your honest moments, Raffles at others. For the past week it has delighted
me more than I can say to find you a fac-simile of your splendid father,
with naught to suggest your fascinating but vicious granddad."

"That's what I wanted to find out. I had evidence of it this afternoon on
Broadway," said he. "It was bitterly cold up around Fortieth Street, snowing
like the devil, and such winds as you'd expect to find nowhere this side of
Greenland's icy mountains. I came out of a Broadway chop-house and started
north, when I was stopped by an ill-clad, down-trodden specimen of humanity,
who begged me, for the love of Heaven to give him a drink. The poor chap's
condition was such that it would have been manslaughter to refuse him, and a
moment later I had him before the Skidmore bar, gurgling down a tumblerful
of raw brandy as though it were water. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve and
turned to thank me, when a look of recognition came into his face, and he
staggered back half in fear and half in amazement.

"'Sherlock Holmes!' he cried.

"'Am I?' said I, calmly, my curiosity much excited.

"'Him or his twin!' said he.

"'How should you know me?' I asked.

"'Good reason enough,' he muttered. ''Twas Sherlock Holmes as landed me for
ten years in Reading gaol.'

"'Well, my friend,' I answered, 'I've no doubt you deserved it if he did it.
I am _not_ Sherlock Holmes, however, but his son.'

"'Will you let me take you by the hand, governor?' he whispered, hoarsely.
'Not for the kindness you've shown me here, but for the service your old man
did me. I am Nervy Jim the Snatcher.'

"'Service?' said I, with a laugh. 'You consider it a service to be landed in
Reading gaol?'

"'They was the only happy years I ever had, sir,' he answered, impetuously.
'The keepers was good to me. I was well fed; kept workin' hard at an honest
job, pickin' oakum; the gaol was warm, and I never went to bed by night or
got up o' mornin's worried over the question o' how I was goin' to get the
swag to pay my rent. Compared to this'--with a wave of his hand at the
raging of the elements along Broadway--'Reading gaol was heaven, sir; and
since I was discharged I've been a helpless, hopeless wanderer, sleepin' in
doorways, chilled to the bone, half-starved, with not a friendly eye in
sight, and nothin' to do all day long and all night long but move on when
the Bobbies tell me to, and think about the happiness I'd left behind me
when I left Reading. Was you ever homesick, governor?'

"I confessed to an occasional feeling of nostalgia for old Picadilly and the
Thames.

"'Then you know, says he, 'how I feels now in a strange land, dreamin' of my
comfortable little cell at Reading; the good meals, the pleasant keepers,
and a steady job with nothin' to worry about for ten short years. I want to
go back, governor--I want to go back!'

"Well," said Holmes, lighting a cigar, "I was pretty nearly floored, but
when the door of the saloon blew open and a blast of sharp air and a furry
of snow came in, I couldn't blame the poor beggar--certainly any place in
the world, even a jail, was more comfortable than Broadway at that moment. I
explained to him, however, that as far as Reading gaol was concerned, I was
powerless to help him.

"'But there's just as good prisons here, ain't there, governor?' he pleaded.

"'Oh yes,' said I, laughing at the absurdity of the situation. 'Sing Sing is
a first-class, up-to-date penitentiary, with all modern improvements, and a
pretty select clientele.'

"'Couldn't you put me in there, governor?' he asked, wistfully. 'I'll do
anything you ask, short o' murder, governor, if you only will.'

"'Why don't you get yourself arrested as a vagrant?' I asked. 'That'll give
you three months on Blackwell's Island and will tide you over the winter.'

"'Tain't permanent, governor,' he objected. 'At the end o' three months I'd
be out and have to begin all over again. What I want is something I can
count on for ten or twenty years. Besides, I has some pride, governor, and
for Nervy Jim to do three months' time--Lor', sir, I couldn't bring myself
to nothin' so small!'

"There was no resisting the poor cuss, Jenkins, and I promised to do what I
could for him."

"That's a nice job," said I. "What can you do?"

"That's what stumps me," said Raffles Holmes, scratching his head in
perplexity. "I've set him up in a small tenement down on East Houston Street
temporarily, and meanwhile, it's up to me to land him in Sing Sing, where he
can live comfortably for a decade or so, and I'm hanged if I know how to do
it. He used to be a first-class second-story man, and in his day was an A-1
snatcher, as his name signifies and my father's diaries attest, but I'm
afraid his hand is out for a nice job such as I would care to have anything
to do with myself."

"Better let him slide, Raffles," said I. "He introduces the third party
element into our arrangement, and that's mighty dangerous."

"True--but consider the literary value of a chap that's homesick for jail,"
he answered, persuasively. "I don't know, but I think he's new."

Ah, the insidious appeal of that man! He knew the crack in my armor, and
with neatness and despatch he pierced it, and I fell.

"Well--" I demurred.

"Good," said he. "We'll consider it arranged. I'll fix him out in a week."

Holmes left me at this point, and for two days I heard nothing from him. On
the morning of the third day he telephoned me to meet him at the stage-door
of the Metropolitan Opera-House at four o'clock. "Bring your voice with
you," said he, enigmatically, "we may need it." An immediate explanation of
his meaning was impossible, for hardly were the words out of his mouth when
he hung up the receiver and cut the connection.

"I wanted to excite your curiosity so that you would be sure to come," he
laughed, when I asked his meaning later. "You and I are going to join Mr.
Conried's selected chorus of educated persons who want to earn their grand
opera instead of paying five dollars a performance for it."

And so we did, although I objected a little at first.

"I can't sing," said I.

"Of course you can't," said he. "If you could you wouldn't go into the
chorus. But don't bother about that, I have a slight pull here and we can
get in all right as long as we are moderately intelligent, and able-bodied
enough to carry a spear. By-the-way, in musical circles my name is Dickson.
Don't forget that."

That Holmes had a pull was shortly proven, for although neither of us was
more than ordinarily gifted vocally, we proved acceptable and in a short
time found ourselves enrolled among the supernumeraries who make of
"Lohengrin" a splendid spectacle to the eye. I found real zest in life
carrying that spear, and entered into the spirit of what I presumed to be a
mere frolic with enthusiasm, merely for the experience of it, to say nothing
of the delight I took in the superb music, which I have always loved.

And then the eventful night came. It was Monday and the house was packed. On
both sides of the curtain everything was brilliant. The cast was one of the
best and the audience all that the New York audience is noted for in wealth,
beauty, and social prestige, and, in the matter of jewels, of lavish
display. Conspicuous in respect to the last was the ever-popular, though
somewhat eccentric Mrs. Robinson-Jones, who in her grand-tier box fairly
scintillated with those marvellous gems which gave her, as a musical critic,
whose notes on the opera were chiefly confined to observations on its social
aspects, put it, "the appearance of being lit up by electricity." Even from
where I stood, as a part and parcel of the mock king's court on the stage, I
could see the rubies and sapphires and diamonds loom large upon the horizon
as the read, white, and blue emblem of our national greatness to the truly
patriotic soul. Little did I dream, as I stood in the rear line of the
court, clad in all the gorgeous regalia of a vocal supernumerary, and
swelling the noisy welcome to the advancing Lohengrin, with my apology for a
voice, how intimately associated with these lustrous headlights I was soon
to be, and as Raffles Holmes and I poured out our souls in song not even his
illustrious father would have guessed that he was there upon any other
business than that of Mr. Conried. As far as I could see, Raffles was wrapt
in the music of the moment, and not once, to my knowledge, did he seem to be
aware that there was such a thing as an audience, much less one individual
member of it, on the other side of the footlights. Like a member of the Old
Choral Guard, he went through the work in hand as nonchalantly as though it
were his regular business in life. It was during the intermission between
the first and second acts that I began to suspect that there was something
in the wind beside music, for Holmes's face became set, and the resemblance
to his honorable father, which had of late been so marked, seemed to
dissolve itself into an unpleasant suggestion of his other forbear, the
acquisitive Raffles. My own enthusiasm for our operatic experience, which I
took no pains to conceal, found no response in him, and from the fall of the
curtain on the first act it seemed to me as if he were trying to avoid me.
So marked indeed did this desire to hold himself aloof become that I
resolved to humor him in it, and instead of clinging to his side as had been
my wont, I let him go his own way, and, at the beginning of the second act,
he disappeared. I did not see him again until the long passage between
Ortrud and Telrammund was on, when, in the semi-darkness of the stage, I
caught sight of him hovering in the vicinity of the electric switch-board by
which the lights of the house are controlled. Suddenly I saw him reach out
his hand quickly, and a moment later every box-light went out, leaving the
auditorium in darkness, relieved only by the lighting of the stage. Almost
immediately there came a succession of shrieks from the grand-tier in the
immediate vicinity of the Robinson-Jones box, and I knew that something was
afoot. Only a slight commotion in the audience was manifest to us upon the
stage, but there was a hurrying and scurrying of ushers and others of
greater or less authority, until finally the box-lights flashed out again in
all their silk-tasselled illumination. The progress of the opera was not
interrupted for a moment, but in that brief interval of blackness at the
rear of the house some one had had time to force his way into the Robinson-
Jones box and snatch from the neck of its fair occupant that wondrous
hundred-thousand-dollar necklace of matchless rubies that had won the
admiring regard of many beholders, and the envious interest of not a few.

Three hours later Raffles Holmes and I returned from the days and dress of
Lohengrin's time to affairs of to-day, and when we were seated in my
apartment along about two o'clock in the morning, Holmes lit a cigar, poured
himself out a liberal dose of Glengarry, and with a quiet smile, leaned back
in his chair.

"Well," he said, "what about it?"

"You have the floor, Raffles," I answered. "Was that your work?"

"One end of it," said he. "It went off like clock-work. Poor old Nervy has
won his board and lodging for twenty years all right."

"But--he's got away with it," I put in.

"As far as East Houston Street," Holmes observed, quietly. "To-morrow I
shall take up the case, track Nervy to his lair, secure Mrs. Robinson-Jones'
necklace, return it to the lady, and within three weeks the Snatcher will
take up his abode on the banks of the Hudson, the only banks the ordinary
cracksman is anxious to avoid."

"But how the dickens did you manage to put a crook like that on the grand-
tier floor?" I demanded.

"Jenkins, what a child you are!" laughed Holmes. "How did I get him there?
Why, I set him up with a box of his own, directly above the Robinson-Jones
box--you can always get one for a single performance if you are willing to
pay for it--and with a fair expanse of shirt-front, a claw-hammer and a
crush hat almost any man who has any style to him at all these days can pass
for a gentleman. All he had to do was to go to the opera-house, present his
ticket, walk in and await the signal. I gave the man his music cue, and two
minutes before the lights went out he sauntered down the broad staircase to
the door of the Robinson-Jones box, and was ready to turn the trick. He was
under cover of darkness long enough to get away with the necklace, and when
the lights came back, if you had known enough to look out into the
auditorium you would have seen him back there in his box above, taking in
the situation as calmly as though he had himself had nothing whatever to do
with it."

"And how shall you trace him?" I demanded. "Isn't that going to be a little
dangerous?"

"Not if he followed out my instructions," said Holmes. "If he dropped a
letter addressed to himself in his own hand-writing at his East Houston
Street lair, in the little anteroom of the box, as I told him to do, we'll
have all the clews we need to run him to earth."

"But suppose the police find it?" I asked.

"They won't," laughed Holmes. "They'll spend their time looking for some
impecunious member of the smart set who might have done the job. They always
try to find the sensational clew first, and by day after to-morrow morning
four or five poor but honest members of the four-hundred will find when they
read the morning papers that they are under surveillance, while I, knowing
exactly what has happened will have all the start I need. I have already
offered my services, and by ten o'clock to-morrow morning they will be
accepted, as will also those of half a hundred other detectives,
professional and amateur. At eleven I will visit the opera-house, where I
expect to find the incriminating letter on the floor, or if the cleaning
women have already done their work, which is very doubtful, I will find it
later among the sweepings of waste paper in the cellar of the opera-house.
Accompanied by two plain-clothes men from headquarters I will then proceed
to Nervy's quarters, and, if he is really sincere in his desire to go to
jail for a protracted period, we shall find him there giving an imitation of
a gloat over his booty."

"And suppose the incriminating letter is not there?" I asked. "He may have
changed his mind."

"I have arranged for that," said Holmes, with a quick, steely glance at me.
"I've got a duplicate letter in my pocket now. If he didn't drop it, I
will."

But Nervy Jim was honest at least in his desire for a permanent residence in
an up-to-date penitentiary, for, even as the deed itself had been
accomplished with a precision that was almost automatic, so did the work yet
to be done go off with the nicety of a well-regulated schedule. Everything
came about as Holmes had predicted, even to the action of the police in
endeavoring to fasten the crime upon an inoffensive and somewhat impecunious
social dangler, whose only ambition in life was to lead a cotillion well,
and whose sole idea of how to get money under false pretences was to make
some over-rich old maid believe that he loved her for herself alone and in
his heart scorned her wealth. Even he profited by this, since he later sued
the editor who printed his picture with the label "A Social Highwayman" for
libel, claiming damages of $50,000, and then settled the case out of court
for $15,000, spot cash. The letter was found on the floor of the box where
Nervy Jim had dropped it; Holmes and his plain-clothes men paid an early
visit at the East Houston Street lodging-house, and found the happy Snatcher
snoring away in his cot with a smile on his face that seemed to indicate
that he was dreaming he was back in a nice comfortable jail once more; and
as if to make assurance doubly sure, the missing necklace hung about his
swarthy neck! Short work was made of the arrest; Nervy Him, almost
embarrassingly grateful, was railroaded to Sing Sing in ten days' time, for
fifteen years, and Raffles Holmes had the present pleasure and personal
satisfaction of restoring the lost necklace to the fair hands of Mrs.
Robinson-Jones herself.

"Look at that, Jenkins!" He said, gleefully, when the thing was all over. "A
check for $10,000."

"Well--that isn't so much, considering the value of the necklace," said I.

"That's the funny part of it," laughed Holmes. "Every stone in it was paste,
but Mrs. Robinson-Jones never let on for a minute. She paid her little ten
thousand rather than have it known."

"Great Heavens!--really?" I said.

"Yes," said Holmes, replacing the check in his pocket-book. "She's almost as
nervy as Nervy Jim himself. She's what I call a dead-game sport."

IX
THE ADVENTURE OF ROOM 407

Raffles Holmes and I had walked up-town together. It was a beastly cold
night, and when we reached the Hotel Powhatan my companion suggested that we
stop in for a moment to thaw out our frozen cheeks, and incidentally, warm
up the inner man with some one of the spirituous concoctions for which that
hostelry is deservedly famous. I naturally acquiesced, and in a moment we
sat at one of the small tables in the combination reading-room and café of
the hotel.

"Queer place, this," said Holmes, gazing about him at the motley company of
guests. "It is the gathering place of the noted and the notorious. That
handsome six-footer, who has just left the room, is the Reverend Dr.
Harkaway, possibly the most eloquent preacher they have in Boston. At the
table over in the corner, talking to that gold-haired lady with a roasted
pheasant on her head in place of a hat, is Jack McBride, the light-weight
champion of the Northwest, and--by thunder, Jenkins, look at that!"

A heavy-browed, sharp-eyed Englishman appeared in the doorway, stood a
moment, glanced about him eagerly, and, with a gesture of impatience, turned
away and disappeared in the throngs of the corridor without.

"There's something doing to bring 'Lord Baskingford' here," muttered Holmes.

"Lord Baskingford?" said I. "Who's he?"

"He's the most expert diamond lifter in London," answered Holmes. "His
appearance on Piccadilly was a signal always to Scotland Yard to wake up,
and to the jewellers of Bond Street to lock up. My old daddy used to say
that Baskingford could scent a Kohinoor quicker than a hound a fox. I wonder
what his game is."

"Is he a real lord?" I asked.

"Real?" laughed Holmes. "Yes--he's a real Lord of the Lifters, if that's
what you mean, but if you mean does he belong to the peerage, no. His real
name is Bob Hollister. He has served two terms in Pentonville, escaped once
from a Russian prison, and is still in the ring. He's never idle, and if he
comes to the Powhatan you can gamble your last dollar on it that he has a
good, big stake somewhere in the neighborhood. We must look over the list of
arrivals."

We finished our drink and settled the score. Holmes sauntered, in leisurely
fashion, out into the office, and, leaning easily over the counter,
inspected the register.

"Got any real live dukes in the house to-night, Mr. Sommers?" he asked of
the clerk.

"Not to-night, Mr. Holmes," laughed the clerk. "We're rather shy on the
nobility to-night. The nearest we come to anything worth while in that line
is a baronet--Sir Henry Darlington of Dorsetshire, England. We can show you
a nice line of Captains of Industry, however."

"Thank you, Sommers," said Holmes, returning the laugh. "I sha'n't trouble
you. Fact is, I'm long on Captains of Industry and was just a bit hungry
to-night for a dash of the British nobility. Who is Sir Henry Darlington of
Dorsetshire, England?"

"You can search me," said the clerk. "I'm too busy to study genealogy--but
there's a man here who knows who he is, all right, all right--at least I
judge so from his manner."

"Who's that?" asked Holmes.

"Himself," said Sommers, with a chuckle. "Now's your chance to ask him--for
there he goes into the Palm Room."

We glanced over in the direction indicated, and again our eyes fell upon the
muscular form of "Lord Baskingford."

"Oh!" said Holmes. "Well--he is a pretty fair specimen, isn't he! Little too
large for my special purpose, though, Sommers," he added, "so you needn't
wrap him up and send him home."

"All right, Mr. Holmes," grinned the clerk. "Come in again some time when we
have a few fresh importations in and maybe we can fix you out."

With a swift glance at the open page of the register, Holmes bade the clerk
good-night and we walked away.

"Room 407," he said, as we moved along the corridor. "Room 407--we mustn't
forget that. His lordship is evidently expecting some one, and I think I'll
fool around for a while and see what's in the wind."

A moment or two later we came face to face with the baronet, and watched him
as he passed along the great hall, scanning every face in the place, and on
to the steps leading down to the barber-shop, which he descended.

"He's anxious, all right," said Holmes, as we sauntered along. "How would
you like to take a bite, Jenkins? I'd like to stay here and see this out."

"Very good," said I. "I find it interesting."

So we proceeded towards the Palm Room and sat down to order our repast.
Scarcely were we seated when one of the hotel boys, resplendent in brass
buttons, strutted through between the tables, calling aloud in a shrill
voice:

"Telegram for four-oh-seven. Four hundred and seven, telegram."

"That's the number, Raffles," I whispered, excitedly.

"I know it," he said, quietly. "Give him another chance--"

"Telegram for number four hundred and seven," called the buttons.

"Here, boy," said Holmes, nerving himself up. "Give me that."

"Four hundred and seven, sir?" asked the boy.

"Certainly," said Holmes, coolly. "Hand it over--any charge?"

"No, sir," said the boy, giving Raffles the yellow covered message.

"Thank you," said Holmes, tearing the flap open carelessly as the boy
departed.

And just then the fictitious baronet entered the room, and, as Holmes read
his telegram, passed by us, still apparently in search of the unattainable,
little dreaming how close at hand was the explanation of his troubles. I was
on the edge of nervous prostration, but Holmes never turned a hair, and,
save for a slight tremor of his hand, no one would have even guessed that
there was anything in the wind. Sir Henry Darlington took a seat in the far
corner of the room.

"That accounts for his uneasiness," said Holmes, tossing the telegram across
the table.

I read: "Slight delay. Will meet you at eight with the goods." The message
was signed: "Cato."

"Let's see," said Holmes. It is now six-forty-five. Here--lend me your
fountain-pen, Jenkins.

I produced the desired article and Holmes, in an admirably feigned hand,
added to the message the words: "at the Abbey, Lafayette Boulevard. Safer,"
restored it in amended form to its envelope.

"Call one of the bell-boys, please," he said to the waiter.

A moment later, a second buttons appeared.

"This isn't for me, boy," said Holmes, handing the message back to him.
"Better take it to the office."

"Very good, sir," said the lad, and off he went.

A few minutes after this incident, Sir Henry again rose impatiently and left
the room, and, at a proper distance to the rear, Holmes followed him.
Darlington stopped at the desk, and, observing the telegram in his box,
called for it and opened it. His face flushed as he tore it into scraps and
made for the elevator, into which he disappeared.

"He's nibbling the bait all right," said Holmes, gleefully. "We'll just wait
around here until he starts, and then we'll see what we can do with Cato.
This is quite an adventure."

"What do you suppose it's all about?" I asked.

"I don't know any more than you do, Jenkins," said Holmes, "save this, that
old Bob Hollister isn't playing penny-ante. When he goes on to a job as
elaborately as all this, you can bet your last dollar that the game runs
into five figures, and, like a loyal subject of his Gracious Majesty King
Edward VII, whom may the Lord save, he reckons not in dollars but in pounds
sterling."

"Who can Cato be, I wonder?" I asked.

"We'll know at eight o'clock," said Holmes. "I intend to have him up."

"Up? Up where?" I asked.

"In Darlington's rooms--where else?" demanded Holmes.

"In four hundred and seven?" I gasped.

"Certainly--that's our headquarters, isn't it?" he grinned.

"Now see here, Raffles," I began.

"Shut up Jenkins," he answered. "Just hang on to your nerve--"

"But suppose Darlington turns up?"

"My dear boy, the Abbey is six miles from here and he won't by any living
chance, get back before ten o'clock to-night. We shall have a good two hours
and a half to do up old Cato without any interference from him," said
Holmes. "Suppose he does come--what then? I rather doubt if Sir Henry
Darlington, of the Hotel Powhatan, New York, or Dorsetshire, England, would
find it altogether pleasant to hear a few reminiscences of Bob Hollister of
Pentonville prison, which I have on tap."

"He'll kick up the deuce of a row," I protested.

"Very doubtful, Jenkins," said Raffles. "I sort of believe he'll be as
gentle as a lamb when he finds out what I know--but, if he isn't, well,
don't I represent law and order?" and Holmes displayed a detective's badge,
which he wore for use in emergency cases, pinned to the inner side of his
suspenders.

As he spoke, Darlington reappeared, and, leaving his key at the office, went
out through the revolving doorway, and jumped into a hansom.

"Where to, sir?" asked the cabman.

"The Abbey," said Darlington.

"They're off!" whispered Holmes, with a laugh. "And now for Mr. Cato."

We walked back through the office, and, as we passed the bench upon which
the bell-boys sat, Raffles stopped before the lad who had delivered the
telegram to him.

"Here, son," he said, handing him a quarter, "run over to the news-stand and
get me a copy of this months _Salmagundi_--I'll be in the smoking-room."

The boy went off on his errand, and in a few minutes returned with a
magazine.

"Thanks," said Holmes. "Now get me my key and we'll call it square."

"Four hundred and seven, sir?" said the boy, with a smile of recognition.

"Yep," said Holmes, laconically, as he leaned back in his chair and
pretended to read.

"Gad, Holmes, what a nerve!" I muttered.

"We need it in this business," said he.

The buttons returned and delivered the key of Sir Henry Darlington's
apartment into the hands of Raffles Holmes.

Ten minutes later we sat in room 407--I in a blue funk from sheer
nervousness, Raffles Holmes as imperturbable as the rock of Gibraltar from
sheer nerve. It was the usual style of hotel room, with bath, pictures,
telephone, what-nots, wardrobes, and centre-table. The last proved to be the
main point of interest upon our arrival. It was littered up with papers of
one sort and another: letters, bills receipted and otherwise, and a large
assortment of railway and steamship folders. "He knows how to get away," was
Holmes's comment on the latter. Most of the letters were addressed to Sir
Henry Darlington, in care of Bruce, Watkins, Brownleigh & Co., bankers.

"Same old game," laughed Holmes, as he read the superscription. "The most
conservative banking-house in New York! It's amazing how such institutions
issue letters indiscriminately to any Tom, Dick, or Harry who comes along
and planks down his cash. They don't seem to realize that they thereby
unconsciously lend the glamour of their own respectability and credit to
people who, instead of travelling abroad, should be locked up in the most
convenient penitentiary at home. Aha!" Holmes added, as he ran his eye over
some of the other documents and came upon a receipted bill. "We're getting
close to it, Jenkins. Here's a receipted bill from Bar, LeDuc & Co., of
Fifth Avenue, for $15,000--three rings, one diamond necklace, a ruby stick-
pin, and a set of pearl shirt-studs."

"Yes," said I, "but what is there suspicious about that? If the things are
paid for--"

"Precisely," laughed Holmes. "They're paid for. Sir Henry Darlington has
enough working capital to buy all the credit he needs with Messrs. Bar,
LeDuc & Co. There isn't a house in this town that, after a cash transaction
of that kind, conducted through Bruce, Watkins, Brownleigh & Co., wouldn't
send its own soul up on approval to a nice, clean-cut member of the British
aristocracy like Sir Henry Darlington. We're on the trail, Jenkins--we're on
the trail. Here's a letter from Bar, LeDuc & Co.--let's see what light that
sheds on the matter."

Holmes took a letter from an envelope and read, rapidly:

Sir Henry Darlington--care of Bruce, Watkins and so forth--dear Sir Henry--
We are having some difficulty matching the pearls--they are of unusual
quality, but we hope to have the necklace ready for delivery as requested on
Wednesday afternoon at the office of Messrs. Bruce, Watkins and so forth,
between five and six o'clock. Trusting the delay will not--and so forth--and
hoping to merit a continuance of your valued favors, we beg to remain, and
so forth, and so forth.

"That's it," said Holmes. "It's a necklace that Mr. Cato is bringing up to
Sir Henry Darlington--and, once in his possession--it's Sir Henry for some
place on one of these folders."

"Why don't they send them directly here?" I inquired.

"It is better for Darlington to emphasize Bruce, Watkins, Brownleigh & Co.,
and not to bank to much on the Hotel Powhatan, that's why," said Holmes.
"What's the good of having bankers like that back of you if you don't
underscore their endorsement? Anyhow, we've discovered the job, Jenkins; to-
day is Wednesday, and the 'goods' Cato has to deliver and referred to in his
telegram is the pearl necklace of unusual quality--hence not less than a
$50,000 stake."

At this point the telephone bell rang.

"Hello," said Holmes, answering immediately, and in a voice entirely unlike
his own. "Yes--what? Oh yes. Ask him to come up."

He hung up the receiver, put a cigar in his mouth, lit it, and turned to me.

"It's Cato--just called. Coming up," said he.

"I wish to Heavens I was going down," I ejaculated.

"You're a queer duck, Jenkins," grinned Holmes. "Here you are with a front
seat at what promises to be one of the greatest shows on earth, a real live
melodrama, and all you can think of is home and mother. Brace up--for here
he is."

There was a knock on the door.

"Come in," said Holmes, cheerily.

A tall cadaverous-looking man opened the door and entered. As his eye fell
upon us, he paused on the threshold.

"I beg your pardon," he said. "I--I'm afraid I'm in the wrong--"

"Not at all--come in and sit down," said Holmes, cordially. "That is if you
are our friend and partner, Cato--Darlington couldn't wait--"

"Couldn't wait?" said Cato.

"Nope," said Holmes. "He was very much annoyed by the delay, Cato. You see
he's on bigger jobs than this puny little affair of Bar, LeDuc's, and your
failure to appear on schedule time threw him out. Pearls aren't the only
chips in Darlington's game, my boy."

"Well--I couldn't help it," said Cato. "Bar, LeDuc's messenger didn't get
down there until five minutes of six."

"Why should that have kept you until eight?" said Holmes.

"I've got a few side jobs of my own," growled Cato.

"That's what Darlington imagined," said Holmes, "and I don't envy you your
meeting with him when he comes in. He's a cyclone when he's mad and if
you've got a cellar handy I'd advise you to get it ready for occupancy.
Where's the stuff?"

"In here, said Cato, tapping his chest.

"Well," observed Holmes, quietly, "we'd better make ourselves easy until the
Chief returns. You don't mind if I write a letter, do you?"

"Go ahead," said Cato. "Don't mind me."

"Light up," said Holmes, tossing him a cigar, and turning to the table where
he busied himself for the next five minutes, apparently in writing.

Cato smoked away in silence, and picked up Holmes's copy of the _Salmagundi
Magazine_ which lay on the bureau, and shortly became absorbed in its
contents. As for me, I had to grip both sides of my chair to conceal my
nervousness. My legs fairly shook with terror. The silence, broken only by
the scratching of Holmes's pen, was becoming unendurable and I think I
should have given way and screamed had not Holmes suddenly risen and walked
to the telephone, directly back of where Cato was sitting.

"I must ring for stamps," he said. "There don't seem to be any here.
Darlington's getting stingy in his old age. Hello," he called, but without
removing the receiver from the hook. "Hello--send me up a dollar's worth of
two-cent stamps--thank you. Good-bye."

Cato read on, but, in a moment, the magazine dropped from his hand to the
floor. Holmes was at his side and the cold muzzle of a revolver pressed
uncomfortably against his right temple.

"That bureau cover--quick," Raffles cried, sharply, to me.

"What are you doing?" gasped Cato, his face turning a greenish-yellow with
fear.

"Another sound from you and you're a dead one," said Holmes. "You'll see
what I'm doing quickly enough. Twist it into a rope, Jim," he added,
addressing me. I did as I was bade with the linen cover, snatching it from
the bureau, and a second later we had Cato gagged. "Now tie his hands and
feet with those curtain cords," Holmes went on.

Heavens! how I hated the job, but there was no drawing back now! We had gone
too far for that.

"There!" said Holmes, as we laid our victim out on the floor, tied hand and
foot and as powerless to speak as though he had been born deaf and dumb.
"We'll just rifle your chest, Cato, and stow you away in the bath-tub with a
sofa-cushion under your head to make you comfortable, and bid you farewell--
not au revoir, Cato, but just plain farewell forever."

The words were hardly spoken before the deed was accomplished. Tearing aside
poor Cato's vest and shirt-front, Raffles placed himself in possession of
the treasure from Bar, LeDuc & Co., after which we lay Darlington's unhappy
confederate at full length in the porcelain-lined tub, placed a sofa-cushion
under his head to mitigate his sufferings, locked him in, and started for
the elevator.

"Great Heavens, Raffles!" I chattered, as we emerged upon the street. "What
will be the end of this? It's awful. When Sir Henry returns--"

"I wish I could be there to see," said he, with a chuckle.

"I guess we'll see, quick enough. I leave town to-morrow," said I.

"Nonsense," said Holmes. "Don't you worry. I put a quietus on Sir Henry
Darlington. _He'll_ leave town to-night, and we'll never hear from him
again--that is, not in this matter."

"But how?" I demanded, far from convinced.

"I wrote him a letter in which I said: 'You will find your treasure in the
bath-tub,'" laughed Holmes.

"And _that_ will drive him from New York, and close his mouth forever!" I
observed, sarcastically. "So very likely!"

"No, Jenkins, not that, but the address, my dear boy, the address. I put
that message in an envelope, and left it on his table where he'll surely see
it the first thing when he gets back to-night, addressed to 'Bob Hollister,'
Diamond Merchant, Cell No. 99, Pentonville Prison."

"Aha!" said I, my doubts clearing.

"Likewise--Ho-ho," said Holmes. "It is a delicate intimation to Sir Henry
Darlington that somebody is on to his little game, and he'll evaporate
before dawn."

A week later, Holmes brought me a magnificent pearl scarf-pin.

"What's that?" I asked.

"Your share of the swag," he answered. "I returned the pearl necklace to
Bar, LeDuc & Co., with a full statement of how it came into my possession.
They rewarded me with this ruby ring and that stick-pin."

Holmes held up his right hand, on the fourth finger of which glistened a
brilliant blood-red stone worth not less than fifteen hundred dollars.

I breathed a sigh of relief.

"I wondered what you were going to do with the necklace," I said.

"So did I--for three days," said Holmes, "and then, when I realized that I
was a single man, I decided to give it up. If I'd had a wife to wear a
necklace--well, I'm a little afraid the Raffles side of my nature would have
won out."

"I wonder whatever became of Darlington," said I.

"I don't know. Sommers says he left town suddenly that same Wednesday night,
without paying his bill," Holmes answered.

"And Cato?"

"I didn't inquire, but, from what I know of Bob Hollister, I am rather
inclined to believe that Cato left the Powhatan by way of the front window,
or possibly out through the plumbing, in some way," laughed Holmes. "Either
way would be the most comfortable under the circumstances."

X
THE MAJOR-GENERAL'S PEPPERPOTS

I had often wondered during the winter whether or no it would be quite the
proper thing for me to take my friend Raffles Holmes into the sacred
precincts of my club. By some men--and I am one of them--the club, despite
the bad name that clubs in general have as being antagonistic to the home,
is looked upon as an institution that should be guarded almost as carefully
against the intrusion of improper persons as is one's own habitat, and while
I should never have admitted for a moment that Raffles was an undesirable
chap to have around, I could not deny that in view of certain
characteristics which I knew him to possess, the propriety of taking him
into "The Heraclean" was seriously open to question. My doubts were set at
rest, however, on that point one day in January last, when I observed seated
at one of our luncheon-tables the Reverend Dr. Mulligatawnny, Rector of
Saint Mammon-in-the-Fields, a highly esteemed member of the organization,
who had with him no less a person than Mr. E. H. Merryman, the railway
magnate, whose exploits in Wall Street have done much to give to that golden
highway the particular kind of perfume which it now exudes to the nostrils
of people of sensitive honor. Surely, if Dr. Mulligatawnny was within his
rights in having Mr. Merryman present, I need have no misgivings as to mine
in having Raffles Holmes at the same table. The predatory instinct in his
nature was as a drop of water in the sea to that ocean of known
acquisitiveness which has floated Mr. Merryman into his high place in the
world of finance, and as far as the moral side of the two men was considered
respectively, I felt tolerably confident that the Recording Angel's account-books
would show a larger balance on the right side to the credit of Raffles
than to that of his more famous contemporary. Hence it was that I decided
the question in my friend's favor, and a week or two later had him in at
"The Heraclean" for luncheon. The dining-room was filled with the usual
assortment of interesting men--men who had really done something in life and
who suffered from none of that selfish modesty which leads some of us to
hide our light under the bushel of silence. There was the Honorable Poultry
Tickletoe, the historian, whose articles on the shoddy quality of the modern
Panama hat have created such a stir throughout the hat trade; Mr. William
Darlington Ponkapog, the poet, whose epic on the "Reign of Gold" is one of
the longest, and some writers say the thickest, in the English language;
James Whistleton Potts, the eminent portraitist, whose limnings of his
patients have won him a high place among the caricaturists of the age,
Robert Dozyphrase, the expatriated American novelist, now of London, whose
latest volume of sketches, entitled _Intricacies_, has been equally the
delight of his followers and the despair of students of the occult; and,
what is more to the purpose of our story, Major-General Carrington Cox,
U.S.A., retired. These gentlemen, with others of equal distinction whom I
have not the space to name, were discussing with some degree of simultaneity
their own achievements in the various fields of endeavor to which their
lives had been devoted. They occupied the large centre-table which has for
many a year been the point of contact for the distinguished minds of which
the membership of "The Heraclean" is made up; the tennis-net, as it were,
over which the verbal balls of discussion have for so many years volleyed to
the delight of countless listeners.

Raffles and I sat apart at one of the smaller tables by the window, where we
could hear as much of the conversation at the larger board as we wished--so
many members of "The Heraclean" are deaf that to talk loud has become quite
de rigueur there--and at the same time hold converse with each other in
tones best suited to the confidential quality of our communications. We had
enjoyed the first two courses of our repast when we became aware that
General Carrington Cox had succeeded in getting to the floor, and as he
proceeded with what he had to say, I observed, in spite of his efforts to
conceal the fact, that Raffles Holmes was rather more deeply interested in
the story the General was telling than in such chance observations as I was
making. Hence I finished the luncheon in silence and even as did Holmes,
listened to the General's periods--and they were as usual worth listening
to.

"It was in the early eighties," said General Cox. "I was informally attached
to the Spanish legation at Madrid. The King of Spain, Alphonso XII, was
about to be married to the highly esteemed lady who is now the Queen-Mother
of that very interesting youth, Alphonso XIII. In anticipation of the event
the city was in a fever of gayety and excitement that always attends upon a
royal function of that nature. Madrid was crowded with visitors of all
sorts, some of them not as desirable as they might be, and here and there,
in the necessary laxity of the hour, one or two perhaps that were most
inimical to the personal safety and general welfare of the King. Alphonso,
like many another royal personage, was given to the old Haroun Al Raschid
habit of travelling about at night in a more or less impenetrable incognito,
much to the distaste of his ministers and to the apprehension of the police,
who did not view with any too much satisfaction the possibility of disaster
to the royal person and the consequent blame that would rest upon their
shoulders should anything of a serious nature befall. To all of this,
however, the King was oblivious, and it so happened one night that in the
course of his wanderings he met with the long dreaded mix-up. He and his two
companions fell in with a party of cut-throats who promptly proceeded to
hold them up. The companions were speedily put out of business by the
attacking party, and the King found himself in the midst of a very serious
misadventure, the least issue from which bade fair to be a thorough beating,
if not an attempt on his life. It was at the moment when his chances of
escape were not one in a million, when, on my way home from the Legation,
where I had been detained to a very late hour, I came upon him struggling in
the hands of four as nasty ruffians as you will find this side of the
gallows. One of them held him by the arms, another was giving him a fairly
expert imitation of how it feels to be garroted, which the other two were
rifling his pockets. This was too much for me. I was in pretty fit physical
condition at that time and felt myself to be quite the equal in a good old
Anglo-Saxon fist fight of any dozen ordinary Castilians, so I plunged into
the fray, heart and soul, not for an instant dreaming, however, what was the
quality of the person to whose assistance I had come. My first step was to
bowl over the garroter. Expecting no interference in his nefarious pursuit
and unwarned by his companions, who were to busily engaged in their
adventure of loot to observe my approach, he was easy prey, and the good,
hard whack that I gave him just under his right ear sent him flying, an
unconscious mass of villanous clay, into the gutter. The surprise of the
onslaught was such that the other three jumped backward, thereby releasing
the King's arms so that we were now two to three, which in a moment became
two to two, for I lost no time in knocking out my second man with as pretty
a solar plexus as you ever saw. There is nothing in the world more
demoralizing than a good, solid blow straight from the shoulder to chaps
whose idea of fighting is to sneak up behind you and choke you to death, or
to stick a knife into the small of your back, and had I been far less expert
with my fists, I should still have had an incalculable moral advantage over
such riffraff. Once the odds in the matter of numbers were even, the King
and I had no further difficulty in handling the others. His Majesty's quarry
got away by the simple act of taking to his heels, and mine, turning to do
likewise, received a salute from my right toe which, if I am any judge, must
have driven the upper end of his spine up through the top of his head. Left
alone, his Majesty held out his hand and thanked me profusely from my timely
aid, and asked my name. We thereupon bade each other good-night, and I went
on to my lodging, little dreaming of the service I had rendered to the
nation.

"The following day I was astonished to receive at the Legation a
communication bearing the royal seal, commanding me to appear at the palace
at once. The summons was obeyed, and, upon entering the palace, I was
immediately ushered into the presence of the King. He received me most
graciously, dismissing, however, all his attendants.

"'Colonel Cox,' he said, after the first formal greetings were over, 'you
rendered me a great service last night.'

"'I, your majesty?' said I. 'In what way?'

"'By putting those ruffians to flight,' said he.

"'Ah!' said I. 'Then the gentleman attacked was one of your Majesty's
friends?'

"'I would have it so appear,' said the King. 'For a great many reasons I
should prefer that it were not known that it was I--'

"'You, your Majesty?' I cried, really astonished. 'I had no idea--"

"'You are discretion itself, Colonel Cox,' laughed the King, 'and to assure
you of my appreciation of the fact, I beg that you will accept a small gift
which you will some day shortly receive anonymously. It will not be at all
commensurate to the service you have rendered me, nor to the discretion
which you have already so kindly observed regarding the principals involved
in last night's affair, but in the spirit of friendly interest and
appreciation back of it, it will be of a value inestimable.'

"I began to try to tell his Majesty that my government did not permit me to
accept gifts of any kind from persons royal or otherwise, but it was not
possible to do so, and twenty minutes later my audience was over and I
returned to the Legation with the uncomfortable sense of having placed
myself in a position where I must either violate the King's confidence to
acquire the permission of Congress to accept his gift, or break the laws by
which all who are connected with the diplomatic service, directly or
indirectly, are strictly governed. I assure you it was not in the least
degree in the hope of personal profit that I chose the latter course. Ten
days later a pair of massive golden pepper-pots came to me, and, as the King
had intimated would be the case, there was nothing about them to show whence
they had come. Taken altogether, they were the most exquisitely wrought
specimens of the goldsmith's artistry that I had ever seen, and upon their
under side was inscribed in a cipher which no one unfamiliar with the affair
of that midnight fracas would even have observed--'A.R. to C.C.'--Alphonso
Rex to Carrington Cox being, of course, the significance thereof. They were
put away with my other belongings, and two years later, when my activities
were transferred to London, I took them away with me.

"In London I chose to live in chambers, and was soon established at No. 7
Park Place, St. James's, a more than comfortable and centrally located
apartment-house where I found pretty much everything in the way of
convenience that a man situated as I was could reasonably ask for. I had not
been there more than six months, however, when something happened that made
the ease of apartment life seem somewhat less desirable. That is, my rooms
were broken open during my absence, over night on a little canoeing trip to
Henley, and about everything valuable in my possession was removed,
including the truly regal pepper-pots sent me by his Majesty the King of
Spain, that I had carelessly left standing upon my sideboard.

"Until last week," the General continued, "nor hide nor hair of any of my
stolen possessions was every discovered, but last Thursday night I accepted
the invitation of a gentleman well known in this country as a leader of
finance, a veritable Captain of Industry, the soul of honor and one of the
most genial hosts imaginable. I sat down at his table at eight o'clock, and,
will you believe me, gentlemen, one of the first objects to greet my eye
upon the brilliantly set napery was nothing less than one of my lost pepper-
pots. There was no mistaking it. Unique in pattern, it was certain of
identification anyhow, but what made it the more certain was the cipher
'A.R. to C.C.'"

"And of course you claimed it?" asked Dozyphrase.

"Of course I did nothing of the sort," retorted the General. "I trust I am
not so lacking in manners. I merely remarked its beauty and quaintness and
massiveness and general artistry. My host expressed pleasure at my
appreciation of its qualities and volunteered the information that it was a
little thing he had picked up in a curio shop on Regent Street, London, last
summer. He had acquired it in perfect good faith. What its history had been
from the time I lost it until then, I am not aware, but there it was, and
under circumstances of such a character that although it was indubitably my
property, a strong sense of the proprieties prevented me from regaining its
possession."

"Who was your host, General?" asked Tickletoe.

The General laughed. "That's telling," said he. "I don't care to go into any
further details, because some of you well-meaning friends of mine might
suggest to Mr.--ahem--ha--well, never mind his name--that he should return
the pepper-pot, and I know that that is what he would do if he were familiar
with the facts that I have just narrated."

It was at about this point that the gathering broke up, and, after our
cigars, Holmes and I left the club.

"Come up to my rooms a moment," said Raffles, as we emerged upon the street.
"I want to show you something."

"All right," said I. "I've nothing in particular to do this afternoon. That
was a rather interesting tale of the General's, wasn't it?" I added.

"Very," said Holmes. "I guess it's not an uncommon experience, however, in
these days, for the well-to-do and well-meaning to be in possession of
stolen property. The fact of its turning up again under the General's very
nose, so many years later, however, that is unusual. The case will appear
even more so before the day is over if I am right in one of my conjectures."

What Raffles Holmes's conjecture was was soon to be made clear. In a few
minutes we had reached his apartment, and there unlocking a huge iron-bound
chest in his bedroom, he produced from it capacious depths another gold
pepper-pot. This he handed to me.

"There's the mate!" he observed, quietly.

"By Jove, Raffles--it must be!" I cried, for beyond all question, in the
woof of the design on the base of the pepper-pot was the cipher "A.R. to
C.C." "Where the dickens did you get it?"

"That was a wedding-present to my mother," he explained. "That's why I have
never sold it, not even when I've been on the edge of starvation."

"From whom--do you happen to know?" I inquired.

"Yes," he replied. "I do know. It was a wedding-present to the daughter of
Raffles by her father, my grandfather, Raffles himself."

"Great Heavens!" I cried. "Then it was Raffles who--well, you know. That
London flat job?"

"Precisely," said Raffles Holmes. "We've caught the old gentleman red-
handed."

"Well, I'll be jiggered!" said I. "Doesn't it beat creation how small the
world is."

"It does indeed. I wonder who the chap is who has the other," Raffles
observed.

"Pretty square of the old General to keep quiet about it," said I.

"Yes," said Holmes. "That's why I'm going to restore this one. I wish I
could give 'em both back. I don't think my old grandfather would have taken
the stuff if he'd known what a dead-game sport the old General was, and I
sort of feel myself under an obligation to make amends."

"You can send him the one you've got through the express companies,
anonymously," said I.

"No," said Holmes. "The General left them on his sideboard, and on his
sideboard he must find them. If we could only find out the name of his host
last Thursday--"

"I tell you--look in the _Sunday Gazoo_ supplement," said I. "They
frequently publish short paragraphs of the social doings of the week. You
might get a clew there."

"Good idea," said Holmes. "I happen to have it here, too. There was an
article in it last Sunday, giving a diagram of Howard Vandergould's new
house at Nippon's Point, Long Island, which I meant to cut out for future
reference."

Holmes secured the _Gazoo_, and between us, we made a pretty thorough search
of its contents, especially "The Doings of Society" columns, and at last we
found it, as follows:

"A small dinner of thirty was given on Thursday evening last in honor of Mr.
and Mrs. Wilbur Rattington, of Boston, by Mrs. Rattington's brother, John D.
Bruce, of Bruce, Watkins & Co., at the latter's residence, 74-- Fifth
Avenue. Among Mr. Bruce's guests were Mr. and Mrs. W. K. Dandervelt, Mr. and
Mrs. Elisha Scroog, Jr., Major-General Carrington Cox, Mr. and Mrs.
Henderson Scovill, and Signor Caruso."

"Old Bruce, eh?" laughed Holmes. "Sans peur et sans reproche. Well, that is
interesting. One of the few honest railroad bankers in the country, a pillar
of the church, a leading reformer and--a stolen pepper-pot on his table!
Gee!"

"What are you going to do now?" I asked. "Write to Bruce and tell him the
facts?"

Holmes's answer was a glance.

"Oh cream-cakes!" he ejaculated, with profane emphasis.

A week after the incidents just described he walked into my room with a
small package under his arm.

"There's the pair!" he observed, unwrapping the parcel and displaying its
contents--two superb, golden pepper-pots, both inscribed "A.R. to C.C."
"Beauties, aren't they?"

"They are, indeed. Did Bruce give it up willingly?" I asked.

"He never said a word," laughed Holmes. "Fact is, he snored all the time I
was there."

"Snored?" said I.

"Yes--you see, it was at 3.30 this morning," said Holmes, "and I went in the
back way. Climbed up to the extension roof, in through Bruce's bedroom
window, down-stairs to the dining-room, while Bruce slept unconscious of my
arrival. The house next to his is vacant, you know, and it was easy
travelling."

"You--you--" I began.

"Yes--that's it," said he. "Just a plain vulgar bit of second-story
business, and I got it. There were a lot of other good things lying around,"
he added, with a gulp, "but--well, I was righting a wrong this time, so I
let 'em alone, and, barring this, I didn't deprive old Bruce of a blooming
thing, not even a wink of sleep."

"And now what?" I demanded.

"It's me for Cedarhurst--that's where the General lives," said he. "I'll get
there about 11.30 to-night, and as soon as all is quiet, Jenkins, your old
pal, Raffles Holmes, will climb easily up to the piazza, gently slide back
the bolts of the French windows in the General's dining-room, proceed
cautiously to the sideboard, and replace thereon these two souvenirs of a
brave act by a good old sport, whence they never would have been taken had
my grandfather known his man."

"You are taking a terrible risk, Raffles," said I, "you can just as easily
send the tings to the General by express, anonymously."

"Jenkins," he replied, "that suggestion does you little credit and appeals
neither to the Raffles nor to the Holmes in me. Pusillanimity was a word
which neither of my forebears could ever learn to use. It was too long, for
one thing, and besides that it was never needed in their business."

And with that he left me.

"Well, General," said I to General Cox, a week later at the club, "heard
anything further about your pepper-pots yet?"

"Most singular thing, Jenkins," said he. "The d----d things turned up again
one morning last week, and where the devil they came from, I can't imagine.
One of them, however, had a piece of paper in it on which was written
'Returned with thanks for their use and apologies for having kept them so
long.'"

The General opened his wallet and handed me a slip which he took from it.

"There it is. What in thunder do you make out of it?" he asked.

It was in Raffles Holmes's hand-writing.

"Looks to me as though Bruce also had been robbed," I laughed.

"Bruce? Who the devil said anything about Bruce?" demanded the General.

"Why, didn't you tell us he had one of 'em on his table?" said I, reddening.

"Did I?" frowned the General. "Well, if I did, I must be a confounded ass. I
thought I took particular pains not the mention Bruce's name in the matter."

And then he laughed.

"I shall have to be careful when Bruce comes to dine with me not to have
those pepper-pots in evidence," he said. "He might ask embarrassing
questions."

And thus it was that Raffles Holmes atoned for at least one of the offences
of his illustrious grandsire.

THE END