ved. I knew him too well for that. He would
run for it when he could, and the bath-chair and I must not be there to
give him away. I dragged the infernal vehicle round the nearer corner.
Then I waited--there could be no harm in that--and at last he came.

He was walking briskly, so I was right, and he had not played the
invalid to her; yet I heard him cry out with pleasure as he turned the
corner, and he flung himself into the chair with a long-drawn sigh that
did me good.

"Well done, Bunny--well done! I am on my way to Earl's Court, she's
capable of following me, but she won't look for me in a bath-chair.
Home, home, home, and not another word till we get there!"

Capable of following him? She overtook us before we were past the
studios on the south side of the square, the woman herself, in a hooded
opera-cloak. But she never gave us a glance, and we saw her turn
safely in the right direction for Earl's Court, and the wrong one for
our humble mansions. Raffles thanked his gods in a voice that
trembled, and five minutes later we were in the flat. Then for once it
was Raffles who filled the tumblers and found the cigarettes, and for
once (and once only in all my knowledge of him) did he drain his glass
at a draught.

"You didn't see the balcony scene?" he asked at length; and they were
his first words since the woman passed us on his track.

"Do you mean when she came in?"

"No, when I came down."

"I didn't."

"I hope nobody else saw it," said Raffles devoutly. "I don't say that
Romeo and Juliet were brother and sister to us. But you might have
said so, Bunny!"

He was staring at the carpet with as wry a face as lover ever wore.

"An old flame?" said I, gently.

"A married woman," he groaned.

"So I gathered."

"But she always was one, Bunny," said he, ruefully. "That's the
trouble. It makes all the difference in the world!"

I saw the difference, but said I did not see how it could make any now.
He had eluded the lady, after all; had we not seen her off upon a scent
as false as scent could be? There was occasion for redoubled caution
in the future, but none for immediate anxiety. I quoted the bedside
Theobald, but Raffles did not smile. His eyes had been downcast all
this time, and now, when he raised them, I perceived that my comfort
had been administered to deaf ears.

"Do you know who she is?" said he.

"Not from Eve."

"Jacques Saillard," he said, as though now I must know.