ented an elaborate scheme of
oak and tiles, with inglenooks green from the joiner, and a china
cupboard with leaded panes behind his bullet head. And his bloodshot
eyes rolled with rich delight from the decanter and glasses on the
octagonal table to another decanter in the quaintest and craftiest of
revolving spirit tables.

"Isn't it bully?" asked the prize-fighter, smiling on us each in turn,
with his black and bloodshot eyes and his bloated lip. "To think that
I've only to invent a trap to catch a crook, for a blamed crook to walk
right into! You, Mr. Man," and he nodded his great head at me, "you'll
recollect me telling you that I'd gotten one when you come in that
night with the other sport? Say, pity he's not with you now; he was a
good boy, and I liked him a lot; but he wanted to know too much, and I
guess he'd got to want. But I'm liable to tell you now, or else bu'st.
See that decanter on the table?"

"I was just looking at it," said the person in sequins. "You don't
know what a turn I've had, or you'd offer me a little something."

"You shall have a little something in a minute," rejoined Maguire. "But
if you take a little anything out of that decanter, you'll collapse
like our friend upon the floor."

"Good heavens!" I cried out, with involuntary indignation, and his fell
scheme broke upon me in a clap.

"Yes, sir!" said Maguire, fixing me with his bloodshot orbs. "My trap
for crooks and cracksmen is a bottle of hocussed whiskey, and I guess
that's it on the table, with the silver label around its neck. Now look
at this other decanter, without any label at all; but for that they're
the dead spit of each other. I'll put them side by side, so you can
see. It isn't only the decanters, but the liquor looks the same in
both, and tastes so you wouldn't know the difference till you woke up
in your tracks. I got the poison from a blamed Indian away west, and
it's ruther ticklish stuff. So I keep the label around the
trap-bottle, and only leave it out nights. That's the idea, and that's
all there is to it," added Maguire, putting the labelled decanter back
in the stand. "But I figure it's enough for ninety-nine crooks out of
a hundred, and nineteen out of twenty 'll have their liquor before they
go to work."

"I wouldn't figure on that," observed the secretary, with a downward
glance as though at the prostrate Raffles. "Have you looked to see if
the trophies are all safe?"

"Not yet," said Maguir