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