echoed the triumphant clerk. "Artful beggars, these
Americans, sir! You've got to crawss the 'Erring Pond to learn a trick
worth one o' that?"

"I suppose so," assented the grave gentleman wit the silver hair.
"Unless," he added, as if suddenly inspired, "unless it was that man
Raffles."

"It couldn't 've bin," jerked the clerk from his conning-tower of a
collar. "He'd gone to Davy Jones long before."

"Are you sure?" asked Raffles. "Was his body ever found?"

"Found and buried," replied our imaginative friend. "Malter, I think
it was; or it may have been Giberaltar. I forget which."

"Besides," I put in, rather annoyed at all this wilful work, yet not
indisposed to make a late contribution--"besides, Raffles would never
have smoked those cigarettes. There was only one brand for him. It
was--let me see--"

"Sullivans?" cried the clerk, right for once. "It's all a matter of
'abit," he went on, as he replaced the twenty-five tin box with the
vulgar wrapper. "I tried them once, and I didn't like 'em myself.
It's all a question of taste. Now, if you want a good smoke, and
cheaper, give me a Golden Gem at quarter of the price."

"What we really do want," remarked Raffles mildly, "is to see something
else as clever as that last."

"Then come this way," said the clerk, and led us into a recess almost
monopolized by the iron-clamped chest of thrilling memory, now a mere
platform for the collection of mysterious objects under a dust-sheet on
the lid. "These," he continued, unveiling them with an air, "are the
Raffles Relics, taken from his rooms in the Albany after his death and
burial, and the most complete set we've got. That's his centre-bit,
and this is the bottle of rock-oil he's supposed to have kept dipping
it in to prevent making a noise. Here's the revawlver he used when he
shot at a gentleman on the roof down Horsham way; it was afterward
taken from him on the P. & O. boat before he jumped overboard."

I could not help saying I understood that Raffles had never shot at
anybody. I was standing with my back to the nearest window, my hat
jammed over my brows and my overcoat collar up to my ears.

"That's the only time we know about," the clerk admitted; "and it
couldn't be brought 'ome, or his precious pal would have got more than
he did. This empty cawtridge is the one he 'id the Emperor's pearl in,
on the Peninsular and Orient. These gimlets and wedges were what he
used for fixin' doors. T