“My room and bath are entirely at your disposal now, Mr. Raglan,” he said, leading the way toward his door and opening it. “As to the change of linen I promised you, I’m afraid I’d been counting on Mr. Applebury’s acquiescence in my bargain. My own perhaps can be made to serve.” Bruce’s face on hearing the suggestion that he provide the burglar with a shirt and a suit of underclothes was a study in outraged astonishment. But he was prevented from further expressing his feelings by Raglan’s answer. Raglan, it appeared, was equally affronted by the proposal. “That won’t be necessary,” he said coldly. “I have a bag with me. Perhaps the young man will bring it out. I’d be glad to fetch it myself but I don’t suppose that would quite meet your ideas. It’s standing on the first box around the corner.” “Get it out, will you, Applebury?” said old Mr. Smith. I really thought Bruce would burst. His neck distinctly swelled above his collar. But he marched off in high dudgeon toward the trunk closet, to return a moment later lugging a big black case of a nondescript sort. It was rather battered, and would have passed muster all right as the sort of thing a workman could carry tools in. Bruce set it down without a word, and walked off to his own room. I have never seen him, I remark with thankfulness, since. Raglan picked up the bag and followed Mr. Smith into his room, I swinging along after them on my crutches, feeling rather nervous over Bruce’s defection. That little man might easily be too much, I thought, for Mr. Smith and me. Raglan would have carried the bag straight on through into the bathroom if Mr. Smith hadn’t halted him. “I think perhaps,” he said, “you’d better take off your clothes out here. Then you can bathe and shave in privacy, and we can wait your convenience.” I saw the point to that, as Raglan did, and felt a little better. There was a window in the bathroom, big enough for a man to climb out of, and there might be a handy down-spout that would take him to the ground. But no thief, no matter how desperate, would try to escape without his clothes. Raglan, stripped to his underwear, opened the bag, lifted out a tray of tools, and selected his clean linen. Then he went into the bathroom and locked the door behind him. “I suppose,” I remarked, “he might have had that necklace hidden where we’d have had the devil’s own time finding it.” “No, I hardly think so,” Mr. Smith dissented politely. “No, that’s not the reason I’m coddling him. He’s dirty and miserable, and ravenously hungry, I suspect. When he’s clean and fed, he’ll be expansive. I want him to tell me how he did it, and if they’ll only let us alone for half an hour, I believe he will.--Ah, here’s Punch. Now we’ll know.” CHAPTER XVIII PEACOCK FEATHERS