, Holmes--do you mean to say that Gaffany & Co. permit you to
go about with things like this in your pocket?" I demanded.

"Not they," laughed Holmes. "They'd have a fit if they knew I had 'em, only
they don't know it."

"But how have you concealed the fact from them?" I persisted.

"Robinstein made me a pair exactly like them," said Holmes. "The paste ones
are now lying in the Gaffany safe, where I saw them placed before leaving
the shop to-night."

"You're too deep for me, Holmes," said I. "What's the game?"

"Now don't say game, Jenkins," he protested. "I never indulge in games. My
quarry is not a game, but a scheme. For the past two weeks, with three days
off, I have been acting as a workman in the Gaffany ship, with the
ostensible purpose of keeping my eye on certain employes who are under
suspicion. Each day the remaining two pendant-stones--these--have been
handed to me to work on, merely to carry out the illusion. The first day, in
odd moments, I made sketches of them, and on the night of the second I had
'em down in such detail as to cut and color, that Robinstein had no
difficulty in reproducing them in the materials at his disposal in Markoo's
shop. And to-night all I had to do to get them was to keep them and hand in
the Robinstein substitutes when the hour of closing came."

"So that now, in place of four $50,000 diamonds, Gaffany & Co. are in
possession of--"

"Two paste pendants, worth about $40 apiece," said Holmes. "If I fail to
find the originals I shall have to use the paste ones to carry the scheme
through, but I hate to do it. It's so confoundly inartistic and as old a
trick as the pyramids."

"And to-morrow--"

Raffles Holmes got up and paced the floor nervously.

"Ah, Jenkins," he said, with a heart-rending sigh, "that is the point. To-
morrow! Heavens! what will to-morrow's story be? I--I cannot tell."

"What's the matter, Holmes?" said. "Are you in danger?"

"Physically, no--morally, my God! Jenkins, yes. I shall need all of your
help," he cried.

"What can I do?" I asked. "You know you have only to command me."

"Don't leave me this night for a minute," he groaned. "If you do, I am lost.
The Raffles in me is rampant when I look at those jewels and think of what
they will mean if I keep them. An independent fortune forever. All I have to
do is to get aboard a ship and go to Japan and live in comfort the rest of
my days with the wealth in my possession, and all the instincts of hon