and Yard was "done!"

III

Through all the night its best men sought him, its dragnets fished for
him, its tentacles groped into every hole and corner of London in quest
of him, but sought and fished and groped in vain. They might as well
have hoped to find last summer's partridges or last winter's snow as any
trace of him. He had vanished as mysteriously as he had appeared, and no
royal jewels graced the display of Miss Wyvern's wedding gifts on the
morrow.

But it was fruitful of other "gifts," fruitful of an even greater
surprise, that "morrow." For the first time since the day he had given
his promise, no "souvenir" from "The Man Who Called Himself Hamilton
Cleek," no part of last night's loot came to Scotland Yard; and it was
while the evening papers were making screaming "copy" and glaring
headlines out of this that the surprise in question came to pass.

Miss Wyvern's wedding was over, the day and the bride had gone, and it
was half-past ten at night, when Sir Horace, answering a hurry call from
headquarters, drove post haste to Superintendent Narkom's private room,
and passing in under a red and green lamp which burned over the doorway,
entered and met that "surprise."

Maverick Narkom was there alone, standing beside his desk, with the
curtains of his window drawn and pinned together, and at his elbow an
unlighted lamp of violet-coloured glass, standing and looking
thoughtfully down at something which lay before him. He turned as his
visitor entered and made an open-handed gesture toward it.

"Look here," he said laconically, "what do you think of this?"

Sir Horace moved forward and looked; then stopped and gave a sort of
wondering cry. The electric bulbs overhead struck a glare of light down
on the surface of the desk, and there, spread out on the shining oak,
lay a part of the royal jewels that had been stolen from Wyvern House
last night.

"Narkom! You got him, then--got him after all?"

"No, I did not get him. I doubt if any man could, if he chose not to be
found," said Narkom bitterly. "I did not recover these jewels by any act
of my own. He sent them to me; gave them up voluntarily."

"Gave them up? After he had risked so much to get them? God bless my
soul, what a man! Why, there must be quite half here of what he took."

"There is half--an even half. He sent them to-night, and with them this
letter. Look at it, and you will understand why I sent for you and asked
you to come alone.