That was
another of his excuses for leaving me as he did, and it was the one I
was determined to remove. On a morning, therefore, when I awoke to
find him flown again, I proceeded to execute a plan which I had
already matured in my mind. Colonel Crutchley was a married man; there
were no signs of children in the house; on the other hand, there was
much evidence that the wife was a woman of fashion. Her dresses
overflowed the wardrobe and her room; large, flat, cardboard boxes
were to be found in every corner of the upper floors. She was a tall
woman; I was not too tall a man. Like Raffles, I had not shaved on
Campden Hill. That morning, however, I did my best with a very fair
razor which the colonel had left behind in my room; then I turned out
the lady's wardrobe and the cardboard boxes, and took my choice.

I have fair hair, and at the time it was rather long. With a pair of
Mrs. Crutchley's tongs and a discarded hair-net, I was able to produce
an almost immodest fringe. A big black hat with a wintry feather
completed a headdress as unseasonable as my skating skirt and feather
boa; of course, the good lady had all her summer frocks away with her
in Switzerland. This was all the more annoying from the fact that we
were having a very warm September; so I was not sorry to hear Raffles
return as I was busy adding a layer of powder to my heated
countenance. I listened a moment on the landing, but as he went into
the study I determined to complete my toilet in every detail. My idea
was first to give him the fright he deserved, and secondly to show him
that I was quite as fit to move abroad as he. It was, however, I
confess, a pair of the colonel's gloves that I was buttoning as I
slipped down to the study even more quietly than usual. The electric
light was on, as it generally was by day, and under it stood as
formidable a figure as ever 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 sig