John Kendrick Bangs

“ 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." ”

“ Four nights later Holmes turned up at my apartment.
"Well," said I, "have you come to report progress?"
"Yes," he said. "The reward will arrive on time, but it's been the de'il's own job. Pretty, aren't they!" he added, taking a small package wrapped in tissue-paper out of his pocket, and disclosing its contents.
"Gee-rusalem, what beauties!" I cried, as my eyes fell on two such diamonds as I had never before seen. They sparkled on the paper like bits of sunshine, and that their value was quite $100,000 it did not take one like myself, who knew little of gems, to see at a glance. ”

“ 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?" ”

“ I want a literary partner—a man who will write me up as Bunny did Raffles, and Watson did Holmes, so that I may get a percentage on that part of the swag. I offer you the job, Jenkins. Those royalty statements show me that you are the man, and your books prove to me that you need a few fresh ideas. ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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." ”

“ Jenkins, the two men operating in England at the same time, that no story ever appeared in which Sherlock Holmes's genius was pitted against the subtly planned misdeeds of Mr. Raffles? Is it not surprising that with two such men as they were, working out their destinies in almost identical grooves of daily action, they should never have crossed each other's paths as far as the public is the wiser, and in the very nature of the conflicting interests of their respective lines of action as foemen, the one pursuing, the other pursued, they should to the public's knowledge never have clashed? ”

“ 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. ”

“ Deference to age has always been a weakness of mine, and I apologized, although it was he that was at fault.
"Don't mention it, Jenkins," he whispered. "You are just the man I want to see. Café Panhard—to-night—eleven o'clock. Just happen in, and if a foreign-looking person with a red beard speaks to you don't throw him down, but act as if you were not annoyed by his mistake."
"You know me?" I asked.
"Tush, man—I'm Raffles Holmes!" ”

“ 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. ”

“ II THE ADVENTURE OF THE DORRINGTON RUBY SEAL "Lord Dorrington, as you may have heard," said Raffles Holmes, leaning back in my easy-chair and gazing reflectively up at the ceiling, "was chiefly famous in England as a sporting peer. His vast estates, in five counties, were always open to any sportsman of renown, or otherwise, as long as he was a true sportsman. So open, indeed, was the house that he kept that, whether he was there or not, little week-end parties of members of the sporting fraternity used to be got up at a moment's notice to run down to Dorrington Castle, Devonshire ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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?" ”

“ 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. ”

“ Here you are on the verge of a big transaction, and you delay proceedings by making statements of fact, mixed in with a cheap wit which, I must confess, I find surprising, and so obvious as to be visible even to the blind. You don't talk like an author whose stuff is worth ten cents a word—more like a penny-a-liner, in fact, with whom words are of such small value that no one's the loser if he throws away a whole dictionary. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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?" ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I asked.
"It's perfectly true," said Holmes, "but that makes no difference. The two stones that I shall return two weeks from to-day to Gaffany & Co. will be as like the two they have as they are themselves. Ta-ta, Jenkins—you can count on your half of that ten thousand as surely as though it is jingled now in your pockets."
And with that Raffles Holmes left me to my own devices.
I presume that most readers of the daily newspapers are tolerably familiar with the case of the missing pendants to which Holmes referred, and on the quest for which he was now about to embark. ”

“ 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?" ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I rejoice in the great fortunes of earth because, with every dollar corralled by the superior energies of the multi- millionaires, the fewer there are for other men to seek, and until we stop seeking dollars and turn our minds to other, finer things, there will be no hope of peace and sweet content upon this little green ball we inhabit. ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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." ”