him and the picture. It is perhaps the picture that I can
now see clearest of all the set scenes of our lawless life. But at the
time I was filled with gloomy speculation as to whether Raffles would
keep his promise of providing an entirely harmless entertainment for
my benefit at the Black Museum.

We entered the forbidding precincts; we looked relentless officers in
the face, and they almost yawned in ours as they directed us through
swing doors and up stone stairs. There was something even sinister in
the casual character of our reception. We had an arctic landing to
ourselves for several minutes, which Raffles spent in an instinctive
survey of the premises, while I cooled my heels before the portrait of
a late commissioner.

"Dear old gentleman!" exclaimed Raffles, joining me. "I have met him
at dinner, and discussed my own case with him, in the old days. But we
can't know too little about ourselves in the Black Museum, Bunny. I
remember going to the old place in Whitehall, years ago, and being
shown round by one of the tip-top 'tecs. And this may be another."

But even I could see at a glance that there was nothing of the
detective and everything of the clerk about the very young man who had
joined us at last upon the landing. His collar was the tallest I have
ever seen, and his face was as pallid as his collar. He carried a
loose key, with which he unlocked a door a little way along the
passage, and so ushered us into that dreadful repository which
perhaps has fewer visitors than any other of equal interest in the
world. The place was cold as the inviolate vault; blinds had to be
drawn up, and glass cases uncovered, before we could see a thing
except the row of murderers' death-masks--the placid faces with the
swollen necks--that stood out on their shelves to give us ghostly
greeting.

"This fellow isn't formidable," whispered Raffles, as the blinds went
up; "still, we can't be too careful. My little lot are round the
corner, in the sort of recess; don't look till we come to them in
their turn."

So we began at the beginning, with the glass case nearest the door;
and in a moment I discovered that I knew far more about its contents
than our pallid guide. He had some enthusiasm, but the most inaccurate
smattering of his subject. He mixed up the first murderer with quite
the wrong murder, and capped his mistake in the next breath with an
intolerable libel on the very pearl of our particular tribe.

"This rev