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"You were very curious the other morning, I recall, respecting my object in borrowing a large brace-and-bit. My object, Petrie, was to bore a series of holes in the wainscoting of various rooms at The Gables in inconspicuous positions, of course...." "But, my dear Smith!" I cried, "you are merely adding to my mystification." He stood up and began to pace the room in his restless fashion.

There was the revolver that I had only once heard fired, and there the blood-stained life-preserver, brace-and-bit, bottle of rock-oil, velvet bag, rope-ladder, walking-stick, gimlets, wedges, and even the empty cartridge-case which had once concealed the gift of a civilized monarch to a potentate of color. "I was a real Father Christmas," said Raffles, "when I arrived.

I suppose I must have been staring very foolishly indeed, for Nayland Smith burst into one of his sudden laughs. "A mouse, I said, Petrie!" he cried. "With the brace-and-bit I rectified that matter. I made the holes I have mentioned, and before each set a trap baited with a piece of succulent, toasted cheese. Just open that grip!"

I suppose I must have been staring very foolishly indeed, for Nayland Smith burst into one of his sudden laughs. "A mouse, I said, Petrie!" he cried. "With the brace-and-bit I rectified that matter. I made the holes I have mentioned, and before each I set a trap baited with a piece of succulent, toasted cheese. Just open that grip!"

Then he took off his covert-coat and his blazer, spread them neatly on the top step knelt on them turned up his shirt cuffs and went to work with brace-and-bit near the key-hole. But first he oiled the bit to minimize the noise, and this he did invariably before beginning a fresh hole, and often in the middle of one. It took thirty-two separate borings to cut around that lock.

He could call half an hour his own, since before that time the old woman could scarcely return from her mission. Then he sought and found water in a pitcher and a glass tumbler. Opening his medicine case he took out the vial containing the nitroglycerine "the oil," as his brethren of the brace-and-bit term it. One drop of the faint yellow, thickish liquid he let fall in the tumbler.