but again and again from the very first. I
need not state the obvious reasons I had for fighting shy of the
personal custody of his accursed chest. Yet he had run worse risks for
me, and I wanted him to learn that he, too, could depend on a devotion
not unworthy of his own.

In my dilemma I did what I have often done when at a loss for light and
leading. I took hardly any lunch, but went to Northumberland Avenue
and had a Turkish bath instead. I know nothing so cleansing to mind as
well as body, nothing better calculated to put the finest possible edge
on such judgment as one may happen to possess. Even Raffles, without
an ounce to lose or a nerve to soothe, used to own a sensuous
appreciation of the peace of mind and person to be gained in this
fashion when all others failed. For me, the fun began before the boots
were off one's feet; the muffled footfalls, the thin sound of the
fountain, even the spent swathed forms upon the couches, and the whole
clean, warm, idle atmosphere, were so much unction to my simpler soul.
The half-hour in the hot-rooms I used to count but a strenuous step to
a divine lassitude of limb and accompanying exaltation of intellect.
And yet--and yet--it was in the hottest room of all, in a temperature
of 270 deg. Fahrenheit, that the bolt fell from the Pall Mall Gazette
which I had bought outside the bath.

I was turning over the hot, crisp pages, and positively revelling in my
fiery furnace, when the following headlines and leaded paragraphs leapt
to my eye with the force of a veritable blow:

BANK ROBBERS IN THE WEST END--
DARING AND MYSTERIOUS CRIME

An audacious burglary and dastardly assault have been committed
on the premises of the City and Suburban Bank in Sloane Street, W.
From the details so far to hand, the robbery appears to have been
deliberately planned and adroitly executed in the early hours of
this morning.

A night watchman named Fawcett states that between one and two
o'clock he heard a slight noise in the neighborhood of the lower
strong-room, used as a repository for the plate and other
possessions of various customers of the bank. Going down to
investigate, he was instantly attacked by a powerful ruffian,
who succeeded in felling him to the ground before an alarm could
be raised.

Fawcett is unable to furnish any description of his assailant
or assailants, but is of opinion that more than one