E. W. Hornung: A Thief in the Night

9. The Raffles Relics (continued)

"I never did slip out," said Raffles, "behind your back. I slipped in."

"Into the chest?"

"Exactly."

I burst out laughing in his face.

"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!"