"I wish you'd give me a little something, and not be more
vulgar than you can 'elp."
"Help yourself," said Maguire, ungallantly, "and don't talk through
your hat. Say, what's the matter with the 'phone?"
The secretary had picked up the dangling receiver.
"It looks to me," said he, "as though the crook had rung up somebody
before he went off."
I turned and assisted the grand lady to the refreshment that she
craved.
"Like his cheek!" Maguire thundered. "But who in blazes should
he ring up?"
"It'll all. come out," said the secretary. "They'll tell us at the
central, and we shall find out fast enough."
"It don't matter now," said Maguire. "Let's have a drink and then
rouse the devil up."
But now I was shaking in my shoes. I saw quite clearly what this
meant. Even if I rescued Raffles for the time being, the police
would promptly ascertain that it was I who had been rung up by the
burglar, and the fact of my not having said a word about it would
be directly damning to me, if in the end it did not incriminate
us both. It made me quite faint to feel that we might escape the
Scylla of our present peril and yet split on the Charybdis of
circumstantial evidence.
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