"You fool! if we did know who'd got it we'd have it, fast enough. There ain't many of 'em that could keep it away from me!" "You are a plucked 'un!" said Griffiths, regarding him with admiration; "I can't help sayin' so, though you do lose your temper and call your friends ugly names. No; I don't think there is many as could keep you off it if you knew where it was. But how we're ever to find that I can't tell." "Let's go over the business all again," said Effingham. "It was Tony that always had a fancy for that bit of stiff. He stuck to it when it wasn't worth more than the stamp and the paper it was wrote on; but he always thought something would come of this Mitford, and then it would be a first-class screw to put on him, and make him do as Tony liked. But you see he died before anything turned up; and though he told you about the stiff, he didn't say where it was." "He wouldn't. I asked him scores of times; but he always said 'Time enough for that,' he says, or 'That'll keep;' he says. He was a mistrustful cove was Tony,--always suspecting people." "Ah, he'd seen a good deal of the world, Griffiths. What an infernal nuisance I hadn't got back from Yankeeland before he popped off! I'd have had it out of him. Who took his traps after his death?" "Well, old Lyons had 'em, I think. There wasn't much; two or three boxes and a little dressin'-case,--for Tony, though not such a swell as you, D'Ossay, was always natty and spruce,--and a walkin'-stick or two. Old Lyons had lent Tony money, and stood in with him generally; and after he stepped it, old Lyons cleared off the things." "Do you know where to find old Lyons?" "Reethur! Why?" "We'll go there next week when I come back to town. You may take your oath he's got the bill; and if he's heard nothing about Mitford's fortune, we may get it for next to nothing." CHAPTER X. SOUVENT FEMME VARIE.