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

as we sat in my den looking over the criminal news in the evening papers, in search of some interesting material for him to work on, "this paper says that Mrs. Wilbraham Ward-Smythe has gone to Atlantic City for a week, and will lend her gracious presence to the social functions of the Hotel Garrymore, at that interesting city by the sea, until Monday, the 27th, when she will depart for Chicago, where her sister is to be married on the 29th. How would you like to spend the week with me at the Garrymore?"

"It all depends upon what we are going for," said I. "Also, what in thunder has Mrs. Wilbraham Ward-Smythe got to do with us, or we with her?"

"Nothing at all," said Holmes. "That is, nothing much."

"Who is she?" I asked, eying him suspiciously.

"All I know is what I have seen in the papers," said Holmes. "She came in on the Altruria two weeks ago, and attracted considerable attention by declaring $130,000 worth of pearl rope that she bought in Paris, instead of, woman-like, trying to smuggle it through the custom-house. It broke the heart of pretty nearly every inspector in the service. She'd been watched very carefully by the detective bureau in Paris, and when she purchased the rope there, the news of it was cabled over in cipher, so that they'd all be on the lookout for it when she came in. The whole force on the pier was on the qui vive, and one of the most expert women searchers on the pay-roll was detailed to give her special attention the minute she set foot on shore; but instead of doing as they all believed she would do, and giving the inspectors a chance to catch her at trying to evade the duties, to their very great profit, she calmly and coolly declared the stuff, paid her little sixty-five per cent. like a major, and drove off to the Castoria in full possession of her jewels. The Collector of the Port had all he could do to keep 'em from draping the custom-house for thirty days, they were all so grief-stricken. She'll probably take the rope to Atlantic City with her."

"Aha!" said I. "That's the milk in the cocoanut, is it? You're after that pearl rope, are you, Raffles?"

"On my honor as a Holmes," said he, "I am not. I shall not touch the pearl rope, although I have no doubt that I shall have some unhappy moments during the week that I am in the same hotel with it. That's one reason why I'd like to have you go along, Jenkins—just to keep me out of temptation. Raffles may need more than Holmes to keep him out of mischief. I am confident, however, that with you to watch out for me, I shall be able to suppress the strong tendency towards evil which at times besets me."

"We'd better keep out of it altogether, Holmes," said I, not liking the weight of responsibility for his good behavior that more than once he had placed on my shoulders. "You don't deny, I suppose, that the pearl rope is a factor in your intentions, whatever they may be."

"Of course I don't, Jenkins," was his response. "If it were not for her pearl rope, Mrs. Wilbraham Ward-Smythe could go anywhere she pleased without attracting any more attention from me than a passing motor-car. It would be futile for me to deny that, as a matter of fact, the pearl rope is an essential part of my scheme, and, even if it were not futile to do so, I should still not deny it, because neither my father nor my grandfather, Holmes nor Raffles, ever forgot that a gentleman does not lie."

"Then count me out," said I.

"Even if there is $7500 in it for you?" he said, with a twinkle in his eye.

"If it were $107,500 you could still count me out," I retorted. "I don't like the business."

"Very well," said he, with a sight. "I shall have to go alone and endeavor to fight the terrible temptation unaided, with a strong probability that I shall fail, and, yielding to it, commit my first real act of crime, and in that event, with the possibility of a term at Trenton prison, if I am caught."

"Give it up, Raffles," I pleaded.

"And all because, in the hour of my need, my best friend, whose aid I begged, refused me," he went on, absolutely ignoring my plea.

"Oh, well, if you put it on that score," I said, "I'll go—but you must promise me not to touch the pearls."

"I'll do my best not to," he replied. "As usual, you have carte-blanche to put me out of business if you catch me trying it."

With this understanding I accompanied Raffles Holmes to Atlantic City the following afternoon, and the following evening we were registered at the Hotel Garrymore.

Holmes was not mistaken in his belief that Mrs. Wilbraham Ward-Smythe would take her famous pearl rope to Atlantic City with her. That very evening, while we were sitting at dinner, the lady entered, and draped about her stately neck and shoulders was the thing itself, and a more beautiful decoration was never worn by woman from the days of the Queen of Sheba to this day of lavish display in jewels. It was a marvel, indeed, but the moment I saw it I ceased to give the lady credit for superior virtue in failing to smuggle it through the custom-house, for its very size would have precluded the possibility of a successful issue to any such attempted evasion of the law. It was too bulky to have been secreted in any of the ordinary ways known to smugglers. Hence her candid acknowledgment of its possession was less an evidence of the lady's superiority to the majority of her sex in the matter of "beating the government" than of her having been confronted with the proverbial choice of the unidentified Hobson.

"By Jove! Jenkins," Raffles Holmes muttered, hoarsely, as Mrs. Ward-Smythe paraded the length of the dining-room, as fairly corruscating with her rich possessions as though she were a jeweller's window incarnate, "it's a positive crime for a woman to appear in a place like this arrayed like that. What right has she to subject poor weak humanity to such temptation as now confronts every servant in this hotel, to say nothing of guests, who, like ourselves, are made breathless with such lavish display? There's poor old Tommie Bankson over there, for instance. See how he gloats over those pearls. He's fairly red-eyed over them."

I glanced across the dining-room, and sure enough, there sat Tommie Bankson, and even from where we were placed we could see his hands tremble with the itch for possession, and his lips go dry with excitement as he thought of the material assets in full view under the glare of the dining-room electric lights.

"I happen to know on the inside," continued Holmes, "that Tommie is not only a virtual bankrupt through stock speculation, but is actually face to face with criminal disgrace for misuse of trust funds, all of which he could escape if he could lay his hands upon half the stuff that woman is so carelessly wearing to-night. Do you think it's fair to wear, for the mere gratification of one's vanity, things that arouse in the hearts of less fortunate beings such passionate reflections and such dire temptations as those which are now besetting that man?"

"I guess we've got enough to do looking after Raffles to-night, old man, without wasting any of our nerve-tissue on Tommie Bankson," I replied. "Come on—let's get out of this. We'll go over to the Pentagon for the night, and to-morrow we'll shake the sands of Atlantic City from our feet and hie ourselves back to New York, where the temptations are not so strong."

"It's too late," said Raffles Holmes. "I've set out on this adventure and I'm going to put it through. I wouldn't give up in the middle of an enterprise of this sort any more than I would let a balky horse refuse to take a fence I'd put him to. It's going to be harder than I thought, but we're in it, and I shall stay to the end."

"What the devil is the adventure, anyhow?" I demanded, impatiently. "You vowed you wouldn't touch the rope."

"I hope not to," was his response. "It is up to you to see that I don't. My plan does not involve my laying hands upon even the shadow of it."

So we stayed on at the Garrymore, and a worse week I never had anywhere. With every glimpse of that infernal jewel the Raffles in Holmes became harder and harder to control. In the daytime he was all right, but when night came on he was feverish with the desire to acquire possession of the pearls. Twice in the middle of the night I caught him endeavoring to sneak out of our room, and upon each occasion, when I rushed after him and forced him back, he made no denial of my charge that he was going after the jewel. The last time it involved us both in such a terrible struggle that I vowed then and there that the following morning should see my departure.

"I can't stand the strain, Holmes," said I.

"Well, if you can't stand your strain," said Raffles Holmes, "what do you think of mine?"

"The thing to do is to get out, that's all," I retorted. "I won't have a nerve left in twenty-four hours. For four nights now I haven't had a minute's normal sleep, and this fight you've just put up has regularly knocked me out."

"One more day Jenkins," he pleaded. "She goes day after to-morrow, and so do we."

"We?" I cried. "After her?"

"Nope—she to Chicago—we to New York," said Holmes. "Stick it out, there's a good fellow," and of course I yielded.

The next day—Sunday—was one of feverish excitement, but we got through it without mishap, and on Monday morning it was with a sigh of relief that I saw Mrs. Wilbraham Ward-Smythe pull out of the Philadelphia station en route for Chicago, while Raffles Holmes and I returned to New York.

"Well, Raffles," said I, as we sped on our homeward way, "we've had our trouble for our pains."

He laughed crisply. "Have we?" said he. "I guess not—not unless you have lost the trunk check the porter gave you."

"What, this brass thing?" I demanded, taking the check from my pocket and flicking it in the air like a penny.

"That very brass thing," said Holmes.

"You haven't lifted that damned rope and put it in my trunk!" I roared.

"Hush, Jenkins! For Heaven's sake don't make a scene. I haven't done anything of the sort," he whispered, looking about him anxiously to make sure that we had not been overheard. "Those pearls are as innocent of my touch as the top of the Himalaya Mountains is of yours."

"Then what have you done?" I demanded, sulkily.

"Just changed a couple of trunk checks, that's all," said Raffles Holmes. "That bit of brass you have in your hand, which was handed to you in the station by the porter of the Garrymore, when presented at Jersey City will put you in possession of Mrs. Wilbraham Ward-Smythe's trunk, containing the bulk of her jewels. She's a trifle careless about her possessions, as any one could see who watched the nonchalant way in which she paraded the board walk with a small fortune on her neck and fingers. Most women would carry such things in a small hand-satchel, or at least have the trunk sent by registered express, but not Mrs. Wilbraham Ward-Smythe; and, thanks to her loud voice, listening outside of her door last night, I heard her directing her maid where she wished the gems packed."

"And where the dickens is my trunk?" I asked.

"On the way to Chicago," said Raffles Holmes, calmly. "Mrs. Wilbraham Ward-
Smythe has the check for it."

"Safe business!" I sneered. "Bribed the porter, I presume?"

"Jenkins, you are exceedingly uncomplimentary at times," said Raffles
Holmes, showing more resentment than I had ever given him credit for.
"Perhaps you observed that I didn't go to the station in the omnibus."

"No, you went over to the drug-store after some phenacetine for your headache," said I.

"Precisely," said Holmes, "and after purchasing the phenacetine I jumped aboard the Garrymore express-wagon and got a lift over to the station. It was during that ride that I transferred Mrs. Ward-Smythe's check from her trunk to yours,