To Catch a Thief

"To Catch a Thief" is a short story by E. W. Hornung, and features the gentleman thief A. J. Raffles, and his companion and biographer, Bunny Manders. The story was first published in Scribner's Magazine in May 1901. The story was also included as the fifth story in the collection The Black Mask, published by Grant Richards in London, and Charles Scribner's Sons in New York, both in 1901. Plot Part one While dining at a restaurant, Raffles and Bunny discuss a recent series of unsolved robberies that have victimized London's wealthiest houses. Raffles suspects the burglar is really a society gentleman who steals while attending social functions. Raffles has used this suspicion, and the lists of names of social function's attendees printed in the Morning Post, to deduce the burglar's identity: Lord Ernest Belville, a relatively poor yet respected society man, and a well-known advocate for temperate drinking.