and
we steal outright and are done with it. Obviously ours is the more
honest course. Yet I'm not sure, Bunny, but we're doing the thing by
halves ourselves!"

"Why? What more could we do?" I exclaimed in soft derision, looking
round, however, to make sure that we were not overheard.

"What more," said Raffles. "Well, murder--for one thing."

"Rot!"

"A matter of opinion, my dear Bunny; I don't mean it for rot. I've
told you before that the biggest man alive is the man who's committed a
murder, and not yet been found out; at least he ought to be, but he so
very seldom has the soul to appreciate himself. Just think of it!
Think of coming in here and talking to the men, very likely about the
murder itself; and knowing you've done it; and wondering how they'd
look if THEY knew! Oh, it would be great, simply great! But, besides
all that, when you were caught there'd be a merciful and dramatic end
of you. You'd fill the bill for a few weeks, and then snuff out with a
flourish of extra-specials; you wouldn't rust with a vile repose for
seven or fourteen years."

"Good old Raffles!" I chuckled. "I begin to forgive you for being in
bad form at dinner."

"But I was never more earnest in my life."

"Go on!"

"I mean it."

"You know very well that you wouldn't commit a murder, whatever else
you might do."

"I know very well I'm going to commit one to-night!"

He had been leaning back in the saddle-bag chair, watching me with keen
eyes sheathed by languid lids; now he started forward, and his eyes
leapt to mine like cold steel from the scabbard. They struck home to
my slow wits; their meaning was no longer in doubt. I, who knew the
man, read murder in his clenched hands, and murder in his locked lips,
but a hundred murders in those hard blue eyes.

"Baird?" I faltered, moistening my lips with my tongue.

"Of course."

"But you said it didn't matter about the room in Chelsea?"

"I told a lie."

"Anyway you gave him the slip afterwards!"

"That was another. I didn't. I thought I had when I came up to you
this evening; but when I looked out of your window--you remember? to
make assurance doubly sure--there he was on the opposite pavement down
below."

"And you never said a word about it!"

"I wasn't going to spoil your dinner, Bunny, and I wasn't going to let
you spoil mine. But there he was as large as life, and, of course, he
followed us to the Albany. A fine game for him to play, a game a