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."