Chapter XIII
"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, just after 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 and determined 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 was evidently 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 found my pair 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," returned the 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. But ich 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.
Chapter XIV
"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 to the 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 fool me."
"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, Your Lordship, – 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 some way 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:
WILFRED WUXLEY
FLOUR and FEED
It didn't look very inviting, being only a hundred feet away from the grimy railroad station by which we had first come here, with cinders blown all over it, and if the building had been back in the U. S. A. and I was a deputy state fire marshal, I would have ordered it torn down at once. Of course none of the constables were in sight anywhere, probably being asleep in some back room!
Holmes led the way into the feed store, and we met the proprietor, who strongly reminded me of Inspector Letstrayed and Egbert Bunbury by his general air of sleepy incompetence. It was now five minutes to five, and after Holmes had warned old man Wuxley of his identity beneath the valet's livery, we decided to hide behind one of the barrels of bran that stood on one side of the store, and there await the coming of Demetrius with his booty.
We didn't have long to wait, for he soon showed up in the doorway, – with his swarthy face and shifty eyes, – and asked Wuxley if Luigi had arrived yet to meet him. Suppressing a smile, Wuxley motioned him in, saying that Luigi was in a back room.
As he passed the bran barrels Holmes and I jumped out and nailed him, and Holmes exclaimed:
"Well, here I am, Mr. Xanthopoulos. We'll catch the next train in to London and sell the diamonds, – maybe!"
But the wily Greek was quicker than I thought he would be; he jerked loose as soon as he heard the tones of Holmes's well-remembered voice that had bawled him out at the inquisition the day before, and in a second had escaped by the back door, leaving Holmes with a shred of cloth out of his coat-tail held between his fingers.
We two gave chase at once; out of the rickety old back door of the feed store we sped, nearly breaking our necks in our stumble down the uneven steps that led to a weedy yard. There was a gate in the picket fence surrounding the yard, and through this we dashed madly after the swiftly retreating Demetrius, who led us down a narrow lane back of the stores fronting on the main street for several hundred feet, until we arrived at a small creek that paralleled the railroad tracks, – a stream that I had not noticed on the way out from London the previous Monday.
As our ill luck would have it, Demetrius found a couple of dingy rowboats at the edge of the creek, and into one of them he jumped, grabbed the oars, and paddled himself down-stream at a pretty good clip. Holmes swore, both in English and French, but quickly grabbed the other boat, shoved me into it, and started to row after the gardener down the turbid and muddy waters of the creek, which was about sixty feet wide. As we rounded a sharp left bend in the creek, Holmes ran our boat in near the opposite shore and succeeded in hitting the side of Demetrius's boat with the prow of our own.
Demetrius yelled something unintelligible, – in his native Greek, I guess, – and the collision threw him overboard, on the outer side of his boat, whereupon he began to swim across the creek to the farther side.
"Come back here, or I'll throw this oar at you!" yelled Holmes, pulling it out of the row-lock, too excited to think of the revolver in his pocket, while I strove to row the boat as well as I could with the one remaining oar.
Owing to Holmes's gyrations with the other oar, our boat capsized too, and the three of us were now struggling in the cold, muddy water, which, fortunately, was only shoulder-deep. We found it quicker to wade out than to swim out, and as Demetrius scrambled up the opposite bank of the creek, Holmes was upon him, and grabbed him this time with an unbreakable grip.
"Here are the two cuff-buttons, Mr. Holmes," faltered the gardener, as he nervously fumbled at his vest-pocket and handed over the two gems, none the worse for the wetting they had received. "Please don't kill me now. Billie Budd made me and Vermicelli keep the cuff-buttons for him, after he said he stole them; and as he didn't come back yet, we thought we'd sell 'em ourselves. And I'm liable to catch pneumonia from all this, anyhow!"
"We'll see about that when we get back to the castle, – I've got seven of them now out of the eleven. Seven, come eleven!" said Holmes with a grim smile, as he put the two causes of Demetrius's downfall in his own pocket.
The strangely assorted trio now walked back to the castle, the few villagers we met at the edge of Hedge-gutheridge staring at us in surprise on seeing our drenched and streaming condition.
The golden April sun was low in the western sky as we turned in at the castle grounds, and I felt good and hungry, I can tell you, after all the excitement. After explaining what had happened to the gaping habitués of the castle, I hustled upstairs with Holmes, and we changed our wet clothes immediately, putting on dry ones, after advising Demetrius to do the same. I prescribed a hot drink of whiskey-punch apiece for us in order to ward off pneumonia; and by half-past six we were ready for dinner.
Everything passed off as well as before, and Holmes was effusively congratulated by the Earl for his recovery of the sixth and seventh diamond cuff-buttons, His Lordship deciding at length that the second gardener had been punished enough for his theft by being dumped into the creek. They all echoed Holmes's slogan of: "Seven, come eleven!" for the recovery of the four remaining gems; and after an evening spent in listening to Lord Launcelot play the mandolin, and to Uncle Tooter telling some more extravagant tales of his adventures in India, we retired at ten o'clock, and I soon fell asleep.
Then I dreamed that I was back in the United States, on a Mississippi River levee, throwing dice with several colored boys, who kept shouting: "Seven, come eleven!" when Hemlock Holmes came along and pinched us all for crap-shooting!