'I can shoot you down in cold blood in a second.'
"'Very likely,' said Holmes. 'But you won't. It would add to the difficulties in which the Reverend James Tattersby is already deeply immersed. Your troubles are sufficient, as matters stand, without your having to explain to the world why you have killed a defenceless guest in your own study in cold blood.
"'Well—what do you propose to do?' demanded Raffles, after another pause.
"'Marry your daughter, Mr. Raffles, or Tattersby, whatever your permanent name is—I guess it's Tattersby in this case,' said Holmes. 'I love her and she loves me. Perhaps I should apologize for having wooed and won her without due notice to you, but you doubtless will forgive that. It's a little formality you sometimes overlook yourself when you happen to want something that belongs to somebody else.'
"What Raffles would have answered no one knows. He had no chance to reply, for at that moment Marjorie herself put her radiantly lovely little head in at the door with a 'May I come in?' and a moment later she was gathered in Holmes's arms, and the happy lovers received the Reverend James Tattersby's blessing. They were married a week later, and, as far as the world is concerned, the mystery of the Dorrington seal and that of the Cliveden plate was never solved.
"'It is compounding a felony, Raffles,' said Holmes, after the wedding, 'but for a wife like that, hanged if I wouldn't compound the ten commandments!'
"I hope," I ventured to put in at that point, "that the marriage ceremony was not performed by the Reverend James Tattersby."
"Not on your life!" retorted Raffles Holmes. "My father was too fond of my mother to permit of any flaw in his title. A year later I was born, and— well, here I am—son of one, grandson of the other, with hereditary traits from both strongly developed and ready for business. I want a literary partner—a man who will write me up as Bunny did Raffles, and Watson did Holmes, so that I may get a percentage on that part of the swag. I offer you the job, Jenkins. Those royalty statements show me that you are the man, and your books prove to me that you need a few fresh ideas. Come, what do you say? Will you do it?"
"My boy," said I, enthusiastically, "don't say another word. Will I? Well, just try me!"
And so it was that Raffles Holmes and I struck a bargain and became partners.
III THE ADVENTURE OF MRS. BURLINGAME'S DIAMOND STOMACHER
I had seen the marvellous creation very often at the opera, and in many ways resented it. Not that I was in the least degree a victim to envy, hatred, and malice towards those who are possessed of a superabundance of this world's good things—far from it. I rejoice in the great fortunes of earth because, with every dollar corralled by the superior energies of the multi- millionaires, the fewer there are for other men to seek, and until we stop seeking dollars and turn our minds to other, finer things, there will be no hope of peace and sweet content upon this little green ball we inhabit. My resentment of Mrs. Burlingame's diamond stomacher was not then based on envy of its possession, but merely upon the twofold nuisance which it created at the opera-house, as the lady who wore it sat and listened to the strains of Wagner, Bizet, or Gounod, mixed in with the small-talk of Reggie Stockson, Tommie de Coupon, and other lights of the social firmament. In the first place, it caused the people sitting about me in the high seats of the opera- house to chatter about it and discuss its probable worth every time the lady made her appearance in it, and I had fled from the standee part of the house to the top gallery just to escape the talkers, and, if possible, to get my music straight, without interruptions of any sort whatsoever on the side. In the second place, the confounded thing glittered so that, from where I sat, it was as dazzling as so many small mirrors flashing in the light of the sun. It seemed as if every electric light in the house found some kind of a refractor in the thousands of gems of which it was composed, and many of the brilliant light effects of the stage were dimmed in their lustre by the persistent intrusion of Mrs. Burlingame's glory upon my line of vision.
Hence in was that, when I picked up my morning paper and read in great flaring head-lines on the front page that Mrs. Burlingame's diamond stomacher had been stolen from her at her Onyx Cottage at Newport, I smiled broadly, and slapped the breakfast-table so hard in my satisfaction that even the shredded-wheat biscuits flew up into the air and caught in the chandelier.
"Thank Heaven for that!" I said. "Next season I shall be able to enjoy my opera undisturbed."
"I little thought, at that blissful moment, how closely indeed were my own fortunes to be connected with that wonderful specimen of the jeweler's handicraft, but an hour later I was made aware of the first link in the chain that, in a measure, bound me to it. Breakfast over, I went to my desk to put the finishing touches to a novel I had written the week before, when word came up on the telephone from below that a gentleman from Busybody's Magazine wished to see me on an important matter of business.
"Tell him I'm already a subscriber," I called down, supposing the visitor to be merely an agent. "I took the magazine, and a set of Chaucer in a revolving bookcase, from one of their agents last month and have paid my dollar."
In a moment another message came over the wire.
"The gentleman says he wants to see you about writing a couple of full-page sonnets for the Christmas number," the office man 'phoned up.
"Show him up," I replied, instantly.
Two minutes later a rather handsome man, with a fine eye and a long, flowing gray beard, was ushered into my apartment.
"I am Mr. Stikes, of Busybody's, Mr. Jenkins," he said, with a twinkle in his eye. "We thought you might like to contribute to our Christmas issue. We want two sonnets, one on the old Christmas and the other on the new. We can't offer you more than a thousand dollars apiece for them, but—"
Something caught in my throat, but I managed to reply. "I might shade my terms a trifle since you want as many as two," I gurgled. "And I assume you will pay on acceptance?"
"Certainly," he said, gravely. "Could you let me have them, say—this afternoon?"
I turned away so that he would not see the expression of joy on my face, and then there came from behind me a deep chuckle and the observation in a familiar voice:
"You might throw in a couple of those Remsen coolers, too, while you're about it, Jenkins."
I whirled about as if struck, and there, in place of the gray-bearded editor, stood—Raffles Holmes.
"Bully disguise, eh!" he said, folding up his beard and putting it in his pocket.
"Ye-e-es," said I, ruefully, as I thought of the vanished two thousand. "I think I preferred you in disguise, though, old man," I added.
"You won't when you hear what I've come for," said he. "There's $5000 apiece in this job for us."
"To what job do you refer?" I asked.
"The Burlingame case," he replied. "I suppose you read in the papers this morning how Mrs. Burlingame's diamond stomacher has turned up missing."
"Yes," said I, "and I'm glad of it."
"You ought to be," said Holmes, "since it will put $5000 in your pocket. You haven't heard yet that there is a reward of $10,000 offered for its recovery. The public announcement has not yet been made, but it will be in to-night's papers, and we are the chaps that are going to get the reward."
"But how?" I demanded.
"Leave that to me," said he. "By-the-way, I wish you'd let me leave this suit-case of mine in your room for about ten days.
