Nor did he deny it later when
I taxed him with his mad resolve; he merely refused to allow me to
implicate myself in its execution. Well, there was a spice of
savage satisfaction in the thought that Raffles had been obliged to
turn to me in the end. And, but for the dreadful thud which I had
heard over the telephone, I might have extracted some genuine
comfort from the unerring sagacity with which he had chosen his
night.
Within the last twenty-four hours Barney Maguire had fought his
first great battle on British soil. Obviously, he would no longer
be the man that he had been in the strict training before the fight;
never, as I gathered, was such a ruffian more off his guard, or
less capable of protecting himself and his possessions, than in
these first hours of relaxation and inevitable debauchery for which
Raffles had waited with characteristic foresight. Nor was the
terrible Barney likely to be more abstemious for signal punishment
sustained in a far from bloodless victory. Then what could be the
meaning of that sickening and most suggestive thud? Could it be
the champion himself who had received the coup de grace in his cups?
Raffles was the very man to administer it - but he had not talked
like that man through the telephone.
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