R. Holmes & Co. - John Kendrick Bangs (classic fiction TXT) 📗

do know. It was a wedding-present to the daughter of
Raffles by her father, my grandfather, Raffles himself."

"Great Heavens!" I cried. "Then it was Raffles who—well, you know. That
London flat job?"

"Precisely," said Raffles Holmes. "We've caught the old gentleman red- handed."

"Well, I'll be jiggered!" said I. "Doesn't it beat creation how small the world is."

"It does indeed. I wonder who the chap is who has the other," Raffles observed.

"Pretty square of the old General to keep quiet about it," said I.

"Yes," said Holmes. "That's why I'm going to restore this one. I wish I could give 'em both back. I don't think my old grandfather would have taken the stuff if he'd known what a dead-game sport the old General was, and I sort of feel myself under an obligation to make amends."

"You can send him the one you've got through the express companies, anonymously," said I.

"No," said Holmes. "The General left them on his sideboard, and on his sideboard he must find them. If we could only find out the name of his host last Thursday—"

"I tell you—look in the Sunday Gazoo supplement," said I. "They frequently publish short paragraphs of the social doings of the week. You might get a clew there."

"Good idea," said Holmes. "I happen to have it here, too. There was an article in it last Sunday, giving a diagram of Howard Vandergould's new house at Nippon's Point, Long Island, which I meant to cut out for future reference."

Holmes secured the Gazoo, and between us, we made a pretty thorough search of its contents, especially "The Doings of Society" columns, and at last we found it, as follows:

"A small dinner of thirty was given on Thursday evening last in honor of Mr.
and Mrs. Wilbur Rattington, of Boston, by Mrs. Rattington's brother, John D.
Bruce, of Bruce, Watkins & Co., at the latter's residence, 74— Fifth
Avenue. Among Mr. Bruce's guests were Mr. and Mrs. W. K. Dandervelt, Mr. and
Mrs. Elisha Scroog, Jr., Major-General Carrington Cox, Mr. and Mrs.
Henderson Scovill, and Signor Caruso."

"Old Bruce, eh?" laughed Holmes. "Sans peur et sans reproche. Well, that is interesting. One of the few honest railroad bankers in the country, a pillar of the church, a leading reformer and—a stolen pepper-pot on his table! Gee!"

"What are you going to do now?" I asked. "Write to Bruce and tell him the facts?"

Holmes's answer was a glance.

"Oh cream-cakes!" he ejaculated, with profane emphasis.

A week after the incidents just described he walked into my room with a small package under his arm.

"There's the pair!" he observed, unwrapping the parcel and displaying its contents—two superb, golden pepper-pots, both inscribed "A.R. to C.C." "Beauties, aren't they?"

"They are, indeed. 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."

"You—you—" I began.

"Yes—that's it," said he. "Just a plain vulgar bit of second-story business, and I got it. There were a lot of other good things lying around," he added, with a gulp, "but—well, I was righting a wrong this time, so I let 'em alone, and, barring this, I didn't deprive old Bruce of a blooming thing, not even a wink of sleep."

"And now what?" I demanded.

"It's me for Cedarhurst—that's where the General lives," said he. "I'll get there about 11.30 to-night, and as soon as all is quiet, Jenkins, your old pal, Raffles Holmes, will climb easily up to the piazza, gently slide back the bolts of the French windows in the General's dining-room, proceed cautiously to the sideboard, and replace thereon these two souvenirs of a brave act by a good old sport, whence they never would have been taken had my grandfather known his man."

"You are taking a terrible risk, Raffles," said I, "you can just as easily send the tings to the General by express, anonymously."

"Jenkins," he replied, "that suggestion does you little credit and appeals neither to the Raffles nor to the Holmes in me. Pusillanimity was a word which neither of my forebears could ever learn to use. It was too long, for one thing, and besides that it was never needed in their business."

And with that he left me.

"Well, General," said I to General Cox, a week later at the club, "heard anything further about your pepper-pots yet?"

"Most singular thing, Jenkins," said he. "The d——d things turned up again one morning last week, and where the devil they came from, I can't imagine. One of them, however, had a piece of paper in it on which was written 'Returned with thanks for their use and apologies for having kept them so long.'"

The General opened his wallet and handed me a slip which he took from it.

"There it is. What in thunder do you make out of it?" he asked.

It was in Raffles Holmes's hand-writing.

"Looks to me as though Bruce also had been robbed," I laughed.

"Bruce? Who the devil said anything about Bruce?" demanded the General.

"Why, didn't you tell us he had one of 'em on his table?" said I, reddening.

"Did I?" frowned the General. "Well, if I did, I must be a confounded ass. I thought I took particular pains not the mention Bruce's name in the matter."

And then he laughed.

"I shall have to be careful when Bruce comes to dine with me not to have those pepper-pots in evidence," he said. "He might ask embarrassing questions."

And thus it was that Raffles Holmes atoned for at least one of the offences of his illustrious grandsire.

THE END

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