"
Raffles rubbed his hands in playful pantomime.
"I only hope you didn't ask too many questions, Bunny! But if your
friends are such old friends, you will never enter their heads when
they hear what has happened, unless you are seen down there on the
night, which might be fatal. Your approach will require some
thought: if you like I can work out the shot for you. I shall go
down independently, and the best thing may be to meet outside the
house itself on the night of nights. But from that moment I am in
your hands."
And on these refreshing lines our plan of campaign was gradually
developed and elaborated into that finished study on which Raffles
would rely like any artist of the footlights. None were more
capable than he of coping with the occasion as it rose, of rising
himself with the emergency of the moment, of snatching a victory
from the very dust of defeat. Yet, for choice, every detail was
premeditated, and an alternative expedient at each finger's end for
as many bare and awful possibilities. In this case, however, the
finished study stopped short at the garden gate or wall; there I
was to assume command; and though Raffles carried the actual tools
of trade of which he alone was master, it was on the understanding
that for once I should control and direct their use.
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