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Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons

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<h2 class="caps">Chapter VII</h2> After we had all imbibed freely of the blood of the grape the Earl then led the way out to the front door. Inspector Letstrayed seemed to have something in his noodle, and after much cogitation he finally came out with it. "Er, Hi say, Mr. 'Olmes," he blurted out, "you have forgotten to search any of the servants, to see whether or not they have the diamond cuff-buttons concealed about their persons, doncherknow." "Say, Letstrayed, for the love of Mike, don't interrupt me again with your well-meant but rattle-headed advice, or I'll be liable to forget myself and commit murder on the premises. I'm running this show, not you,—gol darn it!" And Holmes ground his teeth as he added: "The idea of Letstrayed being chump enough to think that the servants, if they have stolen the diamonds, would risk discovery so boldly as to carry them around with them!—and besides, the village constables searched them yesterday. It's a cinch he owes his appointment as Inspector at Scotland Yard to a political pull, and not to his merit!" The sky looked rather changeable as we all [Pg 66] passed out by the great main entrance of Normanstow Towers, and went down the broad stone stairway to the lawn, alternately clouding over and then letting the fugitive April sun shine through. "Ah, fickle Springtime, it's just like a woman!" said Uncle Tooter, with a deep-drawn sigh that must have come all the way up from his boots. "Well, what's eating him, the old duffer, I wonder?" growled Holmes. "Is he falling in love, at his age?" "He's dippy over that Spanish maid, Teresa Olivano, and I hear that she has refused him twice," whispered the Earl so that only Holmes and myself could hear him. "For Heaven's sake, don't mention it in the Countess's hearing, because she's simply wild over her bachelor uncle being in love with a servant, both on account of the social disgrace, and because, if Uncle Tooter married Teresa, she and I would lose a large part of the inheritance that we expect when the old boy finally cashes in. He's worth over forty million dollars, or eight million pounds, all made in the tea and spice business in India and Ceylon." "Well, what gets me is why this Teresa ever turned him down, then, instead of jumping at the offer the first time he proposed," said Holmes, with a grin. "Forty million cold bones don't grow on every bush, you know." [Pg 67] "Teresa is a rather peculiar girl, Holmes, and what would attract others doesn't attract her," replied the Earl. "Very, very peculiar, I'll say," commented Holmes cynically, as the Countess, Tooter, Hicks, Budd, Letstrayed, Lord Launcelot, and Thorneycroft stopped at the edge of the wide-spreading lawn on observing its wetness. "Come on, everybody, let's take a little stroll around these beautiful ancestral acres. A few rain-drops won't hurt you." And, so saying, the masterful detective grabbed the Earl and me by the arm and signalled to the others to accompany us. "I have a motive for doing this, Earl," whispered Holmes to the latter, as the rest of the party reluctantly followed us, "which I will let you in on later." I consented to be hauled around over the drenched grass by my domineering partner, as I knew from long experience that he was liable to do almost anything while on a mystery-hunt, and I accordingly kept my mouth closed. Billie Budd had his hat knocked off by a low-hanging limb of a tree that we passed under, and he let out a few choice Australian cuss-words that he had learned at the Ballarat gold mines, as he scowled at Hemlock Holmes, the author of this unaccountable promenade in the wet grass. "Say, what do you think you're doing, anyhow, [Pg 68] Mr. Smart-Alec from London,—adopting the Kneipp cure?" he growled. "Don't you worry, Budd old boy, maybe I'll find the lost diamond cuff-buttons out here in the grass. The robbers may have dropped them here as they fled," answered Holmes smilingly, as he slapped the Earl on the back. "Yes, and, then, again, they may not. I'll just bet you a five-pound note, Holmes, that you don't recover a single one of the eleven cuff-buttons to-day," said Budd. "Done!" shouted my partner. "Doc Watson, you hold the stakes," he added, turning to me; "here's my five." "And here's my five," said Budd, with a smile, as he handed me a five-pound note to match Holmes's. "That's it. I'm always the goat," I grumbled, as I shoved the kale in my pocket. "Here I am with the responsibility of keeping ten pounds of other people's money safely, while Holmes cops all the limelight!" "Cheer up, Watson, old boy," said Holmes. "Here,—have a cigarette! Now, I think we've seen about enough of this lovely Puddingham lawn," he added as he calmly surveyed the wide green expanse that stretched for four hundred feet out from the front of the castle to the road and for three hundred feet on each side of the massive pile, dotted here and there with trees and incipient flower-beds, on the latter of [Pg 69] which Heinrich Blumenroth had been exercising his skill, planting spring flowers. "So I guess we'll go back inside, and consider the case of the lost jewels further," continued Holmes. And the whole nine of us obligingly trudged after him like sheep after the bellwether, and reëntered the castle. It was now after eleven o'clock, and nothing in the shape of a diamond cuff-button had turned up yet, but I was not surprised, because I knew that Hemlock Holmes had not yet put in his best licks,—that is to say, had not yet pulled off any of his deepest cogitations and deductions. Just as I happened to see him slipping his little old cocaine-squirter back in his pocket after a surreptitious shot in the arm (while our party was entering the drawing-room on the left side of the front corridor), Lord Launcelot evidently thought it incumbent upon him to kid Holmes for the lack of results so far; but he hadn't spoken more than a few words of his would-be witty remarks when Holmes turned and barked at him like a terrier. "Say, you, lord or no lord, you'll have to chop out the funny remarks on my method of handling this case, or else I'll drop the whole thing right here," he flung at the surprised Launcelot. "I can't stand this eternal butting-in while I'm trying to think!" The Earl warned Launcelot to cease the comedy, and then Holmes motioned all of them except [Pg 70] me out of the room, saying that he had some deep thought on hand that would take up at least two hours, and that we shouldn't be called to luncheon until a quarter after one. My stomach rebelled at this, but my head knew better than to oppose the old boy when he had a thought-tantrum on. Billie Hicks,—he from Canada,—was the last one to go, and as he was leaving he hurled this Parthian shot at Holmes: "Now go ahead and try to think, Holmes. Maybe you'll succeed in the attempt!" Holmes threw a book at him, which narrowly missed Hicks as he banged the door shut behind him, and my partner immediately locked the door, put the key in his pocket, pulled a couple of cushions off a couch, placed them on the piano, perched himself up on top of the improvised seat, with his feet on the ivory keys, and then calmly proceeded to fill his well-worn pipe with some of that strong-smelling shag tobacco that he generally used when he started a meditation, or pipe-dream, just as you prefer to call it. I knew what was coming, so I opened one of the windows all the way up, to let out the terrific fumes of the uncivilized stuff that he smoked, while he curled himself up comfortably in his strange position on top of the piano, with his chin resting on one hand, and his elbow on some sheet-music, and then smoked away [Pg 71] like a steam-engine, as immovable as a bronze statue, while he thought and pondered and meditated, and then thought some more, about the stolen diamond cuff-buttons,—with me all the time sitting on the couch like a bump on a log, trying my best to figure out the conflicting testimony advanced by the fourteen different servants and the seven other persons. Time rolled on, and the clock on the marble mantel struck half-past eleven,—twelve,—half-past twelve,—one,—and at length came to a quarter past one, while I couldn't dope out who swiped the cuff-buttons to save my neck! "I've got it!" shouted Holmes suddenly, as he jumped off the piano, scattering the sheet-music right and left, and paced up and down in front of the mantel, while I heaved a sigh of relief. "Time for luncheon, ain't it, Holmesy, old boy?" I questioned. "Yes. Sure, Watson. I'm hungry, too, after all that heavy thought. We'll go in and have luncheon now, and then we'll get some swift action." Thereupon Holmes led the way to the dining-room, where the others awaited us. And so we did get some swift action, but not exactly what Holmes had expected, sad to relate. To all adroit inquiries on the part of the Earl as to what he had deduced, Holmes returned a smiling and evasive answer during the [Pg 72] elaborate luncheon, which proceeded to the end,—when the finger-bowls were brought on,—without untoward incident. As my partner deftly massaged his long tapering digits in the perfumed water, he leaned over and whispered to Inspector Letstrayed, who sat next to him. Letstrayed's eyes bulged out, and Holmes then arose, pushed his chair back, inserted his left thumb in the left armhole of his vest, expanded his chest, cleared his throat, and pointed his right fore-finger dramatically at Billie Budd at the other end of the table, as he said: "Inspector Letstrayed, do your duty! There stands the guilty wretch!" <hr class="chapbreak" /> [Pg 73] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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