ed faintly into mine. I raised my glass in
convivial congratulation, and still remember the somewhat anxious eye
with which Raffles saw it emptied.

"I can only find one likely name," he continued, "that figures in all
these lists, and it is anything but a likely one at first sight. Lord
Ernest Belville was at all those functions. Know anything about him,
Bunny?"

"Not the Rational Drink fanatic?"

"Yes."

"That's all I want to know."

"Quite," said Raffles; "and yet what could be more promising? A man
whose views are so broad and moderate, and so widely held already
(saving your presence, Bunny), does not bore the world with them
without ulterior motives. So far so good. What are this chap's
motives? Does he want to advertise himself? No, he's somebody
already. But is he rich? On the contrary, he's as poor as a rat for
his position, and apparently without the least ambition to be anything
else; certainly he won't enrich himself by making a public fad of what
all sensible people are agreed upon as it is. Then suddenly one gets
one's own old idea--the alternative profession! My cricket--his
Rational Drink! But it is no use jumping to conclusions. I must know
more than the newspapers can tell me. Our aristocratic friend is
forty, and unmarried. What has he been doing all these years? How the
devil was I to find out?"

"How did you?" I asked, declining to spoil my digestion with a
conundrum, as it was his evident intention that I should.

"Interviewed him!" said Raffles, smiling slowly on my amazement.

"You--interviewed him?" I echoed. "When--and where?"

"Last Thursday night, when, if you remember, we kept early hours,
because I felt done. What was the use of telling you what I had up my
sleeve, Bunny? It might have ended in fizzle, as it still may. But
Lord Ernest Belville was addressing the meeting at Exeter Hall; I
waited for him when the show was over, dogged him home to King John's
Mansions, and interviewed him in his own rooms there before he turned
in."

My journalistic jealousy was piqued to the quick. Affecting a
scepticism I did not feel (for no outrage was beyond the pale of his
impudence), I inquired dryly which journal Raffles had pretended to
represent. It is unnecessary to report his answer. I could not believe
him without further explanation.

"I should have thought," he said, "that even you would have spotted a
practice I never omit upon certain occasions. I al