book ends with Manders imprisoned and Raffles apparently dead, something that left The Spectator reviewer "expressing [their] satisfaction that this audaciously entertaining volume is not issued in a cheap form. It is emphatically a feat of virtuosity rather than a tribute to virtue." After publishing two novels, Dead Men Tell No Tales in 1899 and Peccavi in 1900, Hornung published a second collection of Raffles stories, The Black Mask, in 1901. The nearly broke Manders is told to apply for the post of a nurse to an elderly invalid, who then reveals himself to be Raffles, who, as Manders describes, had "aged twenty years; he looked fifty at the very least. His hair was white; there was no trick about that; and his face was another white. The lines about the corners of the eyes and mouth were both many and deep". In the final story of the collection, "The Knees of the Gods", Raffles and Manders enlist in the army to fight in the Second Boer War; the story closes with Manders wounded and Raffles killed. The critics again complained about the criminal aspect; The Spectator declared "this sort of book presents crime in a form too entertaining and attractive to be moral", while the reviewer for The Illustrated London News thought that Hornung's "invention has obviously flagged ... It is laughable, in a sense which the author never intended, to hear these burglars rant about the honour of Old England. It is a pity that the man who wrote Peccavi should stoop to this". In 1903 Hornung collaborated with Eugène Presbrey to write a four-act play, Raffles, The Amateur Cracksman, which was based on two previously published short stories, "Gentlemen and Players" and "The Return Match". The play was first performed at the Princess Theatre, New York, on 27 October 1903 with Kyrle Bellew as Raffles, and ran for 168 performances. In 1905, after publishing four other books in the interim, Hornung brought back the character Stingaree, previously seen in Irralie's Bushranger. Later that year he responded to public demand and produced a third series of short Raffles stories in A Thief in the Night, in which Manders relates some of his and Raffles's earlier adventures. The reviewer for the Boston Herald thought that "the sentimental side of the story has never before been shown so dramatically and romantically", and described the book as "thrilling and exciting". Hornung's