Part 17 (1/2)
The secretary had picked up the dangling receiver.
”It looks to me,” said he, ”as though the crook had rung up somebody before he went off.”
I turned and a.s.sisted the grand lady to the refreshment that she craved.
”Like his cheek!” Maguire thundered. ”But who in blazes should he ring up?”
”It'll all come out,” said the secretary. ”They'll tell us at the central, and we shall find out fast enough.”
”It don't matter now,” said Maguire. ”Let's have a drink and then rouse the devil up.”
But now I was shaking in my shoes. I saw quite clearly what this meant. Even if I rescued Raffles for the time being, the police would promptly ascertain that it was I who had been rung up by the burglar, and the fact of my not having said a word about it would be directly d.a.m.ning to me, if in the end it did not incriminate us both. It made me quite faint to feel that we might escape the Scylla of our present peril and yet split on the Charybdis of circ.u.mstantial evidence. Yet I could see no middle course of conceivable safety, if I held my tongue another moment. So I spoke up desperately, with the rash resolution which was the novel feature of my whole conduct on this occasion. But any sheep would be resolute and rash after dining with Swigger Morrison at his club.
”I wonder if he rang me up?” I exclaimed, as if inspired.
”You, sonny?” echoed Maguire, decanter in hand. ”What in h.e.l.l could he know about you?”
”Or what could you know about him?” amended the secretary, fixing me with eyes like drills.
”Nothing,” I admitted, regretting my temerity with all my heart. ”But some one did ring me up about an hour ago. I thought it was Raffles. I told you I expected to find him here, if you remember.”
”But I don't see what that's got to do with the crook,” pursued the secretary, with his relentless eyes boring deeper and deeper into mine.
”No more do I,” was my miserable reply. But there was a certain comfort in his words, and some simultaneous promise in the quant.i.ty of spirit which Maguire splashed into his gla.s.s.
”Were you cut off sudden?” asked the secretary, reaching for the decanter, as the three of us sat round the octagonal table.
”So suddenly,” I replied, ”that I never knew who it was who rang me up. No, thank you-not any for me.”
”What!” cried Maguire, raising a depressed head suddenly. ”You won't have a drink in my house? Take care, young man. That's not being a good boy!”
”But I've been dining out,” I expostulated, ”and had my whack. I really have.”
Barney Maguire smote the table with terrific
”Say, sonny, I like you a lot,” said he. ”But I shan't like you any if you're not a good boy!”
”Very well, very well,” I said hurriedly. ”One finger, if I must.”
And the secretary helped me to not more than two.
”Why should it have been your friend Raffles?” he inquired, returning remorselessly to the charge, while Maguire roared ”Drink up!” and then drooped once more.
”I was half asleep,” I answered, ”and he was the first person who occurred to me. We are both on the telephone, you see. And we had made a bet-”
The gla.s.s was at my lips, but I was able to set it down untouched. Maguire's huge jaw had dropped upon his spreading s.h.i.+rt-front, and beyond him I saw the person in sequins fast asleep in the artistic armchair.
”What bet?” asked a voice with a sudden start in it. The secretary was blinking as he drained his gla.s.s.
”About the very thing we've just had explained to us,” said I, watching my man intently as I spoke. ”I made sure it was a man-trap. Raffles thought it must be something else. We had a tremendous argument about it. Raffles said it wasn't a man-trap. I said it was. We had a bet about it in the end. I put my money on the man-trap. Raffles put his upon the other thing. And Raffles was right-it wasn't a man-trap. But it's every bit as good-every little bit-and the whole boiling of you are caught in it except me!”