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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of R. Holmes & Co., by John Kendrick Bangs
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: R. Holmes & Co.
+
+Author: John Kendrick Bangs
+
+Release Date: February 11, 2007 [EBook #20559]
+[Last updated: March 7, 2015]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK R. HOLMES & CO. ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Douglas Ethington
+
+
+
+
+
+R. HOLMES & CO.
+
+Being the Remarkable Adventures of Raffles Holmes, Esq., Detective and
+Amateur Cracksman by Birth
+
+by John Kendrick Bangs
+
+
+Contents
+I.    INTRODUCING MR. RAFFLES HOLMES
+II.   THE ADVENTURE OF THE DORRINGTON RUBY SEAL
+III.  THE ADVENTURE OF MRS. BURLINGAME'S DIAMOND STOMACHER
+IV.   THE ADVENTURE OF THE MISSING PENDANTS
+V.    THE ADVENTURE OF THE BRASS CHECK
+VI.   THE ADVENTURE OF THE HIRED BURGLAR
+VII.  THE REDEMPTION OF YOUNG BILLINGTON RAND
+VIII. "THE NOSTALGIA OF NERVY JIM THE SNATCHER"
+IX.   THE ADVENTURE OF ROOM 407
+X.    THE MAJOR-GENERAL'S PEPPERPOTS
+
+
+
+R. HOLMES & CO.
+
+
+
+I
+INTRODUCING MR. RAFFLES HOLMES
+
+It was a blistering night in August. All day long the mercury in the
+thermometer had been flirting with the figures at the top of the tube, and
+the promised shower at night which a mendacious Weather Bureau had been
+prophesying as a slight mitigation of our sufferings was conspicuous wholly
+by its absence. I had but one comfort in the sweltering hours of the day,
+afternoon and evening, and that was that my family were away in the
+mountains, and there was no law against my sitting around all day clad only
+in my pajamas, and otherwise concealed from possibly intruding eyes by the
+wreaths of smoke that I extracted from the nineteen or twenty cigars which,
+when there is no protesting eye to suggest otherwise, form my daily
+allowance. I had tried every method known to the resourceful flat-dweller
+of modern times to get cool and to stay so, but alas, it was impossible.
+Even the radiators, which all winter long had never once given forth a
+spark of heat, now hissed to the touch of my moistened finger. Enough
+cooling drinks to float an ocean greyhound had passed into my inner man,
+with no other result than to make me perspire more profusely than ever,
+and in so far as sensations went, to make me feel hotter than before.
+Finally, as a last resource, along about midnight, its gridiron floor
+having had a chance to lose some of its stored-up warmth, I climbed out
+upon the fire-escape at the rear of the Richmere, hitched my hammock from
+one of the railings thereof to the leader running from the roof to the
+area, and swung myself therein some eighty feet above the concealed
+pavement of our backyard--so called, perhaps, because of its dimensions
+which were just about that square. It was a little improvement, though
+nothing to brag of. What fitful zephyrs there might be, caused no doubt by
+the rapid passage to and fro on the roof above and fence-tops below of
+vagrant felines on Cupid's contentious battles bent, to the disturbance of
+the still air, soughed softly through the meshes of my hammock and gave
+some measure of relief, grateful enough for which I ceased the perfervid
+language I had been using practically since sunrise, and dozed off. And
+then there entered upon the scene that marvelous man, Raffles Holmes, of
+whose exploits it is the purpose of these papers to tell.
+
+I had dozed perhaps for a full hour when the first strange sounds grated
+upon my ear. Somebody had opened a window in the kitchen of the first-floor
+apartment below, and with a dark lantern was inspecting the iron platform
+of the fire-escape without. A moment later this somebody crawled out of the
+window, and with movements that in themselves were a sufficient indication
+of the questionable character of his proceedings, made for the ladder
+leading to the floor above, upon which many a time and oft had I too
+climbed to home and safety when an inconsiderate janitor had locked me out.
+Every step that he took was stealthy--that much I could see by the dim
+starlight. His lantern he had turned dark again, evidently lest he should
+attract attention in the apartments below as he passed their windows in his
+upward flight.
+
+"Ha! ha!" thought I to myself. "It's never too hot for Mr. Sneak to get in
+his fine work. I wonder whose stuff he is after?"
+
+Turning over flat on my stomach so that I might the more readily observe
+the man's movements, and breathing pianissimo lest he in turn should
+observe mine, I watched him as he climbed. Up he came as silently as the
+midnight mouse upon a soft carpet--up past the Jorkins apartments on the
+second floor; up stealthily by the Tinkletons' abode on the third; up past
+the fire-escape Italian garden of little Mrs. Persimmon on the fourth; up
+past the windows of the disagreeable Garraways' kitchen below mine, and
+then, with the easy grace of a feline, zip! he silently landed within reach
+of my hand on my own little iron veranda, and craning his neck to one
+side, peered in through the open window and listened intently for two full
+minutes.
+
+"Humph!" whispered my inner consciousness to itself. "He is the coolest
+thing I've seen since last Christmas left town. I wonder what he is up to?
+There's nothing in my apartment worth stealing, now that my wife and
+children are away, unless it be my Jap valet, Nogi, who might make a very
+excellent cab driver if I could only find words to convey to his mind the
+idea that he is discharged."
+
+And then the visitor, apparently having correctly assured himself that
+there was no one within, stepped across the window sill and vanished into
+the darkness of my kitchen. A moment later I too entered the window in
+pursuit, not so close a one, however, as to acquaint him with my proximity.
+I wanted to see what the chap was up to; and also being totally unarmed and
+ignorant as to whether or not he carried dangerous weapons, I determined to
+go slow for a little while. Moreover, the situation was not wholly devoid
+of novelty, and it seemed to me that here at last was abundant opportunity
+for a new sensation. As he had entered, so did he walk cautiously along the
+narrow bowling alley that serves for a hallway connecting my drawing-room
+and library with the dining-room, until he came to the library, into which
+he disappeared. This was not reassuring to me, because, to tell the truth,
+I value my books more than I do my plate, and if I were to be robbed I
+should much have preferred his taking my plated plate from the dining-room
+than any one of my editions-deluxe sets of the works of Marie Corelli, Hall
+Caine, and other standard authors from the library shelves. Once in the
+library, he quietly drew the shades at the windows thereof to bar possible
+intruding eyes from without, turned on the electric lights, and proceeded
+to go through my papers as calmly and coolly as though they were his own.
+In a short time, apparently, he found what he wanted in the shape of a
+royalty statement recently received by me from my publishers, and, lighting
+one of my cigars from a bundle of brevas in front of him, took off his coat
+and sat down to peruse the statement of my returns. Simple though it was,
+this act aroused the first feeling of resentment in my breast, for the
+relations between the author and his publishers are among the most sacred
+confidences of life, and the peeping Tom who peers through a keyhole at the
+courtship of a young man engaged in wooing his fiancée is no worse an
+intruder than he who would tear aside the veil of secrecy which screens the
+official returns of a "best seller" from the public eye. Feeling,
+therefore, that I had permitted matters to proceed as far as they might
+with propriety, I instantly entered the room and confronted my uninvited
+guest, bracing myself, of course, for the defensive onslaught which I
+naturally expected to sustain. But nothing of the sort occurred, for the
+intruder, with a composure that was nothing short of marvelous under the
+circumstances, instead of rising hurriedly like one caught in some
+disreputable act, merely leaned farther back in the chair, took the cigar
+from his mouth, and greeted me with:
+
+"Howdy do, sir. What can I do for you this beastly hot night?"
+
+The cold rim of a revolver-barrel placed at my temple could not more
+effectually have put me out of business than this nonchalant reception.
+Consequently I gasped out something about its being the sultriest 47th of
+August in eighteen years, and plumped back into a chair opposite him. "I
+wouldn't mind a Remsen cooler myself," he went on, "but the fact is your
+butler is off for to-night, and I'm hanged if I can find a lemon in the
+house. Maybe you'll join me in a smoke?" he added, shoving my own bundle of
+brevas across the table. "Help yourself."
+
+"I guess I know where the lemons are," said I. "But how did you know my
+butler was out?"
+
+"I telephoned him to go to Philadelphia this afternoon to see his brother
+Yoku, who is ill there," said my visitor. "You see, I didn't want him
+around to-night when I called. I knew I could manage you alone in case you
+turned up, as you see you have, but two of you, and one a Jap, I was afraid
+might involve us all in ugly complications. Between you and me, Jenkins,
+these Orientals are pretty lively fighters, and your man Nogi particularly
+has got jiu-jitsu down to a pretty fine point, so I had to do something to
+get rid of him. Our arrangement is a matter for two, not three, anyhow."
+
+"So," said I, coldly. "You and I have an arrangement, have we? I wasn't
+aware of it."
+
+"Not yet," he answered. "But there's a chance that we may have. If I can
+only satisfy myself that you are the man I'm looking for, there is no
+earthly reason that I can see why we should not come to terms. Go on out
+and get the lemons and the gin and soda, and let's talk this thing over man
+to man like a couple of good fellows at the club. I mean you no harm, and
+you certainly don't wish to do any kind of injury to a chap who, even
+though appearances are against him, really means to do you a good turn."
+
+"Appearances certainly are against you, sir," said I, a trifle warmly, for
+the man's composure was irritating. "A disappearance would be more likely
+to do you credit at this moment."
+
+"Tush, Jenkins!" he answered. "Why waste breath saying self-evident things?
+Here you are on the verge of a big transaction, and you delay proceedings
+by making statements of fact, mixed in with a cheap wit which, I must
+confess, I find surprising, and so obvious as to be visible even to the
+blind. You don't talk like an author whose stuff is worth ten cents a
+word--more like a penny-a-liner, in fact, with whom words are of such small
+value that no one's the loser if he throws away a whole dictionary. Go out
+and mix a couple of your best Remsen coolers, and by the time you get back
+I'll have got to the gist of this royalty statement of yours, which is all
+I've come for. Your silver and books and love letters and manuscripts are
+safe from me. I wouldn't have 'em as a gift."
+
+"What concern have you with my royalties?" I demanded.
+
+"A vital one," said he. "Mix the coolers, and when you get back I'll tell
+you. Go on. There's a good chap. It'll be daylight before long, and I want
+to close up this job if I can before sunrise."
+
+What there was in the man's manner to persuade me to compliance with his
+wishes, I am sure I cannot say definitely. There was a cold, steely glitter
+in his eye, for one thing. With it, however, was a strengthfulness of
+purpose, a certain pleasant masterfulness, that made me feel that I could
+trust him, and it was to this aspect of his nature that I yielded. There
+was something frankly appealing in his long, thin, ascetic looking face,
+and I found it irresistible.
+
+"All right," said I with a smile and a frown to express the conflicting
+quality of my emotions. "So be it. I'll get the coolers, but you must
+remember, my friend, that there are coolers and coolers, just as there are
+jugs and jugs. The kind of jug that remains for you will depend upon the
+story you have to tell when I get back, so you'd better see that it's a
+good one."
+
+"I am not afraid, Jenkins, old chap," he said with a hearty laugh as I
+rose. "If this royalty statement can prove to me that you are the literary
+partner I need in my business, I can prove to you that I'm a good man to
+tie up to--so go along with you."
+
+
+With this he lighted a fresh cigar and turned to a perusal of my statement,
+which, I am glad to say, was a good one, owing to the great success of my
+book, _Wild Animals I Have Never Met_--the seventh-best seller at
+Rochester, Watertown, and Miami in June and July, 1905--while I went out
+into the dining-room and mixed the coolers. As you may imagine, I was not
+long at it, for my curiosity over my visitor lent wings to my corkscrew,
+and in five minutes I was back with the tempting beverages in the tall
+glasses, the lemon curl giving it the vertebrate appearance that all stiff
+drinks should have, and the ice tinkling refreshingly upon the sultry air.
+
+"There," said I, placing his glass before him. "Drink hearty, and then to
+business. Who are you?"
+
+"There is my card," he replied, swallowing a goodly half of the cooler and
+smacking his lips appreciatively, and tossing a visiting card across to me
+on the other side of the table. I picked up the card and read as follows:
+"Mr. Raffles Holmes, London and New York."
+
+"Raffles Holmes?" I cried in amazement.
+
+"The same, Mr. Jenkins," said he. "I am the son of Sherlock Holmes, the
+famous detective, and grandson of A. J. Raffles, the distinguished--er--ah--
+cricketer, sir."
+
+I gazed at him, dumb with astonishment.
+
+"You've heard of my father, Sherlock Holmes?" asked my visitor.
+
+I confessed that the name of the gentleman was not unfamiliar to me.
+
+"And Mr. Raffles, my grandfather?" he persisted.
+
+"If there ever was a story of that fascinating man that I have not read, Mr.
+Holmes," said I, "I beg you will let me have it."
+
+"Well, then," said he with that quick, nervous manner which proved him a
+true son of Sherlock Holmes, "did it never occur to you as an extraordinary
+happening, as you read of my father's wonderful powers as a detective, and
+of Raffles' equally wonderful prowess as a--er--well, let us not mince
+words--as a thief, Mr. Jenkins, the two men operating in England at the same
+time, that no story ever appeared in which Sherlock Holmes's genius was
+pitted against the subtly planned misdeeds of Mr. Raffles? Is it not
+surprising that with two such men as they were, working out their destinies
+in almost identical grooves of daily action, they should never have crossed
+each other's paths as far as the public is the wiser, and in the very nature
+of the conflicting interests of their respective lines of action as foemen,
+the one pursuing, the other pursued, they should to the public's knowledge
+never have clashed?"
+
+"Now that you speak of it," said I, "it was rather extraordinary that
+nothing of the sort happened. One would think that the sufferers from the
+depredations of Raffles would immediately have gone to Holmes for assistance
+in bringing the other to justice. Truly, as you intimate, it was strange
+that they never did."
+
+"Pardon me, Jenkins," put in my visitor. "I never intimated anything of the
+sort. What I intimated was that no story of any such conflict ever came to
+light. As a matter of fact, Sherlock Holmes was put upon a Raffles case in
+1883, and while success attended upon every step of it, and my grandfather
+was run to earth by him as easily as was ever any other criminal in Holmes's
+grip, a little naked god called Cupid stepped in, saved Raffles from jail,
+and wrote the word failure across Holmes's docket of the case. _I, sir, am
+the only tangible result of Lord Dorrington's retainers to Sherlock
+Holmes._"
+
+"You speak enigmatically, after the occasional fashion of your illustrious
+father," said I. "The Dorrington case is unfamiliar to me."
+
+"Naturally so," said my vis-à-vis. "Because, save to my father, my
+grandfather, and myself, the details are unknown to anybody. Not even my
+mother knew of the incident, and as for Dr. Watson and Bunny, the scribes
+through whose industry the adventures of those two great men were
+respectively narrated to an absorbed world, they didn't even know there had
+ever been a Dorrington case, because Sherlock Holmes never told Watson and
+Raffles never told Bunny. But they both told me, and now that I am satisfied
+that there is a demand for your books, I am willing to tell it to you with
+the understanding that we share and share alike in the profits if perchance
+you think well enough of it to write it up."
+
+"Go on!" I said. "I'll whack up with you square and honest."
+
+"Which is more than either Watson or Bunny ever did with my father or my
+grandfather, else I should not be in the business which now occupies my time
+and attention," said Raffles Holmes with a cold snap to his eyes which I
+took as an admonition to hew strictly to the line of honor, or to subject
+myself to terrible consequences. "With that understanding, Jenkins, I'll
+tell you the story of the Dorrington Ruby Seal, in which some crime, a good
+deal of romance, and my ancestry are involved."
+
+
+
+II
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE DORRINGTON RUBY SEAL
+
+"Lord Dorrington, as you may have heard," said Raffles Holmes, leaning back
+in my easy-chair and gazing reflectively up at the ceiling, "was chiefly
+famous in England as a sporting peer. His vast estates, in five counties,
+were always open to any sportsman of renown, or otherwise, as long as he was
+a true sportsman. So open, indeed, was the house that he kept that, whether
+he was there or not, little week-end parties of members of the sporting
+fraternity used to be got up at a moment's notice to run down to Dorrington
+Castle, Devonshire; to Dorrington Lodge on the Isle of Wight; to Dorrington
+Hall, near Dublin, or to any other country place for over Sunday.
+
+"Sometimes there'd be a lot of turf people: sometimes a dozen or more
+devotes of the prize-ring; not infrequently a gathering of the best-known
+cricketers of the time, among whom, of course, my grandfather, A. J.
+Raffles, was conspicuous. For the most part, the cricketers never partook of
+Dorrington's hospitality save when his lordship was present, for your
+cricket-player is a bit more punctilious in such matters than your turfmen
+or ring-side habitués. It so happened one year, however, that his lordship
+was absent from England for the better part of eight months, and, when the
+time came for the annual cricket gathering at his Devonshire place, he
+cabled his London representative to see to it that everything was carried on
+just as if he were present, and that every one should be invited for the
+usual week's play and pleasure at Dorrington Castle. His instructions were
+carried out to the letter, and, save for the fact that the genial host was
+absent, the house-part went through to perfection. My grandfather, as usual,
+was the life of the occasion, and all went merry as a marriage-bell. Seven
+months later, Lord Dorrington returned, and a week after that, the loss of
+the Dorrington jewels from the Devonshire strong-boxes was a matter of
+common knowledge. When, or by whom, they had been taken was an absolute
+mystery. As far as anybody could find out, they might have been taken the
+night before his return, or the night after his departure. The only fact in
+sight was that they were gone--Lady Dorrington's diamonds, a half-dozen
+valuable jewelled rings belonging to his lordship, and, most irremediable of
+losses, the famous ruby seal which George IV had given to Dorrington's
+grandfather, Sir Arthur Deering, as a token of his personal esteem during
+the period of the Regency. This was a flawless ruby, valued at some six or
+seven thousand pounds sterling, in which had been cut the Deering arms
+surrounded by a garter upon which were engraved the words, 'Deering Ton,'
+which the family, upon Sir Arthur's elevation to the peerage in 1836, took
+as its title, or Dorrington. His lordship was almost prostrated by the loss.
+The diamonds and the rings, although valued at thirty thousand pounds, he
+could easily replace, but the personal associations of the seal were such
+that nothing, no amount of money, could duplicate the lost ruby."
+
+"So that his first act," I broke in, breathlessly, "was to send for--"
+
+"Sherlock Holmes, my father," said Raffles Holmes. "Yes, Mr. Jenkins, the
+first thing Lord Dorrington did was to telegraph to London for Sherlock
+Holmes, requesting him to come immediately to Dorrington Castle and assume
+charge of the case. Needless to say, Mr. Holmes dropped everything else and
+came. He inspected the gardens, measured the road from the railway station
+to the castle, questioned all the servants; was particularly insistent upon
+knowing where the parlor-maid was on the 13th of January; secured accurate
+information as to the personal habits of his lordship's dachshund Nicholas;
+subjected the chef to a cross-examination that covered every point of his
+life, from his remote ancestry to his receipt for baking apples; gathered up
+three suit-cases of sweeping from his lordship's private apartment, and two
+boxes containing three each of every variety of cigars that Lord Dorrington
+had laid down in his cellar. As you are aware, Sherlock Holmes, in his
+prime, was a great master of detail. He then departed for London, taking
+with him an impression in wax of the missing seal, which Lord Dorrington
+happened to have preserved in his escritoire.
+
+"On his return to London, Holmes inspected the seal carefully under a
+magnifying-glass, and was instantly impressed with the fact that it was not
+unfamiliar to him. He had seen it somewhere before, but where? That was now
+the question upper-most in his mind. Prior to this, he had never had any
+communication with Lord Dorrington, so that, if it was in his correspondence
+that the seal had formerly come to him, most assuredly the person who had
+used it had come by it dishonestly. Fortunately, at that time, it was a
+habit of my father's never to destroy papers of any sort. Every letter that
+he ever received was classified and filed, envelope and all. The thing to
+do, then, was manifestly to run over the files and find the letter, if
+indeed it was in or on a letter that the seal had first come to his
+attention. It was a herculean job, but that never feazed Sherlock Holmes,
+and he went at it tooth and nail. Finally his effort was rewarded. Under
+'Applications for Autograph' he found a daintily-scented little missive from
+a young girl living at Goring-Streatley on the Thames, the daughter, she
+said, of a retired missionary--the Reverend James Tattersby--asking him if
+he would not kindly write his autograph upon the enclosed slip for her
+collection. It was the regular stock application that truly distinguished
+men receive in every mail. The only thing to distinguish it from other
+applications was the beauty of the seal on the fly of the envelope, which
+attracted his passing notice and was then filed away with the other letters
+of similar import.
+
+"'Ho! ho!' quoth Holmes, as he compared the two impressions and discovered
+that they were identical. 'An innocent little maiden who collects
+autographs, and a retired missionary in possession of the Dorrington seal,
+eh? Well, that _is_ interesting. I think I shall run down to Goring-
+Streatley over Sunday and meets Miss Marjorie Tattersby and her reverend
+father. I'd like to see to what style of people I have intrusted my
+autograph.'
+
+"To decide was to act with Sherlock Holmes, and the following Saturday,
+hiring a canoe at Windsor, he made his way up the river until he came to the
+pretty little hamlet, snuggling in the Thames Valley, if such it may be
+called, where the young lady and her good father were dwelling. Fortune
+favored him in that his prey was still there--both much respected by the
+whole community; the father a fine looking, really splendid specimen of a
+man whose presence alone carried a conviction of integrity and a lofty man;
+the daughter--well, to see her was to love her, and the moment the eyes of
+Sherlock fell upon her face that great heart of his, that had ever been
+adamant to beauty, a very Gibraltar against the wiles of the other sex, went
+down in the chaos of a first and overwhelming passion. So hard hit was he by
+Miss Tattersby's beauty that his chief thought now was to avert rather than
+to direct suspicion towards her. After all, she might have come into
+possession of the jewel honestly, though how the daughter of a retired
+missionary, considering its intrinsic value, could manage such a thing, was
+pretty hard to understand, and he fled back to London to think it over.
+Arrived there, he found an invitation to visit Dorrington Castle again
+incog. Lord Dorrington was to have a mixed week-end party over the following
+Sunday, and this, he thought, would give Holmes an opportunity to observe
+the characteristics of Dorrington's visitors and possibly gain therefore
+some clew as to the light-fingered person from whose depredations his
+lordship had suffered. The idea commended itself to Holmes, and in the
+disguise of a young American clergyman, whom Dorrington had met in the
+States, the following Friday found him at Dorrington Castle.
+
+"Well, to make a long story short," said Raffles Holmes, "the young
+clergyman was introduced to many of the leading sportsmen of the hour, and,
+for the most part, they passed muster, but one of them did not, and that was
+the well-known cricketer A. J. Raffles, for the moment Raffles entered the
+room, jovially greeting everybody about him, and was presented to Lord
+Dorrington's new guest, Sherlock Holmes recognized in him no less a person
+that the Reverend James Tattersby, retired missionary of Goring-Streatley-
+on-Thames, and the father of the woman who had filled his soul with love and
+yearning of the truest sort. The problem was solved. Raffles was, to all
+intents and purposes, caught with the goods on. Holmes could have exposed
+him then and there had he chosen to do so, but every time it came to the
+point the lovely face of Marjorie Tattersby came between him and his
+purpose. How could he inflict the pain and shame which the exposure of her
+father's misconduct would certainly entail upon that fair woman, whose
+beauty and fresh innocence had taken so strong a hold upon his heart? No--
+that was out of the question. The thing to do, clearly was to visit Miss
+Tattersby during her father's absence, and, if possible, ascertain from just
+how she had come into possession of the seal, before taking further steps in
+the matter. This he did. Making sure, to begin with, that Raffles was to
+remain at Dorrington Hall for the coming ten days, Holmes had himself
+telegraphed for and returned to London. There he wrote himself a letter of
+introduction to the Reverend James Tattersby, on the paper of the Anglo-
+American Missionary Society, a sheet of which he secured in the public
+writing-room of that institution, armed with which he returned to the
+beautiful little spot on the Thames where the Tattersbys abode. He spent the
+night at the inn, and, in conversation with the landlord and boatmen,
+learned much that was interesting concerning the Reverend James. Among other
+things, he discovered that this gentleman and his daughter had been
+respected residents of the place for three years; that Tattersby was rarely
+seen in the daytime about the place; that he was unusually fond of canoeing
+at night, which, he said, gave him the quiet and solitude necessary for that
+reflection which is so essential to the spiritual being of a minister of
+grace; that he frequently indulged in long absences, during which time it
+was supposed that he was engaged in the work of his calling. He appeared to
+be a man of some, but not lavish, means. The most notable and suggestive
+thing, however, that Holmes ascertained in his conversation with the boatmen
+was that, at the time of the famous Cliveden robbery, when several thousand
+pounds' worth of plate had been taken from the great hall, that later fell
+into the possession of a well-known American hotel-keeper, Tattersby, who
+happened to be on the river late that night, was, according to his own
+statement, the unconscious witness of the escape of the thieves on board a
+mysterious steam-launch, which the police were never able afterwards to
+locate. They had nearly upset his canoe with the wash of their rapidly
+moving craft as they sped past him after having stowed their loot safely on
+board. Tattersby had supposed them to be employés of the estate, and never
+gave the matter another thought until three days later, when the news of the
+robbery was published to the world. He had immediately communicated the news
+of what he had seen to the police, and had done all that lay in his power to
+aid them in locating the robbers, but all to no purpose. From that day to
+this the mystery of the Cliveden plot had never been solved.
+
+"The following day Holmes called at the Tattersby cottage, and was fortunate
+enough to find Miss Tattersby at home. His previous impression as to her
+marvellous beauty was more than confirmed, and each moment that he talked to
+her she revealed new graces of manner that completed the capture of his
+hitherto unsusceptible heart. Miss Tattersby regretted her father's absence.
+He had gone, she said, to attend a secret missionary conference at
+Pentwllycod in Wales, and was not expected back for a week, all of which
+quite suited Sherlock Holmes. Convinced that, after years of waiting, his
+affinity had at last crossed his path, he was in no hurry for the return of
+that parent, who would put an instant quietus upon this affair of the heart.
+Manifestly the thing for him to do was to win the daughter's hand, and then
+intercept the father, acquaint him with his aspirations, and compel
+acquiescence by the force of his knowledge of Raffles's misdeed. Hence,
+instead of taking his departure immediately, he remained at the Goring-
+Streatley Inn, taking care each day to encounter Miss Tattersby on one
+pretext or another, hoping that their acquaintance would ripen into
+friendship, and then into something warmer. Nor was the hope a vain one, for
+when the fair Marjorie learned that it was the visitor's intention to remain
+in the neighborhood until her father's return, she herself bade him to make
+use of the old gentleman's library, to regard himself always as a welcome
+daytime guest. She even suggested pleasant walks through the neighboring
+country, little canoe trips up and down the Thames, which they might take
+together, of all of which Holmes promptly availed himself, with the result
+that, at the end of six days, both realized that they were designed for each
+other, and a passionate declaration followed which opened new vistas of
+happiness for both. Hence it was that, when the Reverend James Tattersby
+arrived at Goring-Streatley the following Monday night, unexpectedly, he was
+astounded to find sitting together in the moonlight, in the charming little
+English garden at the rear of his dwelling, two persons, one of whom was his
+daughter Marjorie and the other a young American curate to whom he had
+already been introduced as A. J. Raffles.
+
+"'We have met before, I think,' said Raffles, coldly, as his eye fell upon
+Holmes.
+
+"'I--er--do not recall the fact,' replied Holmes, meeting the steely stare
+of the home-comer with one of his own flinty glances.
+
+"'H'm!' ejaculated Raffles, non-plussed at the other's failure to recognize
+him. Then he shivered slightly. 'Suppose we go in-doors, it is a trifle
+chilly out here in the night air.'
+
+"The whole thing, the greeting, the meeting, Holmes's demeanor and all, was
+so admirably handled that Marjorie Tattersby never guessed the truth, never
+even suspected the intense dramatic quality of the scene she had just gazed
+upon.
+
+"'Yes, let us go in-doors,' she acquiesced. 'Mr. Dutton has something to say
+to you, papa.'
+
+"'So I presumed,' said Raffles, dryly. 'And something that were better said
+to me alone, I fancy, eh?' he added.
+
+"'Quite so,' said Holmes, calmly. And in-doors they went. Marjorie
+immediately retired to the drawing-room, and Holmes and Raffles went at once
+to Tattersby's study.
+
+"'Well?' said Raffles, impatiently, when they were seated. 'I suppose you
+have come to get the Dorrington seal, Mr. Holmes.'
+
+"'Ah--you know me, then, Mr. Raffles?' said Holmes, with a pleasant smile.
+
+"'Perfectly,' said Raffles. 'I knew you at Dorrington Hall the moment I set
+eyes on you, and, if I hadn't, I should have known later, for the night
+after your departure Lord Dorrington took me into his confidence and
+revealed your identity to me.'
+
+"'I am glad,' said Holmes. 'It saves me a great deal of unnecessary
+explanation. If you admit that you have the seal--"
+
+"'But I don't,' said Raffles. 'I mentioned it a moment ago, because
+Dorrington told me that was what you were after. I haven't got it, Mr.
+Holmes.'
+
+"'I know that,' observed Holmes, quietly. 'It is in the possession of Miss
+Tattersby, your daughter, Mr. Raffles.'
+
+"'She showed it to you, eh?' demanded Raffles, paling.
+
+"'No. She sealed a note to me with it, however,' Holmes replied.
+
+"'A note to you?' cried Raffles.
+
+"'Yes. One asking for my autograph. I have it in my possession,' said
+Holmes.
+
+"'And how do you know that she is the person from whom that note really
+came?' Raffles asked.
+
+"'Because I have seen the autograph which was sent in response to that
+request in your daughter's collection, Mr. Raffles,' said Holmes.
+
+"'So that you conclude--?' Raffles put in, hoarsely.
+
+"'I do not conclude; I begin by surmising, sir, that the missing seal of
+Lord Dorrington was stolen by one of two persons--yourself or Miss Marjorie
+Tattersby,' said Holmes, calmly.
+
+"'Sir!' roared Raffles, springing to his feet menacingly.
+
+"'Sit down, please,' said Holmes. 'You did not let me finish. I was going to
+add, Dr. Tattersby, that a week's acquaintance with that lovely woman, a
+full knowledge of her peculiarly exalted character and guileless nature,
+makes the alternative of guilt that affects her integrity clearly
+preposterous, which, by a very simple process of elimination, fastens the
+guilt, beyond all peradventure, on your shoulders. At any rate, the presence
+of the seal in this house will involve you in difficult explanations. Why is
+it here? How did it come here? Why are you known as the Reverend James
+Tattersby, the missionary, at Goring-Streatley, and as Mr. A. J. Raffles,
+the cricketer and man of the world, at Dorrington Hall, to say nothing of
+the Cliveden plate--'
+
+"'Damnation!' roared the Reverend James Tattersby again, springing to his
+feet and glancing instinctively at the long low book-shelves behind him.
+
+"'To say nothing,' continued Holmes, calmly lighting a cigarette, 'of the
+Cliveden plate now lying concealed behind those dusty theological tomes of
+yours which you never allow to be touched by any other hand than your own.'
+
+"'How did you know?' cried Raffles, hoarsely.
+
+"'I didn't,' laughed Holmes. 'You have only this moment informed me of the
+fact!'
+
+"There was a long pause, during which Raffles paced the floor like a caged
+tiger.
+
+"'I'm a dangerous man to trifle with, Mr. Holmes,' he said, finally. 'I can
+shoot you down in cold blood in a second.'
+
+"'Very likely,' said Holmes. 'But you won't. It would add to the
+difficulties in which the Reverend James Tattersby is already deeply
+immersed. Your troubles are sufficient, as matters stand, without your
+having to explain to the world why you have killed a defenceless guest in
+your own study in cold blood.
+
+"'Well--what do you propose to do?' demanded Raffles, after another pause.
+
+"'Marry your daughter, Mr. Raffles, or Tattersby, whatever your permanent
+name is--I guess it's Tattersby in this case,' said Holmes. 'I love her and
+she loves me. Perhaps I should apologize for having wooed and won her
+without due notice to you, but you doubtless will forgive that. It's a
+little formality you sometimes overlook yourself when you happen to want
+something that belongs to somebody else.'
+
+"What Raffles would have answered no one knows. He had no chance to reply,
+for at that moment Marjorie herself put her radiantly lovely little head in
+at the door with a 'May I come in?' and a moment later she was gathered in
+Holmes's arms, and the happy lovers received the Reverend James Tattersby's
+blessing. They were married a week later, and, as far as the world is
+concerned, the mystery of the Dorrington seal and that of the Cliveden plate
+was never solved.
+
+"'It is compounding a felony, Raffles,' said Holmes, after the wedding, 'but
+for a wife like that, hanged if I wouldn't compound the ten commandments!'
+
+"I hope," I ventured to put in at that point, "that the marriage ceremony
+was not performed by the Reverend James Tattersby."
+
+"Not on your life!" retorted Raffles Holmes. "My father was too fond of my
+mother to permit of any flaw in his title. A year later I was born, and--
+well, here I am--son of one, grandson of the other, with hereditary traits
+from both strongly developed and ready for business. I want a literary
+partner--a man who will write me up as Bunny did Raffles, and Watson did
+Holmes, so that I may get a percentage on that part of the swag. I offer you
+the job, Jenkins. Those royalty statements show me that you are the man, and
+your books prove to me that you need a few fresh ideas. Come, what do you
+say? Will you do it?"
+
+"My boy," said I, enthusiastically, "don't say another word. Will I? Well,
+just try me!"
+
+And so it was that Raffles Holmes and I struck a bargain and became
+partners.
+
+
+
+III
+THE ADVENTURE OF MRS. BURLINGAME'S DIAMOND STOMACHER
+
+I had seen the marvellous creation very often at the opera, and in many ways
+resented it. Not that I was in the least degree a victim to envy, hatred,
+and malice towards those who are possessed of a superabundance of this
+world's good things--far from it. I rejoice in the great fortunes of earth
+because, with every dollar corralled by the superior energies of the multi-
+millionaires, the fewer there are for other men to seek, and until we stop
+seeking dollars and turn our minds to other, finer things, there will be no
+hope of peace and sweet content upon this little green ball we inhabit. My
+resentment of Mrs. Burlingame's diamond stomacher was not then based on envy
+of its possession, but merely upon the twofold nuisance which it created at
+the opera-house, as the lady who wore it sat and listened to the strains of
+Wagner, Bizet, or Gounod, mixed in with the small-talk of Reggie Stockson,
+Tommie de Coupon, and other lights of the social firmament. In the first
+place, it caused the people sitting about me in the high seats of the opera-
+house to chatter about it and discuss its probable worth every time the lady
+made her appearance in it, and I had fled from the standee part of the house
+to the top gallery just to escape the talkers, and, if possible, to get my
+music straight, without interruptions of any sort whatsoever on the side. In
+the second place, the confounded thing glittered so that, from where I sat,
+it was as dazzling as so many small mirrors flashing in the light of the
+sun. It seemed as if every electric light in the house found some kind of a
+refractor in the thousands of gems of which it was composed, and many of the
+brilliant light effects of the stage were dimmed in their lustre by the
+persistent intrusion of Mrs. Burlingame's glory upon my line of vision.
+
+Hence in was that, when I picked up my morning paper and read in great
+flaring head-lines on the front page that Mrs. Burlingame's diamond
+stomacher had been stolen from her at her Onyx Cottage at Newport, I smiled
+broadly, and slapped the breakfast-table so hard in my satisfaction that
+even the shredded-wheat biscuits flew up into the air and caught in the
+chandelier.
+
+"Thank Heaven for that!" I said. "Next season I shall be able to enjoy my
+opera undisturbed."
+
+"I little thought, at that blissful moment, how closely indeed were my own
+fortunes to be connected with that wonderful specimen of the jeweler's
+handicraft, but an hour later I was made aware of the first link in the
+chain that, in a measure, bound me to it. Breakfast over, I went to my desk
+to put the finishing touches to a novel I had written the week before, when
+word came up on the telephone from below that a gentleman from _Busybody's
+Magazine_ wished to see me on an important matter of business.
+
+"Tell him I'm already a subscriber," I called down, supposing the visitor to
+be merely an agent. "I took the magazine, and a set of Chaucer in a
+revolving bookcase, from one of their agents last month and have paid my
+dollar."
+
+In a moment another message came over the wire.
+
+"The gentleman says he wants to see you about writing a couple of full-page
+sonnets for the Christmas number," the office man 'phoned up.
+
+"Show him up," I replied, instantly.
+
+Two minutes later a rather handsome man, with a fine eye and a long, flowing
+gray beard, was ushered into my apartment.
+
+"I am Mr. Stikes, of _Busybody's,_ Mr. Jenkins," he said, with a twinkle in
+his eye. "We thought you might like to contribute to our Christmas issue. We
+want two sonnets, one on the old Christmas and the other on the new. We
+can't offer you more than a thousand dollars apiece for them, but--"
+
+Something caught in my throat, but I managed to reply. "I might shade my
+terms a trifle since you want as many as two," I gurgled. "And I assume you
+will pay on acceptance?"
+
+"Certainly," he said, gravely. "Could you let me have them, say--this
+afternoon?"
+
+I turned away so that he would not see the expression of joy on my face, and
+then there came from behind me a deep chuckle and the observation in a
+familiar voice:
+
+"You might throw in a couple of those Remsen coolers, too, while you're
+about it, Jenkins."
+
+I whirled about as if struck, and there, in place of the gray-bearded
+editor, stood--Raffles Holmes.
+
+"Bully disguise, eh!" he said, folding up his beard and putting it in his
+pocket.
+
+"Ye-e-es," said I, ruefully, as I thought of the vanished two thousand. "I
+think I preferred you in disguise, though, old man," I added.
+
+"You won't when you hear what I've come for," said he. "There's $5000 apiece
+in this job for us."
+
+"To what job do you refer?" I asked.
+
+"The Burlingame case," he replied. "I suppose you read in the papers this
+morning how Mrs. Burlingame's diamond stomacher has turned up missing."
+
+"Yes," said I, "and I'm glad of it."
+
+"You ought to be," said Holmes, "since it will put $5000 in your pocket. You
+haven't heard yet that there is a reward of $10,000 offered for its
+recovery. The public announcement has not yet been made, but it will be in
+to-night's papers, and we are the chaps that are going to get the reward."
+
+"But how?" I demanded.
+
+"Leave that to me," said he. "By-the-way, I wish you'd let me leave this
+suit-case of mine in your room for about ten days. It holds some important
+papers, and my shop is turned topsy-turvy just now with the painters."
+
+"Very well," said I. "I'll shove it under my bed."
+
+"I took the suit-case as Holmes had requested, and hid it away in my
+bedroom, immediately returning to the library, where he sat smoking one of
+my cigars as cool as a cucumber. There was something in his eye, however,
+that aroused my suspicion as soon as I entered.
+
+"See here, Holmes," said I. "I can't afford to be mixed up in any shady
+business like this, you know. Have you got that stomacher?"
+
+"No, I haven't," said he. "Honor bright--I haven't."
+
+I eyed him narrowly.
+
+"I think I understand the evasion," I went on. "_You_ haven't got it because
+I have got it--it's in that suit-case under my bed."
+
+"Open it and see for yourself," said he. "It isn't there."
+
+"But you know where it is?" I demanded.
+
+"How else could I be sure of that $10,000 reward?" he asked.
+
+"Where is it?" I demanded.
+
+"It--er--it isn't located yet--that is, not finally," said he. "And it won't
+be for ten days. Ten days from now Mrs. Burlingame will find it herself and
+we'll divvy on the reward, my boy, and not a trace of dishonesty in the
+whole business."
+
+And with that Raffles Holmes filled his pockets with cigars from my stores,
+and bidding me be patient went his way.
+
+The effect of his visit upon my nerves was such that any more work that day
+was impossible. The fear of possible complications to follow upset me
+wholly, and, despite his assurance that the suit-case was innocent of
+surreptitiously acquired stomachers, I could not rid my mind of the
+suspicion that he made of my apartment a fence for the concealment of his
+booty. The more I thought of it the more was I inclined to send for him and
+request him to remove the bag forthwith, and yet, if it should so happen
+that he had spoken the truth, I should by that act endanger our friendship
+and possibly break the pact, which bade fair to be profitable. Suddenly I
+remembered his injunction to me to look for myself and see if the stomacher
+really was concealed there, and I hastened to act upon it. It might have
+been pure bluff on his part, and I resolved not to be bluffed.
+
+The case opened easily, and the moment I glanced into it my suspicions were
+allayed. It contained nothing but bundle after bundle of letters tied
+together with pink and blue ribbons, one or two old daguerreotypes, some
+locks of hair, and an ivory miniature of Raffles Holmes himself as an
+infant. Not a stomacher, diamond or otherwise, was hid in the case, nor any
+other suspicious object, and I closed it with a sheepish feeling of shame
+for having intruded upon the sacred correspondence and relics of the happy
+childhood days of my new friend.
+
+That night, as Holmes had asserted, a reward of $10,000 was offered for the
+recovery of the Burlingame stomacher, and the newspapers for the next ten
+days were full of the theories of detectives of all sorts, amateur,
+professional, and reportorial. Central Office was after it in one place,
+others sought it elsewhere. The editor of one New York paper printed a full
+list of the names of the guests at Mrs. Burlingame's dinner the night the
+treasure was stolen, and, whether they ever discovered it for themselves or
+not, several bearers of highly honored social names were shadowed by
+reporters and others everywhere they went for the next week. At the end of
+five days the reward was increased to $20,000, and then Raffles Holmes's
+name began to appear in connection with the case. Mrs. Burlingame herself
+had sent for him, and, without taking it out of the hands of others, had
+personally requested him to look into the matter. He had gone to Newport and
+looked the situation over there. He had questioned all the servants in her
+two establishments at Newport and New York, and had finally assured the lady
+that, on the following Tuesday morning, he would advise her by wire of the
+definite location of her missing jewel.
+
+During all this time Holmes had not communicated with me at all, and I began
+to fear that, offended by my behavior at our last meeting, he had cut me out
+of his calculations altogether, when, just as I was about to retire on
+Sunday night, he reappeared as he had first come to me--stealing up the
+fire-escape; and this time he wore a mask, and carried unquestionably a
+burglar's kit and a dark lantern. He started nervously as he caught sight of
+me reaching up to turn off the light in the library.
+
+"Hang it call, Jenkins!" he cried. "I thought you'd gone off to the country
+for the week-end."
+
+"No," said I. "I meant to go, but I was detained. What's up?"
+
+"Oh, well--I may as well out with it," he answered. "I didn't want you to
+know, but--well, watch and see."
+
+With this Raffles Holmes strode directly to my bookcase, removed my extra-
+illustrated set of Fox's _Book of Martyrs,_ in five volumes, from the
+shelves, and there, resting upon the shelf behind them, glittered nothing
+less than the missing stomacher!
+
+"Great Heavens, Holmes!" I said, "what does this mean? How did those
+diamonds get there?"
+
+"I put them there myself while you were shoving my suit-case under your bed
+the other night," said he.
+
+"You told me you didn't have them," I said, reproachfully.
+
+"I didn't when I spoke--_you_ had them," said he.
+
+"You told me they had not been finally located," I persisted, angrily.
+
+"I told you the truth. They were only temporarily located," he answered.
+"I'm going to locate them definitely to-night, and to-morrow Mrs. Burlingame
+will find them--"
+
+"Where?" I cried.
+
+"_In her own safe in her New York house!_" said Raffles Holmes.
+
+"You--"
+
+"Yes--I took them from Newport myself--very easy job, too," said Raffles
+Holmes. "Ever since I saw them at the opera last winter I have had this in
+mind, so when Mrs. Burlingame gave her dinner I served as an extra butler
+from Delmonico's--drugged the regular chap up on the train on his way up
+from New York--took his clothes, and went in his place. That night I rifled
+the Newport safe of the stomacher, and the next day brought it here. To-
+night I take it to the Burlingame house on Fifth Avenue, secure entrance
+through a basement door, to which, in my capacity of detective, I have
+obtained the key, and, while the caretakers sleep, Mrs. Burlingame's diamond
+stomacher will be placed in the safe on the first floor back.
+
+"To-morrow morning I shall send Mrs. Burlingame this message: _'Have you
+looked in your New York safe?_ [Signed] Raffles Holmes,'" he continued. "She
+will come to town by the first train to find out what I mean; we will go to
+her residence; she will open the safe, and--$20,000 for us."
+
+"By Jove! Holmes, you are a wonder," said I. "This stomacher is worth
+$250,000 at the least," I added, as I took the creation in my hand. "Pot of
+money that!"
+
+"Yes," said he, with a sigh, taking the stomacher from me and fondling it.
+"The Raffles in me tells me that, but the Sherlock Holmes in my veins--well,
+I can't keep it, Jenkins, if that is what you mean."
+
+I blushed at the intimation conveyed by his words, and was silent; and
+Holmes, gathering up his tools and stuffing the stomacher in the capacious
+bosom of his coat, bade me au revoir, and went out into the night.
+
+
+
+The rest is already public property. All the morning papers were full of the
+strange recovery of the Burlingame stomacher the following Tuesday morning,
+and the name of Raffles Holmes was in every mouth. That night, the very
+essence of promptitude, Holmes appeared at my apartment and handed me a
+check for my share in the transaction.
+
+"Why--what does this mean?" I cried, as I took in the figures; "$12,500--I
+thought it was to be only $10,000."
+
+"It was," said Raffles Holmes, "but Mrs. Burlingame was so overjoyed at
+getting the thing back she made the check for $25,000 instead of for
+$20,000."
+
+"You're the soul of honor, Holmes!" I murmured.
+
+"On my father's side," he said, with a sigh. "On my mother's side it comes
+hard."
+
+"And Mrs. Burlingame--didn't she ask you how you ferreted the thing out?" I
+asked.
+
+"Yes," said Holmes. "But I told her that that was my secret, that my secret
+was my profession, and that my profession was my bread and butter."
+
+"But she must have asked you who was the guilty person?" I persisted.
+
+"Yes," said Holmes, "she did, and I took her for a little gallop through the
+social register, in search of the guilty party; that got on her nerves, so
+that when it came down to an absolute question of identity she begged me to
+forget it."
+
+"I am dull of comprehension, Raffles," said I. "Tell me exactly what you
+mean."
+
+"Simply this," said Raffles Holmes. "The present four hundred consists of
+about 19,250 people, of whom about twenty-five per cent. go to Newport at
+one time or another--say, 4812. Of these 4812 about ten per cent. are
+eligible for invitations to the Burlingame dinners, or 480. Now whom of the
+480 possibilities having access to the Burlingame cottage would we naturally
+suspect? Surely only those who were in the vicinity the night of the
+robbery. By a process of elimination we narrowed them down to just ten
+persons exclusive of Mrs. Burlingame herself and her husband, old Billie
+Burlingame. We took the lot and canvassed them. There were Mr. and Mrs.
+Willington Bodfish--they left early and the stomacher was known to be safe
+at the time of their departure. There were Bishop and Mrs. Pounderby,
+neither of whom would be at all likely to come back in the dead of night and
+remove property that did not belong to them. There were Senator and Mrs.
+Jorrocks. The Senator is after bigger game than diamond stomachers, and Mrs.
+Jorrocks is known to be honest. There were Harry Gaddsby and his wife. Harry
+doesn't know enough to go in when it rains, and is too timid to call even
+his soul his own, so he couldn't have taken it; and Mrs. Gaddsby is long on
+stomachers, having at least five, and therefore would not be likely to try
+to land a sixth by questionable means. In that way we practically cleared
+eight possibilities of suspicion.
+
+"'Now, Mrs. Burlingame,' said I, 'that leaves four persons still in the
+ring--yourself, your husband, your daughter, and the Duke of Snarleyow, your
+daughter's newly acquired fiancé, in whose honor the dinner was given. Of
+these four, you are naturally yourself the first to be acquitted. Your
+husband comes next, and is not likely to be the guilty party, because if he
+wants a diamond stomacher he needn't steal it, having money enough to buy a
+dozen of them if he wishes. The third, your daughter, should be regarded as
+equally innocent, because if she was really desirous of possessing the jewel
+all she had to do was to borrow it from you. That brings us down to the Duke
+of--"
+
+"'Hush! I beg of you, Mr. Raffles Holmes!' she cried, in great agitation.
+'Not another word, I beseech you! If any one should overhear us--The
+subject, after all, is an unprofitable one, and I'd--I'd rather drop it, and
+it--it--er--it has just occurred to me that possibly I--er--possibly I--'
+
+"'Put the jewel in the safe yourself?' I suggested.
+
+"'Yes,' said Mrs. Burlingame,' with a grateful glance and a tremendous sigh
+of relief. 'Now that I think of it, Mr. Raffles Holmes--that _was_ it. I--
+er--I remember perfectly that--er--that I didn't wear it at all the night of
+my little dinner, and that I _did_ leave it behind me when I left town.'"
+
+"Humph!" said I. "That may account for the extra $5000--"
+
+"It may," said Raffles Holmes, pursing his lips into a deprecatory smile.
+
+
+
+IV
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE MISSING PENDANTS
+
+"I think," said Raffles Holmes, as he ran over his expense account while
+sitting in my library one night some months ago, "that in view of the
+present condition of my exchequer, my dear Jenkins, it behooveth me to get
+busy. Owning a motor-car is a demned expensive piece of business, and my
+balance at the bank has shrunk to about $1683.59, thanks to my bills for
+cogs, clutches, and gasoline, plus the chauffeur's fines."
+
+"In what capacity shall you work, Raffles or Holmes?" I asked, pausing in my
+writing and regarding him with that affectionate interest which contact with
+him had inspired in me.
+
+"Play the combination always, Jenkins," he replied. "If I did the Raffles
+act alone, I should become the billionaire in this land of silk and money,
+your rich are so careless of their wealth--but where would my conscience be?
+On the other hand, if I stuck to the Holmes act exclusively, I'd starve to
+death; but the combination--ah--there is moderate fortune, my boy, with
+peace of mind thrown in."
+
+Here he rose up, buttoned his coat about his spare figure, and reached out
+for his hat.
+
+"I guess I'll tackle that case of the missing pendants to-morrow," he
+continued, flicking the ash from his cigar and gazing up at the ceiling with
+that strange twist in his eye which I had learned to regard as the harbinger
+of a dawning idea in his mind. "There's ten thousand dollars for somebody in
+that job, and you and I might as well have it as any one else."
+
+"I'm ready," said I, as well I might be, for all I had to do in the matter
+was to record the adventure and take my half of the profits--no very
+difficult proceeding in either case.
+
+"Good," quoth he. "I'll go to Gaffany & Co. to-morrow and offer my
+services."
+
+"You have a clew?" I asked.
+
+"I have an idea," he answered. "As for the lost diamonds, I know no more of
+their whereabouts than you do, but I shall be able beyond all question to
+restore to Gaffany & Co. two pendants just as good as those they have lost,
+and if I do that I am entitled to the reward, I fancy, am I not?"
+
+"Most certainly," said I. "But where the dickens will you find two such
+stones? They are worth $50,000 apiece, and they must match perfectly the two
+remaining jewels which Gaffany & Co. have in their safe."
+
+"I'll match 'em so closely that their own mother couldn't tell 'em apart,"
+said Holmes, with a chuckle.
+
+"Then the report that they are of such rarity of cut and lustre is untrue?"
+I asked.
+
+"It's perfectly true," said Holmes, "but that makes no difference. The two
+stones that I shall return two weeks from to-day to Gaffany & Co. will be as
+like the two they have as they are themselves. Ta-ta, Jenkins--you can count
+on your half of that ten thousand as surely as though it is jingled now in
+your pockets."
+
+And with that Raffles Holmes left me to my own devices.
+
+I presume that most readers of the daily newspapers are tolerably familiar
+with the case of the missing pendants to which Holmes referred, and on the
+quest for which he was now about to embark. There may be some of you,
+however, who have never heard of the mysterious robbery of Gaffany & Co., by
+which two diamonds of almost matchless purity--half of a quartet of these
+stones--pear-shaped and valued at $50,000 each, had disappeared almost as if
+the earth had opened and swallowed them up. They were a part of the famous
+Gloria Diamond, found last year at Kimberley, a huge, uncut gem of such
+value that no single purchaser for it could be found in the world. By a
+syndicate arrangement Gaffany & Co. had assumed charge of it, and were in
+the process of making for a customer a bar with four pendants cut from the
+original, when two of them disappeared. They had been last seen in the hands
+of a trusted employé of many years' standing, to whom they had been intrusted
+for mounting, and he had been seen to replace them, at the end of the day's
+work, in the little cage-like office of the custodian of the safe in which
+jewels of great value were kept at night. This was the last seen of them,
+and although five weeks had elapsed since the discovery of their loss and
+Holmes's decision to look into the matter, no clew of the slightest
+description had been discovered by the thousands of sleuths, professional or
+amateur, who had interested themselves in the case.
+
+"He had such assurance!" I muttered. "To hear him talk one would almost
+believe that they were already in his possession."
+
+I did not see Raffles Holmes again for five days, and then I met him only by
+chance, nor should I have known it was he had he not made himself known to
+me. I was on my way uptown, a little after six o'clock, and as I passed
+Gaffany's an aged man emerged from the employés' entrance, carrying a small
+bag in his hand. He was apparently very near-sighted, for he most
+unceremoniously bumped into me as he came out of the door on to the
+sidewalk.
+
+Deference to age has always been a weakness of mine, and I apologized,
+although it was he that was at fault.
+
+"Don't mention it, Jenkins," he whispered. "You are just the man I want to
+see. Café Panhard--to-night--eleven o'clock. Just happen in, and if a
+foreign-looking person with a red beard speaks to you don't throw him down,
+but act as if you were not annoyed by his mistake."
+
+"You know me?" I asked.
+
+"Tush, man--I'm Raffles Holmes!" and with that he was off.
+
+His make-up was perfect, and as he hobbled his way along Broadway through
+the maze of cars, trucks, and hansoms, there was not in any part of him a
+hint or a suggestion that brought to mind my alert partner.
+
+Of course my excitement was intense. I could hardly wait for eleven o'clock
+to come, and at 9.30 I found myself in front of the Café Panhard a full hour
+and a half ahead of time, and never were there more minutes in that period
+of waiting than there seemed to be then as I paced Broadway until the
+appointed hour. It seemed ages before the clock down in front of the Whirald
+Building pointed to 10.55, but at last the moment arrived, and I entered the
+café, taking one of the little tables in the farther corner, where the light
+was not unduly strong and where the turmoil of the Hungarian band was
+reduced by distance from moltofortissimo to a moderate approach to a
+pianissimo, which would admit of conversation. Again I had to wait, but not
+for so long a time. It was twenty minutes past eleven when a fine-looking
+man of military bearing, wearing a full red beard, entered, and after
+looking the café over, sauntered up to where I sat.
+
+"Good-evening, Mr. Jenkins," said he, with a slight foreign accent. "Are you
+alone?"
+
+"Yes," said I.
+
+"If you don't mind, I should like to sit here for a few moments," he
+observed, pulling out the chair opposite me. "I have your permission?"
+
+"Certainly, Mr.--er--"
+
+"Robinstein is my name," said he, sitting down, and producing a letter from
+his pocket. "I have here a note from my old friend Raffles Holmes--a note of
+introduction to you. I am a manufacturer of paste jewels--or rather was. I
+have had one or two misfortunes in my business, and find myself here in
+America practically stranded."
+
+"Your place of business was--"
+
+"In the Rue de l'Echelle in Paris," he explained. "I lost everything in
+unfortunate speculation, and have come here to see if I could not get a new
+start. Mr. Holmes thinks you can use your influence with Markoo & Co., the
+theatrical costumers, who, I believe, manufacture themselves all the stage
+jewelry they use in their business, to give me something to do. It was said
+in Paris that the gems which I made were of such quality that they would
+deceive, for a time anyhow, the most expert lapidaries, and if I can only
+get an opening with Markoo & Co. I am quite confident that you will not
+repent having exerted your good offices in my behalf."
+
+"Why, certainly, Mr. Robinstein," said I. "Any friend of Raffles Holmes may
+command my services. I know Tommy Markoo very well, and as this is a pretty
+busy time with him, getting his stuff out for the fall productions, I have
+little doubt I shall be able to help you. By Jove!" I added, as I glanced
+over the café, "that's a singular coincidence--there is Markoo himself just
+coming in the doorway."
+
+"Really?" said Mr. Robinstein, turning and gazing towards the door. "He's a
+different-looking chap from what I had imagined. Perhaps, Mr. Jenkins, it
+would--er--expedite matters if you--"
+
+"Of course," I interrupted. "Tommy is alone--we'll have him over."
+
+And I beckoned to Markoo and invited him to join us.
+
+"Good!" said he, in his whole-souled way. "Glad to have a chance to see
+you--I'm so confoundedly busy these days--just think of it, I've been at
+the shop ever since eight o'clock this morning."
+
+"Tommy, I want to introduce you to my friend Mr. Robinstein," said I.
+
+"Not Isidore Robinstein, of Paris?" said Markoo.
+
+"I have that misfortune, Mr. Markoo," said Robinstein.
+
+"Misfortune? Gad, Mr. Robinstein, we look at things through different
+glasses," returned Markoo. "The man who can do your work ought never to
+suffer misfortune--"
+
+"If he only stays out of the stock-market," said Robinstein.
+
+"Aha," laughed Tommy. "Et tu, Brute?"
+
+We all laughed, and if there was any ice to be broken after that it was
+along the line of business of the café. We got along famously together, and
+when we parted company, two hours later, all the necessary arrangements had
+been made for Mr. Robinstein to begin at once with Markoo--the following
+day, in fact.
+
+Four nights later Holmes turned up at my apartment.
+
+"Well," said I, "have you come to report progress?"
+
+"Yes," he said. "The reward will arrive on time, but it's been the de'il's
+own job. Pretty, aren't they!" he added, taking a small package wrapped in
+tissue-paper out of his pocket, and disclosing its contents.
+
+"Gee-rusalem, what beauties!" I cried, as my eyes fell on two such diamonds
+as I had never before seen. They sparkled on the paper like bits of
+sunshine, and that their value was quite $100,000 it did not take one like
+myself, who knew little of gems, to see at a glance. "You have found them,
+have you?"
+
+"Found what?" asked Raffles Holmes.
+
+"The missing pendants," said I.
+
+"Well--not exactly," said Raffles Holmes. "I think I'm on the track of them,
+though. There's an old chap who works beside me down at Gaffany's who spends
+so much of his time drinking ice-water that I'm getting to be suspicious of
+him."
+
+I roared with laughter.
+
+"The ice-water habit is evidence of a criminal nature, eh?" I queried.
+
+"Not per se," said Holmes, gravely, "but in conjunctibus--if my Latin is
+weak, please correct me--it is a very suspicious habit. When I see a man
+drink ten glasses of water in two hours it indicates to my mind that there
+is something in the water-cooler that takes his mind off his business. It is
+not likely to be either the ice or the water, on the doctrine of
+probabilities. Hence it must be something else. I caught him yesterday with
+his hand in it."
+
+"His hand? In the water-cooler?" I demanded.
+
+"Yes," said Holmes. "He said he was fishing around for a little piece of ice
+to cool his head, which ached, but I think differently. He got as pale as a
+ghost when I started in to fish for a piece for myself because my head ached
+too. I think he took the diamonds and has hid them there, but I'm not sure
+yet, and in my business I can't afford to make mistakes. If my suspicions
+are correct, he is merely awaiting his opportunity to fish them out and
+light out with them."
+
+"Then these," I said, "are--are they paste?"
+
+"No, indeed, they're the real thing," said Raffles Holmes, holding up one of
+the gems to the light, where it fairly coruscated with brilliance. "These
+are the other two of the original quartet."
+
+"Great Heavens, Holmes--do you mean to say that Gaffany & Co. permit you to
+go about with things like this in your pocket?" I demanded.
+
+"Not they," laughed Holmes. "They'd have a fit if they knew I had 'em, only
+they don't know it."
+
+"But how have you concealed the fact from them?" I persisted.
+
+"Robinstein made me a pair exactly like them," said Holmes. "The paste ones
+are now lying in the Gaffany safe, where I saw them placed before leaving
+the shop to-night."
+
+"You're too deep for me, Holmes," said I. "What's the game?"
+
+"Now don't say game, Jenkins," he protested. "I never indulge in games. My
+quarry is not a game, but a scheme. For the past two weeks, with three days
+off, I have been acting as a workman in the Gaffany ship, with the
+ostensible purpose of keeping my eye on certain employés who are under
+suspicion. Each day the remaining two pendant-stones--these--have been
+handed to me to work on, merely to carry out the illusion. The first day, in
+odd moments, I made sketches of them, and on the night of the second I had
+'em down in such detail as to cut and color, that Robinstein had no
+difficulty in reproducing them in the materials at his disposal in Markoo's
+shop. And to-night all I had to do to get them was to keep them and hand in
+the Robinstein substitutes when the hour of closing came."
+
+"So that now, in place of four $50,000 diamonds, Gaffany & Co. are in
+possession of--"
+
+"Two paste pendants, worth about $40 apiece," said Holmes. "If I fail to
+find the originals I shall have to use the paste ones to carry the scheme
+through, but I hate to do it. It's so confoundly inartistic and as old a
+trick as the pyramids."
+
+"And to-morrow--"
+
+Raffles Holmes got up and paced the floor nervously.
+
+"Ah, Jenkins," he said, with a heart-rending sigh, "that is the point. To-
+morrow! Heavens! what will to-morrow's story be? I--I cannot tell."
+
+"What's the matter, Holmes?" said. "Are you in danger?"
+
+"Physically, no--morally, my God! Jenkins, yes. I shall need all of your
+help," he cried.
+
+"What can I do?" I asked. "You know you have only to command me."
+
+"Don't leave me this night for a minute," he groaned. "If you do, I am lost.
+The Raffles in me is rampant when I look at those jewels and think of what
+they will mean if I keep them. An independent fortune forever. All I have to
+do is to get aboard a ship and go to Japan and live in comfort the rest of
+my days with the wealth in my possession, and all the instincts of honesty
+that I possess, through the father in me, will be powerless to prevent my
+indulgence in this crime. Keep me in sight, and if I show the slightest
+inclination to give you the slip, knock me over the head, will you, for my
+own good?"
+
+I promised faithfully that I would do as he asked, but, as an easier way out
+of an unpleasant situation, I drugged his Remsen cooler with a sleeping-
+powder, and an hour later he was lying off on my divan lost to the world for
+eight hours at least. As a further precaution I put the jewels in my own
+safe.
+
+The night's sleep had the desired effect, and with the returning day
+Holmes's better nature asserted itself. Raffles was subdued, and he returned
+to Gaffany's to put the finishing touches to his work.
+
+
+
+"Here's your check, Jenkins," said Raffles Holmes, handing me a draft for
+$5000. "The gems were found to-day in the water-cooler in the work-room, and
+Gaffany & Co. paid up like gentlemen."
+
+"And the thief?" I asked.
+
+"Under arrest," said Raffles Holmes. "We caught him fishing for them."
+
+"And your paste jewels, where are they?"
+
+"I wish I knew," he answered, his face clouding over. "In the excitement of
+the moment of the arrest I got 'em mixed with the originals I had last
+night, and they didn't give me time or opportunity to pick 'em out. The four
+were mounted immediately and sent under guard to the purchaser. Gaffany &
+Co. didn't want to keep them a minute longer than was necessary. But the
+purchaser is so rich he will never have to sell 'em--so, you see, Jenkins,
+we're as safe as a church."
+
+"Your friend Robinstein was a character, Holmes," said I.
+
+"Yes," sighed Holmes. "Poor chap--he was a great loss to his friends. He
+taught me the art of making paste gems when I was in Paris. I miss him like
+the dickens."
+
+"Miss him!" said I, getting anxious for Robinstein. "What happened? He
+isn't--"
+
+"Dead," said Holmes. "Two years ago--dear old chap."
+
+"Oh, come now, Holmes," I said. "What new game is this you are rigging on
+me? I met him only five nights ago--and you know it."
+
+"Oh--that one," said Raffles Holmes, with a laugh. "_I_ was that
+Robinstein."
+
+"You?" I cried.
+
+"Yes, me," said Holmes. "You don't suppose I'd let a third party into our
+secret, do you?"
+
+And then he gave me one of those sweet, wistful smiles that made the wonder
+of the man all the greater.
+
+"I wish to the dickens I knew whether these were real or paste!" he
+muttered, taking the extra pendants from his wallet as he spoke. "I don't
+dare ask anybody, and I haven't got any means of telling myself."
+
+"Give them to me," said I, sternly, noting a glitter in his eye that
+suggested the domination for the moment of the Raffles in him.
+
+"Tush, Jenkins," he began, uneasily.
+
+"Give them to me, or I'll brain you, Holmes," said I, standing over him with
+a soda-water bottle gripped in my right hand, "for your own good. Come, give
+up."
+
+He meekly obeyed.
+
+"Come now, get on your hat," said I. "I want you to go out with me."
+
+"What for, Jenkins?" he almost snarled.
+
+"You'll see what for," said I.
+
+And Raffles Holmes obeying, we walked down to the river's edge, where I
+stood for a moment, and then hurled the remaining stones far out into the
+waters.
+
+Holmes gave a gasp and then a sigh of relief.
+
+"There," I said. "It doesn't matter much to us now whether the confounded
+things were real or not."
+
+
+
+V
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE BRASS CHECK
+
+"Jenkins," said Raffles Holmes to me the other night as we sat in my den
+looking over the criminal news in the evening papers, in search of some
+interesting material for him to work on, "this paper says that Mrs.
+Wilbraham Ward-Smythe has gone to Atlantic City for a week, and will lend
+her gracious presence to the social functions of the Hotel Garrymore, at
+that interesting city by the sea, until Monday, the 27th, when she will
+depart for Chicago, where her sister is to be married on the 29th. How would
+you like to spend the week with me at the Garrymore?"
+
+"It all depends upon what we are going for," said I. "Also, what in thunder
+has Mrs. Wilbraham Ward-Smythe got to do with us, or we with her?"
+
+"Nothing at all," said Holmes. "That is, nothing much."
+
+"Who is she?" I asked, eying him suspiciously.
+
+"All I know is what I have seen in the papers," said Holmes. "She came in on
+the _Altruria_ two weeks ago, and attracted considerable attention by
+declaring $130,000 worth of pearl rope that she bought in Paris, instead of,
+woman-like, trying to smuggle it through the custom-house. It broke the
+heart of pretty nearly every inspector in the service. She'd been watched
+very carefully by the detective bureau in Paris, and when she purchased the
+rope there, the news of it was cabled over in cipher, so that they'd all be
+on the lookout for it when she came in. The whole force on the pier was on
+the qui vive, and one of the most expert women searchers on the pay-roll was
+detailed to give her special attention the minute she set foot on shore; but
+instead of doing as they all believed she would do, and giving the
+inspectors a chance to catch her at trying to evade the duties, to their
+very great profit, she calmly and coolly declared the stuff, paid her little
+sixty-five per cent. like a major, and drove off to the Castoria in full
+possession of her jewels. The Collector of the Port had all he could do to
+keep 'em from draping the custom-house for thirty days, they were all so
+grief-stricken. She'll probably take the rope to Atlantic City with her."
+
+"Aha!" said I. "That's the milk in the cocoanut, is it? You're after that
+pearl rope, are you, Raffles?"
+
+"On my honor as a Holmes," said he, "I am not. I shall not touch the pearl
+rope, although I have no doubt that I shall have some unhappy moments during
+the week that I am in the same hotel with it. That's one reason why I'd like
+to have you go along, Jenkins--just to keep me out of temptation. Raffles
+may need more than Holmes to keep him out of mischief. I am confident,
+however, that with you to watch out for me, I shall be able to suppress the
+strong tendency towards evil which at times besets me."
+
+"We'd better keep out of it altogether, Holmes," said I, not liking the
+weight of responsibility for his good behavior that more than once he had
+placed on my shoulders. "You don't deny, I suppose, that the pearl rope is a
+factor in your intentions, whatever they may be."
+
+"Of course I don't, Jenkins," was his response. "If it were not for her
+pearl rope, Mrs. Wilbraham Ward-Smythe could go anywhere she pleased without
+attracting any more attention from me than a passing motor-car. It would be
+futile for me to deny that, as a matter of fact, the pearl rope is an
+essential part of my scheme, and, even if it were not futile to do so, I
+should still not deny it, because neither my father nor my grandfather,
+Holmes nor Raffles, ever forgot that a gentleman does not lie."
+
+"Then count me out," said I.
+
+"Even if there is $7500 in it for you?" he said, with a twinkle in his eye.
+
+"If it were $107,500 you could still count me out," I retorted. "I don't
+like the business."
+
+"Very well," said he, with a sight. "I shall have to go alone and endeavor
+to fight the terrible temptation unaided, with a strong probability that I
+shall fail, and, yielding to it, commit my first real act of crime, and in
+that event, with the possibility of a term at Trenton prison, if I am
+caught."
+
+"Give it up, Raffles," I pleaded.
+
+"And all because, in the hour of my need, my best friend, whose aid I
+begged, refused me," he went on, absolutely ignoring my plea.
+
+"Oh, well, if you put it on that score," I said, "I'll go--but you must
+promise me not to touch the pearls."
+
+"I'll do my best not to," he replied. "As usual, you have carte-blanche to
+put me out of business if you catch me trying it."
+
+With this understanding I accompanied Raffles Holmes to Atlantic City the
+following afternoon, and the following evening we were registered at the
+Hotel Garrymore.
+
+Holmes was not mistaken in his belief that Mrs. Wilbraham Ward-Smythe would
+take her famous pearl rope to Atlantic City with her. That very evening,
+while we were sitting at dinner, the lady entered, and draped about her
+stately neck and shoulders was the thing itself, and a more beautiful
+decoration was never worn by woman from the days of the Queen of Sheba to
+this day of lavish display in jewels. It was a marvel, indeed, but the
+moment I saw it I ceased to give the lady credit for superior virtue in
+failing to smuggle it through the custom-house, for its very size would have
+precluded the possibility of a successful issue to any such attempted
+evasion of the law. It was too bulky to have been secreted in any of the
+ordinary ways known to smugglers. Hence her candid acknowledgment of its
+possession was less an evidence of the lady's superiority to the majority of
+her sex in the matter of "beating the government" than of her having been
+confronted with the proverbial choice of the unidentified Hobson.
+
+"By Jove! Jenkins," Raffles Holmes muttered, hoarsely, as Mrs. Ward-Smythe
+paraded the length of the dining-room, as fairly corruscating with her rich
+possessions as though she were a jeweller's window incarnate, "it's a
+positive crime for a woman to appear in a place like this arrayed like that.
+What right has she to subject poor weak humanity to such temptation as now
+confronts every servant in this hotel, to say nothing of guests, who, like
+ourselves, are made breathless with such lavish display? There's poor old
+Tommie Bankson over there, for instance. See how he gloats over those
+pearls. He's fairly red-eyed over them."
+
+I glanced across the dining-room, and sure enough, there sat Tommie Bankson,
+and even from where we were placed we could see his hands tremble with the
+itch for possession, and his lips go dry with excitement as he thought of
+the material assets in full view under the glare of the dining-room electric
+lights.
+
+"I happen to know on the inside," continued Holmes, "that Tommie is not only
+a virtual bankrupt through stock speculation, but is actually face to face
+with criminal disgrace for misuse of trust funds, all of which he could
+escape if he could lay his hands upon half the stuff that woman is so
+carelessly wearing to-night. Do you think it's fair to wear, for the mere
+gratification of one's vanity, things that arouse in the hearts of less
+fortunate beings such passionate reflections and such dire temptations as
+those which are now besetting that man?"
+
+"I guess we've got enough to do looking after Raffles to-night, old man,
+without wasting any of our nerve-tissue on Tommie Bankson," I replied. "Come
+on--let's get out of this. We'll go over to the Pentagon for the night, and
+to-morrow we'll shake the sands of Atlantic City from our feet and hie
+ourselves back to New York, where the temptations are not so strong."
+
+"It's too late," said Raffles Holmes. "I've set out on this adventure and
+I'm going to put it through. I wouldn't give up in the middle of an
+enterprise of this sort any more than I would let a balky horse refuse to
+take a fence I'd put him to. It's going to be harder than I thought, but
+we're in it, and I shall stay to the end."
+
+"What the devil is the adventure, anyhow?" I demanded, impatiently. "You
+vowed you wouldn't touch the rope."
+
+"I hope not to," was his response. "It is up to you to see that I don't. My
+plan does not involve my laying hands upon even the shadow of it."
+
+So we stayed on at the Garrymore, and a worse week I never had anywhere.
+With every glimpse of that infernal jewel the Raffles in Holmes became
+harder and harder to control. In the daytime he was all right, but when
+night came on he was feverish with the desire to acquire possession of the
+pearls. Twice in the middle of the night I caught him endeavoring to sneak
+out of our room, and upon each occasion, when I rushed after him and forced
+him back, he made no denial of my charge that he was going after the jewel.
+The last time it involved us both in such a terrible struggle that I vowed
+then and there that the following morning should see my departure.
+
+"I can't stand the strain, Holmes," said I.
+
+"Well, if you can't stand _your_ strain," said Raffles Holmes, "what do you
+think of mine?"
+
+"The thing to do is to get out, that's all," I retorted. "I won't have a
+nerve left in twenty-four hours. For four nights now I haven't had a
+minute's normal sleep, and this fight you've just put up has regularly
+knocked me out."
+
+"One more day Jenkins," he pleaded. "She goes day after to-morrow, and so do
+we."
+
+"We?" I cried. "After her?"
+
+"Nope--she to Chicago--we to New York," said Holmes. "Stick it out, there's
+a good fellow," and of course I yielded.
+
+The next day--Sunday--was one of feverish excitement, but we got through it
+without mishap, and on Monday morning it was with a sigh of relief that I
+saw Mrs. Wilbraham Ward-Smythe pull out of the Philadelphia station en route
+for Chicago, while Raffles Holmes and I returned to New York.
+
+"Well, Raffles," said I, as we sped on our homeward way, "we've had our
+trouble for our pains."
+
+He laughed crisply. "Have we?" said he. "I guess not--not unless you have
+lost the trunk check the porter gave you."
+
+"What, this brass thing?" I demanded, taking the check from my pocket and
+flicking it in the air like a penny.
+
+"That very brass thing," said Holmes.
+
+"You haven't lifted that damned rope and put it in my trunk!" I roared.
+
+"Hush, Jenkins! For Heaven's sake don't make a scene. I haven't done
+anything of the sort," he whispered, looking about him anxiously to make
+sure that we had not been overheard. "Those pearls are as innocent of my
+touch as the top of the Himalaya Mountains is of yours."
+
+"Then what have you done?" I demanded, sulkily.
+
+"Just changed a couple of trunk checks, that's all," said Raffles Holmes.
+"That bit of brass you have in your hand, which was handed to you in the
+station by the porter of the Garrymore, when presented at Jersey City will
+put you in possession of Mrs. Wilbraham Ward-Smythe's trunk, containing the
+bulk of her jewels. She's a trifle careless about her possessions, as any
+one could see who watched the nonchalant way in which she paraded the board
+walk with a small fortune on her neck and fingers. Most women would carry
+such things in a small hand-satchel, or at least have the trunk sent by
+registered express, but not Mrs. Wilbraham Ward-Smythe; and, thanks to her
+loud voice, listening outside of her door last night, I heard her directing
+her maid where she wished the gems packed."
+
+"And where the dickens is my trunk?" I asked.
+
+"On the way to Chicago," said Raffles Holmes, calmly. "Mrs. Wilbraham Ward-
+Smythe has the check for it."
+
+"Safe business!" I sneered. "Bribed the porter, I presume?"
+
+"Jenkins, you are exceedingly uncomplimentary at times," said Raffles
+Holmes, showing more resentment than I had ever given him credit for.
+"Perhaps you observed that I didn't go to the station in the omnibus."
+
+"No, you went over to the drug-store after some phenacetine for your
+headache," said I.
+
+"Precisely," said Holmes, "and after purchasing the phenacetine I jumped
+aboard the Garrymore express-wagon and got a lift over to the station. It
+was during that ride that I transferred Mrs. Ward-Smythe's check from her
+trunk to yours, and vice versa. It's one of the easiest jobs in the Raffles
+business, especially at this season of the year, when travel is heavy and
+porters are overworked."
+
+"I'll see the trunk in the Hudson River, pearl rope and all, before I'll
+claim it at Jersey City or anywhere else," said I.
+
+"Perfectly right," Holmes returned. "We'll hand the check to the expressman
+when he comes through the train, and neither of us need appear further in
+the matter. It will merely be delivered at your apartment."
+
+"Why not yours?" said I.
+
+"Raffles!" said he, laconically, and I understood.
+
+"And then what?" I asked.
+
+"Let it alone, unopened, safe as a church, until Mrs. Wilbraham Ward-Smythe
+discovers her loss, which will be to-morrow afternoon, and then--"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Mr. Holmes will step in, unravel the mystery, prove it to be a mere
+innocent mistake, collect about ten or fifteen thousand dollars reward,
+divvy up with you, and the decks will be cleared for what turns up next,"
+said this wonderful player of dangerous games. "And, as a beginning,
+Jenkins, please sign this," he added.
+
+Holmes handed me a typewritten-letter which read as follows.
+
+"THE RICHMORE, June 30, 1905.
+"Raffles Holmes, Esq..
+"DEAR SIR,--I enclose herewith my check for $1000 as a retainer for your
+services in locating for me a missing trunk, which contains articles which I
+value at $10,000. This trunk was checked through to New York from Atlantic
+City on Monday last, 9.40 train, and has not since been found. Whether or
+not it has been stolen, or has gone astray in some wholly innocent manner,
+is not as yet clear. I know of no one better equipped for the task of
+finding it for me than yourself, who, I am given to understand, are the son
+of the famous Sherlock Holmes of England. The check represents the ten per
+cent. commission on the value of the lost articles, which I believe is the
+customary fee for services such as I seek.
+Very truly yours."
+
+"What are you going to do with this?" I demanded.
+
+"Send it as an enclosure to Mrs. Wilbraham Ward-Smythe, showing my
+credentials as your agent, in asking her if by any mischance your trunk has
+got mixed in with her luggage," observed Holmes. "For form's sake, I shall
+send it to twenty or thirty other people known to have left Atlantic City
+the same day. Moreover, it will suggest the idea to Mrs. Wilbraham Ward-Smythe
+that I am a good man to locate her trunk also, and the delicate
+intimation of my terms will--"
+
+"Aha! I see," said I. "And my thousand-dollar check to you?"
+
+"I shall, of course, keep," observed Holmes. "You want the whole business to
+be bona fide, don't you? It would be unscrupulous for you to ask for its
+return."
+
+I didn't exactly like the idea, but, after all, there was much in what
+Holmes said, and the actual risk of my own capital relieved my conscience of
+the suspicion that by signing the letter I should become a partner in a
+confidence game. Hence I signed the note, mailed it to Raffles Holmes,
+enclosing my check for $1000 with it.
+
+Three days later Holmes entered my room with a broad grin on his face.
+
+"How's this for business?" said he, handing me a letter he had received that
+morning from Chicago.
+
+"DEAR SIR,--I am perfectly delighted to receive your letter of July 1. I
+think I have Mr. Jenkins's missing trunk. What pleases me most, however, is
+the possibility of your recovering mine, which also went astray at the same
+time. It contained articles of even greater value than Mr. Jenkins's--my
+pearl rope, among other things, which is appraised at $130,000. Do you think
+there is any chance of your recovering it for me? I enclose my check for
+$5000 as a retainer. The balance of your ten per cent. fee I shall gladly
+pay on receipt of my missing luggage.
+"Most sincerely yours,
+"MAUDE WARD-SMYTHE."
+
+"I rather think, my dear Jenkins," observed Raffles Holmes, "that we have
+that $13,000 reward cinched."
+
+"There's $7000 for you, Jenkins," said Holmes, a week later, handing me his
+check for that amount. "Easy money that. It only took two weeks to turn the
+trick, and $14,000 for fourteen days' work is pretty fair pay. If we could
+count on that for a steady income I think I'd be able to hold Raffles down
+without your assistance."
+
+"You got fourteen thousand, eh?" said I. "I thought it was only to be
+$13,000."
+
+"It was fourteen thousand counting in your $1000," said Raffles Holmes. "You
+see, I'm playing on the square, old man. Half and half in everything."
+
+I squeezed his hand affectionately.
+
+"But--he-ew!" I ejaculated, with a great feeling of relief. "I'm glad the
+thing's over with.
+
+"So am I," said Holmes, with a glitter in his eye. "If we'd kept that trunk
+in this apartment another day there'd have been trouble. I had a piece of
+lead-pipe up my sleeve when I called here Tuesday night."
+
+"What for?" I asked.
+
+"You!" said Raffles Holmes. "If you hadn't had that poker-party with you I'd
+have knocked you out and gone to China with the Ward-Smythe jewels. Sherlock
+Holmes stock was 'way below par Tuesday night."
+
+
+
+VI
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE HIRED BURGLAR
+
+I had not seen Raffles Holmes for some weeks, nor had I heard from him,
+although I had faithfully remitted to his address his share of the literary
+proceeds of his adventures as promptly as circumstances permitted--$600 on
+the first tale, $920 on the second, and no less than $1800 on the third,
+showing a constantly growing profit on our combination from my side of the
+venture. These checks had not even been presented for payment at the bank.
+Fearing from this that he might be ill, I called at Holmes's lodgings in the
+Rexmere, a well-established bachelor apartment hotel, on Forty-fourth
+Street, to inquire as to the state of his health. The clerk behind the desk
+greeted my cordially as I entered, and bade me go at once to Holmes's
+apartment on the eighteenth floor, which I immediately proceeded to do.
+
+"Here is Mr. Holmes's latch-key, sir," said the clerk. "He told me you were
+to have access to his apartment at any time."
+
+"He is in, is he?" I asked.
+
+"I really don't know, sir. I will call up and inquire, if you wish," replied
+the clerk.
+
+"Oh, never mind," said I. "I'll go up, anyhow, and if he is out, I'll wait."
+
+So up I went, and a few moments later had entered the apartment. As the door
+opened, the little private hallway leading to his den at the rear burst into
+a flood of light, and from an inner room, the entrance to which was closed,
+I could hear Holmes's voice cheerily carolling out snatches of such popular
+airs as "Tammany" and "Ef Yo' Habn't Got No Money Yo' Needn't Bodder Me."
+
+I laughed quietly and at the same time breathed a sigh of relief. It was
+very evident from the tone of his voice that there was nothing serious the
+matter with my friend and partner.
+
+"Hullo, Raffles!" I called out, knocking on the door to the inner room.
+
+     "Tam-ma-nee, Tam-ma-nee;
+     Swampum, swampum,
+     Get their wampum,
+     Tam-ma-nee,"
+
+was the sole answer, and in such fortissimo tones that I was not surprised
+that he did not hear me.
+
+"Oh, I say, Raffles," I hallooed, rapping on the door again, this time with
+the head of my cane. "It's Jenkins, old man. Came to look you up. Was afraid
+something had happened to you."
+
+     "'Way down upon the Suwanee River,
+     Far, far away,
+     Dere's whar my heart am turnin' ever,
+     Dere's whar de ole folks stay,"
+
+was the reply.
+
+Again I laughed.
+
+"He's suffering from a bad attack of coonitis this evening," I observed to
+myself. "Looks to me as if I'd have to let it run its course."
+
+Whereupon I retired to a very comfortable couch near the window and sat down
+to await the termination of the musical.
+
+Five minutes later the singing having shown no signs of abatement I became
+impatient, and a third assault on the door followed, this time with cane,
+hands, and toes in unison.
+
+"I'll have him out this time or die!" I ejaculated, filled with resolve, and
+then began such a pounding upon the door as should have sufficed to awake a
+dead Raffles, not to mention a living one.
+
+"Hi, there, Jenkins!" cried a voice behind me, in the midst of this
+operation, identically the same voice, too, as that still going on in the
+room in front of me. "What the dickens are you trying to do--batter the
+house down?"
+
+I whirled about like a flash, and was deeply startled to see Raffles himself
+standing by the divan I had just vacated, divesting himself of his gloves
+and light overcoat.
+
+"You--Raffles?" I roared in astonishment.
+
+"Yep," said he. "Who else?"
+
+"But the--the other chap--in the room there?"
+
+"Oh," laughed Raffles. "That's my alibi-prover--hold on a minute and I'll
+show you."
+
+Whereupon he unlocked the door into the bedroom, whence had come the tuneful
+lyrics, threw it wide open, and revealed to my astonished gaze no less an
+object than a large talking-machine still engaged in the strenuous
+fulfilment of its noisy mission.
+
+"What the dickens!" I said.
+
+"It's attached to my front-door," said Raffles, silencing the machine. "The
+minute the door is opened it begins to sing like the four-and-twenty
+blackbirds baked in a pie."
+
+"But what good is it?" said I.
+
+"Oh, well--it keeps the servants from spending too much time in my
+apartment, snooping among my papers, perhaps; and it my some day come in
+useful in establishing an alibi if things go wrong with me. You'd have sworn
+I was in there just now, wouldn't you?"
+
+"I would indeed," said I.
+
+"Well--you see, I wasn't, so there you are," said Raffles Holmes. "By-the-way,
+you've come at an interesting moment. There'll be things doing before
+the evening is over. I've had an anxious caller here five times already
+to-day. I've been standing in the barber-shop opposite getting a line on him.
+His card name is Grouch, his real name is--"
+
+Here Raffles Holmes leaned forward and whispered in my ear a name of such
+eminent respectability that I fairly gasped.
+
+"You don't mean _the_ Mr. ----"
+
+"Nobody else," said Raffles Holmes. "Only he don't know I know who he is.
+The third time Grouch called I trailed him to Blank's house, and then
+recognized him as Blank himself."
+
+"And what does he want with you?" I asked.
+
+"That remains to be seen," said Raffles Holmes. "All I know is that next
+Tuesday he will be required to turn over $100,000 unregistered bonds to a
+young man about to come of age, for whom he has been a trustee."
+
+"Aha!" said I. "And you think--"
+
+"I don't think, Jenkins, until the time comes. Gray matter is scarce these
+times, and I'm not wasting any of mine on unnecessary speculation," said
+Raffles Holmes.
+
+At this point the telephone-bell rang and Raffles answered the summons.
+
+"Yes, I'll see Mr. Grouch. Show him up," he said. "It would be mighty
+interesting reading if some newspaper showed him up," he added, with a grin,
+as he returned. "By-the-way, Jenkins, I think you'd better go in there and
+have a half-hour's chat with the talking-machine. I have an idea old man
+Grouch won't have much to say with a third party present. Listen all you
+want to, but don't breathe too loud or you'll frighten him away."
+
+I immediately retired, and a moment later Mr. Grouch entered Raffles
+Holmes's den.
+
+"Glad to see you," said Raffles Holmes, cordially. "I was wondering how soon
+you'd be here."
+
+"You expected me, then?" asked the visitor, in surprise.
+
+"Yes," said Holmes. "Next Tuesday is young Wilbraham's twenty-first
+birthday, and--"
+
+Peering through a crack in the door I could see Grouch stagger.
+
+"You--you know my errand, then?" he gasped out.
+
+"Only roughly, Mr. Grouch," said Holmes, coolly. "Only roughly. But I am
+very much afraid that I can't do what you want me to. Those bonds are
+doubtless in some broker's box in a safe-deposit company, and I don't
+propose to try to borrow them surreptitiously, even temporarily, from an
+incorporated institution. It is not only a dangerous but a criminal
+operation. Does your employer know that you have taken them?"
+
+"My employer?" stammered Grouch, taken off his guard.
+
+"Yes. Aren't you the confidential secretary of Mr. ----?" Here Holmes
+mentioned the name of the eminent financier and philanthropist. No one would
+have suspected, from the tone of his voice, that Holmes was perfectly aware
+that Grouch and the eminent financier were one and the same person. The idea
+seemed to please and steady the visitor.
+
+"Why--ah--yes--I am Mr. Blank's confidential secretary," he blurted out.
+"And--ah--of course Mr. Blank does not know that I have speculated with the
+bonds and lost them."
+
+"The bonds are--"
+
+"In the hands of Bunker & Burke. I had hoped you would be able to suggest
+some way in which I could get hold of them long enough to turn them over to
+young Wilbraham, and then, in some other way, to restore them later to
+Bunker & Burke."
+
+"That is impossible," said Raffles Holmes. "For the reasons stated, I cannot
+be party to a criminal operation."
+
+"It will mean ruin for me if it cannot be done," moaned Grouch. "For Mr.
+Blank as well, Mr. Holmes; he is so deep in the market he can't possibly
+pull out. I thought possibly you knew of some reformed cracksman who would
+do this one favor for me just to tide things over. All we need is three
+weeks' time--three miserable little weeks."
+
+"Can't be done with a safe-deposit company at the other end of the line,"
+said Raffles Holmes. "If it were Mr. Blank's own private vault at his home
+it would be different. That would be a matter between gentlemen, between Mr.
+Blank and myself, but the other would put a corporation on the trail of the
+safe-breaker--an uncompromising situation."
+
+Grouch's eye glistened.
+
+"You know a man who, for a consideration and with a guarantee against
+prosecution, would break open my--I mean Mr. Blank's private vault?" he
+cried.
+
+"I think so," said Raffles Holmes, noncommittally. "Not as a crime, however,
+merely as a favor, and with the lofty purpose of saving an honored name from
+ruin. My advice to you would be to put a dummy package, supposed to contain
+the missing bonds, along with about $30,000 worth of other securities in
+that vault, and so arrange matters that on the night preceding the date of
+young Wilbraham's majority, the man I will send you shall have the
+opportunity to crack it open and get away with the stuff unmolested and
+unseen. Next day young Wilbraham will see for himself why it is that Mr.
+Blank cannot turn over the trust. That is the only secure and I may say
+decently honest way out of your trouble."
+
+"Mr. Raffles Holmes, you are a genius!" cried Grouch, ecstatically. And then
+he calmed down again as an unpleasant thought flashed across his mind. "Why
+is it necessary to put $30,000 additional in the safe, Mr. Holmes?"
+
+"Simply as a blind," said Holmes. "Young Wilbraham would be suspicious if
+the burglar got away with nothing but his property, wouldn't he?"
+
+"Quite so," said Grouch. "And now, Mr. Holmes, what will this service cost
+me?"
+
+"Five thousand dollars," said Holmes.
+
+"Phe-e-e-w!" whistled Grouch. "Isn't that pretty steep?"
+
+"No, Mr. Grouch. I save two reputations--yours and Mr. Blank's. Twenty-five
+hundred dollars is not much to pay for a reputation these days--I mean a
+real one, of course, such as yours is up to date," said Holmes, coldly.
+
+"Payable by certified check?" said Grouch.
+
+"Not much," laughed Holmes. "In twenty-dollar bills, Mr. Grouch. You may
+leave them in the safe along with the other valuables."
+
+"Thank you, Mr. Holmes," said Grouch, rising. "It shall be as you say.
+Before I go, sir, may I ask how you knew me and by what principle of
+deduction you came to guess my business so accurately?"
+
+"It was simple enough," said Holmes. "I knew, in the first place, that so
+eminent a person as Mr. Blank would not come to me in the guise of a Mr.
+Grouch if he hadn't some very serious trouble on his mind. I knew, from
+reading the society items in the _Whirald_, that Mr. Bobby Wilbraham would
+celebrate the attainment of his majority by a big fête on the 17th of next
+month. Everybody knows that Mr. Blank is Mr. Wilbraham's trustee until he
+comes of age. It was easy enough to surmise from that what the nature of the
+trouble was. Two and two almost invariably make four, Mr. Grouch."
+
+"And how the devil," demanded Grouch, angrily--"how the devil did you know I
+was Blank?"
+
+"Mr. Blank passes the plate at the church I go to every Sunday," said
+Holmes, laughing, "and it would take a great sight more than a two-dollar
+wig and a pair of fifty-cent whiskers to conceal that pompous manner of
+his."
+
+"Tush! You would better not make me angry, Mr. Holmes," said Grouch,
+reddening.
+
+"You can get as angry as you think you can afford to, for all I care, Mr.
+Blank," said Holmes. "It's none of my funeral, you know."
+
+And so the matter was settled. The unmasked Blank, seeing that wrath was
+useless, calmed down and accepted Holmes's terms and method for his relief.
+
+"I'll have my man there at 4 A.M., October 17th, Mr. Blank," said Holmes.
+"See that your end of it is ready. The coast must be kept clear or the
+scheme falls through."
+
+Grouch went heavily out, and Holmes called me back into the room.
+
+"Jenkins," said he, "that man is one of the biggest scoundrels in creation,
+and I'm going to give him a jolt."
+
+"Where are you going to get the retired burglar?" I asked.
+
+"Sir," returned Raffles Holmes, "this is to be a personally conducted
+enterprise. It's a job worthy of my grandsire on my mother's side. Raffles
+will turn the trick."
+
+And it turned out so to be, for the affair went through without a hitch. The
+night of October 16th I spend at Raffles's apartments. He was as calm as
+though nothing unusual were on hand. He sang songs, played the piano, and up
+to midnight was as gay and skittish as a school-boy on vacation. As twelve
+o'clock struck, however, he sobered down, put on his hat and coat, and,
+bidding me remain where I was, departed by means of the fire-escape.
+
+"Keep up the talk, Jenkins," he said. "The walls are thin here, and it's
+just as well, in matters of this sort, that our neighbors should have the
+impression that I have _not_ gone out. I've filled the machine up with a
+choice lot of songs and small-talk to take care of my end of it. A
+consolidated gas company, like yourself, should have no difficulty in
+filling in the gaps."
+
+And with that he left me to as merry and withal as nervous a three hours as
+I ever spent in my life. Raffles had indeed filled that talking-machine--
+thirteen full cylinders of it--with as choice an assortment of causeries and
+humorous anecdotes as any one could have wished to hear. Now and again it
+would bid me cheer up and not worry about him. Once, along about 2 A.M., it
+cried out: "You ought to see me now, Jenkins. I'm right in the middle of
+this Grouch job, and it's a dandy. I'll teach _him_ a lesson." The effect of
+all this was most uncanny. It was as if Raffles Holmes himself spoke to me
+from the depths of that dark room in the Blank household, where he was
+engaged in an enterprise of dreadful risk merely to save the good name of
+one who no longer deserved to bear such a thing. In spite of all this,
+however, as the hours passed I began to grow more and more nervous. The
+talking-machine sang and chattered, but when four o'clock came and Holmes
+had not yet returned, I became almost frenzied with excitement--and then at
+the climax of the tension came the flash of his dark-lantern on the fire-escape,
+and he climbed heavily into the room.
+
+"Thank Heaven you're back," I cried.
+
+"You have reason to," said Holmes, sinking into a chair. "Give me some
+whiskey. That man Blank is a worse scoundrel than I took him for."
+
+"What's happened?" I asked. "Didn't he play square?"
+
+"No," said Holmes, breathing heavily. "He waited until I had busted the
+thing open and was on my way out in the dark hall, and then pounced on me
+with his butler and valet. I bowled the butler down the kitchen stairs, and
+sent the valet howling into the dining-room with an appendicitis jab in the
+stomach and had the pleasure of blacking both of Mr. Blank's eyes."
+
+"And the stuff?"
+
+"Right here," said Holmes, tapping his chest. "I was afraid something might
+happen on the way out and I kept both hands free. I haven't much confidence
+in philanthropists like Blank. Fortunately the scrimmage was in the dark, so
+Blank will never know who hit him."
+
+"What are you going to do with the $35,000?" I queried, as we went over the
+booty later and found it all there.
+
+"Don't know--haven't made up my mind," said Holmes, laconically. "I'm too
+tired to think about that now. It's me for bed." And with that he turned in.
+
+Two days later, about nine o'clock in the evening, Mr. Grouch again called,
+and Holmes received him courteously.
+
+"Well, Mr. Holmes," Grouch observed, unctuously, rubbing his hands together,
+"it was a nice job, neatly done. It saved the day for me. Wilbraham was
+satisfied, and has given me a whole year to make good the loss. My
+reputation is saved, and--"
+
+"Excuse me, Mr. Blank--or Grouch--er--to what do you refer?" asked Holmes.
+
+"Why, our little transaction of Monday night--or was it Tuesday morning?"
+said Grouch.
+
+"Oh--that!" said Holmes. "Well, I'm glad to hear you managed to pull it off
+satisfactorily. I was a little worried about it. I was afraid you were done
+for."
+
+"Done for?" said Grouch. "No, indeed. The little plan when off without a
+hitch."
+
+"Good," said Holmes. "I congratulate you. _Whom did you get to do the job?_"
+
+"Who--what--what--why, what do you mean, Mr. Holmes?" gasped Grouch.
+
+"Precisely what I say--or maybe you don't like to tell me--such things are
+apt to be on a confidential basis. Anyhow, I'm glad you're safe, Mr. Grouch,
+and I hope your troubles are over."
+
+"They will be when you give me back my $30,000," said Grouch.
+
+"Your what?" demanded Holmes, with well-feigned surprise.
+
+"My $30,000," repeated Blank, his voice rising to a shout.
+
+"My dear Mr. Grouch," said Holmes, "how should I know anything about your
+$30,000?"
+
+"Didn't your--your man take it?" demanded Grouch, huskily.
+
+"My man? Really, Mr. Grouch, you speak in riddles this evening. Pray make
+yourself more clear."
+
+"Your reformed burglar, who broke open my safe, and--" Grouch went on.
+
+"I have no such man, Mr. Grouch."
+
+"Didn't you send a man to my house, Mr. Raffles, to break open my safe, and
+take certain specified parcels of negotiable property therefrom?" said
+Grouch, rising and pounding the table with his fists.
+
+"_I did not!_" returned Holmes, with equal emphasis. "I have never in my
+life sent anybody to your house, sir."
+
+"Then who in the name of Heaven did?" roared Grouch. "The stuff is gone."
+
+Holmes shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"I am willing," said he, calmly, "to undertake to find out who did it, if
+anybody, if that is what you mean, Mr. Grouch. Ferreting out crime is my
+profession. Otherwise, I beg to assure you that my interest in the case
+ceases at this moment."
+
+Here Holmes rose with quiet dignity and walked to the door.
+
+"You will find me at my office in the morning, Mr. Grouch." he remarked, "in
+case you wish to consult me professionally."
+
+"Hah!" sneered Grouch. "You think you can put me off this way, do you?"
+
+"I think so," said Holmes, with a glittering eye. "No gentleman or other
+person may try to raise a disturbance in my private apartments and remain
+there."
+
+"We'll see what the police have to say about this, Mr. Raffles Holmes,"
+Grouch shrieked, as he made for the door.
+
+"Very well," said Holmes. "I've no doubt they will find our discussion of
+the other sinners very interesting. They are welcome to the whole story as
+far as I am concerned."
+
+And he closed the door on the ashen face of the suffering Mr. Grouch.
+
+
+
+"What shall I do with your share of the $30,000, Jenkins?" said Raffles
+Holmes a week later.
+
+"Anything you please," said I. "Only don't offer any of it to me. I can't
+question the abstract justice of your mulcting old Blank for the amount,
+but, somehow or other, I don't want any of it myself. Send it to the Board
+of Foreign Missions."
+
+"Good!" said Holmes. "That's what I've done with my share. See!"
+
+And he showed me an evening paper in which the board conveyed its
+acknowledgment of the generosity of an unknown donor of the princely sum of
+$15,000.
+
+
+
+VII
+THE REDEMPTION OF YOUNG BILLINGTON RAND
+
+"Jenkins," said Raffles Holmes, lighting his pipe and throwing himself down
+upon my couch, "don't you sometimes pine for those good old days of Jack
+Sheppard and Dick Turpin? Hang it all--I'm getting blisteringly tired of the
+modern refinements in crime, and yearn for the period when the highwayman
+met you on the road and made you stand and deliver at the point of the
+pistol."
+
+"Indeed I don't!" I ejaculated. "I'm not chicken-livered, Raffles, but I'm
+mighty glad my lines are cast in less strenuous scenes. When a book-agent
+comes in here, for instance, and holds me up for nineteen dollars a volume
+for a set of Kipling in words of one syllable, illustrated by his aunt, and
+every volume autographed by his uncle's step-sister, it's a game of wits
+between us as to whether I shall buy or not buy, and if he gets away with my
+signature to a contract it is because he has legitimately outwitted me. But
+your ancient Turpin overcame you by brute force; you hadn't a run for your
+money from the moment he got his eye on you, and no percentage of the swag
+was ever returned to you as in the case of the Double-Cross Edition of
+Kipling, in which you get at least fifty cents worth of paper and print for
+every nineteen dollars you give up."
+
+"That is merely the commercial way of looking at it," protested Holmes. "You
+reckon up the situation on a basis of mere dollars, strike a balance and
+charge the thing up to profit and loss. But the romance of it all, the
+element of the picturesque, the delicious, tingling sense of adventure which
+was inseparable from a road experience with a commanding personality like
+Turpin--these things are all lost in your prosaic book-agent methods of our
+day. No man writing his memoirs for the enlightenment of posterity would
+ever dream of setting down upon paper the story of how a book-agent robbed
+him of two-hundred dollars, but the chap who has been held up in the dark
+recesses of a forest on a foggy night by a Jack Sheppard would always find
+breathless and eager listeners to or readers of the tale he had to tell,
+even if he lost only a nickel by the transaction."
+
+"Well, old man," said I, "I'm satisfied with the prosaic methods of the gas
+companies, the book-agents, and the riggers of the stock-market. Give me
+Wall Street and you take Dick Turpin and all his crew. But what has set your
+mind to working on the Dick Turpin end of it anyhow? Thinking of going in
+for that sort of thing yourself?"
+
+"M-m-m yes," replied Holmes, hesitatingly. "I am. Not that I pine to become
+one of the Broom Squires myself, but because I--well, I may be forced into
+it."
+
+"Take my advice, Raffles," I interrupted, earnestly. "Let fire-arms and
+highways alone. There's too much of battle, murder, and sudden death in
+loaded guns, and surplus of publicity in street work."
+
+"You mustn't take me so literally, Jenkins," he retorted. "I'm not going to
+follow precisely in the steps of Turpin, but a hold-up on the public highway
+seems to be the only way out of a problem which I have been employed to
+settle. Do you know young Billington Rand?"
+
+"By sight," said I, with a laugh. "And by reputation. You're not going to
+hold him up, are you?" I added, contemptuously.
+
+"Why not?" said Holmes.
+
+"It's like breaking into an empty house in search of antique furniture," I
+explained. "Common report has it that Billington Rand has already been
+skinned by about every skinning agency in town. He's posted at all his
+clubs. Every gambler in town, professional as well as social, has his
+I.O.U.'s for bridge, poker, and faro debts. Everybody knows it except those
+fatuous people down in the Kenesaw National Bank, where he's employed, and
+the Fidelity Company that's on his bond. He wouldn't last five minutes in
+either place if his uncle wasn't a director in both concerns."
+
+"I see that you have a pretty fair idea of Billington Rand's financial
+condition," said Holmes.
+
+"It's rather common talk in the clubs, so why shouldn't I?" I put in.
+"Holding him up would be at most an act of petit larceny, if you measure a
+crime by what you get out of it. It's a great shame, though, for at heart
+Rand is one of the best fellows in the world. He's a man who has all the
+modern false notions of what a fellow ought to do to keep up what he calls
+his end. He plays cards and sustains ruinous losses because he thinks he
+won't be considered a good-fellow if he stays out. He plays bridge with
+ladies and pays up when he loses and doesn't collect when he wins. Win or
+lose he's doomed to be on the wrong side of the market just because of those
+very qualities that make him a lovable person--kind to everybody but
+himself, and weak as dish-water. For Heaven's sake, Raffles, if the poor
+devil _has_ anything left don't take it from him."
+
+"Your sympathy for Rand does you credit," said Holmes. "But I have just as
+much of that as you have, and that is why, at half-past five o'clock to-
+morrow afternoon, I'm going to hold him up, in the public eye, and
+incontinently rob him of $25,000."
+
+"Twenty-five thousand dollars? Billington Rand?" I gasped.
+
+"Twenty-five thousand dollars. Billington Rand," repeated Holmes, firmly.
+"If you don't believe it come along and see. He doesn't know you, does he?"
+
+"Not from Adam," said I.
+
+"Very good--then you'll be safe as a church. Meet me in the Fifth Avenue
+Hotel corridor at five to-morrow afternoon and I'll show you as pretty a
+hold-up as you ever dreamed of," said Holmes.
+
+"But--I can't take part in a criminal proceeding like that, Holmes," I
+protested.
+
+"You won't have to--even if it were a criminal proceeding, which it is not,"
+he returned. "Nobody outside of you and me will know anything about it but
+Rand himself, and the chances that he will peach are less than a millionth
+part of a half per cent. Anyhow, all you need be is a witness."
+
+There was a long and uneasy silence. I was far from liking the job, but
+after all, so far, Holmes had not led me into any difficulties of a serious
+nature, and, knowing him as I had come to know him, I had a hearty belief
+that any wrong he did was temporary and was sure to be rectified in the long
+run.
+
+"I've a decent motive in all this, Jenkins," he resumed in a few moments.
+"Don't forget that. This hold-up is going to result in a reformation that
+will be for the good of everybody, so don't have any scruples on that
+score."
+
+"All right, Raffles," said I. "You've always played straight with me, so
+far, and I don't doubt your word--only I hate the highway end of it."
+
+"Tutt, Jenkins!" he ejaculated, with a laugh and giving me a whack on the
+shoulders that nearly toppled me over into the fire-place. "Don't be a
+rabbit. The thing will be as easy as cutting calve's-foot jelly with a
+razor."
+
+Thus did I permit myself to be persuaded, and the next afternoon at five,
+Holmes and I met in the corridor of the Fifth Avenue Hotel.
+
+"Come on," he said, after the first salutations were over. "Rand will be at
+the Thirty-third Street subway at 5.15, and it is important that we should
+catch him before he gets to Fifth Avenue."
+
+"I'm glad it's to be on a side street," I remarked, my heart beating rapidly
+with excitement over the work in hand, for the more I thought of the venture
+the less I liked it.
+
+"Oh, I don't know that it will be," said Holmes, carelessly. "I may pull it
+off in the corridors of the Powhatan."
+
+The pumps in my heart reversed their action and for a moment I feared I
+should drop with dismay.
+
+"In the Powhatan--" I began.
+
+"Shut up, Jenkins!" said Holmes, imperatively. "This is no time for
+protests. We're in it now and there's no drawing back."
+
+Ten minutes later we stood at the intersection of Thirty-third Street and
+Fifth Avenue. Holmes's eyes flashed and his whole nervous system quivered as
+with the joy of the chase.
+
+"Keep your mouth shut, Jenkins, and you'll see a pretty sight," he
+whispered, "for here comes our man."
+
+Sure enough, there was Billington Rand on the other side of the street,
+walking along nervously and clutching an oblong package, wrapped in brown
+paper, firmly in his right hand.
+
+"Now for it," said Holmes, and we crossed the street, scarcely reaching the
+opposite curb before Rand was upon us. Rand eyed us closely and shied off to
+one side as Holmes blocked his progress.
+
+"I'll trouble you for that package, Mr. Rand," said Holmes, quietly.
+
+The man's face went white and he caught his breath.
+
+"Who the devil are you?" he demanded, angrily.
+
+"That has nothing to do with the case." retorted Holmes. "I want that
+package or--"
+
+"Get out of my way!" cried Rand, with a justifiable show of resentment. "Or
+I'll call an officer."
+
+"Will you?" said Holmes, quietly. "Will you call an officer and so make
+known to the authorities that you are in possession of twenty-five thousand
+dollars worth of securities that belong to other people, which are supposed
+at this moment to be safely locked up in the vaults of the Kenesaw National
+Back along with other collateral?"
+
+Rand staggered back against the newel-post of a brown-stone stoop, and stood
+there gazing wildly into Holmes's face.
+
+"Of course, if you prefer having the facts made known in that way," Holmes
+continued, coolly, "you have the option. I am not going to use physical
+force to persuade you to hand the package over to me, but you are a greater
+fool than I take you for if you choose that alternative. To use an
+expressive modern phrase, Mr. Billington Rand, you will be caught with the
+goods on, and unless you have a far better explanation of how those
+securities happen in your possession at this moment than I think you have,
+there is no power on earth can keep you from landing in state-prison."
+
+The unfortunate victim of Holmes's adventure fairly gasped in his combined
+rage and fright. Twice he attempted to speak, but only inarticulate sounds
+issued from his lips.
+
+"You are, of course, very much disturbed at the moment," Holmes went on,
+"and I am really very sorry if anything I have done has disarranged any
+honorable enterprise in which you have embarked. I don't wish to hurry you
+into a snap decision, which you may repent later, only either the police or
+I must have that package within an hour. It is for you to say which of us is
+to get it. Suppose we run over to the Powhatan and discuss the matter calmly
+over a bottle of Glengarry? Possibly I can convince you that it will be for
+your own good to do precisely as I tell you and very much to your
+disadvantage to do otherwise."
+
+Rand, stupefied by this sudden intrusion upon his secret by an utter
+stranger, lost what little fight there was left in him, and at least seemed
+to assent to Holmes's proposition. The latter linked arms with him, and in a
+few minutes we walked into the famous hostelry just as if we were three
+friends, bent only upon having a pleasant chat over a café table.
+
+"What'll you have, Mr. Rand?" asked Holmes, suavely. "I'm elected for the
+Glengarry special, with a little carbonic on the side."
+
+"Same," said Rand, laconically.
+
+"Sandwich with it?" asked Holmes. "You'd better."
+
+"Oh, I can't eat anything," began Rand. "I--"
+
+"Bring us some sandwiches, waiter," said Holmes. "Two Glengarry special,
+a syphon of carbonic, and--Jenkins, what's yours?"
+
+The calmness and the cheek of the fellow!
+
+"I'm not in on this at all," I retorted, angered by Holmes's use of my name.
+"And I want Mr. Rand to understand--"
+
+"Oh, tutt!" ejaculated Holmes. "_He_ knows that. Mr. Rand, my friend Jenkins
+has no connection with this enterprise of mine, and he's done his level best
+to dissuade me from holding you up so summarily. All he's along for is to
+write the thing up for--"
+
+"The newspapers?" cried Rand, now thoroughly frightened.
+
+"No," laughed Holmes. "Nothing so useful--the magazines."
+
+Holmes winked at me as he spoke, and I gathered that there was method in his
+apparent madness.
+
+"That's one of the points you want to consider, though, Mr. Rand," he said,
+leaning upon the table with his elbows. "Think of the newspapers to-morrow
+morning if you call the police rather than hand that package over to me.
+It'll be a big sensation for Wall Street and upper Fifth Avenue, to say
+nothing of what the yellows will make of the story for the rest of hoi
+polloi. The newsboys will be yelling extras all over town, printed in great,
+red letters, 'A Club-man Held-Up in Broad Daylight, For $25,000 In
+Securities That Didn't Belong to Him. Billington Rand Has Something To
+Explain. Where Did He Get It?--"
+
+"For Heavens sake, man! don't!" pleased the unfortunate Billington. "God! I
+never thought of that."
+
+"Of course you didn't think of that," said Holmes. "That's why I'm telling
+you about it now. You don't dispute my facts, do you?"
+
+"No, I--" Rand began.
+
+"Of course not," said Holmes. "You might as well dispute the existence of
+the Flat-iron Building. If you don't want to-morrow's papers to be full of
+this thing you'll hand that package over to me."
+
+"But," protested Rand, "I'm only taking them up to--to a--er--to a broker."
+Here he gathered himself together and spoke with greater assurance. "I am
+delivering them, sir, to a broker, on behalf of one of our depositors who--"
+
+"Who has been speculating with what little money he had left, has lost his
+margins, and is now forced into an act of crime to protect his speculation,"
+said Holmes. "The broker is the notorious William C. Gallagher, who runs an
+up-town bucket-shop for speculative ladies to lose their pin-money and
+bridge winnings in, and your depositor's name is Billington Rand, Esq.--
+otherwise yourself."
+
+"How do you know all this?" gasped Rand.
+
+"Oh--maybe I read it on the ticker," laughed Holmes. "Or, what is more
+likely, possibly I overheard Gallagher recommending you to dip into the
+bank's collateral to save your investment, at Green's chop-house last
+night."
+
+"You were at Green's chop-house last night?" cried Rand.
+
+"In the booth adjoining your own, and I heard every word you said," said
+Holmes.
+
+"Well, I don't see why I should give the stuff to you anyhow," growled Rand.
+
+"Chiefly because I happen to be long on information which would be of
+interest, not only to the police, but to the president and board of
+directors of the Kenesaw National Back, Mr. Rand," said Holmes. "It will be
+a simple matter for me to telephone Mr. Horace Huntington, the president of
+your institution, and put him wise to this transaction of yours, and that is
+the second thing I shall do immediately you have decided not to part with
+that package."
+
+"The second thing?" Rand whimpered. "What will you do first?"
+
+"Communicate with the first policeman we meet when we leave here," said
+Holmes. "But take your time, Mr. Rand--take your time. Don't let me hurry
+you into a decision. Try a little of this Glengarry and we'll drink hearty
+to a sensible conclusion."
+
+"I--I'll put them back in the vaults to-morrow," pleaded Rand.
+
+"Can't trust you, my boy," said Holmes. "Not with a persuasive crook like
+old Bucket-ship Gallagher on your trail. They're safer with me."
+
+Rand's answer was a muttered oath as he tossed the package across the table
+and started to leave us.
+
+"One word more, Mr. Rand," said Holmes, detaining him. "Don't do anything
+rash. There's a lot of good-fellowship between criminals, and I'll stand by
+you all right. So far nobody knows you took these things, and even when they
+turn up missing, if you go about your work as if nothing had happened, while
+you may be suspected, nobody can _prove_ that you got the goods."
+
+Rand's face brightened at this remark.
+
+"By Jove!--that's true enough," said he. "Excepting Gallagher," he added,
+his face falling.
+
+"Pah for Gallagher!" cried Holmes, snapping his fingers contemptuously. "If
+he as much as peeped we could put him in jail, and if he sells you out you
+tell him for me that I'll land him in Sing Sing for a term of years. He led
+you into this--"
+
+"He certainly did," moaned Rand.
+
+"And he's got to get you out," said Holmes. "Now, good-bye, old man. The
+worst that can happen to you is a few judgments instead of penal servitude
+for eight or ten years, unless you are foolish enough to try another turn of
+this sort, and then you may not happen on a good-natured highwayman like
+myself to get you out of your troubles. By-the-way, what is the combination
+of the big safe in the outer office of the Kenesaw National?"
+
+"One-eight-nine-seven," said Rand.
+
+"Thanks," said Holmes, jotting it down coolly in his memorandum-book.
+"That's a good thing to know."
+
+
+
+That night, shortly before midnight, Holmes left me. "I've got to finish
+this job," said he. "The most ticklish part of the business is yet to come."
+
+"Great Scott, Holmes!" I cried. "Isn't the thing done?"
+
+"No--of course not," he replied. "I've got to bust open the Kenesaw safe."
+
+"Now, my dear Raffles," I began, "why aren't you satisfied with what you've
+done already. Why must you--"
+
+"Shut up, Jenkins," he interrupted, with a laugh. "If you knew what I was
+going to do you wouldn't kick--that is, unless you've turned crook too?"
+
+"Not I," said I, indignantly.
+
+"You don't expect me to keep these bonds, do you?" he asked.
+
+"But what are you going to do with them?" I retorted.
+
+"Put 'em back in the Kenesaw Bank, where they belong, so that they'll be
+found there to-morrow morning. As sure as I don't, Billington Rand is
+doomed," said he. "It's a tough job, but I've been paid a thousand dollars
+by his family, to find out what he's up to, and by thunder, after following
+his trail for three weeks, I've got such a liking for the boy that I'm going
+to save him if it can be done, and if there's any Raffles left in me, such a
+simple proposition as cracking a bank and puting the stuff back where it
+belongs, in a safe of which I have the combination, isn't going to stand in
+my way. Don't fret, old man, it's as good as done. Good-night."
+
+And Raffles Holmes was off. I passed a feverish night, but at five o'clock
+the following morning a telephone message set all my misgivings at rest.
+
+"Hello, Jenkins!" came Raffles's voice over the wire.
+
+"Hello," I replied.
+
+"Just rang you up to let you know that it's all right. The stuff's replaced.
+Easiest job ever--like opening oysters. Pleasant dreams to you," he said,
+and, click, the connection was broken.
+
+Two weeks later Billington Rand resigned from the Kenesaw Bank and went
+West, where he is now leading the simple life on a sheep-ranch. His
+resignation was accepted with regret, and the board of directors, as a
+special mark of their liking, voted him a gift of $2500 for faithful
+services.
+
+"And the best part of it was," said Holmes, when he told me of the young
+man's good fortune, "that his accounts were as straight as a string."
+
+"Holmes, you are a bully chap!" I cried, in a sudden excess of enthusiasm.
+"You do things for nothing sometimes--"
+
+"Nothing!" echoed Holmes--"nothing! Why, that job was worth a million
+dollars to me, Jenkins--but not in coin. Just in good solid satisfaction in
+saving a fine young chap like Billington Rand from the clutches of a sharper
+and sneaking skinflint like old Bucket-shop Gallagher."
+
+
+
+VIII
+"THE NOSTALGIA OF NERVY JIM THE SNATCHER"
+
+Raffles Holmes was unusually thoughtful the other night when he entered my
+apartment, and for a long time I could get nothing out of him save an
+occasional grunt of assent or dissent from propositions advanced by myself.
+It was quite evident that he was cogitating deeply over some problem that
+was more than ordinarily vexatious, so I finally gave up all efforts at
+conversation, pushed the cigars closer to him, poured him out a stiff dose
+of his favorite Glengarry, and returned to my own work. It was a full hour
+before he volunteered an observation of any kind, and then he plunged
+rapidly into a very remarkable tale.
+
+"I had a singular adventure to-day, Jenkins," he said. "Do you happen to
+have in your set of my father's adventures a portrait of Sherlock Holmes?"
+
+"Yes, I have," I replied. "But you don't need anything of the kind to
+refresh your memory of him. All you have to do is to look at yourself in the
+glass, and you've got the photograph before you."
+
+"I _am_ so like him then?" he queried.
+
+"Most of the time, old man, I am glad to say," said I. "There are days when
+you are the living image of your grandfather Raffles, but that is only when
+you are planning some scheme of villany. I can almost invariably detect the
+trend of your thoughts by a glance at your face--you are Holmes himself in
+your honest moments, Raffles at others. For the past week it has delighted
+me more than I can say to find you a fac-simile of your splendid father,
+with naught to suggest your fascinating but vicious granddad."
+
+"That's what I wanted to find out. I had evidence of it this afternoon on
+Broadway," said he. "It was bitterly cold up around Fortieth Street, snowing
+like the devil, and such winds as you'd expect to find nowhere this side of
+Greenland's icy mountains. I came out of a Broadway chop-house and started
+north, when I was stopped by an ill-clad, down-trodden specimen of humanity,
+who begged me, for the love of Heaven to give him a drink. The poor chap's
+condition was such that it would have been manslaughter to refuse him, and a
+moment later I had him before the Skidmore bar, gurgling down a tumblerful
+of raw brandy as though it were water. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve and
+turned to thank me, when a look of recognition came into his face, and he
+staggered back half in fear and half in amazement.
+
+"'Sherlock Holmes!' he cried.
+
+"'Am I?' said I, calmly, my curiosity much excited.
+
+"'Him or his twin!' said he.
+
+"'How should you know me?' I asked.
+
+"'Good reason enough,' he muttered. ''Twas Sherlock Holmes as landed me for
+ten years in Reading gaol.'
+
+"'Well, my friend,' I answered, 'I've no doubt you deserved it if he did it.
+I am _not_ Sherlock Holmes, however, but his son.'
+
+"'Will you let me take you by the hand, governor?' he whispered, hoarsely.
+'Not for the kindness you've shown me here, but for the service your old man
+did me. I am Nervy Jim the Snatcher.'
+
+"'Service?' said I, with a laugh. 'You consider it a service to be landed in
+Reading gaol?'
+
+"'They was the only happy years I ever had, sir,' he answered, impetuously.
+'The keepers was good to me. I was well fed; kept workin' hard at an honest
+job, pickin' oakum; the gaol was warm, and I never went to bed by night or
+got up o' mornin's worried over the question o' how I was goin' to get the
+swag to pay my rent. Compared to this'--with a wave of his hand at the
+raging of the elements along Broadway--'Reading gaol was heaven, sir; and
+since I was discharged I've been a helpless, hopeless wanderer, sleepin' in
+doorways, chilled to the bone, half-starved, with not a friendly eye in
+sight, and nothin' to do all day long and all night long but move on when
+the Bobbies tell me to, and think about the happiness I'd left behind me
+when I left Reading. Was you ever homesick, governor?'
+
+"I confessed to an occasional feeling of nostalgia for old Picadilly and the
+Thames.
+
+"'Then you know, says he, 'how I feels now in a strange land, dreamin' of my
+comfortable little cell at Reading; the good meals, the pleasant keepers,
+and a steady job with nothin' to worry about for ten short years. I want to
+go back, governor--I want to go back!'
+
+"Well," said Holmes, lighting a cigar, "I was pretty nearly floored, but
+when the door of the saloon blew open and a blast of sharp air and a furry
+of snow came in, I couldn't blame the poor beggar--certainly any place in
+the world, even a jail, was more comfortable than Broadway at that moment. I
+explained to him, however, that as far as Reading gaol was concerned, I was
+powerless to help him.
+
+"'But there's just as good prisons here, ain't there, governor?' he pleaded.
+
+"'Oh yes,' said I, laughing at the absurdity of the situation. 'Sing Sing is
+a first-class, up-to-date penitentiary, with all modern improvements, and a
+pretty select clientele.'
+
+"'Couldn't you put me in there, governor?' he asked, wistfully. 'I'll do
+anything you ask, short o' murder, governor, if you only will.'
+
+"'Why don't you get yourself arrested as a vagrant?' I asked. 'That'll give
+you three months on Blackwell's Island and will tide you over the winter.'
+
+"'Tain't permanent, governor,' he objected. 'At the end o' three months I'd
+be out and have to begin all over again. What I want is something I can
+count on for ten or twenty years. Besides, I has some pride, governor, and
+for Nervy Jim to do three months' time--Lor', sir, I couldn't bring myself
+to nothin' so small!'
+
+"There was no resisting the poor cuss, Jenkins, and I promised to do what I
+could for him."
+
+"That's a nice job," said I. "What can you do?"
+
+"That's what stumps me," said Raffles Holmes, scratching his head in
+perplexity. "I've set him up in a small tenement down on East Houston Street
+temporarily, and meanwhile, it's up to me to land him in Sing Sing, where he
+can live comfortably for a decade or so, and I'm hanged if I know how to do
+it. He used to be a first-class second-story man, and in his day was an A-1
+snatcher, as his name signifies and my father's diaries attest, but I'm
+afraid his hand is out for a nice job such as I would care to have anything
+to do with myself."
+
+"Better let him slide, Raffles," said I. "He introduces the third party
+element into our arrangement, and that's mighty dangerous."
+
+"True--but consider the literary value of a chap that's homesick for jail,"
+he answered, persuasively. "I don't know, but I think he's new."
+
+Ah, the insidious appeal of that man! He knew the crack in my armor, and
+with neatness and despatch he pierced it, and I fell.
+
+"Well--" I demurred.
+
+"Good," said he. "We'll consider it arranged. I'll fix him out in a week."
+
+Holmes left me at this point, and for two days I heard nothing from him. On
+the morning of the third day he telephoned me to meet him at the stage-door
+of the Metropolitan Opera-House at four o'clock. "Bring your voice with
+you," said he, enigmatically, "we may need it." An immediate explanation of
+his meaning was impossible, for hardly were the words out of his mouth when
+he hung up the receiver and cut the connection.
+
+"I wanted to excite your curiosity so that you would be sure to come," he
+laughed, when I asked his meaning later. "You and I are going to join Mr.
+Conried's selected chorus of educated persons who want to earn their grand
+opera instead of paying five dollars a performance for it."
+
+And so we did, although I objected a little at first.
+
+"I can't sing," said I.
+
+"Of course you can't," said he. "If you could you wouldn't go into the
+chorus. But don't bother about that, I have a slight pull here and we can
+get in all right as long as we are moderately intelligent, and able-bodied
+enough to carry a spear. By-the-way, in musical circles my name is Dickson.
+Don't forget that."
+
+That Holmes had a pull was shortly proven, for although neither of us was
+more than ordinarily gifted vocally, we proved acceptable and in a short
+time found ourselves enrolled among the supernumeraries who make of
+"Lohengrin" a splendid spectacle to the eye. I found real zest in life
+carrying that spear, and entered into the spirit of what I presumed to be a
+mere frolic with enthusiasm, merely for the experience of it, to say nothing
+of the delight I took in the superb music, which I have always loved.
+
+And then the eventful night came. It was Monday and the house was packed. On
+both sides of the curtain everything was brilliant. The cast was one of the
+best and the audience all that the New York audience is noted for in wealth,
+beauty, and social prestige, and, in the matter of jewels, of lavish
+display. Conspicuous in respect to the last was the ever-popular, though
+somewhat eccentric Mrs. Robinson-Jones, who in her grand-tier box fairly
+scintillated with those marvellous gems which gave her, as a musical critic,
+whose notes on the opera were chiefly confined to observations on its social
+aspects, put it, "the appearance of being lit up by electricity." Even from
+where I stood, as a part and parcel of the mock king's court on the stage, I
+could see the rubies and sapphires and diamonds loom large upon the horizon
+as the read, white, and blue emblem of our national greatness to the truly
+patriotic soul. Little did I dream, as I stood in the rear line of the
+court, clad in all the gorgeous regalia of a vocal supernumerary, and
+swelling the noisy welcome to the advancing Lohengrin, with my apology for a
+voice, how intimately associated with these lustrous headlights I was soon
+to be, and as Raffles Holmes and I poured out our souls in song not even his
+illustrious father would have guessed that he was there upon any other
+business than that of Mr. Conried. As far as I could see, Raffles was wrapt
+in the music of the moment, and not once, to my knowledge, did he seem to be
+aware that there was such a thing as an audience, much less one individual
+member of it, on the other side of the footlights. Like a member of the Old
+Choral Guard, he went through the work in hand as nonchalantly as though it
+were his regular business in life. It was during the intermission between
+the first and second acts that I began to suspect that there was something
+in the wind beside music, for Holmes's face became set, and the resemblance
+to his honorable father, which had of late been so marked, seemed to
+dissolve itself into an unpleasant suggestion of his other forbear, the
+acquisitive Raffles. My own enthusiasm for our operatic experience, which I
+took no pains to conceal, found no response in him, and from the fall of the
+curtain on the first act it seemed to me as if he were trying to avoid me.
+So marked indeed did this desire to hold himself aloof become that I
+resolved to humor him in it, and instead of clinging to his side as had been
+my wont, I let him go his own way, and, at the beginning of the second act,
+he disappeared. I did not see him again until the long passage between
+Ortrud and Telrammund was on, when, in the semi-darkness of the stage, I
+caught sight of him hovering in the vicinity of the electric switch-board by
+which the lights of the house are controlled. Suddenly I saw him reach out
+his hand quickly, and a moment later every box-light went out, leaving the
+auditorium in darkness, relieved only by the lighting of the stage. Almost
+immediately there came a succession of shrieks from the grand-tier in the
+immediate vicinity of the Robinson-Jones box, and I knew that something was
+afoot. Only a slight commotion in the audience was manifest to us upon the
+stage, but there was a hurrying and scurrying of ushers and others of
+greater or less authority, until finally the box-lights flashed out again in
+all their silk-tasselled illumination. The progress of the opera was not
+interrupted for a moment, but in that brief interval of blackness at the
+rear of the house some one had had time to force his way into the Robinson-
+Jones box and snatch from the neck of its fair occupant that wondrous
+hundred-thousand-dollar necklace of matchless rubies that had won the
+admiring regard of many beholders, and the envious interest of not a few.
+
+Three hours later Raffles Holmes and I returned from the days and dress of
+Lohengrin's time to affairs of to-day, and when we were seated in my
+apartment along about two o'clock in the morning, Holmes lit a cigar, poured
+himself out a liberal dose of Glengarry, and with a quiet smile, leaned back
+in his chair.
+
+"Well," he said, "what about it?"
+
+"You have the floor, Raffles," I answered. "Was that your work?"
+
+"One end of it," said he. "It went off like clock-work. Poor old Nervy has
+won his board and lodging for twenty years all right."
+
+"But--he's got away with it," I put in.
+
+"As far as East Houston Street," Holmes observed, quietly. "To-morrow I
+shall take up the case, track Nervy to his lair, secure Mrs. Robinson-Jones'
+necklace, return it to the lady, and within three weeks the Snatcher will
+take up his abode on the banks of the Hudson, the only banks the ordinary
+cracksman is anxious to avoid."
+
+"But how the dickens did you manage to put a crook like that on the grand-
+tier floor?" I demanded.
+
+"Jenkins, what a child you are!" laughed Holmes. "How did I get him there?
+Why, I set him up with a box of his own, directly above the Robinson-Jones
+box--you can always get one for a single performance if you are willing to
+pay for it--and with a fair expanse of shirt-front, a claw-hammer and a
+crush hat almost any man who has any style to him at all these days can pass
+for a gentleman. All he had to do was to go to the opera-house, present his
+ticket, walk in and await the signal. I gave the man his music cue, and two
+minutes before the lights went out he sauntered down the broad staircase to
+the door of the Robinson-Jones box, and was ready to turn the trick. He was
+under cover of darkness long enough to get away with the necklace, and when
+the lights came back, if you had known enough to look out into the
+auditorium you would have seen him back there in his box above, taking in
+the situation as calmly as though he had himself had nothing whatever to do
+with it."
+
+"And how shall you trace him?" I demanded. "Isn't that going to be a little
+dangerous?"
+
+"Not if he followed out my instructions," said Holmes. "If he dropped a
+letter addressed to himself in his own hand-writing at his East Houston
+Street lair, in the little anteroom of the box, as I told him to do, we'll
+have all the clews we need to run him to earth."
+
+"But suppose the police find it?" I asked.
+
+"They won't," laughed Holmes. "They'll spend their time looking for some
+impecunious member of the smart set who might have done the job. They always
+try to find the sensational clew first, and by day after to-morrow morning
+four or five poor but honest members of the four-hundred will find when they
+read the morning papers that they are under surveillance, while I, knowing
+exactly what has happened will have all the start I need. I have already
+offered my services, and by ten o'clock to-morrow morning they will be
+accepted, as will also those of half a hundred other detectives,
+professional and amateur. At eleven I will visit the opera-house, where I
+expect to find the incriminating letter on the floor, or if the cleaning
+women have already done their work, which is very doubtful, I will find it
+later among the sweepings of waste paper in the cellar of the opera-house.
+Accompanied by two plain-clothes men from headquarters I will then proceed
+to Nervy's quarters, and, if he is really sincere in his desire to go to
+jail for a protracted period, we shall find him there giving an imitation of
+a gloat over his booty."
+
+"And suppose the incriminating letter is not there?" I asked. "He may have
+changed his mind."
+
+"I have arranged for that," said Holmes, with a quick, steely glance at me.
+"I've got a duplicate letter in my pocket now. If he didn't drop it, I
+will."
+
+But Nervy Jim was honest at least in his desire for a permanent residence in
+an up-to-date penitentiary, for, even as the deed itself had been
+accomplished with a precision that was almost automatic, so did the work yet
+to be done go off with the nicety of a well-regulated schedule. Everything
+came about as Holmes had predicted, even to the action of the police in
+endeavoring to fasten the crime upon an inoffensive and somewhat impecunious
+social dangler, whose only ambition in life was to lead a cotillion well,
+and whose sole idea of how to get money under false pretences was to make
+some over-rich old maid believe that he loved her for herself alone and in
+his heart scorned her wealth. Even he profited by this, since he later sued
+the editor who printed his picture with the label "A Social Highwayman" for
+libel, claiming damages of $50,000, and then settled the case out of court
+for $15,000, spot cash. The letter was found on the floor of the box where
+Nervy Jim had dropped it; Holmes and his plain-clothes men paid an early
+visit at the East Houston Street lodging-house, and found the happy Snatcher
+snoring away in his cot with a smile on his face that seemed to indicate
+that he was dreaming he was back in a nice comfortable jail once more; and
+as if to make assurance doubly sure, the missing necklace hung about his
+swarthy neck! Short work was made of the arrest; Nervy Him, almost
+embarrassingly grateful, was railroaded to Sing Sing in ten days' time, for
+fifteen years, and Raffles Holmes had the present pleasure and personal
+satisfaction of restoring the lost necklace to the fair hands of Mrs.
+Robinson-Jones herself.
+
+
+
+"Look at that, Jenkins!" He said, gleefully, when the thing was all over. "A
+check for $10,000."
+
+"Well--that isn't so much, considering the value of the necklace," said I.
+
+"That's the funny part of it," laughed Holmes. "Every stone in it was paste,
+but Mrs. Robinson-Jones never let on for a minute. She paid her little ten
+thousand rather than have it known."
+
+"Great Heavens!--really?" I said.
+
+"Yes," said Holmes, replacing the check in his pocket-book. "She's almost as
+nervy as Nervy Jim himself. She's what I call a dead-game sport."
+
+
+
+IX
+THE ADVENTURE OF ROOM 407
+
+Raffles Holmes and I had walked up-town together. It was a beastly cold
+night, and when we reached the Hotel Powhatan my companion suggested that we
+stop in for a moment to thaw out our frozen cheeks, and incidentally, warm
+up the inner man with some one of the spirituous concoctions for which that
+hostelry is deservedly famous. I naturally acquiesced, and in a moment we
+sat at one of the small tables in the combination reading-room and café of
+the hotel.
+
+"Queer place, this," said Holmes, gazing about him at the motley company of
+guests. "It is the gathering place of the noted and the notorious. That
+handsome six-footer, who has just left the room, is the Reverend Dr.
+Harkaway, possibly the most eloquent preacher they have in Boston. At the
+table over in the corner, talking to that gold-haired lady with a roasted
+pheasant on her head in place of a hat, is Jack McBride, the light-weight
+champion of the Northwest, and--by thunder, Jenkins, look at that!"
+
+A heavy-browed, sharp-eyed Englishman appeared in the doorway, stood a
+moment, glanced about him eagerly, and, with a gesture of impatience, turned
+away and disappeared in the throngs of the corridor without.
+
+"There's something doing to bring 'Lord Baskingford' here," muttered Holmes.
+
+"Lord Baskingford?" said I. "Who's he?"
+
+"He's the most expert diamond lifter in London," answered Holmes. "His
+appearance on Piccadilly was a signal always to Scotland Yard to wake up,
+and to the jewellers of Bond Street to lock up. My old daddy used to say
+that Baskingford could scent a Kohinoor quicker than a hound a fox. I wonder
+what his game is."
+
+"Is he a real lord?" I asked.
+
+"Real?" laughed Holmes. "Yes--he's a real Lord of the Lifters, if that's
+what you mean, but if you mean does he belong to the peerage, no. His real
+name is Bob Hollister. He has served two terms in Pentonville, escaped once
+from a Russian prison, and is still in the ring. He's never idle, and if he
+comes to the Powhatan you can gamble your last dollar on it that he has a
+good, big stake somewhere in the neighborhood. We must look over the list of
+arrivals."
+
+We finished our drink and settled the score. Holmes sauntered, in leisurely
+fashion, out into the office, and, leaning easily over the counter,
+inspected the register.
+
+"Got any real live dukes in the house to-night, Mr. Sommers?" he asked of
+the clerk.
+
+"Not to-night, Mr. Holmes," laughed the clerk. "We're rather shy on the
+nobility to-night. The nearest we come to anything worth while in that line
+is a baronet--Sir Henry Darlington of Dorsetshire, England. We can show you
+a nice line of Captains of Industry, however."
+
+"Thank you, Sommers," said Holmes, returning the laugh. "I sha'n't trouble
+you. Fact is, I'm long on Captains of Industry and was just a bit hungry
+to-night for a dash of the British nobility. Who is Sir Henry Darlington of
+Dorsetshire, England?"
+
+"You can search me," said the clerk. "I'm too busy to study genealogy--but
+there's a man here who knows who he is, all right, all right--at least I
+judge so from his manner."
+
+"Who's that?" asked Holmes.
+
+"Himself," said Sommers, with a chuckle. "Now's your chance to ask him--for
+there he goes into the Palm Room."
+
+We glanced over in the direction indicated, and again our eyes fell upon the
+muscular form of "Lord Baskingford."
+
+"Oh!" said Holmes. "Well--he is a pretty fair specimen, isn't he! Little too
+large for my special purpose, though, Sommers," he added, "so you needn't
+wrap him up and send him home."
+
+"All right, Mr. Holmes," grinned the clerk. "Come in again some time when we
+have a few fresh importations in and maybe we can fix you out."
+
+With a swift glance at the open page of the register, Holmes bade the clerk
+good-night and we walked away.
+
+"Room 407," he said, as we moved along the corridor. "Room 407--we mustn't
+forget that. His lordship is evidently expecting some one, and I think I'll
+fool around for a while and see what's in the wind."
+
+A moment or two later we came face to face with the baronet, and watched him
+as he passed along the great hall, scanning every face in the place, and on
+to the steps leading down to the barber-shop, which he descended.
+
+"He's anxious, all right," said Holmes, as we sauntered along. "How would
+you like to take a bite, Jenkins? I'd like to stay here and see this out."
+
+"Very good," said I. "I find it interesting."
+
+So we proceeded towards the Palm Room and sat down to order our repast.
+Scarcely were we seated when one of the hotel boys, resplendent in brass
+buttons, strutted through between the tables, calling aloud in a shrill
+voice:
+
+"Telegram for four-oh-seven. Four hundred and seven, telegram."
+
+"That's the number, Raffles," I whispered, excitedly.
+
+"I know it," he said, quietly. "Give him another chance--"
+
+"Telegram for number four hundred and seven," called the buttons.
+
+"Here, boy," said Holmes, nerving himself up. "Give me that."
+
+"Four hundred and seven, sir?" asked the boy.
+
+"Certainly," said Holmes, coolly. "Hand it over--any charge?"
+
+"No, sir," said the boy, giving Raffles the yellow covered message.
+
+"Thank you," said Holmes, tearing the flap open carelessly as the boy
+departed.
+
+And just then the fictitious baronet entered the room, and, as Holmes read
+his telegram, passed by us, still apparently in search of the unattainable,
+little dreaming how close at hand was the explanation of his troubles. I was
+on the edge of nervous prostration, but Holmes never turned a hair, and,
+save for a slight tremor of his hand, no one would have even guessed that
+there was anything in the wind. Sir Henry Darlington took a seat in the far
+corner of the room.
+
+"That accounts for his uneasiness," said Holmes, tossing the telegram across
+the table.
+
+I read: "Slight delay. Will meet you at eight with the goods." The message
+was signed: "Cato."
+
+"Let's see," said Holmes. It is now six-forty-five. Here--lend me your
+fountain-pen, Jenkins.
+
+I produced the desired article and Holmes, in an admirably feigned hand,
+added to the message the words: "at the Abbey, Lafayette Boulevard. Safer,"
+restored it in amended form to its envelope.
+
+"Call one of the bell-boys, please," he said to the waiter.
+
+A moment later, a second buttons appeared.
+
+"This isn't for me, boy," said Holmes, handing the message back to him.
+"Better take it to the office."
+
+"Very good, sir," said the lad, and off he went.
+
+A few minutes after this incident, Sir Henry again rose impatiently and left
+the room, and, at a proper distance to the rear, Holmes followed him.
+Darlington stopped at the desk, and, observing the telegram in his box,
+called for it and opened it. His face flushed as he tore it into scraps and
+made for the elevator, into which he disappeared.
+
+"He's nibbling the bait all right," said Holmes, gleefully. "We'll just wait
+around here until he starts, and then we'll see what we can do with Cato.
+This is quite an adventure."
+
+"What do you suppose it's all about?" I asked.
+
+"I don't know any more than you do, Jenkins," said Holmes, "save this, that
+old Bob Hollister isn't playing penny-ante. When he goes on to a job as
+elaborately as all this, you can bet your last dollar that the game runs
+into five figures, and, like a loyal subject of his Gracious Majesty King
+Edward VII, whom may the Lord save, he reckons not in dollars but in pounds
+sterling."
+
+"Who can Cato be, I wonder?" I asked.
+
+"We'll know at eight o'clock," said Holmes. "I intend to have him up."
+
+"Up? Up where?" I asked.
+
+"In Darlington's rooms--where else?" demanded Holmes.
+
+"In four hundred and seven?" I gasped.
+
+"Certainly--that's our headquarters, isn't it?" he grinned.
+
+"Now see here, Raffles," I began.
+
+"Shut up Jenkins," he answered. "Just hang on to your nerve--"
+
+"But suppose Darlington turns up?"
+
+"My dear boy, the Abbey is six miles from here and he won't by any living
+chance, get back before ten o'clock to-night. We shall have a good two hours
+and a half to do up old Cato without any interference from him," said
+Holmes. "Suppose he does come--what then? I rather doubt if Sir Henry
+Darlington, of the Hotel Powhatan, New York, or Dorsetshire, England, would
+find it altogether pleasant to hear a few reminiscences of Bob Hollister of
+Pentonville prison, which I have on tap."
+
+"He'll kick up the deuce of a row," I protested.
+
+"Very doubtful, Jenkins," said Raffles. "I sort of believe he'll be as
+gentle as a lamb when he finds out what I know--but, if he isn't, well,
+don't I represent law and order?" and Holmes displayed a detective's badge,
+which he wore for use in emergency cases, pinned to the inner side of his
+suspenders.
+
+As he spoke, Darlington reappeared, and, leaving his key at the office, went
+out through the revolving doorway, and jumped into a hansom.
+
+"Where to, sir?" asked the cabman.
+
+"The Abbey," said Darlington.
+
+"They're off!" whispered Holmes, with a laugh. "And now for Mr. Cato."
+
+We walked back through the office, and, as we passed the bench upon which
+the bell-boys sat, Raffles stopped before the lad who had delivered the
+telegram to him.
+
+"Here, son," he said, handing him a quarter, "run over to the news-stand and
+get me a copy of this months _Salmagundi_--I'll be in the smoking-room."
+
+The boy went off on his errand, and in a few minutes returned with a
+magazine.
+
+"Thanks," said Holmes. "Now get me my key and we'll call it square."
+
+"Four hundred and seven, sir?" said the boy, with a smile of recognition.
+
+"Yep," said Holmes, laconically, as he leaned back in his chair and
+pretended to read.
+
+"Gad, Holmes, what a nerve!" I muttered.
+
+"We need it in this business," said he.
+
+The buttons returned and delivered the key of Sir Henry Darlington's
+apartment into the hands of Raffles Holmes.
+
+Ten minutes later we sat in room 407--I in a blue funk from sheer
+nervousness, Raffles Holmes as imperturbable as the rock of Gibraltar from
+sheer nerve. It was the usual style of hotel room, with bath, pictures,
+telephone, what-nots, wardrobes, and centre-table. The last proved to be the
+main point of interest upon our arrival. It was littered up with papers of
+one sort and another: letters, bills receipted and otherwise, and a large
+assortment of railway and steamship folders. "He knows how to get away," was
+Holmes's comment on the latter. Most of the letters were addressed to Sir
+Henry Darlington, in care of Bruce, Watkins, Brownleigh & Co., bankers.
+
+"Same old game," laughed Holmes, as he read the superscription. "The most
+conservative banking-house in New York! It's amazing how such institutions
+issue letters indiscriminately to any Tom, Dick, or Harry who comes along
+and planks down his cash. They don't seem to realize that they thereby
+unconsciously lend the glamour of their own respectability and credit to
+people who, instead of travelling abroad, should be locked up in the most
+convenient penitentiary at home. Aha!" Holmes added, as he ran his eye over
+some of the other documents and came upon a receipted bill. "We're getting
+close to it, Jenkins. Here's a receipted bill from Bar, LeDuc & Co., of
+Fifth Avenue, for $15,000--three rings, one diamond necklace, a ruby stick-
+pin, and a set of pearl shirt-studs."
+
+"Yes," said I, "but what is there suspicious about that? If the things are
+paid for--"
+
+"Precisely," laughed Holmes. "They're paid for. Sir Henry Darlington has
+enough working capital to buy all the credit he needs with Messrs. Bar,
+LeDuc & Co. There isn't a house in this town that, after a cash transaction
+of that kind, conducted through Bruce, Watkins, Brownleigh & Co., wouldn't
+send its own soul up on approval to a nice, clean-cut member of the British
+aristocracy like Sir Henry Darlington. We're on the trail, Jenkins--we're on
+the trail. Here's a letter from Bar, LeDuc & Co.--let's see what light that
+sheds on the matter."
+
+Holmes took a letter from an envelope and read, rapidly:
+
+Sir Henry Darlington--care of Bruce, Watkins and so forth--dear Sir Henry--
+We are having some difficulty matching the pearls--they are of unusual
+quality, but we hope to have the necklace ready for delivery as requested on
+Wednesday afternoon at the office of Messrs. Bruce, Watkins and so forth,
+between five and six o'clock. Trusting the delay will not--and so forth--and
+hoping to merit a continuance of your valued favors, we beg to remain, and
+so forth, and so forth.
+
+"That's it," said Holmes. "It's a necklace that Mr. Cato is bringing up to
+Sir Henry Darlington--and, once in his possession--it's Sir Henry for some
+place on one of these folders."
+
+"Why don't they send them directly here?" I inquired.
+
+"It is better for Darlington to emphasize Bruce, Watkins, Brownleigh & Co.,
+and not to bank to much on the Hotel Powhatan, that's why," said Holmes.
+"What's the good of having bankers like that back of you if you don't
+underscore their endorsement? Anyhow, we've discovered the job, Jenkins; to-
+day is Wednesday, and the 'goods' Cato has to deliver and referred to in his
+telegram is the pearl necklace of unusual quality--hence not less than a
+$50,000 stake."
+
+At this point the telephone bell rang.
+
+"Hello," said Holmes, answering immediately, and in a voice entirely unlike
+his own. "Yes--what? Oh yes. Ask him to come up."
+
+He hung up the receiver, put a cigar in his mouth, lit it, and turned to me.
+
+"It's Cato--just called. Coming up," said he.
+
+"I wish to Heavens I was going down," I ejaculated.
+
+"You're a queer duck, Jenkins," grinned Holmes. "Here you are with a front
+seat at what promises to be one of the greatest shows on earth, a real live
+melodrama, and all you can think of is home and mother. Brace up--for here
+he is."
+
+There was a knock on the door.
+
+"Come in," said Holmes, cheerily.
+
+A tall cadaverous-looking man opened the door and entered. As his eye fell
+upon us, he paused on the threshold.
+
+"I beg your pardon," he said. "I--I'm afraid I'm in the wrong--"
+
+"Not at all--come in and sit down," said Holmes, cordially. "That is if you
+are our friend and partner, Cato--Darlington couldn't wait--"
+
+"Couldn't wait?" said Cato.
+
+"Nope," said Holmes. "He was very much annoyed by the delay, Cato. You see
+he's on bigger jobs than this puny little affair of Bar, LeDuc's, and your
+failure to appear on schedule time threw him out. Pearls aren't the only
+chips in Darlington's game, my boy."
+
+"Well--I couldn't help it," said Cato. "Bar, LeDuc's messenger didn't get
+down there until five minutes of six."
+
+"Why should that have kept you until eight?" said Holmes.
+
+"I've got a few side jobs of my own," growled Cato.
+
+"That's what Darlington imagined," said Holmes, "and I don't envy you your
+meeting with him when he comes in. He's a cyclone when he's mad and if
+you've got a cellar handy I'd advise you to get it ready for occupancy.
+Where's the stuff?"
+
+"In here, said Cato, tapping his chest.
+
+"Well," observed Holmes, quietly, "we'd better make ourselves easy until the
+Chief returns. You don't mind if I write a letter, do you?"
+
+"Go ahead," said Cato. "Don't mind me."
+
+"Light up," said Holmes, tossing him a cigar, and turning to the table where
+he busied himself for the next five minutes, apparently in writing.
+
+Cato smoked away in silence, and picked up Holmes's copy of the _Salmagundi
+Magazine_ which lay on the bureau, and shortly became absorbed in its
+contents. As for me, I had to grip both sides of my chair to conceal my
+nervousness. My legs fairly shook with terror. The silence, broken only by
+the scratching of Holmes's pen, was becoming unendurable and I think I
+should have given way and screamed had not Holmes suddenly risen and walked
+to the telephone, directly back of where Cato was sitting.
+
+"I must ring for stamps," he said. "There don't seem to be any here.
+Darlington's getting stingy in his old age. Hello," he called, but without
+removing the receiver from the hook. "Hello--send me up a dollar's worth of
+two-cent stamps--thank you. Good-bye."
+
+Cato read on, but, in a moment, the magazine dropped from his hand to the
+floor. Holmes was at his side and the cold muzzle of a revolver pressed
+uncomfortably against his right temple.
+
+"That bureau cover--quick," Raffles cried, sharply, to me.
+
+"What are you doing?" gasped Cato, his face turning a greenish-yellow with
+fear.
+
+"Another sound from you and you're a dead one," said Holmes. "You'll see
+what I'm doing quickly enough. Twist it into a rope, Jim," he added,
+addressing me. I did as I was bade with the linen cover, snatching it from
+the bureau, and a second later we had Cato gagged. "Now tie his hands and
+feet with those curtain cords," Holmes went on.
+
+Heavens! how I hated the job, but there was no drawing back now! We had gone
+too far for that.
+
+"There!" said Holmes, as we laid our victim out on the floor, tied hand and
+foot and as powerless to speak as though he had been born deaf and dumb.
+"We'll just rifle your chest, Cato, and stow you away in the bath-tub with a
+sofa-cushion under your head to make you comfortable, and bid you farewell--
+not au revoir, Cato, but just plain farewell forever."
+
+The words were hardly spoken before the deed was accomplished. Tearing aside
+poor Cato's vest and shirt-front, Raffles placed himself in possession of
+the treasure from Bar, LeDuc & Co., after which we lay Darlington's unhappy
+confederate at full length in the porcelain-lined tub, placed a sofa-cushion
+under his head to mitigate his sufferings, locked him in, and started for
+the elevator.
+
+"Great Heavens, Raffles!" I chattered, as we emerged upon the street. "What
+will be the end of this? It's awful. When Sir Henry returns--"
+
+"I wish I could be there to see," said he, with a chuckle.
+
+"I guess we'll see, quick enough. I leave town to-morrow," said I.
+
+"Nonsense," said Holmes. "Don't you worry. I put a quietus on Sir Henry
+Darlington. _He'll_ leave town to-night, and we'll never hear from him
+again--that is, not in this matter."
+
+"But how?" I demanded, far from convinced.
+
+"I wrote him a letter in which I said: 'You will find your treasure in the
+bath-tub,'" laughed Holmes.
+
+"And _that_ will drive him from New York, and close his mouth forever!" I
+observed, sarcastically. "So very likely!"
+
+"No, Jenkins, not that, but the address, my dear boy, the address. I put
+that message in an envelope, and left it on his table where he'll surely see
+it the first thing when he gets back to-night, addressed to 'Bob Hollister,'
+Diamond Merchant, Cell No. 99, Pentonville Prison."
+
+"Aha!" said I, my doubts clearing.
+
+"Likewise--Ho-ho," said Holmes. "It is a delicate intimation to Sir Henry
+Darlington that somebody is on to his little game, and he'll evaporate
+before dawn."
+
+
+
+A week later, Holmes brought me a magnificent pearl scarf-pin.
+
+"What's that?" I asked.
+
+"Your share of the swag," he answered. "I returned the pearl necklace to
+Bar, LeDuc & Co., with a full statement of how it came into my possession.
+They rewarded me with this ruby ring and that stick-pin."
+
+Holmes held up his right hand, on the fourth finger of which glistened a
+brilliant blood-red stone worth not less than fifteen hundred dollars.
+
+I breathed a sigh of relief.
+
+"I wondered what you were going to do with the necklace," I said.
+
+"So did I--for three days," said Holmes, "and then, when I realized that I
+was a single man, I decided to give it up. If I'd had a wife to wear a
+necklace--well, I'm a little afraid the Raffles side of my nature would have
+won out."
+
+"I wonder whatever became of Darlington," said I.
+
+"I don't know. Sommers says he left town suddenly that same Wednesday night,
+without paying his bill," Holmes answered.
+
+"And Cato?"
+
+"I didn't inquire, but, from what I know of Bob Hollister, I am rather
+inclined to believe that Cato left the Powhatan by way of the front window,
+or possibly out through the plumbing, in some way," laughed Holmes. "Either
+way would be the most comfortable under the circumstances."
+
+
+
+X
+THE MAJOR-GENERAL'S PEPPERPOTS
+
+I had often wondered during the winter whether or no it would be quite the
+proper thing for me to take my friend Raffles Holmes into the sacred
+precincts of my club. By some men--and I am one of them--the club, despite
+the bad name that clubs in general have as being antagonistic to the home,
+is looked upon as an institution that should be guarded almost as carefully
+against the intrusion of improper persons as is one's own habitat, and while
+I should never have admitted for a moment that Raffles was an undesirable
+chap to have around, I could not deny that in view of certain
+characteristics which I knew him to possess, the propriety of taking him
+into "The Heraclean" was seriously open to question. My doubts were set at
+rest, however, on that point one day in January last, when I observed seated
+at one of our luncheon-tables the Reverend Dr. Mulligatawnny, Rector of
+Saint Mammon-in-the-Fields, a highly esteemed member of the organization,
+who had with him no less a person than Mr. E. H. Merryman, the railway
+magnate, whose exploits in Wall Street have done much to give to that golden
+highway the particular kind of perfume which it now exudes to the nostrils
+of people of sensitive honor. Surely, if Dr. Mulligatawnny was within his
+rights in having Mr. Merryman present, I need have no misgivings as to mine
+in having Raffles Holmes at the same table. The predatory instinct in his
+nature was as a drop of water in the sea to that ocean of known
+acquisitiveness which has floated Mr. Merryman into his high place in the
+world of finance, and as far as the moral side of the two men was considered
+respectively, I felt tolerably confident that the Recording Angel's account-books
+would show a larger balance on the right side to the credit of Raffles
+than to that of his more famous contemporary. Hence it was that I decided
+the question in my friend's favor, and a week or two later had him in at
+"The Heraclean" for luncheon. The dining-room was filled with the usual
+assortment of interesting men--men who had really done something in life and
+who suffered from none of that selfish modesty which leads some of us to
+hide our light under the bushel of silence. There was the Honorable Poultry
+Tickletoe, the historian, whose articles on the shoddy quality of the modern
+Panama hat have created such a stir throughout the hat trade; Mr. William
+Darlington Ponkapog, the poet, whose epic on the "Reign of Gold" is one of
+the longest, and some writers say the thickest, in the English language;
+James Whistleton Potts, the eminent portraitist, whose limnings of his
+patients have won him a high place among the caricaturists of the age,
+Robert Dozyphrase, the expatriated American novelist, now of London, whose
+latest volume of sketches, entitled _Intricacies_, has been equally the
+delight of his followers and the despair of students of the occult; and,
+what is more to the purpose of our story, Major-General Carrington Cox,
+U.S.A., retired. These gentlemen, with others of equal distinction whom I
+have not the space to name, were discussing with some degree of simultaneity
+their own achievements in the various fields of endeavor to which their
+lives had been devoted. They occupied the large centre-table which has for
+many a year been the point of contact for the distinguished minds of which
+the membership of "The Heraclean" is made up; the tennis-net, as it were,
+over which the verbal balls of discussion have for so many years volleyed to
+the delight of countless listeners.
+
+Raffles and I sat apart at one of the smaller tables by the window, where we
+could hear as much of the conversation at the larger board as we wished--so
+many members of "The Heraclean" are deaf that to talk loud has become quite
+de rigueur there--and at the same time hold converse with each other in
+tones best suited to the confidential quality of our communications. We had
+enjoyed the first two courses of our repast when we became aware that
+General Carrington Cox had succeeded in getting to the floor, and as he
+proceeded with what he had to say, I observed, in spite of his efforts to
+conceal the fact, that Raffles Holmes was rather more deeply interested in
+the story the General was telling than in such chance observations as I was
+making. Hence I finished the luncheon in silence and even as did Holmes,
+listened to the General's periods--and they were as usual worth listening
+to.
+
+"It was in the early eighties," said General Cox. "I was informally attached
+to the Spanish legation at Madrid. The King of Spain, Alphonso XII, was
+about to be married to the highly esteemed lady who is now the Queen-Mother
+of that very interesting youth, Alphonso XIII. In anticipation of the event
+the city was in a fever of gayety and excitement that always attends upon a
+royal function of that nature. Madrid was crowded with visitors of all
+sorts, some of them not as desirable as they might be, and here and there,
+in the necessary laxity of the hour, one or two perhaps that were most
+inimical to the personal safety and general welfare of the King. Alphonso,
+like many another royal personage, was given to the old Haroun Al Raschid
+habit of travelling about at night in a more or less impenetrable incognito,
+much to the distaste of his ministers and to the apprehension of the police,
+who did not view with any too much satisfaction the possibility of disaster
+to the royal person and the consequent blame that would rest upon their
+shoulders should anything of a serious nature befall. To all of this,
+however, the King was oblivious, and it so happened one night that in the
+course of his wanderings he met with the long dreaded mix-up. He and his two
+companions fell in with a party of cut-throats who promptly proceeded to
+hold them up. The companions were speedily put out of business by the
+attacking party, and the King found himself in the midst of a very serious
+misadventure, the least issue from which bade fair to be a thorough beating,
+if not an attempt on his life. It was at the moment when his chances of
+escape were not one in a million, when, on my way home from the Legation,
+where I had been detained to a very late hour, I came upon him struggling in
+the hands of four as nasty ruffians as you will find this side of the
+gallows. One of them held him by the arms, another was giving him a fairly
+expert imitation of how it feels to be garroted, which the other two were
+rifling his pockets. This was too much for me. I was in pretty fit physical
+condition at that time and felt myself to be quite the equal in a good old
+Anglo-Saxon fist fight of any dozen ordinary Castilians, so I plunged into
+the fray, heart and soul, not for an instant dreaming, however, what was the
+quality of the person to whose assistance I had come. My first step was to
+bowl over the garroter. Expecting no interference in his nefarious pursuit
+and unwarned by his companions, who were to busily engaged in their
+adventure of loot to observe my approach, he was easy prey, and the good,
+hard whack that I gave him just under his right ear sent him flying, an
+unconscious mass of villanous clay, into the gutter. The surprise of the
+onslaught was such that the other three jumped backward, thereby releasing
+the King's arms so that we were now two to three, which in a moment became
+two to two, for I lost no time in knocking out my second man with as pretty
+a solar plexus as you ever saw. There is nothing in the world more
+demoralizing than a good, solid blow straight from the shoulder to chaps
+whose idea of fighting is to sneak up behind you and choke you to death, or
+to stick a knife into the small of your back, and had I been far less expert
+with my fists, I should still have had an incalculable moral advantage over
+such riffraff. Once the odds in the matter of numbers were even, the King
+and I had no further difficulty in handling the others. His Majesty's quarry
+got away by the simple act of taking to his heels, and mine, turning to do
+likewise, received a salute from my right toe which, if I am any judge, must
+have driven the upper end of his spine up through the top of his head. Left
+alone, his Majesty held out his hand and thanked me profusely from my timely
+aid, and asked my name. We thereupon bade each other good-night, and I went
+on to my lodging, little dreaming of the service I had rendered to the
+nation.
+
+"The following day I was astonished to receive at the Legation a
+communication bearing the royal seal, commanding me to appear at the palace
+at once. The summons was obeyed, and, upon entering the palace, I was
+immediately ushered into the presence of the King. He received me most
+graciously, dismissing, however, all his attendants.
+
+"'Colonel Cox,' he said, after the first formal greetings were over, 'you
+rendered me a great service last night.'
+
+"'I, your majesty?' said I. 'In what way?'
+
+"'By putting those ruffians to flight,' said he.
+
+"'Ah!' said I. 'Then the gentleman attacked was one of your Majesty's
+friends?'
+
+"'I would have it so appear,' said the King. 'For a great many reasons I
+should prefer that it were not known that it was I--'
+
+"'You, your Majesty?' I cried, really astonished. 'I had no idea--"
+
+"'You are discretion itself, Colonel Cox,' laughed the King, 'and to assure
+you of my appreciation of the fact, I beg that you will accept a small gift
+which you will some day shortly receive anonymously. It will not be at all
+commensurate to the service you have rendered me, nor to the discretion
+which you have already so kindly observed regarding the principals involved
+in last night's affair, but in the spirit of friendly interest and
+appreciation back of it, it will be of a value inestimable.'
+
+"I began to try to tell his Majesty that my government did not permit me to
+accept gifts of any kind from persons royal or otherwise, but it was not
+possible to do so, and twenty minutes later my audience was over and I
+returned to the Legation with the uncomfortable sense of having placed
+myself in a position where I must either violate the King's confidence to
+acquire the permission of Congress to accept his gift, or break the laws by
+which all who are connected with the diplomatic service, directly or
+indirectly, are strictly governed. I assure you it was not in the least
+degree in the hope of personal profit that I chose the latter course. Ten
+days later a pair of massive golden pepper-pots came to me, and, as the King
+had intimated would be the case, there was nothing about them to show whence
+they had come. Taken altogether, they were the most exquisitely wrought
+specimens of the goldsmith's artistry that I had ever seen, and upon their
+under side was inscribed in a cipher which no one unfamiliar with the affair
+of that midnight fracas would even have observed--'A.R. to C.C.'--Alphonso
+Rex to Carrington Cox being, of course, the significance thereof. They were
+put away with my other belongings, and two years later, when my activities
+were transferred to London, I took them away with me.
+
+"In London I chose to live in chambers, and was soon established at No. 7
+Park Place, St. James's, a more than comfortable and centrally located
+apartment-house where I found pretty much everything in the way of
+convenience that a man situated as I was could reasonably ask for. I had not
+been there more than six months, however, when something happened that made
+the ease of apartment life seem somewhat less desirable. That is, my rooms
+were broken open during my absence, over night on a little canoeing trip to
+Henley, and about everything valuable in my possession was removed,
+including the truly regal pepper-pots sent me by his Majesty the King of
+Spain, that I had carelessly left standing upon my sideboard.
+
+"Until last week," the General continued, "nor hide nor hair of any of my
+stolen possessions was every discovered, but last Thursday night I accepted
+the invitation of a gentleman well known in this country as a leader of
+finance, a veritable Captain of Industry, the soul of honor and one of the
+most genial hosts imaginable. I sat down at his table at eight o'clock, and,
+will you believe me, gentlemen, one of the first objects to greet my eye
+upon the brilliantly set napery was nothing less than one of my lost pepper-
+pots. There was no mistaking it. Unique in pattern, it was certain of
+identification anyhow, but what made it the more certain was the cipher
+'A.R. to C.C.'"
+
+"And of course you claimed it?" asked Dozyphrase.
+
+"Of course I did nothing of the sort," retorted the General. "I trust I am
+not so lacking in manners. I merely remarked its beauty and quaintness and
+massiveness and general artistry. My host expressed pleasure at my
+appreciation of its qualities and volunteered the information that it was a
+little thing he had picked up in a curio shop on Regent Street, London, last
+summer. He had acquired it in perfect good faith. What its history had been
+from the time I lost it until then, I am not aware, but there it was, and
+under circumstances of such a character that although it was indubitably my
+property, a strong sense of the proprieties prevented me from regaining its
+possession."
+
+"Who was your host, General?" asked Tickletoe.
+
+The General laughed. "That's telling," said he. "I don't care to go into any
+further details, because some of you well-meaning friends of mine might
+suggest to Mr.--ahem--ha--well, never mind his name--that he should return
+the pepper-pot, and I know that that is what he would do if he were familiar
+with the facts that I have just narrated."
+
+It was at about this point that the gathering broke up, and, after our
+cigars, Holmes and I left the club.
+
+"Come up to my rooms a moment," said Raffles, as we emerged upon the street.
+"I want to show you something."
+
+"All right," said I. "I've nothing in particular to do this afternoon. That
+was a rather interesting tale of the General's, wasn't it?" I added.
+
+"Very," said Holmes. "I guess it's not an uncommon experience, however, in
+these days, for the well-to-do and well-meaning to be in possession of
+stolen property. The fact of its turning up again under the General's very
+nose, so many years later, however, that is unusual. The case will appear
+even more so before the day is over if I am right in one of my conjectures."
+
+What Raffles Holmes's conjecture was was soon to be made clear. In a few
+minutes we had reached his apartment, and there unlocking a huge iron-bound
+chest in his bedroom, he produced from it capacious depths another gold
+pepper-pot. This he handed to me.
+
+"There's the mate!" he observed, quietly.
+
+"By Jove, Raffles--it must be!" I cried, for beyond all question, in the
+woof of the design on the base of the pepper-pot was the cipher "A.R. to
+C.C." "Where the dickens did you get it?"
+
+"That was a wedding-present to my mother," he explained. "That's why I have
+never sold it, not even when I've been on the edge of starvation."
+
+"From whom--do you happen to know?" I inquired.
+
+"Yes," he replied. "I do know. It was a wedding-present to the daughter of
+Raffles by her father, my grandfather, Raffles himself."
+
+"Great Heavens!" I cried. "Then it was Raffles who--well, you know. That
+London flat job?"
+
+"Precisely," said Raffles Holmes. "We've caught the old gentleman red-
+handed."
+
+"Well, I'll be jiggered!" said I. "Doesn't it beat creation how small the
+world is."
+
+"It does indeed. I wonder who the chap is who has the other," Raffles
+observed.
+
+"Pretty square of the old General to keep quiet about it," said I.
+
+"Yes," said Holmes. "That's why I'm going to restore this one. I wish I
+could give 'em both back. I don't think my old grandfather would have taken
+the stuff if he'd known what a dead-game sport the old General was, and I
+sort of feel myself under an obligation to make amends."
+
+"You can send him the one you've got through the express companies,
+anonymously," said I.
+
+"No," said Holmes. "The General left them on his sideboard, and on his
+sideboard he must find them. If we could only find out the name of his host
+last Thursday--"
+
+"I tell you--look in the _Sunday Gazoo_ supplement," said I. "They
+frequently publish short paragraphs of the social doings of the week. You
+might get a clew there."
+
+"Good idea," said Holmes. "I happen to have it here, too. There was an
+article in it last Sunday, giving a diagram of Howard Vandergould's new
+house at Nippon's Point, Long Island, which I meant to cut out for future
+reference."
+
+Holmes secured the _Gazoo_, and between us, we made a pretty thorough search
+of its contents, especially "The Doings of Society" columns, and at last we
+found it, as follows:
+
+"A small dinner of thirty was given on Thursday evening last in honor of Mr.
+and Mrs. Wilbur Rattington, of Boston, by Mrs. Rattington's brother, John D.
+Bruce, of Bruce, Watkins & Co., at the latter's residence, 74-- Fifth
+Avenue. Among Mr. Bruce's guests were Mr. and Mrs. W. K. Dandervelt, Mr. and
+Mrs. Elisha Scroog, Jr., Major-General Carrington Cox, Mr. and Mrs.
+Henderson Scovill, and Signor Caruso."
+
+"Old Bruce, eh?" laughed Holmes. "Sans peur et sans reproche. Well, that is
+interesting. One of the few honest railroad bankers in the country, a pillar
+of the church, a leading reformer and--a stolen pepper-pot on his table!
+Gee!"
+
+"What are you going to do now?" I asked. "Write to Bruce and tell him the
+facts?"
+
+Holmes's answer was a glance.
+
+"Oh cream-cakes!" he ejaculated, with profane emphasis.
+
+A week after the incidents just described he walked into my room with a
+small package under his arm.
+
+"There's the pair!" he observed, unwrapping the parcel and displaying its
+contents--two superb, golden pepper-pots, both inscribed "A.R. to C.C."
+"Beauties, aren't they?"
+
+"They are, indeed. Did Bruce give it up willingly?" I asked.
+
+"He never said a word," laughed Holmes. "Fact is, he snored all the time I
+was there."
+
+"Snored?" said I.
+
+"Yes--you see, it was at 3.30 this morning," said Holmes, "and I went in the
+back way. Climbed up to the extension roof, in through Bruce's bedroom
+window, down-stairs to the dining-room, while Bruce slept unconscious of my
+arrival. The house next to his is vacant, you know, and it was easy
+travelling."
+
+"You--you--" I began.
+
+"Yes--that's it," said he. "Just a plain vulgar bit of second-story
+business, and I got it. There were a lot of other good things lying around,"
+he added, with a gulp, "but--well, I was righting a wrong this time, so I
+let 'em alone, and, barring this, I didn't deprive old Bruce of a blooming
+thing, not even a wink of sleep."
+
+"And now what?" I demanded.
+
+"It's me for Cedarhurst--that's where the General lives," said he. "I'll get
+there about 11.30 to-night, and as soon as all is quiet, Jenkins, your old
+pal, Raffles Holmes, will climb easily up to the piazza, gently slide back
+the bolts of the French windows in the General's dining-room, proceed
+cautiously to the sideboard, and replace thereon these two souvenirs of a
+brave act by a good old sport, whence they never would have been taken had
+my grandfather known his man."
+
+"You are taking a terrible risk, Raffles," said I, "you can just as easily
+send the tings to the General by express, anonymously."
+
+"Jenkins," he replied, "that suggestion does you little credit and appeals
+neither to the Raffles nor to the Holmes in me. Pusillanimity was a word
+which neither of my forebears could ever learn to use. It was too long, for
+one thing, and besides that it was never needed in their business."
+
+And with that he left me.
+
+
+
+"Well, General," said I to General Cox, a week later at the club, "heard
+anything further about your pepper-pots yet?"
+
+"Most singular thing, Jenkins," said he. "The d----d things turned up again
+one morning last week, and where the devil they came from, I can't imagine.
+One of them, however, had a piece of paper in it on which was written
+'Returned with thanks for their use and apologies for having kept them so
+long.'"
+
+The General opened his wallet and handed me a slip which he took from it.
+
+"There it is. What in thunder do you make out of it?" he asked.
+
+It was in Raffles Holmes's hand-writing.
+
+"Looks to me as though Bruce also had been robbed," I laughed.
+
+"Bruce? Who the devil said anything about Bruce?" demanded the General.
+
+"Why, didn't you tell us he had one of 'em on his table?" said I, reddening.
+
+"Did I?" frowned the General. "Well, if I did, I must be a confounded ass. I
+thought I took particular pains not the mention Bruce's name in the matter."
+
+And then he laughed.
+
+"I shall have to be careful when Bruce comes to dine with me not to have
+those pepper-pots in evidence," he said. "He might ask embarrassing
+questions."
+
+And thus it was that Raffles Holmes atoned for at least one of the offences
+of his illustrious grandsire.
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of R. Holmes & Co., by John Kendrick Bangs
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diff --git a/20559-8.zip b/20559-8.zip
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of R. Holmes & Co., by John Kendrick Bangs
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: R. Holmes & Co.
+
+Author: John Kendrick Bangs
+
+Release Date: February 11, 2007 [EBook #20559]
+[Last updated: March 7, 2015]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK R. HOLMES & CO. ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Douglas Ethington
+
+
+
+
+
+R. HOLMES & CO.
+
+Being the Remarkable Adventures of Raffles Holmes, Esq., Detective and
+Amateur Cracksman by Birth
+
+by John Kendrick Bangs
+
+
+Contents
+I.    INTRODUCING MR. RAFFLES HOLMES
+II.   THE ADVENTURE OF THE DORRINGTON RUBY SEAL
+III.  THE ADVENTURE OF MRS. BURLINGAME'S DIAMOND STOMACHER
+IV.   THE ADVENTURE OF THE MISSING PENDANTS
+V.    THE ADVENTURE OF THE BRASS CHECK
+VI.   THE ADVENTURE OF THE HIRED BURGLAR
+VII.  THE REDEMPTION OF YOUNG BILLINGTON RAND
+VIII. "THE NOSTALGIA OF NERVY JIM THE SNATCHER"
+IX.   THE ADVENTURE OF ROOM 407
+X.    THE MAJOR-GENERAL'S PEPPERPOTS
+
+
+
+R. HOLMES & CO.
+
+
+
+I
+INTRODUCING MR. RAFFLES HOLMES
+
+It was a blistering night in August. All day long the mercury in the
+thermometer had been flirting with the figures at the top of the tube, and
+the promised shower at night which a mendacious Weather Bureau had been
+prophesying as a slight mitigation of our sufferings was conspicuous wholly
+by its absence. I had but one comfort in the sweltering hours of the day,
+afternoon and evening, and that was that my family were away in the
+mountains, and there was no law against my sitting around all day clad only
+in my pajamas, and otherwise concealed from possibly intruding eyes by the
+wreaths of smoke that I extracted from the nineteen or twenty cigars which,
+when there is no protesting eye to suggest otherwise, form my daily
+allowance. I had tried every method known to the resourceful flat-dweller
+of modern times to get cool and to stay so, but alas, it was impossible.
+Even the radiators, which all winter long had never once given forth a
+spark of heat, now hissed to the touch of my moistened finger. Enough
+cooling drinks to float an ocean greyhound had passed into my inner man,
+with no other result than to make me perspire more profusely than ever,
+and in so far as sensations went, to make me feel hotter than before.
+Finally, as a last resource, along about midnight, its gridiron floor
+having had a chance to lose some of its stored-up warmth, I climbed out
+upon the fire-escape at the rear of the Richmere, hitched my hammock from
+one of the railings thereof to the leader running from the roof to the
+area, and swung myself therein some eighty feet above the concealed
+pavement of our backyard--so called, perhaps, because of its dimensions
+which were just about that square. It was a little improvement, though
+nothing to brag of. What fitful zephyrs there might be, caused no doubt by
+the rapid passage to and fro on the roof above and fence-tops below of
+vagrant felines on Cupid's contentious battles bent, to the disturbance of
+the still air, soughed softly through the meshes of my hammock and gave
+some measure of relief, grateful enough for which I ceased the perfervid
+language I had been using practically since sunrise, and dozed off. And
+then there entered upon the scene that marvelous man, Raffles Holmes, of
+whose exploits it is the purpose of these papers to tell.
+
+I had dozed perhaps for a full hour when the first strange sounds grated
+upon my ear. Somebody had opened a window in the kitchen of the first-floor
+apartment below, and with a dark lantern was inspecting the iron platform
+of the fire-escape without. A moment later this somebody crawled out of the
+window, and with movements that in themselves were a sufficient indication
+of the questionable character of his proceedings, made for the ladder
+leading to the floor above, upon which many a time and oft had I too
+climbed to home and safety when an inconsiderate janitor had locked me out.
+Every step that he took was stealthy--that much I could see by the dim
+starlight. His lantern he had turned dark again, evidently lest he should
+attract attention in the apartments below as he passed their windows in his
+upward flight.
+
+"Ha! ha!" thought I to myself. "It's never too hot for Mr. Sneak to get in
+his fine work. I wonder whose stuff he is after?"
+
+Turning over flat on my stomach so that I might the more readily observe
+the man's movements, and breathing pianissimo lest he in turn should
+observe mine, I watched him as he climbed. Up he came as silently as the
+midnight mouse upon a soft carpet--up past the Jorkins apartments on the
+second floor; up stealthily by the Tinkletons' abode on the third; up past
+the fire-escape Italian garden of little Mrs. Persimmon on the fourth; up
+past the windows of the disagreeable Garraways' kitchen below mine, and
+then, with the easy grace of a feline, zip! he silently landed within reach
+of my hand on my own little iron veranda, and craning his neck to one
+side, peered in through the open window and listened intently for two full
+minutes.
+
+"Humph!" whispered my inner consciousness to itself. "He is the coolest
+thing I've seen since last Christmas left town. I wonder what he is up to?
+There's nothing in my apartment worth stealing, now that my wife and
+children are away, unless it be my Jap valet, Nogi, who might make a very
+excellent cab driver if I could only find words to convey to his mind the
+idea that he is discharged."
+
+And then the visitor, apparently having correctly assured himself that
+there was no one within, stepped across the window sill and vanished into
+the darkness of my kitchen. A moment later I too entered the window in
+pursuit, not so close a one, however, as to acquaint him with my proximity.
+I wanted to see what the chap was up to; and also being totally unarmed and
+ignorant as to whether or not he carried dangerous weapons, I determined to
+go slow for a little while. Moreover, the situation was not wholly devoid
+of novelty, and it seemed to me that here at last was abundant opportunity
+for a new sensation. As he had entered, so did he walk cautiously along the
+narrow bowling alley that serves for a hallway connecting my drawing-room
+and library with the dining-room, until he came to the library, into which
+he disappeared. This was not reassuring to me, because, to tell the truth,
+I value my books more than I do my plate, and if I were to be robbed I
+should much have preferred his taking my plated plate from the dining-room
+than any one of my editions-deluxe sets of the works of Marie Corelli, Hall
+Caine, and other standard authors from the library shelves. Once in the
+library, he quietly drew the shades at the windows thereof to bar possible
+intruding eyes from without, turned on the electric lights, and proceeded
+to go through my papers as calmly and coolly as though they were his own.
+In a short time, apparently, he found what he wanted in the shape of a
+royalty statement recently received by me from my publishers, and, lighting
+one of my cigars from a bundle of brevas in front of him, took off his coat
+and sat down to peruse the statement of my returns. Simple though it was,
+this act aroused the first feeling of resentment in my breast, for the
+relations between the author and his publishers are among the most sacred
+confidences of life, and the peeping Tom who peers through a keyhole at the
+courtship of a young man engaged in wooing his fiancee is no worse an
+intruder than he who would tear aside the veil of secrecy which screens the
+official returns of a "best seller" from the public eye. Feeling,
+therefore, that I had permitted matters to proceed as far as they might
+with propriety, I instantly entered the room and confronted my uninvited
+guest, bracing myself, of course, for the defensive onslaught which I
+naturally expected to sustain. But nothing of the sort occurred, for the
+intruder, with a composure that was nothing short of marvelous under the
+circumstances, instead of rising hurriedly like one caught in some
+disreputable act, merely leaned farther back in the chair, took the cigar
+from his mouth, and greeted me with:
+
+"Howdy do, sir. What can I do for you this beastly hot night?"
+
+The cold rim of a revolver-barrel placed at my temple could not more
+effectually have put me out of business than this nonchalant reception.
+Consequently I gasped out something about its being the sultriest 47th of
+August in eighteen years, and plumped back into a chair opposite him. "I
+wouldn't mind a Remsen cooler myself," he went on, "but the fact is your
+butler is off for to-night, and I'm hanged if I can find a lemon in the
+house. Maybe you'll join me in a smoke?" he added, shoving my own bundle of
+brevas across the table. "Help yourself."
+
+"I guess I know where the lemons are," said I. "But how did you know my
+butler was out?"
+
+"I telephoned him to go to Philadelphia this afternoon to see his brother
+Yoku, who is ill there," said my visitor. "You see, I didn't want him
+around to-night when I called. I knew I could manage you alone in case you
+turned up, as you see you have, but two of you, and one a Jap, I was afraid
+might involve us all in ugly complications. Between you and me, Jenkins,
+these Orientals are pretty lively fighters, and your man Nogi particularly
+has got jiu-jitsu down to a pretty fine point, so I had to do something to
+get rid of him. Our arrangement is a matter for two, not three, anyhow."
+
+"So," said I, coldly. "You and I have an arrangement, have we? I wasn't
+aware of it."
+
+"Not yet," he answered. "But there's a chance that we may have. If I can
+only satisfy myself that you are the man I'm looking for, there is no
+earthly reason that I can see why we should not come to terms. Go on out
+and get the lemons and the gin and soda, and let's talk this thing over man
+to man like a couple of good fellows at the club. I mean you no harm, and
+you certainly don't wish to do any kind of injury to a chap who, even
+though appearances are against him, really means to do you a good turn."
+
+"Appearances certainly are against you, sir," said I, a trifle warmly, for
+the man's composure was irritating. "A disappearance would be more likely
+to do you credit at this moment."
+
+"Tush, Jenkins!" he answered. "Why waste breath saying self-evident things?
+Here you are on the verge of a big transaction, and you delay proceedings
+by making statements of fact, mixed in with a cheap wit which, I must
+confess, I find surprising, and so obvious as to be visible even to the
+blind. You don't talk like an author whose stuff is worth ten cents a
+word--more like a penny-a-liner, in fact, with whom words are of such small
+value that no one's the loser if he throws away a whole dictionary. Go out
+and mix a couple of your best Remsen coolers, and by the time you get back
+I'll have got to the gist of this royalty statement of yours, which is all
+I've come for. Your silver and books and love letters and manuscripts are
+safe from me. I wouldn't have 'em as a gift."
+
+"What concern have you with my royalties?" I demanded.
+
+"A vital one," said he. "Mix the coolers, and when you get back I'll tell
+you. Go on. There's a good chap. It'll be daylight before long, and I want
+to close up this job if I can before sunrise."
+
+What there was in the man's manner to persuade me to compliance with his
+wishes, I am sure I cannot say definitely. There was a cold, steely glitter
+in his eye, for one thing. With it, however, was a strengthfulness of
+purpose, a certain pleasant masterfulness, that made me feel that I could
+trust him, and it was to this aspect of his nature that I yielded. There
+was something frankly appealing in his long, thin, ascetic looking face,
+and I found it irresistible.
+
+"All right," said I with a smile and a frown to express the conflicting
+quality of my emotions. "So be it. I'll get the coolers, but you must
+remember, my friend, that there are coolers and coolers, just as there are
+jugs and jugs. The kind of jug that remains for you will depend upon the
+story you have to tell when I get back, so you'd better see that it's a
+good one."
+
+"I am not afraid, Jenkins, old chap," he said with a hearty laugh as I
+rose. "If this royalty statement can prove to me that you are the literary
+partner I need in my business, I can prove to you that I'm a good man to
+tie up to--so go along with you."
+
+
+With this he lighted a fresh cigar and turned to a perusal of my statement,
+which, I am glad to say, was a good one, owing to the great success of my
+book, _Wild Animals I Have Never Met_--the seventh-best seller at
+Rochester, Watertown, and Miami in June and July, 1905--while I went out
+into the dining-room and mixed the coolers. As you may imagine, I was not
+long at it, for my curiosity over my visitor lent wings to my corkscrew,
+and in five minutes I was back with the tempting beverages in the tall
+glasses, the lemon curl giving it the vertebrate appearance that all stiff
+drinks should have, and the ice tinkling refreshingly upon the sultry air.
+
+"There," said I, placing his glass before him. "Drink hearty, and then to
+business. Who are you?"
+
+"There is my card," he replied, swallowing a goodly half of the cooler and
+smacking his lips appreciatively, and tossing a visiting card across to me
+on the other side of the table. I picked up the card and read as follows:
+"Mr. Raffles Holmes, London and New York."
+
+"Raffles Holmes?" I cried in amazement.
+
+"The same, Mr. Jenkins," said he. "I am the son of Sherlock Holmes, the
+famous detective, and grandson of A. J. Raffles, the distinguished--er--ah--
+cricketer, sir."
+
+I gazed at him, dumb with astonishment.
+
+"You've heard of my father, Sherlock Holmes?" asked my visitor.
+
+I confessed that the name of the gentleman was not unfamiliar to me.
+
+"And Mr. Raffles, my grandfather?" he persisted.
+
+"If there ever was a story of that fascinating man that I have not read, Mr.
+Holmes," said I, "I beg you will let me have it."
+
+"Well, then," said he with that quick, nervous manner which proved him a
+true son of Sherlock Holmes, "did it never occur to you as an extraordinary
+happening, as you read of my father's wonderful powers as a detective, and
+of Raffles' equally wonderful prowess as a--er--well, let us not mince
+words--as a thief, Mr. Jenkins, the two men operating in England at the same
+time, that no story ever appeared in which Sherlock Holmes's genius was
+pitted against the subtly planned misdeeds of Mr. Raffles? Is it not
+surprising that with two such men as they were, working out their destinies
+in almost identical grooves of daily action, they should never have crossed
+each other's paths as far as the public is the wiser, and in the very nature
+of the conflicting interests of their respective lines of action as foemen,
+the one pursuing, the other pursued, they should to the public's knowledge
+never have clashed?"
+
+"Now that you speak of it," said I, "it was rather extraordinary that
+nothing of the sort happened. One would think that the sufferers from the
+depredations of Raffles would immediately have gone to Holmes for assistance
+in bringing the other to justice. Truly, as you intimate, it was strange
+that they never did."
+
+"Pardon me, Jenkins," put in my visitor. "I never intimated anything of the
+sort. What I intimated was that no story of any such conflict ever came to
+light. As a matter of fact, Sherlock Holmes was put upon a Raffles case in
+1883, and while success attended upon every step of it, and my grandfather
+was run to earth by him as easily as was ever any other criminal in Holmes's
+grip, a little naked god called Cupid stepped in, saved Raffles from jail,
+and wrote the word failure across Holmes's docket of the case. _I, sir, am
+the only tangible result of Lord Dorrington's retainers to Sherlock
+Holmes._"
+
+"You speak enigmatically, after the occasional fashion of your illustrious
+father," said I. "The Dorrington case is unfamiliar to me."
+
+"Naturally so," said my vis-a-vis. "Because, save to my father, my
+grandfather, and myself, the details are unknown to anybody. Not even my
+mother knew of the incident, and as for Dr. Watson and Bunny, the scribes
+through whose industry the adventures of those two great men were
+respectively narrated to an absorbed world, they didn't even know there had
+ever been a Dorrington case, because Sherlock Holmes never told Watson and
+Raffles never told Bunny. But they both told me, and now that I am satisfied
+that there is a demand for your books, I am willing to tell it to you with
+the understanding that we share and share alike in the profits if perchance
+you think well enough of it to write it up."
+
+"Go on!" I said. "I'll whack up with you square and honest."
+
+"Which is more than either Watson or Bunny ever did with my father or my
+grandfather, else I should not be in the business which now occupies my time
+and attention," said Raffles Holmes with a cold snap to his eyes which I
+took as an admonition to hew strictly to the line of honor, or to subject
+myself to terrible consequences. "With that understanding, Jenkins, I'll
+tell you the story of the Dorrington Ruby Seal, in which some crime, a good
+deal of romance, and my ancestry are involved."
+
+
+
+II
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE DORRINGTON RUBY SEAL
+
+"Lord Dorrington, as you may have heard," said Raffles Holmes, leaning back
+in my easy-chair and gazing reflectively up at the ceiling, "was chiefly
+famous in England as a sporting peer. His vast estates, in five counties,
+were always open to any sportsman of renown, or otherwise, as long as he was
+a true sportsman. So open, indeed, was the house that he kept that, whether
+he was there or not, little week-end parties of members of the sporting
+fraternity used to be got up at a moment's notice to run down to Dorrington
+Castle, Devonshire; to Dorrington Lodge on the Isle of Wight; to Dorrington
+Hall, near Dublin, or to any other country place for over Sunday.
+
+"Sometimes there'd be a lot of turf people: sometimes a dozen or more
+devotes of the prize-ring; not infrequently a gathering of the best-known
+cricketers of the time, among whom, of course, my grandfather, A. J.
+Raffles, was conspicuous. For the most part, the cricketers never partook of
+Dorrington's hospitality save when his lordship was present, for your
+cricket-player is a bit more punctilious in such matters than your turfmen
+or ring-side habitues. It so happened one year, however, that his lordship
+was absent from England for the better part of eight months, and, when the
+time came for the annual cricket gathering at his Devonshire place, he
+cabled his London representative to see to it that everything was carried on
+just as if he were present, and that every one should be invited for the
+usual week's play and pleasure at Dorrington Castle. His instructions were
+carried out to the letter, and, save for the fact that the genial host was
+absent, the house-part went through to perfection. My grandfather, as usual,
+was the life of the occasion, and all went merry as a marriage-bell. Seven
+months later, Lord Dorrington returned, and a week after that, the loss of
+the Dorrington jewels from the Devonshire strong-boxes was a matter of
+common knowledge. When, or by whom, they had been taken was an absolute
+mystery. As far as anybody could find out, they might have been taken the
+night before his return, or the night after his departure. The only fact in
+sight was that they were gone--Lady Dorrington's diamonds, a half-dozen
+valuable jewelled rings belonging to his lordship, and, most irremediable of
+losses, the famous ruby seal which George IV had given to Dorrington's
+grandfather, Sir Arthur Deering, as a token of his personal esteem during
+the period of the Regency. This was a flawless ruby, valued at some six or
+seven thousand pounds sterling, in which had been cut the Deering arms
+surrounded by a garter upon which were engraved the words, 'Deering Ton,'
+which the family, upon Sir Arthur's elevation to the peerage in 1836, took
+as its title, or Dorrington. His lordship was almost prostrated by the loss.
+The diamonds and the rings, although valued at thirty thousand pounds, he
+could easily replace, but the personal associations of the seal were such
+that nothing, no amount of money, could duplicate the lost ruby."
+
+"So that his first act," I broke in, breathlessly, "was to send for--"
+
+"Sherlock Holmes, my father," said Raffles Holmes. "Yes, Mr. Jenkins, the
+first thing Lord Dorrington did was to telegraph to London for Sherlock
+Holmes, requesting him to come immediately to Dorrington Castle and assume
+charge of the case. Needless to say, Mr. Holmes dropped everything else and
+came. He inspected the gardens, measured the road from the railway station
+to the castle, questioned all the servants; was particularly insistent upon
+knowing where the parlor-maid was on the 13th of January; secured accurate
+information as to the personal habits of his lordship's dachshund Nicholas;
+subjected the chef to a cross-examination that covered every point of his
+life, from his remote ancestry to his receipt for baking apples; gathered up
+three suit-cases of sweeping from his lordship's private apartment, and two
+boxes containing three each of every variety of cigars that Lord Dorrington
+had laid down in his cellar. As you are aware, Sherlock Holmes, in his
+prime, was a great master of detail. He then departed for London, taking
+with him an impression in wax of the missing seal, which Lord Dorrington
+happened to have preserved in his escritoire.
+
+"On his return to London, Holmes inspected the seal carefully under a
+magnifying-glass, and was instantly impressed with the fact that it was not
+unfamiliar to him. He had seen it somewhere before, but where? That was now
+the question upper-most in his mind. Prior to this, he had never had any
+communication with Lord Dorrington, so that, if it was in his correspondence
+that the seal had formerly come to him, most assuredly the person who had
+used it had come by it dishonestly. Fortunately, at that time, it was a
+habit of my father's never to destroy papers of any sort. Every letter that
+he ever received was classified and filed, envelope and all. The thing to
+do, then, was manifestly to run over the files and find the letter, if
+indeed it was in or on a letter that the seal had first come to his
+attention. It was a herculean job, but that never feazed Sherlock Holmes,
+and he went at it tooth and nail. Finally his effort was rewarded. Under
+'Applications for Autograph' he found a daintily-scented little missive from
+a young girl living at Goring-Streatley on the Thames, the daughter, she
+said, of a retired missionary--the Reverend James Tattersby--asking him if
+he would not kindly write his autograph upon the enclosed slip for her
+collection. It was the regular stock application that truly distinguished
+men receive in every mail. The only thing to distinguish it from other
+applications was the beauty of the seal on the fly of the envelope, which
+attracted his passing notice and was then filed away with the other letters
+of similar import.
+
+"'Ho! ho!' quoth Holmes, as he compared the two impressions and discovered
+that they were identical. 'An innocent little maiden who collects
+autographs, and a retired missionary in possession of the Dorrington seal,
+eh? Well, that _is_ interesting. I think I shall run down to Goring-
+Streatley over Sunday and meets Miss Marjorie Tattersby and her reverend
+father. I'd like to see to what style of people I have intrusted my
+autograph.'
+
+"To decide was to act with Sherlock Holmes, and the following Saturday,
+hiring a canoe at Windsor, he made his way up the river until he came to the
+pretty little hamlet, snuggling in the Thames Valley, if such it may be
+called, where the young lady and her good father were dwelling. Fortune
+favored him in that his prey was still there--both much respected by the
+whole community; the father a fine looking, really splendid specimen of a
+man whose presence alone carried a conviction of integrity and a lofty man;
+the daughter--well, to see her was to love her, and the moment the eyes of
+Sherlock fell upon her face that great heart of his, that had ever been
+adamant to beauty, a very Gibraltar against the wiles of the other sex, went
+down in the chaos of a first and overwhelming passion. So hard hit was he by
+Miss Tattersby's beauty that his chief thought now was to avert rather than
+to direct suspicion towards her. After all, she might have come into
+possession of the jewel honestly, though how the daughter of a retired
+missionary, considering its intrinsic value, could manage such a thing, was
+pretty hard to understand, and he fled back to London to think it over.
+Arrived there, he found an invitation to visit Dorrington Castle again
+incog. Lord Dorrington was to have a mixed week-end party over the following
+Sunday, and this, he thought, would give Holmes an opportunity to observe
+the characteristics of Dorrington's visitors and possibly gain therefore
+some clew as to the light-fingered person from whose depredations his
+lordship had suffered. The idea commended itself to Holmes, and in the
+disguise of a young American clergyman, whom Dorrington had met in the
+States, the following Friday found him at Dorrington Castle.
+
+"Well, to make a long story short," said Raffles Holmes, "the young
+clergyman was introduced to many of the leading sportsmen of the hour, and,
+for the most part, they passed muster, but one of them did not, and that was
+the well-known cricketer A. J. Raffles, for the moment Raffles entered the
+room, jovially greeting everybody about him, and was presented to Lord
+Dorrington's new guest, Sherlock Holmes recognized in him no less a person
+that the Reverend James Tattersby, retired missionary of Goring-Streatley-
+on-Thames, and the father of the woman who had filled his soul with love and
+yearning of the truest sort. The problem was solved. Raffles was, to all
+intents and purposes, caught with the goods on. Holmes could have exposed
+him then and there had he chosen to do so, but every time it came to the
+point the lovely face of Marjorie Tattersby came between him and his
+purpose. How could he inflict the pain and shame which the exposure of her
+father's misconduct would certainly entail upon that fair woman, whose
+beauty and fresh innocence had taken so strong a hold upon his heart? No--
+that was out of the question. The thing to do, clearly was to visit Miss
+Tattersby during her father's absence, and, if possible, ascertain from just
+how she had come into possession of the seal, before taking further steps in
+the matter. This he did. Making sure, to begin with, that Raffles was to
+remain at Dorrington Hall for the coming ten days, Holmes had himself
+telegraphed for and returned to London. There he wrote himself a letter of
+introduction to the Reverend James Tattersby, on the paper of the Anglo-
+American Missionary Society, a sheet of which he secured in the public
+writing-room of that institution, armed with which he returned to the
+beautiful little spot on the Thames where the Tattersbys abode. He spent the
+night at the inn, and, in conversation with the landlord and boatmen,
+learned much that was interesting concerning the Reverend James. Among other
+things, he discovered that this gentleman and his daughter had been
+respected residents of the place for three years; that Tattersby was rarely
+seen in the daytime about the place; that he was unusually fond of canoeing
+at night, which, he said, gave him the quiet and solitude necessary for that
+reflection which is so essential to the spiritual being of a minister of
+grace; that he frequently indulged in long absences, during which time it
+was supposed that he was engaged in the work of his calling. He appeared to
+be a man of some, but not lavish, means. The most notable and suggestive
+thing, however, that Holmes ascertained in his conversation with the boatmen
+was that, at the time of the famous Cliveden robbery, when several thousand
+pounds' worth of plate had been taken from the great hall, that later fell
+into the possession of a well-known American hotel-keeper, Tattersby, who
+happened to be on the river late that night, was, according to his own
+statement, the unconscious witness of the escape of the thieves on board a
+mysterious steam-launch, which the police were never able afterwards to
+locate. They had nearly upset his canoe with the wash of their rapidly
+moving craft as they sped past him after having stowed their loot safely on
+board. Tattersby had supposed them to be employes of the estate, and never
+gave the matter another thought until three days later, when the news of the
+robbery was published to the world. He had immediately communicated the news
+of what he had seen to the police, and had done all that lay in his power to
+aid them in locating the robbers, but all to no purpose. From that day to
+this the mystery of the Cliveden plot had never been solved.
+
+"The following day Holmes called at the Tattersby cottage, and was fortunate
+enough to find Miss Tattersby at home. His previous impression as to her
+marvellous beauty was more than confirmed, and each moment that he talked to
+her she revealed new graces of manner that completed the capture of his
+hitherto unsusceptible heart. Miss Tattersby regretted her father's absence.
+He had gone, she said, to attend a secret missionary conference at
+Pentwllycod in Wales, and was not expected back for a week, all of which
+quite suited Sherlock Holmes. Convinced that, after years of waiting, his
+affinity had at last crossed his path, he was in no hurry for the return of
+that parent, who would put an instant quietus upon this affair of the heart.
+Manifestly the thing for him to do was to win the daughter's hand, and then
+intercept the father, acquaint him with his aspirations, and compel
+acquiescence by the force of his knowledge of Raffles's misdeed. Hence,
+instead of taking his departure immediately, he remained at the Goring-
+Streatley Inn, taking care each day to encounter Miss Tattersby on one
+pretext or another, hoping that their acquaintance would ripen into
+friendship, and then into something warmer. Nor was the hope a vain one, for
+when the fair Marjorie learned that it was the visitor's intention to remain
+in the neighborhood until her father's return, she herself bade him to make
+use of the old gentleman's library, to regard himself always as a welcome
+daytime guest. She even suggested pleasant walks through the neighboring
+country, little canoe trips up and down the Thames, which they might take
+together, of all of which Holmes promptly availed himself, with the result
+that, at the end of six days, both realized that they were designed for each
+other, and a passionate declaration followed which opened new vistas of
+happiness for both. Hence it was that, when the Reverend James Tattersby
+arrived at Goring-Streatley the following Monday night, unexpectedly, he was
+astounded to find sitting together in the moonlight, in the charming little
+English garden at the rear of his dwelling, two persons, one of whom was his
+daughter Marjorie and the other a young American curate to whom he had
+already been introduced as A. J. Raffles.
+
+"'We have met before, I think,' said Raffles, coldly, as his eye fell upon
+Holmes.
+
+"'I--er--do not recall the fact,' replied Holmes, meeting the steely stare
+of the home-comer with one of his own flinty glances.
+
+"'H'm!' ejaculated Raffles, non-plussed at the other's failure to recognize
+him. Then he shivered slightly. 'Suppose we go in-doors, it is a trifle
+chilly out here in the night air.'
+
+"The whole thing, the greeting, the meeting, Holmes's demeanor and all, was
+so admirably handled that Marjorie Tattersby never guessed the truth, never
+even suspected the intense dramatic quality of the scene she had just gazed
+upon.
+
+"'Yes, let us go in-doors,' she acquiesced. 'Mr. Dutton has something to say
+to you, papa.'
+
+"'So I presumed,' said Raffles, dryly. 'And something that were better said
+to me alone, I fancy, eh?' he added.
+
+"'Quite so,' said Holmes, calmly. And in-doors they went. Marjorie
+immediately retired to the drawing-room, and Holmes and Raffles went at once
+to Tattersby's study.
+
+"'Well?' said Raffles, impatiently, when they were seated. 'I suppose you
+have come to get the Dorrington seal, Mr. Holmes.'
+
+"'Ah--you know me, then, Mr. Raffles?' said Holmes, with a pleasant smile.
+
+"'Perfectly,' said Raffles. 'I knew you at Dorrington Hall the moment I set
+eyes on you, and, if I hadn't, I should have known later, for the night
+after your departure Lord Dorrington took me into his confidence and
+revealed your identity to me.'
+
+"'I am glad,' said Holmes. 'It saves me a great deal of unnecessary
+explanation. If you admit that you have the seal--"
+
+"'But I don't,' said Raffles. 'I mentioned it a moment ago, because
+Dorrington told me that was what you were after. I haven't got it, Mr.
+Holmes.'
+
+"'I know that,' observed Holmes, quietly. 'It is in the possession of Miss
+Tattersby, your daughter, Mr. Raffles.'
+
+"'She showed it to you, eh?' demanded Raffles, paling.
+
+"'No. She sealed a note to me with it, however,' Holmes replied.
+
+"'A note to you?' cried Raffles.
+
+"'Yes. One asking for my autograph. I have it in my possession,' said
+Holmes.
+
+"'And how do you know that she is the person from whom that note really
+came?' Raffles asked.
+
+"'Because I have seen the autograph which was sent in response to that
+request in your daughter's collection, Mr. Raffles,' said Holmes.
+
+"'So that you conclude--?' Raffles put in, hoarsely.
+
+"'I do not conclude; I begin by surmising, sir, that the missing seal of
+Lord Dorrington was stolen by one of two persons--yourself or Miss Marjorie
+Tattersby,' said Holmes, calmly.
+
+"'Sir!' roared Raffles, springing to his feet menacingly.
+
+"'Sit down, please,' said Holmes. 'You did not let me finish. I was going to
+add, Dr. Tattersby, that a week's acquaintance with that lovely woman, a
+full knowledge of her peculiarly exalted character and guileless nature,
+makes the alternative of guilt that affects her integrity clearly
+preposterous, which, by a very simple process of elimination, fastens the
+guilt, beyond all peradventure, on your shoulders. At any rate, the presence
+of the seal in this house will involve you in difficult explanations. Why is
+it here? How did it come here? Why are you known as the Reverend James
+Tattersby, the missionary, at Goring-Streatley, and as Mr. A. J. Raffles,
+the cricketer and man of the world, at Dorrington Hall, to say nothing of
+the Cliveden plate--'
+
+"'Damnation!' roared the Reverend James Tattersby again, springing to his
+feet and glancing instinctively at the long low book-shelves behind him.
+
+"'To say nothing,' continued Holmes, calmly lighting a cigarette, 'of the
+Cliveden plate now lying concealed behind those dusty theological tomes of
+yours which you never allow to be touched by any other hand than your own.'
+
+"'How did you know?' cried Raffles, hoarsely.
+
+"'I didn't,' laughed Holmes. 'You have only this moment informed me of the
+fact!'
+
+"There was a long pause, during which Raffles paced the floor like a caged
+tiger.
+
+"'I'm a dangerous man to trifle with, Mr. Holmes,' he said, finally. 'I can
+shoot you down in cold blood in a second.'
+
+"'Very likely,' said Holmes. 'But you won't. It would add to the
+difficulties in which the Reverend James Tattersby is already deeply
+immersed. Your troubles are sufficient, as matters stand, without your
+having to explain to the world why you have killed a defenceless guest in
+your own study in cold blood.
+
+"'Well--what do you propose to do?' demanded Raffles, after another pause.
+
+"'Marry your daughter, Mr. Raffles, or Tattersby, whatever your permanent
+name is--I guess it's Tattersby in this case,' said Holmes. 'I love her and
+she loves me. Perhaps I should apologize for having wooed and won her
+without due notice to you, but you doubtless will forgive that. It's a
+little formality you sometimes overlook yourself when you happen to want
+something that belongs to somebody else.'
+
+"What Raffles would have answered no one knows. He had no chance to reply,
+for at that moment Marjorie herself put her radiantly lovely little head in
+at the door with a 'May I come in?' and a moment later she was gathered in
+Holmes's arms, and the happy lovers received the Reverend James Tattersby's
+blessing. They were married a week later, and, as far as the world is
+concerned, the mystery of the Dorrington seal and that of the Cliveden plate
+was never solved.
+
+"'It is compounding a felony, Raffles,' said Holmes, after the wedding, 'but
+for a wife like that, hanged if I wouldn't compound the ten commandments!'
+
+"I hope," I ventured to put in at that point, "that the marriage ceremony
+was not performed by the Reverend James Tattersby."
+
+"Not on your life!" retorted Raffles Holmes. "My father was too fond of my
+mother to permit of any flaw in his title. A year later I was born, and--
+well, here I am--son of one, grandson of the other, with hereditary traits
+from both strongly developed and ready for business. I want a literary
+partner--a man who will write me up as Bunny did Raffles, and Watson did
+Holmes, so that I may get a percentage on that part of the swag. I offer you
+the job, Jenkins. Those royalty statements show me that you are the man, and
+your books prove to me that you need a few fresh ideas. Come, what do you
+say? Will you do it?"
+
+"My boy," said I, enthusiastically, "don't say another word. Will I? Well,
+just try me!"
+
+And so it was that Raffles Holmes and I struck a bargain and became
+partners.
+
+
+
+III
+THE ADVENTURE OF MRS. BURLINGAME'S DIAMOND STOMACHER
+
+I had seen the marvellous creation very often at the opera, and in many ways
+resented it. Not that I was in the least degree a victim to envy, hatred,
+and malice towards those who are possessed of a superabundance of this
+world's good things--far from it. I rejoice in the great fortunes of earth
+because, with every dollar corralled by the superior energies of the multi-
+millionaires, the fewer there are for other men to seek, and until we stop
+seeking dollars and turn our minds to other, finer things, there will be no
+hope of peace and sweet content upon this little green ball we inhabit. My
+resentment of Mrs. Burlingame's diamond stomacher was not then based on envy
+of its possession, but merely upon the twofold nuisance which it created at
+the opera-house, as the lady who wore it sat and listened to the strains of
+Wagner, Bizet, or Gounod, mixed in with the small-talk of Reggie Stockson,
+Tommie de Coupon, and other lights of the social firmament. In the first
+place, it caused the people sitting about me in the high seats of the opera-
+house to chatter about it and discuss its probable worth every time the lady
+made her appearance in it, and I had fled from the standee part of the house
+to the top gallery just to escape the talkers, and, if possible, to get my
+music straight, without interruptions of any sort whatsoever on the side. In
+the second place, the confounded thing glittered so that, from where I sat,
+it was as dazzling as so many small mirrors flashing in the light of the
+sun. It seemed as if every electric light in the house found some kind of a
+refractor in the thousands of gems of which it was composed, and many of the
+brilliant light effects of the stage were dimmed in their lustre by the
+persistent intrusion of Mrs. Burlingame's glory upon my line of vision.
+
+Hence in was that, when I picked up my morning paper and read in great
+flaring head-lines on the front page that Mrs. Burlingame's diamond
+stomacher had been stolen from her at her Onyx Cottage at Newport, I smiled
+broadly, and slapped the breakfast-table so hard in my satisfaction that
+even the shredded-wheat biscuits flew up into the air and caught in the
+chandelier.
+
+"Thank Heaven for that!" I said. "Next season I shall be able to enjoy my
+opera undisturbed."
+
+"I little thought, at that blissful moment, how closely indeed were my own
+fortunes to be connected with that wonderful specimen of the jeweler's
+handicraft, but an hour later I was made aware of the first link in the
+chain that, in a measure, bound me to it. Breakfast over, I went to my desk
+to put the finishing touches to a novel I had written the week before, when
+word came up on the telephone from below that a gentleman from _Busybody's
+Magazine_ wished to see me on an important matter of business.
+
+"Tell him I'm already a subscriber," I called down, supposing the visitor to
+be merely an agent. "I took the magazine, and a set of Chaucer in a
+revolving bookcase, from one of their agents last month and have paid my
+dollar."
+
+In a moment another message came over the wire.
+
+"The gentleman says he wants to see you about writing a couple of full-page
+sonnets for the Christmas number," the office man 'phoned up.
+
+"Show him up," I replied, instantly.
+
+Two minutes later a rather handsome man, with a fine eye and a long, flowing
+gray beard, was ushered into my apartment.
+
+"I am Mr. Stikes, of _Busybody's,_ Mr. Jenkins," he said, with a twinkle in
+his eye. "We thought you might like to contribute to our Christmas issue. We
+want two sonnets, one on the old Christmas and the other on the new. We
+can't offer you more than a thousand dollars apiece for them, but--"
+
+Something caught in my throat, but I managed to reply. "I might shade my
+terms a trifle since you want as many as two," I gurgled. "And I assume you
+will pay on acceptance?"
+
+"Certainly," he said, gravely. "Could you let me have them, say--this
+afternoon?"
+
+I turned away so that he would not see the expression of joy on my face, and
+then there came from behind me a deep chuckle and the observation in a
+familiar voice:
+
+"You might throw in a couple of those Remsen coolers, too, while you're
+about it, Jenkins."
+
+I whirled about as if struck, and there, in place of the gray-bearded
+editor, stood--Raffles Holmes.
+
+"Bully disguise, eh!" he said, folding up his beard and putting it in his
+pocket.
+
+"Ye-e-es," said I, ruefully, as I thought of the vanished two thousand. "I
+think I preferred you in disguise, though, old man," I added.
+
+"You won't when you hear what I've come for," said he. "There's $5000 apiece
+in this job for us."
+
+"To what job do you refer?" I asked.
+
+"The Burlingame case," he replied. "I suppose you read in the papers this
+morning how Mrs. Burlingame's diamond stomacher has turned up missing."
+
+"Yes," said I, "and I'm glad of it."
+
+"You ought to be," said Holmes, "since it will put $5000 in your pocket. You
+haven't heard yet that there is a reward of $10,000 offered for its
+recovery. The public announcement has not yet been made, but it will be in
+to-night's papers, and we are the chaps that are going to get the reward."
+
+"But how?" I demanded.
+
+"Leave that to me," said he. "By-the-way, I wish you'd let me leave this
+suit-case of mine in your room for about ten days. It holds some important
+papers, and my shop is turned topsy-turvy just now with the painters."
+
+"Very well," said I. "I'll shove it under my bed."
+
+"I took the suit-case as Holmes had requested, and hid it away in my
+bedroom, immediately returning to the library, where he sat smoking one of
+my cigars as cool as a cucumber. There was something in his eye, however,
+that aroused my suspicion as soon as I entered.
+
+"See here, Holmes," said I. "I can't afford to be mixed up in any shady
+business like this, you know. Have you got that stomacher?"
+
+"No, I haven't," said he. "Honor bright--I haven't."
+
+I eyed him narrowly.
+
+"I think I understand the evasion," I went on. "_You_ haven't got it because
+I have got it--it's in that suit-case under my bed."
+
+"Open it and see for yourself," said he. "It isn't there."
+
+"But you know where it is?" I demanded.
+
+"How else could I be sure of that $10,000 reward?" he asked.
+
+"Where is it?" I demanded.
+
+"It--er--it isn't located yet--that is, not finally," said he. "And it won't
+be for ten days. Ten days from now Mrs. Burlingame will find it herself and
+we'll divvy on the reward, my boy, and not a trace of dishonesty in the
+whole business."
+
+And with that Raffles Holmes filled his pockets with cigars from my stores,
+and bidding me be patient went his way.
+
+The effect of his visit upon my nerves was such that any more work that day
+was impossible. The fear of possible complications to follow upset me
+wholly, and, despite his assurance that the suit-case was innocent of
+surreptitiously acquired stomachers, I could not rid my mind of the
+suspicion that he made of my apartment a fence for the concealment of his
+booty. The more I thought of it the more was I inclined to send for him and
+request him to remove the bag forthwith, and yet, if it should so happen
+that he had spoken the truth, I should by that act endanger our friendship
+and possibly break the pact, which bade fair to be profitable. Suddenly I
+remembered his injunction to me to look for myself and see if the stomacher
+really was concealed there, and I hastened to act upon it. It might have
+been pure bluff on his part, and I resolved not to be bluffed.
+
+The case opened easily, and the moment I glanced into it my suspicions were
+allayed. It contained nothing but bundle after bundle of letters tied
+together with pink and blue ribbons, one or two old daguerreotypes, some
+locks of hair, and an ivory miniature of Raffles Holmes himself as an
+infant. Not a stomacher, diamond or otherwise, was hid in the case, nor any
+other suspicious object, and I closed it with a sheepish feeling of shame
+for having intruded upon the sacred correspondence and relics of the happy
+childhood days of my new friend.
+
+That night, as Holmes had asserted, a reward of $10,000 was offered for the
+recovery of the Burlingame stomacher, and the newspapers for the next ten
+days were full of the theories of detectives of all sorts, amateur,
+professional, and reportorial. Central Office was after it in one place,
+others sought it elsewhere. The editor of one New York paper printed a full
+list of the names of the guests at Mrs. Burlingame's dinner the night the
+treasure was stolen, and, whether they ever discovered it for themselves or
+not, several bearers of highly honored social names were shadowed by
+reporters and others everywhere they went for the next week. At the end of
+five days the reward was increased to $20,000, and then Raffles Holmes's
+name began to appear in connection with the case. Mrs. Burlingame herself
+had sent for him, and, without taking it out of the hands of others, had
+personally requested him to look into the matter. He had gone to Newport and
+looked the situation over there. He had questioned all the servants in her
+two establishments at Newport and New York, and had finally assured the lady
+that, on the following Tuesday morning, he would advise her by wire of the
+definite location of her missing jewel.
+
+During all this time Holmes had not communicated with me at all, and I began
+to fear that, offended by my behavior at our last meeting, he had cut me out
+of his calculations altogether, when, just as I was about to retire on
+Sunday night, he reappeared as he had first come to me--stealing up the
+fire-escape; and this time he wore a mask, and carried unquestionably a
+burglar's kit and a dark lantern. He started nervously as he caught sight of
+me reaching up to turn off the light in the library.
+
+"Hang it call, Jenkins!" he cried. "I thought you'd gone off to the country
+for the week-end."
+
+"No," said I. "I meant to go, but I was detained. What's up?"
+
+"Oh, well--I may as well out with it," he answered. "I didn't want you to
+know, but--well, watch and see."
+
+With this Raffles Holmes strode directly to my bookcase, removed my extra-
+illustrated set of Fox's _Book of Martyrs,_ in five volumes, from the
+shelves, and there, resting upon the shelf behind them, glittered nothing
+less than the missing stomacher!
+
+"Great Heavens, Holmes!" I said, "what does this mean? How did those
+diamonds get there?"
+
+"I put them there myself while you were shoving my suit-case under your bed
+the other night," said he.
+
+"You told me you didn't have them," I said, reproachfully.
+
+"I didn't when I spoke--_you_ had them," said he.
+
+"You told me they had not been finally located," I persisted, angrily.
+
+"I told you the truth. They were only temporarily located," he answered.
+"I'm going to locate them definitely to-night, and to-morrow Mrs. Burlingame
+will find them--"
+
+"Where?" I cried.
+
+"_In her own safe in her New York house!_" said Raffles Holmes.
+
+"You--"
+
+"Yes--I took them from Newport myself--very easy job, too," said Raffles
+Holmes. "Ever since I saw them at the opera last winter I have had this in
+mind, so when Mrs. Burlingame gave her dinner I served as an extra butler
+from Delmonico's--drugged the regular chap up on the train on his way up
+from New York--took his clothes, and went in his place. That night I rifled
+the Newport safe of the stomacher, and the next day brought it here. To-
+night I take it to the Burlingame house on Fifth Avenue, secure entrance
+through a basement door, to which, in my capacity of detective, I have
+obtained the key, and, while the caretakers sleep, Mrs. Burlingame's diamond
+stomacher will be placed in the safe on the first floor back.
+
+"To-morrow morning I shall send Mrs. Burlingame this message: _'Have you
+looked in your New York safe?_ [Signed] Raffles Holmes,'" he continued. "She
+will come to town by the first train to find out what I mean; we will go to
+her residence; she will open the safe, and--$20,000 for us."
+
+"By Jove! Holmes, you are a wonder," said I. "This stomacher is worth
+$250,000 at the least," I added, as I took the creation in my hand. "Pot of
+money that!"
+
+"Yes," said he, with a sigh, taking the stomacher from me and fondling it.
+"The Raffles in me tells me that, but the Sherlock Holmes in my veins--well,
+I can't keep it, Jenkins, if that is what you mean."
+
+I blushed at the intimation conveyed by his words, and was silent; and
+Holmes, gathering up his tools and stuffing the stomacher in the capacious
+bosom of his coat, bade me au revoir, and went out into the night.
+
+
+
+The rest is already public property. All the morning papers were full of the
+strange recovery of the Burlingame stomacher the following Tuesday morning,
+and the name of Raffles Holmes was in every mouth. That night, the very
+essence of promptitude, Holmes appeared at my apartment and handed me a
+check for my share in the transaction.
+
+"Why--what does this mean?" I cried, as I took in the figures; "$12,500--I
+thought it was to be only $10,000."
+
+"It was," said Raffles Holmes, "but Mrs. Burlingame was so overjoyed at
+getting the thing back she made the check for $25,000 instead of for
+$20,000."
+
+"You're the soul of honor, Holmes!" I murmured.
+
+"On my father's side," he said, with a sigh. "On my mother's side it comes
+hard."
+
+"And Mrs. Burlingame--didn't she ask you how you ferreted the thing out?" I
+asked.
+
+"Yes," said Holmes. "But I told her that that was my secret, that my secret
+was my profession, and that my profession was my bread and butter."
+
+"But she must have asked you who was the guilty person?" I persisted.
+
+"Yes," said Holmes, "she did, and I took her for a little gallop through the
+social register, in search of the guilty party; that got on her nerves, so
+that when it came down to an absolute question of identity she begged me to
+forget it."
+
+"I am dull of comprehension, Raffles," said I. "Tell me exactly what you
+mean."
+
+"Simply this," said Raffles Holmes. "The present four hundred consists of
+about 19,250 people, of whom about twenty-five per cent. go to Newport at
+one time or another--say, 4812. Of these 4812 about ten per cent. are
+eligible for invitations to the Burlingame dinners, or 480. Now whom of the
+480 possibilities having access to the Burlingame cottage would we naturally
+suspect? Surely only those who were in the vicinity the night of the
+robbery. By a process of elimination we narrowed them down to just ten
+persons exclusive of Mrs. Burlingame herself and her husband, old Billie
+Burlingame. We took the lot and canvassed them. There were Mr. and Mrs.
+Willington Bodfish--they left early and the stomacher was known to be safe
+at the time of their departure. There were Bishop and Mrs. Pounderby,
+neither of whom would be at all likely to come back in the dead of night and
+remove property that did not belong to them. There were Senator and Mrs.
+Jorrocks. The Senator is after bigger game than diamond stomachers, and Mrs.
+Jorrocks is known to be honest. There were Harry Gaddsby and his wife. Harry
+doesn't know enough to go in when it rains, and is too timid to call even
+his soul his own, so he couldn't have taken it; and Mrs. Gaddsby is long on
+stomachers, having at least five, and therefore would not be likely to try
+to land a sixth by questionable means. In that way we practically cleared
+eight possibilities of suspicion.
+
+"'Now, Mrs. Burlingame,' said I, 'that leaves four persons still in the
+ring--yourself, your husband, your daughter, and the Duke of Snarleyow, your
+daughter's newly acquired fiance, in whose honor the dinner was given. Of
+these four, you are naturally yourself the first to be acquitted. Your
+husband comes next, and is not likely to be the guilty party, because if he
+wants a diamond stomacher he needn't steal it, having money enough to buy a
+dozen of them if he wishes. The third, your daughter, should be regarded as
+equally innocent, because if she was really desirous of possessing the jewel
+all she had to do was to borrow it from you. That brings us down to the Duke
+of--"
+
+"'Hush! I beg of you, Mr. Raffles Holmes!' she cried, in great agitation.
+'Not another word, I beseech you! If any one should overhear us--The
+subject, after all, is an unprofitable one, and I'd--I'd rather drop it, and
+it--it--er--it has just occurred to me that possibly I--er--possibly I--'
+
+"'Put the jewel in the safe yourself?' I suggested.
+
+"'Yes,' said Mrs. Burlingame,' with a grateful glance and a tremendous sigh
+of relief. 'Now that I think of it, Mr. Raffles Holmes--that _was_ it. I--
+er--I remember perfectly that--er--that I didn't wear it at all the night of
+my little dinner, and that I _did_ leave it behind me when I left town.'"
+
+"Humph!" said I. "That may account for the extra $5000--"
+
+"It may," said Raffles Holmes, pursing his lips into a deprecatory smile.
+
+
+
+IV
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE MISSING PENDANTS
+
+"I think," said Raffles Holmes, as he ran over his expense account while
+sitting in my library one night some months ago, "that in view of the
+present condition of my exchequer, my dear Jenkins, it behooveth me to get
+busy. Owning a motor-car is a demned expensive piece of business, and my
+balance at the bank has shrunk to about $1683.59, thanks to my bills for
+cogs, clutches, and gasoline, plus the chauffeur's fines."
+
+"In what capacity shall you work, Raffles or Holmes?" I asked, pausing in my
+writing and regarding him with that affectionate interest which contact with
+him had inspired in me.
+
+"Play the combination always, Jenkins," he replied. "If I did the Raffles
+act alone, I should become the billionaire in this land of silk and money,
+your rich are so careless of their wealth--but where would my conscience be?
+On the other hand, if I stuck to the Holmes act exclusively, I'd starve to
+death; but the combination--ah--there is moderate fortune, my boy, with
+peace of mind thrown in."
+
+Here he rose up, buttoned his coat about his spare figure, and reached out
+for his hat.
+
+"I guess I'll tackle that case of the missing pendants to-morrow," he
+continued, flicking the ash from his cigar and gazing up at the ceiling with
+that strange twist in his eye which I had learned to regard as the harbinger
+of a dawning idea in his mind. "There's ten thousand dollars for somebody in
+that job, and you and I might as well have it as any one else."
+
+"I'm ready," said I, as well I might be, for all I had to do in the matter
+was to record the adventure and take my half of the profits--no very
+difficult proceeding in either case.
+
+"Good," quoth he. "I'll go to Gaffany & Co. to-morrow and offer my
+services."
+
+"You have a clew?" I asked.
+
+"I have an idea," he answered. "As for the lost diamonds, I know no more of
+their whereabouts than you do, but I shall be able beyond all question to
+restore to Gaffany & Co. two pendants just as good as those they have lost,
+and if I do that I am entitled to the reward, I fancy, am I not?"
+
+"Most certainly," said I. "But where the dickens will you find two such
+stones? They are worth $50,000 apiece, and they must match perfectly the two
+remaining jewels which Gaffany & Co. have in their safe."
+
+"I'll match 'em so closely that their own mother couldn't tell 'em apart,"
+said Holmes, with a chuckle.
+
+"Then the report that they are of such rarity of cut and lustre is untrue?"
+I asked.
+
+"It's perfectly true," said Holmes, "but that makes no difference. The two
+stones that I shall return two weeks from to-day to Gaffany & Co. will be as
+like the two they have as they are themselves. Ta-ta, Jenkins--you can count
+on your half of that ten thousand as surely as though it is jingled now in
+your pockets."
+
+And with that Raffles Holmes left me to my own devices.
+
+I presume that most readers of the daily newspapers are tolerably familiar
+with the case of the missing pendants to which Holmes referred, and on the
+quest for which he was now about to embark. There may be some of you,
+however, who have never heard of the mysterious robbery of Gaffany & Co., by
+which two diamonds of almost matchless purity--half of a quartet of these
+stones--pear-shaped and valued at $50,000 each, had disappeared almost as if
+the earth had opened and swallowed them up. They were a part of the famous
+Gloria Diamond, found last year at Kimberley, a huge, uncut gem of such
+value that no single purchaser for it could be found in the world. By a
+syndicate arrangement Gaffany & Co. had assumed charge of it, and were in
+the process of making for a customer a bar with four pendants cut from the
+original, when two of them disappeared. They had been last seen in the hands
+of a trusted employe of many years' standing, to whom they had been intrusted
+for mounting, and he had been seen to replace them, at the end of the day's
+work, in the little cage-like office of the custodian of the safe in which
+jewels of great value were kept at night. This was the last seen of them,
+and although five weeks had elapsed since the discovery of their loss and
+Holmes's decision to look into the matter, no clew of the slightest
+description had been discovered by the thousands of sleuths, professional or
+amateur, who had interested themselves in the case.
+
+"He had such assurance!" I muttered. "To hear him talk one would almost
+believe that they were already in his possession."
+
+I did not see Raffles Holmes again for five days, and then I met him only by
+chance, nor should I have known it was he had he not made himself known to
+me. I was on my way uptown, a little after six o'clock, and as I passed
+Gaffany's an aged man emerged from the employes' entrance, carrying a small
+bag in his hand. He was apparently very near-sighted, for he most
+unceremoniously bumped into me as he came out of the door on to the
+sidewalk.
+
+Deference to age has always been a weakness of mine, and I apologized,
+although it was he that was at fault.
+
+"Don't mention it, Jenkins," he whispered. "You are just the man I want to
+see. Cafe Panhard--to-night--eleven o'clock. Just happen in, and if a
+foreign-looking person with a red beard speaks to you don't throw him down,
+but act as if you were not annoyed by his mistake."
+
+"You know me?" I asked.
+
+"Tush, man--I'm Raffles Holmes!" and with that he was off.
+
+His make-up was perfect, and as he hobbled his way along Broadway through
+the maze of cars, trucks, and hansoms, there was not in any part of him a
+hint or a suggestion that brought to mind my alert partner.
+
+Of course my excitement was intense. I could hardly wait for eleven o'clock
+to come, and at 9.30 I found myself in front of the Cafe Panhard a full hour
+and a half ahead of time, and never were there more minutes in that period
+of waiting than there seemed to be then as I paced Broadway until the
+appointed hour. It seemed ages before the clock down in front of the Whirald
+Building pointed to 10.55, but at last the moment arrived, and I entered the
+cafe, taking one of the little tables in the farther corner, where the light
+was not unduly strong and where the turmoil of the Hungarian band was
+reduced by distance from moltofortissimo to a moderate approach to a
+pianissimo, which would admit of conversation. Again I had to wait, but not
+for so long a time. It was twenty minutes past eleven when a fine-looking
+man of military bearing, wearing a full red beard, entered, and after
+looking the cafe over, sauntered up to where I sat.
+
+"Good-evening, Mr. Jenkins," said he, with a slight foreign accent. "Are you
+alone?"
+
+"Yes," said I.
+
+"If you don't mind, I should like to sit here for a few moments," he
+observed, pulling out the chair opposite me. "I have your permission?"
+
+"Certainly, Mr.--er--"
+
+"Robinstein is my name," said he, sitting down, and producing a letter from
+his pocket. "I have here a note from my old friend Raffles Holmes--a note of
+introduction to you. I am a manufacturer of paste jewels--or rather was. I
+have had one or two misfortunes in my business, and find myself here in
+America practically stranded."
+
+"Your place of business was--"
+
+"In the Rue de l'Echelle in Paris," he explained. "I lost everything in
+unfortunate speculation, and have come here to see if I could not get a new
+start. Mr. Holmes thinks you can use your influence with Markoo & Co., the
+theatrical costumers, who, I believe, manufacture themselves all the stage
+jewelry they use in their business, to give me something to do. It was said
+in Paris that the gems which I made were of such quality that they would
+deceive, for a time anyhow, the most expert lapidaries, and if I can only
+get an opening with Markoo & Co. I am quite confident that you will not
+repent having exerted your good offices in my behalf."
+
+"Why, certainly, Mr. Robinstein," said I. "Any friend of Raffles Holmes may
+command my services. I know Tommy Markoo very well, and as this is a pretty
+busy time with him, getting his stuff out for the fall productions, I have
+little doubt I shall be able to help you. By Jove!" I added, as I glanced
+over the cafe, "that's a singular coincidence--there is Markoo himself just
+coming in the doorway."
+
+"Really?" said Mr. Robinstein, turning and gazing towards the door. "He's a
+different-looking chap from what I had imagined. Perhaps, Mr. Jenkins, it
+would--er--expedite matters if you--"
+
+"Of course," I interrupted. "Tommy is alone--we'll have him over."
+
+And I beckoned to Markoo and invited him to join us.
+
+"Good!" said he, in his whole-souled way. "Glad to have a chance to see
+you--I'm so confoundedly busy these days--just think of it, I've been at
+the shop ever since eight o'clock this morning."
+
+"Tommy, I want to introduce you to my friend Mr. Robinstein," said I.
+
+"Not Isidore Robinstein, of Paris?" said Markoo.
+
+"I have that misfortune, Mr. Markoo," said Robinstein.
+
+"Misfortune? Gad, Mr. Robinstein, we look at things through different
+glasses," returned Markoo. "The man who can do your work ought never to
+suffer misfortune--"
+
+"If he only stays out of the stock-market," said Robinstein.
+
+"Aha," laughed Tommy. "Et tu, Brute?"
+
+We all laughed, and if there was any ice to be broken after that it was
+along the line of business of the cafe. We got along famously together, and
+when we parted company, two hours later, all the necessary arrangements had
+been made for Mr. Robinstein to begin at once with Markoo--the following
+day, in fact.
+
+Four nights later Holmes turned up at my apartment.
+
+"Well," said I, "have you come to report progress?"
+
+"Yes," he said. "The reward will arrive on time, but it's been the de'il's
+own job. Pretty, aren't they!" he added, taking a small package wrapped in
+tissue-paper out of his pocket, and disclosing its contents.
+
+"Gee-rusalem, what beauties!" I cried, as my eyes fell on two such diamonds
+as I had never before seen. They sparkled on the paper like bits of
+sunshine, and that their value was quite $100,000 it did not take one like
+myself, who knew little of gems, to see at a glance. "You have found them,
+have you?"
+
+"Found what?" asked Raffles Holmes.
+
+"The missing pendants," said I.
+
+"Well--not exactly," said Raffles Holmes. "I think I'm on the track of them,
+though. There's an old chap who works beside me down at Gaffany's who spends
+so much of his time drinking ice-water that I'm getting to be suspicious of
+him."
+
+I roared with laughter.
+
+"The ice-water habit is evidence of a criminal nature, eh?" I queried.
+
+"Not per se," said Holmes, gravely, "but in conjunctibus--if my Latin is
+weak, please correct me--it is a very suspicious habit. When I see a man
+drink ten glasses of water in two hours it indicates to my mind that there
+is something in the water-cooler that takes his mind off his business. It is
+not likely to be either the ice or the water, on the doctrine of
+probabilities. Hence it must be something else. I caught him yesterday with
+his hand in it."
+
+"His hand? In the water-cooler?" I demanded.
+
+"Yes," said Holmes. "He said he was fishing around for a little piece of ice
+to cool his head, which ached, but I think differently. He got as pale as a
+ghost when I started in to fish for a piece for myself because my head ached
+too. I think he took the diamonds and has hid them there, but I'm not sure
+yet, and in my business I can't afford to make mistakes. If my suspicions
+are correct, he is merely awaiting his opportunity to fish them out and
+light out with them."
+
+"Then these," I said, "are--are they paste?"
+
+"No, indeed, they're the real thing," said Raffles Holmes, holding up one of
+the gems to the light, where it fairly coruscated with brilliance. "These
+are the other two of the original quartet."
+
+"Great Heavens, Holmes--do you mean to say that Gaffany & Co. permit you to
+go about with things like this in your pocket?" I demanded.
+
+"Not they," laughed Holmes. "They'd have a fit if they knew I had 'em, only
+they don't know it."
+
+"But how have you concealed the fact from them?" I persisted.
+
+"Robinstein made me a pair exactly like them," said Holmes. "The paste ones
+are now lying in the Gaffany safe, where I saw them placed before leaving
+the shop to-night."
+
+"You're too deep for me, Holmes," said I. "What's the game?"
+
+"Now don't say game, Jenkins," he protested. "I never indulge in games. My
+quarry is not a game, but a scheme. For the past two weeks, with three days
+off, I have been acting as a workman in the Gaffany ship, with the
+ostensible purpose of keeping my eye on certain employes who are under
+suspicion. Each day the remaining two pendant-stones--these--have been
+handed to me to work on, merely to carry out the illusion. The first day, in
+odd moments, I made sketches of them, and on the night of the second I had
+'em down in such detail as to cut and color, that Robinstein had no
+difficulty in reproducing them in the materials at his disposal in Markoo's
+shop. And to-night all I had to do to get them was to keep them and hand in
+the Robinstein substitutes when the hour of closing came."
+
+"So that now, in place of four $50,000 diamonds, Gaffany & Co. are in
+possession of--"
+
+"Two paste pendants, worth about $40 apiece," said Holmes. "If I fail to
+find the originals I shall have to use the paste ones to carry the scheme
+through, but I hate to do it. It's so confoundly inartistic and as old a
+trick as the pyramids."
+
+"And to-morrow--"
+
+Raffles Holmes got up and paced the floor nervously.
+
+"Ah, Jenkins," he said, with a heart-rending sigh, "that is the point. To-
+morrow! Heavens! what will to-morrow's story be? I--I cannot tell."
+
+"What's the matter, Holmes?" said. "Are you in danger?"
+
+"Physically, no--morally, my God! Jenkins, yes. I shall need all of your
+help," he cried.
+
+"What can I do?" I asked. "You know you have only to command me."
+
+"Don't leave me this night for a minute," he groaned. "If you do, I am lost.
+The Raffles in me is rampant when I look at those jewels and think of what
+they will mean if I keep them. An independent fortune forever. All I have to
+do is to get aboard a ship and go to Japan and live in comfort the rest of
+my days with the wealth in my possession, and all the instincts of honesty
+that I possess, through the father in me, will be powerless to prevent my
+indulgence in this crime. Keep me in sight, and if I show the slightest
+inclination to give you the slip, knock me over the head, will you, for my
+own good?"
+
+I promised faithfully that I would do as he asked, but, as an easier way out
+of an unpleasant situation, I drugged his Remsen cooler with a sleeping-
+powder, and an hour later he was lying off on my divan lost to the world for
+eight hours at least. As a further precaution I put the jewels in my own
+safe.
+
+The night's sleep had the desired effect, and with the returning day
+Holmes's better nature asserted itself. Raffles was subdued, and he returned
+to Gaffany's to put the finishing touches to his work.
+
+
+
+"Here's your check, Jenkins," said Raffles Holmes, handing me a draft for
+$5000. "The gems were found to-day in the water-cooler in the work-room, and
+Gaffany & Co. paid up like gentlemen."
+
+"And the thief?" I asked.
+
+"Under arrest," said Raffles Holmes. "We caught him fishing for them."
+
+"And your paste jewels, where are they?"
+
+"I wish I knew," he answered, his face clouding over. "In the excitement of
+the moment of the arrest I got 'em mixed with the originals I had last
+night, and they didn't give me time or opportunity to pick 'em out. The four
+were mounted immediately and sent under guard to the purchaser. Gaffany &
+Co. didn't want to keep them a minute longer than was necessary. But the
+purchaser is so rich he will never have to sell 'em--so, you see, Jenkins,
+we're as safe as a church."
+
+"Your friend Robinstein was a character, Holmes," said I.
+
+"Yes," sighed Holmes. "Poor chap--he was a great loss to his friends. He
+taught me the art of making paste gems when I was in Paris. I miss him like
+the dickens."
+
+"Miss him!" said I, getting anxious for Robinstein. "What happened? He
+isn't--"
+
+"Dead," said Holmes. "Two years ago--dear old chap."
+
+"Oh, come now, Holmes," I said. "What new game is this you are rigging on
+me? I met him only five nights ago--and you know it."
+
+"Oh--that one," said Raffles Holmes, with a laugh. "_I_ was that
+Robinstein."
+
+"You?" I cried.
+
+"Yes, me," said Holmes. "You don't suppose I'd let a third party into our
+secret, do you?"
+
+And then he gave me one of those sweet, wistful smiles that made the wonder
+of the man all the greater.
+
+"I wish to the dickens I knew whether these were real or paste!" he
+muttered, taking the extra pendants from his wallet as he spoke. "I don't
+dare ask anybody, and I haven't got any means of telling myself."
+
+"Give them to me," said I, sternly, noting a glitter in his eye that
+suggested the domination for the moment of the Raffles in him.
+
+"Tush, Jenkins," he began, uneasily.
+
+"Give them to me, or I'll brain you, Holmes," said I, standing over him with
+a soda-water bottle gripped in my right hand, "for your own good. Come, give
+up."
+
+He meekly obeyed.
+
+"Come now, get on your hat," said I. "I want you to go out with me."
+
+"What for, Jenkins?" he almost snarled.
+
+"You'll see what for," said I.
+
+And Raffles Holmes obeying, we walked down to the river's edge, where I
+stood for a moment, and then hurled the remaining stones far out into the
+waters.
+
+Holmes gave a gasp and then a sigh of relief.
+
+"There," I said. "It doesn't matter much to us now whether the confounded
+things were real or not."
+
+
+
+V
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE BRASS CHECK
+
+"Jenkins," said Raffles Holmes to me the other night as we sat in my den
+looking over the criminal news in the evening papers, in search of some
+interesting material for him to work on, "this paper says that Mrs.
+Wilbraham Ward-Smythe has gone to Atlantic City for a week, and will lend
+her gracious presence to the social functions of the Hotel Garrymore, at
+that interesting city by the sea, until Monday, the 27th, when she will
+depart for Chicago, where her sister is to be married on the 29th. How would
+you like to spend the week with me at the Garrymore?"
+
+"It all depends upon what we are going for," said I. "Also, what in thunder
+has Mrs. Wilbraham Ward-Smythe got to do with us, or we with her?"
+
+"Nothing at all," said Holmes. "That is, nothing much."
+
+"Who is she?" I asked, eying him suspiciously.
+
+"All I know is what I have seen in the papers," said Holmes. "She came in on
+the _Altruria_ two weeks ago, and attracted considerable attention by
+declaring $130,000 worth of pearl rope that she bought in Paris, instead of,
+woman-like, trying to smuggle it through the custom-house. It broke the
+heart of pretty nearly every inspector in the service. She'd been watched
+very carefully by the detective bureau in Paris, and when she purchased the
+rope there, the news of it was cabled over in cipher, so that they'd all be
+on the lookout for it when she came in. The whole force on the pier was on
+the qui vive, and one of the most expert women searchers on the pay-roll was
+detailed to give her special attention the minute she set foot on shore; but
+instead of doing as they all believed she would do, and giving the
+inspectors a chance to catch her at trying to evade the duties, to their
+very great profit, she calmly and coolly declared the stuff, paid her little
+sixty-five per cent. like a major, and drove off to the Castoria in full
+possession of her jewels. The Collector of the Port had all he could do to
+keep 'em from draping the custom-house for thirty days, they were all so
+grief-stricken. She'll probably take the rope to Atlantic City with her."
+
+"Aha!" said I. "That's the milk in the cocoanut, is it? You're after that
+pearl rope, are you, Raffles?"
+
+"On my honor as a Holmes," said he, "I am not. I shall not touch the pearl
+rope, although I have no doubt that I shall have some unhappy moments during
+the week that I am in the same hotel with it. That's one reason why I'd like
+to have you go along, Jenkins--just to keep me out of temptation. Raffles
+may need more than Holmes to keep him out of mischief. I am confident,
+however, that with you to watch out for me, I shall be able to suppress the
+strong tendency towards evil which at times besets me."
+
+"We'd better keep out of it altogether, Holmes," said I, not liking the
+weight of responsibility for his good behavior that more than once he had
+placed on my shoulders. "You don't deny, I suppose, that the pearl rope is a
+factor in your intentions, whatever they may be."
+
+"Of course I don't, Jenkins," was his response. "If it were not for her
+pearl rope, Mrs. Wilbraham Ward-Smythe could go anywhere she pleased without
+attracting any more attention from me than a passing motor-car. It would be
+futile for me to deny that, as a matter of fact, the pearl rope is an
+essential part of my scheme, and, even if it were not futile to do so, I
+should still not deny it, because neither my father nor my grandfather,
+Holmes nor Raffles, ever forgot that a gentleman does not lie."
+
+"Then count me out," said I.
+
+"Even if there is $7500 in it for you?" he said, with a twinkle in his eye.
+
+"If it were $107,500 you could still count me out," I retorted. "I don't
+like the business."
+
+"Very well," said he, with a sight. "I shall have to go alone and endeavor
+to fight the terrible temptation unaided, with a strong probability that I
+shall fail, and, yielding to it, commit my first real act of crime, and in
+that event, with the possibility of a term at Trenton prison, if I am
+caught."
+
+"Give it up, Raffles," I pleaded.
+
+"And all because, in the hour of my need, my best friend, whose aid I
+begged, refused me," he went on, absolutely ignoring my plea.
+
+"Oh, well, if you put it on that score," I said, "I'll go--but you must
+promise me not to touch the pearls."
+
+"I'll do my best not to," he replied. "As usual, you have carte-blanche to
+put me out of business if you catch me trying it."
+
+With this understanding I accompanied Raffles Holmes to Atlantic City the
+following afternoon, and the following evening we were registered at the
+Hotel Garrymore.
+
+Holmes was not mistaken in his belief that Mrs. Wilbraham Ward-Smythe would
+take her famous pearl rope to Atlantic City with her. That very evening,
+while we were sitting at dinner, the lady entered, and draped about her
+stately neck and shoulders was the thing itself, and a more beautiful
+decoration was never worn by woman from the days of the Queen of Sheba to
+this day of lavish display in jewels. It was a marvel, indeed, but the
+moment I saw it I ceased to give the lady credit for superior virtue in
+failing to smuggle it through the custom-house, for its very size would have
+precluded the possibility of a successful issue to any such attempted
+evasion of the law. It was too bulky to have been secreted in any of the
+ordinary ways known to smugglers. Hence her candid acknowledgment of its
+possession was less an evidence of the lady's superiority to the majority of
+her sex in the matter of "beating the government" than of her having been
+confronted with the proverbial choice of the unidentified Hobson.
+
+"By Jove! Jenkins," Raffles Holmes muttered, hoarsely, as Mrs. Ward-Smythe
+paraded the length of the dining-room, as fairly corruscating with her rich
+possessions as though she were a jeweller's window incarnate, "it's a
+positive crime for a woman to appear in a place like this arrayed like that.
+What right has she to subject poor weak humanity to such temptation as now
+confronts every servant in this hotel, to say nothing of guests, who, like
+ourselves, are made breathless with such lavish display? There's poor old
+Tommie Bankson over there, for instance. See how he gloats over those
+pearls. He's fairly red-eyed over them."
+
+I glanced across the dining-room, and sure enough, there sat Tommie Bankson,
+and even from where we were placed we could see his hands tremble with the
+itch for possession, and his lips go dry with excitement as he thought of
+the material assets in full view under the glare of the dining-room electric
+lights.
+
+"I happen to know on the inside," continued Holmes, "that Tommie is not only
+a virtual bankrupt through stock speculation, but is actually face to face
+with criminal disgrace for misuse of trust funds, all of which he could
+escape if he could lay his hands upon half the stuff that woman is so
+carelessly wearing to-night. Do you think it's fair to wear, for the mere
+gratification of one's vanity, things that arouse in the hearts of less
+fortunate beings such passionate reflections and such dire temptations as
+those which are now besetting that man?"
+
+"I guess we've got enough to do looking after Raffles to-night, old man,
+without wasting any of our nerve-tissue on Tommie Bankson," I replied. "Come
+on--let's get out of this. We'll go over to the Pentagon for the night, and
+to-morrow we'll shake the sands of Atlantic City from our feet and hie
+ourselves back to New York, where the temptations are not so strong."
+
+"It's too late," said Raffles Holmes. "I've set out on this adventure and
+I'm going to put it through. I wouldn't give up in the middle of an
+enterprise of this sort any more than I would let a balky horse refuse to
+take a fence I'd put him to. It's going to be harder than I thought, but
+we're in it, and I shall stay to the end."
+
+"What the devil is the adventure, anyhow?" I demanded, impatiently. "You
+vowed you wouldn't touch the rope."
+
+"I hope not to," was his response. "It is up to you to see that I don't. My
+plan does not involve my laying hands upon even the shadow of it."
+
+So we stayed on at the Garrymore, and a worse week I never had anywhere.
+With every glimpse of that infernal jewel the Raffles in Holmes became
+harder and harder to control. In the daytime he was all right, but when
+night came on he was feverish with the desire to acquire possession of the
+pearls. Twice in the middle of the night I caught him endeavoring to sneak
+out of our room, and upon each occasion, when I rushed after him and forced
+him back, he made no denial of my charge that he was going after the jewel.
+The last time it involved us both in such a terrible struggle that I vowed
+then and there that the following morning should see my departure.
+
+"I can't stand the strain, Holmes," said I.
+
+"Well, if you can't stand _your_ strain," said Raffles Holmes, "what do you
+think of mine?"
+
+"The thing to do is to get out, that's all," I retorted. "I won't have a
+nerve left in twenty-four hours. For four nights now I haven't had a
+minute's normal sleep, and this fight you've just put up has regularly
+knocked me out."
+
+"One more day Jenkins," he pleaded. "She goes day after to-morrow, and so do
+we."
+
+"We?" I cried. "After her?"
+
+"Nope--she to Chicago--we to New York," said Holmes. "Stick it out, there's
+a good fellow," and of course I yielded.
+
+The next day--Sunday--was one of feverish excitement, but we got through it
+without mishap, and on Monday morning it was with a sigh of relief that I
+saw Mrs. Wilbraham Ward-Smythe pull out of the Philadelphia station en route
+for Chicago, while Raffles Holmes and I returned to New York.
+
+"Well, Raffles," said I, as we sped on our homeward way, "we've had our
+trouble for our pains."
+
+He laughed crisply. "Have we?" said he. "I guess not--not unless you have
+lost the trunk check the porter gave you."
+
+"What, this brass thing?" I demanded, taking the check from my pocket and
+flicking it in the air like a penny.
+
+"That very brass thing," said Holmes.
+
+"You haven't lifted that damned rope and put it in my trunk!" I roared.
+
+"Hush, Jenkins! For Heaven's sake don't make a scene. I haven't done
+anything of the sort," he whispered, looking about him anxiously to make
+sure that we had not been overheard. "Those pearls are as innocent of my
+touch as the top of the Himalaya Mountains is of yours."
+
+"Then what have you done?" I demanded, sulkily.
+
+"Just changed a couple of trunk checks, that's all," said Raffles Holmes.
+"That bit of brass you have in your hand, which was handed to you in the
+station by the porter of the Garrymore, when presented at Jersey City will
+put you in possession of Mrs. Wilbraham Ward-Smythe's trunk, containing the
+bulk of her jewels. She's a trifle careless about her possessions, as any
+one could see who watched the nonchalant way in which she paraded the board
+walk with a small fortune on her neck and fingers. Most women would carry
+such things in a small hand-satchel, or at least have the trunk sent by
+registered express, but not Mrs. Wilbraham Ward-Smythe; and, thanks to her
+loud voice, listening outside of her door last night, I heard her directing
+her maid where she wished the gems packed."
+
+"And where the dickens is my trunk?" I asked.
+
+"On the way to Chicago," said Raffles Holmes, calmly. "Mrs. Wilbraham Ward-
+Smythe has the check for it."
+
+"Safe business!" I sneered. "Bribed the porter, I presume?"
+
+"Jenkins, you are exceedingly uncomplimentary at times," said Raffles
+Holmes, showing more resentment than I had ever given him credit for.
+"Perhaps you observed that I didn't go to the station in the omnibus."
+
+"No, you went over to the drug-store after some phenacetine for your
+headache," said I.
+
+"Precisely," said Holmes, "and after purchasing the phenacetine I jumped
+aboard the Garrymore express-wagon and got a lift over to the station. It
+was during that ride that I transferred Mrs. Ward-Smythe's check from her
+trunk to yours, and vice versa. It's one of the easiest jobs in the Raffles
+business, especially at this season of the year, when travel is heavy and
+porters are overworked."
+
+"I'll see the trunk in the Hudson River, pearl rope and all, before I'll
+claim it at Jersey City or anywhere else," said I.
+
+"Perfectly right," Holmes returned. "We'll hand the check to the expressman
+when he comes through the train, and neither of us need appear further in
+the matter. It will merely be delivered at your apartment."
+
+"Why not yours?" said I.
+
+"Raffles!" said he, laconically, and I understood.
+
+"And then what?" I asked.
+
+"Let it alone, unopened, safe as a church, until Mrs. Wilbraham Ward-Smythe
+discovers her loss, which will be to-morrow afternoon, and then--"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Mr. Holmes will step in, unravel the mystery, prove it to be a mere
+innocent mistake, collect about ten or fifteen thousand dollars reward,
+divvy up with you, and the decks will be cleared for what turns up next,"
+said this wonderful player of dangerous games. "And, as a beginning,
+Jenkins, please sign this," he added.
+
+Holmes handed me a typewritten-letter which read as follows.
+
+"THE RICHMORE, June 30, 1905.
+"Raffles Holmes, Esq..
+"DEAR SIR,--I enclose herewith my check for $1000 as a retainer for your
+services in locating for me a missing trunk, which contains articles which I
+value at $10,000. This trunk was checked through to New York from Atlantic
+City on Monday last, 9.40 train, and has not since been found. Whether or
+not it has been stolen, or has gone astray in some wholly innocent manner,
+is not as yet clear. I know of no one better equipped for the task of
+finding it for me than yourself, who, I am given to understand, are the son
+of the famous Sherlock Holmes of England. The check represents the ten per
+cent. commission on the value of the lost articles, which I believe is the
+customary fee for services such as I seek.
+Very truly yours."
+
+"What are you going to do with this?" I demanded.
+
+"Send it as an enclosure to Mrs. Wilbraham Ward-Smythe, showing my
+credentials as your agent, in asking her if by any mischance your trunk has
+got mixed in with her luggage," observed Holmes. "For form's sake, I shall
+send it to twenty or thirty other people known to have left Atlantic City
+the same day. Moreover, it will suggest the idea to Mrs. Wilbraham Ward-Smythe
+that I am a good man to locate her trunk also, and the delicate
+intimation of my terms will--"
+
+"Aha! I see," said I. "And my thousand-dollar check to you?"
+
+"I shall, of course, keep," observed Holmes. "You want the whole business to
+be bona fide, don't you? It would be unscrupulous for you to ask for its
+return."
+
+I didn't exactly like the idea, but, after all, there was much in what
+Holmes said, and the actual risk of my own capital relieved my conscience of
+the suspicion that by signing the letter I should become a partner in a
+confidence game. Hence I signed the note, mailed it to Raffles Holmes,
+enclosing my check for $1000 with it.
+
+Three days later Holmes entered my room with a broad grin on his face.
+
+"How's this for business?" said he, handing me a letter he had received that
+morning from Chicago.
+
+"DEAR SIR,--I am perfectly delighted to receive your letter of July 1. I
+think I have Mr. Jenkins's missing trunk. What pleases me most, however, is
+the possibility of your recovering mine, which also went astray at the same
+time. It contained articles of even greater value than Mr. Jenkins's--my
+pearl rope, among other things, which is appraised at $130,000. Do you think
+there is any chance of your recovering it for me? I enclose my check for
+$5000 as a retainer. The balance of your ten per cent. fee I shall gladly
+pay on receipt of my missing luggage.
+"Most sincerely yours,
+"MAUDE WARD-SMYTHE."
+
+"I rather think, my dear Jenkins," observed Raffles Holmes, "that we have
+that $13,000 reward cinched."
+
+"There's $7000 for you, Jenkins," said Holmes, a week later, handing me his
+check for that amount. "Easy money that. It only took two weeks to turn the
+trick, and $14,000 for fourteen days' work is pretty fair pay. If we could
+count on that for a steady income I think I'd be able to hold Raffles down
+without your assistance."
+
+"You got fourteen thousand, eh?" said I. "I thought it was only to be
+$13,000."
+
+"It was fourteen thousand counting in your $1000," said Raffles Holmes. "You
+see, I'm playing on the square, old man. Half and half in everything."
+
+I squeezed his hand affectionately.
+
+"But--he-ew!" I ejaculated, with a great feeling of relief. "I'm glad the
+thing's over with.
+
+"So am I," said Holmes, with a glitter in his eye. "If we'd kept that trunk
+in this apartment another day there'd have been trouble. I had a piece of
+lead-pipe up my sleeve when I called here Tuesday night."
+
+"What for?" I asked.
+
+"You!" said Raffles Holmes. "If you hadn't had that poker-party with you I'd
+have knocked you out and gone to China with the Ward-Smythe jewels. Sherlock
+Holmes stock was 'way below par Tuesday night."
+
+
+
+VI
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE HIRED BURGLAR
+
+I had not seen Raffles Holmes for some weeks, nor had I heard from him,
+although I had faithfully remitted to his address his share of the literary
+proceeds of his adventures as promptly as circumstances permitted--$600 on
+the first tale, $920 on the second, and no less than $1800 on the third,
+showing a constantly growing profit on our combination from my side of the
+venture. These checks had not even been presented for payment at the bank.
+Fearing from this that he might be ill, I called at Holmes's lodgings in the
+Rexmere, a well-established bachelor apartment hotel, on Forty-fourth
+Street, to inquire as to the state of his health. The clerk behind the desk
+greeted my cordially as I entered, and bade me go at once to Holmes's
+apartment on the eighteenth floor, which I immediately proceeded to do.
+
+"Here is Mr. Holmes's latch-key, sir," said the clerk. "He told me you were
+to have access to his apartment at any time."
+
+"He is in, is he?" I asked.
+
+"I really don't know, sir. I will call up and inquire, if you wish," replied
+the clerk.
+
+"Oh, never mind," said I. "I'll go up, anyhow, and if he is out, I'll wait."
+
+So up I went, and a few moments later had entered the apartment. As the door
+opened, the little private hallway leading to his den at the rear burst into
+a flood of light, and from an inner room, the entrance to which was closed,
+I could hear Holmes's voice cheerily carolling out snatches of such popular
+airs as "Tammany" and "Ef Yo' Habn't Got No Money Yo' Needn't Bodder Me."
+
+I laughed quietly and at the same time breathed a sigh of relief. It was
+very evident from the tone of his voice that there was nothing serious the
+matter with my friend and partner.
+
+"Hullo, Raffles!" I called out, knocking on the door to the inner room.
+
+     "Tam-ma-nee, Tam-ma-nee;
+     Swampum, swampum,
+     Get their wampum,
+     Tam-ma-nee,"
+
+was the sole answer, and in such fortissimo tones that I was not surprised
+that he did not hear me.
+
+"Oh, I say, Raffles," I hallooed, rapping on the door again, this time with
+the head of my cane. "It's Jenkins, old man. Came to look you up. Was afraid
+something had happened to you."
+
+     "'Way down upon the Suwanee River,
+     Far, far away,
+     Dere's whar my heart am turnin' ever,
+     Dere's whar de ole folks stay,"
+
+was the reply.
+
+Again I laughed.
+
+"He's suffering from a bad attack of coonitis this evening," I observed to
+myself. "Looks to me as if I'd have to let it run its course."
+
+Whereupon I retired to a very comfortable couch near the window and sat down
+to await the termination of the musical.
+
+Five minutes later the singing having shown no signs of abatement I became
+impatient, and a third assault on the door followed, this time with cane,
+hands, and toes in unison.
+
+"I'll have him out this time or die!" I ejaculated, filled with resolve, and
+then began such a pounding upon the door as should have sufficed to awake a
+dead Raffles, not to mention a living one.
+
+"Hi, there, Jenkins!" cried a voice behind me, in the midst of this
+operation, identically the same voice, too, as that still going on in the
+room in front of me. "What the dickens are you trying to do--batter the
+house down?"
+
+I whirled about like a flash, and was deeply startled to see Raffles himself
+standing by the divan I had just vacated, divesting himself of his gloves
+and light overcoat.
+
+"You--Raffles?" I roared in astonishment.
+
+"Yep," said he. "Who else?"
+
+"But the--the other chap--in the room there?"
+
+"Oh," laughed Raffles. "That's my alibi-prover--hold on a minute and I'll
+show you."
+
+Whereupon he unlocked the door into the bedroom, whence had come the tuneful
+lyrics, threw it wide open, and revealed to my astonished gaze no less an
+object than a large talking-machine still engaged in the strenuous
+fulfilment of its noisy mission.
+
+"What the dickens!" I said.
+
+"It's attached to my front-door," said Raffles, silencing the machine. "The
+minute the door is opened it begins to sing like the four-and-twenty
+blackbirds baked in a pie."
+
+"But what good is it?" said I.
+
+"Oh, well--it keeps the servants from spending too much time in my
+apartment, snooping among my papers, perhaps; and it my some day come in
+useful in establishing an alibi if things go wrong with me. You'd have sworn
+I was in there just now, wouldn't you?"
+
+"I would indeed," said I.
+
+"Well--you see, I wasn't, so there you are," said Raffles Holmes. "By-the-way,
+you've come at an interesting moment. There'll be things doing before
+the evening is over. I've had an anxious caller here five times already
+to-day. I've been standing in the barber-shop opposite getting a line on him.
+His card name is Grouch, his real name is--"
+
+Here Raffles Holmes leaned forward and whispered in my ear a name of such
+eminent respectability that I fairly gasped.
+
+"You don't mean _the_ Mr. ----"
+
+"Nobody else," said Raffles Holmes. "Only he don't know I know who he is.
+The third time Grouch called I trailed him to Blank's house, and then
+recognized him as Blank himself."
+
+"And what does he want with you?" I asked.
+
+"That remains to be seen," said Raffles Holmes. "All I know is that next
+Tuesday he will be required to turn over $100,000 unregistered bonds to a
+young man about to come of age, for whom he has been a trustee."
+
+"Aha!" said I. "And you think--"
+
+"I don't think, Jenkins, until the time comes. Gray matter is scarce these
+times, and I'm not wasting any of mine on unnecessary speculation," said
+Raffles Holmes.
+
+At this point the telephone-bell rang and Raffles answered the summons.
+
+"Yes, I'll see Mr. Grouch. Show him up," he said. "It would be mighty
+interesting reading if some newspaper showed him up," he added, with a grin,
+as he returned. "By-the-way, Jenkins, I think you'd better go in there and
+have a half-hour's chat with the talking-machine. I have an idea old man
+Grouch won't have much to say with a third party present. Listen all you
+want to, but don't breathe too loud or you'll frighten him away."
+
+I immediately retired, and a moment later Mr. Grouch entered Raffles
+Holmes's den.
+
+"Glad to see you," said Raffles Holmes, cordially. "I was wondering how soon
+you'd be here."
+
+"You expected me, then?" asked the visitor, in surprise.
+
+"Yes," said Holmes. "Next Tuesday is young Wilbraham's twenty-first
+birthday, and--"
+
+Peering through a crack in the door I could see Grouch stagger.
+
+"You--you know my errand, then?" he gasped out.
+
+"Only roughly, Mr. Grouch," said Holmes, coolly. "Only roughly. But I am
+very much afraid that I can't do what you want me to. Those bonds are
+doubtless in some broker's box in a safe-deposit company, and I don't
+propose to try to borrow them surreptitiously, even temporarily, from an
+incorporated institution. It is not only a dangerous but a criminal
+operation. Does your employer know that you have taken them?"
+
+"My employer?" stammered Grouch, taken off his guard.
+
+"Yes. Aren't you the confidential secretary of Mr. ----?" Here Holmes
+mentioned the name of the eminent financier and philanthropist. No one would
+have suspected, from the tone of his voice, that Holmes was perfectly aware
+that Grouch and the eminent financier were one and the same person. The idea
+seemed to please and steady the visitor.
+
+"Why--ah--yes--I am Mr. Blank's confidential secretary," he blurted out.
+"And--ah--of course Mr. Blank does not know that I have speculated with the
+bonds and lost them."
+
+"The bonds are--"
+
+"In the hands of Bunker & Burke. I had hoped you would be able to suggest
+some way in which I could get hold of them long enough to turn them over to
+young Wilbraham, and then, in some other way, to restore them later to
+Bunker & Burke."
+
+"That is impossible," said Raffles Holmes. "For the reasons stated, I cannot
+be party to a criminal operation."
+
+"It will mean ruin for me if it cannot be done," moaned Grouch. "For Mr.
+Blank as well, Mr. Holmes; he is so deep in the market he can't possibly
+pull out. I thought possibly you knew of some reformed cracksman who would
+do this one favor for me just to tide things over. All we need is three
+weeks' time--three miserable little weeks."
+
+"Can't be done with a safe-deposit company at the other end of the line,"
+said Raffles Holmes. "If it were Mr. Blank's own private vault at his home
+it would be different. That would be a matter between gentlemen, between Mr.
+Blank and myself, but the other would put a corporation on the trail of the
+safe-breaker--an uncompromising situation."
+
+Grouch's eye glistened.
+
+"You know a man who, for a consideration and with a guarantee against
+prosecution, would break open my--I mean Mr. Blank's private vault?" he
+cried.
+
+"I think so," said Raffles Holmes, noncommittally. "Not as a crime, however,
+merely as a favor, and with the lofty purpose of saving an honored name from
+ruin. My advice to you would be to put a dummy package, supposed to contain
+the missing bonds, along with about $30,000 worth of other securities in
+that vault, and so arrange matters that on the night preceding the date of
+young Wilbraham's majority, the man I will send you shall have the
+opportunity to crack it open and get away with the stuff unmolested and
+unseen. Next day young Wilbraham will see for himself why it is that Mr.
+Blank cannot turn over the trust. That is the only secure and I may say
+decently honest way out of your trouble."
+
+"Mr. Raffles Holmes, you are a genius!" cried Grouch, ecstatically. And then
+he calmed down again as an unpleasant thought flashed across his mind. "Why
+is it necessary to put $30,000 additional in the safe, Mr. Holmes?"
+
+"Simply as a blind," said Holmes. "Young Wilbraham would be suspicious if
+the burglar got away with nothing but his property, wouldn't he?"
+
+"Quite so," said Grouch. "And now, Mr. Holmes, what will this service cost
+me?"
+
+"Five thousand dollars," said Holmes.
+
+"Phe-e-e-w!" whistled Grouch. "Isn't that pretty steep?"
+
+"No, Mr. Grouch. I save two reputations--yours and Mr. Blank's. Twenty-five
+hundred dollars is not much to pay for a reputation these days--I mean a
+real one, of course, such as yours is up to date," said Holmes, coldly.
+
+"Payable by certified check?" said Grouch.
+
+"Not much," laughed Holmes. "In twenty-dollar bills, Mr. Grouch. You may
+leave them in the safe along with the other valuables."
+
+"Thank you, Mr. Holmes," said Grouch, rising. "It shall be as you say.
+Before I go, sir, may I ask how you knew me and by what principle of
+deduction you came to guess my business so accurately?"
+
+"It was simple enough," said Holmes. "I knew, in the first place, that so
+eminent a person as Mr. Blank would not come to me in the guise of a Mr.
+Grouch if he hadn't some very serious trouble on his mind. I knew, from
+reading the society items in the _Whirald_, that Mr. Bobby Wilbraham would
+celebrate the attainment of his majority by a big fete on the 17th of next
+month. Everybody knows that Mr. Blank is Mr. Wilbraham's trustee until he
+comes of age. It was easy enough to surmise from that what the nature of the
+trouble was. Two and two almost invariably make four, Mr. Grouch."
+
+"And how the devil," demanded Grouch, angrily--"how the devil did you know I
+was Blank?"
+
+"Mr. Blank passes the plate at the church I go to every Sunday," said
+Holmes, laughing, "and it would take a great sight more than a two-dollar
+wig and a pair of fifty-cent whiskers to conceal that pompous manner of
+his."
+
+"Tush! You would better not make me angry, Mr. Holmes," said Grouch,
+reddening.
+
+"You can get as angry as you think you can afford to, for all I care, Mr.
+Blank," said Holmes. "It's none of my funeral, you know."
+
+And so the matter was settled. The unmasked Blank, seeing that wrath was
+useless, calmed down and accepted Holmes's terms and method for his relief.
+
+"I'll have my man there at 4 A.M., October 17th, Mr. Blank," said Holmes.
+"See that your end of it is ready. The coast must be kept clear or the
+scheme falls through."
+
+Grouch went heavily out, and Holmes called me back into the room.
+
+"Jenkins," said he, "that man is one of the biggest scoundrels in creation,
+and I'm going to give him a jolt."
+
+"Where are you going to get the retired burglar?" I asked.
+
+"Sir," returned Raffles Holmes, "this is to be a personally conducted
+enterprise. It's a job worthy of my grandsire on my mother's side. Raffles
+will turn the trick."
+
+And it turned out so to be, for the affair went through without a hitch. The
+night of October 16th I spend at Raffles's apartments. He was as calm as
+though nothing unusual were on hand. He sang songs, played the piano, and up
+to midnight was as gay and skittish as a school-boy on vacation. As twelve
+o'clock struck, however, he sobered down, put on his hat and coat, and,
+bidding me remain where I was, departed by means of the fire-escape.
+
+"Keep up the talk, Jenkins," he said. "The walls are thin here, and it's
+just as well, in matters of this sort, that our neighbors should have the
+impression that I have _not_ gone out. I've filled the machine up with a
+choice lot of songs and small-talk to take care of my end of it. A
+consolidated gas company, like yourself, should have no difficulty in
+filling in the gaps."
+
+And with that he left me to as merry and withal as nervous a three hours as
+I ever spent in my life. Raffles had indeed filled that talking-machine--
+thirteen full cylinders of it--with as choice an assortment of causeries and
+humorous anecdotes as any one could have wished to hear. Now and again it
+would bid me cheer up and not worry about him. Once, along about 2 A.M., it
+cried out: "You ought to see me now, Jenkins. I'm right in the middle of
+this Grouch job, and it's a dandy. I'll teach _him_ a lesson." The effect of
+all this was most uncanny. It was as if Raffles Holmes himself spoke to me
+from the depths of that dark room in the Blank household, where he was
+engaged in an enterprise of dreadful risk merely to save the good name of
+one who no longer deserved to bear such a thing. In spite of all this,
+however, as the hours passed I began to grow more and more nervous. The
+talking-machine sang and chattered, but when four o'clock came and Holmes
+had not yet returned, I became almost frenzied with excitement--and then at
+the climax of the tension came the flash of his dark-lantern on the fire-escape,
+and he climbed heavily into the room.
+
+"Thank Heaven you're back," I cried.
+
+"You have reason to," said Holmes, sinking into a chair. "Give me some
+whiskey. That man Blank is a worse scoundrel than I took him for."
+
+"What's happened?" I asked. "Didn't he play square?"
+
+"No," said Holmes, breathing heavily. "He waited until I had busted the
+thing open and was on my way out in the dark hall, and then pounced on me
+with his butler and valet. I bowled the butler down the kitchen stairs, and
+sent the valet howling into the dining-room with an appendicitis jab in the
+stomach and had the pleasure of blacking both of Mr. Blank's eyes."
+
+"And the stuff?"
+
+"Right here," said Holmes, tapping his chest. "I was afraid something might
+happen on the way out and I kept both hands free. I haven't much confidence
+in philanthropists like Blank. Fortunately the scrimmage was in the dark, so
+Blank will never know who hit him."
+
+"What are you going to do with the $35,000?" I queried, as we went over the
+booty later and found it all there.
+
+"Don't know--haven't made up my mind," said Holmes, laconically. "I'm too
+tired to think about that now. It's me for bed." And with that he turned in.
+
+Two days later, about nine o'clock in the evening, Mr. Grouch again called,
+and Holmes received him courteously.
+
+"Well, Mr. Holmes," Grouch observed, unctuously, rubbing his hands together,
+"it was a nice job, neatly done. It saved the day for me. Wilbraham was
+satisfied, and has given me a whole year to make good the loss. My
+reputation is saved, and--"
+
+"Excuse me, Mr. Blank--or Grouch--er--to what do you refer?" asked Holmes.
+
+"Why, our little transaction of Monday night--or was it Tuesday morning?"
+said Grouch.
+
+"Oh--that!" said Holmes. "Well, I'm glad to hear you managed to pull it off
+satisfactorily. I was a little worried about it. I was afraid you were done
+for."
+
+"Done for?" said Grouch. "No, indeed. The little plan when off without a
+hitch."
+
+"Good," said Holmes. "I congratulate you. _Whom did you get to do the job?_"
+
+"Who--what--what--why, what do you mean, Mr. Holmes?" gasped Grouch.
+
+"Precisely what I say--or maybe you don't like to tell me--such things are
+apt to be on a confidential basis. Anyhow, I'm glad you're safe, Mr. Grouch,
+and I hope your troubles are over."
+
+"They will be when you give me back my $30,000," said Grouch.
+
+"Your what?" demanded Holmes, with well-feigned surprise.
+
+"My $30,000," repeated Blank, his voice rising to a shout.
+
+"My dear Mr. Grouch," said Holmes, "how should I know anything about your
+$30,000?"
+
+"Didn't your--your man take it?" demanded Grouch, huskily.
+
+"My man? Really, Mr. Grouch, you speak in riddles this evening. Pray make
+yourself more clear."
+
+"Your reformed burglar, who broke open my safe, and--" Grouch went on.
+
+"I have no such man, Mr. Grouch."
+
+"Didn't you send a man to my house, Mr. Raffles, to break open my safe, and
+take certain specified parcels of negotiable property therefrom?" said
+Grouch, rising and pounding the table with his fists.
+
+"_I did not!_" returned Holmes, with equal emphasis. "I have never in my
+life sent anybody to your house, sir."
+
+"Then who in the name of Heaven did?" roared Grouch. "The stuff is gone."
+
+Holmes shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"I am willing," said he, calmly, "to undertake to find out who did it, if
+anybody, if that is what you mean, Mr. Grouch. Ferreting out crime is my
+profession. Otherwise, I beg to assure you that my interest in the case
+ceases at this moment."
+
+Here Holmes rose with quiet dignity and walked to the door.
+
+"You will find me at my office in the morning, Mr. Grouch." he remarked, "in
+case you wish to consult me professionally."
+
+"Hah!" sneered Grouch. "You think you can put me off this way, do you?"
+
+"I think so," said Holmes, with a glittering eye. "No gentleman or other
+person may try to raise a disturbance in my private apartments and remain
+there."
+
+"We'll see what the police have to say about this, Mr. Raffles Holmes,"
+Grouch shrieked, as he made for the door.
+
+"Very well," said Holmes. "I've no doubt they will find our discussion of
+the other sinners very interesting. They are welcome to the whole story as
+far as I am concerned."
+
+And he closed the door on the ashen face of the suffering Mr. Grouch.
+
+
+
+"What shall I do with your share of the $30,000, Jenkins?" said Raffles
+Holmes a week later.
+
+"Anything you please," said I. "Only don't offer any of it to me. I can't
+question the abstract justice of your mulcting old Blank for the amount,
+but, somehow or other, I don't want any of it myself. Send it to the Board
+of Foreign Missions."
+
+"Good!" said Holmes. "That's what I've done with my share. See!"
+
+And he showed me an evening paper in which the board conveyed its
+acknowledgment of the generosity of an unknown donor of the princely sum of
+$15,000.
+
+
+
+VII
+THE REDEMPTION OF YOUNG BILLINGTON RAND
+
+"Jenkins," said Raffles Holmes, lighting his pipe and throwing himself down
+upon my couch, "don't you sometimes pine for those good old days of Jack
+Sheppard and Dick Turpin? Hang it all--I'm getting blisteringly tired of the
+modern refinements in crime, and yearn for the period when the highwayman
+met you on the road and made you stand and deliver at the point of the
+pistol."
+
+"Indeed I don't!" I ejaculated. "I'm not chicken-livered, Raffles, but I'm
+mighty glad my lines are cast in less strenuous scenes. When a book-agent
+comes in here, for instance, and holds me up for nineteen dollars a volume
+for a set of Kipling in words of one syllable, illustrated by his aunt, and
+every volume autographed by his uncle's step-sister, it's a game of wits
+between us as to whether I shall buy or not buy, and if he gets away with my
+signature to a contract it is because he has legitimately outwitted me. But
+your ancient Turpin overcame you by brute force; you hadn't a run for your
+money from the moment he got his eye on you, and no percentage of the swag
+was ever returned to you as in the case of the Double-Cross Edition of
+Kipling, in which you get at least fifty cents worth of paper and print for
+every nineteen dollars you give up."
+
+"That is merely the commercial way of looking at it," protested Holmes. "You
+reckon up the situation on a basis of mere dollars, strike a balance and
+charge the thing up to profit and loss. But the romance of it all, the
+element of the picturesque, the delicious, tingling sense of adventure which
+was inseparable from a road experience with a commanding personality like
+Turpin--these things are all lost in your prosaic book-agent methods of our
+day. No man writing his memoirs for the enlightenment of posterity would
+ever dream of setting down upon paper the story of how a book-agent robbed
+him of two-hundred dollars, but the chap who has been held up in the dark
+recesses of a forest on a foggy night by a Jack Sheppard would always find
+breathless and eager listeners to or readers of the tale he had to tell,
+even if he lost only a nickel by the transaction."
+
+"Well, old man," said I, "I'm satisfied with the prosaic methods of the gas
+companies, the book-agents, and the riggers of the stock-market. Give me
+Wall Street and you take Dick Turpin and all his crew. But what has set your
+mind to working on the Dick Turpin end of it anyhow? Thinking of going in
+for that sort of thing yourself?"
+
+"M-m-m yes," replied Holmes, hesitatingly. "I am. Not that I pine to become
+one of the Broom Squires myself, but because I--well, I may be forced into
+it."
+
+"Take my advice, Raffles," I interrupted, earnestly. "Let fire-arms and
+highways alone. There's too much of battle, murder, and sudden death in
+loaded guns, and surplus of publicity in street work."
+
+"You mustn't take me so literally, Jenkins," he retorted. "I'm not going to
+follow precisely in the steps of Turpin, but a hold-up on the public highway
+seems to be the only way out of a problem which I have been employed to
+settle. Do you know young Billington Rand?"
+
+"By sight," said I, with a laugh. "And by reputation. You're not going to
+hold him up, are you?" I added, contemptuously.
+
+"Why not?" said Holmes.
+
+"It's like breaking into an empty house in search of antique furniture," I
+explained. "Common report has it that Billington Rand has already been
+skinned by about every skinning agency in town. He's posted at all his
+clubs. Every gambler in town, professional as well as social, has his
+I.O.U.'s for bridge, poker, and faro debts. Everybody knows it except those
+fatuous people down in the Kenesaw National Bank, where he's employed, and
+the Fidelity Company that's on his bond. He wouldn't last five minutes in
+either place if his uncle wasn't a director in both concerns."
+
+"I see that you have a pretty fair idea of Billington Rand's financial
+condition," said Holmes.
+
+"It's rather common talk in the clubs, so why shouldn't I?" I put in.
+"Holding him up would be at most an act of petit larceny, if you measure a
+crime by what you get out of it. It's a great shame, though, for at heart
+Rand is one of the best fellows in the world. He's a man who has all the
+modern false notions of what a fellow ought to do to keep up what he calls
+his end. He plays cards and sustains ruinous losses because he thinks he
+won't be considered a good-fellow if he stays out. He plays bridge with
+ladies and pays up when he loses and doesn't collect when he wins. Win or
+lose he's doomed to be on the wrong side of the market just because of those
+very qualities that make him a lovable person--kind to everybody but
+himself, and weak as dish-water. For Heaven's sake, Raffles, if the poor
+devil _has_ anything left don't take it from him."
+
+"Your sympathy for Rand does you credit," said Holmes. "But I have just as
+much of that as you have, and that is why, at half-past five o'clock to-
+morrow afternoon, I'm going to hold him up, in the public eye, and
+incontinently rob him of $25,000."
+
+"Twenty-five thousand dollars? Billington Rand?" I gasped.
+
+"Twenty-five thousand dollars. Billington Rand," repeated Holmes, firmly.
+"If you don't believe it come along and see. He doesn't know you, does he?"
+
+"Not from Adam," said I.
+
+"Very good--then you'll be safe as a church. Meet me in the Fifth Avenue
+Hotel corridor at five to-morrow afternoon and I'll show you as pretty a
+hold-up as you ever dreamed of," said Holmes.
+
+"But--I can't take part in a criminal proceeding like that, Holmes," I
+protested.
+
+"You won't have to--even if it were a criminal proceeding, which it is not,"
+he returned. "Nobody outside of you and me will know anything about it but
+Rand himself, and the chances that he will peach are less than a millionth
+part of a half per cent. Anyhow, all you need be is a witness."
+
+There was a long and uneasy silence. I was far from liking the job, but
+after all, so far, Holmes had not led me into any difficulties of a serious
+nature, and, knowing him as I had come to know him, I had a hearty belief
+that any wrong he did was temporary and was sure to be rectified in the long
+run.
+
+"I've a decent motive in all this, Jenkins," he resumed in a few moments.
+"Don't forget that. This hold-up is going to result in a reformation that
+will be for the good of everybody, so don't have any scruples on that
+score."
+
+"All right, Raffles," said I. "You've always played straight with me, so
+far, and I don't doubt your word--only I hate the highway end of it."
+
+"Tutt, Jenkins!" he ejaculated, with a laugh and giving me a whack on the
+shoulders that nearly toppled me over into the fire-place. "Don't be a
+rabbit. The thing will be as easy as cutting calve's-foot jelly with a
+razor."
+
+Thus did I permit myself to be persuaded, and the next afternoon at five,
+Holmes and I met in the corridor of the Fifth Avenue Hotel.
+
+"Come on," he said, after the first salutations were over. "Rand will be at
+the Thirty-third Street subway at 5.15, and it is important that we should
+catch him before he gets to Fifth Avenue."
+
+"I'm glad it's to be on a side street," I remarked, my heart beating rapidly
+with excitement over the work in hand, for the more I thought of the venture
+the less I liked it.
+
+"Oh, I don't know that it will be," said Holmes, carelessly. "I may pull it
+off in the corridors of the Powhatan."
+
+The pumps in my heart reversed their action and for a moment I feared I
+should drop with dismay.
+
+"In the Powhatan--" I began.
+
+"Shut up, Jenkins!" said Holmes, imperatively. "This is no time for
+protests. We're in it now and there's no drawing back."
+
+Ten minutes later we stood at the intersection of Thirty-third Street and
+Fifth Avenue. Holmes's eyes flashed and his whole nervous system quivered as
+with the joy of the chase.
+
+"Keep your mouth shut, Jenkins, and you'll see a pretty sight," he
+whispered, "for here comes our man."
+
+Sure enough, there was Billington Rand on the other side of the street,
+walking along nervously and clutching an oblong package, wrapped in brown
+paper, firmly in his right hand.
+
+"Now for it," said Holmes, and we crossed the street, scarcely reaching the
+opposite curb before Rand was upon us. Rand eyed us closely and shied off to
+one side as Holmes blocked his progress.
+
+"I'll trouble you for that package, Mr. Rand," said Holmes, quietly.
+
+The man's face went white and he caught his breath.
+
+"Who the devil are you?" he demanded, angrily.
+
+"That has nothing to do with the case." retorted Holmes. "I want that
+package or--"
+
+"Get out of my way!" cried Rand, with a justifiable show of resentment. "Or
+I'll call an officer."
+
+"Will you?" said Holmes, quietly. "Will you call an officer and so make
+known to the authorities that you are in possession of twenty-five thousand
+dollars worth of securities that belong to other people, which are supposed
+at this moment to be safely locked up in the vaults of the Kenesaw National
+Back along with other collateral?"
+
+Rand staggered back against the newel-post of a brown-stone stoop, and stood
+there gazing wildly into Holmes's face.
+
+"Of course, if you prefer having the facts made known in that way," Holmes
+continued, coolly, "you have the option. I am not going to use physical
+force to persuade you to hand the package over to me, but you are a greater
+fool than I take you for if you choose that alternative. To use an
+expressive modern phrase, Mr. Billington Rand, you will be caught with the
+goods on, and unless you have a far better explanation of how those
+securities happen in your possession at this moment than I think you have,
+there is no power on earth can keep you from landing in state-prison."
+
+The unfortunate victim of Holmes's adventure fairly gasped in his combined
+rage and fright. Twice he attempted to speak, but only inarticulate sounds
+issued from his lips.
+
+"You are, of course, very much disturbed at the moment," Holmes went on,
+"and I am really very sorry if anything I have done has disarranged any
+honorable enterprise in which you have embarked. I don't wish to hurry you
+into a snap decision, which you may repent later, only either the police or
+I must have that package within an hour. It is for you to say which of us is
+to get it. Suppose we run over to the Powhatan and discuss the matter calmly
+over a bottle of Glengarry? Possibly I can convince you that it will be for
+your own good to do precisely as I tell you and very much to your
+disadvantage to do otherwise."
+
+Rand, stupefied by this sudden intrusion upon his secret by an utter
+stranger, lost what little fight there was left in him, and at least seemed
+to assent to Holmes's proposition. The latter linked arms with him, and in a
+few minutes we walked into the famous hostelry just as if we were three
+friends, bent only upon having a pleasant chat over a cafe table.
+
+"What'll you have, Mr. Rand?" asked Holmes, suavely. "I'm elected for the
+Glengarry special, with a little carbonic on the side."
+
+"Same," said Rand, laconically.
+
+"Sandwich with it?" asked Holmes. "You'd better."
+
+"Oh, I can't eat anything," began Rand. "I--"
+
+"Bring us some sandwiches, waiter," said Holmes. "Two Glengarry special,
+a syphon of carbonic, and--Jenkins, what's yours?"
+
+The calmness and the cheek of the fellow!
+
+"I'm not in on this at all," I retorted, angered by Holmes's use of my name.
+"And I want Mr. Rand to understand--"
+
+"Oh, tutt!" ejaculated Holmes. "_He_ knows that. Mr. Rand, my friend Jenkins
+has no connection with this enterprise of mine, and he's done his level best
+to dissuade me from holding you up so summarily. All he's along for is to
+write the thing up for--"
+
+"The newspapers?" cried Rand, now thoroughly frightened.
+
+"No," laughed Holmes. "Nothing so useful--the magazines."
+
+Holmes winked at me as he spoke, and I gathered that there was method in his
+apparent madness.
+
+"That's one of the points you want to consider, though, Mr. Rand," he said,
+leaning upon the table with his elbows. "Think of the newspapers to-morrow
+morning if you call the police rather than hand that package over to me.
+It'll be a big sensation for Wall Street and upper Fifth Avenue, to say
+nothing of what the yellows will make of the story for the rest of hoi
+polloi. The newsboys will be yelling extras all over town, printed in great,
+red letters, 'A Club-man Held-Up in Broad Daylight, For $25,000 In
+Securities That Didn't Belong to Him. Billington Rand Has Something To
+Explain. Where Did He Get It?--"
+
+"For Heavens sake, man! don't!" pleased the unfortunate Billington. "God! I
+never thought of that."
+
+"Of course you didn't think of that," said Holmes. "That's why I'm telling
+you about it now. You don't dispute my facts, do you?"
+
+"No, I--" Rand began.
+
+"Of course not," said Holmes. "You might as well dispute the existence of
+the Flat-iron Building. If you don't want to-morrow's papers to be full of
+this thing you'll hand that package over to me."
+
+"But," protested Rand, "I'm only taking them up to--to a--er--to a broker."
+Here he gathered himself together and spoke with greater assurance. "I am
+delivering them, sir, to a broker, on behalf of one of our depositors who--"
+
+"Who has been speculating with what little money he had left, has lost his
+margins, and is now forced into an act of crime to protect his speculation,"
+said Holmes. "The broker is the notorious William C. Gallagher, who runs an
+up-town bucket-shop for speculative ladies to lose their pin-money and
+bridge winnings in, and your depositor's name is Billington Rand, Esq.--
+otherwise yourself."
+
+"How do you know all this?" gasped Rand.
+
+"Oh--maybe I read it on the ticker," laughed Holmes. "Or, what is more
+likely, possibly I overheard Gallagher recommending you to dip into the
+bank's collateral to save your investment, at Green's chop-house last
+night."
+
+"You were at Green's chop-house last night?" cried Rand.
+
+"In the booth adjoining your own, and I heard every word you said," said
+Holmes.
+
+"Well, I don't see why I should give the stuff to you anyhow," growled Rand.
+
+"Chiefly because I happen to be long on information which would be of
+interest, not only to the police, but to the president and board of
+directors of the Kenesaw National Back, Mr. Rand," said Holmes. "It will be
+a simple matter for me to telephone Mr. Horace Huntington, the president of
+your institution, and put him wise to this transaction of yours, and that is
+the second thing I shall do immediately you have decided not to part with
+that package."
+
+"The second thing?" Rand whimpered. "What will you do first?"
+
+"Communicate with the first policeman we meet when we leave here," said
+Holmes. "But take your time, Mr. Rand--take your time. Don't let me hurry
+you into a decision. Try a little of this Glengarry and we'll drink hearty
+to a sensible conclusion."
+
+"I--I'll put them back in the vaults to-morrow," pleaded Rand.
+
+"Can't trust you, my boy," said Holmes. "Not with a persuasive crook like
+old Bucket-ship Gallagher on your trail. They're safer with me."
+
+Rand's answer was a muttered oath as he tossed the package across the table
+and started to leave us.
+
+"One word more, Mr. Rand," said Holmes, detaining him. "Don't do anything
+rash. There's a lot of good-fellowship between criminals, and I'll stand by
+you all right. So far nobody knows you took these things, and even when they
+turn up missing, if you go about your work as if nothing had happened, while
+you may be suspected, nobody can _prove_ that you got the goods."
+
+Rand's face brightened at this remark.
+
+"By Jove!--that's true enough," said he. "Excepting Gallagher," he added,
+his face falling.
+
+"Pah for Gallagher!" cried Holmes, snapping his fingers contemptuously. "If
+he as much as peeped we could put him in jail, and if he sells you out you
+tell him for me that I'll land him in Sing Sing for a term of years. He led
+you into this--"
+
+"He certainly did," moaned Rand.
+
+"And he's got to get you out," said Holmes. "Now, good-bye, old man. The
+worst that can happen to you is a few judgments instead of penal servitude
+for eight or ten years, unless you are foolish enough to try another turn of
+this sort, and then you may not happen on a good-natured highwayman like
+myself to get you out of your troubles. By-the-way, what is the combination
+of the big safe in the outer office of the Kenesaw National?"
+
+"One-eight-nine-seven," said Rand.
+
+"Thanks," said Holmes, jotting it down coolly in his memorandum-book.
+"That's a good thing to know."
+
+
+
+That night, shortly before midnight, Holmes left me. "I've got to finish
+this job," said he. "The most ticklish part of the business is yet to come."
+
+"Great Scott, Holmes!" I cried. "Isn't the thing done?"
+
+"No--of course not," he replied. "I've got to bust open the Kenesaw safe."
+
+"Now, my dear Raffles," I began, "why aren't you satisfied with what you've
+done already. Why must you--"
+
+"Shut up, Jenkins," he interrupted, with a laugh. "If you knew what I was
+going to do you wouldn't kick--that is, unless you've turned crook too?"
+
+"Not I," said I, indignantly.
+
+"You don't expect me to keep these bonds, do you?" he asked.
+
+"But what are you going to do with them?" I retorted.
+
+"Put 'em back in the Kenesaw Bank, where they belong, so that they'll be
+found there to-morrow morning. As sure as I don't, Billington Rand is
+doomed," said he. "It's a tough job, but I've been paid a thousand dollars
+by his family, to find out what he's up to, and by thunder, after following
+his trail for three weeks, I've got such a liking for the boy that I'm going
+to save him if it can be done, and if there's any Raffles left in me, such a
+simple proposition as cracking a bank and puting the stuff back where it
+belongs, in a safe of which I have the combination, isn't going to stand in
+my way. Don't fret, old man, it's as good as done. Good-night."
+
+And Raffles Holmes was off. I passed a feverish night, but at five o'clock
+the following morning a telephone message set all my misgivings at rest.
+
+"Hello, Jenkins!" came Raffles's voice over the wire.
+
+"Hello," I replied.
+
+"Just rang you up to let you know that it's all right. The stuff's replaced.
+Easiest job ever--like opening oysters. Pleasant dreams to you," he said,
+and, click, the connection was broken.
+
+Two weeks later Billington Rand resigned from the Kenesaw Bank and went
+West, where he is now leading the simple life on a sheep-ranch. His
+resignation was accepted with regret, and the board of directors, as a
+special mark of their liking, voted him a gift of $2500 for faithful
+services.
+
+"And the best part of it was," said Holmes, when he told me of the young
+man's good fortune, "that his accounts were as straight as a string."
+
+"Holmes, you are a bully chap!" I cried, in a sudden excess of enthusiasm.
+"You do things for nothing sometimes--"
+
+"Nothing!" echoed Holmes--"nothing! Why, that job was worth a million
+dollars to me, Jenkins--but not in coin. Just in good solid satisfaction in
+saving a fine young chap like Billington Rand from the clutches of a sharper
+and sneaking skinflint like old Bucket-shop Gallagher."
+
+
+
+VIII
+"THE NOSTALGIA OF NERVY JIM THE SNATCHER"
+
+Raffles Holmes was unusually thoughtful the other night when he entered my
+apartment, and for a long time I could get nothing out of him save an
+occasional grunt of assent or dissent from propositions advanced by myself.
+It was quite evident that he was cogitating deeply over some problem that
+was more than ordinarily vexatious, so I finally gave up all efforts at
+conversation, pushed the cigars closer to him, poured him out a stiff dose
+of his favorite Glengarry, and returned to my own work. It was a full hour
+before he volunteered an observation of any kind, and then he plunged
+rapidly into a very remarkable tale.
+
+"I had a singular adventure to-day, Jenkins," he said. "Do you happen to
+have in your set of my father's adventures a portrait of Sherlock Holmes?"
+
+"Yes, I have," I replied. "But you don't need anything of the kind to
+refresh your memory of him. All you have to do is to look at yourself in the
+glass, and you've got the photograph before you."
+
+"I _am_ so like him then?" he queried.
+
+"Most of the time, old man, I am glad to say," said I. "There are days when
+you are the living image of your grandfather Raffles, but that is only when
+you are planning some scheme of villany. I can almost invariably detect the
+trend of your thoughts by a glance at your face--you are Holmes himself in
+your honest moments, Raffles at others. For the past week it has delighted
+me more than I can say to find you a fac-simile of your splendid father,
+with naught to suggest your fascinating but vicious granddad."
+
+"That's what I wanted to find out. I had evidence of it this afternoon on
+Broadway," said he. "It was bitterly cold up around Fortieth Street, snowing
+like the devil, and such winds as you'd expect to find nowhere this side of
+Greenland's icy mountains. I came out of a Broadway chop-house and started
+north, when I was stopped by an ill-clad, down-trodden specimen of humanity,
+who begged me, for the love of Heaven to give him a drink. The poor chap's
+condition was such that it would have been manslaughter to refuse him, and a
+moment later I had him before the Skidmore bar, gurgling down a tumblerful
+of raw brandy as though it were water. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve and
+turned to thank me, when a look of recognition came into his face, and he
+staggered back half in fear and half in amazement.
+
+"'Sherlock Holmes!' he cried.
+
+"'Am I?' said I, calmly, my curiosity much excited.
+
+"'Him or his twin!' said he.
+
+"'How should you know me?' I asked.
+
+"'Good reason enough,' he muttered. ''Twas Sherlock Holmes as landed me for
+ten years in Reading gaol.'
+
+"'Well, my friend,' I answered, 'I've no doubt you deserved it if he did it.
+I am _not_ Sherlock Holmes, however, but his son.'
+
+"'Will you let me take you by the hand, governor?' he whispered, hoarsely.
+'Not for the kindness you've shown me here, but for the service your old man
+did me. I am Nervy Jim the Snatcher.'
+
+"'Service?' said I, with a laugh. 'You consider it a service to be landed in
+Reading gaol?'
+
+"'They was the only happy years I ever had, sir,' he answered, impetuously.
+'The keepers was good to me. I was well fed; kept workin' hard at an honest
+job, pickin' oakum; the gaol was warm, and I never went to bed by night or
+got up o' mornin's worried over the question o' how I was goin' to get the
+swag to pay my rent. Compared to this'--with a wave of his hand at the
+raging of the elements along Broadway--'Reading gaol was heaven, sir; and
+since I was discharged I've been a helpless, hopeless wanderer, sleepin' in
+doorways, chilled to the bone, half-starved, with not a friendly eye in
+sight, and nothin' to do all day long and all night long but move on when
+the Bobbies tell me to, and think about the happiness I'd left behind me
+when I left Reading. Was you ever homesick, governor?'
+
+"I confessed to an occasional feeling of nostalgia for old Picadilly and the
+Thames.
+
+"'Then you know, says he, 'how I feels now in a strange land, dreamin' of my
+comfortable little cell at Reading; the good meals, the pleasant keepers,
+and a steady job with nothin' to worry about for ten short years. I want to
+go back, governor--I want to go back!'
+
+"Well," said Holmes, lighting a cigar, "I was pretty nearly floored, but
+when the door of the saloon blew open and a blast of sharp air and a furry
+of snow came in, I couldn't blame the poor beggar--certainly any place in
+the world, even a jail, was more comfortable than Broadway at that moment. I
+explained to him, however, that as far as Reading gaol was concerned, I was
+powerless to help him.
+
+"'But there's just as good prisons here, ain't there, governor?' he pleaded.
+
+"'Oh yes,' said I, laughing at the absurdity of the situation. 'Sing Sing is
+a first-class, up-to-date penitentiary, with all modern improvements, and a
+pretty select clientele.'
+
+"'Couldn't you put me in there, governor?' he asked, wistfully. 'I'll do
+anything you ask, short o' murder, governor, if you only will.'
+
+"'Why don't you get yourself arrested as a vagrant?' I asked. 'That'll give
+you three months on Blackwell's Island and will tide you over the winter.'
+
+"'Tain't permanent, governor,' he objected. 'At the end o' three months I'd
+be out and have to begin all over again. What I want is something I can
+count on for ten or twenty years. Besides, I has some pride, governor, and
+for Nervy Jim to do three months' time--Lor', sir, I couldn't bring myself
+to nothin' so small!'
+
+"There was no resisting the poor cuss, Jenkins, and I promised to do what I
+could for him."
+
+"That's a nice job," said I. "What can you do?"
+
+"That's what stumps me," said Raffles Holmes, scratching his head in
+perplexity. "I've set him up in a small tenement down on East Houston Street
+temporarily, and meanwhile, it's up to me to land him in Sing Sing, where he
+can live comfortably for a decade or so, and I'm hanged if I know how to do
+it. He used to be a first-class second-story man, and in his day was an A-1
+snatcher, as his name signifies and my father's diaries attest, but I'm
+afraid his hand is out for a nice job such as I would care to have anything
+to do with myself."
+
+"Better let him slide, Raffles," said I. "He introduces the third party
+element into our arrangement, and that's mighty dangerous."
+
+"True--but consider the literary value of a chap that's homesick for jail,"
+he answered, persuasively. "I don't know, but I think he's new."
+
+Ah, the insidious appeal of that man! He knew the crack in my armor, and
+with neatness and despatch he pierced it, and I fell.
+
+"Well--" I demurred.
+
+"Good," said he. "We'll consider it arranged. I'll fix him out in a week."
+
+Holmes left me at this point, and for two days I heard nothing from him. On
+the morning of the third day he telephoned me to meet him at the stage-door
+of the Metropolitan Opera-House at four o'clock. "Bring your voice with
+you," said he, enigmatically, "we may need it." An immediate explanation of
+his meaning was impossible, for hardly were the words out of his mouth when
+he hung up the receiver and cut the connection.
+
+"I wanted to excite your curiosity so that you would be sure to come," he
+laughed, when I asked his meaning later. "You and I are going to join Mr.
+Conried's selected chorus of educated persons who want to earn their grand
+opera instead of paying five dollars a performance for it."
+
+And so we did, although I objected a little at first.
+
+"I can't sing," said I.
+
+"Of course you can't," said he. "If you could you wouldn't go into the
+chorus. But don't bother about that, I have a slight pull here and we can
+get in all right as long as we are moderately intelligent, and able-bodied
+enough to carry a spear. By-the-way, in musical circles my name is Dickson.
+Don't forget that."
+
+That Holmes had a pull was shortly proven, for although neither of us was
+more than ordinarily gifted vocally, we proved acceptable and in a short
+time found ourselves enrolled among the supernumeraries who make of
+"Lohengrin" a splendid spectacle to the eye. I found real zest in life
+carrying that spear, and entered into the spirit of what I presumed to be a
+mere frolic with enthusiasm, merely for the experience of it, to say nothing
+of the delight I took in the superb music, which I have always loved.
+
+And then the eventful night came. It was Monday and the house was packed. On
+both sides of the curtain everything was brilliant. The cast was one of the
+best and the audience all that the New York audience is noted for in wealth,
+beauty, and social prestige, and, in the matter of jewels, of lavish
+display. Conspicuous in respect to the last was the ever-popular, though
+somewhat eccentric Mrs. Robinson-Jones, who in her grand-tier box fairly
+scintillated with those marvellous gems which gave her, as a musical critic,
+whose notes on the opera were chiefly confined to observations on its social
+aspects, put it, "the appearance of being lit up by electricity." Even from
+where I stood, as a part and parcel of the mock king's court on the stage, I
+could see the rubies and sapphires and diamonds loom large upon the horizon
+as the read, white, and blue emblem of our national greatness to the truly
+patriotic soul. Little did I dream, as I stood in the rear line of the
+court, clad in all the gorgeous regalia of a vocal supernumerary, and
+swelling the noisy welcome to the advancing Lohengrin, with my apology for a
+voice, how intimately associated with these lustrous headlights I was soon
+to be, and as Raffles Holmes and I poured out our souls in song not even his
+illustrious father would have guessed that he was there upon any other
+business than that of Mr. Conried. As far as I could see, Raffles was wrapt
+in the music of the moment, and not once, to my knowledge, did he seem to be
+aware that there was such a thing as an audience, much less one individual
+member of it, on the other side of the footlights. Like a member of the Old
+Choral Guard, he went through the work in hand as nonchalantly as though it
+were his regular business in life. It was during the intermission between
+the first and second acts that I began to suspect that there was something
+in the wind beside music, for Holmes's face became set, and the resemblance
+to his honorable father, which had of late been so marked, seemed to
+dissolve itself into an unpleasant suggestion of his other forbear, the
+acquisitive Raffles. My own enthusiasm for our operatic experience, which I
+took no pains to conceal, found no response in him, and from the fall of the
+curtain on the first act it seemed to me as if he were trying to avoid me.
+So marked indeed did this desire to hold himself aloof become that I
+resolved to humor him in it, and instead of clinging to his side as had been
+my wont, I let him go his own way, and, at the beginning of the second act,
+he disappeared. I did not see him again until the long passage between
+Ortrud and Telrammund was on, when, in the semi-darkness of the stage, I
+caught sight of him hovering in the vicinity of the electric switch-board by
+which the lights of the house are controlled. Suddenly I saw him reach out
+his hand quickly, and a moment later every box-light went out, leaving the
+auditorium in darkness, relieved only by the lighting of the stage. Almost
+immediately there came a succession of shrieks from the grand-tier in the
+immediate vicinity of the Robinson-Jones box, and I knew that something was
+afoot. Only a slight commotion in the audience was manifest to us upon the
+stage, but there was a hurrying and scurrying of ushers and others of
+greater or less authority, until finally the box-lights flashed out again in
+all their silk-tasselled illumination. The progress of the opera was not
+interrupted for a moment, but in that brief interval of blackness at the
+rear of the house some one had had time to force his way into the Robinson-
+Jones box and snatch from the neck of its fair occupant that wondrous
+hundred-thousand-dollar necklace of matchless rubies that had won the
+admiring regard of many beholders, and the envious interest of not a few.
+
+Three hours later Raffles Holmes and I returned from the days and dress of
+Lohengrin's time to affairs of to-day, and when we were seated in my
+apartment along about two o'clock in the morning, Holmes lit a cigar, poured
+himself out a liberal dose of Glengarry, and with a quiet smile, leaned back
+in his chair.
+
+"Well," he said, "what about it?"
+
+"You have the floor, Raffles," I answered. "Was that your work?"
+
+"One end of it," said he. "It went off like clock-work. Poor old Nervy has
+won his board and lodging for twenty years all right."
+
+"But--he's got away with it," I put in.
+
+"As far as East Houston Street," Holmes observed, quietly. "To-morrow I
+shall take up the case, track Nervy to his lair, secure Mrs. Robinson-Jones'
+necklace, return it to the lady, and within three weeks the Snatcher will
+take up his abode on the banks of the Hudson, the only banks the ordinary
+cracksman is anxious to avoid."
+
+"But how the dickens did you manage to put a crook like that on the grand-
+tier floor?" I demanded.
+
+"Jenkins, what a child you are!" laughed Holmes. "How did I get him there?
+Why, I set him up with a box of his own, directly above the Robinson-Jones
+box--you can always get one for a single performance if you are willing to
+pay for it--and with a fair expanse of shirt-front, a claw-hammer and a
+crush hat almost any man who has any style to him at all these days can pass
+for a gentleman. All he had to do was to go to the opera-house, present his
+ticket, walk in and await the signal. I gave the man his music cue, and two
+minutes before the lights went out he sauntered down the broad staircase to
+the door of the Robinson-Jones box, and was ready to turn the trick. He was
+under cover of darkness long enough to get away with the necklace, and when
+the lights came back, if you had known enough to look out into the
+auditorium you would have seen him back there in his box above, taking in
+the situation as calmly as though he had himself had nothing whatever to do
+with it."
+
+"And how shall you trace him?" I demanded. "Isn't that going to be a little
+dangerous?"
+
+"Not if he followed out my instructions," said Holmes. "If he dropped a
+letter addressed to himself in his own hand-writing at his East Houston
+Street lair, in the little anteroom of the box, as I told him to do, we'll
+have all the clews we need to run him to earth."
+
+"But suppose the police find it?" I asked.
+
+"They won't," laughed Holmes. "They'll spend their time looking for some
+impecunious member of the smart set who might have done the job. They always
+try to find the sensational clew first, and by day after to-morrow morning
+four or five poor but honest members of the four-hundred will find when they
+read the morning papers that they are under surveillance, while I, knowing
+exactly what has happened will have all the start I need. I have already
+offered my services, and by ten o'clock to-morrow morning they will be
+accepted, as will also those of half a hundred other detectives,
+professional and amateur. At eleven I will visit the opera-house, where I
+expect to find the incriminating letter on the floor, or if the cleaning
+women have already done their work, which is very doubtful, I will find it
+later among the sweepings of waste paper in the cellar of the opera-house.
+Accompanied by two plain-clothes men from headquarters I will then proceed
+to Nervy's quarters, and, if he is really sincere in his desire to go to
+jail for a protracted period, we shall find him there giving an imitation of
+a gloat over his booty."
+
+"And suppose the incriminating letter is not there?" I asked. "He may have
+changed his mind."
+
+"I have arranged for that," said Holmes, with a quick, steely glance at me.
+"I've got a duplicate letter in my pocket now. If he didn't drop it, I
+will."
+
+But Nervy Jim was honest at least in his desire for a permanent residence in
+an up-to-date penitentiary, for, even as the deed itself had been
+accomplished with a precision that was almost automatic, so did the work yet
+to be done go off with the nicety of a well-regulated schedule. Everything
+came about as Holmes had predicted, even to the action of the police in
+endeavoring to fasten the crime upon an inoffensive and somewhat impecunious
+social dangler, whose only ambition in life was to lead a cotillion well,
+and whose sole idea of how to get money under false pretences was to make
+some over-rich old maid believe that he loved her for herself alone and in
+his heart scorned her wealth. Even he profited by this, since he later sued
+the editor who printed his picture with the label "A Social Highwayman" for
+libel, claiming damages of $50,000, and then settled the case out of court
+for $15,000, spot cash. The letter was found on the floor of the box where
+Nervy Jim had dropped it; Holmes and his plain-clothes men paid an early
+visit at the East Houston Street lodging-house, and found the happy Snatcher
+snoring away in his cot with a smile on his face that seemed to indicate
+that he was dreaming he was back in a nice comfortable jail once more; and
+as if to make assurance doubly sure, the missing necklace hung about his
+swarthy neck! Short work was made of the arrest; Nervy Him, almost
+embarrassingly grateful, was railroaded to Sing Sing in ten days' time, for
+fifteen years, and Raffles Holmes had the present pleasure and personal
+satisfaction of restoring the lost necklace to the fair hands of Mrs.
+Robinson-Jones herself.
+
+
+
+"Look at that, Jenkins!" He said, gleefully, when the thing was all over. "A
+check for $10,000."
+
+"Well--that isn't so much, considering the value of the necklace," said I.
+
+"That's the funny part of it," laughed Holmes. "Every stone in it was paste,
+but Mrs. Robinson-Jones never let on for a minute. She paid her little ten
+thousand rather than have it known."
+
+"Great Heavens!--really?" I said.
+
+"Yes," said Holmes, replacing the check in his pocket-book. "She's almost as
+nervy as Nervy Jim himself. She's what I call a dead-game sport."
+
+
+
+IX
+THE ADVENTURE OF ROOM 407
+
+Raffles Holmes and I had walked up-town together. It was a beastly cold
+night, and when we reached the Hotel Powhatan my companion suggested that we
+stop in for a moment to thaw out our frozen cheeks, and incidentally, warm
+up the inner man with some one of the spirituous concoctions for which that
+hostelry is deservedly famous. I naturally acquiesced, and in a moment we
+sat at one of the small tables in the combination reading-room and cafe of
+the hotel.
+
+"Queer place, this," said Holmes, gazing about him at the motley company of
+guests. "It is the gathering place of the noted and the notorious. That
+handsome six-footer, who has just left the room, is the Reverend Dr.
+Harkaway, possibly the most eloquent preacher they have in Boston. At the
+table over in the corner, talking to that gold-haired lady with a roasted
+pheasant on her head in place of a hat, is Jack McBride, the light-weight
+champion of the Northwest, and--by thunder, Jenkins, look at that!"
+
+A heavy-browed, sharp-eyed Englishman appeared in the doorway, stood a
+moment, glanced about him eagerly, and, with a gesture of impatience, turned
+away and disappeared in the throngs of the corridor without.
+
+"There's something doing to bring 'Lord Baskingford' here," muttered Holmes.
+
+"Lord Baskingford?" said I. "Who's he?"
+
+"He's the most expert diamond lifter in London," answered Holmes. "His
+appearance on Piccadilly was a signal always to Scotland Yard to wake up,
+and to the jewellers of Bond Street to lock up. My old daddy used to say
+that Baskingford could scent a Kohinoor quicker than a hound a fox. I wonder
+what his game is."
+
+"Is he a real lord?" I asked.
+
+"Real?" laughed Holmes. "Yes--he's a real Lord of the Lifters, if that's
+what you mean, but if you mean does he belong to the peerage, no. His real
+name is Bob Hollister. He has served two terms in Pentonville, escaped once
+from a Russian prison, and is still in the ring. He's never idle, and if he
+comes to the Powhatan you can gamble your last dollar on it that he has a
+good, big stake somewhere in the neighborhood. We must look over the list of
+arrivals."
+
+We finished our drink and settled the score. Holmes sauntered, in leisurely
+fashion, out into the office, and, leaning easily over the counter,
+inspected the register.
+
+"Got any real live dukes in the house to-night, Mr. Sommers?" he asked of
+the clerk.
+
+"Not to-night, Mr. Holmes," laughed the clerk. "We're rather shy on the
+nobility to-night. The nearest we come to anything worth while in that line
+is a baronet--Sir Henry Darlington of Dorsetshire, England. We can show you
+a nice line of Captains of Industry, however."
+
+"Thank you, Sommers," said Holmes, returning the laugh. "I sha'n't trouble
+you. Fact is, I'm long on Captains of Industry and was just a bit hungry
+to-night for a dash of the British nobility. Who is Sir Henry Darlington of
+Dorsetshire, England?"
+
+"You can search me," said the clerk. "I'm too busy to study genealogy--but
+there's a man here who knows who he is, all right, all right--at least I
+judge so from his manner."
+
+"Who's that?" asked Holmes.
+
+"Himself," said Sommers, with a chuckle. "Now's your chance to ask him--for
+there he goes into the Palm Room."
+
+We glanced over in the direction indicated, and again our eyes fell upon the
+muscular form of "Lord Baskingford."
+
+"Oh!" said Holmes. "Well--he is a pretty fair specimen, isn't he! Little too
+large for my special purpose, though, Sommers," he added, "so you needn't
+wrap him up and send him home."
+
+"All right, Mr. Holmes," grinned the clerk. "Come in again some time when we
+have a few fresh importations in and maybe we can fix you out."
+
+With a swift glance at the open page of the register, Holmes bade the clerk
+good-night and we walked away.
+
+"Room 407," he said, as we moved along the corridor. "Room 407--we mustn't
+forget that. His lordship is evidently expecting some one, and I think I'll
+fool around for a while and see what's in the wind."
+
+A moment or two later we came face to face with the baronet, and watched him
+as he passed along the great hall, scanning every face in the place, and on
+to the steps leading down to the barber-shop, which he descended.
+
+"He's anxious, all right," said Holmes, as we sauntered along. "How would
+you like to take a bite, Jenkins? I'd like to stay here and see this out."
+
+"Very good," said I. "I find it interesting."
+
+So we proceeded towards the Palm Room and sat down to order our repast.
+Scarcely were we seated when one of the hotel boys, resplendent in brass
+buttons, strutted through between the tables, calling aloud in a shrill
+voice:
+
+"Telegram for four-oh-seven. Four hundred and seven, telegram."
+
+"That's the number, Raffles," I whispered, excitedly.
+
+"I know it," he said, quietly. "Give him another chance--"
+
+"Telegram for number four hundred and seven," called the buttons.
+
+"Here, boy," said Holmes, nerving himself up. "Give me that."
+
+"Four hundred and seven, sir?" asked the boy.
+
+"Certainly," said Holmes, coolly. "Hand it over--any charge?"
+
+"No, sir," said the boy, giving Raffles the yellow covered message.
+
+"Thank you," said Holmes, tearing the flap open carelessly as the boy
+departed.
+
+And just then the fictitious baronet entered the room, and, as Holmes read
+his telegram, passed by us, still apparently in search of the unattainable,
+little dreaming how close at hand was the explanation of his troubles. I was
+on the edge of nervous prostration, but Holmes never turned a hair, and,
+save for a slight tremor of his hand, no one would have even guessed that
+there was anything in the wind. Sir Henry Darlington took a seat in the far
+corner of the room.
+
+"That accounts for his uneasiness," said Holmes, tossing the telegram across
+the table.
+
+I read: "Slight delay. Will meet you at eight with the goods." The message
+was signed: "Cato."
+
+"Let's see," said Holmes. It is now six-forty-five. Here--lend me your
+fountain-pen, Jenkins.
+
+I produced the desired article and Holmes, in an admirably feigned hand,
+added to the message the words: "at the Abbey, Lafayette Boulevard. Safer,"
+restored it in amended form to its envelope.
+
+"Call one of the bell-boys, please," he said to the waiter.
+
+A moment later, a second buttons appeared.
+
+"This isn't for me, boy," said Holmes, handing the message back to him.
+"Better take it to the office."
+
+"Very good, sir," said the lad, and off he went.
+
+A few minutes after this incident, Sir Henry again rose impatiently and left
+the room, and, at a proper distance to the rear, Holmes followed him.
+Darlington stopped at the desk, and, observing the telegram in his box,
+called for it and opened it. His face flushed as he tore it into scraps and
+made for the elevator, into which he disappeared.
+
+"He's nibbling the bait all right," said Holmes, gleefully. "We'll just wait
+around here until he starts, and then we'll see what we can do with Cato.
+This is quite an adventure."
+
+"What do you suppose it's all about?" I asked.
+
+"I don't know any more than you do, Jenkins," said Holmes, "save this, that
+old Bob Hollister isn't playing penny-ante. When he goes on to a job as
+elaborately as all this, you can bet your last dollar that the game runs
+into five figures, and, like a loyal subject of his Gracious Majesty King
+Edward VII, whom may the Lord save, he reckons not in dollars but in pounds
+sterling."
+
+"Who can Cato be, I wonder?" I asked.
+
+"We'll know at eight o'clock," said Holmes. "I intend to have him up."
+
+"Up? Up where?" I asked.
+
+"In Darlington's rooms--where else?" demanded Holmes.
+
+"In four hundred and seven?" I gasped.
+
+"Certainly--that's our headquarters, isn't it?" he grinned.
+
+"Now see here, Raffles," I began.
+
+"Shut up Jenkins," he answered. "Just hang on to your nerve--"
+
+"But suppose Darlington turns up?"
+
+"My dear boy, the Abbey is six miles from here and he won't by any living
+chance, get back before ten o'clock to-night. We shall have a good two hours
+and a half to do up old Cato without any interference from him," said
+Holmes. "Suppose he does come--what then? I rather doubt if Sir Henry
+Darlington, of the Hotel Powhatan, New York, or Dorsetshire, England, would
+find it altogether pleasant to hear a few reminiscences of Bob Hollister of
+Pentonville prison, which I have on tap."
+
+"He'll kick up the deuce of a row," I protested.
+
+"Very doubtful, Jenkins," said Raffles. "I sort of believe he'll be as
+gentle as a lamb when he finds out what I know--but, if he isn't, well,
+don't I represent law and order?" and Holmes displayed a detective's badge,
+which he wore for use in emergency cases, pinned to the inner side of his
+suspenders.
+
+As he spoke, Darlington reappeared, and, leaving his key at the office, went
+out through the revolving doorway, and jumped into a hansom.
+
+"Where to, sir?" asked the cabman.
+
+"The Abbey," said Darlington.
+
+"They're off!" whispered Holmes, with a laugh. "And now for Mr. Cato."
+
+We walked back through the office, and, as we passed the bench upon which
+the bell-boys sat, Raffles stopped before the lad who had delivered the
+telegram to him.
+
+"Here, son," he said, handing him a quarter, "run over to the news-stand and
+get me a copy of this months _Salmagundi_--I'll be in the smoking-room."
+
+The boy went off on his errand, and in a few minutes returned with a
+magazine.
+
+"Thanks," said Holmes. "Now get me my key and we'll call it square."
+
+"Four hundred and seven, sir?" said the boy, with a smile of recognition.
+
+"Yep," said Holmes, laconically, as he leaned back in his chair and
+pretended to read.
+
+"Gad, Holmes, what a nerve!" I muttered.
+
+"We need it in this business," said he.
+
+The buttons returned and delivered the key of Sir Henry Darlington's
+apartment into the hands of Raffles Holmes.
+
+Ten minutes later we sat in room 407--I in a blue funk from sheer
+nervousness, Raffles Holmes as imperturbable as the rock of Gibraltar from
+sheer nerve. It was the usual style of hotel room, with bath, pictures,
+telephone, what-nots, wardrobes, and centre-table. The last proved to be the
+main point of interest upon our arrival. It was littered up with papers of
+one sort and another: letters, bills receipted and otherwise, and a large
+assortment of railway and steamship folders. "He knows how to get away," was
+Holmes's comment on the latter. Most of the letters were addressed to Sir
+Henry Darlington, in care of Bruce, Watkins, Brownleigh & Co., bankers.
+
+"Same old game," laughed Holmes, as he read the superscription. "The most
+conservative banking-house in New York! It's amazing how such institutions
+issue letters indiscriminately to any Tom, Dick, or Harry who comes along
+and planks down his cash. They don't seem to realize that they thereby
+unconsciously lend the glamour of their own respectability and credit to
+people who, instead of travelling abroad, should be locked up in the most
+convenient penitentiary at home. Aha!" Holmes added, as he ran his eye over
+some of the other documents and came upon a receipted bill. "We're getting
+close to it, Jenkins. Here's a receipted bill from Bar, LeDuc & Co., of
+Fifth Avenue, for $15,000--three rings, one diamond necklace, a ruby stick-
+pin, and a set of pearl shirt-studs."
+
+"Yes," said I, "but what is there suspicious about that? If the things are
+paid for--"
+
+"Precisely," laughed Holmes. "They're paid for. Sir Henry Darlington has
+enough working capital to buy all the credit he needs with Messrs. Bar,
+LeDuc & Co. There isn't a house in this town that, after a cash transaction
+of that kind, conducted through Bruce, Watkins, Brownleigh & Co., wouldn't
+send its own soul up on approval to a nice, clean-cut member of the British
+aristocracy like Sir Henry Darlington. We're on the trail, Jenkins--we're on
+the trail. Here's a letter from Bar, LeDuc & Co.--let's see what light that
+sheds on the matter."
+
+Holmes took a letter from an envelope and read, rapidly:
+
+Sir Henry Darlington--care of Bruce, Watkins and so forth--dear Sir Henry--
+We are having some difficulty matching the pearls--they are of unusual
+quality, but we hope to have the necklace ready for delivery as requested on
+Wednesday afternoon at the office of Messrs. Bruce, Watkins and so forth,
+between five and six o'clock. Trusting the delay will not--and so forth--and
+hoping to merit a continuance of your valued favors, we beg to remain, and
+so forth, and so forth.
+
+"That's it," said Holmes. "It's a necklace that Mr. Cato is bringing up to
+Sir Henry Darlington--and, once in his possession--it's Sir Henry for some
+place on one of these folders."
+
+"Why don't they send them directly here?" I inquired.
+
+"It is better for Darlington to emphasize Bruce, Watkins, Brownleigh & Co.,
+and not to bank to much on the Hotel Powhatan, that's why," said Holmes.
+"What's the good of having bankers like that back of you if you don't
+underscore their endorsement? Anyhow, we've discovered the job, Jenkins; to-
+day is Wednesday, and the 'goods' Cato has to deliver and referred to in his
+telegram is the pearl necklace of unusual quality--hence not less than a
+$50,000 stake."
+
+At this point the telephone bell rang.
+
+"Hello," said Holmes, answering immediately, and in a voice entirely unlike
+his own. "Yes--what? Oh yes. Ask him to come up."
+
+He hung up the receiver, put a cigar in his mouth, lit it, and turned to me.
+
+"It's Cato--just called. Coming up," said he.
+
+"I wish to Heavens I was going down," I ejaculated.
+
+"You're a queer duck, Jenkins," grinned Holmes. "Here you are with a front
+seat at what promises to be one of the greatest shows on earth, a real live
+melodrama, and all you can think of is home and mother. Brace up--for here
+he is."
+
+There was a knock on the door.
+
+"Come in," said Holmes, cheerily.
+
+A tall cadaverous-looking man opened the door and entered. As his eye fell
+upon us, he paused on the threshold.
+
+"I beg your pardon," he said. "I--I'm afraid I'm in the wrong--"
+
+"Not at all--come in and sit down," said Holmes, cordially. "That is if you
+are our friend and partner, Cato--Darlington couldn't wait--"
+
+"Couldn't wait?" said Cato.
+
+"Nope," said Holmes. "He was very much annoyed by the delay, Cato. You see
+he's on bigger jobs than this puny little affair of Bar, LeDuc's, and your
+failure to appear on schedule time threw him out. Pearls aren't the only
+chips in Darlington's game, my boy."
+
+"Well--I couldn't help it," said Cato. "Bar, LeDuc's messenger didn't get
+down there until five minutes of six."
+
+"Why should that have kept you until eight?" said Holmes.
+
+"I've got a few side jobs of my own," growled Cato.
+
+"That's what Darlington imagined," said Holmes, "and I don't envy you your
+meeting with him when he comes in. He's a cyclone when he's mad and if
+you've got a cellar handy I'd advise you to get it ready for occupancy.
+Where's the stuff?"
+
+"In here, said Cato, tapping his chest.
+
+"Well," observed Holmes, quietly, "we'd better make ourselves easy until the
+Chief returns. You don't mind if I write a letter, do you?"
+
+"Go ahead," said Cato. "Don't mind me."
+
+"Light up," said Holmes, tossing him a cigar, and turning to the table where
+he busied himself for the next five minutes, apparently in writing.
+
+Cato smoked away in silence, and picked up Holmes's copy of the _Salmagundi
+Magazine_ which lay on the bureau, and shortly became absorbed in its
+contents. As for me, I had to grip both sides of my chair to conceal my
+nervousness. My legs fairly shook with terror. The silence, broken only by
+the scratching of Holmes's pen, was becoming unendurable and I think I
+should have given way and screamed had not Holmes suddenly risen and walked
+to the telephone, directly back of where Cato was sitting.
+
+"I must ring for stamps," he said. "There don't seem to be any here.
+Darlington's getting stingy in his old age. Hello," he called, but without
+removing the receiver from the hook. "Hello--send me up a dollar's worth of
+two-cent stamps--thank you. Good-bye."
+
+Cato read on, but, in a moment, the magazine dropped from his hand to the
+floor. Holmes was at his side and the cold muzzle of a revolver pressed
+uncomfortably against his right temple.
+
+"That bureau cover--quick," Raffles cried, sharply, to me.
+
+"What are you doing?" gasped Cato, his face turning a greenish-yellow with
+fear.
+
+"Another sound from you and you're a dead one," said Holmes. "You'll see
+what I'm doing quickly enough. Twist it into a rope, Jim," he added,
+addressing me. I did as I was bade with the linen cover, snatching it from
+the bureau, and a second later we had Cato gagged. "Now tie his hands and
+feet with those curtain cords," Holmes went on.
+
+Heavens! how I hated the job, but there was no drawing back now! We had gone
+too far for that.
+
+"There!" said Holmes, as we laid our victim out on the floor, tied hand and
+foot and as powerless to speak as though he had been born deaf and dumb.
+"We'll just rifle your chest, Cato, and stow you away in the bath-tub with a
+sofa-cushion under your head to make you comfortable, and bid you farewell--
+not au revoir, Cato, but just plain farewell forever."
+
+The words were hardly spoken before the deed was accomplished. Tearing aside
+poor Cato's vest and shirt-front, Raffles placed himself in possession of
+the treasure from Bar, LeDuc & Co., after which we lay Darlington's unhappy
+confederate at full length in the porcelain-lined tub, placed a sofa-cushion
+under his head to mitigate his sufferings, locked him in, and started for
+the elevator.
+
+"Great Heavens, Raffles!" I chattered, as we emerged upon the street. "What
+will be the end of this? It's awful. When Sir Henry returns--"
+
+"I wish I could be there to see," said he, with a chuckle.
+
+"I guess we'll see, quick enough. I leave town to-morrow," said I.
+
+"Nonsense," said Holmes. "Don't you worry. I put a quietus on Sir Henry
+Darlington. _He'll_ leave town to-night, and we'll never hear from him
+again--that is, not in this matter."
+
+"But how?" I demanded, far from convinced.
+
+"I wrote him a letter in which I said: 'You will find your treasure in the
+bath-tub,'" laughed Holmes.
+
+"And _that_ will drive him from New York, and close his mouth forever!" I
+observed, sarcastically. "So very likely!"
+
+"No, Jenkins, not that, but the address, my dear boy, the address. I put
+that message in an envelope, and left it on his table where he'll surely see
+it the first thing when he gets back to-night, addressed to 'Bob Hollister,'
+Diamond Merchant, Cell No. 99, Pentonville Prison."
+
+"Aha!" said I, my doubts clearing.
+
+"Likewise--Ho-ho," said Holmes. "It is a delicate intimation to Sir Henry
+Darlington that somebody is on to his little game, and he'll evaporate
+before dawn."
+
+
+
+A week later, Holmes brought me a magnificent pearl scarf-pin.
+
+"What's that?" I asked.
+
+"Your share of the swag," he answered. "I returned the pearl necklace to
+Bar, LeDuc & Co., with a full statement of how it came into my possession.
+They rewarded me with this ruby ring and that stick-pin."
+
+Holmes held up his right hand, on the fourth finger of which glistened a
+brilliant blood-red stone worth not less than fifteen hundred dollars.
+
+I breathed a sigh of relief.
+
+"I wondered what you were going to do with the necklace," I said.
+
+"So did I--for three days," said Holmes, "and then, when I realized that I
+was a single man, I decided to give it up. If I'd had a wife to wear a
+necklace--well, I'm a little afraid the Raffles side of my nature would have
+won out."
+
+"I wonder whatever became of Darlington," said I.
+
+"I don't know. Sommers says he left town suddenly that same Wednesday night,
+without paying his bill," Holmes answered.
+
+"And Cato?"
+
+"I didn't inquire, but, from what I know of Bob Hollister, I am rather
+inclined to believe that Cato left the Powhatan by way of the front window,
+or possibly out through the plumbing, in some way," laughed Holmes. "Either
+way would be the most comfortable under the circumstances."
+
+
+
+X
+THE MAJOR-GENERAL'S PEPPERPOTS
+
+I had often wondered during the winter whether or no it would be quite the
+proper thing for me to take my friend Raffles Holmes into the sacred
+precincts of my club. By some men--and I am one of them--the club, despite
+the bad name that clubs in general have as being antagonistic to the home,
+is looked upon as an institution that should be guarded almost as carefully
+against the intrusion of improper persons as is one's own habitat, and while
+I should never have admitted for a moment that Raffles was an undesirable
+chap to have around, I could not deny that in view of certain
+characteristics which I knew him to possess, the propriety of taking him
+into "The Heraclean" was seriously open to question. My doubts were set at
+rest, however, on that point one day in January last, when I observed seated
+at one of our luncheon-tables the Reverend Dr. Mulligatawnny, Rector of
+Saint Mammon-in-the-Fields, a highly esteemed member of the organization,
+who had with him no less a person than Mr. E. H. Merryman, the railway
+magnate, whose exploits in Wall Street have done much to give to that golden
+highway the particular kind of perfume which it now exudes to the nostrils
+of people of sensitive honor. Surely, if Dr. Mulligatawnny was within his
+rights in having Mr. Merryman present, I need have no misgivings as to mine
+in having Raffles Holmes at the same table. The predatory instinct in his
+nature was as a drop of water in the sea to that ocean of known
+acquisitiveness which has floated Mr. Merryman into his high place in the
+world of finance, and as far as the moral side of the two men was considered
+respectively, I felt tolerably confident that the Recording Angel's account-books
+would show a larger balance on the right side to the credit of Raffles
+than to that of his more famous contemporary. Hence it was that I decided
+the question in my friend's favor, and a week or two later had him in at
+"The Heraclean" for luncheon. The dining-room was filled with the usual
+assortment of interesting men--men who had really done something in life and
+who suffered from none of that selfish modesty which leads some of us to
+hide our light under the bushel of silence. There was the Honorable Poultry
+Tickletoe, the historian, whose articles on the shoddy quality of the modern
+Panama hat have created such a stir throughout the hat trade; Mr. William
+Darlington Ponkapog, the poet, whose epic on the "Reign of Gold" is one of
+the longest, and some writers say the thickest, in the English language;
+James Whistleton Potts, the eminent portraitist, whose limnings of his
+patients have won him a high place among the caricaturists of the age,
+Robert Dozyphrase, the expatriated American novelist, now of London, whose
+latest volume of sketches, entitled _Intricacies_, has been equally the
+delight of his followers and the despair of students of the occult; and,
+what is more to the purpose of our story, Major-General Carrington Cox,
+U.S.A., retired. These gentlemen, with others of equal distinction whom I
+have not the space to name, were discussing with some degree of simultaneity
+their own achievements in the various fields of endeavor to which their
+lives had been devoted. They occupied the large centre-table which has for
+many a year been the point of contact for the distinguished minds of which
+the membership of "The Heraclean" is made up; the tennis-net, as it were,
+over which the verbal balls of discussion have for so many years volleyed to
+the delight of countless listeners.
+
+Raffles and I sat apart at one of the smaller tables by the window, where we
+could hear as much of the conversation at the larger board as we wished--so
+many members of "The Heraclean" are deaf that to talk loud has become quite
+de rigueur there--and at the same time hold converse with each other in
+tones best suited to the confidential quality of our communications. We had
+enjoyed the first two courses of our repast when we became aware that
+General Carrington Cox had succeeded in getting to the floor, and as he
+proceeded with what he had to say, I observed, in spite of his efforts to
+conceal the fact, that Raffles Holmes was rather more deeply interested in
+the story the General was telling than in such chance observations as I was
+making. Hence I finished the luncheon in silence and even as did Holmes,
+listened to the General's periods--and they were as usual worth listening
+to.
+
+"It was in the early eighties," said General Cox. "I was informally attached
+to the Spanish legation at Madrid. The King of Spain, Alphonso XII, was
+about to be married to the highly esteemed lady who is now the Queen-Mother
+of that very interesting youth, Alphonso XIII. In anticipation of the event
+the city was in a fever of gayety and excitement that always attends upon a
+royal function of that nature. Madrid was crowded with visitors of all
+sorts, some of them not as desirable as they might be, and here and there,
+in the necessary laxity of the hour, one or two perhaps that were most
+inimical to the personal safety and general welfare of the King. Alphonso,
+like many another royal personage, was given to the old Haroun Al Raschid
+habit of travelling about at night in a more or less impenetrable incognito,
+much to the distaste of his ministers and to the apprehension of the police,
+who did not view with any too much satisfaction the possibility of disaster
+to the royal person and the consequent blame that would rest upon their
+shoulders should anything of a serious nature befall. To all of this,
+however, the King was oblivious, and it so happened one night that in the
+course of his wanderings he met with the long dreaded mix-up. He and his two
+companions fell in with a party of cut-throats who promptly proceeded to
+hold them up. The companions were speedily put out of business by the
+attacking party, and the King found himself in the midst of a very serious
+misadventure, the least issue from which bade fair to be a thorough beating,
+if not an attempt on his life. It was at the moment when his chances of
+escape were not one in a million, when, on my way home from the Legation,
+where I had been detained to a very late hour, I came upon him struggling in
+the hands of four as nasty ruffians as you will find this side of the
+gallows. One of them held him by the arms, another was giving him a fairly
+expert imitation of how it feels to be garroted, which the other two were
+rifling his pockets. This was too much for me. I was in pretty fit physical
+condition at that time and felt myself to be quite the equal in a good old
+Anglo-Saxon fist fight of any dozen ordinary Castilians, so I plunged into
+the fray, heart and soul, not for an instant dreaming, however, what was the
+quality of the person to whose assistance I had come. My first step was to
+bowl over the garroter. Expecting no interference in his nefarious pursuit
+and unwarned by his companions, who were to busily engaged in their
+adventure of loot to observe my approach, he was easy prey, and the good,
+hard whack that I gave him just under his right ear sent him flying, an
+unconscious mass of villanous clay, into the gutter. The surprise of the
+onslaught was such that the other three jumped backward, thereby releasing
+the King's arms so that we were now two to three, which in a moment became
+two to two, for I lost no time in knocking out my second man with as pretty
+a solar plexus as you ever saw. There is nothing in the world more
+demoralizing than a good, solid blow straight from the shoulder to chaps
+whose idea of fighting is to sneak up behind you and choke you to death, or
+to stick a knife into the small of your back, and had I been far less expert
+with my fists, I should still have had an incalculable moral advantage over
+such riffraff. Once the odds in the matter of numbers were even, the King
+and I had no further difficulty in handling the others. His Majesty's quarry
+got away by the simple act of taking to his heels, and mine, turning to do
+likewise, received a salute from my right toe which, if I am any judge, must
+have driven the upper end of his spine up through the top of his head. Left
+alone, his Majesty held out his hand and thanked me profusely from my timely
+aid, and asked my name. We thereupon bade each other good-night, and I went
+on to my lodging, little dreaming of the service I had rendered to the
+nation.
+
+"The following day I was astonished to receive at the Legation a
+communication bearing the royal seal, commanding me to appear at the palace
+at once. The summons was obeyed, and, upon entering the palace, I was
+immediately ushered into the presence of the King. He received me most
+graciously, dismissing, however, all his attendants.
+
+"'Colonel Cox,' he said, after the first formal greetings were over, 'you
+rendered me a great service last night.'
+
+"'I, your majesty?' said I. 'In what way?'
+
+"'By putting those ruffians to flight,' said he.
+
+"'Ah!' said I. 'Then the gentleman attacked was one of your Majesty's
+friends?'
+
+"'I would have it so appear,' said the King. 'For a great many reasons I
+should prefer that it were not known that it was I--'
+
+"'You, your Majesty?' I cried, really astonished. 'I had no idea--"
+
+"'You are discretion itself, Colonel Cox,' laughed the King, 'and to assure
+you of my appreciation of the fact, I beg that you will accept a small gift
+which you will some day shortly receive anonymously. It will not be at all
+commensurate to the service you have rendered me, nor to the discretion
+which you have already so kindly observed regarding the principals involved
+in last night's affair, but in the spirit of friendly interest and
+appreciation back of it, it will be of a value inestimable.'
+
+"I began to try to tell his Majesty that my government did not permit me to
+accept gifts of any kind from persons royal or otherwise, but it was not
+possible to do so, and twenty minutes later my audience was over and I
+returned to the Legation with the uncomfortable sense of having placed
+myself in a position where I must either violate the King's confidence to
+acquire the permission of Congress to accept his gift, or break the laws by
+which all who are connected with the diplomatic service, directly or
+indirectly, are strictly governed. I assure you it was not in the least
+degree in the hope of personal profit that I chose the latter course. Ten
+days later a pair of massive golden pepper-pots came to me, and, as the King
+had intimated would be the case, there was nothing about them to show whence
+they had come. Taken altogether, they were the most exquisitely wrought
+specimens of the goldsmith's artistry that I had ever seen, and upon their
+under side was inscribed in a cipher which no one unfamiliar with the affair
+of that midnight fracas would even have observed--'A.R. to C.C.'--Alphonso
+Rex to Carrington Cox being, of course, the significance thereof. They were
+put away with my other belongings, and two years later, when my activities
+were transferred to London, I took them away with me.
+
+"In London I chose to live in chambers, and was soon established at No. 7
+Park Place, St. James's, a more than comfortable and centrally located
+apartment-house where I found pretty much everything in the way of
+convenience that a man situated as I was could reasonably ask for. I had not
+been there more than six months, however, when something happened that made
+the ease of apartment life seem somewhat less desirable. That is, my rooms
+were broken open during my absence, over night on a little canoeing trip to
+Henley, and about everything valuable in my possession was removed,
+including the truly regal pepper-pots sent me by his Majesty the King of
+Spain, that I had carelessly left standing upon my sideboard.
+
+"Until last week," the General continued, "nor hide nor hair of any of my
+stolen possessions was every discovered, but last Thursday night I accepted
+the invitation of a gentleman well known in this country as a leader of
+finance, a veritable Captain of Industry, the soul of honor and one of the
+most genial hosts imaginable. I sat down at his table at eight o'clock, and,
+will you believe me, gentlemen, one of the first objects to greet my eye
+upon the brilliantly set napery was nothing less than one of my lost pepper-
+pots. There was no mistaking it. Unique in pattern, it was certain of
+identification anyhow, but what made it the more certain was the cipher
+'A.R. to C.C.'"
+
+"And of course you claimed it?" asked Dozyphrase.
+
+"Of course I did nothing of the sort," retorted the General. "I trust I am
+not so lacking in manners. I merely remarked its beauty and quaintness and
+massiveness and general artistry. My host expressed pleasure at my
+appreciation of its qualities and volunteered the information that it was a
+little thing he had picked up in a curio shop on Regent Street, London, last
+summer. He had acquired it in perfect good faith. What its history had been
+from the time I lost it until then, I am not aware, but there it was, and
+under circumstances of such a character that although it was indubitably my
+property, a strong sense of the proprieties prevented me from regaining its
+possession."
+
+"Who was your host, General?" asked Tickletoe.
+
+The General laughed. "That's telling," said he. "I don't care to go into any
+further details, because some of you well-meaning friends of mine might
+suggest to Mr.--ahem--ha--well, never mind his name--that he should return
+the pepper-pot, and I know that that is what he would do if he were familiar
+with the facts that I have just narrated."
+
+It was at about this point that the gathering broke up, and, after our
+cigars, Holmes and I left the club.
+
+"Come up to my rooms a moment," said Raffles, as we emerged upon the street.
+"I want to show you something."
+
+"All right," said I. "I've nothing in particular to do this afternoon. That
+was a rather interesting tale of the General's, wasn't it?" I added.
+
+"Very," said Holmes. "I guess it's not an uncommon experience, however, in
+these days, for the well-to-do and well-meaning to be in possession of
+stolen property. The fact of its turning up again under the General's very
+nose, so many years later, however, that is unusual. The case will appear
+even more so before the day is over if I am right in one of my conjectures."
+
+What Raffles Holmes's conjecture was was soon to be made clear. In a few
+minutes we had reached his apartment, and there unlocking a huge iron-bound
+chest in his bedroom, he produced from it capacious depths another gold
+pepper-pot. This he handed to me.
+
+"There's the mate!" he observed, quietly.
+
+"By Jove, Raffles--it must be!" I cried, for beyond all question, in the
+woof of the design on the base of the pepper-pot was the cipher "A.R. to
+C.C." "Where the dickens did you get it?"
+
+"That was a wedding-present to my mother," he explained. "That's why I have
+never sold it, not even when I've been on the edge of starvation."
+
+"From whom--do you happen to know?" I inquired.
+
+"Yes," he replied. "I do know. It was a wedding-present to the daughter of
+Raffles by her father, my grandfather, Raffles himself."
+
+"Great Heavens!" I cried. "Then it was Raffles who--well, you know. That
+London flat job?"
+
+"Precisely," said Raffles Holmes. "We've caught the old gentleman red-
+handed."
+
+"Well, I'll be jiggered!" said I. "Doesn't it beat creation how small the
+world is."
+
+"It does indeed. I wonder who the chap is who has the other," Raffles
+observed.
+
+"Pretty square of the old General to keep quiet about it," said I.
+
+"Yes," said Holmes. "That's why I'm going to restore this one. I wish I
+could give 'em both back. I don't think my old grandfather would have taken
+the stuff if he'd known what a dead-game sport the old General was, and I
+sort of feel myself under an obligation to make amends."
+
+"You can send him the one you've got through the express companies,
+anonymously," said I.
+
+"No," said Holmes. "The General left them on his sideboard, and on his
+sideboard he must find them. If we could only find out the name of his host
+last Thursday--"
+
+"I tell you--look in the _Sunday Gazoo_ supplement," said I. "They
+frequently publish short paragraphs of the social doings of the week. You
+might get a clew there."
+
+"Good idea," said Holmes. "I happen to have it here, too. There was an
+article in it last Sunday, giving a diagram of Howard Vandergould's new
+house at Nippon's Point, Long Island, which I meant to cut out for future
+reference."
+
+Holmes secured the _Gazoo_, and between us, we made a pretty thorough search
+of its contents, especially "The Doings of Society" columns, and at last we
+found it, as follows:
+
+"A small dinner of thirty was given on Thursday evening last in honor of Mr.
+and Mrs. Wilbur Rattington, of Boston, by Mrs. Rattington's brother, John D.
+Bruce, of Bruce, Watkins & Co., at the latter's residence, 74-- Fifth
+Avenue. Among Mr. Bruce's guests were Mr. and Mrs. W. K. Dandervelt, Mr. and
+Mrs. Elisha Scroog, Jr., Major-General Carrington Cox, Mr. and Mrs.
+Henderson Scovill, and Signor Caruso."
+
+"Old Bruce, eh?" laughed Holmes. "Sans peur et sans reproche. Well, that is
+interesting. One of the few honest railroad bankers in the country, a pillar
+of the church, a leading reformer and--a stolen pepper-pot on his table!
+Gee!"
+
+"What are you going to do now?" I asked. "Write to Bruce and tell him the
+facts?"
+
+Holmes's answer was a glance.
+
+"Oh cream-cakes!" he ejaculated, with profane emphasis.
+
+A week after the incidents just described he walked into my room with a
+small package under his arm.
+
+"There's the pair!" he observed, unwrapping the parcel and displaying its
+contents--two superb, golden pepper-pots, both inscribed "A.R. to C.C."
+"Beauties, aren't they?"
+
+"They are, indeed. Did Bruce give it up willingly?" I asked.
+
+"He never said a word," laughed Holmes. "Fact is, he snored all the time I
+was there."
+
+"Snored?" said I.
+
+"Yes--you see, it was at 3.30 this morning," said Holmes, "and I went in the
+back way. Climbed up to the extension roof, in through Bruce's bedroom
+window, down-stairs to the dining-room, while Bruce slept unconscious of my
+arrival. The house next to his is vacant, you know, and it was easy
+travelling."
+
+"You--you--" I began.
+
+"Yes--that's it," said he. "Just a plain vulgar bit of second-story
+business, and I got it. There were a lot of other good things lying around,"
+he added, with a gulp, "but--well, I was righting a wrong this time, so I
+let 'em alone, and, barring this, I didn't deprive old Bruce of a blooming
+thing, not even a wink of sleep."
+
+"And now what?" I demanded.
+
+"It's me for Cedarhurst--that's where the General lives," said he. "I'll get
+there about 11.30 to-night, and as soon as all is quiet, Jenkins, your old
+pal, Raffles Holmes, will climb easily up to the piazza, gently slide back
+the bolts of the French windows in the General's dining-room, proceed
+cautiously to the sideboard, and replace thereon these two souvenirs of a
+brave act by a good old sport, whence they never would have been taken had
+my grandfather known his man."
+
+"You are taking a terrible risk, Raffles," said I, "you can just as easily
+send the tings to the General by express, anonymously."
+
+"Jenkins," he replied, "that suggestion does you little credit and appeals
+neither to the Raffles nor to the Holmes in me. Pusillanimity was a word
+which neither of my forebears could ever learn to use. It was too long, for
+one thing, and besides that it was never needed in their business."
+
+And with that he left me.
+
+
+
+"Well, General," said I to General Cox, a week later at the club, "heard
+anything further about your pepper-pots yet?"
+
+"Most singular thing, Jenkins," said he. "The d----d things turned up again
+one morning last week, and where the devil they came from, I can't imagine.
+One of them, however, had a piece of paper in it on which was written
+'Returned with thanks for their use and apologies for having kept them so
+long.'"
+
+The General opened his wallet and handed me a slip which he took from it.
+
+"There it is. What in thunder do you make out of it?" he asked.
+
+It was in Raffles Holmes's hand-writing.
+
+"Looks to me as though Bruce also had been robbed," I laughed.
+
+"Bruce? Who the devil said anything about Bruce?" demanded the General.
+
+"Why, didn't you tell us he had one of 'em on his table?" said I, reddening.
+
+"Did I?" frowned the General. "Well, if I did, I must be a confounded ass. I
+thought I took particular pains not the mention Bruce's name in the matter."
+
+And then he laughed.
+
+"I shall have to be careful when Bruce comes to dine with me not to have
+those pepper-pots in evidence," he said. "He might ask embarrassing
+questions."
+
+And thus it was that Raffles Holmes atoned for at least one of the offences
+of his illustrious grandsire.
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of R. Holmes & Co., by John Kendrick Bangs
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