"The Spoils of Sacrilege" is a short story by E. W. Hornung, and features the gentleman thief A. J. Raffles, and his companion and biographer, Bunny Manders.

They use Raffles's rope-ladder to ascend to the balcony of Bunny's old room, and proceed to the main bedroom.

While he jimmies open a chest, Bunny wanders back to the bedroom, in time to see the rope-ladder be removed from below.

They descend safely to ground and take shelter in a small boathouse on a tiny lake in the backyard, hoping the place will be overlooked by their pursuers.

"Sorry I've been so long, Bunny, but we should never have got away as we were; this riding-suit makes a new man of me, on top of my own, and here's a youth's kit that should do you down to the ground."

At the Albany, after Raffles says that the jewel cases he took were unfortunately empty, Bunny admits that his own were full, but that he left them in the tower out of guilt for robbing his childhood home.

Yet Raffles declares that he had seen the house's inhabitants gloating merrily over Bunny's forfeited plunder.