"My dear fellow, I saw all these things on the lid just afterward. Not
one of them was moved. I watched that detective show them to his
friends."
"And I heard him."
"But not from the inside of the chest?"
"From the inside of the chest, Bunny. Don't look like that--it's
foolish. Try to recall a few words that went before, between the idiot
in the collar and me. Don't you remember my asking him if there was
anything in the chest?"
"Yes."
"One had to be sure it was empty, you see. Then I asked if there was a
backdoor to the chest as well as a skylight."
"I remember."
"I suppose you thought all that meant nothing?"
"I didn't look for a meaning."
"You wouldn't; it would never occur to you that I might want to find
out whether anybody at the Yard had found out that there _was_ something
precisely in the nature of a sidedoor--it isn't a backdoor--to that
chest. Well, there is one; there was one soon after I took the chest
back from your rooms to mine, in the good old days. You push one of
the handles down--which no one ever does--and the whole of that end
opens like the front of a doll's house. I saw that was what I ought to
have done at first: it's so much simpler than the trap at the top; and
one likes to get a thing perfect for its own sake. Besides, the trick
had not been spotted at the bank, and I thought I might bring it off
again some day; meanwhile, in one's bedroom, with lots of things on
top, what a port in a sudden squall!"
I asked why I had never heard of the improvement before, not so much at
the time it was made, but in these later days, when there were fewer
secrets between us, and this one could avail him no more. But I did not
put the question out of pique. I put it out of sheer obstinate
incredulity. And Raffles looked at me without replying, until I read
the explanation in his look.
"I see," I said. "You used to get into it to hide from me!"
"My dear Bunny, I am not always a very genial man," he answered; "but
when you let me have a key of your rooms I could not very well refuse
you one of mine, although I picked your pocket of it in the end. I
will only say that when I had no wish to see you, Bunny, I must have
been quite unfit for human society, and it was the act of a friend to
deny you mine. I don't think it happened more than once or twice. You
can afford to forgive a fellow after all these years?
"That, yes," I replied bitterly; "but not this, Raffles."
"Why not? I really hadn't made up my mind to do what I did. I had
merely thought of it. It was that smart officer in the same room that
made me do it without thinking twice."
"And we never even heard you!" I murmured, in a voice of involuntary
admiration which vexed me with myself. "But we might just as well!" I
was as quick to add in my former tone.
"Why, Bunny?"
"We shall be traced in no time through our ticket of admission."
"Did they collect it?"
"No; but you heard how very few are issued."
"Exactly. They sometimes go weeks on end without a regular visitor. It
was I who extracted that piece of information, Bunny, and I did nothing
rash until I had. Don't you see that with any luck it will be two or
three weeks before they are likely to discover their loss?"