Free E. W. Hornung_A J Raffles 03 by A Thief in the Night

a cricket-bag (which I
really want), and come limping back to the Albany with the same old
strain in my bowling leg. I needn't add that I have been playing
country-house cricket for the last month under an alias; it's the
only decent way to do it when one's county has need of one. That's
my itinerary, Bunny, but I really can't see why you should come
with me."
    "We may as well swing together!" I growled.
    "As you will, my dear fellow," replied Raffles. "But I begin to
dread your company on the drop!"
    I shall hold my pen on that provincial tour. Not that I joined
Raffles in any of the little enterprises with which he beguiled
the breaks in our journey; our last deed in London was far too
great a weight upon my soul. I could see that gallant officer in
his chair, see him at every hour of the day and night, now with
his indomitable eyes meeting mine ferociously, now a stark outline
underneath a sheet. The vision darkened my day and gave me
sleepless nights. I was with our victim in all. his agony; my mind
would only leave him for that gallows of which Raffles had said
true things in jest. No, I could not face so vile a death lightly,
but I could meet it, somehow, better than I could endure a guilty
suspense. In the watches of the second night I made up my mind to
meet it halfway, that very morning, while still there might be time
to save the life that we had left in jeopardy. And I got up early
to tell Raffles of my resolve.
    His room in the hotel where we were staying was littered with
clothes and luggage new enough for any bridegroom; I lifted the
locked cricket-bag, and found it heavier than a cricket-bag has
any right to be. But in the bed Raffles was sleeping like an
infant, his shaven self once more. And when I shook him he awoke
with a smile.
    "Going to confess, eh, Bunny? Well, wait a bit; the local police
won't thank you for knocking them up at this hour. And I bought
a late edition which you ought to see; that must be it on the floor.
You have a look in the stop-press column, Bunny."
    I found the place with a sunken heart, and this is what I read:
    WEST-END OUTRAGE
    Colonel Crutchley, R.E., V.C., has been the victim of a dastardly
outrage at his residence, Peter Street, Campden Hill. Returning
unexpectedly to the house, which had been left untenanted during
the absence of the family abroad, it was found occupied by two
ruffians, who overcame and secured the distinguished officer by
the exercise of considerable violence. When discovered through
the intelligence of the Kensington police, the gallant victim was
gagged and bound hand and foot, and in an advanced stage of
exhaustion.
    "Thanks to the Kensington police," observed Raffles, as I read the
last words aloud in my horror. "They can't have gone when they got
my letter."
    "Your letter?"
    "I printed them a line while we were waiting for our train at Euston.
They must have got it that night, but they can't have paid any
attention to it until yesterday morning. And when they do, they
take all. the credit and give me no more than you did, Bunny!"
    I looked at the curly head upon the pillow, at the smiling, handsome
face under the curls. And at last I understood.
    "So all. the time you never meant it!"
    "Slow murder? You should have known me better. A few hours'
enforced Rest Cure was the worst I wished him."
    "'you might have told me, Raffles!"
    "That may be, Bunny, but you ought certainly to have trusted me!"

The Criminologists' Club
*
    "But who are they, Raffles, and where's their house? There's no
such club on the list in Whitaker."
    "The Criminologists, my dear Bunny, are too few for a local
habitation, and too select to tell their name in Gath. They are
merely so many solemn students of contemporary crime, who meet and
dine periodically at each other's clubs or houses."
    "But why in the world should they ask us to dine with them?"
    And I brandished the invitation which had brought me hotfoot to the
Albany: it was from the Right Hon. the Earl of Thornaby,