"You never dreamt of playing me false until I hesitated to let you handle it?"
"Never for one moment, my dear Raffles!"
Raffles was still standing up to his last inch under the apex of the tower, his head and shoulders the butt of a climbing sunbeam full of fretful motes. I could not see his expression from the banisters, but only its effect upon Dan Levy, who first held up his manacled hands in hypocritical protestation, and then dropped them as though it were a bad job.
"Then why," said Raffles, "did you have me watched almost from the moment that we parted company at the Albany last Friday morning?"
"I have you watched!" exclaimed the other in real horror. "Why should I? It must have been the police."
"It was not the police, though the blackguards did their best to look as if they were. I happen to be too familiar with both classes to be deceived. Your fellows were waiting for me up at Lord's, but I had no difficulty in shaking them off when I got back to the Albany. They gave me no further trouble until last night, when they got on my tracks at Gray's Inn in the guise of the two common, low detectives whom I believe I have already mentioned to you."
"You said you left them there in their glory."
"It was glorious from my point of view rather than theirs."
Levy struggled into a less recumbent posture.
"And what makes you think," said he, "that I set this watch upon you?"