* * *
As darkness fell, there came a-banging upon the front door of the house. It was Raffles. There were now three nights until the Holmes' ultimatum expired.
“It's all right!” cried Raffles from the street. “I told the girls not to eat your girlfriend!” And she laughed, and I heard some other girls, out in the street, laugh too.
In the bedroom I turned hesitantly to look at Moran. She was half-dressed, quickly buttoning up her shirt and pulling her untied dickie bow loosely around the collar.
“Please don't say anything,” I begged, climbing to my feet, wiping at the dried tears on my face with a grubby hand, the grubby hand that had brought about my downfall.
Moran only smirked at me and then trotted down the stairs whistling some music hall ditty; salt of the earth, Jack the Lad, f*
