“Here? Ricky?” demanded Cedric. “You’re bamming me!”
“No, it is perfectly true. We cannot understand it.”
Cedric’s eyes danced. “By all that’s famous! Who’d have thought it, though? Well, that settles our affairs! Devilish inconvenient, but damme, I’m glad he’s bolted! Always liked Ricky—never wanted to see him bound for perdition with the rest of us! But we’re done-up now, and no mistake! The diamonds have gone.”
“What?” Louisa cried. “Cedric, not the Brandon necklace?”
“That’s it. Last sheet-anchor thrown out to the windward—gone like that!” He snapped his fingers in the air, and laughed. “I came to tell Ricky I’d accept his offer to buy me a pair of colours, and be off to the Wars.”
“But how? Where?” gasped Louisa.
“Stolen. My mother took it to Bath with her. Never would stir without the thing, more’s the pity! I wonder m’father didn’t sell it years ago. Only thing he didn’t sell, except Saar Court, and that’ll have to go next. My mother wouldn’t hear of parting with the diamonds.”
“But Cedric, how stolen? Who took it?”
“Highwaymen. My mother sent off a courier post-haste to m’father. Chaise stopped somewhere near Bath—two fellows with masks and horse-pistols—Sophia screeching like a hen—my mother swooning—outriders taken by surprise—one of ’em winged. And off went the necklace. Which is what I can’t for the life of me understand.”
“How terrible! Your poor Mama! I am so sorry! It is an appalling loss!”