in the attempt. If only Raffles had left me some address, to which
I could have wired some word of warning! But it was no use thinking
of that; for the rest there was time enough up to four o'clock, and
as yet it was not three. I determined to go through with my bath
and make the most of it. Might it not be my last for years?

But I was past enjoying even a Turkish bath. I had not the patience
for a proper shampoo, or sufficient spirit for the plunge. I
weighed myself automatically, for that was a matter near my heart;
but I forgot to give my man his sixpence until the reproachful
intonation of his adieu recalled me to myself. And my couch in the
cooling gallery - my favorite couch, in my favorite corner, which I
had secured with gusto on coming in - it was a bed of thorns, with
hideous visions of a plank-bed to follow!

I ought to be able to add that I heard the burglary discussed on
adjacent couches before I left I certainly listened for it, and was
rather disappointed more than once when I had held my breath in vain.
But this is the unvarnished record of an odious hour, and it passed
without further aggravation from without; only, as I drove to Sloane
Street, the news was on all the posters, and on one I read of "a
clew" which spelt for me a doom I was grimly resolved to share.

Already there was something in the nature of a "run" up on the
Sloane Street branch of the City and Suburban. A cab drove away
with a chest of reasonable dimensions as mine drove up, while in
the bank itself a lady was making a painful scene. As for the
genial clerk who had roared at my jokes the day before, he was
mercifully in no mood for any more, but, on the contrary, quite rude
to me at sight.