The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons

Chapter IV

The ever-smiling butler we had met the day before, whose spirits did not seem dampened by the tragedies that had lately occurred, moved around the table silently and quickly as he waited on us seven men partaking of breakfast, with a dead man in the other room.

As I watched them there, I noticed that the five habitués of the castle all seemed rather embarrassed when Holmes looked at them, and would then look the other way, evidently on account of his brutal remark to the Earl's brother.

Harrigan had just brought me a second cup of coffee, holding it poised over the edge of the table, when the door opened, and His Lordship, the deceased Earl of Puddingham, walked in on us, looking very pale, with one hand pressed to his forehead.

I felt cold chills creep over me, as Harrigan dropped the cup of coffee crash-splash on the floor, yelling:

"Good-night! A ghost!"

Every one else in the room was so surprised that he sat speechless, except Holmes. Billie Budd swallowed a peach-stone in his astonishment, and coughed and spluttered for quite a while.

"What, aren't you dead, George?" Launcelot finally managed to gasp, as the Earl walked over to his vacant chair at the head of the table and sat down in it.

"Why, no; of course not. You're a fine bunch of rumdums, though, I must say, to leave a man like that, after he's been assaulted and robbed!" said the Earl, as he motioned to Harrigan to bring him some breakfast.

Holmes turned to me, with his customary irritating grin, and said: "Well, Doc; what did I tell you? Never count your coroner's fees before they're hatched!"

The Earl bade Harrigan summon one of the footmen and tell him to carry the news of his sudden return to life to the Countess in her room upstairs. Then he proceeded with his breakfast, just as much alive as ever.

"For the benefit of you who do not know, I will say that I have a very peculiar heart," he volunteered after a pause, "and it sometimes stops beating entirely for a while. All that I remember since I retired last night, – with my clothes on, after tossing off a few more glasses in the library, – was being awakened in the middle of the night by some one opening the door, darting over to me, and jerking the diamond cuff-button out of my right cuff, which was on the side nearest the door, and my rising up out of bed to hit him a crack, when I was knocked unconscious in my struggles by the iron poker, which the intruder seized from the fireplace. He hit me on the forehead, and I didn't know anything more until just a moment ago, when I woke up with a headache, and only one cuff-button left. If Mr. Holmes can lay hands on the unholy miscreant who is guilty of this and the previous outrages, he will have earned my everlasting gratitude, also a reward of twenty thousand pounds, – double what I had Thorneycroft offer him yesterday."

"That sounds like business," said Holmes, as he jumped up, the Earl and all of us being finished by this time. "Watson, you can put it down in your little red notebook that at precisely" – here he glanced up at the ornate clock on the mantelpiece – "twenty minutes after nine, Tuesday morning, April the ninth, 1912, the burglar-hunt began; just exactly twenty-four hours, by the way, since we were first informed of the Earl's loss."

"All right, go to it, Holmes," said the Earl. "I guess you know how. I give you carte blanche to go as far as you like."

We at once adjourned to the drawing-room, at the right side of the front of the first floor of the castle, and Hemlock Holmes issued his orders.

"Your Lordship, the first thing I will pull off is an examination of every one on the place, – your relatives, friends, servants and all, – no one is exempt. Your own story I have heard. Now, then – "

Here we were interrupted by the constable whom Holmes had set to guard the front of the castle, who came in and said:

"Hi beg pahdon, Mr. 'Olmes, but here is Inspector Bahnabas Letstrayed, just arrived from London, to see that everything is hall right."

"I don't see how it could be, when he ain't right himself!" snapped Holmes, with a frown, as the bulky form of our old friend in previous adventures loomed up in the doorway. "Well, come in, you old nuisance," he added, as he motioned him to one end of the room. "It's enough to make a man bite a piece out of the wall when he has to contend with two such rummies as you and Doc Watson around him, particularly when he has a job on hand that requires close and attentive brain-work."

Inspector Letstrayed removed his tweed cap and joined us over by the mantel, with a fatuous smile on his large face.

"As I was about to say, when Barnaby butted in, the first man who noticed any of the cuff-buttons stolen, next to the Earl himself, was Luigi Vermicelli, his Italian valet. Call him in," ordered Holmes.

On a motion from the Earl, his secretary Thorneycroft went out to the corridor and brought in the more or less scared valet.

"What's your full name?" demanded Holmes.

"Luigi Vittorio Vermicelli."

"Where were you born?"

"At Brescia, in the north of Italy."

"How old are you, – and where did you work before you gave the Earl the benefit of your services?"

"Thirty-two. I was valet to a prominent banker in Venice."

"Ever been in jail?"

"Why, er, – yes," and the Italian became embarrassed. "I was arrested for intoxication once just before I left Venice; but I was imprisoned for only ten days."

"So you fell off the water-wagon, eh, – even in the watery city?" commented Holmes. "Well, were you sober when you put away the Earl's shirt last night, with the diamond cuff-buttons in it, – that is, sober enough to notice that the buttons were really there in the cuffs?"

"Oh, yes, sir. I am quite sure that the cuff-buttons must have been stolen during the night."

"Did you hear any noise Sunday night to indicate that burglars were getting in?"

"No, sir; not a thing. I didn't even hear the dog bark, as he usually does. I think that the cuff-buttons were stolen by somebody inside the castle."

"Ah, ha! This is getting interesting," said Holmes, with animation. "And whom do you suspect? Anybody in particular?"

"Yes, sir. I suspect Donald MacTavish, the second footman. I saw him with something shiny in his hand last night, which he hastily concealed when he saw me coming."

"That will be all, Luigi," said Holmes; "you are excused."

The valet looked like Mephistopheles, as he glanced around with a triumphant expression on his swarthy face, and left the room.

"Bring in Lord Launcelot's valet next, Thorneycroft," said Holmes. "And we may as well sit down, as the examination of this crowd will take some time."

The Earl and the rest of us found chairs in the drawing-room as Thorneycroft, looking very important, hustled out in the corridor to rope in the next victim. The constables had the servants all considerably frightened, and they stood around on one foot with mixed expressions on their faces. In a moment the other valet confronted us.

"State your name, age, previous place of employment, and whether you have ever been arrested," commanded Holmes, who seemed to be speeding up a little on his inquisition.

I wondered at my friend's somewhat more nervous manner as he questioned the second servant, until I noticed his old cocaine-squirter being shoved gently back into his pocket with his left hand, as he pointed his right forefinger at the servant. Holmes had evidently just sneaked in an extra shot in the arm without any one's getting wise, and I, who knew him of old, was sure that he would have a fit on for several hours.

"Peter Adrian Van Damm. Twenty-nine. Pretorius Brothers' diamond-importing house in Amsterdam, Holland. No, sir," replied the valet, just as quickly as Holmes had questioned him.

"I see that you are not to be flustered," nodded Holmes approvingly; "also that you are familiar with diamonds. What would you think of a man who would steal the Earl's diamond cuff-buttons?"

"I would say that he didn't show very good taste. They are too large and crude. Not fit to be worn to a prize-fight," answered Van Damm calmly.

"Impudent fellow! I'll fire you for that," growled the Earl.

"Hold on, Your Lordship, we may need this man later. Don't do anything rash. Thorneycroft, send candid Peter out, and bring in the first footman," Holmes commanded, consulting a list of the servants, which the Earl had given him.

"What's your name, age, previous place of employment, and prison-record, – if any?" snapped Holmes impatiently, as he noticed the obese face and low brow of the man before him.

"Why, er, – ah, – my name is Hegbert Bunbury, sir. Hi ham forty-two years old. Hi hused to work for the Duke of Bridgerswold, sir, but Hi 'ave come down hin the world, sir, and now Hi ham working for honly a hearl. Er, what was that hother question you harsked me, sir?"

"I asked if you had any prison-record."