events, the man outside must have had quite as much to do as the
one inside. May I ask what you keep in it?"
"Nothing, sir.
"I imagined more relics inside. Hadn't he some dodge of getting in
and out without opening the lid?"
"Of putting his head out, you mean," returned the clerk, whose
knowledge of Raffles and his Relics was really most comprehensive
on the whole. He moved some of the minor memorials and with his
penknife raised the trap-door in the lid.
"Only a skylight," remarked Raffles, deliciously unimpressed.
"Why, what else did you expect?" asked the clerk, letting the
trap-door down again, and looking sorry that he had taken so much
trouble.
"A backdoor, at least!" replied Raffles, with such a sly look at
me that I had to turn aside to smile. It was the last time I
smiled that day.
The door had opened as I turned, and an unmistakable detective had
entered with two more sight-seers like ourselves. He wore the hard,
round hat and the dark, thick overcoat which one knows at a glance
as the uniform of his grade; and for one awful moment his steely
eye was upon us in a flash of cold inquiry.
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