ss column, Bunny."

I found the place with a sunken heart, and this is what I read:

WEST-END OUTRAGE

Colonel Crutchley, R.E., V.C., has been the victim of a
dastardly outrage at his residence, Peter Street, Campden
Hill. Returning unexpectedly to the house, which had been
left untenanted during the absence of the family abroad, it
was found occupied by two ruffians, who overcame and secured
the distinguished officer by the exercise of considerable
violence. When discovered through the intelligence of the
Kensington police, the gallant victim was gagged and bound
hand and foot, and in an advanced stage of exhaustion.

"Thanks to the Kensington police," observed Raffles, as I read the
last words aloud in my horror. "They can't have gone when they got my
letter."

"Your letter?"

"I printed them a line while we were waiting for our train at Euston.
They must have got it that night, but they can't have paid any
attention to it until yesterday morning. And when they do, they take
all the credit and give me no more than you did, Bunny!"

I looked at the curly head upon the pillow, at the smiling, handsome
face under the curls. And at last I understood.

"So all the time you never meant it!"

"Slow murder? You should have known me better. A few hours' enforced
Rest Cure was the worst I wished him."

"You might have told me, Raffles!"

"That may be, Bunny, but you ought certainly to have trusted me!"

The Criminologists' Club

"But who are they, Raffles, and where's their house? There's no such
club on the list in Whitaker."

"The Criminologists, my dear Bunny, are too few for a local
habitation, and too select to tell their name in Gath. They are merely
so many solemn students of contemporary crime, who meet and dine
periodically at each other's clubs or houses."

"But why in the world should they ask us to dine with them?"

And I brandished the invitation which had brought me hotfoot to the
Albany: it was from the Right Hon. the Earl of Thornaby, K.G.; and it
requested the honor of my company at dinner, at Thornaby House, Park
Lane, to meet the members of the Criminologists' Club. That in itself
was a disturbing compliment: judge then of my dismay on learning that
Raffles had been invited too!

"They have got it into their heads," said he, "that the gladiatorial
element is the curse of most modern sport. They tremble especial