R. Holmes and Co Part 15

"'By putting those ruffians to flight,' said he.

"'Ah!' said I. 'Then the gentleman attacked was one of your Majesty's friends?'

"'I would have it so appear,' said the King. 'For a great many reasons I should prefer that it were not known that it was I-'

"'You, your Majesty?' I cried, really astonished. 'I had no idea-"

"'You are discretion itself, Colonel c.o.x,' laughed the King, 'and to a.s.sure you of my appreciation of the fact, I beg that you will accept a small gift which you will some day shortly receive anonymously. It will not be at all commensurate to the service you have rendered me, nor to the discretion which you have already so kindly observed regarding the princ.i.p.als involved in last night's affair, but in the spirit of friendly interest and appreciation back of it, it will be of a value inestimable.'

"I began to try to tell his Majesty that my government did not permit me to accept gifts of any kind from persons royal or otherwise, but it was not possible to do so, and twenty minutes later my audience was over and I returned to the Legation with the uncomfortable sense of having placed myself in a position where I must either violate the King's confidence to acquire the permission of Congress to accept his gift, or break the laws by which all who are connected with the diplomatic service, directly or indirectly, are strictly governed. I a.s.sure you it was not in the least degree in the hope of personal profit that I chose the latter course. Ten days later a pair of ma.s.sive golden pepper-pots came to me, and, as the King had intimated would be the case, there was nothing about them to show whence they had come. Taken altogether, they were the most exquisitely wrought specimens of the goldsmith's artistry that I had ever seen, and upon their under side was inscribed in a cipher which no one unfamiliar with the affair of that midnight fracas would even have observed-'A.R. to C.C.'-Alphonso Rex to Carrington c.o.x being, of course, the significance thereof. They were put away with my other belongings, and two years later, when my activities were transferred to London, I took them away with me.

"In London I chose to live in chambers, and was soon established at No. 7 Park Place, St. James's, a more than comfortable and centrally located apartment-house where I found pretty much everything in the way of convenience that a man situated as I was could reasonably ask for. I had not been there more than six months, however, when something happened that made the ease of apartment life seem somewhat less desirable. That is, my rooms were broken open during my absence, over night on a little canoeing trip to Henley, and about everything valuable in my possession was removed, including the truly regal pepper-pots sent me by his Majesty the King of Spain, that I had carelessly left standing upon my sideboard.

"Until last week," the General continued, "nor hide nor hair of any of my stolen possessions was every discovered, but last Thursday night I accepted the invitation of a gentleman well known in this country as a leader of finance, a veritable Captain of Industry, the soul of honor and one of the most genial hosts imaginable. I sat down at his table at eight o'clock, and, will you believe me, gentlemen, one of the first objects to greet my eye upon the brilliantly set napery was nothing less than one of my lost pepper- pots. There was no mistaking it. Unique in pattern, it was certain of identification anyhow, but what made it the more certain was the cipher 'A.R. to C.C.'"

"And of course you claimed it?" asked Dozyphrase.

"Of course I did nothing of the sort," retorted the General. "I trust I am not so lacking in manners. I merely remarked its beauty and quaintness and ma.s.siveness and general artistry. My host expressed pleasure at my appreciation of its qualities and volunteered the information that it was a little thing he had picked up in a curio shop on Regent Street, London, last summer. He had acquired it in perfect good faith. What its history had been from the time I lost it until then, I am not aware, but there it was, and under circ.u.mstances of such a character that although it was indubitably my property, a strong sense of the proprieties prevented me from regaining its possession."

"Who was your host, General?" asked Tickletoe.

The General laughed. "That's telling," said he. "I don't care to go into any further details, because some of you well-meaning friends of mine might suggest to Mr.-ahem-ha-well, never mind his name-that he should return the pepper-pot, and I know that that is what he would do if he were familiar with the facts that I have just narrated."

It was at about this point that the gathering broke up, and, after our cigars, Holmes and I left the club.

"Come up to my rooms a moment," said Raffles, as we emerged upon the street.

"I want to show you something."

"All right," said I. "I've nothing in particular to do this afternoon. That was a rather interesting tale of the General's, wasn't it?" I added.

"Very," said Holmes. "I guess it's not an uncommon experience, however, in these days, for the well-to-do and well-meaning to be in possession of stolen property. The fact of its turning up again under the General's very nose, so many years later, however, that is unusual. The case will appear even more so before the day is over if I am right in one of my conjectures."

What Raffles Holmes's conjecture was was soon to be made clear. In a few minutes we had reached his apartment, and there unlocking a huge iron-bound chest in his bedroom, he produced from it capacious depths another gold pepper-pot. This he handed to me.

"There's the mate!" he observed, quietly.

"By Jove, Raffles-it must be!" I cried, for beyond all question, in the woof of the design on the base of the pepper-pot was the cipher "A.R. to C.C." "Where the d.i.c.kens did you get it?"

"That was a wedding-present to my mother," he explained. "That's why I have never sold it, not even when I've been on the edge of starvation."

"From whom-do you happen to know?" I inquired.

"Yes," he replied. "I 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 c.o.x, 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 e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, 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."