As Holmes and I were sitting down to luncheon at twelve-thirty that
noon, and Mrs. Hudson, our old reliable landlady, was placing a fried
pork-chop on my plate, we were again startled at hearing a terrific
banging at the front door. The rain had died down somewhat, but it was
still cloudy and disagreeable outside. In a moment more our own door
was thrust open, and another visitor,--a young man of about
thirty,--butted in on our privacy.
"Oh, I'm sure I beg your pardon, gentlemen," said this guy as he
entered, "but I am Lord Launcelot Dunderhaugh, younger brother of the
Earl of Puddingham, whose secretary, Mr. Thorneycroft, was here this
morning. I came to tell you that since his return, two more pairs of
those historic cuff-buttons have been stolen, and to see that you come
out to the castle on the one-twenty-two train without fail!"
"Hum, that's hard lines, ain't it, Launcelot?" said Holmes, as he
waved him to a chair; "you'll excuse us if Watson and I go on with our
luncheon while you talk. Got any idea who lifted the second and third
pair,--any clues at all to the guilty wretches?"
"No, Mr. Holmes; I really haven't," replied Lord Launcelot, as he sat
down. "It's quite annoying to have to think about such a disconcerting
event, so much out of my usual line, doncherknow."
And the Earl's brother contemplated the floor in gloomy silence for
the next twenty-five minutes, while H. H. and I were feeding our
faces.
When we had finished and had lit a couple of cigarettes, Holmes,
handing one to Launcelot, said:
"Well, it's just one o'clock. Time to beat it, boys!"
"All right, Mr. Holmes, I'm your man," said our visitor.
And, the rain having stopped now, we left the house together, after
hurriedly packing a few things in our suit-case.
We soon arrived at the station, where we boarded the Surrey train. No
further word could be got out of our noble companion as we sped
through the southern London suburbs and along the country
landscape,--not even after the April sun had straggled through the
clouds and begun to brighten up the scene.
"Ax-gibberish!" yelled the guard,--or words to that effect,--as he
slammed open the door of our compartment, and the train slowed down
and at length stopped in front of a dinky little two-by-four station,
with a cluster of worm-eaten old houses and a couple of sloppy-looking
store buildings near it that looked as if they had all been erected
prior to the Norman Conquest, or even possibly antedated the Christian
era.
"Well, I guess this must be Hedge-gutheridge all right, in spite of
the guard's mispronunciation of its euphonious name," remarked Holmes,
stepping off the train onto the decayed platform, which sagged
perilously under his athletic tread.
As Launcelot and I followed suit, a short, nervous-looking man of
about thirty-five, with a florid countenance, rushed out of the
ancient station toward us, and shouted:
"O Launcie, Launcie, misfortune has followed misfortune upon our
venerable family of Dunderhaugh this miserable day! Two more pairs of
those cuff-buttons have been abstracted during your absence, making
five pairs in all that are gone! I suppose this is the eminent Mr.
Holmes?"
And the noble Earl of Puddingham hurriedly shook hands with my boss.
"Right you are, Your Lordship," said Holmes, "and here is the
egregious Dr. Watson, also at your service. You see, he's my old
side-kicker, and I couldn't think of entering upon a crook-chase
without him tagging along after me to write it up in well-chosen
language. Do you get me, Steve? And, say, don't worry about the
cuff-buttons. We'll find 'em all right."
"Assuredly, Mr. Holmes," said the Earl, as we all stepped into a coach
that was waiting back of the station, with Launcelot more gloomy and
depressed than ever.
"Home, Olaf! And get a move on!" This to the fat little coachman who
drove the ancestral chariot.
"Ay bane get there pooty qvick, Your Lordship," said that Norwegian
worthy, as he whipped up the horses, and in five minutes' time we had
dashed up to a large and imposing stone castle with round towers at
each corner,--apparently about five hundred years old and five stories
high,--surrounded by an extensive garden and park, with a small woods
in the rear: just the kind you read about, with green gobs of ivy
hanging down over the gray walls.
"Well, here we are, my friends," said the Earl, as he stepped out;
while two footmen in light green livery assisted us to alight. "Let's
see if I've still got the sixth and last pair of my diamond
cuff-buttons safe here."
He fumbled with his cuffs a moment, and added:
"Yes, they're still here. What with Lloyd-George soaking all the
British nobility with his preposterous income-tax, and everything
going to the demnition bow-wows generally, you can't tell but that
you'll be beaten out of your eye-teeth the next minute!"
As Holmes stepped out of the Puddingham coach and started up the broad
stone stairway leading to the main entrance of the five-story castle,
he stumbled over a good-sized rock lying on the graveled road at the
foot of the stairs, and would have landed on his revered nose if I had
not caught him.
"I fear that this is a bad omen," said the Earl, frowning; "but I
trust it may not prevent the success of our undertaking."
"Don't worry! I wasn't hurt," answered Holmes.
And we went up the stairway together.
The great bronze door opened, and a lady dressed in the latest London
style (or maybe it was Paris) greeted us with:
"Welcome to Normanstow Towers, Mr. Holmes, and Dr. Watson, also. I am
sure that my husband the Earl and all of us will be more than glad if
you recover the lost diamond cuff-buttons for us."
"I hope so, madame," said Holmes, as the Earl formally introduced us.
"We will certainly do our best."
The butler, standing beside the Countess Annabelle, winked at us as
she went into the drawing-room on one side of the corridor, and
beckoned to us to enter the library on the other side.
"Well, Harrigan, you may pour us out each a glass of wine," said the
Earl, as Holmes, Lord Launcelot, and I followed him into the room.
The library was a very handsomely furnished library, but it looked as
if the noble master of Normanstow Towers did more drinking than
reading in its luxurious interior, as three trays with at least a
dozen empty glasses stood on the broad mahogany table, while a
decanter of whiskey, a siphon of seltzer-water, and five quart bottles
of wine decorated a smaller table at one side.
The butler filled four glasses with some excellent Burgundy, and as we
finished them, the Earl said:
"Where are Uncle Tooter, Mr. Hicks, and Mr. Budd,--and Thorneycroft,
too, Harrigan?"
"They're all up in the billiard room, trying to forget the unseemly
tragedy that has marred the tranquil tenor of our lives here," replied
Harrigan, winking at us again.
"Well, I only wish I, too, could forget it; but how can I? King George
will never receive me again if those precious cuff-buttons aren't
coughed up."
And the Earl started up the stairs to the second floor. "Come on up
and join them, Mr. Holmes, before you begin your usual tape-measuring,
snooping around with a magnifying-glass, and analyzing cigar ashes!
You see, I'm on to all your little tricks."
"Well, say, hold on a minute, Puddy,--er, I mean Your Lordship. I
don't mind stalling awhile before I begin pulling off my historic
stunts, as this detective business is only a graft anyhow. But as my
long suit has always been to criticize the regular police force, I
must ask you why in thunder those constables from the village aren't
here on guard, considering that three successive thefts have occurred
here in the same day," remonstrated my friend.
"Oh, they went back to Hedge-gutheridge at noon," replied the Earl,
shrugging his shoulders, "telling me they would wait till all six
pairs of cuff-buttons were stolen before they would do anything more,
as they would then probably have more clues to follow!"
"Can you beat it, Watson?" said Holmes to me as we ascended the
elegant stairway to the fourth floor. "These guys are just about as
brainy as the average American cop I bumped into on the other side of
the Big Pond."
On the fourth floor we entered a large room with a billiard table and
a pool table in it, where four men were busily engaged in killing
time,--two at each table.
"Put up your cues a minute, Uncle Tooter and the rest of you, while I
introduce you to Mr. Hemlock Holmes, the celebrated butter-in on other
people's business, whom I have hired at an exorbitant price to run
down the depraved scoundrels who cabbaged my diamond cuff-buttons. If
he can't catch 'em, nobody can, I guess. Mr. Holmes, meet the
Countess's uncle, Mr. J. Edmund Tooter, of Hyderabad, India; my
friend, Mr. William Q. Hicks, of Saskatoon, Canada; and Mr. William X.
Budd, of Melbourne, Australia." The Earl had us shake hands with the
three. "My secretary, Eustace Thorneycroft, you have already met."
"Hello, Holmes, old fellow," was the smiling greeting of this worthy.
"I'll shoot you a game of pool. Billiards is too intricate a game for
my limited intellect to follow."
"All right," agreed Holmes with a grin.
The Earl stepped to a speaking-tube on the wall and called downstairs
to the butler:
"Say, Harrigan, hurry us up a box of Havanas,--will you?"
In a minute the jovial master of refreshments came running up the
stairs with a box of cigars under each arm.
"I thought I might as well bring two, Your Lordship," he explained.
"Sure, Harrigan; hand 'em around. Now, smoke up, gents," said the
Earl. "'Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.' As long as I've
still got the last pair of those blarsted cuff-buttons in my
cuffs,"--here he took off his coat and displayed to full view the
famous heirlooms, which gleamed like a pair of locomotive
headlights,--"we'll wait till to-morrow before tearing up the
foundations of the castle looking for the others!"
So they played on, at pool and billiards, for the rest of that Monday
afternoon, Hemlock Holmes and the six gilded loafers, while I sat idly
in a chair at one side, smoking several good cigars, my job being that
of an innocent looker-on, trying to figure out who was the biggest
fool in the place,--the easy-going Earl of Puddingham, for shoveling
out good money to my grafting partner, or Holmes himself, for
frittering away his brilliant talents in such piffle pastimes.
At six o'clock we were served a delectable dinner in the great
oak-paneled dining-room of the castle, prepared by the Earl's French
chef, Louis La Violette; and we passed the evening in the library,
sipping away several more bottles of the Earl's best vintages and
listening to the more or less improbable tales of their adventures in
the three faraway realms of the world by Messrs. Tooter, Hicks, and
Budd, while Holmes managed to pump Harrigan on the Q. T., and found
out from him that the Earl was rated at two million pounds, in the
form of several thousand acres of valuable land up in Yorkshire,
including one or two good-sized towns.
At half-past ten Holmes and I retired for the night, having been
assigned to one of the spacious guest-rooms on the third floor; and
soon we were wrapped in slumber.