I set the miniature beast back on its shelf. Lady Clifford might be wrong that the solution was simple, but she was in genuine distress. The fact that some of this distress was pity for her poor maid made up my mind.

Lady Clifford sniffled again into the abused handkerchief. "Mr. Grenville said I could rely on you utterly."

The little baboon smiled at me, knowing I was caught. "Very well, my lady," I said. "I will see what I can do."

"I did not exactly say that," Grenville protested.

I eyed him from the opposite seat in his splendid carriage. I had awakened with the very devil of a headache, but I felt slightly better this afternoon, thanks to the concoction that my landlady, Mrs. Beltan, had stirred for me upon seeing my state. Grenville had arrived at my rooms not long later, and now we rolled across London in pursuit of the truth.

In his suit of finest cashmere and expensive kid gloves, Grenville's slim form was a tailor's delight. I bought my clothes secondhand, though I had a coat from Grenville's tailor that he'd insisted on gifting to me when my best coat had been ruined on one of our adventures.

I said, "Lady Clifford strikes me as a woman who so much wishes a thing to be true, that it is true. To her. But this does not mean she is mistaken. If the maid did not steal the necklace, I have no wish to see her hang."

"Nor do I," Grenville said. "Her predicament played on my sympathy. Lady Clifford might have exploited that, but I sensed she genuinely cares for poor Waters." He gazed out at the tall houses of Piccadilly then back at me, a sparkle in his eyes I'd not seen since before he'd been injured. "So, my friend, we are off on another adventure. Where do we begin?"

"I should speak to Pomeroy," I said.

I imagined my old sergeant's dismay when I turned up to muck about in what he'd believed a straightforward arrest. "And I'd like to speak to the maid Waters if I can. And we can try to discover what became of the necklace-whether anyone purchased it, and from where, and trace backward from there, perhaps to the culprit."