ose 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.