"It's too late," said Raffles Holmes. "I've set out on this adventure and I'm going to put it through. I wouldn't give up in the middle of an enterprise of this sort any more than I would let a balky horse refuse to take a fence I'd put him to. It's going to be harder than I thought, but we're in it, and I shall stay to the end."
"What the devil is the adventure, anyhow?" I demanded, impatiently. "You vowed you wouldn't touch the rope."
"I hope not to," was his response. "It is up to you to see that I don't. My plan does not involve my laying hands upon even the shadow of it."
So we stayed on at the Garrymore, and a worse week I never had anywhere. With every glimpse of that infernal jewel the Raffles in Holmes became harder and harder to control. In the daytime he was all right, but when night came on he was feverish with the desire to acquire possession of the pearls. Twice in the middle of the night I caught him endeavoring to sneak out of our room, and upon each occasion, when I rushed after him and forced him back, he made no denial of my charge that he was going after the jewel. The last time it involved us both in such a terrible struggle that I vowed then and there that the following morning should see my departure.
"I can't stand the strain, Holmes," said I.
"Well, if you can't stand your strain," said Raffles Holmes, "what do you think of mine?"
"The thing to do is to get out, that's all," I retorted. "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.