“You had better be quite firm about it.”

“Oh, I will.”

They were not getting along very fast, but time didn’t seem to matter any more. They talked about the letters, and all the nice ones got such warm answers that Marigold’s stock went up appreciably.

When they were nearly through, Sally suddenly stopped typing and said,

“Did you say that man’s name was Bellingdon?”

He nodded.

“Lucius Bellingdon. Why?”

“Because I was at school with his daughter. And I’ve just remembered there was something about him in the paper-no, it wasn’t a paper, it was a magazine-an article about who had the most valuable jewels-you know the kind of thing. And it said he had given his wife a most wonderful necklace which is either supposed to be the one Marie Antoinette had and there was all that fuss about it because she didn’t really order it, or else it’s a copy which was made when the original was broken up.”

David produced a frown.

“I haven’t the slightest idea what you are talking about.”

“Nonsense-you must have! Everyone knows about the Affair of the Diamond Necklace. It was one of the things that brought on the French Revolution, and I don’t remember all the ins and outs about it, but it was part of a plot by a woman called Lamotte to get hold of a lot of valuable diamonds which the King’s jeweller had tried to sell him to make a necklace for the Queen, only she wouldn’t let him and said much better spend the money on a battleship. And I really do think it’s a shame that everyone remembers the silly story about her saying if the people hadn’t got enough bread to eat why didn’t they eat cake, but practically no one remembers about the battleship. Anyhow, when she wouldn’t have the necklace, the Lamotte woman persuaded Cardinal Rohan that the Queen had changed her mind, and that she really wanted it.