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

Broadway until the appointed hour. It seemed ages before the clock down in front of the Whirald Building pointed to 10.55, but at last the moment arrived, and I entered the café, taking one of the little tables in the farther corner, where the light was not unduly strong and where the turmoil of the Hungarian band was reduced by distance from moltofortissimo to a moderate approach to a pianissimo, which would admit of conversation. Again I had to wait, but not for so long a time. It was twenty minutes past eleven when a fine-looking man of military bearing, wearing a full red beard, entered, and after looking the café over, sauntered up to where I sat.

"Good-evening, Mr. Jenkins," said he, with a slight foreign accent. "Are you alone?"

"Yes," said I.

"If you don't mind, I should like to sit here for a few moments," he observed, pulling out the chair opposite me. "I have your permission?"

"Certainly, Mr.—er—"

"Robinstein is my name," said he, sitting down, and producing a letter from his pocket. "I have here a note from my old friend Raffles Holmes—a note of introduction to you. I am a manufacturer of paste jewels—or rather was. I have had one or two misfortunes in my business, and find myself here in America practically stranded."

"Your place of business was—"

"In the Rue de l'Echelle in Paris," he explained. "I lost everything in unfortunate speculation, and have come here to see if I could not get a new start. Mr. Holmes thinks you can use your influence with Markoo & Co., the theatrical costumers, who, I believe, manufacture themselves all the stage jewelry they use in their business, to give me something to do. It was said in Paris that the gems which I made were of such quality that they would deceive, for a time anyhow, the most expert lapidaries, and if I can only get an opening with Markoo & Co. I am quite confident that you will not repent having exerted your good offices in my behalf."

"Why, certainly, Mr. Robinstein," said I. "Any friend of Raffles Holmes may command my services. I know Tommy Markoo very well, and as this is a pretty busy time with him, getting his stuff out for the fall productions, I have little doubt I shall be able to help you. By Jove!" I added, as I glanced over the café, "that's a singular coincidence—there is Markoo himself just coming in the doorway."

"Really?" said Mr. Robinstein, turning and gazing towards the door. "He's a different-looking chap from what I had imagined. Perhaps, Mr. Jenkins, it would—er—expedite matters if you—"

"Of course," I interrupted. "Tommy is alone—we'll have him over."

And I beckoned to Markoo and invited him to join us.

"Good!" said he, in his whole-souled way. "Glad to have a chance to see you—I'm so confoundedly busy these days—just think of it, I've been at the shop ever since eight o'clock this morning."

"Tommy, I want to introduce you to my friend Mr. Robinstein," said I.

"Not Isidore Robinstein, of Paris?" said Markoo.

"I have that misfortune, Mr. Markoo," said Robinstein.

"Misfortune? Gad, Mr. Robinstein, we look at things through different glasses," returned Markoo. "The man who can do your work ought never to suffer misfortune—"

"If he only stays out of the stock-market," said Robinstein.

"Aha," laughed Tommy. "Et tu, Brute?"

We all laughed, and if there was any ice to be broken after that it was along the line of business of the café. We got along famously together, and when we parted company, two hours later, all the necessary arrangements had been made for Mr. Robinstein to begin at once with Markoo—the following day, in fact.

Four nights later Holmes turned up at my apartment.

"Well," said I, "have you come to report progress?"

"Yes," he said. "The reward will arrive on time, but it's been the de'il's own job. Pretty, aren't they!" he added, taking a small package wrapped in tissue-paper out of his pocket, and disclosing its contents.

"Gee-rusalem, what beauties!" I cried, as my eyes fell on two such diamonds as I had never before seen. They sparkled on the paper like bits of sunshine, and that their value was quite $100,000 it did not take one like myself, who knew little of gems, to see at a glance. "You have found them, have you?"

"Found what?" asked Raffles Holmes.

"The missing pendants," said I.

"Well—not exactly," said Raffles Holmes. "I think I'm on the track of them, though. There's an old chap who works beside me down at Gaffany's who spends so much of his time drinking ice-water that I'm getting to be suspicious of him."

I roared with laughter.

"The ice-water habit is evidence of a criminal nature, eh?" I queried.

"Not per se," said Holmes, gravely, "but in conjunctibus—if my Latin is weak, please correct me—it is a very suspicious habit. When I see a man drink ten glasses of water in two hours it indicates to my mind that there is something in the water-cooler that takes his mind off his business. It is not likely to be either the ice or the water, on the doctrine of probabilities. Hence it must be something else. I caught him yesterday with his hand in it."

"His hand? In the water-cooler?" I demanded.

"Yes," said Holmes. "He said he was fishing around for a little piece of ice to cool his head, which ached, but I think differently. He got as pale as a ghost when I started in to fish for a piece for myself because my head ached too. I think he took the diamonds and has hid them there, but I'm not sure yet, and in my business I can't afford to make mistakes. If my suspicions are correct, he is merely awaiting his opportunity to fish them out and light out with them."

"Then these," I said, "are—are they paste?"

"No, indeed, they're the real thing," said Raffles Holmes, holding up one of the gems to the light, where it fairly coruscated with brilliance. "These are the other two of the original quartet."

"Great Heavens, Holmes—do you mean to say that Gaffany & Co. permit you to go about with things like this in your pocket?" I demanded.

"Not they," laughed Holmes. "They'd have a fit if they knew I had 'em, only they don't know it."

"But how have you concealed the fact from them?" I persisted.

"Robinstein made me a pair exactly like them," said Holmes. "The paste ones are now lying in the Gaffany safe, where I saw them placed before leaving the shop to-night."

"You're too deep for me, Holmes," said I. "What's the game?"

"Now don't say game, Jenkins," he protested. "I never indulge in games. My quarry is not a game, but a scheme. For the past two weeks, with three days off, I have been acting as a workman in the Gaffany ship, with the ostensible purpose of keeping my eye on certain employés who are under suspicion. Each day the remaining two pendant-stones—these—have been handed to me to work on, merely to carry out the illusion. The first day, in odd moments, I made sketches of them, and on the night of the second I had 'em down in such detail as to cut and color, that Robinstein had no difficulty in reproducing them in the materials at his disposal in Markoo's shop. And to-night all I had to do to get them was to keep them and hand in the Robinstein substitutes when the hour of closing came."

"So that now, in place of four $50,000 diamonds, Gaffany & Co. are in possession of—"

"Two paste pendants, worth about $40 apiece," said Holmes. "If I fail to find the originals I shall have to use the paste ones to carry the scheme through, but I hate to do it. It's so confoundly inartistic and as old a trick as the pyramids."

"And to-morrow—"

Raffles Holmes got up and paced the floor nervously.

"Ah, Jenkins," he said, with a heart-rending sigh, "that is the point. To- morrow! Heavens! what will to-morrow's story be? I—I cannot tell."

"What's the matter, Holmes?" said. "Are you in danger?"

"Physically, no—morally, my God! Jenkins, yes. I shall need all of your help," he cried.

"What can I do?" I asked. "You know you have only to command me."

"Don't leave me this night for a minute," he groaned. "If you do, I am lost. The Raffles in me is rampant when I look at those jewels and think of what they will mean if I keep them. An independent fortune forever. All I have to do is to get aboard a ship and go to Japan and live in comfort the rest of my days with the wealth in my possession, and all the instincts of honesty that I possess, through the father in me, will be powerless to prevent my indulgence in this crime. Keep me in sight, and if I show the slightest inclination to give you the slip, knock me over the head, will you, for my own good?"

I promised faithfully that I would do as he asked, but, as an easier way out of an unpleasant situation, I drugged his Remsen cooler with a sleeping- powder, and an hour later he was lying off on my divan lost to the world for eight hours at least. As a further precaution I put the jewels in my own safe.

The night's sleep had the desired effect, and with the returning day Holmes's better nature asserted itself. Raffles was subdued, and he returned to Gaffany's to put the finishing touches to his work.

"Here's your check, Jenkins," said Raffles Holmes, handing me a draft for $5000. "The gems were found to-day in the water-cooler in the work-room, and Gaffany & Co. paid up like gentlemen."

"And the thief?" I asked.

"Under arrest," said Raffles Holmes. "We caught him fishing for them."

"And your paste jewels, where are they?"

"I wish I knew," he answered, his face clouding over. "In the excitement of the moment of the arrest I got 'em mixed with the originals I had last night, and they didn't give me time or opportunity to pick 'em out. The four were mounted immediately and sent under guard to the purchaser. Gaffany & Co. didn't want to keep them a minute longer than was necessary. But the purchaser is so rich he will never have to sell 'em—so, you see, Jenkins, we're as safe as a church."

"Your friend Robinstein was a character, Holmes," said I.

"Yes," sighed Holmes. "Poor chap—he was a great loss to his friends. He taught me the art of making paste gems when I was in Paris. I miss him like the dickens."

"Miss him!" said I, getting anxious for Robinstein. "What happened? He isn't—"

"Dead," said Holmes. "Two years ago—dear old chap."

"Oh, come now, Holmes," I said. "What new game is this you are rigging on me? I met him only five nights ago—and you know it."

"Oh—that one," said Raffles Holmes, with a laugh. "I was that
Robinstein."

"You?" I cried.

"Yes, me," said Holmes. "You don't suppose I'd let a third party into our secret, do you?"

And then he gave me one of those sweet, wistful smiles that made the wonder of the man all the greater.

"I wish to the dickens I knew whether these were real or paste!" he muttered, taking the extra pendants from his wallet as he spoke. "I don't dare ask anybody, and I haven't got any means of telling myself."

"Give them to me," said I, sternly, noting a glitter in his eye that suggested the domination for the moment of the Raffles in him.

"Tush, Jenkins," he began, uneasily.

"Give them to me, or I'll brain you, Holmes," said I, standing over him with a soda-water bottle gripped in my right hand, "for your own good. Come, give up."

He meekly obeyed.

"Come now, get on your hat," said I. "I want you to go out with me."

"What for, Jenkins?" he almost snarled.

"You'll see what for," said I.

And Raffles Holmes obeying, we walked down to the river's edge, where I stood for a moment, and then hurled the remaining stones far out into the waters.

Holmes gave a gasp and then a sigh of relief.

"There," I said. "It doesn't matter much to us now whether the confounded things were real or not."

V THE ADVENTURE OF THE BRASS CHECK

"Jenkins," said Raffles Holmes to me the other night