The Amateur Cracksman
a cast of the key before using it. The one thing I don't know is how to make a connection between the two; at present there's none. We may make it up here, though I rather fancy the basement myself. If you wait a minute I'll tell you."
He set his lantern on the floor, crept to a back window, and opened it with scarcely a sound: only to return, shaking his head, after shutting the window with the same care.
"That was our one chance," said he: "a back window above a back window; but it's too dark to see anything, and we daren't show an outside light. Come down after me to the basement; and remember, though there's not a soul on the premises, you can't make too little noise. There—there—listen to that!"
It was the measured tread that we had heard before on the flag-stones outside. Raffles darkened his lantern, and again we stood motionless till it had passed.
"Either a policeman," he muttered, "or a watchman that all these jewellers run between them. The watchman's the man for
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