"The public excitement," he said to himself, not without a small touch of pride, "has as yet scarcely cooled down from the robbery of the famous Wiltshire jewels. Lord Orpington has not as yet discovered the whereabouts of the gold and silver plate which disappeared from his house so mysteriously a week or two ago, while several other people have done their best to catch a gang of burglars who would seem to have set all London at defiance. But if I bring off this new coup, they’ll forget all their grievances in consideration of the latest and greatest scandal. There’ll be scarcely a man in England who won’t have something to say upon the subject. By the way, let me see how he stands in the betting to-night." He took a paper from the table in the window, and glanced down the sporting column. Vulcanite was evidently the public’s choice, Knight of Malta being the only second favorite, with The Mandarin a strong third. "What a hubbub there will be when it becomes known," said Carne, as he placed the paper on the table again. "I shall have to take especial care, or some of the storm may blow back on me. I fancy I can hear the newsboys shouting: ’Latest news of the turf scandal. The Derby favorite stolen. Vulcanite missing. An attempt made to get at Knight of Malta.’ Why, it will be twenty years before old England will forget the sensation I am about to give her." With a grim chuckle at the idea, he went upstairs to his dressing-room and locked the door. It must have been well after nine o’clock when he emerged again, and clad in a long ulster, left the house in his private hansom. Passing down Park Lane he drove along Piccadilly, then by way of the Haymarket, Strand, Ludgate Hill, and Fenchurch Street to the Whitechapel Road. Reaching the corner of Leman Street he signalled to his man to stop, and jumped out. His appearance was now entirely changed. Instead of the deformed, scholar-like figure he usually presented, he now resembled a commonplace, farmerish individual, with iron-grey hair, a somewhat crafty face, ornamented with bushy eyebrows and a quantity of fluffy whiskers. How he had managed it as he drove along goodness only knows, but that he had effected the change was certain. Having watched his cab drive away, he strolled along the street until he arrived at a building, the flaring lights of which proclaimed it the Seven Stars Music Hall. He paid his money at the box office, and then walked inside to find a fair-sized building, upon the floor of which were placed possibly a hundred small tables. On the stage at the further end a young lady, boasting of a minimum of clothing and a maximum of self-assurance was explaining, to the dashing accompaniment of the orchestra, the adventures she had experienced "When Billy and me was courting."