The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons

"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.