day 1 / 9th March: BANK

day 2 / 10th March: RESTAURANT

day 3 / 11th March: PRISON

day 4 / 12th March: BEDROOM

day 5 / 13th March: COUNTRYSIDE

day 6 / 14th March: TRAIN STATION

Despite all this, when I offered him a somewhat churlish good morning, he looked up with that same old smile, and offered me a cigarette with a brief apology for his preoccupation. I asked after his reading, curiosity winning over peevishness, and his frown returned.

“Bunny,” He began, taking up the paper again. “You have called me an amateur of crime - which no doubt was true when you became one - but I must beg you now to drop it, for I trust you would not rank me among the true amateurs of our profession.”

“Not at all.” I replied promptly. “But why do you mention it?” Already some trepidation had crept into my breast, for conversations such as these were not infrequently the precursor to some shadowy exploit, embarked upon in little more than that sporting spirit which burned so brightly in my friend. He merely presented me his Times in response. There, black and leaded, was a headline which sent a terribly familiar jolt down my spine.

ATTEMPTED ROBBERY IN WEST END: NOTORIOUS CRIMINAL CAUGHT!

“‘In the late hours of last night a devilish plot was foiled at…the City and Suburban!’” I read aloud, my heart fluttering in some mix of sympathetic and recalled horror. “Raffles, what on Earth-”

“Keep reading.” Amusement lined his words, and when I looked up, I saw that his displeasure had been usurped. What he found funny I could hardly see for myself. Yet I obeyed his instruction.

“‘On the evening of October 9th, unbeknowst to all but the heroic few who put a stop to it, an attempt on the cellar of the bank was underway. Police agent Jones, who had staked out the area on a tip from Mr. Wilson, a shopkeeper who had suspiscions of his new assistant, stated that the thieves’ entrance had been affected through a lengthy tunnel beneath the ground, coming to a head under the very stones upon which rested several crates full of French napoleons.” Here I could no longer keep myself focussed upon the details of the press, and allowed my eyes to jump skittishly down the page. A name stood out amongst the sea of black on white.

“John Clay.” I said aloud, glancing once more up to my friend. He had lit a Sullivan, and was regarding me as I read from the depths of his armchair. “The name sounds familiar.”

“I made have had cause to mention him.” Raffles responded, tapping his cigarette into the crystal ashtray at his elbow. “He was closer to our sort than most; educated and born to a good name, well established in both the criminal and high societies.” He cast another distainful look at the paper. “I fear I gave him too much credit.”

“How so?” His manner surprised me with its bitterness, and I had my answer within the moment.

“Brute force, Bunny!” He cried. “Brute force and some luck of both varieties, not a bit of imagination in it. Tell me, my dear fellow, if I would ever allow myself, or you, to be caught in such a graceless way as that, pinned in our own burrow, given away by a shopkeeper?” He shook his handsome head. “For my last labour to be months upon months of digging! I wouldn’t bear it.”

Indeed, I could not help but draw some conparison between the frightful sucess of Raffles, and the equally frightful failure I saw before me. Yet perhaps they were not so completely seperated as my friend professed, for I found it terribly easy to impose upon the sparse details of the paper our own crime, to sketch over the photograph of Mr. Clay with my friend’s bust. I set the paper down.

“Well now, we haven’t the full story, have we?” I offered. “Perhaps there is some quality to it which would redeem the poor man.”