, and that
I had come to see who had won. I might or might not confess that
Raffles had rung me out of bed to this end. If, however, I was wrong
about Maguire, and he had not come home at all, then my action would
depend upon the menial who answered my reckless ring. But it should
result in the rescue of Raffles by hook or crook.

I had the more time to come to some decision, since I rang and rang in
vain. The hall, indeed, was in darkness; but when I peeped through the
letter-box I could see a faint beam of light from the back room. That
was the room in which Maguire kept his trophies and set his trap. All
was quiet in the house: could they have haled the intruder to Vine
Street in the short twenty minutes which it had taken me to dress and
to drive to the spot? That was an awful thought; but even as I hoped
against hope, and rang once more, speculation and suspense were cut
short in the last fashion to be foreseen.

A brougham was coming sedately down the street from Piccadilly; to my
horror, it stopped behind me as I peered once more through the
letter-box, and out tumbled the dishevelled prize-fighter and two
companions. I was nicely caught in my turn. There was a lamp-post
right opposite the door, and I can still see the three of them
regarding me in its light. The pugilist had been at least a fine
figure of a bully and a braggart when I saw him before his fight; now
he had a black eye and a bloated lip, hat on the back of his head, and
made-up tie under one ear. His companions were his sallow little
Yankee secretary, whose name I really forget, but whom I met with
Maguire at the Boxing Club, and a very grand person in a second skin
of shimmering sequins.

I can neither forget nor report the terms in which Barney Maguire
asked me who I was and what I was doing there. Thanks, however, to
Swigger Morrison's hospitality, I readily reminded him of our former
meeting, and of more that I only recalled as the words were in my
mouth.

"You'll remember Raffles," said I, "if you don't remember me. You
showed us your trophies the other night, and asked us both to look you
up at any hour of the day or night after the fight."

I was going on to add that I had expected to find Raffles there before
me, to settle a wager that we had made about the man-trap. But the
indiscretion was interrupted by Maguire himself, whose dreadful fist
became a hand that gripped mine with brute fervor, while with the
other he clouted me on the