R. Holmes & Co. - John Kendrick Bangs (classic books to read TXT) 📗

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."

"Well, old man," said I, "I'm satisfied with the prosaic methods of the gas companies, the book-agents, and the riggers of the stock-market. Give me Wall Street and you take Dick Turpin and all his crew. 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. "I'm not going to follow precisely in the steps of Turpin, but a hold-up on the public highway seems to be the only way out of a problem which I have been employed to settle. Do you know young Billington Rand?"

"By sight," said I, with a laugh. "And by reputation. You're not going to hold him up, are you?" I added, contemptuously.

"Why not?" said Holmes.

"It's like breaking into an empty house in search of antique furniture," I explained. "Common report has it that Billington Rand has already been skinned by about every skinning agency in town. He's posted at all his clubs. Every gambler in town, professional as well as social, has his I.O.U.'s for bridge, poker, and faro debts. Everybody knows it except those fatuous people down in the Kenesaw National Bank, where he's employed, and the Fidelity Company that's on his bond. He wouldn't last five minutes in either place if his uncle wasn't a director in both concerns."

"I see that you have a pretty fair idea of Billington Rand's financial condition," said Holmes.

"It's rather common talk in the clubs, so why shouldn't I?" I put in. "Holding him up would be at most an act of petit larceny, if you measure a crime by what you get out of it. It's a great shame, though, for at heart Rand is one of the best fellows in the world. He's a man who has all the modern false notions of what a fellow ought to do to keep up what he calls his end. He plays cards and sustains ruinous losses because he thinks he won't be considered a good-fellow if he stays out. He plays bridge with ladies and pays up when he loses and doesn't collect when he wins. Win or lose he's doomed to be on the wrong side of the market just because of those very qualities that make him a lovable person--kind to everybody but himself, and weak as dish-water. For Heaven's sake, Raffles, if the poor devil _has_ anything left don't take it from him."

"Your sympathy for Rand does you credit," said Holmes. "But I have just as much of that as you have, and that is why, at half-past five o'clock to- morrow afternoon, I'm going to hold him up, in the public eye, and incontinently rob him of $25,000."

"Twenty-five thousand dollars? Billington Rand?" I gasped.

"Twenty-five thousand dollars. Billington Rand," repeated Holmes, firmly. "If you don't believe it come along and see. He doesn't know you, does he?"

"Not from Adam," said I.

"Very good--then you'll be safe as a church. Meet me in the Fifth Avenue Hotel corridor at five to-morrow afternoon and I'll show you as pretty a hold-up as you ever dreamed of," said Holmes.

"But--I can't take part in a criminal proceeding like that, Holmes," I protested.

"You won't have to--even if it were a criminal proceeding, which it is not," he returned. "Nobody outside of you and me will know anything about it but Rand himself, and the chances that he will peach are less than a millionth part of a half per cent. Anyhow, all you need be is a witness."

There was a long and uneasy silence. I was far from liking the job, but after all, so far, Holmes had not led me into any difficulties of a serious nature, and, knowing him as I had come to know him, I had a hearty belief that any wrong he did was temporary and was sure to be rectified in the long run.

"I've a decent motive in all this, Jenkins," he resumed in a few moments. "Don't forget that. This hold-up is going to result in a reformation that will be for the good of everybody, so don't have any scruples on that score."

"All right, Raffles," said I. "You've always played straight with me, so far, and I don't doubt your word--only I hate the highway end of it."

"Tutt, Jenkins!" he ejaculated, with a laugh and giving me a whack on the shoulders that nearly toppled me over into the fire-place. "Don't be a rabbit. The thing will be as easy as cutting calve's-foot jelly with a razor."

Thus did I permit myself to be persuaded, and the next afternoon at five, Holmes and I met in the corridor of the Fifth Avenue Hotel.

"Come on," he said, after the first salutations were over. "Rand will be at the Thirty-third Street subway at 5.15, and it is important that we should catch him before he gets to Fifth Avenue."

"I'm glad it's to be on a side street," I remarked, my heart beating rapidly with excitement over the work in hand, for the more I thought of the venture the less I liked it.

"Oh, I don't know that it will be," said Holmes, carelessly. "I may pull it off in the corridors of the Powhatan."

The pumps in my heart reversed their action and for a moment I feared I should drop with dismay.

"In the Powhatan--" I began.

"Shut up, Jenkins!" said Holmes, imperatively. "This is no time for protests. We're in it now and there's no drawing back."

Ten minutes later we stood at the intersection of Thirty-third Street and Fifth Avenue. Holmes's eyes flashed and his whole nervous system quivered as with the joy of the chase.

"Keep your mouth shut, Jenkins, and you'll see a pretty sight," he whispered, "for here comes our man."

Sure enough, there was Billington Rand on the other side of the street, walking along nervously and clutching an oblong package, wrapped in brown paper, firmly in his right hand.

"Now for it," said Holmes, and we crossed the street, scarcely reaching the opposite curb before Rand was upon us. Rand eyed us closely and shied off to one side as Holmes blocked his progress.

"I'll trouble you for that package, Mr. Rand," said Holmes, quietly.

The man's face went white and he caught his breath.

"Who the devil are you?" he demanded, angrily.

"That has nothing to do with the case." retorted Holmes. "I want that package or--"

"Get out of my way!" cried Rand, with a justifiable show of resentment. "Or I'll call an officer."

"Will you?" said Holmes, quietly. "Will you call an officer and so make known to the authorities that you are in possession of twenty-five thousand dollars worth of securities that belong to other people, which are supposed at this moment to be safely locked up in the vaults of the Kenesaw National Back along with other collateral?"

Rand staggered back against the newel-post of a brown-stone stoop, and stood there gazing wildly into Holmes's face.

"Of course, if you prefer having the facts made known in that way," Holmes continued, coolly, "you have the option. I am not going to use physical force to persuade you to hand the package over to me, but you are a greater fool than I take you for if you choose that alternative. To use an expressive modern phrase, Mr. Billington Rand, you will be caught with the goods on, and unless you have a far better explanation of how those securities happen in your possession at this moment than I think you have, there is no power on earth can keep you from landing in state-prison."

The unfortunate victim of Holmes's adventure fairly gasped in his combined rage and fright. Twice he attempted to speak, but only inarticulate sounds issued from his lips.

"You are, of course, very much disturbed at the moment," Holmes went on, "and I am really very sorry if anything I have done has disarranged any honorable enterprise in which you have embarked. I don't wish to hurry you into a snap decision, which you may repent later, only either the police or I must have that package within an hour. It is for you to say which of us is to get it. Suppose we run over to the Powhatan and discuss the matter calmly over a bottle of Glengarry? Possibly I can convince you that it will be for your own good to do precisely as I tell you and very much to your disadvantage to do otherwise."

Rand, stupefied by this sudden intrusion upon his secret by an utter stranger, lost what little fight there was left in him, and at least seemed to assent to Holmes's proposition. The latter linked arms with him, and in a few minutes we walked into the famous hostelry just as if we were three friends, bent only upon having a pleasant chat over a cafe table.

"What'll you have, Mr. Rand?" asked Holmes, suavely. "I'm elected for the Glengarry special, with a little carbonic on the side."

"Same," said Rand, laconically.

"Sandwich with it?" asked Holmes. "You'd better."

"Oh, I can't eat anything," began Rand. "I--"

"Bring us some sandwiches, waiter," said Holmes. "Two Glengarry special, a syphon of carbonic, and--Jenkins, what's yours?"

The calmness and the cheek of the fellow!

"I'm not in on this at all," I retorted, angered by Holmes's use of my name. "And I want Mr. Rand to understand--"

"Oh, tutt!" ejaculated Holmes. "_He_ knows that. Mr. Rand, my friend Jenkins has no connection with this enterprise of mine, and he's done his level best to dissuade me from holding you up so summarily. All he's along for is to write the thing up for--"

"The newspapers?" cried Rand, now thoroughly frightened.

"No," laughed Holmes. "Nothing so useful--the magazines."

Holmes winked at me as he spoke, and I gathered that there was method in his apparent madness.

"That's one of the points you want to consider, though, Mr. Rand," he said, leaning upon the table with his elbows. "Think of the newspapers to-morrow morning if you call the police rather than hand that package over to me. It'll be a big sensation for Wall Street and upper Fifth Avenue, to say nothing of what the yellows will make of the story for the rest of hoi polloi. The newsboys will be yelling extras all over town, printed in great, red letters, 'A Club-man Held-Up in Broad Daylight, For $25,000 In Securities That Didn't Belong to Him. Billington Rand Has Something To Explain. Where Did He Get It?--"

"For Heavens sake, man! don't!" pleased the unfortunate Billington. "God! I never thought of that."

"Of course you didn't think of that," said Holmes. "That's why I'm telling you about it now. You don't dispute my facts, do you?"

"No, I--" Rand began.