He paused, remembering everything himself, as I could see; and the human compassion in his face should have been sufficient answer to my vile misgivings. But there was contrition in his look as well, and that was a much rarer sign in Raffles. Rarer still was a glance of alarm almost akin to panic, alike without precedent in my experience of my friend and beyond belief in my reading of his character. But through all there peeped a conscious enjoyment of these new sensations, a very zest in the novelty of fear, which I knew to be at once signally characteristic, and yet compatible either with his story or with my own base dread. "Nobody need ever know about that," said I, with the certainty that nobody ever would know through the one other who knew already. But Raffles threw cold water upon that poor little flicker of confidence and good hope. "It's bound to come out, Bunny. They'll start accounting for his last hours on earth, and they'll stick ominously in the first five minutes working backwards. Then I am described as bolting from the scene, then identified with myself, then found to have fled the country! Then Carlsbad, then our first row with him, then yesterday's big cheque; my heavy double finds he was impersonated at the bank; it all comes out bit by bit, and if I'm caught it means that dingy Old Bailey dock on the capital charge!" "Then I'll be with you," said I, "as accessory before and after the fact. That's one thing!" "No, no, Bunny! You must shake me off and get back to town. I'll push you out as we slow down through the streets of Dover, and you can put up for the night at the Lord Warden. That's the sort of public place for the likes of us to lie low in, Bunny. Don't forget all my rules when I'm gone." "You're not going without me, A.J." "Not even if I did it, Bunny?" "No; less than ever then!" Raffles leant across and took my hand. There was a flash of mischief in his eyes, but a very tender light as well. "It makes me almost wish I were what I do believe you thought I was," said he, "to see you stick to me all the same! But it's about time that we were making the lights of Dover," he added, beating an abrupt retreat from sentiment, even to the length of getting up and looking out as we clattered through a country station. His head was in again before the platform was left behind, a pale face peering into mine, real panic flaring in those altered eyes, like blue lights at sea. "My God, Bunny!" cried Raffles. "I believe Dover's as far as I shall ever get!" "Why? What's the matter now?" "A head sticking out of the next compartment but one!" "Mackenzie's?" "Yes!" I had seen it in his face. "After us already?" "God knows! Not necessarily; they watch the ports after a big murder." "Swagger detectives from Scotland Yard?" Raffles did not answer; he had something else to do. Already he was turning his pockets inside out. A false beard rolled off the seat.