as Holmes had requested, and hid it away in my bedroom, immediately returning to the library, where he sat smoking one of my cigars as cool as a cucumber. There was something in his eye, however, that aroused my suspicion as soon as I entered.
"See here, Holmes," said I. "I can't afford to be mixed up in any shady business like this, you know. Have you got that stomacher?"
"No, I haven't," said he. "Honor bright—I haven't."
I eyed him narrowly.
"I think I understand the evasion," I went on. "You haven't got it because
I have got it—it's in that suit-case under my bed."
"Open it and see for yourself," said he. "It isn't there."
"But you know where it is?" I demanded.
"How else could I be sure of that $10,000 reward?" he asked.
"Where is it?" I demanded.
"It—er—it isn't located yet—that is, not finally," said he. "And it won't be for ten days. Ten days from now Mrs. Burlingame will find it herself and we'll divvy on the reward, my boy, and not a trace of dishonesty in the whole business."
And with that Raffles Holmes filled his pockets with cigars from my stores, and bidding me be patient went his way.
The effect of his visit upon my nerves was such that any more work that day was impossible. The fear of possible complications to follow upset me wholly, and, despite his assurance that the suit-case was innocent of surreptitiously acquired stomachers, I could not rid my mind of the suspicion that he made of my apartment a fence for the concealment of his booty. The more I thought of it the more was I inclined to send for him and request him to remove the bag forthwith, and yet, if it should so happen that he had spoken the truth, I should by that act endanger our friendship and possibly break the pact, which bade fair to be profitable. Suddenly I remembered his injunction to me to look for myself and see if the stomacher really was concealed there, and I hastened to act upon it. It might have been pure bluff on his part, and I resolved not to be bluffed.
The case opened easily, and the moment I glanced into it my suspicions were allayed. It contained nothing but bundle after bundle of letters tied together with pink and blue ribbons, one or two old daguerreotypes, some locks of hair, and an ivory miniature of Raffles Holmes himself as an infant. Not a stomacher, diamond or otherwise, was hid in the case, nor any other suspicious object, and I closed it with a sheepish feeling of shame for having intruded upon the sacred correspondence and relics of the happy childhood days of my new friend.
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