"The First Rule in Thievery Is Never To Trust an Accomplice"

"Never Trust a Thief!"
By Ivar Jorgensen (Robert Silverberg, born 1935).
First appearance: Imagination, February 1958.
Short short story (6 pages).
Online at Archive.org (HERE).

"He wondered idly what his partner-in-crime looked like."

Stealing's one thing; living long enough to enjoy it—that's something else . . .

Major characters:
~ The Alpherazian jailer:
  "You've stolen your last jewel, Earthman."
~ Kiley:
  "Don't stand here and gloat. I'd be free and out of here if that crazy alarm hadn't popped off."
~ Thaklaru:
  "How would you like to be free in five minutes?"
~ The Emperor:
  "Of course," he said politely. "Go right ahead."

Resources:
- The "Ivar Jorgensen" house name was used by quite a few SFF authors who have since gone on to greater recognition, one of the most prominent being Robert Silverberg; see Wikipedia (HERE), the SFE (HERE), the ISFDb (HERE), the IMDb (HERE), and the dedicated website (HERE).
- A star mentioned in the story (but misspelled) is Alpheratz (Alpha Andromedae), which, according to Wikipedia (HERE), is "located 97 light-years from the Sun and is the brightest star in the constellation of Andromeda." It has also been absorbed into the BattleTech universe (HERE).