R. Holmes Co. | Page 4

you?"
"There is my card," he replied, swallowing a goodly half of the cooler
and smacking his lips appreciatively, and tossing a visiting card across
to me on the other side of the table. I picked up the card and read as
follows: "Mr. Raffles Holmes, London and New York."

"Raffles Holmes?" I cried in amazement.
"The same, Mr. Jenkins," said he. "I am the son of Sherlock Holmes,
the famous detective, and grandson of A. J. Raffles, the
distinguished--er--ah-- cricketer, sir."
I gazed at him, dumb with astonishment.
"You've heard of my father, Sherlock Holmes?" asked my visitor.
I confessed that the name of the gentleman was not unfamiliar to me.
"And Mr. Raffles, my grandfather?" he persisted.
"If there ever was a story of that fascinating man that I have not read,
Mr. Holmes," said I, "I beg you will let me have it."
"Well, then," said he with that quick, nervous manner which proved
him a true son of Sherlock Holmes, "did it never occur to you as an
extraordinary happening, as you read of my father's wonderful powers
as a detective, and of Raffles' equally wonderful prowess as a--er--well,
let us not mince words--as a thief, Mr. Jenkins, the two men operating
in England at the same time, that no story ever appeared in which
Sherlock Holmes's genius was pitted against the subtly planned
misdeeds of Mr. Raffles? Is it not surprising that with two such men as
they were, working out their destinies in almost identical grooves of
daily action, they should never have crossed each other's paths as far as
the public is the wiser, and in the very nature of the conflicting interests
of their respective lines of action as foemen, the one pursuing, the other
pursued, they should to the public's knowledge never have clashed?"
"Now that you speak of it," said I, "it was rather extraordinary that
nothing of the sort happened. One would think that the sufferers from
the depredations of Raffles would immediately have gone to Holmes
for assistance in bringing the other to justice. Truly, as you intimate, it
was strange that they never did."
"Pardon me, Jenkins," put in my visitor. "I never intimated anything of

the sort. What I intimated was that no story of any such conflict ever
came to light. As a matter of fact, Sherlock Holmes was put upon a
Raffles case in 1883, and while success attended upon every step of it,
and my grandfather was run to earth by him as easily as was ever any
other criminal in Holmes's grip, a little naked god called Cupid stepped
in, saved Raffles from jail, and wrote the word failure across Holmes's
docket of the case. I, sir, am the only tangible result of Lord
Dorrington's retainers to Sherlock Holmes."
"You speak enigmatically, after the occasional fashion of your
illustrious father," said I. "The Dorrington case is unfamiliar to me."
"Naturally so," said my vis-à-vis. "Because, save to my father, my
grandfather, and myself, the details are unknown to anybody. Not even
my mother knew of the incident, and as for Dr. Watson and Bunny, the
scribes through whose industry the adventures of those two great men
were respectively narrated to an absorbed world, they didn't even know
there had ever been a Dorrington case, because Sherlock Holmes never
told Watson and Raffles never told Bunny. But they both told me, and
now that I am satisfied that there is a demand for your books, I am
willing to tell it to you with the understanding that we share and share
alike in the profits if perchance you think well enough of it to write it
up."
"Go on!" I said. "I'll whack up with you square and honest."
"Which is more than either Watson or Bunny ever did with my father
or my grandfather, else I should not be in the business which now
occupies my time and attention," said Raffles Holmes with a cold snap
to his eyes which I took as an admonition to hew strictly to the line of
honor, or to subject myself to terrible consequences. "With that
understanding, Jenkins, I'll tell you the story of the Dorrington Ruby
Seal, in which some crime, a good deal of romance, and my ancestry
are involved."

II THE ADVENTURE OF THE DORRINGTON RUBY SEAL

"Lord Dorrington, as you may have heard," said Raffles Holmes,
leaning back in my easy-chair and gazing reflectively up at the ceiling,
"was chiefly famous in England as a sporting peer. His vast estates, in
five counties, were always open to any sportsman of renown, or
otherwise, as long as he was a true sportsman. So open, indeed, was the
house that he kept that, whether he was there or not, little week-end
parties of members of the