"What's that?" said Raffles, as something crunched beneath his
feet on the very threshold.
"A pair of spectacles," I whispered, picking them up. I was
still fingering the broken lenses and the bent rims when Raffles
tripped and almost fell, with a gasping cry that he made no
effort to restrain.
"Hush, man, hush!" I entreated under my breath. "He'll hear
you!"
For answer his teeth chattered--even his--and I heard him
fumbling with his matches. "No, Bunny; he won't hear us,"
whispered Raffles, presently; and he rose from his knees and lit
a gas as the match burnt down.
Angus Baird was lying on his own floor, dead, with his gray hairs
glued together by his blood; near him a poker with the black end
glistening; in a corner his desk, ransacked, littered. A clock
ticked noisily on the chimney-piece; for perhaps a hundred
seconds there was no other sound.
Raffles stood very still, staring down at the dead, as a man
might stare into an abyss after striding blindly to its brink.
His breath came audibly through wide nostrils; he made no other
sign, and his lips seemed sealed.
"That light!" said I, hoarsely; "the light we saw under the
door!"
With a start he turned to me.
"It's true! I had forgotten it. It was in here I saw it first!"
"He must be upstairs still!"
"If he is we'll soon rout him out.
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