In point of
fact our plans were so craftily laid (by Raffles) that the
chances of a hitch were invariably reduced to a minimum before we
went to work. We might be disappointed in the market value of
our haul; but it was quite the exception for us to find ourselves
confronted by unforeseen impediments, or involved in a really
dramatic dilemma. There was a sameness even in our spoil; for,
of course, only the most precious stones are worth the trouble we
took and the risks we ran. In short, our most successful
escapades would prove the greatest weariness of all in narrative
form; and none more so than the dull affair of the Ardagh
emeralds, some eight or nine weeks after the Milchester cricket
week. The former, however, had a sequel that I would rather
forget than all our burglaries put together.
It was the evening after our return from Ireland, and I was
waiting at my rooms for Raffles, who had gone off as usual to
dispose of the plunder. Raffles had his own method of conducting
this very vital branch of our business, which I was well content
to leave entirely in his hands. He drove the bargains, I
believe, in a thin but subtle disguise of the flashy-seedy order,
and always in the Cockney dialect, of which he had made himself a
master. Moreover, he invariably employed the same "fence," who
was ostensibly a money-lender in a small (but yet notorious) way,
and in reality a rascal as remarkable as Raffles himself.
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