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."