"You may have ended up there," I conceded. "But where did you go
first when you slipped out behind my back, and how the devil did
you know where to go?"
"I never did slip out," said Raffles, "behind your back. I slipped
in."
"Into the chest?"
"Exactly."
I burst out laughing in his face.
"My dear fellow, I saw all. these things on the lid just afterward.
Not one of them was moved. I watched that detective show them to
his friends."
"And I heard him."
"But not from the inside of the chest?"
"From the inside of the chest, Bunny. Don't look like that - it's
foolish. Try to recall a few words that went before, between the
idiot in the collar and me. Don't you remember my asking him if
there was anything in the chest?"
"Yes."
"One had to be sure it was empty, you see. Then I asked if there
was a backdoor to the chest as well as a skylight."
"I remember."
"I suppose you thought all. that meant nothing?"
"I didn't look for a meaning."
"You wouldn't; it would never occur to you that I might want to
find out whether anybody at the Yard had found out that there was
something precisely in the nature of a sidedoor - it isn't a
backdoor - to that chest.
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