torted. "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 here 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