Anton did not like us to talk about business while we dined, especially when he was in a creative mood, so I endured the lobster brioche, asparagus soup, squabs stuffed with mushrooms, and a large and tender sole drowning in butter to please him. After each dish, the chef hovered at Grenville's elbow to wait for his precise opinion and hear what might be improved.

To me it was all ambrosia, but Grenville thoughtfully tasted each dish then critiqued its texture, flavor, piquancy, and presentation. I simply ate, while Bartholomew and Matthias, Grenville's two large, Teutonic-looking footman, kept our glasses topped with finest hock. Being Grenville's friend had decided advantages.

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.