The Necklace Affair (Captain Lacey Regency Mysteries #4.5)

by Ashley Gardner

  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.

  "'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 facade. 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."

  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 answer no. 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.

  "Of course I am certain. I gave her the damned thing, didn't I? My diamonds were of much finer quality and more numerous, the smaller stones surrounded by even smaller ones. I've never seen this necklace before."

  I dipped into my pocket and removed the strand I'd persuaded the proprietor off Hanover Square to sell me last evening. "What about this one?"

  Grenville shot me a look as Lord Clifford examined the stones. "Yes, this belongs to my wife. But it is not the necklace that was stolen. She's had this since before we married. Bit of trash." He tossed the necklace onto a satinwood table and did not ask me where I'd obtained it. "Someone has played you for a fool, Grenville. Probably my wife. She is eaten up with jealousy. Her maid never stole the necklace, and neither did Mrs. Dale, as much as she's putting that story about."