"Tom the Toff? The Baron? Who are they?"
The detective spoke.
"I know who they are, Miss Strong. And I may tell Mr. Cooper that I've had an eye on those two gentlemen already. What I want to know is where the diamonds are. They're worth more than the rogues who took them. Now, Bill, where are the shiners?"
Cooper stretched out both his hands in front of him with a gesture which was possibly intended to impress Mr. Ireland with a conviction of his childlike candour.
"That's where it is--just exactly where it is! I don't know where the shiners are--and that's the trewth! Yet more don't nobody else seem to know where the shiners are! That's what the row's about! Seems as how the shiners has hooked theirselves clean off--and ain't there ructions! So far as I can make out from what I've come across and put together, don't yer know, it seems as how a cove as they calls Paxton----"
"Paxton!"
The name came simultaneously from Ireland and Miss Strong.
"I don't know as that's his name--that's only what I've heard 'em call him, don't yer know. He's a rare fine toff, a regular out-and-outer, whatever his name is. It seems as how this here cove as they calls Paxton has been playing it off on the Toff and the Baron, and taken the whole blooming lot of sparklers for his own--so far as I can make out, he has."
"It's a lie!"
This was, of course, Miss Strong. The plain speaking did not seem to hurt Mr. Cooper's feelings.