“Cap’n Trimble,” corrected Jimmy.
“I should doubt it. He, I take it, is the—er—flash cull—whom you referred to last night.”
“I don’t deny it.”
“Furthermore,” said Sir Richard, “the pair of you were working for a young gentleman with a pronounced stammer. Ah, for a Mr Brandon, to be precise.”
Jimmy had changed colour. “Stow your whids and plant ’em!” he growled. “You’re too leery for me, see? Damme if I know what your lay is!”
“That need not concern you. Think it over, Mr Yarde! Will you be handed over to Captain Trimble, or do you choose to go as you came, through that window?”
Jimmy sat for a moment, still gently rubbing his throat, and looking sideways at Sir Richard. “Damn all flash culls!” he said at last. “I’ll whiddle the whole scrap. I ain’t a bridle-cull, see? What you calls the High Toby. That ain’t my lay: I’m a rum diver. Maybe I’ve touched the rattler now and then, but I never went on the bridle-lay, not till a certain gentry-cove, which we knows of, tempted me. And I wish I hadn’t, see? Five hundred Yellow Boys I was promised, but not a grig will I get! He’s a rare gager, that gentry-cove! Dang me if I ever works with such again! He’s a bad “un, guv’nor, you can lay your last megg on that!”
“I am aware. Go on!”
“There’s an old gentry-mort going to Bath, see? Lord love you, she was his own mother! Now, that’s what I don’t hold with, but it ain’t none of my business. Me and Cap’n Trimble holds up the chaise by Calne, or thereabouts. The necklace is in a hiding-place behind one of the squabs—ah, and rum squabs they was, all made out of red silk!”
“Mr Brandon knew of this hiding-place, and told you?”