"But what good is it?" said I.
"Oh, well—it keeps the servants from spending too much time in my apartment, snooping among my papers, perhaps; and it my some day come in useful in establishing an alibi if things go wrong with me. You'd have sworn I was in there just now, wouldn't you?"
"I would indeed," said I.
"Well—you see, I wasn't, so there you are," said Raffles Holmes. "By-the-way, you've come at an interesting moment. There'll be things doing before the evening is over. I've had an anxious caller here five times already to-day. I've been standing in the barber-shop opposite getting a line on him. His card name is Grouch, his real name is—"
Here Raffles Holmes leaned forward and whispered in my ear a name of such eminent respectability that I fairly gasped.
"You don't mean the Mr. ——"
"Nobody else," said Raffles Holmes. "Only he don't know I know who he is. The third time Grouch called I trailed him to Blank's house, and then recognized him as Blank himself."
"And what does he want with you?" I asked.
"That remains to be seen," said Raffles Holmes. "All I know is that next Tuesday he will be required to turn over $100,000 unregistered bonds to a young man about to come of age, for whom he has been a trustee."
"Aha!" said I. "And you think—"