“No, old chap, you won’t. This is my own little show. I’ve known about
it for weeks. I first tumbled to it the day those Neapolitans came back
with their organs, though I didn’t seriously suspect things then; they
never came again, those two, they had done their part. That’s the
Camorra all over, from all accounts. The Count I told you about is
pretty high up in it, by the way he spoke, but there will be grades and
grades between him and the organ-grinders. I shouldn’t be surprised if
he had every low-down Neapolitan ice-creamer in the town upon my
tracks! The organization’s incredible. Then do you remember the
superior foreigner who came to the door a few days afterwards? You said
he had velvet eyes.”
“I never connected him with those two!”
“Of course you didn’t, Bunny, so you threatened to kick the fellow
downstairs, and only made them keener on the scent. It was too late to
say anything when you told me. But the very next time I showed my nose
outside I heard a camera click as I passed, and the fiend was a person
with velvet eyes. Then there was a lull—that happened weeks ago. They
had sent me to Italy for identification by Count Corbucci.”
“But this is all theory,” I exclaimed. “How on earth can you know?”
“I don’t know,” said Raffles, “but I should like to bet. Our friend the
bloodhound is hanging about the corner near the pillar-box; look
through my window, it’s dark in there, and tell me who he is.”
The man was too far away for me to swear to his face, but he wore a
covert-coat of un-English length, and the lamp across the road played
steadily on his boots; they were very yellow, and they made no noise
when he took a turn. I strained my eyes, and all at once I remembered
the thin-soled, low-heeled, splay yellow boots of the insidious
foreigner, with the soft eyes and the brown-paper face, whom I had
turned from the door as a palpable fraud. The ring at the bell was the
first I had heard of him, there had been no warning step upon the
stairs, and my suspicious eye had searched his feet for rubber soles.
“It’s the fellow,” I said, returning to Raffles, and I described his
boots.
Raffles was delighted.
“Well done, Bunny; you’re coming on,” said he. “Now I wonder if he’s
been over here all the time, or if they sent him over expressly? You
did better than you think in spotting those boots, for they can only
have been made in Italy, and that looks like the special envoy. But
it’s no use speculating. I must find out.”
“How can you?”
“He won’t stay there all night.”
“Well?”
“When he gets tired of it I shall return the compliment and follow
_him_.”
“Not alone,” said I, firmly.
“Well, we’ll see. We’ll see at once,” said Raffles, rising. “Out with
the gas, Bunny, while I take a look. Thank you. Now wait a bit ... yes!
He’s chucked it; he’s off already; and so am I!”
But I slipped to our outer door, and held the passage.
“I don’t let you go alone, you know.”
“You can’t come with me in pyjamas.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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