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I encountered in my life of crime.

Imagine a thin but extremely wiry man, past middle age, brown and
bloodless as any crabapple, but as coolly truculent and as casually
alert as Raffles at his worst. It was, it could only be, the
fire-eating and prison-inspecting colonel himself! He was ready for
me, a revolver in his hand, taken, as I could see, from one of those
locked drawers in the pedestal desk with which Raffles had refused to
tamper; the drawer was open, and a bunch of keys depended from the
lock. A grim smile crumpled up the parchment face, so that one eye was
puckered out of sight; the other was propped open by an eyeglass,
which, however, dangled on its string when I appeared.

"A woman, begad!" the warrior exclaimed. "And where's the man, you
scarlet hussy?"

Not a word could I utter. But, in my horror and my amazement, I have
no sort of doubt that I acted the part I had assumed in a manner I
never should have approached in happier circumstances.

"Come, come, my lass," cried the old oak veteran, "I'm not going to put
a bullet through you, you know! You tell me all about it, and it'll do
you more good than harm. There, I'll put the nasty thing away and--God
bless me, if the brazen wench hasn't squeezed into the wife's kit!"

A squeeze it happened to have been, and in my emotion it felt more of
one than ever; but his sudden discovery had not heightened the
veteran's animosity against me. On the contrary, I caught a glint of
humor through his gleaming glass, and he proceeded to pocket his
revolver like the gentleman he was.

"Well, well, it's lucky I looked in," he continued. "I only came round
on the off-chance of letters, but if I hadn't you'd have had another
week in clover. Begad, though, I saw your handwriting the moment I'd
got my nose inside! Now just be sensible and tell me where your good
man is."

I had no man. I was alone, had broken in alone. There was not a soul
in the affair (much less the house) except myself. So much I stuttered
out in tones too hoarse to betray me on the spot. But the old man of
the world shook a hard old head.

"Quite right not to give away your pal," said he. "But I'm not one of
the marines, my dear, and you mustn't expect me to swallow all that.
Well, if you won't say, you won't, and we must just send for those who
will."

In a flash I saw his fell design. The telephone directory lay open on
one of the pedestals. He must have been consulting