found a lavatory, too, and we must have a wash-and-brush-up
before we go, for I'm as black as your boot."

The iron curtain was 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