Yet I gave little thought to either of them, I must confess. At the same time that I had seen that momentarily flashing smile I had also discovered that the jeweled clasp on the girl's neck was holding in place a single string of graduated pearls, of very lovely pearls, the kind about which the frayed-cuff garret-author and the Sunday "yellows" forever love to romance. I was also not unconscious of the quick and covert glance of the man who sat so close to me. Then I let my glance wander back to the ruby, apparently content to study its perfect cutting and its unmatchable coloring. And I knew that the man beside me was also sharing in that spectacle. I was, in fact, still staring at it, so unconscious of the movement of the play on the stage that the "dark scene," when every light in the house went out for a second or two, came to me with a distinct sense of shock. A murmur of approval went through the house as the returning light revealed to them a completely metamorphosed stage-setting. What this setting was I did not know, nor did I look up to see. For as my idly inquisitive glance once more focused itself on the columnar white neck that towered above the chair-back a second and greater shock came to me. Had that neck stood there without a head I could have been scarcely more startled. The pigeon-blood ruby was gone. There was no longer any necklace there. The column of snow was without its touch of ruddy light. It was left as disturbingly bare as a target without its bull's-eye. It reminded me of a marble grate without its central point of fire. My first definite thought was that I was the witness of a crime as audacious as it was bewildering. Yet, on second thought, it was simple enough. The problem of proximity had already been solved. With the utter darkness had come the opportunity, the opportunity that obviously had been watched for. With one movement of the hand the necklace had been quietly and cunningly removed. My next quick thought was that the thief sat there in my immediate neighborhood. There could be no other. There was no room for doubt. By some mysterious and dextrous movement the man beside me had reached forward and with that delicacy of touch doubtless born of much experience had unclasped the jewels, all the time shrouded by the utter darkness. The audacity of the thing was astounding, yet the completeness with which it had succeeded was even more astounding. I sat there compelling myself to a calmness which was not easy to achieve. I struggled to make my scrutiny of this strange companion of mine as quiet and leisured as possible.