for all I care, Mr.
Blank," said Holmes. "It's none of my funeral, you know."

And so the matter was settled. The unmasked Blank, seeing that wrath was
useless, calmed down and accepted Holmes's terms and method for his relief.

"I'll have my man there at 4 A.M., October 17th, Mr. Blank," said Holmes.
"See that your end of it is ready. The coast must be kept clear or the
scheme falls through."

Grouch went heavily out, and Holmes called me back into the room.

"Jenkins," said he, "that man is one of the biggest scoundrels in creation,
and I'm going to give him a jolt."

"Where are you going to get the retired burglar?" I asked.

"Sir," returned Raffles Holmes, "this is to be a personally conducted
enterprise. It's a job worthy of may grandsire on my mother's side. Raffles
will turn the trick."

And it turned out so to be, for the affair went through without a hitch. The
night of October 16th I spend at Raffles's apartments. He was as calm as
though nothing unusual were on hand. He sang songs, played the piano, and up
to midnight was as gay and skittish as a school-boy on vacation. As twelve
o'clock struck, however, he sobered down, put on his hat and coat, and,
bidding me remain where I was, departed by means of the fire-escape.

"Keep up the talk, Jenkins," he said. "The walls are thin here, and it's
just as well, in matters of this sort, that our neighbors should have the
impression that I have _not_ gone out. I've filled the machine up with a
choice lot of songs and small-talk to take care of my end of it. A
consolidated gas company, life yourself, should have no difficulty in
filling in the gaps."

And with that he left me to as merry and withal as nervous a three hours as
I ever spent in my life. Raffles had indeed filled that talking-machine--
thirteen full cylinders of it--with as choice an assortment of causeries and
humorous anecdotes as any one could have wished to hear. Now and again it
would bid me cheer up and not worry about him. Once, along about 2 A.M., it
cried out: "You ought to see me now, Jenkins. I'm right in the middle of
this Grouch job, and it's a dandy. I'll teach _him_ a lesson." The effect of
all this was most uncanny. It was as if Raffles Holmes himself spoke to me
from the depths of that dark room in the Blank household, where he was
engaged in an enterprise of dreadful risk merely to save the good name of
one who no longer deserved to bear such a thing. In spite of all this,
howev