Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 48, No. 1, January 2003

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“Cold as Christmas, Bunny,” said A. J. Raffles with a shiver, turning away from the window of his flat in the Albany. He lit a cigarette, grimaced, and threw it into the fire, for it was very definitely not a Sullivan.

I passed him my cigarette case, which contained my last three specimens of the only brand. “Things are bound to get better,” I urged him, though truth to tell I had little enough confidence in my own words.

This was in those halcyon days before Raffles’s disgrace and my own imprisonment. Halcyon days? Well, we were at liberty, and under no suspicion so far as we knew, but when you had said that you had said everything. The last few months had been a succession of dull days, enlivened by the occasional disaster. My attempts at writing were selling but fitfully, and Raffles, thanks to my timidity, had not “worked” at his alternative profession for almost half a year. In summer, of course, things had been different; there had been invitations, in which I was included, and life had been relatively easy. In winter, with no cricket, and consequently no invitations — well, matters were getting desperate, and I feared that Raffles would be embroiling me in one of his schemes before too long.

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