"Twenty-five thousand dollars. Billington Rand," repeated Holmes, firmly.
"If you don't believe it come along and see. He doesn't know you, does he?"
"Not from Adam," said I.
"Very good—then you'll be safe as a church. Meet me in the Fifth Avenue Hotel corridor at five to-morrow afternoon and I'll show you as pretty a hold-up as you ever dreamed of," said Holmes.
"But—I can't take part in a criminal proceeding like that, Holmes," I protested.
"You won't have to—even if it were a criminal proceeding, which it is not," he returned. "Nobody outside of you and me will know anything about it but Rand himself, and the chances that he will peach are less than a millionth part of a half per cent. Anyhow, all you need be is a witness."
There was a long and uneasy silence. I was far from liking the job, but after all, so far, Holmes had not led me into any difficulties of a serious nature, and, knowing him as I had come to know him, I had a hearty belief that any wrong he did was temporary and was sure to be rectified in the long run.
"I've a decent motive in all this, Jenkins," he resumed in a few moments. "Don't forget that. This hold-up is going to result in a reformation that will be for the good of everybody, so don't have any scruples on that score."
"All right, Raffles," said I. "You've always played straight with me, so far, and I don't doubt your word—only I hate the highway end of it."
"Tutt, Jenkins!" he ejaculated, with a laugh and giving me a whack on the shoulders that nearly toppled me over into the fire-place. "Don't be a rabbit. The thing will be as easy as cutting calve's-foot jelly with a razor."
Thus did I permit myself to be persuaded, and the next afternoon at five,
Holmes and I met in the corridor of the Fifth Avenue Hotel.