make short work of the search. And while they put lists together, you and I shall take a repast. Anton is experimenting again, and I need someone to help me eat his creations. If he continues on this bent, I shall grow too stout for my clothes, and my reputation will be at an end.'
The troubles of the very rich, I thought dryly. Not that I would refuse a lavish meal prepared by Anton, Grenville's French chef. My pride ran only so deep.
Chapter Three
Anton did not like us to talk about business while we dined, especially when he was in a creative mood, so I endured the lobster brioche, asparagus soup, squabs stuffed with mushrooms, and a large and tender sole drowning in butter to please him. After each dish, the chef hovered at Grenville's elbow to wait for his precise opinion and hear what might be improved.
To me it was all ambrosia, but Grenville thoughtfully tasted each dish then critiqued its texture, flavor, piquancy, and presentation. I simply ate, while Bartholomew and Matthias, Grenville's two large, Teutonic-looking footman, kept our glasses topped with finest hock. Being Grenville's friend had decided advantages.
Once the final dish-a chocolate soup-had been taken away, Grenville bade Matthias bring out the map of London. Mathias laid out the leaves of it on the table, and the four of us bent over it. I was always fascinated by maps and resisted tracing the route to my own street, Grimpen Lane, off Russel Street near Covent Garden.
I tapped the area that showed Bond Street, Hanover Square, Oxford Street, and north and east up into Marylebone. The necklace had been stolen from the Clifford house in Mayfair. The areas I'd indicated could be reached fairly quickly from there and were rife with small shops and pawnbrokers, though those in Bond Street were less likely to purchase a strand of diamonds tossed at them by a serving maid or known thief. But one never knew. A Bond Street merchant had only last year been arrested for selling stolen goods brought over from France and Italy.
Bartholomew and Matthias turned eager eyes to me as they received their assignments. The brothers enjoyed helping investigate these little problems, and I often envied them their exuberance. Bartholomew had become my valet-cum-errand runner in order to train himself to be a gentleman's gentleman, but while he now held himself above other footmen, including his own brother, he'd never forgo the chance to help on one of my inquiries.
Grenville provided the shillings for hackneys to each of us, and we went our separate ways, agreeing to meet at a coffee house in Pall Mall that evening.
Grenville had been given the Bond Street area, because the proprietors there knew him well. Grenville was a Bond Street shop owner's greatest treasure. Not only did he have exquisite taste, but he paid his bills.
Matthias and Bartholomew hastened north toward Marylebone, and I turned to Conduit Street and Hanover Square.
I found that pawnbrokers were less willing to speak to me unless I made the pretense of wanting to purchase something. Questions were not welcome, and clients kept in confidence.
I let them infer that I shopped for a gift for a friend and had difficulty choosing. The proprietors thawed a bit as I looked over bracelets that had once adorned the wrists of debutants and earrings pawned by wealthy matrons. That the jewelry now lay in trays for me to pick over meant that they'd been sold to pay off the ladies' gaming debts. In a world in which highborn women had little to do but gamble and gossip, ruin lay very close to the surface.
I found earrings encrusted with tiny diamonds, emerald brooches, and strands of sleek pearls. One shop carried a comb made of ebony with a sprinkling of sapphires that made me imagine it against Lady Breckenridge's dark hair. I eyed it regretfully and longed to be deeper in pocket than I was.
Nowhere did I spy a strand diamonds that matched the description Lady Clifford had given me.
North of St. George's, just off Hanover Square, I found a possible candidate in a dark and dusty little shop. When I professed to the short, gray-haired proprietor with a protruding belly that I was looking for just the right string of diamonds for my lady, he admitted to recently having purchased such a thing. I tried not to hope too much as he fetched it from the back room and laid it out for me on the counter that it was the necklace I sought.
The diamonds lay against a black velvet cloth like stars against the night. The necklace winked even in the dim light, brilliance in the drab shop.
'Beautiful,' I said.
'At a fair price. Fifty guineas.'
Too dear for me, but far too low for Lady Clifford's diamonds. Her husband had valued them at three thousand guineas, Lady Clifford had told me. Even if the proprietor suspected the necklace to be stolen, he'd likely try for a higher price than fifty.
'Who would part with such a lovely thing?' I asked him.
'A lady down on her luck. What lady, I did not ask. A servant brought it, a respectable-looking lady's maid. Sad, she was. It was a wrench for her mistress to let the necklace go, she said, but she had debts to pay. It happens, sir. The way of the world.'
My heart beat faster. 'An unhappy tale,' I said.
The pawnbroker nodded. 'Pretty little thing, the maid. Probably worried she'd lose her place if the mistress had pockets to let. Felt sorry for her. Gave her more than I should have by rights.'
I decided to approach the thing head on. I looked the proprietor in the eye. 'You must have heard that Countess Clifford had a diamond necklace stolen. Her lady's maid was arrested for the deed. Can you be certain that the lady's maid who brought this in was not the thief in question?'
The man did not blink. 'I read the newspaper account, of course. But these are not Lady Clifford's diamonds, sir. I saw her ladyship's necklace once, and I'd not forget a piece like that. The Clifford necklace was set in Paris and is much larger, the diamonds more numerous. And see here.' He lifted the strand and pointed to one of the stones. 'Cut is not quite exact, is it?'
I peered at it. The diamond, as beautiful as it was, had been cut slightly askew, the facets not straight.
'Lady Clifford's would be of higher quality, that is a fact,' the proprietor said. 'This bauble was intended for lesser gentry; possibly a country squire had it made for his wife. This would never be fobbed off on Earl Clifford. And I assure you, sir, were someone to bring me Lady Clifford's necklace, I would send word to a magistrate at once.'
He said this with a virtuous air. I could not be certain whether he truly would send for a magistrate, but I saw no guilt in his eyes, no nervousness of a man who had stolen goods hidden behind his counter. If he were a very good criminal, of course, he would have mastered hiding his complicity, but short of forcing him at sword point to prove he did not have the necklace, there was not much I could do.
I thanked the man and left his shop, which was the last on my list. I took a hackney to Pall Mall, rather short of information.
I found Grenville already there. He bade the host bring us both a cup of rich, almost chocolaty, coffee while we waited for the footmen.
Grenville had found out little himself. The Bond Street proprietors had opened up to him, had readily talked of Lady Clifford's necklace, which was beautiful, they said, but they had no idea what had become of it.
'The task is a bit more difficult than I expected,' Grenville said glumly. 'The thing might already be cut up and in Paris.'
I had to agree. When Bartholomew and Matthias arrived, however, the blond, blue-eyed brothers were pink- faced and grinning.
'Matthias has got it, sir,' Bartholomew said. He dragged a straight-backed chair from another table and straddled it back to front. 'Clear as day. In a pawnbroker's near Manchester Square. One large diamond necklace, brought in not three afternoons ago.'
Grenville leaned forward, excited, but I tried to keep my skepticism in place. Though I hoped we'd found an easy end to the problem, I had learned from experience that solutions did not come so readily.
We had to wait until the publican had thunked down two glasses of good, dark ale for the brothers and retreated. Matthias and Bartholomew both drank deeply, thirsty from their search, then Matthias began.
