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Some scorn opera as unrealistic. Large licentious ladies, posturing villains, concealed weapons, loud noises, suicides, thefts, betrayals, elongated ululations, explosions, goblets of poison and the curtain falling on a pile of corpses. Well, throw in a bag of tigers, and that's my life. If I want treachery, bloodshed and screaming women, I can get enough at home, thank you very much.

I dislike opera because it's Italian. The eye-tyes are the lowest breed of white man, a bargain-priced imitation of the French. All hair oil and smiling and back-stabbing and cowardice, left out in the sun too long. I have a soft spot for Don Giovanni though.

This brouhaha of the Jewels of the Madonna of Naples was deeply Italian, and thoroughly operatic. The recitative was too convoluted to follow without music.

The gist: a succession of mugs across Europe got hold of the loot first lifted by Gennaro the Blacksmith, also known as Gennaro the Damned and Gennaro the Dead. The Camorra — a merciless, implacable brotherhood — was sworn to kill anyone who dared acquire the treasure, but no fool thought to return the loot and apologise. They all tried for a quick sale and a getaway, or thought to hide the valuables until 'the heat died down'. Under the jewels' spell, they forgot about the only institution ever to combine the adjectives 'efficient' and 'Italian'. The Camorra carries feuds to the fifth generation; there's little to no likelihood of anyone or their great-grandchildren profiting from Gennaro's impetuous theft.

As mentioned, the latest idiot to acquire the Jewels was Giovanni Lombardo, a propmaker for the Royal Opera. He'd received the package from an equally addled cousin, who expired from strychnine poisoning at a Drury Lane pie stall a few hours later. Lombardo had been victim of a singular, fatal assault in his Islington carpenter's shop. His head chanced to be trapped in a vice. Several holes were drilled in his brain-pan. A bloodied brace and bit was found in the nearby sawdust.

An editorial in the Harmsworth Press cited this crime as sorry proof of the deleterious effects of gory sensationalism paraded nightly in Italian on the stage, instead of daily in English in the newspapers as was right and proper. That Faust was sung in French didn't trouble the commentator. Generally, the French are to be condemned for license and libertinism and the Italians for violence and cowardice. When foreigners copy each other's vices, it confuses the English, so it's best to ignore the facts and print the prejudice.

The Harmsworth theory, which Scotland Yard was supposedly 'taking seriously', painted the culprit as a demented habitué of the opera, sensibilities eroded by addiction to tales of multiple murder and outrageous horror. No longer satisfied with the bladders of pig's blood burst when a tenor was stabbed or the papier maché heads which rolled when an ingénue was guillotined, this notional fiend had become entirely deranged. He doubtless intended to recreate gruesome moments from favourite operas with passing innocents cast in the roles of corpses-to-be. No one was safe!

This afternoon, a gaggle of ladies loitered outside the Royal Opera House with banners. One pinned a 'suppress this nasty foreign muck' badge on my lapel. I assured the harridan I'd sooner send my children up chimneys than expose their tender ears to the corrupting wailing of the so-called entertainment perpetrated inside this very building. If there were still profit in selling brats as sweeps, I'd be up for it. Only the mothers of my numberless darling babes, mostly dark-skinned and resident in far corners of the Empire, would insist on their cut of the purse and render such child-vendage scarcely worth the effort.

While chatting with the anti-opera protester, I cast a casual eye about Covent Garden. No more suspicious, olive-skinned loiterers than usual. Which is to say anyone in sight could — and perhaps would — turn out to be a Camorra assassin. One or two of the protesting ladies wore suspicious veils.

Lombardo's wounds consisted of two medium-sized holes, one small (almost tentative) hole and one large (ultimately fatal) hole. He had kept the secret of the jewels until that third hole was started. Then, the final hole was made to shut him up. All very Italian.

Lombardo had asked around London fences for prices on individual stones, so the spider in the centre of his web heard of it. Moriarty also knew the carpenter had been commissioned to provide props for the current production, and saw at once where the loot was hidden. In act three of Faust, Marguerite, the stupid bint who passes for a leading lady, piles on a collection of tat gifted her by the demon Méphistophélès and regards herself in a mirror. She gives vent to the 'Jewel Song' ('Ah! Je ris de me voir si belle en ce miroir!'), an aria which sets my teeth on edge even when sung in tune (which is seldom). It's about how much lovelier she looks when plastered with priceless gems.

Thanks to Moriarty's learned insight, we knew about the jewels. Thanks to strategic cranial drilling, Don Rafaele knew about the jewels. The Camorra could have saved some elbow-work if they'd read Edgar Allan Poe's The Purloined Letter. The only person in the case — I dismiss Scotland Yard, of course — who didn't know about the jewels was Carlotta Castafiore, the young, substantial diva enjoying a triumphant run in the role of Marguerite.

When the Milanese Nightingale performs the 'Jewel Song', the unkind have been known to venture she would look lovelier still with a potato sack over her head. However, la Castafiore had a devoted clique of ferocious admirers. I knew the type: several of Mrs Halifax's regulars couldn't get enough of the Welsh trollop known as Tessie the Two-Ton Taff.

As I entered the foyer of the Opera House, I thought the banshee associated with the Eye of Balor had pursued me. A wailing resounded throughout the building.

Then I recognised the racket as that bloody 'Jewel Song'.

A commissionaire was worried about a chandelier, which was vibrating and clinking. A small, crying boy was led out of the auditorium by an angry mama and a relieved papa. I swear they were bleeding at the ears. In the garden, dogs howled in sympathy. The silver plugs in my teeth hurt.

Vokins, the Professor's useful man at the opera, awaited me. Not an especially inspiring specimen: all pockmarks, bowler hat and whining wheedle. His duties, mostly, were to fuss around the petticoats of chorus girls who no longer believed they'd be whisked off and married by a baronet — usually, being whisked off and something elsed by a baronet put paid to that illusion — or could rise to leading roles by virtue of their voices. Alternative methods of employment were always available to such. A modicum of acting ability came in handy when seeming to be delighted at the prospect of an evening — or ten expensive minutes — with Mrs Halifax's more peculiar customers. Vokins, officially an usher, also scouted out the nobs in the boxes and passed on gossip… 'All part of the great mosaic of life in the capital,' Moriarty was wont to say.

First off, I asked if there'd been any break-ins or petty thefts lately.

'No more'n usual, Colonel,' he replied. 'None who didn't tithe to the Firm, at any rate.'

'Seen any remarkable Italians?'

'Don't see nothing else. The diva has a platoon of 'em. Dressers and puffers and the like.'

'Anyone very recently?'

'We've a 'ole new set o' scene-shifters today. The usual lot 'oo come with the company didn't turn up this morning. Took sick at an ice cream parlour, after hours. All of 'em, to a man 'ad cousins ready to step in. Seventeen of 'em. Now you mentions it, they are a remarkable bunch, for eye-talians. Oh, you can't mistake 'em for anythin' else, Colonel. To look at 'em, they're eye-tye through and through. Waxy 'taches, brown complexions, glittery eyes, tight trews, black 'air.

'But there's a funny thing, a singular thing — they don't squabble. Never met an eye-tye 'oo didn't spend all the hours o' the day shoutin' at any other eye-tye within earshot. Most productions, scene-shifters come to blows five or six times a performance. Someone storms out or back in. Elbow in the eye, knee in the crotch, a lot o' monkey-jabber with spitting and hand gestures 'oose meanin' can't be mistook.

'There's been woundin', cripplin', even, all over 'oo gets to pick up which old helmet. But this lot, the substitute shifters, work like clockwork. Don't say anythin' much. Just get the job done. No arguments. Management's in 'eaven. They wants to sack the no-shows, and keep this mob on permanent.'

So, the Camorra were already in the house.

They couldn't have the jewels yet, because the song was still going on, and it would last a while longer. The Castafiore clique would call at least two encores. The rest of the house might be impatient to get on with the story — especially the bit in act five where Marguerite is hanged — but the diva would milk her signature tune for all it was worth.

I peeped through the main doors. Marguerite's jewels sparkled in the limelight and her mirror kept flashing.

'When she goes offstage, what happens to her props?' I asked Vokins.

'A dresser takes the jewels and the mirror off her. 'Attie 'Awkins. She's took ill, too; must be somethin' goin' round. But 'er sister turned up with the others. Not what you'd expect, either. Funny that a yellow-'aired Stepney bit called 'Awkins 'as a sister called Malilella who's dark as a gypsy. I made 'umble introductions and proffered my card, enquiring as to whether she'd be interested in a fresh line of work. This Malilella whipped out one o' them stiletters and near stuck me Adam's apple. You can still see the mark where she pricked.' He pulled back his collar to show me a red welt. 'She's in the wings, waiting for the jewels.'

I saw where the snatch would be made. There was no time to be lost.

'Vokins, round up whoever you can bribe, and get 'em in the hall. I need you to reinforce the Castafiore clique. I must have as many reprises as you can get out of her — keep the "Jewel Song" going!'

'You want to 'ear it again?'

'It's my favourite ditty,' I lied. 'I want to hear it for twenty minutes or more.'

Enough time to get round to the wings, minding out for the girl with the stiletto and her seventeen swarthy comrades.

'No accountin' for taste,' Vokins said. I gave him a handful of sovereigns and he rushed about recruiting. Confectionary stalls went unmanned and mop buckets unattended as Vokins lured their proprietors into an augmented clique.

Carlotta Castafiore, up to her ankles in flowers tossed by admirers, paused to take a bow after concluding her aria for the third time. Even she looked startled when the crowd swelled with cries of 'Encore, encore!' Never one to disappoint her public, she took a deep breath and launched into it once again.

'Ah! Je ris de me voir si belle en ce miroir…'

Groans from less partisan members of the audience were drowned out, though more than a few programs were shredded or opera glasses snapped in two.

This is where the Moran quick-thinking came into it.

The situation was simple: upon her exit, the diva would surrender the Jewels of the Madonna without knowing they were real. The valued new staff of the Royal Opera House would quit en masse.

So, why hadn't the jewels been lifted before the performance? Well, if Don Rafaele Corbucci held one thing almost as sacred as the Virgin Mary, it was opera. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see the jewel scene performed with real jewels was an overwhelming temptation. He would be in one of the boxes, enjoying the show before fulfilling his obligation to avenge the indignity perpetrated by Gennaro. I hoped his brains had been boiled by la Castafiore's sustained high notes, for I needed him distracted.

Once the jewels were offstage, they were lost to me.

So, what to do?

Simple. I would have to seize them before they made their exit.

By a side door, I went backstage. In a hurry, I picked up items as I found them on racks in dressing rooms. When I told the story later, I claimed to have donned complete costume and make-up for the role of Méphistophélès. Actually, I made do with a red cloak, a cowl with horns and a half-facemask with a Cyrano nose.

I noticed several of the new scene-shifters, paying attention to the noise and the stage and therefore not much interested in me. I found myself in the wings just as la Castafiore, whose prodigious throat must be in danger of cracking, was chivvied into an unwise, record-setting seventh encore.

A little man with spikes of hair banged his fists against the wall and rent his shirt in red-faced fury, screeching 'Get that sow off my stage!' in Italian. Carlo Jonsi, the producer, had little hope his pleas would, like Henry II's offhand thoughts about a troublesome priest, be acted on by skilled assassins. Though, as it happened, the house was packed with skilled assassins.

The dresser's supposed sister Malilella — she of the stiletto — was waiting impatiently for her moment. I wouldn't have put it past her to fling her blade with the next jetsam of floral tributes and accidentally stick the star through one prodigious lung.

'Can't someone end this?' Maestro Jonsi shouted, in despair.

'I'll give it a try,' I volunteered, and made my entrance.

To give her credit, the Camorrista sister was swift to catch on. And her knife was accurately thrown, only to stick into a scenery flat I happened to jostle in passing. I boomed out the Barrack Room lyrics to 'Abdul Abulbul Amir', lowering my voice to deep bass and drawing out phrases so no one could possibly make out the words or even the language.

Marguerite was astonished at this demonic apparition.

Most of the audience, who knew the opera by heart, were surprised at the sudden reappearance of Méphistophélès but, after eight renditions of the 'Jewel Song', were happy to accept whatever came next, just so long as it wasn't a ninth.

'Those joooo-oooo-wels you muuuuu-ust give baaaa-ack,' I demanded. 'Your beau-uuuuu-ty needs no suuuu-ch adorn-meeee-ent!'

I picked up the prop casket in which the jewels had been presented and pointed into it.

With encouragement from Vokins' clique, who chanted 'Take them off!' in time to the desperately vamping orchestra, Carlotta Castafiore removed the necklaces and bracelets and dropped them into the casket.

I was aware of commotion offstage. A couple of scene-shifters tried to rush the stage but were held back by non-Italians.

As the last bright jewel clinked into the casket, I looked at the woman in the wings. Malilella drew her thumb across her throat and pointed at me. I had added to my store of curses. Again.

There were Camorra in the wings. Both sides.

So I made my exit across the orchestra pit, striding on the backs of chairs, displacing musicians, knocking over instruments. I didn't realise until I was among the audience that I had trailed my cloak across the limelights and was on fire.

I paused and the whole audience stood to give me a round of applause.

Clapping thundered throughout the auditorium. Which is why I didn't hear the shots. When I saw holes appear in a double bass, I knew Don Rafaele was displeased with this diversion from the libretto.

I shucked my burning cloak and dashed straight up the centre aisle, out through the foyer — barging past a couple of scene-shifters on sheer momentum — and out into Covent Garden, where Chop awaited with the cab.

I tossed my mask and cowl out of the carriage as it rattled away.

Cradling the jewel casket in my lap, I began to laugh. The sort of laugh you give out because otherwise you'd have to scream and scream.

That is how I made my debut at the Royal Opera.