t
himself, and weak as dish-water. For Heaven's sake, Raffles, if the poor
devil _has_ anything left don't take it from him."

"Your sympathy for Rand does you credit," said Holmes. "But I have just as
much of that as you have, and that is why, at half-past five o'clock to-
morrow afternoon, I'm going to hold him up, in the public eye, and
incontinently rob him of $25,000."

"Twenty-five thousand dollars? Billington Rand?" I gasped.

"Twenty-five thousand dollars. Billington Rand," repeated Holmes, firmly.
"If you don't believe it come along and see. He doesn't know you, does he?"

"Not from Adam," said I.

"Very good--then you'll be safe as a church. Meet me in the Fifth Avenue
Hotel corridor at five to-morrow afternoon and I'll show you as pretty a
hold-up as you ever dreamed of," said Holmes.

"But--I can't take part in a criminal proceeding like that, Holmes," I
protested.

"You won't have to--even if it were a criminal proceeding, which it is not,"
he returned. "Nobody outside of you and me will know anything about it but
Rand himself, and the chances that he will peach are less than a millionth
part of a half per cent. Anyhow, all you need be is a witness."

There was a long and uneasy silence. I was far from liking the job, but
after all, so far, Holmes had not led me into any difficulties of a serious
nature, and, knowing him as I had come to know him, I had a hearty belief
that any wrong he did was temporary and was sure to be rectified in the long
run.

"I've a decent motive in all this, Jenkins," he resumed in a few moments.
"Don't forget that. This hold-up is going to result in a reformation that
will be for the good of everybody, so don't have any scruples on that
score."

"All right, Raffles," said I. "You've always played straight with me, so
far, and I don't doubt your word--only I hate the highway end of it."

"Tutt, Jenkins!" he ejaculated, with a laugh and giving me a whack on the
shoulders that nearly toppled me over into the fire-place. "Don't be a
rabbit. The thing will be as easy as cutting calve's-foot jelly with a
razor."

Thus did I permit myself to be persuaded, and the next afternoon at five,
Holmes and I met in the corridor of the Fifth Avenue Hotel.

"Come on," he said, after the first salutations were over. "Rand will be at
the Thirty-third Street subway at 5.15, and it is important that we should
catch him before he gets to Fifth Avenue."

"I'm glad it's to be on a side s