is business, you know—this isn't an Old Cap' Collyer tale."
"Well, anyway," resumed Billy, a little abashed, "I silenced the girl. I threatened to have her transported for life if she breathed a word. Mebbe she didn't suspect anything after all. Tilly ain't so very bright. So at length I continues my researches into every nook and cranny of the den, and jest as I was about to abandon the trail, baffled and beaten at every turn, what should I git but an idee to look at some papers lyin' in plain sight on the table at the head of the bed."
"Well, out with it! "I thought Solon was growing a little impatient. But Billy controlled the situation with a firm hand.
"It's an old trick," he continued, "one that's fooled many a better man than Billy Durgin—leavin' the dockaments carelessly exposed like they didn't amount to anything; but havin' the well-known tenacity of a bloodhound, I was not to be thwarted. Well—to make a long story short—"
Solon brightened wonderfully.
"I have to admit that my first suspicion was in correct He ain't the one that done that Lima, Ohio, job and carried off them eight hundred dollars' worth of stamps—"
"But what did he do?"
"Well, I got a clew to another past of his—"
"What is it? Let's have it!"
Billy was still not to be driven faster than a detective story should move.
