way and alarm the 'ouse?' And that raised the siege, Bunny. In comes the
old woman, as plucky as he was, and shoves the necklace into my left
hand. I longed to refuse it. I didn't dare. And the old beast took her
and shook her like a rat, until I covered him again, and swore in German
that if he showed himself on the balcony for the next two minutes he'd be
_ein toter Englander_! That was the other bit I'd got off pat; it was
meant to mean 'a dead Englishman.' And I left the fine old girl clinging
on to him, instead of him to her!"

I emptied my lungs and my glass too. Raffles took a sip himself.

"But the rope was fixed to _your_ balcony, A.J.?"

"But I began by fixing the other end to theirs, and the moment I was
safely up I undid my end and dropped it clear to the ground. They found
it dangling all right when out they rushed together. Of course I'd picked
the right ball in the way of nights; it was bone-dry as well as
pitch-dark, and in five minutes I was helping the rest of the hotel to
search for impossible footprints on the gravel, and to stamp out any
there might conceivably have been."

"So nobody ever suspected you?"

"Not a soul, I can safely say; I was the first my victims bored with the
whole yarn."

"Then why return the swag? It's an old trick of yours, Raffles, but in a
case like this, with a pig like that, I confess I don't see the point."

"You forget the poor old lady, Bunny. She had a dog's life before; after