Yet Raffles, with me in his
arms, crossed the zone of peril softly as the pard.
"Shoes in your pocket - that's the beauty of pumps!" he whispered
on the step; his light bunch tinkled faintly; a couple of keys he
stooped and tried, with the touch of a humane dentist; the third
let us into the porch. And as we stood together on the mat, as he
was gradually closing the door, a clock within chimed a half-hour
in fashion so thrillingly familiar to me that I caught Raffles by
the arm. My half-hours of happiness had flown to just such chimes!
I looked wildly about me in the dim light. Hat-stand and oak
settee belonged equally to my past. And Raffles was smiling in my
face as he held the door wide for my escape.
"You told me a lie!" I gasped in whispers.
"I did nothing of the sort," he replied. "The furniture's the
furniture of Hector Carruthers; but the house is the house of Lord
Lochmaben. Look here!"
He had stooped, and was smoothing out the discarded envelope of a
telegram. "Lord Lochmaben," I read in pencil by the dim light;
and the case was plain to me on the spot.
Pages:
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37