VITHE ADVENTURE OF THE HIRED BURGLAR
I had not seen Raffles Holmes for some weeks, nor had I heard from him,although I had faithfully remitted to his address his share of the literaryproceeds of his adventures as promptly as circumstances permitted--$600 onthe first tale, $920 on the second, and no less than $1800 on the third,showing a constantly growing profit on our combination from my side of theventure. These checks had not even been presented for payment at the bank.Fearing from this that he might be ill, I called at Holmes's lodgings in theRexmere, a well-established bachelor apartment hotel, on Forty-fourthStreet, to inquire as to the state of his health. The clerk behind the deskgreeted my cordially as I entered, and bade me go at once to Holmes'sapartment on the eighteenth floor, which I immediately proceeded to do.
"Here is Mr. Holmes's latch-key, sir," said the clerk. "He told me you wereto have access to his apartment at any time."
"He is in, is he?" I asked.
"I really don't know, sir. I will call up and inquire, if you wish," repliedthe clerk.
"Oh, never mind," said I. "I'll go up, anyhow, and if he is out, I'll wait."
So up I went, and a few moments later had entered the apartment. As the dooropened, the little private hallway leading to his den at the rear burst intoa flood of light, and from an inner room, the entrance to which was closed,I could hear Holmes's voice cheerily carolling out snatches of such popularairs as "Tammany" and "Ef Yo' Habn't Got No Money Yo' Needn't Bodder Me."
I laughed quietly and at the same time breathed a sigh of relief. It wasvery evident from the tone of his voice that there was nothing serious thematter with my friend and partner.
"Hullo, Raffles!" I called out, knocking on the door to the inner room.
"Tam-ma-nee, Tam-ma-nee; Swampum, swampum, Get their wampum, Tam-ma-nee,"
was the sole answer, and in such fortissimo tones that I was not surprisedthat he did not hear me.
"Oh, I say, Raffles," I hallooed, rapping on the door again, this time withthe head of my cane. "It's Jenkins, old man. Came to look you up. Was afraidsomething had happened to you."
"'Way down upon the Suwanee River, Far, far away, Dere's whar my heart am turnin' ever, Dere's whar de ole folks stay,"
was the reply.
Again I laughed.
"He's suffering from a bad attack of coonitis this evening," I observed tomyself. "Looks to me as if I'd have to let it run its course."
Whereupon I retired to a very comfortable couch near the window and sat downto await the termination of the musical.
Five minutes later the singing having shown no signs of abatement I becameimpatient, and a third assault on the door followed, this time with cane,hands, and toes in unison.
"I'll have him out this time or die!" I ejaculated, filled with resolve, andthen began such a pounding upon the door as should have sufficed to awake adead Raffles, not to mention a living one.
"Hi, there, Jenkins!" cried a voice behind me, in the midst of thisoperation, identically the same voice, too, as that still going on in theroom in front of me. "What the dickens are you trying to do--batter thehouse down?"
I whirled about like a flash, and was deeply startled to see Raffles himselfstanding by the divan I had just vacated, divesting himself of his glovesand light overcoat.
"You--Raffles?" I roared in astonishment.
"Yep," said he. "Who else?"
"But the--the other chap--in the room there?"
"Oh," laughed Raffles. "That's my alibi-prover--hold on a minute and I'llshow you."
Whereupon he unlocked the door into the bedroom, whence had come the tunefullyrics, threw it wide open, and revealed to my astonished gaze no less anobject than a large talking-machine still engaged in the strenuousfulfilment of its noisy mission.
"What the dickens!" I said.
"It's attached to my front-door," said Raffles, silencing the machine. "Theminute the door is opened it begins to sing like the four-and-twentyblackbirds baked in a pie."
"But what good is it?" said I.
"Oh, well--it keeps the servants from spending too much time in myapartment, snooping among my papers, perhaps; and it my some day come inuseful in establishing an alibi if things go wrong with me. You'd have swornI was in there just now, wouldn't you?"
"I would indeed," said I.
"Well--you see, I wasn't, so there you are," said Raffles Holmes. "By-the-way,you've come at an interesting moment. There'll be things doing beforethe evening is over. I've had an anxious caller here five times alreadyto-day. I've been standing in the barber-shop opposite getting a line on him.His card name is Grouch, his real name is--"
Here Raffles Holmes leaned forward and whispered in my ear a name of sucheminent respectability that I fairly gasped.
"You don't mean _the_ Mr. ----"
"Nobody else," said Raffles Holmes. "Only he don't know I know who he is.The third time Grouch called I trailed him to Blank's house, and thenrecognized him as Blank himself."
"And what does he want with you?" I asked.
"That remains to be seen," said Raffles Holmes. "All I know is that nextTuesday he will be required to turn over $100,000 unregistered bonds to ayoung man about to come of age, for whom he has been a trustee."
"Aha!" said I. "And you think--"
"I don't think, Jenkins, until the time comes. Gray matter is scarce thesetimes, and I'm not wasting any of mine on unnecessary speculation," saidRaffles Holmes.
At this point the telephone-bell rang and Raffles answered the summons.
"Yes, I'll see Mr. Grouch. Show him up," he said. "It would be mightyinteresting reading if some newspaper showed him up," he added, with a grin,as he returned. "By-the-way, Jenkins, I think you'd better go in there andhave a half-hour's chat with the talking-machine. I have an idea old manGrouch won't have much to say with a third party present. Listen all youwant to, but don't breathe too loud or you'll frighten him away."
I immediately retired, and a moment later Mr. Grouch entered RafflesHolmes's den.
"Glad to see you," said Raffles Holmes, cordially. "I was wondering how soonyou'd be here."
"You expected me, then?" asked the visitor, in surprise.
"Yes," said Holmes. "Next Tuesday is young Wilbraham's twenty-firstbirthday, and--"
Peering through a crack in the door I could see Grouch stagger.
"You--you know my errand, then?" he gasped out.
"Only roughly, Mr. Grouch," said Holmes, coolly. "Only roughly. But I amvery much afraid that I can't do what you want me to. Those bonds aredoubtless in some broker's box in a safe-deposit company, and I don'tpropose to try to borrow them surreptitiously, even temporarily, from anincorporated institution. It is not only a dangerous but a criminaloperation. Does your employer know that you have taken them?"
"My employer?" stammered Grouch, taken off his guard.
"Yes. Aren't you the confidential secretary of Mr. ----?" Here Holmesmentioned the name of the eminent financier and philanthropist. No one wouldhave suspected, from the tone of his voice, that Holmes was perfectly awarethat Grouch and the eminent financier were one and the same person. The ideaseemed to please and steady the visitor.
"Why--ah--yes--I am Mr. Blank's confidential secretary," he blurted out."And--ah--of course Mr. Blank does not know that I have speculated with thebonds and lost them."
"The bonds are--"
"In the hands of Bunker & Burke. I had hoped you would be able to suggestsome way in which I could get hold of them long enough to turn them over toyoung Wilbraham, and then, in some other way, to restore them later toBunker & Burke."
"That is impossible," said Raffles Holmes. "For the reasons stated, I cannotbe party to a criminal operation."
"It will mean ruin for me if it cannot be done," moaned Grouch. "For Mr.Blank as well, Mr. Holmes; he is so deep in the market he can't possiblypull out. I thought possibly you knew of some reformed cracksman who woulddo this one favor for me just to tide things over. All we need i
s threeweeks' time--three miserable little weeks."
"Can't be done with a safe-deposit company at the other end of the line,"said Raffles Holmes. "If it were Mr. Blank's own private vault at his homeit would be different. That would be a matter between gentlemen, between Mr.Blank and myself, but the other would put a corporation on the trail of thesafe-breaker--an uncompromising situation."
Grouch's eye glistened.
"You know a man who, for a consideration and with a guarantee againstprosecution, would break open my--I mean Mr. Blank's private vault?" hecried.
"I think so," said Raffles Holmes, noncommittally. "Not as a crime, however,merely as a favor, and with the lofty purpose of saving an honored name fromruin. My advice to you would be to put a dummy package, supposed to containthe missing bonds, along with about $30,000 worth of other securities inthat vault, and so arrange matters that on the night preceding the date ofyoung Wilbraham's majority, the man I will send you shall have theopportunity to crack it open and get away with the stuff unmolested andunseen. 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 saydecently honest way out of your trouble."
"Mr. Raffles Holmes, you are a genius!" cried Grouch, ecstatically. And thenhe calmed down again as an unpleasant thought flashed across his mind. "Whyis it necessary to put $30,000 additional in the safe, Mr. Holmes?"
"Simply as a blind," said Holmes. "Young Wilbraham would be suspicious ifthe burglar got away with nothing but his property, wouldn't he?"
"Quite so," said Grouch. "And now, Mr. Holmes, what will this service costme?"
"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-fivehundred dollars is not much to pay for a reputation these days--I mean areal 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 mayleave them in the safe along with the other valuables."
"Thank you, Mr. Holmes," said Grouch, rising. "It shall be as you say.Before I go, sir, may I ask how you knew me and by what principle ofdeduction you came to guess my business so accurately?"
"It was simple enough," said Holmes. "I knew, in the first place, that soeminent a person as Mr. Blank would not come to me in the guise of a Mr.Grouch if he hadn't some very serious trouble on his mind. I knew, fromreading the society items in the _Whirald_, that Mr. Bobby Wilbraham wouldcelebrate the attainment of his majority by a big fete on the 17th of nextmonth. Everybody knows that Mr. Blank is Mr. Wilbraham's trustee until hecomes of age. It was easy enough to surmise from that what the nature of thetrouble was. Two and two almost invariably make four, Mr. Grouch."
"And how the devil," demanded Grouch, angrily--"how the devil did you know Iwas Blank?"
"Mr. Blank passes the plate at the church I go to every Sunday," saidHolmes, laughing, "and it would take a great sight more than a two-dollarwig and a pair of fifty-cent whiskers to conceal that pompous manner ofhis."
"Tush! You would better not make me angry, Mr. Holmes," said Grouch,reddening.
"You can get as angry as you think you can afford to, for all I care, Mr.Blank," said Holmes. "It's none of my funeral, you know."
And so the matter was settled. The unmasked Blank, seeing that wrath wasuseless, calmed down and accepted Holmes's terms and method for his relief.
"I'll have my man there at 4 A.M., October 17th, Mr. Blank," said Holmes."See that your end of it is ready. The coast must be kept clear or thescheme 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 conductedenterprise. It's a job worthy of my grandsire on my mother's side. Raffleswill turn the trick."
And it turned out so to be, for the affair went through without a hitch. Thenight of October 16th I spend at Raffles's apartments. He was as calm asthough nothing unusual were on hand. He sang songs, played the piano, and upto midnight was as gay and skittish as a school-boy on vacation. As twelveo'clock struck, however, he sobered down, put on his hat and coat, and,bidding me remain where I was, departed by means of the fire-escape.
"Keep up the talk, Jenkins," he said. "The walls are thin here, and it'sjust as well, in matters of this sort, that our neighbors should have theimpression that I have _not_ gone out. I've filled the machine up with achoice lot of songs and small-talk to take care of my end of it. Aconsolidated gas company, like yourself, should have no difficulty infilling in the gaps."
And with that he left me to as merry and withal as nervous a three hours asI ever spent in my life. Raffles had indeed filled that talking-machine--thirteen full cylinders of it--with as choice an assortment of causeries andhumorous anecdotes as any one could have wished to hear. Now and again itwould bid me cheer up and not worry about him. Once, along about 2 A.M., itcried out: "You ought to see me now, Jenkins. I'm right in the middle ofthis Grouch job, and it's a dandy. I'll teach _him_ a lesson." The effect ofall this was most uncanny. It was as if Raffles Holmes himself spoke to mefrom the depths of that dark room in the Blank household, where he wasengaged in an enterprise of dreadful risk merely to save the good name ofone who no longer deserved to bear such a thing. In spite of all this,however, as the hours passed I began to grow more and more nervous. Thetalking-machine sang and chattered, but when four o'clock came and Holmeshad not yet returned, I became almost frenzied with excitement--and then atthe climax of the tension came the flash of his dark-lantern on the fire-escape,and he climbed heavily into the room.
"Thank Heaven you're back," I cried.
"You have reason to," said Holmes, sinking into a chair. "Give me somewhiskey. That man Blank is a worse scoundrel than I took him for."
"What's happened?" I asked. "Didn't he play square?"
"No," said Holmes, breathing heavily. "He waited until I had busted thething open and was on my way out in the dark hall, and then pounced on mewith his butler and valet. I bowled the butler down the kitchen stairs, andsent the valet howling into the dining-room with an appendicitis jab in thestomach and had the pleasure of blacking both of Mr. Blank's eyes."
"And the stuff?"
"Right here," said Holmes, tapping his chest. "I was afraid something mighthappen on the way out and I kept both hands free. I haven't much confidencein philanthropists like Blank. Fortunately the scrimmage was in the dark, soBlank will never know who hit him."
"What are you going to do with the $35,000?" I queried, as we went over thebooty later and found it all there.
"Don't know--haven't made up my mind," said Holmes, laconically. "I'm tootired to think about that now. It's me for bed." And with that he turned in.
Two days later, about nine o'clock in the evening, Mr. Grouch again called,and Holmes received him courteously.
"Well, Mr. Holmes," Grouch observed, unctuously, rubbing his hands together,"it was a nice job, neatly done. It saved the day for me. Wilbraham wassatisfied, and has given me a whole year to make good the loss. Myreputation is saved, and--"
"Excuse me, Mr. Blank--or Grouch--er--to what do you refer?" asked Holmes.
"Why, our little transaction of Monday night--or was it Tuesday morning?"said Grouch.
"Oh--that!" said Holmes. "Well, I'm glad to hear you managed to pull it offsatisfactorily. I was a little worried about it. I was afraid you were donefor."
"Done for?" said Grouch. "No, indeed. The little plan when off without ahitch."
"Good," said Holmes. "I congratulate you. _Whom did you get to do the job?_"
"Who--what--what--why, what do you mean, Mr. Holmes?" gasped Grouch.
&nbs
p; "Precisely what I say--or maybe you don't like to tell me--such things areapt to be on a confidential basis. Anyhow, I'm glad you're safe, Mr. Grouch,and I hope your troubles are over."
"They will be when you give me back my $30,000," said Grouch.
"Your what?" demanded Holmes, with well-feigned surprise.
"My $30,000," repeated Blank, his voice rising to a shout.
"My dear Mr. Grouch," said Holmes, "how should I know anything about your$30,000?"
"Didn't your--your man take it?" demanded Grouch, huskily.
"My man? Really, Mr. Grouch, you speak in riddles this evening. Pray makeyourself more clear."
"Your reformed burglar, who broke open my safe, and--" Grouch went on.
"I have no such man, Mr. Grouch."
"Didn't you send a man to my house, Mr. Raffles, to break open my safe, andtake certain specified parcels of negotiable property therefrom?" saidGrouch, rising and pounding the table with his fists.
"_I did not!_" returned Holmes, with equal emphasis. "I have never in mylife sent anybody to your house, sir."
"Then who in the name of Heaven did?" roared Grouch. "The stuff is gone."
Holmes shrugged his shoulders.
"I am willing," said he, calmly, "to undertake to find out who did it, ifanybody, if that is what you mean, Mr. Grouch. Ferreting out crime is myprofession. Otherwise, I beg to assure you that my interest in the caseceases at this moment."
Here Holmes rose with quiet dignity and walked to the door.
"You will find me at my office in the morning, Mr. Grouch." he remarked, "incase you wish to consult me professionally."
"Hah!" sneered Grouch. "You think you can put me off this way, do you?"
"I think so," said Holmes, with a glittering eye. "No gentleman or otherperson may try to raise a disturbance in my private apartments and remainthere."
"We'll see what the police have to say about this, Mr. Raffles Holmes,"Grouch shrieked, as he made for the door.
"Very well," said Holmes. "I've no doubt they will find our discussion ofthe other sinners very interesting. They are welcome to the whole story asfar as I am concerned."
And he closed the door on the ashen face of the suffering Mr. Grouch.