Raffles struck a match, and handed it first to me. "I mean to say,
my dear Bunny, that Palace Gardens knows the very name no more. You
began by telling me you had heard nothing of these people all this
year. That's quite enough to account for our little misunderstanding.
I was thinking of the house, and you were thinking of the people in
the house."

"But who are they, Raffles? Who has taken the house, if old
Carruthers has moved, and how do you know that it is still worth a
visit?"

"In answer to your first question - Lord Lochmaben," replied Raffles,
blowing bracelets of smoke toward the ceiling. "You look as though
you had never heard of him; but as the cricket and racing are the
only part of your paper that you condescend to read, you can't be
expected to keep track of all the peers created in your time. Your
other question is not worth answering. How do you suppose that I
know these things? It's my business to get to know them, and that's
all there is to it. As a matter of fact, Lady Lochmaben has just
as good diamonds as Mrs. Carruthers ever had; and the chances are
that she keeps them where Mrs. Carruthers kept hers, if you could
enlighten me on that point."

As it happened, I could, since I knew from his niece that it was
one on which Mr. Carruthers had been a faddist in his time. He
had made quite a study of the cracksman's craft, in a resolve to
circumvent it with his own. I remembered myself how the ground-floor
windows were elaborately bolted and shuttered, and how the doors of
all the rooms opening upon the square inner hall were fitted with