"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."