"Raffles," I said, "I'll be frank with you after all. I meant you
never to know, but it's easier than telling you a lie. I left both
things behind me in the tower. I won't attempt to explain or defend
myself; it was probably the influence of the tower, and nothing else;
but the whole thing came over me at the last moment, when you had gone
and I was going. I felt that I should very probably break my neck,
that I cared very little whether I did or not, but that it would be
frightful to break it at that house with those things in my pocket.
You may say I ought to have thought of all that before! you may say
what you like, and you won't say more than I deserve. It was
hysterical, and it was mean, for I kept the cases to impose on you."
"You were always a bad liar, Bunny," said Raffles, smiling. "Will you
think me one when I tell you that I can understand what you felt, and
even what you did? As a matter of fact, I have understood for several
hours now."
"You mean what I felt, Raffles?"
"And what you did. I guessed it in the boathouse. I knew that
something must have happened or been discovered to disperse that
truculent party of sportsmen so soon and on such good terms with
themselves. They had not got us; they might have got something better
worth having; and your phlegmatic attitude suggested what. As luck
would have it, the cases that I personally had collared were the empty
ones; the two prizes had fallen to you. Well, to allay my horrid
suspicion, I went and had another peep through the lighted venetians.
And what do you think I saw?"