That night, as Holmes had asserted, a reward of $10,000 was offered for the recovery of the Burlingame stomacher, and the newspapers for the next ten days were full of the theories of detectives of all sorts, amateur, professional, and reportorial. Central Office was after it in one place, others sought it elsewhere. The editor of one New York paper printed a full list of the names of the guests at Mrs. Burlingame's dinner the night the treasure was stolen, and, whether they ever discovered it for themselves or not, several bearers of highly honored social names were shadowed by reporters and others everywhere they went for the next week. At the end of five days the reward was increased to $20,000, and then Raffles Holmes's name began to appear in connection with the case. Mrs. Burlingame herself had sent for him, and, without taking it out of the hands of others, had personally requested him to look into the matter. He had gone to Newport and looked the situation over there. He had questioned all the servants in her two establishments at Newport and New York, and had finally assured the lady that, on the following Tuesday morning, he would advise her by wire of the definite location of her missing jewel.
During all this time Holmes had not communicated with me at all, and I began to fear that, offended by my behavior at our last meeting, he had cut me out of his calculations altogether, when, just as I was about to retire on Sunday night, he reappeared as he had first come to me—stealing up the fire-escape; and this time he wore a mask, and carried unquestionably a burglar's kit and a dark lantern. He started nervously as he caught sight of me reaching up to turn off the light in the library.
"Hang it call, Jenkins!" he cried. "I thought you'd gone off to the country for the week-end."
"No," said I. "I meant to go, but I was detained. What's up?"
"Oh, well—I may as well out with it," he answered. "I didn't want you to know, but—well, watch and see."
With this Raffles Holmes strode directly to my bookcase, removed my extra- illustrated set of Fox's Book of Martyrs, in five volumes, from the shelves, and there, resting upon the shelf behind them, glittered nothing less than the missing stomacher!
"Great Heavens, Holmes!" I said, "what does this mean? How did those diamonds get there?"
"I put them there myself while you were shoving my suit-case under your bed the other night," said he.
"You told me you didn't have them," I said, reproachfully.
"I didn't when I spoke—you had them," said he.