The Datchet Diamonds Part 23

"Now, Miss Strong, if you are wise, you'll go home and go to bed. You may do as you like about attempting to follow me, but I promise you, I shall not permit you to dog my footsteps one moment longer than it suits my convenience. On that point you need be under no misapprehension."

The detective strode away. Miss Strong was about to follow, when Miss Wentworth caught her by the arm.

"Now, Daisy, be reasonable--you'll do no good by persisting--let's go home."

"Loose my arm."

Miss Wentworth loosed it.

In less than a minute Daisy had decreased the distance between Ireland and herself to half a dozen feet. Franklyn and Miss Wentworth came after, splas.h.i.+ng through the mud and the mist, somewhat disconsolately, a few paces in the rear.

The cavalcade had gone, perhaps, fifty yards, when a figure, das.h.i.+ng out of an entry they were pa.s.sing, caught Ireland by the lapel of his sleeve.

"Guv'nor! I want to speak to you!"

The figure was that of a man--an undersized, half-grown, very shabby-looking man. The light was not bad enough to conceal so much.

The collar of a ragged, dirty coat was turned up high about his neck, and an ancient billyc.o.c.k was crammed down upon his head. Stopping, Ireland turned and looked at him.

"You want to speak to me?"

"Yes, Mr. Ireland; don't yer know me?"

"Know you?" Suddenly Ireland's arm went out straight from the shoulder, and the stranger, as if he had been a rat, was gripped tightly by the neck. "Yes, Bill Cooper, I do know you. I've been looking for you some time. There's something which I rather wish to say to you. Now, what's your little game?"

The man's voice became a whine; the change was almost excusable when one considers how uncomfortable he must have been in the detective's grasp. Daisy, who was standing within a yard, could hear distinctly every word that was uttered.

"Don't be nasty, Mr. Ireland, that ain't like you! I know you want me--that's all right--but if you take me without hearing what I've got to say you'll be sorry all the same."

"Sorry, shall I? How do you make that out?"

"Why, because I'll make your fortune for you if you'll give me half a chance--leastways, I daresay it's made already, but I'll double it for you, anyhow."

"And pray how do you propose to do that?"

"Why, I'll put you on to the biggest thing that ever you were put on to."

"You mean that you'll round on your comrades. I see. Is that it?"

The stranger did not seem to altogether like the fas.h.i.+on in which Mr.

Ireland summed up his intentions.

"You may call it what you please, but if I hadn't been used bad first of all myself, I wouldn't have said a word; red-hot irons wouldn't have made me. But when a chap's been used like I've been used, he feels like giving of a bit of it back again; that's fair enough, ain't it?"

"Chuck the patter, Bill. Go on with what you have to say."

"Look here, Mr. Ireland, you give me ten thick 'uns, enough to take me to 'Merriker; I'll go there, and I'll put you on to them as had something to do with them there d.u.c.h.ess of Datchet's diamonds what's been and got theirselves mislaid."

It was Daisy who answered. She seemed to speak in sudden and uncontrollable excitement. "I don't know what ten thick 'uns are, but if you do what you say I'll give you fifty pounds out of my own pocket."

The man regarded Miss Strong with an inquiring eye.

"I don't know you, miss. Mr. Ireland, who's the lady?"

"The lady's all right. She's a bit interested in the Datchet diamonds herself. If she says she'll give you fifty pounds you'll get 'em, only you've got to earn 'em, mind!"

"Fifty pound!" The man drew a long breath.

"I'd do pretty nigh anything for fifty pound, let alone the way they've been and used me. I've been having a cruel hard time, I have--cruel hard!"

Ireland took Cooper by the shoulder and shook him, with the apparent intention of waking him up.

"All right, Mr. Ireland, all right; there ain't no call for you to go handling of me; I ain't doing nothing to you. I don't know the lady, and she don't know me, and I'm only a-trying to see that's it's all right. You wouldn't do a pore bloke, miss, would you? That fifty'll be all right?"

Mr. Ireland presented Cooper with a second application of the previous dose.

"That fifty'll be all right, or rather it'll be all wrong, if you keep me standing here much longer in the rain."

"You are so hasty, Mr. Ireland, upon my word you are. I'm a-coming to it, ain't I? Now I'll tell you straight. Tom the Toff, he done the nicking; and the Baron, he put him up to it." Miss Strong looked bewildered.

"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 s.h.i.+ners?"

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 s.h.i.+ners are--and that's the trewth! Yet more don't n.o.body else seem to know where the s.h.i.+ners are! That's what the row's about! Seems as how the s.h.i.+ners 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.

"That I don't know nothing at all about; I'm only telling you what I know. And I do know that they've had a go at this here cove as they calls Paxton more than once, and more than twice, and that now they've got him fast enough."

Mr. Ireland twisted Cooper round, so that the electric lamplight shone on his face.

"What do you mean--they've got him fast enough?"

"I mean what I says, don't I? They got hold of him this evening, and they've took him to a crib they got, and if he don't hand over them sparklers they'll murder him as soon as look at him."

Miss Strong turned to the detective with s.h.i.+ning eyes.