s such as I seek.
Very truly yours."

"What are you going to do with this?" I demanded.

"Send it as an enclosure to Mrs. Wilbraham Ward-Smythe, showing my
credentials as your agent, in asking her if by any mischance your trunk has
got mixed in with her luggage," observed Holmes. "For form's sake, I shall
send it to twenty or thirty other people known to have left Atlantic City
the same day. Moreover, it will suggest the idea to Mrs. Wilbraham Ward-
Smythe that I am a good man to locate her trunk also, and the delicate
intimation of my terms will--"

"Aha! I see," said I. "And my thousand-dollar check to you?"

"I shall, of course, keep," observed Holmes. "You want the whole business to
be bona fide, don't you? It would be unscrupulous for you to ask for its
return."

I didn't exactly like the idea, but, after all, there was much in what
Holmes said, and the actual risk of my own capital relieved my conscience of
the suspicion that by signing the letter I should become a partner in a
confidence game. Hence I signed the note, mailed it to Raffles Holmes,
enclosing my check for $1000 with it.

Three days later Holmes entered my room with a broad grin on his face.

"How's this for business?" said he, handing me a letter he had received that
morning from Chicago.

"DEAR SIR,--I am perfectly delighted to receive your letter of July 1. I
think I have Mr. Jenkins's missing trunk. What pleases me most, however, is
the possibility of your recovering mine, which also went astray at the same
time. It contained articles of even greater value than Mr. Jenkins's--my
pearl rope, among other things, which is appraised at $130,000. Do you think
there is any chance of your recovering it for me? I enclose my check for
$5000 as a retainer. The balance of your ten per cent. fee I shall gladly
pay on receipt of my missing luggage.
"Most sincerely yours,
"MAUDE WARD-SMYTHE."

"I rather think, my dear Jenkins," observed Raffles Holmes, "that we have
that $13,000 reward cinched."

"There's $7000 for you, Jenkins," said Holmes, a week later, handing me his
check for that amount. "Easy money that. It only took two weeks to turn the
trick, and $14,000 for fourteen days' work is pretty fair pay. If we could
count on that for a steady income I think I'd be able to hold Raffles down
without your assistance."

"You got fourteen thousand, eh?" said I. "I thought it was only to be
$13,000."

"It was fourteen thousand counting in your $10