That ruffian and that journey might be more intimately connected
than I had yet supposed. Raffles never told me all. Yet the solid
fact held good - held better than ever - that I had seen his plunder
safely planted in my bank. Crawshay himself could not follow it
there. I was certain he had not followed my cab: in the acute
self-consciousness induced by that abominable drive, I should have
known it in my bones if he had. I thought of the porter's friend
who had helped me with the chest. No, I remember him as well as
I remembered Crawshay; they were quite different types.
To remove that vile box from the bank, on top of another cab, with
no stronger pretext and no further instructions, was not to be
thought of for a moment. Yet I did think of it, for hours. I was
always anxious to do my part by Raffles; he had done more than his
by me, not once or twice, to-day or yesterday, but again and again
from the very first. I need not state the obvious reasons I had
for fighting shy of the personal custody of his accursed chest.
Yet he had run worse risks for me, and I wanted him to learn that
he, too, could depend on a devotion not unworthy of his own.
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