"You"re entirely mistaken, Budd, I a.s.sure you," said Thorneycroft nervously. "I am as innocent as you are, and you know it. I just went into His Lordship"s room Sunday night to get my pocket-comb."
Holmes grinned as he looked at the secretary"s more or less bald pate, and said:
"I don"t see what you want with a comb, Thorney. But we"ll give your alibi due consideration, nevertheless. Well, I guess I"ve questioned everybody in the castle now, Your Lordship, including the mutual admiration society formed by Harrigan, La Violette and Blumenroth."
And Holmes turned an inquiring countenance to the Earl.
"Er, well, not exactly, Holmes. You haven"t interrogated the Countess and myself," smiled the Earl.
"By George, that"s right! Here, somebody, get the Countess in here."
In a moment the mistress of Normanstow Towers stood before us. She gave a sniff of disdain as she looked at her brother-in-law, Lord Launcelot.
"I beg pardon, Your Ladyship, but what do you know concerning this sad affair?" asked Holmes politely,--that is to say, politely for him.
The Countess regarded Launcelot with a frown, as she replied:
"I am practically certain that the man who has brought this disgrace upon our ancient family is Lord Launcelot, the Earl"s own brother. He was entirely in too much of a hurry to get away from here yesterday morning to rush into London to tell you about it. He did it just to cover up his own theft."
"These family jars do beat the d.i.c.kens," said Holmes, scratching his head in perplexity, while the Countess sailed out of the room, very much on her dignity. "Your Lordship, what"s your own opinion as to the robbery?"
"Oh, good night! Don"t ask me. I give it up. Let"s all have a drink, and then adjourn somewhere else. The air is getting kind of close in here, after all these hot accusations. Harrigan," the Earl added, turning to the butler, who had just returned from the corridor, "pour us out one or two gla.s.ses of wine, or three or four of them. Drink up, gentlemen,--you, too, Letstrayed." And the Earl winked at me.
CHAPTER VII
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-b.u.t.tons 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 pa.s.sed 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."
"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 gra.s.s 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 pa.s.sed 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 gra.s.s.
"Say, what do you think you"re doing, anyhow, 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-b.u.t.tons out here in the gra.s.s. 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-b.u.t.tons 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 ma.s.sive pile, dotted here and there with trees and incipient flower-beds, on the latter of 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 reentered the castle.
It was now after eleven o"clock, and nothing in the shape of a diamond cuff-b.u.t.ton 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 surrept.i.tious 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 inc.u.mbent 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 b.u.t.ting-in while I"m trying to think!"
The Earl warned Launcelot to cease the comedy, and then Holmes motioned all of them except 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 s.h.a.g 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 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-b.u.t.tons,--with me all the time sitting on the couch like a b.u.mp 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-b.u.t.tons 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.