None the less we
must have that money to-night--by hook or crook."
"To-night, Raffles?"
"The sooner the better. Every hour after ten o'clock to-morrow
morning is an hour of risk. Let one of those checks get round to
your own bank, and you and it are dishonored together. No, we
must raise the wind to-night and re-open your account first thing
to-morrow. And I rather think I know where the wind can be
raised."
"At two o'clock in the morning?"
"Yes."
"But how--but where--at such an hour?"
"From a friend of mine here in Bond Street."
"He must be a very intimate friend!"
"Intimate's not the word. I have the run of his place and a
latch-key all to myself."
"You would knock him up at this hour of the night?"
"If he's in bed."
"And it's essential that I should go in with you?"
"Absolutely."
"Then I must; but I'm bound to say I don't like the idea,
Raffles."
"Do you prefer the alternative?" asked my companion, with a
sneer. "No, hang it, that's unfair!" he cried apologetically in
the same breath. "I quite understand. It's a beastly ordeal.
But it would never do for you to stay outside. I tell you what,
you shall have a peg before we start--just one. There's the
whiskey, here's a syphon, and I'll be putting on an overcoat
while you help yourself."
Well, I daresay I did so with some freedom, for this plan of his
was not the less distasteful to me from its apparent
inevitability.
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