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?"

I was beginning to see.

"And then, pray, how are they going to bring it home to us? Why should
they even suspect u