VIII"THE NOSTALGIA OF NERVY JIM THE SNATCHER"
Raffles Holmes was unusually thoughtful the other night when he entered myapartment, and for a long time I could get nothing out of him save anoccasional grunt of assent or dissent from propositions advanced by myself.It was quite evident that he was cogitating deeply over some problem thatwas more than ordinarily vexatious, so I finally gave up all efforts atconversation, pushed the cigars closer to him, poured him out a stiff doseof his favorite Glengarry, and returned to my own work. It was a full hourbefore he volunteered an observation of any kind, and then he plungedrapidly into a very remarkable tale.
"I had a singular adventure to-day, Jenkins," he said. "Do you happen tohave in your set of my father's adventures a portrait of Sherlock Holmes?"
"Yes, I have," I replied. "But you don't need anything of the kind torefresh your memory of him. All you have to do is to look at yourself in theglass, and you've got the photograph before you."
"I _am_ so like him then?" he queried.
"Most of the time, old man, I am glad to say," said I. "There are days whenyou are the living image of your grandfather Raffles, but that is only whenyou are planning some scheme of villany. I can almost invariably detect thetrend of your thoughts by a glance at your face--you are Holmes himself inyour honest moments, Raffles at others. For the past week it has delightedme 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 onBroadway," said he. "It was bitterly cold up around Fortieth Street, snowinglike the devil, and such winds as you'd expect to find nowhere this side ofGreenland's icy mountains. I came out of a Broadway chop-house and startednorth, 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'scondition was such that it would have been manslaughter to refuse him, and amoment later I had him before the Skidmore bar, gurgling down a tumblerfulof raw brandy as though it were water. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve andturned to thank me, when a look of recognition came into his face, and hestaggered 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 forten 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 mandid me. I am Nervy Jim the Snatcher.'
"'Service?' said I, with a laugh. 'You consider it a service to be landed inReading 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 honestjob, pickin' oakum; the gaol was warm, and I never went to bed by night orgot up o' mornin's worried over the question o' how I was goin' to get theswag to pay my rent. Compared to this'--with a wave of his hand at theraging of the elements along Broadway--'Reading gaol was heaven, sir; andsince I was discharged I've been a helpless, hopeless wanderer, sleepin' indoorways, chilled to the bone, half-starved, with not a friendly eye insight, and nothin' to do all day long and all night long but move on whenthe Bobbies tell me to, and think about the happiness I'd left behind mewhen I left Reading. Was you ever homesick, governor?'
"I confessed to an occasional feeling of nostalgia for old Picadilly and theThames.
"'Then you know, says he, 'how I feels now in a strange land, dreamin' of mycomfortable 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 togo back, governor--I want to go back!'
"Well," said Holmes, lighting a cigar, "I was pretty nearly floored, butwhen the door of the saloon blew open and a blast of sharp air and a furryof snow came in, I couldn't blame the poor beggar--certainly any place inthe world, even a jail, was more comfortable than Broadway at that moment. Iexplained to him, however, that as far as Reading gaol was concerned, I waspowerless 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 isa first-class, up-to-date penitentiary, with all modern improvements, and apretty select clientele.'
"'Couldn't you put me in there, governor?' he asked, wistfully. 'I'll doanything you ask, short o' murder, governor, if you only will.'
"'Why don't you get yourself arrested as a vagrant?' I asked. 'That'll giveyou 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'dbe out and have to begin all over again. What I want is something I cancount on for ten or twenty years. Besides, I has some pride, governor, andfor Nervy Jim to do three months' time--Lor', sir, I couldn't bring myselfto nothin' so small!'
"There was no resisting the poor cuss, Jenkins, and I promised to do what Icould for him."
"That's a nice job," said I. "What can you do?"
"That's what stumps me," said Raffles Holmes, scratching his head inperplexity. "I've set him up in a small tenement down on East Houston Streettemporarily, and meanwhile, it's up to me to land him in Sing Sing, where hecan live comfortably for a decade or so, and I'm hanged if I know how to doit. He used to be a first-class second-story man, and in his day was an A-1snatcher, as his name signifies and my father's diaries attest, but I'mafraid his hand is out for a nice job such as I would care to have anythingto do with myself."
"Better let him slide, Raffles," said I. "He introduces the third partyelement 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, andwith 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. Onthe morning of the third day he telephoned me to meet him at the stage-doorof the Metropolitan Opera-House at four o'clock. "Bring your voice withyou," said he, enigmatically, "we may need it." An immediate explanation ofhis meaning was impossible, for hardly were the words out of his mouth whenhe hung up the receiver and cut the connection.
"I wanted to excite your curiosity so that you would be sure to come," helaughed, 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 grandopera 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 thechorus. But don't bother about that, I have a slight pull here and we canget in all right as long as we are moderately intelligent, and able-bodiedenough 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 wasmore than ordinarily gifted vocally, we proved acceptable and in a shorttime found ourselves enrolled among the supernumeraries who make of"Lohengrin" a splendid spectacle to the eye. I found real zest in lifecarrying that spear, and entered into the spirit of what I presumed to be amere frolic with enthusiasm, merely for the experience of it, to say nothingof 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. Onboth sides of the curtain everythin
g was brilliant. The cast was one of thebest 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 lavishdisplay. Conspicuous in respect to the last was the ever-popular, thoughsomewhat eccentric Mrs. Robinson-Jones, who in her grand-tier box fairlyscintillated with those marvellous gems which gave her, as a musical critic,whose notes on the opera were chiefly confined to observations on its socialaspects, put it, "the appearance of being lit up by electricity." Even fromwhere I stood, as a part and parcel of the mock king's court on the stage, Icould see the rubies and sapphires and diamonds loom large upon the horizonas the read, white, and blue emblem of our national greatness to the trulypatriotic soul. Little did I dream, as I stood in the rear line of thecourt, clad in all the gorgeous regalia of a vocal supernumerary, andswelling the noisy welcome to the advancing Lohengrin, with my apology for avoice, how intimately associated with these lustrous headlights I was soonto be, and as Raffles Holmes and I poured out our souls in song not even hisillustrious father would have guessed that he was there upon any otherbusiness than that of Mr. Conried. As far as I could see, Raffles was wraptin the music of the moment, and not once, to my knowledge, did he seem to beaware that there was such a thing as an audience, much less one individualmember of it, on the other side of the footlights. Like a member of the OldChoral Guard, he went through the work in hand as nonchalantly as though itwere his regular business in life. It was during the intermission betweenthe first and second acts that I began to suspect that there was somethingin the wind beside music, for Holmes's face became set, and the resemblanceto his honorable father, which had of late been so marked, seemed todissolve itself into an unpleasant suggestion of his other forbear, theacquisitive Raffles. My own enthusiasm for our operatic experience, which Itook no pains to conceal, found no response in him, and from the fall of thecurtain 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 Iresolved to humor him in it, and instead of clinging to his side as had beenmy 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 betweenOrtrud and Telrammund was on, when, in the semi-darkness of the stage, Icaught sight of him hovering in the vicinity of the electric switch-board bywhich the lights of the house are controlled. Suddenly I saw him reach outhis hand quickly, and a moment later every box-light went out, leaving theauditorium in darkness, relieved only by the lighting of the stage. Almostimmediately there came a succession of shrieks from the grand-tier in theimmediate vicinity of the Robinson-Jones box, and I knew that something wasafoot. Only a slight commotion in the audience was manifest to us upon thestage, but there was a hurrying and scurrying of ushers and others ofgreater or less authority, until finally the box-lights flashed out again inall their silk-tasselled illumination. The progress of the opera was notinterrupted for a moment, but in that brief interval of blackness at therear 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 wondroushundred-thousand-dollar necklace of matchless rubies that had won theadmiring 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 ofLohengrin's time to affairs of to-day, and when we were seated in myapartment along about two o'clock in the morning, Holmes lit a cigar, pouredhimself out a liberal dose of Glengarry, and with a quiet smile, leaned backin 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 haswon 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 Ishall 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 willtake up his abode on the banks of the Hudson, the only banks the ordinarycracksman 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-Jonesbox--you can always get one for a single performance if you are willing topay for it--and with a fair expanse of shirt-front, a claw-hammer and acrush hat almost any man who has any style to him at all these days can passfor a gentleman. All he had to do was to go to the opera-house, present histicket, walk in and await the signal. I gave the man his music cue, and twominutes before the lights went out he sauntered down the broad staircase tothe door of the Robinson-Jones box, and was ready to turn the trick. He wasunder cover of darkness long enough to get away with the necklace, and whenthe lights came back, if you had known enough to look out into theauditorium you would have seen him back there in his box above, taking inthe situation as calmly as though he had himself had nothing whatever to dowith it."
"And how shall you trace him?" I demanded. "Isn't that going to be a littledangerous?"
"Not if he followed out my instructions," said Holmes. "If he dropped aletter addressed to himself in his own hand-writing at his East HoustonStreet lair, in the little anteroom of the box, as I told him to do, we'llhave 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 someimpecunious member of the smart set who might have done the job. They alwaystry to find the sensational clew first, and by day after to-morrow morningfour or five poor but honest members of the four-hundred will find when theyread the morning papers that they are under surveillance, while I, knowingexactly what has happened will have all the start I need. I have alreadyoffered my services, and by ten o'clock to-morrow morning they will beaccepted, as will also those of half a hundred other detectives,professional and amateur. At eleven I will visit the opera-house, where Iexpect to find the incriminating letter on the floor, or if the cleaningwomen have already done their work, which is very doubtful, I will find itlater among the sweepings of waste paper in the cellar of the opera-house.Accompanied by two plain-clothes men from headquarters I will then proceedto Nervy's quarters, and, if he is really sincere in his desire to go tojail for a protracted period, we shall find him there giving an imitation ofa gloat over his booty."
"And suppose the incriminating letter is not there?" I asked. "He may havechanged 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, Iwill."
But Nervy Jim was honest at least in his desire for a permanent residence inan up-to-date penitentiary, for, even as the deed itself had beenaccomplished with a precision that was almost automatic, so did the work yetto be done go off with the nicety of a well-regulated schedule. Everythingcame about as Holmes had predicted, even to the action of the police inendeavoring to fasten the crime upon an inoffensive and somewhat impecunioussocial 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 makesome over-rich old maid believe that he loved her for herself alone and inhis heart scorned her wealth. Even he profited by this, since he later suedthe editor who printed his picture with the label "A Social Highwayman" forlibel, claiming damages of $50,000, and then settled the case out of courtfor $15,000, spot cash. The letter was found on the floor of the box whereNervy Jim had dropped it; Holmes and his plain-clothes men paid an earlyvisit at the East Houston Street lodging-house, and found the happy Snatchersnoring away in his cot with a smile on his face that seemed to indicatethat he was dreaming he was back in a nice comfortable jail once more; andas if to make assurance doubly sure, the missing necklace hung about hisswarthy neck! Short work was made
of the arrest; Nervy Him, almostembarrassingly grateful, was railroaded to Sing Sing in ten days' time, forfifteen years, and Raffles Holmes had the present pleasure and personalsatisfaction of restoring the lost necklace to the fair hands of Mrs.Robinson-Jones herself.