"I can say no more than I have said," returned Raffles with a shrug.
"Lie or no lie, I didn't tell it to bring you with me, but to get
you to give me certain information without feeling a beast about it.
But, as a matter of fact, it was no lie about old Hector Carruthers
and Lord Lochmaben, and anybody but you would have guessed the
truth."

"'What is the truth?"

"I as good as told you, Bunny, again and again."

"Then tell me now."

"If you read your paper there would be no need; but if you want to
know, old Carruthers headed the list of the Birthday Honors, and
Lord Lochmaben is the title of his choice."

And this miserable quibble was not a lie! My lip curled, I turned
my back without a word, and drove home to my Mount Street flat in
a new fury of savage scorn. Not a lie, indeed! It was the one
that is half a truth, the meanest lie of all, and the very last to
which I could have dreamt that Raffles would stoop. So far there
had been a degree of honor between us, if only of the kind understood
to obtain between thief and thief. Now all that was at an end.
Raffles had cheated me. Raffles had completed the ruin of my life.
I was done with Raffles, as she who shall not be named was done
with me.

And yet, even while I blamed him most bitterly, and utterly