"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.