Chapter Twenty #3
Mickey felt like punching something. Ashington was right; they were getting nowhere, and certainly no closer to freeing Valentin.
All the returned parure had achieved was complicate things even more.
If it turned out to be fake, would that help Valentin’s cause?
Who knew? But if they were going to explore new avenues, as Rossingley had promised, then it might be a good place to start.
Despite feeling like a last chance, Mickey sensed they were close to something.
He was sure of it. Things were unravelling; there was more to the parure, the shooting, Valentin, the whole business.
If only they could bloody fathom what it was.
Ashington paced to the window as the other men sat down again.
Idly, Kit picked up the scandal sheet, the same one Rossingley had perused with Valentin’s impending trial splashed across its pages.
They’d all passed it around at some point; Mickey’s tortured mind had tried to focus on a story about the wonders of visiting Herculaneum squeezed between a row of notices about a concert at Hanover Square Rooms, a choral evening to be held at St George’s in Mayfair, and a scientific lecture at the Royal Society, featuring a world-renowned mineralogist…
“Pass me the paper, Kit,” he demanded. A faint sliver of hope stirred in his chest. “I’ve an idea.”
He riffled through it until he found the page.
“Sir George Shippam is still in town. That famous mineralogist staying at White’s.
He’d know if the parure was real, wouldn’t he?
” Mickey held up the newspaper, tapping the page.
“Look! His last lecture was at four today. Remember, Tommy? Back when we were pontificating on having a gentleman thief in our midst? You asked me to find out if there were any new faces at White’s.
He was the first of the three—travelled from Cambridgeshire.
We dismissed him as our culprit immediately. ”
“That means he’ll be rooming at White’s until early tomorrow.” Tommy nodded rapidly. “You described him as a hermit, didn’t you, Rossingley?”
“His companion of choice is absolute silence,” Rossingley pronounced. “Unless he’s radically changed since I last saw him.”
“Which means he won’t talk.” Fitzsimmons sat straighter. “If that was his last lecture, then I’ll warrant he’ll be setting out to return to the provinces at first light tomorrow anyhow.”
“Then there is no time to lose.” Ashington strode back to the fireplace and rang the bell firmly. “We need him here now. Hawkins can send a carriage for him.”
*
SIR GEORGE SHIPPAM surveyed Ashington’s fine study and the well-dressed group of gentlemen within, then blinked several times, like a mole.
His black cravat clung desperately to his throat, askew, giving him the look of someone who cared not a jot about dress.
His wild hair stood up in tufts, and his whiskers were almost as amateur as Rollo’s.
Mickey didn’t want to know what the stains were on his hands and coat, and once the man pulled a monocle and an odd-looking little instrument from his tattered carpet bag, didn’t really care.
“Counterfeit, Your Grace,” he declared in a spindly voice as he squinted through the small brass instrument. “No question about it.” Shippam held the necklace up to the lamplight. “An excellent counterfeit though. Not fabricated here in London, that’s for sure.”
He tapped on one of the fake diamonds. “It’s very clever, but there are tells if one is wise to them.
Examined through this”—he waved the instrument around—“the diamond facets should have a hard, cubic lattice arrangement, here and here. One simply can’t cut the stones any other way.
And if this black speck were a true inclusion, then the refraction would be at an angle adjacent to this edge here, and here.
This is lead glass, Your Grace. It has a substantial weight, which is generally enough to fool many, but lacks the mirrorlike adamantine brilliancy of a true diamond.
I must confess, the vitreous lustre of these examples is impressive—lead glass stones cut by a true master—but their dispersion value is far too high. Far too high.”
He smiled at his befogged audience in the way of a rat catcher with a full bag. “Oh, and those sapphires are cheap glass. Anybody working in this field with half a wit can see that. I hope you didn’t pay a king’s ransom for them.”
“Nothing, thank God,” breathed Ashington.
“Excellent, Your Grace. Peel one of them away from the backing, and you’ll find the words Made By A Forger To Fool The Gullible Rich engraved on the bottom. Though not written in English, I’ll wager.”
Evidently pleased with himself, he pocketed his instrument. “And speaking of rich, Rossingley, you’ve grown into the very spit of your father. How the devil are you?”
*
“IT’S NOT REAL,” Ashington confirmed unnecessarily after the mineralogist departed, significantly richer himself than when he arrived. “My parure. It’s not real.”
“It’s not,” agreed his brother, folding the fake necklace over and over in his palm. “Which means it isn’t ours.” The words hung in the air as he studied the gleaming counterfeit stones. “Which begs the question. Where the blazes is the real Ashington parure?”