"I suppose they was."
"She was always about the lady,—a-doing for her in everything. Say she goes to Benjamin and tells him as how her lady still has the necklace,—and then he puts up the second robbery. Then you'd have it all round."
"And Lord George would have lost 'em. It can't be. Lord George and he are thick as thieves up to this day."
"Very well. I don't say anything against that. Lord George knows as she has 'em;—indeed he'd given 'em back to her to keep. We've got as far as that, Mr. Bunfit."
"I think she did 'ave 'em."
"Very well. What does Lord George do then? He can't make money of 'em. They're too hot for his fingers, and so he finds when he thinks of taking 'em into the market. So he puts Benjamin up to the second robbery."
"Who's drawing it fine, now, Gager;—eh?"
"Mr. Bunfit, I'm not saying as I've got the truth beyond this,—that Benjamin and his two men were clean done at Carlisle, that Lord George and his lady brought the jewels up to town between 'em, and that the party who didn't get 'em at Carlisle tried their hand again and did get 'em in Hertford Street." In all of which the ingenious Gager would have been right, if he could have kept his mind clear from the alluring conviction that a lord had been the chief of the thieves.
"We shall never make a case of it now," said Bunfit despondently.
"I mean to try it on all the same. There's Smiler about town as bold as brass, and dressed to the nines. He had the cheek to tell me he was going down to the Newmarket Spring to look after a horse he's got a share in."