"Sorry to wake you, Bunny," said he. "I thought I was behaving
like a mouse; but after a three hours' tramp one's feet are all.
heels."
I did not get up and fall upon his neck. I sat back in my chair
and blinked with bitterness upon his selfish insensibility. He
should not know what I had been through on his account.
"Walk out from town?" I inquired, as indifferently as though he
were in the habit of doing so.
"From Scotland Yard," he answered, stretching himself before the
fire in his stocking soles.
"Scotland Yard?" I echoed. "Then I was right; that's where you
were all. the time; and yet you managed to escape!"
I had risen excitedly in my turn.
"Of course I did," replied Raffles. "I never thought there would
be much difficulty about that, but there was even less than I
anticipated. I did once find myself on one side of a sort of
counter, and an officer dozing at his desk at the other side. I
thought it safest to wake him up and make inquiries about a mythical
purse left in a phantom hansom outside the Carlton. And the way
the fellow fired me out of that was another credit to the
Metropolitan Police: it's only in the savage countries that they
would have troubled to ask how one had got in.
Pages:
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301