d. "How on earth can you know?"

"I don't know," said Raffles, "but I should like to bet. Our friend
the bloodhound is hanging about the corner near the pillar-box; look
through my window, it's dark in there, and tell me who he is."

The man was too far away for me to swear to his face, but he wore a
covert-coat of un-English length, and the lamp across the road played
steadily on his boots; they were very yellow, and they made no noise
when he took a turn. I strained my eyes, and all at once I remembered
the thin-soled, low-heeled, splay yellow boots of the insidious
foreigner, with the soft eyes and the brown-paper face, whom I had
turned from the door as a palpable fraud. The ring at the bell was the
first I had heard of him, there had been no warning step upon the
stairs, and my suspicious eye had searched his feet for rubber soles.

"It's the fellow," I said, returning to Raffles, and I described his
boots.

Raffles was delighted.

"Well done, Bunny; you're coming on," said he. "Now I wonder if he's
been over here all the time, or if they sent him over expressly? You
did better than you think in spotting those boots, for they can only
have been made in Italy, and that looks like the special envoy. But
it's no use speculating. I must find out."

"How can you?"

"He won't stay there all night."

"Well?"

"When he gets tired of it I shall return the compliment and follow HIM."

"Not alone," said I, firmly.

"Well, we'll see. We'll see at once," said Raffles, rising. "Out with
the gas, Bunny, while I take a look. Thank you. Now wait a bit ... yes!
He's chucked it; he's off already; and so am I!"

But I slipped to our outer door, and held the passage.

"I don't let you go alone, you know."

"You can't come with me in pyjamas."

"Now I see why you made me put them on!"

"Bunny, if you don't shift I shall have to shift you. This is my very
own private one-man show. But I'll be back in an hour--there!"

"You swear?"

"By all my gods."

I gave in. How could I help giving in? He did not look the man that
he had been, but you never knew with Raffles, and I could not have him
lay a hand on me. I let him go with a shrug and my blessing, then ran
into his room to see the last of him from the window.

The creature in the coat and boots had reached the end of our little
street, where he appeared to have hesitated, so that Raffles was just
in time to see which way he turned. And Raffl