He did not ask a question. That he already knew about my involvement did not surprise me. He paid people in my neighborhood to watch me and report to him everything I did.
I saw no benefit in lying. “I have. What is your interest?”
“Let us say I have had my eye on the piece. I would very much like to be informed when you have found it.”
“Why?” I asked, curious in spite of myself. “It is a Mayfair lady’s necklace. Expensive, yes, but hardly in your league.”
His expression did not change. “Nevertheless, report to me when you have found it. Better still, bring it to me.”
I regarded him as coolly as he regarded me. “I know you find this repeated declaration tedious, but I do not work for you. Nor do I ever intend to work for you. Lady Clifford asked me to discover what has become of her necklace, and that is what I will do.”
Denis did not like the answerno. He’d been known to punish—thoroughly and finally—those who told him no too often. But I could not say anything else. I had pledged myself to Lady Clifford, and that was that.
“I did not say I would not allow you to return the diamonds to Lady Clifford,” Denis said. “I want to examine the necklace myself first, is all.”
“Why?”
“That, Captain, is my business.”
Meaning I’d never drag the reason out of him, no matter how much I tried. “What is special about this necklace?” I asked instead. “You betray yourself with too much interest.”
Denis tapped his walking stick on the roof and almost instantly, the pugilist footman wrenched open the door. “That I can determine only when I hold it in my hands. Good day, Captain.”
The footman helped me climb to the ground. Denis turned to look out the opposite window as the footman closed the door again, finished with me.
I was happy to go, but he’d started me wondering. Denis did not involve himself in anything that did not bring him great profit. A missing lady’s necklace should be, as I’d told him, far below his notice. I would have to find out.
The carriage rolled on, unblocking the lane, and I continued on my way to the hackney stand.
Once I reached Grenville’s house in Grosvenor Street, we rode in his carriage to our appointment with Lord Clifford.
Lord Clifford’s study, where he received us, was crammed with books up to its high ceiling, the tall windows letting in light. I saw no dust anywhere, but the place smelled musty, as though damp had gotten into the books.
Lord Clifford was a tall man with a bull-like neck and small eyes. He wore clothes that rivaled Grenville’s for elegance, but he looked more like a farmer in his landlord’s clothes than a gentleman of Mayfair.
“Lot of nonsense,” Clifford said to us after Grenville introduced me and told him our purpose. “Waters never took the blasted necklace. I told the magistrate so, and he released her. She is home, safe and sound, back below stairs, where she belongs.”
Chapter Four
Grenville and I stared at him, dumbfounded.
“You made your inquiries for nothing, gentlemen,” Lord Clifford said. “All I had to do was have words with the magistrate. If my wife hadn’t gone ranting to all and sundry that the necklace had been stolen, her maid would not have been arrested at all. Serves her right for not leaving me to deal with it. Some housebreaker took it, must have done. The Runner had it all wrong.”
“I would not say our inquiries were for nothing,” I began.
Clifford gave me a look that told me I should not speak before my betters. “Of course they were. I told you. The bloody thing’s probably on the Continent by now. Long gone.”
“What the captain means is that we may have found your necklace,” Grenville said. He removed a box from his pocket and opened it to reveal the necklace Matthias had run to ground yesterday.
The earl stared at it. “Who the devil gave you this?”
“I purchased it from a pawnbroker near Manchester Square,” Grenville answered.
Clifford studied the diamonds a moment, then he snorted. “Well, he played you false, then. This is not my wife’s necklace.”
Grenville blinked, but for some reason, I felt no surprise.
“Are you certain?” Grenville asked.
