down, but he insisted on raising it until I could
peep through the glass door on the other side and see his handiwork in
the shop beyond. Here two electric lights were left burning all night
long, and in their cold white rays I could at first see nothing amiss.
I looked along an orderly lane, an empty glass counter on my left,
glass cupboards of untouched silver on my right, and facing me the
filmy black eye of the peep-hole that shone like a stage moon on the
street. The counter had not been emptied by Raffles; its contents were
in the Chubb's safe, which he had given up at a glance; nor had he
looked at the silver, except to choose a cigarette case for me. He had
confined himself entirely to the shop window. This was in three
compartments, each secured for the night by removable panels with
separate locks. Raffles had removed them a few hours before their time,
and the electric light shone on a corrugated shutter bare as the ribs
of an empty carcase. Every article of value was gone from the one
place which was invisible from the little window in the door; elsewhere
all was as it had been left overnight. And but for a train of mangled
doors behind the iron curtain, a bottle of wine and a cigar-box with
which liberties had been taken, a rather black towel in the lavatory, a
burnt match here and there, and our finger-marks on the dusty
banisters, not a trace of our visit did we leave.

"Had it in my head for long?" said Raffles, as we strolled through the
streets towards dawn, for all the world as though we were returning
from a dance. "No, Bunny, I never thought of it till I saw that upper
part empty about a month ago, and bought a few things in the shop to
get the lie of the land. That reminds me that I never paid for them;
but, by Jove, I will to-morrow, and if that isn't poetic justice, what
is? One visit showed me the possibilities of the place, but a second
convinced me of its impossibilities without a pal. So I had
practically given up the idea, when you came along on the very night
and in the very plight for it! But here we are at the Albany, and I
hope there's some fire left; for I don't know how you feel, Bunny, but
for my part I'm as cold as Keats's owl."

He could think of Keats on his way from a felony! He could hanker for
his fireside like another! Floodgates were loosed within me, and the
plain English of our adventure rushed over me as cold as ice. Raffles
was a burglar. I had helped him to