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.
“’Twas not much of a shop,” he said, wiping his mouth. “It’s in a little turning full of horse dung and trash. I told the proprietor that my master was looking for something nice for his lady and sent me to scout, but I didn’t mention who my master was, of course. Would have swooned if I’d told him, wouldn’t he? That someone like Mr. Grenville would even think to soil his boots in such a place would have him so agitated he wouldn’t be able to speak. So I kept quiet, and he came over quite chatty.”
“Good thinking,” I said, as Matthias paused to drink.
“What he had in the front was mostly cheap,” Matthias continued. “The sort of thing I’d expect him to show gentlemen of not much means. I said that my master was looking for something better, because he’d just become flush in cash and wanted to please his lady. Well, as soon as I said that, the proprietor came over all secretive. He shut the door of the shop and drew the curtain, and told me he had something special. Something he was keeping for customers who were obviously up in the world.”
“And did he show it to you?” Grenville asked.
“That he did, sir. He brought out a necklace. My eyes nearly popped when I saw it. Lots of stones all sparkling. Much nicer than anything in that shop. Out of place, like. I professed my doubts, saying my master wouldn’t have truck with anything stolen. Proprietor grew angry, said he’d never buy from thieves. If a highborn lady wanted to bring her necklace to a pawnbroker’s, why should he mind? He paid her a sum which near ruined him, he said, and would be glad to get it off his hands.”
I exchanged a look with Grenville. “A highborn lady,” I said. “Not her maid?”
“Highborn lady,” Matthias repeated. “I couldn’t ask him for a description, because he was already getting suspicious of me. So I thought I’d nip off and tell you.”
Grenville snatched up his gloves. “Well, if this pawnbroker is anxious to have it taken off his hands, we will oblige him. You’ve done well, Matthias. Lacey, come with me?”
I went out with him to his sumptuous carriage, and the two footmen pushed aside their ales and followed, not about to let us finish the problem without them.
When we reached Manchester Square, Grenville was set to leap down and charge into the shop, but I persuaded him to let me have a look at the necklace myself. Matthias was correct—if the grand Grenville walked into a down-at-heel pawnbroker’s, the news would fly around London and be picked up by every newspaper in the land. I, on the other hand, in my worn breeches and square-toed boots, could enter any shop I pleased without all of society falling into a swoon.
Grenville was disappointed, but he conceded that we needed to go carefully, and said he’d wait in the carriage around the corner.
I had little difficulty persuading the proprietor to show me the necklace. It was much as Lady Clifford described it—a large stone with three smaller diamonds on either side of it, all linked by a gold chain. When I’d asked Lady Clifford for more particulars, she’d looked blank, as though she could not remember anything else about it. I wondered what it must be like to have so many expensive baubles that the details of them blurred in the memory.
I played my part as an ingenuous husband, recently come into some money, wishing to ingratiate myself with my wife. The proprietor volunteered that these were the goods, from a lady, in fact. A true lady, well-spoken and well dressed, not a lackey or a tart. I suppose Matthias had made him nervous with his questions, because the proprietor was happy to tell me all.
Grenville had supplied the money with which to purchase the necklace if necessary. I paid it over and returned to the carriage with the diamonds in my pocket, the pawnbroker happy to see the necklace go.
Satisfied that we’d found it, Grenville was ready to call on Clifford and confront Annabelle Dale on the moment. I persuaded him to fix an appointment for the next day, saying I wanted to be certain of a thing or two before then.
Grenville chafed with impatience, but he’d come to trust my judgment. I gave him the necklace to lock up in his house for the night, and we parted ways.
Once Grenville was gone, Matthias with him, I told Bartholomew to fetch us a hackney, then I returned to the shop near Hanover Square. There, I talked the proprietor down to a price I could afford and took the smaller necklace home with me. Bartholomew was full of questions, but I could only tell him that I did not know the answer to them myself.
The next morning, I received a note from Grenville that fixed a visit to the Clifford house in South Audley Street for three o’clock that afternoon. Lady Breckenridge, to whom I’d written the previous day, sent me a short and formal reply, as well, also giving me leave to call on her near three.
I had Bartholomew clean and brush my coat, and I left my rooms in plenty of time to hire a hackney to Mayfair.
As I walked toward Russel Street, however, a large carriage rolled up to block the entrance to tiny Grimpen Lane, where my rooms above the bake shop lay. Grimpen Lane was a cul-de-sac, no other way out. I halted in annoyance.
I knew to whom the coach belonged, which annoyed me further. I did not at the moment want to speak to him, but I was unable to do anything but wait to see what he wanted.
A giant of a man stepped off his perch on the back of the coach and opened the door for me. He assisted me in, slamming the door as I dropped into a seat, leaving me alone to face James Denis.
Denis was a man who had his hand in most criminal pies in England, who obtained precious artworks—the ownership of which was hazy—from half-wrecked Europe, and bought and sold favors of the highest of the high. He owned MPs outright, and with a flick of his well-manicured fingers, had them manipulate the laws of England to suit him. London magistrates, with only two exceptions that I knew of, answered to him. Denis had the power to ruin many without a drop of that ruin touching him.
I thoroughly disliked what Denis was and what he did, but I was not certain how I felt about the man himself. I’d never, in the year I’d known him, gotten past his façade. He was so thoroughly cold and revealed so little of himself that anyone could reside behind that slim, rather long face and dark blue eyes. Denis was only in his thirties, and I had to wonder what on earth had happened to him in his short life that had made him what he was.
The carriage remained squarely in front of the entrance to Grimpen Lane, and I knew it would remain there until Denis had gotten from me what he wanted.
“The Clifford necklace,” he said without greeting me. “You’ve undertaken to find it.”
