"Er, er,—oh, this is terrible! Billie Budd stole 'em, not me. He came into my room early Monday morning, while I was dressing, and showed me the pair of cuff-buttons he said he had stolen during Sunday night, and gave me one to keep for him until he had a good chance to dispose of it. Then, right after I returned from calling on you to inform you of their loss, which was about half-past ten, he and I went out to the stables and he gave the other one to Olaf here to hide for him. Here's the one I have been keeping, Mr. Holmes," stammered Thorneycroft, as he took the second sparkling cuff-button out of his vest-pocket and laid it on the table beside the one recovered from Olaf. "When the village constables came up here to search us, I simply slipped the thing into the upper edge of my shoe until they had gone, and I've been carrying it here in my vest-pocket ever since."
And Eustace paused as he drew out his handkerchief and mopped his perspiring face.
"Then you had it right with you when you burst into my office in Baker Street to tell me of the loss, and your nervous excitement at thetime was a fake,—you big stiff?" Holmes asked, blowing out a cloud of cigarette-smoke.
"Yes. I acknowledge with shame that I did. But it was that scoundrel Budd that burglarized His Lordship's room and stole the jewels originally, and the coachman and myself are both simply receivers of stolen goods, not robbers. O Your Lordship, this is awful," Eustace added, turning to the Earl. "I am a graduate and an honor man of Oxford University, as you know, and I surely must have been intoxicated when I let Budd entice me into his damnable scheme! The reason he took the jewels was because he had been losing heavily at cards in London recently, as he told me, and wanted to sell them to recoup his losses. I'll swear I didn't have a thing to do with the disappearance of the other nine cuff-buttons, because if I did, I'd tell you. That's all."
The Earl looked at Holmes sitting there puffing out smoke in a verydégagéattitude, with the smile of triumph still on his eagle-like face, in spite of his absurd disguise, then he looked at the confused and embarrassed Thorneycroft standing at one side of the table, anxiously rubbing his hands, then he looked at the red-faced Olaf standing near him, and finally he looked at me sitting in another chair, furnishing the calm and sober background for all this sensationalism,—as usual.
"Well, by Jove, I hardly knowwhatto say,and that's the truth, Holmes," he remarked at length; "but the fact that my recreant secretary has just now voluntarily coughed up the second cuff-button without trying to hide it again in his shoe, as he might have done, inclines me to let him live this time. So I'll forgive you, Eustace, but don't you ever let it happen again, or I might forget myself so far as to have you blackballed from all of the London clubs you belong to," added the Earl, shaking his finger at Eustace.
"Thank you, Your Lordship, thank you!" cried the latter profusely, "I shall endeavor to deserve your consideration by doing my best to help you find the other cuff-buttons still missing."
"Keep the change, Eustace," said the Earl dryly. "Now, Holmes, what'll we do with this little stiff over here?"
And he pointed to the still trembling coachman, who stood fumbling his cap in his hands.
"Why, he looks harmless enough," commented Holmes; "I knew he didn't have brains sufficient to plan the robbery, but was merely Billie Budd's tool. So I think you might as well forgive him, too, Your Lordship, and thus get all the states' evidence they can turn for us. Thorneycroft," he added, turning to the secretary, "you accused Luigi Vermicelli, the Earl's valet, of having stolen the cuff-buttons, and you there, Olaf, accused your stable-partner,Carol Linescu, of the theft. I shall give your statements due consideration, and lay for the accused parties accordingly. Now, Watson, we'll get busy and see if we can't recover some more of the cuff-buttons before luncheon. It's only a little after nine now," looking at his watch, "and we have nearly three hours left. And, by the way, I believe I made a bet of five pounds with Billie Budd yesterday morning that I would find some of the cuff-buttons that same day. He won the bet, since I didn't find the heirlooms until to-day, but inasmuch as the aforesaid Budd is a fugitive from justice, I'll just confiscate the stakes and call myself the winner! Doc, hand over those ten pounds you've been keeping there."
I did so at once, glad to be relieved of the responsibility, and old Hemlock Holmes was about twenty-five dollars ahead by Budd's disappearance, although still nine diamond cuff-buttons behind!
"You may go back to the stables now, Olaf," said the Earl to the coachman; who beat it immediately, glad to get out of any further arraignment. "And you, Eustace, can get busy again with these darned bills we were auditing when Holmes came in with his news."
He took up the two glittering baubles, put them in his pocket, and drew up his chair again to the table, while Eustace resumed his former seat.
"Oh, say! I nearly forgot. We must celebrate a little on this!" the Earl suddenly cried, as he pounded his fist on the table.
"Harrigan," he called out, "bring up a bottle of my very best Burgundy, and set 'em up to Mr. Holmes and Doctor Watson, in honor of the glad return of my ancestor's historic cuff-buttons!"
The jovial butler seemed always to be within earshot whenever the Earl wanted him, and in a moment entered the library and ventured:
"The best Burgundy you have is the 1874 Beaune, Your Lordship. Shall I bring that?"
"Sure! P. D. Q.! I'm feeling a little dry again, anyhow," said the Earl, as he winked at us, while the still somewhat embarrassed Thorneycroft looked out of the window at the birds singing their spring songs among the trees.
Harrigan left the room, and in a few minutes returned from the cellar with a long dark bottle that seemed to hold the ruby-red sparkles of the sunset on the hills of eastern France imprisoned in its depths. He uncorked it, and deftly poured out three glasses of the ancient wine, one of which the Earl took up in his hand while Holmes and I each took one of the remaining two.
"Eustace, I'll have to cut you out of this, I'm sorry to say. Holmes, I drink to your swiftand happy recovery of the other nine cuff-buttons. Prosit!"
At the welcome word of cheer we each put ourselves outside of the finest fermented grape-juice that had ever tickled my throat.
"Thanks. Now we'll get down to business again," said Holmes, full of renewed "pep," as he set down his glass on the table and turned to me. "Doc, let's go up to our room while I get this horrible suit of clothes off of me, and wash the red grease-paint off my face. Ta, ta, Your Lordship; see you later, with some more cuff-buttons, I expect."
And we both left the library and went upstairs, where Holmes rapidly changed his clothes and washed off the make-up in the lavatory nearby. When he stood before me again in civilized habiliments, he began:
"Doc, I'm going to jump onto this man Vermicelli, the valet. My deductions lead me to believe that he has another one of the jewels stowed away somewhere, and it's up to me to find it."
So we left our room and went down the stairway, hot on the trail of the slippery valet from Venice. As we rounded the foot of the stairway at the second floor, halfway down to the main scene of operations, Holmes's quick ear detected the sound of voices in a room nearby, though my slower ears couldn't hear a thing.
He put his finger to his lips, took me by thearm, and quietly stole along the corridor with me to the half-open door whence the subdued voices proceeded. Arriving there, we halted, while Holmes cautiously listened a moment, then put his head in at the door and coughed. He pushed the door open immediately and walked in, with me at his heels, determined not to miss any of it, whatever it was.
Seated in a rocking-chair by the window was the elderly figure of the Countess's bachelor uncle, J. Edmund Tooter, the retired tea and spice merchant from Hyderabad, India, holding his niece's Spanish maid, Teresa Olivano, on his lap. As we entered so unceremoniously the two of them ceased their billing and cooing, hastily relaxed the half-Nelson grip they had on each other, and faced us with considerable resentment showing in their faces, though Teresa didn't get off Tooter's lap, as I thought she would.
"Well, what do you mean by this impudent intrusion, Holmes?" demanded Tooter angrily. "I guess a man can hold his affianced wife in his lap if he feels like it, without having a cheeky detective walk in on him."
"Your what?" asked Holmes, with surprise.
"My affianced wife, I said. And it's none of your business, either, any more than it is my niece's, or the Earl's. We had planned to elope and get married in London this afternoon, butI suppose now you'll run around and tell everybody in sight what you know."
Tooter whispered something to Teresa, whereupon she gave him a parting kiss, flounced off his lap, and passed out of the room, with her head high in the air, her black eyes snapping, and saying something that sounded like: "Impertinent loafers!" as she passed us.
Uncle Tooter arose from the rocker and stood by the window, where he seemed to be trying to slide something from his left hand into his left trousers-pocket, his right side being turned to us.
Holmes noticed the act, as did I, but said nothing of it for the moment.
"Well, Tooter, by George, I'm surprised at you," he commented sarcastically; "to think that at your advanced age,—and you must be pretty well up in the fifties,—you'd fall for the sweet-love-in-the-springtime stuff that gets the younger people, and that you'd engage yourself in marriage with a servant, too, and one who had previously refused you a couple of times. Of course, as you say, it's none of my business, but I'm used to having people tell me that; and furthermore, it comes within the line of my duty to intrude my nose into other people's business whenever I judge it to be warranted by the circumstances. Teresa has been accused by Natalie, the first chambermaid, of having stolen the diamond cuff-buttons——"
"Which is an infernal lie, and I can prove it!" shouted Tooter.
"And you have been accused inferentially by the Earl of possible guilt in connection with the theft also, owing to your occasional lapses from sobriety, which is rather a polite way of putting it," went on the unperturbed Holmes. "By the way, I'll just trouble you for that little package you slid into your left trousers-pocket there."
Tooter flushed with embarrassment, and refused point-blank.
"Watson, lock the door, and put the key in your pocket!" yelled Holmes.
I locked the door at once, put the key in my pocket, and then stood with my back up against it, while Holmes stood in the center of the room, facing the flushed and uncomfortable Tooter, who remained by the window, with his left hand clutching the mysterious little package in his pocket.
"Now then, Tooter, I've got the goods on you, both figuratively and literally, so you might as well come across with it," urged Holmes. "I don't want to resort to forcible methods unless I am compelled to."
"I'm sorry, Holmes. I'd like to oblige you, but if this gets out about me carrying it around with me, I'm a goner."
"I guess youwillbe a goner. The idea of a man of your standing stooping to such a trick as that! You can't plead any lack of funds as an excuse for your regrettable error, either, as you are known to be well heeled."
"But think of the resulting notoriety, Holmes. I could never again be received in the best circles of London society, and I'm sure the King would cut me dead!"
"Well, I suppose itwouldhurt your standingthere, Tooter; but you've got to take the consequences of your act. You're considerably old enough to know what you're doing, you know. Come on, now, give it up peaceably, or I'll forget myself and try jiu-jitsu on you."
But Uncle Tooter still refused to give up the little package, and Holmes, losing his patience, walked over to him and grabbed his left arm, while Tooter doggedly tried to wriggle out of his grasp. In a moment, Holmes, by a quick turn of his wrist, had forced the little package out of Tooter's hand, and it fell on the floor. Holmes immediately pounced on it, picked it up, and started to open it, but suddenly his jaw dropped, his face showed deep disappointment, and he angrily confronted Tooter.
"Say, what in thunder are you trying to pull off here, anyhow? This is a sample package of your confounded 'Tooter's Best Teas, Imported From Ceylon.' It's not one of the diamond cuff-buttons at all!" he cried.
"Well, who said it was, you elongated chump?" shouted the aroused Tooter. "I don't know anything about the Earl's cuff-buttons. You've been hanging around here nearly two days now, and you haven't found any yet; and then you have the nerve to steal my tea sample!"
"Why, I just recovered two of the cuff-buttons a little while ago, one from Yensen, and one from Thorneycroft, and I supposed I was aboutto get back the third one from you," replied Holmes in angry perplexity; "you certainly talked as if you had one of the stolen gems there in your hand. What did you mean by agreeing with me that it would seriously hurt your social standing, when all you were trying to conceal was a tea-packet, huh?"
"Because I'm not supposed to be 'in trade,' that's why, Mr. Impudence. Any direct connection between myself and the tea industry, such as my bringing in this sample package to Teresa, so she could induce Louis the chef to use it in the castle, would at once bar me from further consideration as a retired gentleman by the London upper crust, into whose exclusive circles I have but recently wormed myself with such untiring pertinacity. Now, do you understand why I didn't want to show you the little package?"
Holmes scowled at the tea sample, as he turned it over in his hand, and cursed softly under his breath as he replied:
"I don't quite get you, Tooter. Everybody knows that you were born in obscurity, gradually worked your way up, and made all your money in the tea and spice business, so why in the deuce should they care if you take it into your head to be a salesman for your own teas at your nephew-in-law's residence?"
Tooter sighed deeply, shrugged his shoulders, answered:
"Well, that's the rigorous lesson I had to learn in the West End, Holmes. You are evidently not familiar with the customs and mental viewpoint of society people, or you would know that while it is permissible to acquire wealth by going out and working your head off for it, it is a most serious offense and an unforgivablefaux pasif you are caught trying to drum up trade for your establishment after you have landed at the top of the social heap. You see, I am supposed to let my managers do that, while I confine myself to spending the coin that they make for me. I guess that's explaining it about as well as it could be."
And Tooter contemplated the scene outside the window, where the little green buds were just beginning to push themselves out on the tree limbs.
This explanation naturally didn't soothe Holmes to any great extent, as he had always despised society people and their ways, and the sudden shock of the disappointment, coming just after he had so successfully recovered the first two cuff-buttons, made him lose his temper entirely, particularly as he looked around and noticed me grinning at his sour expression. As a result, both his paternal English and his maternal French completely failed him in giving an outlet to his feelings, and he started to swear in German.
As the longer and heavier words of Teutonicprofanity came from his lips, I quietly unlocked the door, and motioning to Uncle Tooter, we both tiptoed out of the room and started downstairs, leaving Holmes to his devotions. As I went down the stairway toward the library the last thing I heard him say was: "Schweinhund!" which sounds pretty bad.
Tooter and I walked in on the Earl and his secretary, and told them of the bad break Holmes had just made, which caused the Earl to lie back in his chair and roar, though Tooter was more concerned about the social disgrace of having been caught with the tea sample.
The Earl was an easy-going and good-natured cuss, without the narrow prejudices of his snobbish friends, and readily promised not to tell anybody about it. He also simply grinned when Tooter told him that Teresa had just promised to marry him, and said his revered uncle-in-law would have to assume the job of telling his niece that she would have to find a new maid.
In a few minutes Holmes rejoined us as if nothing had happened, and we forbore from kidding him about it.
"Well, the next victim I am going to jump onto is your valet, Your Lordship, and I think I'm going to strike pay dirt this time," were his first words. "Where is the rascal now?"
"He's over in my room, sorting out my clothes," said the Earl.
"All right. Come on, Watson, we'll nail him before he gets away from the scene of his crime."
Whereupon I accompanied Holmes across the corridor to the room back of the drawing-room, which was the Earl's.
Luigi was in there, engaged in laying out several suits of clothes on the bed. He looked up in surprise as we entered.
"Ah, Luigi, you haven't got any of the stolen cuff-buttons concealed up your sleeve there, have you? I would really hate to think that you had," remarked Holmes, grinning sardonically.
On hearing this thinly-veiled accusation Vermicelli's swarthy face got even blacker, if possible, than it generally was, and he snarled:
"No. I'm sick of hearing about them!"
"I'm afraid we can't take your unsupported word for that, though, Luigi. We'll have to frisk you. Now, then, stand still while Doc Watson goes through your pockets for the gems, or at least for some incriminating evidence."
And Hemlock pulled out his trusty six-shooter and covered the valet.
The latter got so scared at the sudden gun-play that he fell backward on the bed, right over one of the Earl's best suits, which made it easier for me to search him. I went through all his pockets without finding anything that we were after until I tapped his inside coat-pocket.Here I got hold of a small crumpled piece of paper, drew it out and read the following on it:
Dear Luigi: Meet me at Wuxley's feed store in the village at five p. m. to-day, and we'll go in to London and sell the pair of diamond cuff-buttons. Be on your guard against that Holmes fellow.Demetrius.
Dear Luigi: Meet me at Wuxley's feed store in the village at five p. m. to-day, and we'll go in to London and sell the pair of diamond cuff-buttons. Be on your guard against that Holmes fellow.
Demetrius.
"Ha, ha! Ha, ha! a couple of times!" chuckled Holmes, grabbing the note from me and eagerly glancing over it. "I can tell at once that this note was written by a man who thinks he is going to meet the Earl's valet, but who is bound to be disappointed."
"Well, will you let me go now? You've got the note," said Vermicelli, with a scowl at Holmes's gun, with which the detective still covered him.
"You don't think I'm so soft as all that, do you? Let you go now, and thereby give you a chance to warn your Greek accomplice in the gardens that I've got his note? Not so that you could notice it, Luigi," scoffed Holmes. "Up into your own room you go, behind lock and key, until after five o'clock, while I quietly don your light green clothes, and disguised as yourself, go down to the guilty rendezvous at Brother Wuxley's feed store, and take the cuff-buttons away from him. I'll have the cooks send you up something at noontime, so you won't starve in the meanwhile. Now march."
And Holmes flourished his revolver at the valet again.
Luigi didn't wait to be told a second time, but went up the stairs with considerable alacrity, while Holmes and I followed close behind. When we reached the fifth and top floor, we entered Luigi's room there, and the latter changed clothes with Holmes. As they were both of the same height and build, and were both of dark complexion, the second gardener would not recognize my partner that evening until he got up close to him, so Holmes was playing it rather safe.
"I think I'll just keep these valet's togs on, for the fun of it, and then I'll be all ready when five o'clock comes," said Holmes after we had locked Luigi in his room and were descending the stairs. "Gee, but I wish they'd put in an elevator in this darned old-fashioned castle! My legs are getting kind of tired running up and down five flights of stairs."
As we reëntered the library, where the Earl, Tooter, and Thorneycroft looked up with surprise as they saw Holmes come back in Vermicelli's clothes, Lord Launcelot and Billie Hicks came in. They had been up in the billiard room for some time, and came down to see whether anything had developed in their absence. Upon being told that Holmes had recovered two of the cuff-buttons from Yensen and Thorneycroft, and was in a fair way to recover a third one from Xanthopoulos, they were greatly surprised.
"We left Inspector Letstrayed asleep on one of the billiard tables," said Launcelot, with a grin; "but I guess Holmes was able to get along pretty well without him. A little while ago I heard the first gardener, Blumenroth, swearing something fierce on the second floor. What was he doing up there, anyhow?"
"How do you know it was Blumenroth?" asked Holmes, as he nudged me.
"Because it was in German, and he's the only German here."
"Do you understand German yourself?"
"No."
"Then how do you know it was swearing?"
"Oh, I could tell by the tone of it."
"Well, if you couldn't understand the words, no harm was done. Say, fellows, how do I look in the valet's togs?" asked Holmes turning around as if he was in a tailor shop trying on a new suit.
"It fits you kind of quick under the shoulders, Holmes, but I guess it will do," said the Earl, with a critical eye.
"What are you wearing those valet's clothes for, anyhow?" exclaimed Hicks.
Holmes winked his crafty old wink, and replied:
"Along about five-thirty this evening you'll find out, after I return from a little date I have made down at the village. It's twenty-five minutes of ten now, and a number of things mayhappen in between, so just keep your eyes peeled."
"This detective stuff is just one darned disguise after another, ain't it, Holmes? A little while ago you were a race-track loafer, now you're a valet, and Heaven only knows what you'll be to-morrow," said Launcelot, as he curled up in the window-seat and lit a cigarette.
"Well, I don't mind it," was Holmes's reply. "Now, Watson, I'll need you again. I've had my eye on a certain party since my deduction-trance yesterday noon, and was waiting for her sense of shame to impel her to confess her part in the cuff-button robbery; but since she has not as yet done so, I shall be forced to resort to sterner measures. Come with me, and leave these fellows to kill time any way they like until we return."
And the old sleuth started to lead me out of the room.
"She, did you say? Is one of the women servants guilty also?" queried the Earl.
"Well, why not?" snapped Holmes. "I don't believe in this doctrine of feminine impeccability. But don't try to spill the beans by getting me to reveal my hand before I've played it now. Good-by, George."
We left the room, going upstairs to the second floor, where Holmes tapped lightly on the door of the Countess's room.
"Come in," called the Countess.
We entered.
"Well, Mr. Holmes, to what am I indebted for the honor of this visit, and for the privilege of seeing you rigged up in the valet's clothes?" she asked,—a little coldly, I thought, as she motioned us to chairs, and laid down the French novel she had been reading.
"Only to my desire for a little information relative to your noble husband's cigars, Your Ladyship. It would greatly assist me in clearing up the mystery of the robbery. Never mind the disguise. I've worn worse," returned Holmes politely.
The Countess frowned.
"Why, have some of the Earl's cigars been stolen, too, as well as the cuff-buttons?" she asked.
"No; but they have something to do with them, though. Now, when was the last time that the Earl smoked a Pampango cigar, and where was he at the time?"
"Those wretched things from the Philippines,—with the terrible odor? He only smoked one this week, and that was Monday morning, justafter breakfast, in his room. I made Harrigan take the box of them away and hide it, so he couldn't get any more."
"Ah," said Holmes, a smile gleaming on his eager face, "that was just the time when some of the diamond cuff-buttons disappeared. Now, where were you all during Monday morning?"
"Right here in my own room, of course, having Teresa arrange my hair. I had breakfast served to me in here, and didn't go downstairs till noontime."
"And when was the Earl's room swept out?" pursued Holmes.
"Really, Mr. Holmes, what funny questions you do ask!" said the Countess, smiling. "The Earl's room was swept out about half-past eleven that noon, as soon as I came down and ordered Natalie to do it, after I saw the mess of cigar-ashes the Earl had left on the carpet."
"It's my business to ask funny questions, also to catch thieves, no matter how highly placed in society they are," said Holmes, rising from his chair. "Your Ladyship, you have now unwittingly given yourself away entirely. You stole at least one of the cuff-buttons, I am positive. Now, give it up before I publish it from the housetops."
And Holmes stood there, with arms folded, and regarded the Countess in a very grim anddetermined manner, while I stood at one side, my mouth open,—as usual.
The Countess turned white, then red, then pulled out her handkerchief and began to weep, which was disconcerting to the relentless Holmes.
"To think that I should be insulted so by a perfect stranger in my own home!" And the Countess wept some more. "What earthly connection is there between your silly questions about the Earl's cigars and the diamond-robbery, I should like to know?"
"Simply this," returned Holmes patiently, as the Countess wiped her tear-stained face with her handkerchief; "with the aid of my powerful microscope I was enabled to find that the specks of cigar-ashes adhering to the soles of your shoes that you wore Monday, the ones that I was compelled to take for evidence last night, and replaced in your room this morning, were from a Pampango cigar; and as you told me that the only time recently that the Earl smoked one of that brand was Monday morning, in his room, and that his room was swept out Monday noon, that proves conclusively that you were in his room during Monday morning. The fact that you also claimed to have been up here in your own room all during Monday morning shows that you had a strong motive for concealing your presence in the Earl's room at the time some of the cuff-buttons disappeared,which can only mean that you wished to cover up your theft. Is that clear enough?"
"I suppose so," remarked the Countess listlessly, rising and going over to her dresser at one side of the room, where she unlocked one of the drawers, took out the cuff-button Holmes was after, and handed it to him. "Here is your horrid old diamond cuff-button! I wish I had never seen it. I am not the thief, anyhow. That miserable fellow from Australia is the one that stole it, Billie Budd, and he gave it to me to hide for him until he could dispose of it safely. I did it for a joke on George, as I never did like the hideous glaring things, even if they were a present from King George I to his ancestor. And that's all I know about it,—so there! Budd only gave me one of the cuff-buttons, and I don't know where the others are, and I can't say that I care very much, either. Now are you finished with me?"
"Entirely so, Your Ladyship, except to inform you that since breakfast this morning I have recovered two other cuff-buttons beside this one, from Thorneycroft and Yensen, and they both gave me the same song and dance that you did, about the wicked William Budd having been the author of their downfall. He seems to have had a whole lot to do with the robbery, and is also the man who assaulted your husband during Monday night when he entered his room to steal the last pair of the cuff-buttons, and wasevidently frightened away before he could smouch the one in his left cuff, having taken the one in his right cuff. I am satisfied that you had nothing to do with the assault, but your action in receiving the one stolen gem from Budd, and then striving to throw the blame for it on your brother-in-law, Lord Launcelot, is reprehensible enough. I shall see what the Earl has to say about it."
And in a moment Holmes, bowing suavely, motioned me to follow him out of the room.
We came downstairs again, and Holmes tackled the Earl in the library.
"Well, Your Lordship, here's the third one of your bally cuff-buttons," he began, as he handed it to him. "And the name of the person who had it is——"
The voice grew inaudible to me as Holmes bent down and whispered the name into the Earl's ears.
At the shock of the revelation the Earl slid down in his chair until he seemed to be sitting on his shoulder-blades, feebly put one hand up to his brow, and exclaimed:
"What? My wife? Good Heavens! I say there, Harrigan, you may pour me out a glass of wine,—I mean a stiff bracer of brandy!"
In a moment the butler came running in with a bottle of the fire-water, and poured out a glass of it for the Earl, who grabbed it, and downed it at one gulp, then said:
"Now I feel somewhat restored, Holmes. Tell me how on earth you found out that she took it."
My marvelous partner told the gaping quintette,—composed of the Earl, Tooter, Thorneycroft, Launcelot, and Hicks,—how he had pried the third cuff-button out of Her Ladyship, and when he had finished the Earl rang for Donald MacTavish, the second footman, and sent him after the Countess. In a few minutes, Scotty had bowed the mistress of the castle into our presence, and she stood in the doorway, very cold and reserved.
"Well, Annabelle, what have you got to say for yourself?" demanded the Earl. "I've been robbed by my coachman, robbed by my secretary, and now, by thunder, I've even been robbed by my wife! And Holmes says that you claim that William X. Budd of Australia put you up to it! How about it, eh?"
"Well, George, you know I never did like those diamond cuff-buttons, and when Billie Budd came to me Monday morning with one of them, I thought it would be a good chance to play a trick on you. I didn't know that the others were going to be stolen too, and I thought you would have enough left. You have any number of regular pearl cuff-links, anyhow, that can be worn to society functions, and not as if you were an end-man in a minstrel show, which is all that those big, glaring diamond things are fit for!Mr. Holmes told me he had replaced all the shoes that disappeared last night, as he took them for the purpose of finding out where the stolen cuff-buttons were by his peculiar hocus-pocus methods, so you can't accuse me of having taken them too. I foundmypair of shoes in a corner of my room when I returned there after breakfast. Now will you forgive me? Billie Budd is gone, so I don't suppose there will be any further trouble," the Countess concluded, gazing appealingly at her husband.
The others all looked up with surprise as she mentioned the return of the shoes, and then turned their eyes toward Holmes with mixed admiration and perplexity, while the Earl replied:
"Well, you may thank your lucky stars, Annabelle, that I am such an easy-going fellow as I am known to be, or else high life in London would be aroused by gossip of another divorce. I'll forgive you; but don't let it happen again."
"All right, George, thank you; but I still think that Launcelot is responsible for the disappearance of the other eight cuff-buttons." With which Parthian shot, the Countess of Puddingham left the room.
"Still got it in for Brother Launcie, eh?" grinned Holmes, as the Earl put the third gem in his vest-pocket. "Look here, I want to know the reason for this prejudice on her part."
"Well, I don't mind telling you," returnedthe Earl with a smile, as the accused Launcelot got very embarrassed. "My brother was greatly opposed to my marrying Annabelle, for social reasons, because of her proximity to the tea and spice business,—as I suppose you have become aware,—so naturally after we were married she hasn't looked on him with very much favor, to say the least. Butich kebibble," he added, as he straightened up in his chair.
"We've got back three out of the lost eleven gems, anyhow, so we'll all go down to the wine-cellar, and celebrate a little. Thorneycroft, I guess we have all those bills audited for payment, and checks made out for them, so I'll declare a holiday for you, and invite you down to share the drinks, since you didn't steal the third gem. Come along, gentlemen."
To which invitation we all responded by following the genial Earl down the corridor, through the kitchen,—where Louis and Ivan were quarreling about something or other, as usual,—and down the cellar-stairs to that mysterious region where Harrigan the butler held forth.
"Well, what'll you have, gentlemen?" asked Joseph the butler, always appearing at just the right moment. "We have Château Margaux, Chambertin, Beaune, Veuve Clicquot, Pommery, Amontillado, Chianti, Johannisberger, Tokay, and a number of others in the wines; Muenchener, Culmbacher, and Dortmunder in the imported beers; Coleraine whiskey, and——"
"Say, hold on a minute, till I get my breath, will you?" pleaded Holmes. "I think you may crack me a bottle of that Tokay over there. I have a weakness for the Hungarian wine."
Harrigan administered the Tokay to Holmes, and then turned to me:
"What'll you have, Doctor Watson?"
"Well, they all look alike to me," I replied, as I stood there rubbing my chin and sizing up the immense array of wet goods in bottles and casks that stretched along this part of the cellar,—on shelves and on the cement floor; "I guess I'll take a little of each."
"Shame on you, Doc, both for your indiscriminate taste and your too great thirst," chided Holmes, as everybody else laughed.
Harrigan was kept busy for a while uncorking and pouring out the libations, while we all drank to the recovery of the three cuff-buttons, and wished the old boy from Baker Street good luck in getting back the rest of them.
Uncle Tooter was just lifting up a glass of madeira to propose a new toast, when all of a sudden there came a terrible noise from the kitchen above us, a clatter of pots and pans, the overturning of a table, and the sound of angry voices.
"I guess Louis and Ivan must be breaking up housekeeping. Let's go up and see what the difficulty is," said the Earl.
And we all beat it upstairs to the kitchen. Arriving there, we found that the excitable French chef had treed his Russian assistant on top of a tall cupboard that ran along one side of the room, while various kitchen utensils strewn over the floor testified to a preliminary skirmish. As we entered the door leading from the cellar stairs Ivan jumped down and ran out the rear door, while La Violette grabbed up a butcher-knife from a table and gave chase to him.
"For the love of Mike, now what?" exclaimed Holmes.
Following our leader we piled out the rear door after the two cooks. Running down the flight of stone steps to the rear lawn, the two started a grand chase along the brick walk leading tothe stables; but Holmes's long legs were too much for them, and in a trice he had captured Louis and disarmed him, while Ivan hid behind a tree. Blumenroth, the gardener, digging up a flower-bed with a trowel nearby, put down his implement, and stared at the two cooks sardonically.
"O that miserable barbarian! I'll kill him yet!" shouted the enraged Louis, as we gathered round him. "He had the audacity to take my very best kettle to boil onions in, after I had told him repeatedly not to do so. I hate onions, anyhow; and besides, I was just going to use that kettle to prepare some peas in!"
"Oh, is that all? I thought maybe he tried to murder you," ventured Holmes, coolly testing the edge of the butcher-knife with his finger.
"Is that all? I should think it was enough," cried Louis. "What are you doing with Luigi's clothes on, by the way? Don't think that such a ridiculous disguise could foolme."
"Far be it from me to attempt to put over anything on such an astute person as yourself," replied Holmes suavely, while his observant eyes caught every movement of the recreant Galetchkoff, who dodged behind the tree every time the great detective looked in that direction. "Do you think it probable that your friend Ivan could be implicated in the theft of the diamond cuff-buttons, in addition to his crime with the onions?"
"Mr. Holmes," replied Louis earnestly, "that fellow Ivan is capable of anything. If I were you I'd search him right now. I remember now that I saw him put something back in his pocket very hastily a little while ago, when we were in the kitchen,—and he noticed me looking at him."
"Hum, this sounds interesting," muttered Holmes musingly. Then he called aloud: "Ivan, come over here, and Louis will forgive you for spoiling his best kettle with onions!"
The unsuspecting Ivan joined our little group there near an apple tree, about halfway from the castle to the stables; and Holmes instantly pulled out his revolver, covered him with it, and bade me search him.
I did so, and in the Russian's hip pocket found the fourth cuff-button, glistening and shining as brilliantly as ever!
"Well, here you are, Holmes," I said, handing it to him. "This one was found in between finds, I guess."
The seven of us collared Ivan immediately, and I feared the Earl was about to do him bodily harm, when Holmes interposed with a plea for leniency, and for permission to let the assistant cook tell his story.
"That man William Budd, he took the cuff-button, and he gave it to me to hide for him," claimed Ivan; "so I am not the original thief; and I don't know a thing about the others."
The Earl eyed his second hash-mixer sardonically, while we gathered round him there under the apple tree, and said with a snort: "This stuff about Billie Budd and not yourself being the culprit is getting to be kind of a chestnut. You're the fourth person who has handed in that alibi so far, and I guess the Australian sport didn't have to get down on his knees to make you keep the stolen cuff-button for him, either. But inasmuch as the gem has been recovered in good condition, I suppose I can let you off, instead of having Monsieur La Violette chop you up for Hamburg steak,—a fate you richly deserve. Now beat it back into the kitchen, and don't let your boss there catch you using his favorite kettles again, to say nothing of keeping your hands off the ancestral cuff-buttons."
Ivan was released and Heinie Blumenroth went back to his gardening disgustedly; while we returned to the wine-cellar for a few more drinks, while the Earl lovingly patted his vest-pocket, where he had stowed away the four gems, all recovered that morning by my lucky as well as resourceful partner.
It was now half-past ten, and after we had helped to decrease for a quarter of an hour longer the visible supply of vinous, malt, and spirituous liquors in Normanstow Towers, Holmes suggested we go up to the fourth floor and shoot a few games of pool before luncheon.
Everybody readily agreed, and in a little while we were engaged in a game up there in the spacious billiard room, Letstrayed evidently having wandered away from his sleeping-quarters on top of one of the tables. Holmes "bust," and put three balls in the pockets. As he reached into the third pocket to take out the pool-ball, his jaw dropped, and his face showed great surprise.
"Well, what do you know about that, fellows! Darned if here ain't the fifth diamond cuff-button!" And he held it up to view. "Now how in Tophet did that get into a pocket of the pool-table? I must freely confess that I hadn't expected it. Wait a moment, here comes somebody along the corridor."
In a minute more, the reddened and anxious face of Egbert Bunbury, the first footman, appeared in the doorway.
"Well, what's on your mind, Eggie? Nothing but hair, as usual!" inquired Holmes, as sarcastic as ever.
Egbert, however, didn't wait to reply when he saw who was inhabiting the billiard-room; but turned and ran for dear life back along the corridor.
Holmes brought his Marathon legs into play then, and soon captured the obese footman, who puffed like a porpoise in the firm and muscular grasp of the detective, who nabbed him just at the head of the stairs.
"Now, Eggie, the game is up for you as well as for the other four culprits, so you might as well begin to spill out your little narration of how it happened that you absent-mindedly left a valuable gem in a pool-table pocket," Holmes admonished, giving the gem to the Earl and jerking the perspiring footman into a more erect posture.
The Earl was contemplating his hireling, his face expressive of mixed emotions, the rest of us filling up the background as usual.
"Well, that man Billie Budd, 'e swiped the shiners, so 'e did," stammered Egbert, his eyes avoiding his master's, "and 'e prevailed hon me to 'ide one of them for 'im. Said 'e would reward me when 'e came back to dispose of them. But Hi didn't mean any 'arm by it,YourLordship,—er, Mr. 'Olmes. The reason Hi lost the cuff-button in 'ere was because Hi was shooting a little game of pool by myself just now, with the thing in my 'and, so Hi could hadmire it, and when Hi made the last shot, it rolled away. Hi didn't know which pocket it went into, and just then Hi 'eard some one coming, so Hi beat it."
"Well, you can beat it again, Bunbury. Back to the woods for you! I'll sentence you to help Yensen clean out the horses' stalls for your theft," said the Earl.
The fat footman, glad to be rid of the inquisition, went downstairs in a hurry.
Our little party now returned to the billiard room and finished our game, also a few more, playing until Donald MacTavish, the second footman, came in and announced luncheon, it now being twelve o'clock. After luncheon, during which Holmes made several more cracks about the possible guilt of others in the diamond robbery, we adjourned to the library, and Holmes settled himself in the best chair, still wearing Luigi Vermicelli's light green livery, consulted his old chronometer again, and yawned.
"Well, it's still only a quarter of one. Hi! Ho! Hum! Nearly four hours yet before I am to go down to the village and grab the second gardener with his stolen pair of diamonds!" he remarked. Then turning to me, he added: "Doc, I believe the reaction is on me now. I haven't had a shot in the arm since yesterday morning. Have you got the dope-needle with you? No, that's right,—I have it here in my pocket."
And before I could prevent him, the hardened old "coke"-fiend had pulled out his famous needle and inoculated himself again in the arm with the poisonous cocaine, and right in front of all the five people in the library, too,—the Earl, Thorneycroft, Launcelot, Tooter, and Hicks,—who stared at him as if he were a dime-museum freak; which indeed he was, to a certain extent.
The seven of us managed to kill time someway or another that Wednesday afternoon, while the sun shone through the ancient windows, and the birds sang their springtime songs in the trees outside, the Countess having retired to the music room to hammer Beethoven,—or maybe it was Mendelssohn,—out of the piano.
I had grown considerably interested in a very romantic novel by Xavier de Montepin, and took no note of the passage of time until suddenly my unconventional partner jumped up and yelled:
"Arise and depart with me, John H. Watson, M. D.! The time now approaches when we shall accomplish the recovery of the sixth and seventh stolen piece of glass for His Nibs the Earl!"
And Holmes grabbed me by the shoulder so sharply that the book fell out of my hands.
"You don't need to throw a fit about it, anyhow," I grumbled, as I hastened to accompany him out of the castle and down the somewhat dusty road to the village of Hedge-gutheridge.
The darned village was three-quarters of a mile from Normanstow Towers, and I didn't feel like taking a tramp just then, but Holmes seemed to be in high spirits as we passed along the ancient and dilapidated main street of the village, sizing up the signs above the stores until we came to one that read: