ll a quite excellent time.

It is true that there were other factors in this pleasing
disappointment. In the first place, mirabile dictu, there were one or
two even greater duffers than I on the Abbey cricket-field. Indeed,
quite early in the week, when it was of most value to me, I gained
considerable kudos for a lucky catch; a ball, of which I had merely
heard the hum, stuck fast in my hand, which Lord Amersteth himself
grasped in public congratulation. This happy accident was not to be
undone even by me, and, as nothing succeeds like success, and the
constant encouragement of the one great cricketer on the field was in
itself an immense stimulus, I actually made a run or two in my very
next innings. Miss Melhuish said pretty things to me that night at the
great ball in honor of Viscount Crowley's majority; she also told me
that was the night on which the robbers would assuredly make their
raid, and was full of arch tremors when we sat out in the garden,
though the entire premises were illuminated all night long. Meanwhile
the quiet Scotchman took countless photographs by day, which he
developed by night in a dark room admirably situated in the servants'
part of the house; and it is my firm belief that only two of his
fellow-guests knew Mr. Clephane of Dundee for Inspector Mackenzie of
Scotland Yard.

The week was to end with a trumpery match on the Saturday, which two or
three of us intended abandoning early in order to return to town that
night. The match, however, was never played. In the small hours of
the Saturday morning a tragedy took place at Milchester Abbey.

Let me tell of the thing as I saw and heard it. My room opened upon
the central gallery, and was not even on the same floor as that on
which Raffles--and I think all the other men--were quartered. I had
been put, in fact, into the dressing-room of one of the grand suites,
and my too near neighbors were old Lady Melrose and my host and
hostess. Now, by the Friday evening the actual festivities were at an
end, and, for the first time that week, I must have been sound asleep
since midnight, when all at once I found myself sitting up breathless.
A heavy thud had come against my door, and now I heard hard breathing
and the dull stamp of muffled feet.

"I've got ye," muttered a voice. "It's no use struggling."

It was the Scotch detective, and a new fear turned me cold. There was
no reply, but the hard breathing grew harder still, and the muf