"Hornung, E W - A J Raffles 02 - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman (The Black Mask)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hornung E. W)

his nights up here, at guineas apiece."

"Guineas must be plentiful, old chap!"

"They have been, Bunny. I can't say more. But I don't see why
they shouldn't be again."

I was not going to inquire where the guineas came from. As if I
cared! But I did ask old Raffles how in the world he had got
upon my tracks; and thereby drew the sort of smile with which
old gentlemen rub their hands, and old ladies nod their noses.
Raffles merely produced a perfect oval of blue smoke before
replying.

"I was waiting for you to ask that, Bunny; it's a long time
since I did anything upon which I plume myself more. Of course,
in the first place, I spotted you at once by these prison
articles; they were not signed, but the fist was the fist of my
sitting rabbit!"

"But who gave you my address?"

"I wheedled it out of your excellent editor; called on him at
dead of night, when I occasionally go afield like other ghosts,
and wept it out of him in five minutes. I was your only
relative; your name was not your own name; if he insisted I
would give him mine. He didn't insist, Bunny, and I danced down
his stairs with your address in my pocket."

"Last night?"

"No, last week."

"And so the advertisement was yours, as well as the telegram!"

I had, of course, forgotten both in the high excitement of the
hour, or I should scarcely have announced my belated discovery
with such an air. As it was I made Raffles look at me as I had
known him look before, and the droop of his eyelids began to
sting.

"Why all this subtlety?" I petulantly exclaimed. "Why couldn't
you come straight away to me in a cab?"

He did not inform me that I was hopeless as ever. He did not
address me as his good rabbit.

He was silent for a time, and then spoke in a tone which made me
ashamed of mine.