earance, and even now I could scarcely believe
that he was anything else.

"My name won't help you," he said, pityingly. "But you will guess
where I come from when I tell you I have a warrant for your arrest."

My sensations at this announcement may not be believed, but I solemnly
declare that I have seldom experienced so fierce a satisfaction. Here
was a new excitement in which to drown my grief; here was something to
think about; and I should be spared the intolerable experience of a
solitary return to the little place at Ham. It was as though I had
lost a limb and some one had struck me so hard in the face that the
greater agony was forgotten. I got into the hansom without a word, my
captor following at my heels, and giving his own directions to the
cabman before taking his seat. The word "station" was the only one I
caught, and I wondered whether it was to be Bow Street again. My
companion's next words, however, or rather the tone in which he uttered
them, destroyed my capacity for idle speculation.

"Mr. Maturin!" said he. "Mr. Maturin indeed!"

"Well," said I, "what about him?"

"Do you think we don't know who he was?"

"Who was he?" I asked, defiantly.

"You ought to know," said he. "You got locked up through him the other
time, too. His favorite name was Raffles then."

"It was his real name," I said, indignantly. "And he has been dead for
years."

My captor simply chuckled.

"He's at the bottom of the sea, I tell you!"

But I do not know why I should have told him with such spirit, for what
could it matter to Raffles now? I did not think; instinct was still
stronger than reason, and, fresh from his funeral, I had taken up the
cudgels for my dead friend as though he were still alive. Next moment
I saw this for myself, and my tears came nearer the surface than they
had been yet; but the fellow at my side laughed outright.

"Shall I tell you something else?" said he.

"As you like."

"He's not even at the bottom of that grave! He's no more dead than you
or I, and a sham burial is his latest piece of villainy!"

I doubt whether I could have spoken if I had tried. I did not try. I
had no use for speech. I did not even ask him if he was sure, I was
so sure myself. It was all as plain to me as riddles usually are when
one has the answer. The doctor's alarms, his unscrupulous venality,
the simulated illness, my own dismissal, each fitted in its obvious
place, and not even the la