The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-07-30
Raffles, The Amateur Cracksmam

So this Is your thieves kitchenf' she | cried, In high-pitched scorn
 was on the threshold myself and Raf-
 Hes glanced towards me with raised eye
 brows.
 T have certainly had better quarters in iny oay, sald hes but you need not call them absurd names before my man. Then send your man about his bus
 iness," said Jacques Saillard. with an
 unpleasant stress upon the word indi- | cated.
 But when the door was shut I heard | Rallies assuring her that l knew nothing. | that he was real invalid overcome by d I sudden mad temptation. and all he had told her of his life lie to hide his where abouts, but all he was telling her now she | could prove for herself without leaving
 that building. It seemed. however, that she had proved 1t already by going first to the porter below stairs. Yet do not thing she cared one atom which story was the truth.
 'So you thought I could pass you in your chair" she said, ''or ever in this
 world again, without hearing from my heart that It was you!''
 II.
 Bunny said Rallies, I'm awfully sorry old chap, but you've got to go"
 It was some weeks since the first un- timely visitation of Jacques Saillard, but there had been many others at all hours of the day, while Rallies had been in- duced to pay at least one to her studio in the neighboring square. These intru- sions he had endured at first with an air of humorous resignation which imposed upon me less than he imagined. The wo- man meant well, he said, after all, and could be trusted to keep his secret loyally. It was plain to me, however, that Rallies did not trust her, and that his pretense upon the point was deliberate pose to conceal the extent to which she had him in her power. Otherwise there would have been little point in hiding identity But Rallies thought 1t worth his while to 11oodwinl Jacques Saillard in the subsi- diary matter of his health, in which Dr. Theobald lent him unwilling assistance, and, as we have seen, to impress upon her that I was actually his attendant and as ignortant of his past as the doctor himself. "So you're all right, Bunny he assured me; ''she thinks you know noth- ing the other night. I told you she wasn't a clever woman outside her work But hasn't she a will" I told Rallies it was very considerate of him to keep me out of 1t, but that 1t seemed to me like tying rp the bag when the caat had escaped His reply was an admission that one must be on the defensive with such q wo- man and in such a case. Soon after this Rallies, looking far from well, fell back up his own last line of defense, namely his bed; and now, as always in the end. could see some sense in subleties, since it was comparatively easy for me to turn even Jacques Saillard from the door, with Dr. Theobald's explicit iniunctons, and with my own honesty unquestoned So for day we had peace once more Then came letters, then the doctor again and again. and finally my dismissal in the in- credible words which have necesstated these explanations.
 ''Go9" echoed "Go where?"
 Its that ass Theobald," said Raffles ''He insists"
 ''On my going altogether?"
 He nodded.
 And you mean to let him have his way?"
 I had no language for my modification and disgust, though neither was as yet quite so great as my surprise. I had foreseen almost every conceivable con sequence of the mad act which brought all this trouble to pass. but a voluntary division between Rallies and me had certainly never entered my calculations Nor could think that 1t had occurred to him before our egreeious doctors last visit. this very morning. Rallies had look irritated as he broke the news [, me from his pillow. and now there was some sympathy in the way he sat up In bed as though hs felt the thing himself
 T am obliged tc give in to the fellow"