heard of him; but as the cricket and racing are the only part
of your paper that you condescend to read, you can't be expected to
keep track of all the peers created in your time. Your other question
is not worth answering. How do you suppose that I know these things?
It's my business to get to know them, and that's all there is to it.
As a matter of fact, Lady Lochmaben has just as good diamonds as Mrs.
Carruthers ever had; and the chances are that she keeps them where Mrs.
Carruthers kept hers, if you could enlighten me on that point."

As it happened, I could, since I knew from his niece that it was one on
which Mr. Carruthers had been a faddist in his time. He had made quite
a study of the cracksman's craft, in a resolve to circumvent it with
his own. I remembered myself how the ground-floor windows were
elaborately bolted and shuttered, and how the doors of all the rooms
opening upon the square inner hall were fitted with extra Yale locks,
at an unlikely height, not to be discovered by one within the room. It
had been the butler's business to turn and to collect all these keys
before retiring for the night. But the key of the safe in the study
was supposed to be in the jealous keeping of the master of the house
himself. That safe was in its turn so ingeniously hidden that I never
should have found it for myself. I well remember how one who showed it
to me (in the innocence of her heart) laughed as she assured me that
even her little trinkets were solemnly locked up in it every night. It
had been let into the wall behind one end of the book-case, expressly
to preserve the barbaric splendor of Mrs. Carruthers; without a doubt
these Lochmabens would use it for the same purpose; and in the altered
circumstances I had no hesitation in giving Raffles all the information
he desired. I even drew him a rough plan of the ground-floor on the
back of my menu-card.

"It was rather clever of you to notice the kind of locks on the inner
doors," he remarked as he put it in his pocket. "I suppose you don't
remember if it was a Yale on the front door as well?"

"It was not," I was able to answer quite promptly. "I happen to know
because I once had the key when--when we went to a theatre together."

"Thank you, old chap," said Raffles sympathetically. "That's all I
shall want from you, Bunny, my boy. There's no night like to-night!"

It was one of his sayings when bent upon his worst. I looked at him
aghast. Our