“Oh,” said he, “they were to go off to Italy _instanter;_ they should be crossing now. But do listen to what I am telling you; it’s interesting, my dear man. This old sinner Corbucci turns out to have been no end of a boss in the Camorra—says so himself. One of the _capi paranze_, my boy, no less; and the velvety Johnny a_ giovano onorato_, Anglicé, fresher. This fellow here was also in it, and I’ve sworn to protect him from them evermore; and it’s just as I said, half the organ-grinders in London belong, and the whole lot of them were put on my tracks by secret instructions. This excellent youth manufactures iced poison on Saffron Hill when he’s at home.” “And why on earth didn’t he come to me quicker?” “Because he couldn’t talk to you, he could only fetch you, and it was as much as his life was worth to do that before our friends had departed. They were going by the eleven o’clock from Victoria, and that didn’t leave much chance, but he certainly oughtn’t to have run it as fine as he did. Still you must remember that I had to fix things up with him in the fewest possible words, in a single minute that the other two were indiscreet enough to leave us alone together.” The ragamuffin in question was watching us with all his solitary eye, as though he knew that we were discussing him. Suddenly he broke out in agonized accents, his hands clasped, and a face so full of fear that every moment I expected to see him on his knees. But Raffles answered kindly, reassuringly, I could tell from his tone, and then turned to me with a compassionate shrug. “He says he couldn’t find the mansions, Bunny, and really it’s not to be wondered at. I had only time to tell him to hunt you up and bring you here by hook or crook before twelve to-day, and after all he has done that. But now the poor devil thinks you’re riled with him, and that we’ll give him away to the Camorra.” “Oh, it’s not with him I’m riled,” I said frankly, “but with those other blackguards, and—and with you, old chap, for taking it all as you do, while such infamous scoundrels have the last laugh, and are safely on their way to France!” Raffles looked up at me with a curiously open eye, an eye that I never saw when he was not in earnest. I fancied he did not like my last expression but one. After all, it was no laughing matter to him. “But are they?” said he. “I’m not so sure.” “You said they were!” “I said they should be.” “Didn’t you hear them go?” “I heard nothing but the clock all night. It was like Big Ben striking at the last—striking nine to the fellow on the drop.” And in that open eye I saw at last a deep glimmer of the ordeal through which he had passed. “But, my dear old Raffles, if they’re still on the premises—” The thought was too thrilling for a finished sentence. “I hope they are,” he said grimly, going to the door. “There’s a gas on! Was that burning when you came in?” Now that I thought of it, yes, it had been.