"But how the dickens did you manage to put a crook like that on the grand- tier floor?" I demanded.
"Jenkins, what a child you are!" laughed Holmes. "How did I get him there? Why, I set him up with a box of his own, directly above the Robinson-Jones box—you can always get one for a single performance if you are willing to pay for it—and with a fair expanse of shirt-front, a claw-hammer and a crush hat almost any man who has any style to him at all these days can pass for a gentleman. All he had to do was to go to the opera-house, present his ticket, walk in and await the signal. I gave the man his music cue, and two minutes before the lights went out he sauntered down the broad staircase to the door of the Robinson-Jones box, and was ready to turn the trick. He was under cover of darkness long enough to get away with the necklace, and when the lights came back, if you had known enough to look out into the auditorium you would have seen him back there in his box above, taking in the situation as calmly as though he had himself had nothing whatever to do with it."
"And how shall you trace him?" I demanded. "Isn't that going to be a little dangerous?"
"Not if he followed out my instructions," said Holmes. "If he dropped a letter addressed to himself in his own hand-writing at his East Houston Street lair, in the little anteroom of the box, as I told him to do, we'll have all the clews we need to run him to earth."
"But suppose the police find it?" I asked.
"They won't," laughed Holmes. "They'll spend their time looking for some impecunious member of the smart set who might have done the job. They always try to find the sensational clew first, and by day after to-morrow morning four or five poor but honest members of the four-hundred will find when they read the morning papers that they are under surveillance, while I, knowing exactly what has happened will have all the start I need. I have already offered my services, and by ten o'clock to-morrow morning they will be accepted, as will also those of half a hundred other detectives, professional and amateur. At eleven I will visit the opera-house, where I expect to find the incriminating letter on the floor, or if the cleaning women have already done their work, which is very doubtful, I will find it later among the sweepings of waste paper in the cellar of the opera-house. Accompanied by two plain-clothes men from headquarters I will then proceed to Nervy's quarters, and, if he is really sincere in his desire to go to jail for a protracted period, we shall find him there giving an imitation of a gloat over his booty."
"And suppose the incriminating letter is not there?" I asked. "He may have changed his mind."
"I have arranged for that," said Holmes, with a quick, steely glance at me. "I've got a duplicate letter in my pocket now. If he didn't drop it, I will."
But Nervy Jim was honest at least in his desire for a permanent residence in an up-to-date penitentiary, for, even as the deed itself had been accomplished with a precision that was almost automatic, so did the work yet to be done go off with the nicety of a well-regulated schedule. Everything came about as Holmes had predicted, even to the action of the police in endeavoring to fasten the crime upon an inoffensive and somewhat impecunious social dangler, whose only ambition in life was to lead a cotillion well, and whose sole idea of how to get money under false pretences was to make some over-rich old maid believe that he loved her for herself alone and in his heart scorned her wealth. Even he profited by this, since he later sued the editor who printed his picture with the label "A Social Highwayman" for libel, claiming damages of $50,000, and then settled the case out of court for $15,000, spot cash. The letter was found on the floor of the box where Nervy Jim had dropped it; Holmes and his plain-clothes men paid an early visit at the East Houston Street lodging-house, and found the happy Snatcher snoring away in his cot with a smile on his face that seemed to indicate that he was dreaming he was back in a nice comfortable jail once more; and as if to make assurance doubly sure, the missing necklace hung about his swarthy neck! Short work was made of the arrest; Nervy Him, almost embarrassingly grateful, was railroaded to Sing Sing in ten days' time, for fifteen years, and Raffles Holmes had the present pleasure and personal satisfaction of restoring the lost necklace to the fair hands of Mrs. Robinson-Jones herself.
"Look at that, Jenkins!" He said, gleefully, when the thing was all over. "A check for $10,000."