R. Holmes & Co. by John Kendrick Bangs (good books to read txt) 📖

"I hope," I ventured to put in at that point, "that the marriage ceremony was not performed by the Reverend James Tattersby."

"Not on your life!" retorted Raffles Holmes. "My father was too fond of my mother to permit of any flaw in his title. A year later I was born, and— well, here I am—son of one, grandson of the other, with hereditary traits from both strongly developed and ready for business. I want a literary partner—a man who will write me up as Bunny did Raffles, and Watson did Holmes, so that I may get a percentage on that part of the swag. I offer you the job, Jenkins. Those royalty statements show me that you are the man, and your books prove to me that you need a few fresh ideas. Come, what do you say? Will you do it?"

"My boy," said I, enthusiastically, "don't say another word. Will I? Well, just try me!"

And so it was that Raffles Holmes and I struck a bargain and became partners.

I had seen the marvellous creation very often at the opera, and in many ways resented it. Not that I was in the least degree a victim to envy, hatred, and malice towards those who are possessed of a superabundance of this world's good things—far from it. I rejoice in the great fortunes of earth because, with every dollar corralled by the superior energies of the multi- millionaires, the fewer there are for other men to seek, and until we stop seeking dollars and turn our minds to other, finer things, there will be no hope of peace and sweet content upon this little green ball we inhabit. My resentment of Mrs. Burlingame's diamond stomacher was not then based on envy of its possession, but merely upon the twofold nuisance which it created at the opera-house, as the lady who wore it sat and listened to the strains of Wagner, Bizet, or Gounod, mixed in with the small-talk of Reggie Stockson, Tommie de Coupon, and other lights of the social firmament. In the first place, it caused the people sitting about me in the high seats of the opera- house to chatter about it and discuss its probable worth every time the lady made her appearance in it, and I had fled from the standee part of the house to the top gallery just to escape the talkers, and, if possible, to get my music straight, without interruptions of any sort whatsoever on the side. In the second place, the confounded thing glittered so that, from where I sat, it was as dazzling as so many small mirrors flashing in the light of the sun. It seemed as if every electric light in the house found some kind of a refractor in the thousands of gems of which it was composed, and many of the brilliant light effects of the stage were dimmed in their lustre by the persistent intrusion of Mrs. Burlingame's glory upon my line of vision.

Hence in was that, when I picked up my morning paper and read in great flaring head-lines on the front page that Mrs. Burlingame's diamond stomacher had been stolen from her at her Onyx Cottage at Newport, I smiled broadly, and slapped the breakfast-table so hard in my satisfaction that even the shredded-wheat biscuits flew up into the air and caught in the chandelier.

"Thank Heaven for that!" I said. "Next season I shall be able to enjoy my opera undisturbed."

"I little thought, at that blissful moment, how closely indeed were my own fortunes to be connected with that wonderful specimen of the jeweler's handicraft, but an hour later I was made aware of the first link in the chain that, in a measure, bound me to it. Breakfast over, I went to my desk to put the finishing touches to a novel I had written the week before, when word came up on the telephone from below that a gentleman from Busybody's Magazine wished to see me on an important matter of business.

"Tell him I'm already a subscriber," I called down, supposing the visitor to be merely an agent. "I took the magazine, and a set of Chaucer in a revolving bookcase, from one of their agents last month and have paid my dollar."

In a moment another message came over the wire.

"The gentleman says he wants to see you about writing a couple of full-page sonnets for the Christmas number," the office man 'phoned up.

"Show him up," I replied, instantly.

Two minutes later a rather handsome man, with a fine eye and a long, flowing gray beard, was ushered into my apartment.

"I am Mr. Stikes, of Busybody's, Mr. Jenkins," he said, with a twinkle in his eye. "We thought you might like to contribute to our Christmas issue. We want two sonnets, one on the old Christmas and the other on the new. We can't offer you more than a thousand dollars apiece for them, but—"

Something caught in my throat, but I managed to reply. "I might shade my terms a trifle since you want as many as two," I gurgled. "And I assume you will pay on acceptance?"

"Certainly," he said, gravely. "Could you let me have them, say—this afternoon?"

I turned away so that he would not see the expression of joy on my face, and then there came from behind me a deep chuckle and the observation in a familiar voice:

"You might throw in a couple of those Remsen coolers, too, while you're about it, Jenkins."

I whirled about as if struck, and there, in place of the gray-bearded editor, stood—Raffles Holmes.

"Bully disguise, eh!" he said, folding up his beard and putting it in his pocket.

"Ye-e-es," said I, ruefully, as I thought of the vanished two thousand. "I think I preferred you in disguise, though, old man," I added.

"You won't when you hear what I've come for," said he. "There's $5000 apiece in this job for us."

"To what job do you refer?" I asked.

"The Burlingame case," he replied. "I suppose you read in the papers this morning how Mrs. Burlingame's diamond stomacher has turned up missing."

"Yes," said I, "and I'm glad of it."

"You ought to be," said Holmes, "since it will put $5000 in your pocket. You haven't heard yet that there is a reward of $10,000 offered for its recovery. The public announcement has not yet been made, but it will be in to-night's papers, and we are the chaps that are going to get the reward."

"But how?" I demanded.

"Leave that to me," said he. "By-the-way, I wish you'd let me leave this suit-case of mine in your room for about ten days. It holds some important papers, and my shop is turned topsy-turvy just now with the painters."

"Very well," said I. "I'll shove it under my bed."

"I took the suit-case as Holmes had requested, and hid it away in my bedroom, immediately returning to the library, where he sat smoking one of my cigars as cool as a cucumber. There was something in his eye, however, that aroused my suspicion as soon as I entered.

"See here, Holmes," said I. "I can't afford to be mixed up in any shady business like this, you know. Have you got that stomacher?"

"No, I haven't," said he. "Honor bright—I haven't."

I eyed him narrowly.

"I think I understand the evasion," I went on. "You haven't got it because
I have got it—it's in that suit-case under my bed."

"Open it and see for yourself," said he. "It isn't there."

"But you know where it is?" I demanded.

"How else could I be sure of that $10,000 reward?" he asked.

"Where is it?" I demanded.

"It—er—it isn't located yet—that is, not finally," said he. "And it won't be for ten days. Ten days from now Mrs. Burlingame will find it herself and we'll divvy on the reward, my boy, and not a trace of dishonesty in the whole business."

And with that Raffles Holmes filled his pockets with cigars from my stores, and bidding me be patient went his way.

The effect of his visit upon my nerves was such that any more work that day was impossible. The fear of possible complications to follow upset me wholly, and, despite his assurance that the suit-case was innocent of surreptitiously acquired stomachers, I could not rid my mind of the suspicion that he made of my apartment a fence for the concealment of his booty. The more I thought of it the more was I inclined to send for him and request him to remove the bag forthwith, and yet, if it should so happen that he had spoken the truth, I should by that act endanger our friendship and possibly break the pact, which bade fair to be profitable. Suddenly I remembered his injunction to me to look for myself and see if the stomacher really was concealed there, and I hastened to act upon it. It might have been pure bluff on his part, and I resolved not to be bluffed.

The case opened easily, and the moment I glanced into it my suspicions were allayed. It contained nothing but bundle after bundle of letters tied together with pink and blue ribbons, one or two old daguerreotypes, some locks of hair, and an ivory miniature of Raffles Holmes himself as an infant. Not a stomacher, diamond or otherwise, was hid in the case, nor any other suspicious object, and I closed it with a sheepish feeling of shame for having intruded upon the sacred correspondence and relics of the happy childhood days of my new friend.

That night, as Holmes had asserted, a reward of $10,000 was offered for the recovery of the Burlingame stomacher, and the newspapers for the next ten days were full of the theories of detectives of all sorts, amateur, professional, and reportorial. Central Office was after it in one place, others sought it elsewhere. The editor of one New York paper printed a full list of the names of the guests at Mrs. Burlingame's dinner the night the treasure was stolen, and, whether they ever discovered it for themselves or not, several bearers of highly honored social names were shadowed by reporters and others everywhere they went for the next week. At the end of five days the reward was increased to $20,000, and then Raffles Holmes's name began to appear in connection with the case. Mrs. Burlingame herself had sent for him, and, without taking it out of the hands of others, had personally requested him to look into the matter. He had gone to Newport and looked the situation over there. He had questioned all the servants in her two establishments at Newport and New York, and had finally assured the lady that, on the following Tuesday morning, he would advise her by wire of the definite location of her missing jewel.

During all this time Holmes had not communicated with me at all, and I began to fear that, offended by my behavior at our last meeting, he had cut me out of his calculations altogether, when, just as I was about to retire on Sunday night, he reappeared as he had first come to me—stealing up the fire-escape; and this time he wore a mask, and carried unquestionably a burglar's kit and a dark lantern. He started nervously as he caught sight of me reaching up to turn off the light in the library.

"Hang it call, Jenkins!" he cried. "I thought you'd gone off to the country for the week-end."

"No," said I. "I meant to go, but I was detained. What's up?"

"Oh, well—I may as well out with it," he answered. "I didn't want you to know, but—well, watch and see."

With this Raffles Holmes strode directly to my bookcase, removed my extra- illustrated set of Fox's Book of Martyrs, in five volumes, from the shelves, and there, resting upon the shelf behind them, glittered nothing less than the missing stomacher!

"Great Heavens, Holmes!" I said, "what does this mean? How did those diamonds get there?"

"I put them there myself while you were shoving my suit-case under your bed the other night," said he.

"You told me you didn't have them," I said, reproachfully.

"I didn't when I spoke—you had them," said he.

"You told me they had not been finally located," I persisted, angrily.

"I told you the truth. They were only temporarily located," he answered. "I'm going to locate them definitely to-night, and to-morrow Mrs. Burlingame will find them—"

"Where?" I cried.

"In her own safe