"
Young Medlicott glanced upstairs from his post on the threshold.
I refrained from watching him too keenly, but I knew what was in
his mind.
"I'll go," he said hurriedly. "I'll go as I am, before my mother
is disturbed and frightened out of her life. I owe you something,
too, not only for what you've done for me, but for what I was fool
enough to think about you at the first blush. It's entirely through
you that I feel as fit as I do for the moment. So I'll take your
tip, and go just as I am, before my poor old pipes strike up another
tune."
I scarcely looked up until the good fellow had turned his back upon
the final tableau of watchful officer and prostrate prisoner and
gone out wheezing into the night. But I was at the door to hear
the last of him down the path and round the corner of the house.
And when I rushed back into the room, there was Raffles sitting
cross-legged on the floor, and slowly shaking his broken head as he
stanched the blood.
"Et tu, Bunny!" he groaned. "Mine own familiar friend!"
"Then you weren't even stunned!" I exclaimed.
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