CHAPTER XVI
"Stop right where you are, MacTavish!" Holmes shouted commandingly,"and show me your left paw so I can see what you are trying to carryaway with you. Something more valuable than the tinfoil off awine-bottle top, I'll warrant!"
The footman looked around at me, then at Louis and Ivan, and finallyat Holmes, whose threatening expression cowed him, and he shambledover and, with a deep-drawn sigh, gave up the eighth diamondcuff-button.
"Well, I was afraid that sooner or later something like this wouldhappen," he remarked with downcast eyes, "and I would be jerked upsharp and the darned thing taken away from me. Blast that man WeelumBudd, anyhow! He came to me last Monday and talked me into hiding theshiner for him, so he could play it safe up in the drawing-room and Iwould have to take the blame for it if it was captured by you beforehe could get back!"
With undisguised pleasure my partner took the gem, holding it up sothat Louis could view it plainly, and said: "But where has your basetempter been keeping himself these past two days, Donald? Have you hadany secret communications with him? Better 'fess up, or it may go hardwith you."
"Why, he came sneaking around here last night about nine-o'clock whileyou people were in the music room listening to Lord Launcelot play themandolin, and he said he was boarding at the village inn under anassumed name----"
"And those rabbit-headed constables there couldn't recognize him!"growled Holmes, shaking his fist. "But did Budd tell you when heexpects to collect the cuff-buttons from his dupes here and make aget-away!"
"Yes," replied Donald, "he said he would come for them to-morrow,Friday, morning, and he didn't seem to mind it when I told him thatMr. Hemlock Holmes had gotten back the first seven cuff-buttons,either; for he claimed he could swipe 'em all again, anyhow. Said thatyou were only a big bluff."
"Oh, I am, am I! Well, I can tell you that Mr. W. X. Budd, ofMelbourne, Australia, will find to-morrow to be a darned unluckyFriday for him, all right. Now we'll just go into the library, wherethe Earl is probably indulging his great taste for literature byreading the labels on the wine-bottles, and we'll tell him how hisgood man Donald fell from grace through the wiles of an Australianthief. So, front and center, Scotty; forward, march!"
With these words Holmes waved smilingly to Louis, the chef, as a signof what his friend Hicks could expect when Holmes the detective shouldcollar him for the ninth cuff-button, and then he and I accompaniedthe scared footman into the presence of the Earl.
"Well, now what?" inquired the noble master of the castle, puttingdown a copy of London _Punch_ on the library table, and turning toinspect the arrivals. "Don't tell me that that little cuss fromBalmoral Palace there has been caught with any of my ancestral gems onhim!"
"But I _will_ tell you, anyhow, George, because it's the sad andundoubted truth," answered Holmes, as he handed over the eighthmissing bauble to His Lordship, took out a cigarette, and lit it. "Thetime is now 9:15 a. m., and I herewith present you witheight-elevenths of your stolen property, trusting to have the otherthree-elevenths recovered for you before the sun goes down. As the oldRoman Emperor Titus, or somebody, used to say:
"Count that day lost whose low descending sun Views from thy hand no diamond-capture done!"
"Eh, what? Well, by thunder, this is getting to be something fierce!"commented the Earl as he took the cuff-button from Holmes and stowedit away in his vest-pocket, "not the recovery of them, which Iwelcome, but the melancholy fact that I have been betrayed now by noless than, seven different people in whom I have reposedconfidence,--my own wife, my secretary, my coachman, my second cook,my second gardener, and now by both my footmen! I wonder who is goingto be the next guilty miscreant!"
And the Earl scratched his head with perplexity.
"Who did you think took them, anyhow? The horses out in the stables,huh?" inquired Holmes humorously. "But where is the rest of our recentlittle promenade party by this time? Watson and I got lost in thewoods back there, and we lost sight of the others."
"Oh, they're up in the billiard-room, shoving the ivories around onthe green tables," answered the Earl, rising and stretching himself.
"And with their heads containing about as much ivory as thebilliard-balls, I suppose. Honestly, I never saw such a pack of gildedloafers in my life! Don't they ever try to improve their minds! Itseems that you have some faint glimmerings of literary appreciation,since you read London _Punch_ there, but those other ginks don't evenread _that_ much! Let's go up and inspect their playing, especiallythat of Mr. Hicks," Holmes concluded, winking meaningly at me, as weleft the library and mounted the stairs.
Up on the fourth floor we entered the billiard-room where so much timewas killed, and found Lord Launcelot, Hicks, Tooter, and Thorneycroftshooting a game of billiards, with old man Letstrayed, the so-calledpolice inspector, fast asleep in one of the splint-bottomed chairs, asusual. Holmes picked up a cue, and playfully poked Letstrayed in theribs with it.
"Wake up, Barney, and hear the birds sing!" he called out.
The sleepy inspector jumped up in surprise, while the other four menlaughed and continued their game, and the Earl and I sat down asHolmes walked over and butted into the playing.
"Say, I don't think that Hicks is holding his cue just right,fellows," said he, grabbing that worthy's cue away from him andleaning over the table to try a shot himself. "Look,--this is the wayto do it!"
"Aw, you're not holding it right yourself, Holmes," said Launcelot,who prided himself on his knowledge of billiards.
"Sneeze, kid, your brains are dusty. I guess I could shoot pool andbilliards along with the world's experts when you were studying yourA, B, C's! You see, I'm forty-nine years old, while you're barelythirty," replied the old boy, as sassy as ever.
"Hicks, I'm astonished at your playing," he continued in anauthoritative tone; "why, a man so smart as to keep a diamondcuff-button hidden for three days while he confides in the Earl's chefdown in the pantry should be able to play this intellectual gamebetter than that!"
The Canadian's mouth opened, and his eyes bulged out with fright as heheard his recent deeds thus published to the assembled crowd, whileall his audience showed astonishment as great as Hicks's.
"Now, look me in the eye, William Hicks!" Holmes went on, pointing hisfinger at his victim, "and tell His Lordship the Earl if that isn'tthe actual truth I just spoke."
"Er--er, ah,--I guess it is. I can't see how you ever found it out,but that crook of a Budd he came to me with one of the gems, andinduced me to keep it for him till he called for it," was theadmission of the confused Hicks, who, with reddened face, sheepishlyfished out the stolen cuff-button and handed it to the astonishedEarl.
"And now Billie Hicks is a thief, too!" said the latter. "How the SamHill did you ascertain _that_, Holmes?"
"Well, if Mr. Hicks hadn't been so careless as to stand around in thespilled flour on the pantry-floor when he was foolishly confiding hislittle game to the chef, perhaps I wouldn't have been able toapprehend him now," replied Holmes, clearing his throat. "Are youawake there, Letstrayed? You see that's how it's done, examining theincriminating stains on the soles of the shoes. Not the daintiest jobin the world, perhaps, but it brings the results, and that's the mainthing. This now makes a total of nine of the Puddingham cuff-buttons Ihave unearthed, and I have promised myself that I shall bag the othertwo by to-night."
"Do you always keep the promises you make to yourself, Holmes?" saidLauncelot, with a grin.
"You just bet your life I do,--every time! But as His Lordship hasevidently filed a _nolle_ in the case of The State vs. Hicks, we'll goon with the billiards, with that Canadian gentleman remaining stillunhanged. Now shoot 'em up, fellows."
So saying, the cold-blooded old sleuth sailed into the game with theother four men, and I sat tight in one of the chairs and talked aboutthe weather with Letstrayed, which was about the extent of thelatter's conversational abilities, although every once in a while Icould hear him say to himself under his breath: "Nine down--two tocome!"
They played on at the billiard-table for over two hours, and then itwas noontime, and the still abashed MacTavish, the footman, came inand announced luncheon.
The Earl led the way down to the dining-room, and after we had beenseated, Holmes told Harrigan to pass the word out to La Violette inthe kitchen that his Canadian friend had confessed his share in thediamond robbery, but that Louis shouldn't worry about any possibleindictment as an accomplice, and that he trusted that the green peaswould be as good as ever, prepared under his able direction.
"Won't you try some of the Ceylon tea I brought in, Holmes?" askedTooter. "I may as well advertise it all I can, now that you haveexposed my secret salesmanship in the castle."
"No, thanks," said Holmes crisply, "I always prefer coffee,anyhow,--the stronger the better; and moreover, I am still moreinterested in what I thought that tea-packet was that you had upstairswhen I intruded on your love-making."
"All right, suit yourself then, you old crab! I'm going right aheadwith my plans for marrying Teresa Olivano anyhow, in spite of you andthe Earl and your dodgasted cuff-buttons."
And Uncle J. Edmund Tooter said no more for the remainder of theluncheon.
When the meal was over, and Inspector Letstrayed seemed somewhat moreovercome than usual, the party dispersed, and Holmes and I took a walkthrough the rooms on the first floor,--"just for fun," as he put it.It was then a little after one o'clock. As we were going through thekitchen, where the now subdued La Violette greeted us with a silentbow, Holmes's eagle eye caught sight of Uncle Tooter's coat-tail justdisappearing behind the cellar-door. With a whispered warning to meand a quiet seizure of my arm, Holmes tiptoed after him, softly openedthe cellar-door, and as Tooter's steps died away along the cementfloor of the cellar, we went inside, locked the door, and I stationedmyself on the top step, while Holmes went down.
The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons Page 16