. naturally, it was in this blind reach that i fancied i was being followed. i stopped in my stride; so did the steps i made sure i had heard not far behind; and when i went on, they followed suit. i dried my forehead as i walked, but soon brought myself to repeat the experiment when an exact repetition of the result went to convince me that it had been my own echo all the time. and since i lost it on getting quit of the avenue, and coming out upon the straight and open road, i was not long in recovering from my scare. but now i could see my way, and found the rest of it without mishap, though not without another semblance of adventure. over the bridge across the mole, when about to turn to the left, i marched straight upon a policeman in rubber soles. i had to call him "officer" as i passed, and to pass my turning by a couple of hundred yards, before venturing back another way.

at last i had crept through a garden gate, and round by black windows to a black lawn drenched with dew. it had been a heating walk, and i was glad to blunder on a garden seat, most considerately placed under a cedar which added its own darkness to that of the night. here i rested a few minutes, putting up my feet to keep them dry, untying my shoes to save time, and generally facing the task before me with a coolness which i strove to make worthy of my absent chief. but mine was a self-conscious quality, as far removed from the original as any other deliberate imitation of genius. i actually struck a match on my trousers, and lit one of the shorter sullivans. raffles himself would not have done such a thing at such a moment. but i wished to tell him that i had done it; and in truth i was not more than pleasurably afraid; i had rather that impersonal curiosity as to the issue which has been the saving of me in still more precarious situations. i even grew impatient for the fray, and could not after all sit still as long as i had intended. so it happened that i was finishing my cigarette on the edge of the wet lawn, and about to slip off my shoes before stepping across the gravel to the conservatory door, when a most singular sound arrested me in the act. it was a muffled gasping somewhere overhead. i stood like stone; and my listening attitude must have been visible against the milky sheen of the lawn, for a labored voice hailed me sternly from a window.

"who on earth are you?" it wheezed.

"a detective officer," i replied, "sent down by the burglary insurance company."

not a moment had i paused for my precious fable. it had all been prepared for me by raffles, in case of need. i was merely repeating a lesson in which i had been closely schooled. but at the window there was pause enough, filled only by the uncanny wheezing of the man i could not see.

"i don't see why they should have sent you down," he said at length. "we are being quite well looked after by the local police; they're giving us a special call every hour."

"i know that, mr. medlicott," i rejoined on my own account. "i met one of them at the corner just now, and we passed the time of night."

my heart was knocking me to bits. i had started for myself at last.

"did you get my name from him?" pursued my questioner, in a suspicious wheeze.

"no; they gave me that before i started," i replied. "but i'm sorry you saw me, sir; it's a mere matter of routine, and not intended to annoy anybody. i propose to keep a watch on the place all night, but i own it wasn't necessary to trespass as i've done. i'll take myself off the actual premises, if you prefer it."

this again was all my own; and it met with a success that might have given me confidence.

"not a bit of it," replied young medlicott, with a grim geniality. "i've just woke up with the devil of an attack of asthma, and may have to sit up in my chair till morning. you'd better come up and see me through, and kill two birds while you're about it. stay where you are, and i'll come down and let you in."

here was a dilemma which raffles himself had not foreseen! outside, in the dark, my audacious part was not hard to play; but to carry the improvisation in-doors was to double at once the difficulty and the risk. it was true that i had purposely come down in a true detective's overcoat and bowler; but my personal appearance was hardly of the detective type. on the other hand as the soi-disant guardian of the gifts one might only excite suspicion by refusing to enter the house where they were. nor could i forget that it was my purpose to effect such entry first or last. that was the casting consideration. i decided to take my dilemma by the horns.

there had been a scraping of matches in the room over the conservatory; the open window had shown for a moment, like an empty picture-frame, a gigantic shadow wavering on the ceiling; and in the next half-minute i remembered to tie my shoes. but the light was slow to reappear through the leaded glasses of an outer door farther along the path. and when the door opened, it was a figure of woe that stood within and held an unsteady candle between our faces.

i have seen old men look half their age, and young men look double theirs; but never before or since have i seen a beardless boy bent into a man of eighty, gasping for every breath, shaken by every gasp, swaying, tottering, and choking, as if about to die upon his feet. yet with it all, young medlicott overhauled me shrewdly, and it was several moments before he would let me take the candle from him.

"i shouldn't have come down—made me worse," he began whispering in spurts. "worse still going up again. you must give me an arm. you will come up? that's right! not as bad as i look, you know. got some good whiskey, too. presents are all right; but if they aren't you'll hear of it in-doors sooner than out. now i'm ready—thanks! mustn't make more noise than we can help—wake my mother."

it must have taken us minutes to climb that single flight of stairs. there was just room for me to keep his arm in mine; with the other he hauled on the banisters; and so we mounted, step by step, a panting pause on each, and a pitched battle for breath on the half-landing. in the end we gained a cosey library, with an open door leading to a bedroom beyond. but the effort had deprived my poor companion of all power of speech; his laboring lungs shrieked like the wind; he could just point to the door by which we had entered, and which i shut in obedience to his gestures, and then to the decanter and its accessories on the table where he had left them overnight. i gave him nearly half a glassful, and his paroxysm subsided a little as he sat hunched up in a chair.

"i was a fool ... to turn in," he blurted in more whispers between longer pauses. "lying down is the devil ... when you're in for a real bad night. you might get me the brown cigarettes ... on the table in there. that's right ... thanks awfully ... and now a match!"

the asthmatic had bitten off either end of the stramonium cigarette, and was soon choking himself with the crude fumes, which he inhaled in desperate gulps, to exhale in furious fits of coughing. never was more heroic remedy; it seemed a form of lingering suicide; but by degrees some slight improvement became apparent, and at length the sufferer was able to sit upright, and to drain his glass with a sigh of rare relief. i sighed also, for i had witnessed a struggle for dear life by a man in the flower of his youth, whose looks i liked, whose smile came like the sun through the first break in his torments, and whose first words were to thank me for the little i had done in bare humanity.

that made me feel the thing i was. but the feeling put me on my guard. and i was not unready for the remark which followed a more exhaustive scrutiny than i had hitherto sustained.

"do you know," said young medlicott, "that you aren't a bit like the detective of my dreams?"

"only to proud to hear it," i replied. "there would be no point in my being in plain clothes if i looked exactly what i was."

my companion reassured me with a wheezy laugh.

"there's something in that," said he, "although i do congratulate the insurance people on getting a man of your class to do their dirty work. and i congratulate myself," he was quick enough to add, "on having you to see me through as bad a night as i've had for a long time. you're like flowers in the depths of winter. got a drink? that's right! i suppose you didn't happen to bring down an evening paper?"

i said i had brought one, but had unfortunately left it in the train.

"what about the test match?" cried my asthmatic, shooting forward in his chair.

"i can tell you that," said i. "we went in first—"

"oh, i know all about that," he interrupted. "i've seen the miserable score up to lunch. how many did we scrape altogether?"

"we're scraping them still."

"no! how many?"

"over two hundred for seven wickets."

"who made the stand?"

"raffles, for one. he was 62 not out at close of play!"

and the note of admiration rang in my voice, though i tried in my self-consciousness to keep it out. but young medlicott's enthusiasm proved an ample cloak for mine; it was he who might have been the personal friend of raffles; and in his delight he chuckled till he puffed and blew again.

"good old raffles!" he panted in every pause. "after being chosen last, and as a bowler-man! that's the cricketer for me, sir; by jove, we must have another drink in his honor! funny thing, asthma; your liquor affects your head no more than it does a man with a snake-bite; but it eases everything else, and sees you through. doctors will tell you so, but you've got to ask 'em first; they're no good for asthma! i've only known one who could stop an attack, and he knocked me sideways with nitrite of amyl. funny complaint in other ways; raises your spirits, if anything. you can't look beyond the next breath. nothing else worries you. well, well, here's luck to a. j. raffles, and may he get his century in the morning!"

and he struggled to his feet for the toast; but i drank it sitting down. i felt unreasonably wroth with raffles, for coming into the conversation as he had done—for taking centuries in test matches as he was doing, without bothering his head about me. a failure would have been in better taste; it would have shown at least some imagination, some anxiety on one's account i did not reflect that even raffles could scarcely be expected to picture me in my cups with the son of the house that i had come to rob; chatting with him, ministering to him; admiring his cheery courage, and honestly attempting to lighten his load! truly it was an infernal position: how could i rob him or his after this? and yet i had thrust myself into it; and raffles would never, never understand!

even that was not the worst. i was not quite sure that young medlicott was sure of me. i had feared this from the beginning, and now (over the second glass that could not possibly affect a man in his condition) he practically admitted as much to me. asthma was such a funny thing (he insisted) that it would not worry him a bit to discover that i had come to take the presents instead of to take care of them! i showed a sufficiently faint appreciation of the jest. and it was presently punished as it deserved, by the most violent paroxysm that had seized the sufferer yet: the fight for breath became faster and more furious, and the former weapons of no more avail. i prepared a cigarette, but the poor brute was too breathless to inhale. i poured out yet more whiskey, but he put it from him with a gesture.

"amyl—get me amyl!" he gasped. "the tin on the table by my bed."

i rushed into his room, and returned with a little tin of tiny cylinders done up like miniature crackers in scraps of calico; the spent youth broke one in his handkerchief, in which he immediately buried his face. i watched him closely as a subtle odor reached my nostrils; and it was like the miracle of oil upon the billows. his shoulders rested from long travail; the stertorous gasping died away to a quick but natural respiration; and in the sudden cessation of the cruel contest, an uncanny stillness fell upon the scene. meanwhile the hidden face had flushed to the ears, and, when at length it was raised to mine, its crimson calm was as incongruous as an optical illusion.

"it takes the blood from the heart," he murmured, "and clears the whole show for the moment. if it only lasted! but you can't take two without a doctor; one's quite enough to make you smell the brimstone... i say, what's up? you're listening to something! if it's the policeman we'll have a word with him."

it was not the policeman; it was no out-door sound that i had caught in the sudden cessation of the bout for breath. it was a noise, a footstep, in the room below us. i went to the window and leaned out: right underneath, in the conservatory, was the faintest glimmer of a light in the adjoining room.

"one of the rooms where the presents are!" whispered medlicott at my elbow. and as we withdrew together, i looked him in the face as i had not done all night.

i looked him in the face like an honest man, for a miracle was to make me one once more. my knot was cut—my course inevitable. mine, after all, to prevent the very thing that i had come to do! my gorge had long since risen at the deed; the unforeseen circumstances had rendered it impossible from the first; but now i could afford to recognize the impossibility, and to think of raffles and the asthmatic alike without a qualm. i could play the game by them both, for it was one and the same game. i could preserve thieves' honor, and yet regain some shred of that which i had forfeited as a man!

so i thought as we stood face to face, our ears straining for the least movement below, our eyes locked in a common anxiety. another muffled foot-fall—felt rather than heard—and we exchanged grim nods of simultaneous excitement. but by this time medlicott was as helpless as he had been before; the flush had faded from his face, and his breathing alone would have spoiled everything. in dumb show i had to order him to stay where he was, to leave my man to me. and then it was that in a gusty whisper, with the same shrewd look that had disconcerted me more than once during our vigil, young medlicott froze and fired my blood by turns.

"i've been unjust to you," he said, with his right hand in his dressing-gown pocket. "i thought for a bit—never mind what i thought—i soon saw i was wrong. but—i've had this thing in my pocket all the time!"

and he would have thrust his revolver upon me as a peace-offering, but i would not even take his hand, as i tapped the life-preserver in my pocket, and crept out to earn his honest grip or to fall in the attempt. on the landing i drew raffles's little weapon, slipped my right wrist through the leathern loop, and held it in readiness over my right shoulder. then, down-stairs i stole, as raffles himself had taught me, close to the wall, where the planks are nailed. nor had i made a sound, to my knowledge; for a door was open, and a light was burning, and the light did not flicker as i approached the door. i clenched my teeth and pushed it open; and here was the veriest villain waiting for me, his little lantern held aloft.

"you blackguard!" i cried, and with a single thwack i felled the ruffian to the floor.

there was no question of a foul blow. he had been just as ready to pounce on me; it was simply my luck to have got the first blow home. yet a fellow-feeling touched me with remorse, as i stood over the senseless body, sprawling prone, and perceived that i had struck an unarmed man. the lantern only had fallen from his hands; it lay on one side, smoking horribly; and a something in the reek caused me to set it up in haste and turn the body over with both hands.

shall i ever forget the incredulous horror of that moment?

it was raffles himself!

how it was possible, i did not pause to ask myself; if one man on earth could annihilate space and time, it was the man lying senseless at my feet; and that was raffles, without an instant's doubt. he was in villainous guise, which i knew of old, now that i knew the unhappy wearer. his face was grimy, and dexterously plastered with a growth of reddish hair; his clothes were those in which he had followed cabs from the london termini; his boots were muffled in thick socks; and i had laid him low with a bloody scalp that filled my cup of horror. i groaned aloud as i knelt over him and felt his heart. and i was answered by a bronchial whistle from the door.

"jolly well done!" cheered my asthmatical friend. "i heard the whole thing—only hope my mother didn't. we must keep it from her if we can."

i could have cursed the creature's mother from my full heart; yet even with my hand on that of raffles, as i felt his feeble pulse, i told myself that this served him right. even had i brained him, the fault had been his, not mine. and it was a characteristic, an inveterate fault, that galled me for all my anguish: to trust and yet distrust me to the end, to race through england in the night, to spy upon me at his work—to do it himself after all!

"is he dead?" wheezed the asthmatic coolly.

"not he," i answered, with an indignation that i dared not show.

"you must have hit him pretty hard," pursued young medlicott, "but i suppose it was a case of getting first knock. and a good job you got it, if this was his," he added, picking up the murderous little life-preserver which poor raffles had provided for his own destruction.

"look here," i answered, sitting back on my heels. "he isn't dead, mr. medlicott, and i don't know how long he'll be as much as stunned. he's a powerful brute, and you're not fit to lend a hand. but that policeman of yours can't be far away. do you think you could struggle out and look for him?"

"i suppose i am a bit better than i was," he replied doubtfully. "the excitement seems to have done me good. if you like to leave me on guard with my revolver, i'll undertake that he doesn't escape me."

i shook my head with an impatient smile.

"i should never hear the last of it," said i. "no, in that case all i can do is to handcuff the fellow and wait till morning if he won't go quietly; and he'll be a fool if he does, while there's a fighting chance."

young medlicott glanced upstairs from his post on the threshold. i refrained from watching him too keenly, but i knew what was in his mind.

"i'll go," he said hurriedly. "i'll go as i am, before my mother is disturbed and frightened out of her life. i owe you something, too, not only for what you've done for me, but for what i was fool enough to think about you at the first blush. it's entirely through you that i feel as fit as i do for the moment. so i'll take your tip, and go just as i am, before my poor old pipes strike up another tune."

i scarcely looked up until the good fellow had turned his back upon the final tableau of watchful officer and prostrate prisoner and gone out wheezing into the night. but i was at the door to hear the last of him down the path and round the corner of the house. and when i rushed back into the room, there was raffles sitting cross-legged on the floor, and slowly shaking his broken head as he stanched the blood.

"et tu, bunny!" he groaned. "mine own familiar friend!"

"then you weren't even stunned!" i exclaimed. "thank god for that!"

"of course i was stunned," he murmured, "and no thanks to you that i wasn't brained. not to know me in the kit you've seen scores of times! you never looked at me, bunny; you didn't give me time to open my mouth. i was going to let you run me in so prettily! we'd have walked off arm-in-arm; now it's as tight a place as ever we were in, though you did get rid of old blow-pipes rather nicely. but we shall have the devil's own run for our money!"

raffles had picked himself up between his mutterings, and i had followed him to the door into the garden, where he stood busy with the key in the dark, having blown out his lantern and handed it to me. but though i followed raffles, as my nature must, i was far too embittered to answer him again. and so it was for some minutes that might furnish forth a thrilling page, but not a novel one to those who know their raffles and put up with me. suffice it that we left a locked door behind us, and the key on the garden wall, which was the first of half a dozen that we scaled before dropping into a lane that led to a foot-bridge higher up the backwater. and when we paused upon the foot-bridge, the houses along the bank were still in peace and darkness.

knowing my raffles as i did, i was not surprised when he dived under one end of this bridge, and came up with his inverness cape and opera hat, which he had hidden there on his way to the house. the thick socks were peeled from his patent-leathers, the ragged trousers stripped from an evening pair, bloodstains and newgate fringe removed at the water's edge, and the whole sepulchre whited in less time than the thing takes to tell. nor was that enough for raffles, but he must alter me as well, by wearing my overcoat under his cape, and putting his zingari scarf about my neck.

"and now," said he, "you may be glad to hear there's a 3:12 from surbiton, which we could catch on all fours. if you like we'll go separately, but i don't think there's the slightest danger now, and i begin to wonder what's happening to old blow-pipes."

so, indeed, did i, and with no small concern, until i read of his adventures (and our own) in the newspapers. it seemed that he had made a gallant spurt into the road, and there paid the penalty of his rashness by a sudden incapacity to move another inch. it had eventually taken him twenty minutes to creep back to locked doors, and another ten to ring up the inmates. his description of my personal appearance, as reported in the papers, is the only thing that reconciles me to the thought of his sufferings during that half-hour.

but at the time i had other thoughts, and they lay too deep for idle words, for to me also it was a bitter hour. i had not only failed in my self-sought task; i had nearly killed my comrade into the bargain. i had meant well by friend and foe in turn, and i had ended in doing execrably by both. it was not all my fault, but i knew how much my weakness had contributed to the sum. and i must walk with the man whose fault it was, who had travelled two hundred miles to obtain this last proof of my weakness, to bring it home to me, and to make our intimacy intolerable from that hour. i must walk with him to surbiton, but i need not talk; all through thames ditton i had ignored his sallies; nor yet when he ran his arm through mine, on the river front, when we were nearly there, would i break the seal my pride had set upon my lips.

"come, bunny," he said at last, "i have been the one to suffer most, when all's said and done, and i'll be the first to say that i deserved it. you've broken my head; my hair's all glued up in my gore; and what yarn i'm to put up at manchester, or how i shall take the field at all, i really don't know. yet i don't blame you, bunny, and i do blame myself. isn't it rather hard luck if i am to go unforgiven into the bargain? i admit that i made a mistake; but, my dear fellow, i made it entirely for your sake."

"for my sake!" i echoed bitterly.

raffles was more generous; he ignored my tone.

"i was miserable about you—frankly—miserable!" he went on. "i couldn't get it out of my head that somehow you would be laid by the heels. it was not your pluck that i distrusted, my dear fellow, but it was your very pluck that made me tremble for you. i couldn't get you out of my head. i went in when runs were wanted, but i give you my word that i was more anxious about you; and no doubt that's why i helped to put on some runs. didn't you see it in the paper, bunny? it's the innings of my life, so far."

"yes," i said, "i saw that you were in at close of play. but i don't believe it was you—i believe you have a double who plays your cricket for you!"

and at the moment that seemed less incredible than the fact.

"i'm afraid you didn't read your paper very carefully," said raffles, with the first trace of pique in his tone. "it was rain that closed play before five o'clock. i hear it was a sultry day in town, but at manchester we got the storm, and the ground was under water in ten minutes. i never saw such a thing in my life. there was absolutely not the ghost of a chance of another ball being bowled. but i had changed before i thought of doing what i did. it was only when i was on my way back to the hotel, by myself, because i couldn't talk to a soul for thinking of you, that on the spur of the moment i made the man take me to the station instead, and was under way in the restaurant car before i had time to think twice about it. i am not sure that of all the mad deeds i have ever done, this was not the maddest of the lot!"

"it was the finest," i said in a low voice; for now i marvelled more at the impulse which had prompted his feat, and at the circumstances surrounding it, than even at the feat itself.

"heaven knows," he went on, "what they are saying and doing in manchester! but what can they say? 'what business is it of theirs? i was there when play stopped, and i shall be there when it starts again. we shall be at waterloo just after half-past three, and that's going to give me an hour at the albany on my way to euston, and another hour at old trafford before play begins. what's the matter with that? i don't suppose i shall notch any more, but all the better if i don't; if we have a hot sun after the storm, the sooner they get in the better; and may i have a bowl at them while the ground bites!"

"i'll come up with you," i said, "and see you at it."

"my dear fellow," replied raffles, "that was my whole feeling about you. i wanted to 'see you at it'—that was absolutely all. i wanted to be near enough to lend a hand if you got tied up, as the best of us will at times. i knew the ground better than you, and i simply couldn't keep away from it. but i didn't mean you to know that i was there; if everything had gone as i hoped it might, i should have sneaked back to town without ever letting you know i had been up. you should never have dreamt that i had been at your elbow; you would have believed in yourself, and in my belief in you, and the rest would have been silence till the grave. so i dodged you at waterloo, and i tried not to let you know that i was following you from esher station. but you suspected somebody was; you stopped to listen more than once; after the second time i dropped behind, but gained on you by taking the short cut by imber court and over the foot-bridge where i left my coat and hat. i was actually in the garden before you were. i saw you smoke your sullivan, and i was rather proud of you for it, though you must never do that sort of thing again. i heard almost every word between you and the poor devil upstairs. and up to a certain point, bunny, i really thought you played the scene to perfection."

the station lights were twinkling ahead of us in the fading velvet of the summer's night. i let them increase and multiply before i spoke.

"and where," i asked, "did you think i first went wrong?"

"in going in-doors at all," said raffles. "if i had done that, i should have done exactly what you did from that point on. you couldn't help yourself, with that poor brute in that state. and i admired you immensely, bunny, if that's any comfort to you now."

comfort! it was wine in every vein, for i knew that raffles meant what he said, and with his eyes i soon saw myself in braver colors. i ceased to blush for the vacillations of the night, since he condoned them. i could even see that i had behaved with a measure of decency, in a truly trying situation, now that raffles seemed to think so. he had changed my whole view of his proceedings and my own, in every incident of the night but one. there was one thing, however, which he might forgive me, but which i felt that i could forgive neither raffles nor myself. and that was the contused scalp wound over which i shuddered in the train.

"and to think that i did that," i groaned, "and that you laid yourself open to it, and that we have neither of us got another thing to show for our night's work! that poor chap said it was as bad a night as he had ever had in his life; but i call it the very worst that you and i ever had in ours."

raffles was smiling under the double lamps of the first-class compartment that we had to ourselves.

"i wouldn't say that, bunny. we have done worse."

"do you mean to tell me that you did anything at all?"

"my dear bunny," replied raffles, "you should remember how long i had been maturing felonious little plan, what a blow it was to me to have to turn it over to you, and how far i had travelled to see that you did it and yourself as well as might be. you know what i did see, and how well i understood. i tell you again that i should have done the same thing myself, in your place. but i was not in your place, bunny. my hands were not tied like yours. unfortunately, most of the jewels have gone on the honeymoon with the happy pair; but these emerald links are all right, and i don't know what the bride was doing to leave this diamond comb behind. here, too, is the old silver skewer i've been wanting for years—they make the most charming paper-knives in the world—and this gold cigarette-case will just do for your smaller sullivans."

nor were these the only pretty things that raffles set out in twinkling array upon the opposite cushions. but i do not pretend that this was one of our heavy hauls, or deny that its chief interest still resides in the score of the second test match of that australian tour.

a trap to catch a cracksman

i was just putting out my light when the telephone rang a furious tocsin in the next room. i flounced out of bed more asleep than awake; in another minute i should have been past ringing up. it was one o'clock in the morning, and i had been dining with swigger morrison at his club.

"hulloa!"

"that you, bunny?"

"yes—are you raffles?"

"what's left of me! bunny, i want you—quick."

and even over the wire his voice was faint with anxiety and apprehension.

"what on earth has happened?"

"don't ask! you never know—"

"i'll come at once. are you there, raffles?"

"what's that?"

"are you there, man?"

"ye—e—es."

"at the albany?"

"no, no; at maguire's."

"you never said so. and where's maguire?"

"in half-moon street."

"i know that. is he there now?"

"no—not come in yet—and i'm caught."

"caught!"

"in that trap he bragged about. it serves me right. i didn't believe in it. but i'm caught at last ... caught ... at last!"

"when he told us he set it every night! oh, raffles, what sort of a trap is it? what shall i do? what shall i bring?"

but his voice had grown fainter and wearier with every answer, and now there was no answer at all. again and again i asked raffles if he was there; the only sound to reach me in reply was the low metallic hum of the live wire between his ear and mine. and then, as i sat gazing distractedly at my four safe walls, with the receiver still pressed to my head, there came a single groan, followed by the dull and dreadful crash of a human body falling in a heap.

in utter panic i rushed back into my bedroom, and flung myself into the crumpled shirt and evening clothes that lay where i had cast them off. but i knew no more what i was doing than what to do next i afterward found that i had taken out a fresh tie, and tied it rather better than usual; but i can remember thinking of nothing but raffles in some diabolical man-trap, and of a grinning monster stealing in to strike him senseless with one murderous blow. i must have looked in the glass to array myself as i did; but the mind's eye was the seeing eye, and it was filled with this frightful vision of the notorious pugilist known to fame and infamy as barney maguire.

it was only the week before that raffles and i had been introduced to him at the imperial boxing club. heavy-weight champion of the united states, the fellow was still drunk with his sanguinary triumphs on that side, and clamoring for fresh conquests on ours. but his reputation had crossed the atlantic before maguire himself; the grandiose hotels had closed their doors to him; and he had already taken and sumptuously furnished the house in half-moon street which does not re-let to this day. raffles had made friends with the magnificent brute, while i took timid stock of his diamond studs, his jewelled watch-chain, his eighteen-carat bangle, and his six-inch lower jaw. i had shuddered to see raffles admiring the gewgaws in his turn, in his own brazen fashion, with that air of the cool connoisseur which had its double meaning for me. i for my part would as lief have looked a tiger in the teeth. and when we finally went home with maguire to see his other trophies, it seemed to me like entering the tiger's lair. but an astounding lair it proved, fitted throughout by one eminent firm, and ringing to the rafters with the last word on fantastic furniture.

the trophies were a still greater surprise. they opened my eyes to the rosier aspect of the noble art, as presently practised on the right side of the atlantic. among other offerings, we were permitted to handle the jewelled belt presented to the pugilist by the state of nevada, a gold brick from the citizens of sacramento, and a model of himself in solid silver from the fisticuff club in new york. i still remember waiting with bated breath for raffles to ask maguire if he were not afraid of burglars, and maguire replying that he had a trap to catch the cleverest cracksman alive, but flatly refusing to tell us what it was. i could not at the moment conceive a more terrible trap than the heavy-weight himself behind a curtain. yet it was easy to see that raffles had accepted the braggart's boast as a challenge. nor did he deny it later when i taxed him with his mad resolve; he merely refused to allow me to implicate myself in its execution. well, there was a spice of savage satisfaction in the thought that raffles had been obliged to turn to me in the end. and, but for the dreadful thud which i had heard over the telephone, i might have extracted some genuine comfort from the unerring sagacity with which he had chosen his night.

within the last twenty-four hours barney maguire had fought his first great battle on british soil. obviously, he would no longer be the man that he had been in the strict training before the fight; never, as i gathered, was such a ruffian more off his guard, or less capable of protecting himself and his possessions, than in these first hours of relaxation and inevitable debauchery for which raffles had waited with characteristic foresight. nor was the terrible barney likely to be more abstemious for signal punishment sustained in a far from bloodless victory. then what could be the meaning of that sickening and most suggestive thud? could it be the champion himself who had received the coup de grace in his cups? raffles was the very man to administer it—but he had not talked like that man through the telephone.

and yet—and yet—what else could have happened? i must have asked myself the question between each and all of the above reflections, made partly as i dressed and partly in the hansom on the way to half-moon street. it was as yet the only question in my mind. you must know what your emergency is before you can decide how to cope with it; and to this day i sometimes tremble to think of the rashly direct method by which i set about obtaining the requisite information. i drove every yard of the way to the pugilist's very door. you will remember that i had been dining with swigger morrison at his club.

yet at the last i had a rough idea of what i meant to say when the door was opened. it seemed almost probable that the tragic end of our talk over the telephone had been caused by the sudden arrival and as sudden violence of barney maguire. in that case i was resolved to tell him that raffles and i had made a bet about his burglar trap, and that i had come to see who had won. i might or might not confess that raffles had rung me out of bed to this end. if, however, i was wrong about maguire, and he had not come home at all, then my action would depend upon the menial who answered my reckless ring. but it should result in the rescue of raffles by hook or crook.

i had the more time to come to some decision, since i rang and rang in vain. the hall, indeed, was in darkness; but when i peeped through the letter-box i could see a faint beam of light from the back room. that was the room in which maguire kept his trophies and set his trap. all was quiet in the house: could they have haled the intruder to vine street in the short twenty minutes which it had taken me to dress and to drive to the spot? that was an awful thought; but even as i hoped against hope, and rang once more, speculation and suspense were cut short in the last fashion to be foreseen.

a brougham was coming sedately down the street from piccadilly; to my horror, it stopped behind me as i peered once more through the letter-box, and out tumbled the dishevelled prizefighter and two companions. i was nicely caught in my turn. there was a lamp-post right opposite the door, and i can still see the three of them regarding me in its light. the pugilist had been at least a fine figure of a bully and a braggart when i saw him before his fight; now he had a black eye and a bloated lip, hat on the back of his head, and made-up tie under one ear. his companions were his sallow little yankee secretary, whose name i really forget, but whom i met with maguire at the boxing club, and a very grand person in a second skin of shimmering sequins.

i can neither forget nor report the terms in which barney maguire asked me who i was and what i was doing there. thanks, however, to swigger morrison's hospitality, i readily reminded him of our former meeting, and of more that i only recalled as the words were in my mouth.

"you'll remember raffles," said i, "if you don't remember me. you showed us your trophies the other night, and asked us both to look you up at any hour of the day or night after the fight."

i was going on to add that i had expected to find raffles there before me, to settle a wager that we had made about the man-trap. but the indiscretion was interrupted by maguire himself, whose dreadful fist became a hand that gripped mine with brute fervor, while with the other he clouted me on the back.

"you don't say!" he cried. "i took you for some darned crook, but now i remember you perfectly. if you hadn't've spoke up slick i'd have bu'st your face in, sonny. i would, sure! come right in, and have a drink to show there's—jeehoshaphat!"

the secretary had turned the latch-key in the door, only to be hauled back by the collar as the door stood open, and the light from the inner room was seen streaming upon the banisters at the foot of the narrow stairs.

"a light in my den," said maguire in a mighty whisper, "and the blamed door open, though the key's in my pocket and we left it locked! talk about crooks, eh? holy smoke, how i hope we've landed one alive! you ladies and gentlemen, lay round where you are, while i see."

and the hulking figure advanced on tiptoe, like a performing elephant, until just at the open door, when for a second we saw his left revolving like a piston and his head thrown back at its fighting angle. but in another second his fists were hands again, and maguire was rubbing them together as he stood shaking with laughter in the light of the open door.

"walk up!" he cried, as he beckoned to us three. "walk up and see one o' their blamed british crooks laid as low as the blamed carpet, and nailed as tight!"

imagine my feelings on the mat! the sallow secretary went first; the sequins glittered at his heels, and i must own that for one base moment i was on the brink of bolting through the street door. it had never been shut behind us. i shut it myself in the end. yet it was small credit to me that i actually remained on the same side of the door as raffles.

"reel home-grown, low-down, unwashed whitechapel!" i had heard maguire remark within. "blamed if our bowery boys ain't cock-angels to scum like this. ah, you biter, i wouldn't soil my knuckles on your ugly face; but if i had my thick boots on i'd dance the soul out of your carcass for two cents!"

after this it required less courage to join the others in the inner room; and for some moments even i failed to identify the truly repulsive object about which i found them grouped. there was no false hair upon the face, but it was as black as any sweep's. the clothes, on the other hand, were new to me, though older and more pestiferous in themselves than most worn by raffles for professional purposes. and at first, as i say, i was far from sure whether it was raffles at all; but i remembered the crash that cut short our talk over the telephone; and this inanimate heap of rags was lying directly underneath a wall instrument, with the receiver dangling over him.

"think you know him?" asked the sallow secretary, as i stooped and peered with my heart in my boots.

"good lord, no! i only wanted to see if he was dead," i explained, having satisfied myself that it was really raffles, and that raffles was really insensible. "but what on earth has happened?" i asked in my turn.

"that's what i want to know," whined the person in sequins, who had contributed various ejaculations unworthy of report, and finally subsided behind an ostentatious fan.

"i should judge," observed the secretary, "that it's for mr. maguire to say, or not to say, just as he darn pleases."

but the celebrated barney stood upon a persian hearth-rug, beaming upon us all in a triumph too delicious for immediate translation into words. the room was furnished as a study, and most artistically furnished, if you consider outlandish shapes in fumed oak artistic. there was nothing of the traditional prize-fighter about barney maguire, except his vocabulary and his lower jaw. i had seen over his house already, and it was fitted and decorated throughout by a high-art firm which exhibits just such a room as that which was the scene of our tragedietta. the person in the sequins lay glistening like a landed salmon in a quaint chair of enormous nails and tapestry compact. the secretary leaned against an escritoire with huge hinges of beaten metal. the pugilist's own background presented an elaborate scheme of oak and tiles, with inglenooks green from the joiner, and a china cupboard with leaded panes behind his bullet head. and his bloodshot eyes rolled with rich delight from the decanter and glasses on the octagonal table to another decanter in the quaintest and craftiest of revolving spirit tables.

"isn't it bully?" asked the prize-fighter, smiling on us each in turn, with his black and bloodshot eyes and his bloated lip. "to think that i've only to invent a trap to catch a crook, for a blamed crook to walk right into! you, mr. man," and he nodded his great head at me, "you'll recollect me telling you that i'd gotten one when you come in that night with the other sport? say, pity he's not with you now; he was a good boy, and i liked him a lot; but he wanted to know too much, and i guess he'd got to want. but i'm liable to tell you now, or else bu'st. see that decanter on the table?"

"i was just looking at it," said the person in sequins. "you don't know what a turn i've had, or you'd offer me a little something."

"you shall have a little something in a minute," rejoined maguire. "but if you take a little anything out of that decanter, you'll collapse like our friend upon the floor."

"good heavens!" i cried out, with involuntary indignation, and his fell scheme broke upon me in a clap.

"yes, sir!" said maguire, fixing me with his bloodshot orbs. "my trap for crooks and cracksmen is a bottle of hocussed whiskey, and i guess that's it on the table, with the silver label around its neck. now look at this other decanter, without any label at all; but for that they're the dead spit of each other. i'll put them side by side, so you can see. it isn't only the decanters, but the liquor looks the same in both, and tastes so you wouldn't know the difference till you woke up in your tracks. i got the poison from a blamed indian away west, and it's ruther ticklish stuff. so i keep the label around the trap-bottle, and only leave it out nights. that's the idea, and that's all there is to it," added maguire, putting the labelled decanter back in the stand. "but i figure it's enough for ninety-nine crooks out of a hundred, and nineteen out of twenty 'll have their liquor before they go to work."

"i wouldn't figure on that," observed the secretary, with a downward glance as though at the prostrate raffles. "have you looked to see if the trophies are all safe?"

"not yet," said maguire, with a glance at the pseudo-antique cabinet in which he kept them. "then you can save yourself the trouble," rejoined the secretary, as he dived under the octagonal table, and came up with a small black bag that i knew at a glance. it was the one that raffles had used for heavy plunder ever since i had known him.

the bag was so heavy now that the secretary used both hands to get it on the table. in another moment he had taken out the jewelled belt presented to maguire by the state of nevada, the solid silver statuette of himself, and the gold brick from the citizens of sacramento.

either the sight of his treasures, so nearly lost, or the feeling that the thief had dared to tamper with them after all, suddenly infuriated maguire to such an extent that he had bestowed a couple of brutal kicks upon the senseless form of raffles before the secretary and i could interfere.

"play light, mr. maguire!" cried the sallow secretary. "the man's drugged, as well as down."

"he'll be lucky if he ever gets up, blight and blister him!"

"i should judge it about time to telephone for the police."

"not till i've done with him. wait till he comes to! i guess i'll punch his face into a jam pudding! he shall wash down his teeth with his blood before the coppers come in for what's left!"

"you make me feel quite ill," complained the grand lady in the chair. "i wish you'd give me a little something, and not be more vulgar than you can 'elp."

"help yourself," said maguire, ungallantly, "and don't talk through your hat. say, what's the matter with the 'phone?"

the secretary had picked up the dangling receiver.

"it looks to me," said he, "as though the crook had rung up somebody before he went off."

i turned and assisted the grand lady to the refreshment that she craved.

"like his cheek!" maguire thundered. "but who in blazes should he ring up?"

"it'll all come out," said the secretary. "they'll tell us at the central, and we shall find out fast enough."

"it don't matter now," said maguire. "let's have a drink and then rouse the devil up."

but now i was shaking in my shoes. i saw quite clearly what this meant. even if i rescued raffles for the time being, the police would promptly ascertain that it was i who had been rung up by the burglar, and the fact of my not having said a word about it would be directly damning to me, if in the end it did not incriminate us both. it made me quite faint to feel that we might escape the scylla of our present peril and yet split on the charybdis of circumstantial evidence. yet i could see no middle course of conceivable safety, if i held my tongue another moment. so i spoke up desperately, with the rash resolution which was the novel feature of my whole conduct on this occasion. but any sheep would be resolute and rash after dining with swigger morrison at his club.

"i wonder if he rang me up?" i exclaimed, as if inspired.

"you, sonny?" echoed maguire, decanter in hand. "what in hell could he know about you?"

"or what could you know about him?" amended the secretary, fixing me with eyes like drills.

"nothing," i admitted, regretting my temerity with all my heart. "but some one did ring me up about an hour ago. i thought it was raffles. i told you i expected to find him here, if you remember."

"but i don't see what that's got to do with the crook," pursued the secretary, with his relentless eyes boring deeper and deeper into mine.

"no more do i," was my miserable reply. but there was a certain comfort in his words, and some simultaneous promise in the quantity of spirit which maguire splashed into his glass.

"were you cut off sudden?" asked the secretary, reaching for the decanter, as the three of us sat round the octagonal table.

"so suddenly," i replied, "that i never knew who it was who rang me up. no, thank you—not any for me."

"what!" cried maguire, raising a depressed head suddenly. "you won't have a drink in my house? take care, young man. that's not being a good boy!"

"but i've been dining out," i expostulated, "and had my whack. i really have."

barney maguire smote the table with terrific

"say, sonny, i like you a lot," said he. "but i shan't like you any if you're not a good boy!"

"very well, very well," i said hurriedly. "one finger, if i must."

and the secretary helped me to not more than two.

"why should it have been your friend raffles?" he inquired, returning remorselessly to the charge, while maguire roared "drink up!" and then drooped once more.

"i was half asleep," i answered, "and he was the first person who occurred to me. we are both on the telephone, you see. and we had made a bet—"

the glass was at my lips, but i was able to set it down untouched. maguire's huge jaw had dropped upon his spreading shirt-front, and beyond him i saw the person in sequins fast asleep in the artistic armchair.

"what bet?" asked a voice with a sudden start in it. the secretary was blinking as he drained his glass.

"about the very thing we've just had explained to us," said i, watching my man intently as i spoke. "i made sure it was a man-trap. raffles thought it must be something else. we had a tremendous argument about it. raffles said it wasn't a man-trap. i said it was. we had a bet about it in the end. i put my money on the man-trap. raffles put his upon the other thing. and raffles was right—it wasn't a man-trap. but it's every bit as good—every little bit—and the whole boiling of you are caught in it except me!"

i sank my voice with the last sentence, but i might just as well have raised it instead. i had said the same thing over and over again to see whether the wilful tautology would cause the secretary to open his eyes. it seemed to have had the very opposite effect. his head fell forward on the table, with never a quiver at the blow, never a twitch when i pillowed it upon one of his own sprawling arms. and there sat maguire bolt upright, but for the jowl upon his shirt-front, while the sequins twinkled in a regular rise and fall upon the reclining form of the lady in the fanciful chair. all three were sound asleep, by what accident or by whose design i did not pause to inquire; it was enough to ascertain the fact beyond all chance of error.

i turned my attention to raffles last of all. there was the other side of the medal. raffles was still sleeping as sound as the enemy—or so i feared at first i shook him gently: he made no sign. i introduced vigor into the process: he muttered incoherently. i caught and twisted an unresisting wrist—and at that he yelped profanely. but it was many and many an anxious moment before his blinking eyes knew mine.

"bunny!" he yawned, and nothing more until his position came back to him. "so you came to me," he went on, in a tone that thrilled me with its affectionate appreciation, "as i knew you would! have they turned up yet? they will any minute, you know; there's not one to lose."

"no, they won't, old man!" i whispered. and he sat up and saw the comatose trio for himself.

raffles seemed less amazed at the result than i had been as a puzzled witness of the process; on the other hand, i had never seen anything quite so exultant as the smile that broke through his blackened countenance like a light. it was all obviously no great surprise, and no puzzle at all, to raffles.

"how much did they have, bunny?" were his first whispered words.

"maguire a good three fingers, and the others at least two."

"then we needn't lower our voices, and we needn't walk on our toes. eheu! i dreamed somebody was kicking me in the ribs, and i believe it must have been true."

he had risen with a hand to his side and a wry look on his sweep's face.

"you can guess which of them it was," said i. "the beast is jolly well served!"

and i shook my fist in the paralytic face of the most brutal bruiser of his time.

"he is safe till the forenoon, unless they bring a doctor to him," said raffles. "i don't suppose we could rouse him now if we tried. how much of the fearsome stuff do you suppose i took? about a tablespoonful! i guessed what it was, and couldn't resist making sure; the minute i was satisfied, i changed the label and the position of the two decanters, little thinking i should stay to see the fun; but in another minute i could hardly keep my eyes open. i realized then that i was fairly poisoned with some subtle drug. if i left the house at all in that state, i must leave the spoil behind, or be found drunk in the gutter with my head on the swag itself. in any case i should have been picked up and run in, and that might have led to anything."

"so you rang me up!"

"it was my last brilliant inspiration—a sort of flash in the brain-pan before the end—and i remember very little about it. i was more asleep than awake at the time."

"you sounded like it, raffles, now that one has the clue."

"i can't remember a word i said, or what was the end of it, bunny."

"you fell in a heap before you came to the end."

"you didn't hear that through the telephone?"

"as though we had been in the same room: only i thought it was maguire who had stolen a march on you and knocked you out."

i had never seen raffles more interested and impressed; but at this point his smile altered, his eyes softened, and i found my hand in his.

"you thought that, and yet you came like a shot to do battle for my body with barney maguire! jack-the-giant-killer wasn't in it with you, bunny!"

"it was no credit to me—it was rather the other thing," said i, remembering my rashness and my luck, and confessing both in a breath. "you know old swigger morrison?" i added in final explanation. "i had been dining with him at his club!"

raffles shook his long old head. and the kindly light in his eyes was still my infinite reward.

"i don't care," said he, "how deeply you had been dining: in vino veritas, bunny, and your pluck would always out! i have never doubted it, and i never shall. in fact, i rely on nothing else to get us out of this mess."

my face must have fallen, as my heart sank at these words. i had said to myself that we were out of the mess already—that we had merely to make a clean escape from the house—now the easiest thing in the world. but as i looked at raffles, and as raffles looked at me, on the threshold of the room where the three sleepers slept on without sound or movement, i grasped the real problem that lay before us. it was twofold; and the funny thing was that i had seen both horns of the dilemma for myself, before raffles came to his senses. but with raffles in his right mind, i had ceased to apply my own, or to carry my share of our common burden another inch. it had been an unconscious withdrawal on my part, an instinctive tribute to my leader; but, i was sufficiently ashamed of it as we stood and faced the problem in each other's eyes.

"if we simply cleared out," continued raffles, "you would be incriminated in the first place as my accomplice, and once they had you they would have a compass with the needle pointing straight to me. they mustn't have either of us, bunny, or they will get us both. and for my part they may as well!"

i echoed a sentiment that was generosity itself in raffles, but in my case a mere truism.

"it's easy enough for me," he went on. "i am a common house-breaker, and i escape. they don't know me from noah. but they do know you; and how do you come to let me escape? what has happened to you, bunny? that's the crux. what could have happened after they all dropped off?" and for a minute raffles frowned and smiled like a sensation novelist working out a plot; then the light broke, and transfigured him through his burnt cork. "i've got it, bunny!" he exclaimed. "you took some of the stuff yourself, though of course not nearly so much as they did.

"splendid!" i cried. "they really were pressing it upon me at the end, and i did say it must be very little."

"you dozed off in your turn, but you were naturally the first to come to yourself. i had flown; so had the gold brick, the jewelled belt, and the silver statuette. you tried to rouse the others. you couldn't succeed; nor would you if you did try. so what did you do? what's the only really innocent thing you could do in the circumstances?"

"go for the police," i suggested dubiously, little relishing the prospect.

"there's a telephone installed for the purpose," said raffles. "i should ring them up, if i were you. try not to look blue about it, bunny. they're quite the nicest fellows in the world, and what you have to tell them is a mere microbe to the camels i've made them swallow without a grain of salt. it's really the most convincing story one could conceive; but unfortunately there's another point which will take more explaining away."

and even raffles looked grave enough as i nodded.

"you mean that they'll find out you rang me up?"

"they may," said raffles. "i see that i managed to replace the receiver all right. but still—they may."

"i'm afraid they will," said i, uncomfortably. "i'm very much afraid i gave something of the kind away. you see, you had not replaced the receiver; it was dangling over you where you lay. this very question came up, and the brutes themselves seemed so quick to see its possibilities that i thought best to take the bull by the horns and own that i had been rung up by somebody. to be absolutely honest, i even went so far as to say i thought it was raffles!"

"you didn't, bunny!"

"what could i say? i was obliged to think of somebody, and i saw they were not going to recognize you. so i put up a yarn about a wager we had made about this very trap of maguire's. you see, raffles, i've never properly told you how i got in, and there's no time now; but the first thing i had said was that i half expected to find you here before me. that was in case they spotted you at once. but it made all that part about the telephone fit in rather well."

"i should think it did, bunny," murmured raffles, in a tone that added sensibly to my reward. "i couldn't have done better myself, and you will forgive my saying that you have never in your life done half so well. talk about that crack you gave me on the head! you have made it up to me a hundredfold by all you have done to-night. but the bother of it is that there's still so much to do, and to hit upon, and so precious little time for thought as well as action."

i took out my watch and showed it to raffles without a word. it was three o'clock in the morning, and the latter end of march. in little more than an hour there would be dim daylight in the streets. raffles roused himself from a reverie with sudden decision.

"there's only one thing for it, bunny," said he. "we must trust each other and divide the labor. you ring up the police, and leave the rest to me."

"you haven't hit upon any reason for the sort of burglar they think you were, ringing up the kind of man they know i am?"

"not yet, bunny, but i shall. it may not be wanted for a day or so, and after all it isn't for you to give the explanation. it would be highly suspicious if you did."

"so it would," i agreed.

"then will you trust me to hit on something—if possible before morning—in any case by the time it's wanted? i won't fail you, bunny. you must see how i can never, never fail you after to-night!"

that settled it. i gripped his hand without another word, and remained on guard over the three sleepers while raffles stole upstairs. i have since learned that there were servants at the top of the house, and in the basement a man, who actually heard some of our proceedings! but he was mercifully too accustomed to nocturnal orgies, and those of a far more uproarious character, to appear unless summoned to the scene. i believe he heard raffles leave. but no secret was made of his exit: he let himself out and told me afterward that the first person he encountered in the street was the constable on the beat. raffles wished him good-morning, as well he might; for he had been upstairs to wash his face and hands; and in the prize-fighter's great hat and fur coat he might have marched round scotland yard itself, in spite of his having the gold brick from sacramento in one pocket, the silver statuette of maguire in the other, and round his waist the jewelled belt presented to that worthy by the state of nevada.

my immediate part was a little hard after the excitement of those small hours. i will only say that we had agreed that it would be wisest for me to lie like a log among the rest for half an hour, before staggering to my feet and rousing house and police; and that in that half-hour barney maguire crashed to the floor, without waking either himself or his companions, though not without bringing my beating heart into the very roof of my mouth.

it was daybreak when i gave the alarm with bell and telephone. in a few minutes we had the house congested with dishevelled domestics, irascible doctors, and arbitrary minions of the law. if i told my story once, i told it a dozen times, and all on an empty stomach. but it was certainly a most plausible and consistent tale, even without that confirmation which none of the other victims was as yet sufficiently recovered to supply. and in the end i was permitted to retire from the scene until required to give further information, or to identify the prisoner whom the good police confidently expected to make before the day was out.

i drove straight to the flat. the porter flew to help me out of my hansom. his face alarmed me more than any i had left in half-moon street. it alone might have spelled my ruin.

"your flat's been entered in the night, sir," he cried. "the thieves have taken everything they could lay hands on."

"thieves in my flat!" i ejaculated aghast. there were one or two incriminating possessions up there, as well as at the albany.

"the door's been forced with a jimmy," said the porter. "it was the milkman who found it out. there's a constable up there now."

a constable poking about in my flat of all others! i rushed upstairs without waiting for the lift. the invader was moistening his pencil between laborious notes in a fat pocketbook; he had penetrated no further than the forced door. i dashed past him in a fever. i kept my trophies in a wardrobe drawer specially fitted with a bramah lock. the lock was broken—the drawer void.

"something valuable, sir?" inquired the intrusive constable at my heels.

"yes, indeed—some old family silver," i answered. it was quite true. but the family was not mine.

and not till then did the truth flash across my mind. nothing else of value had been taken. but there was a meaningless litter in all the rooms. i turned to the porter, who had followed me up from the street; it was his wife who looked after the flat.

"get rid of this idiot as quick as you can," i whispered. "i'm going straight to scotland yard myself. let your wife tidy the place while i'm gone, and have the lock mended before she leaves. i'm going as i am, this minute!"

and go i did, in the first hansom i could find—but not straight to scotland yard. i stopped the cab in picadilly on the way.

old raffles opened his own door to me. i cannot remember finding him fresher, more immaculate, more delightful to behold in every way. could i paint a picture of raffles with something other than my pen, it would be as i saw him that bright march morning, at his open door in the albany, a trim, slim figure in matutinal gray, cool and gay and breezy as incarnate spring.

"what on earth did you do it for?" i asked within.

"it was the only solution," he answered, handing me the cigarettes. "i saw it the moment i got outside."

"i don't see it yet."

"why should a burglar call an innocent gentleman away from home?"

"that's what we couldn't make out."

"i tell you i got it directly i had left you. he called you away in order to burgle you too, of course!"

and raffles stood smiling upon me in all his incomparable radiance and audacity.

"but why me?" i asked. "why on earth should he burgle me?"

"my dear bunny, we must leave something to the imagination of the police. but we will assist them to a fact or two in due season. it was the dead of night when maguire first took us to his house; it was at the imperial boxing club we met him; and you meet queer fish at the imperial boxing club. you may remember that he telephoned to his man to prepare supper for us, and that you and he discussed telephones and treasure as we marched through the midnight streets. he was certainly bucking about his trophies, and for the sake of the argument you will be good enough to admit that you probably bucked about yours. what happens? you are overheard; you are followed; you are worked into the same scheme, and robbed on the same night."

"and you really think this will meet the case?"

"i am quite certain of it, bunny, so far as it rests wit us to meet the case at all."

"then give me another cigarette, my dear fellow, and let me push on to scotland yard."

raffles held up both hands in admiring horror. "scotland yard!"

"to give a false description of what you took from that drawer in my wardrobe."

"a false description! bunny, you have no more to learn from me. time was when i wouldn't have let you go there without me to retrieve a lost umbrella—let alone a lost cause!"

and for once i was not sorry for raffles to have the last unworthy word, as he stood once more at his outer door and gayly waved me down the stairs.