The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons

He put his finger to his lips, took me by the arm, and quietly stole along the corridor with me to the half-open door whence the subdued voices proceeded. Arriving there, we halted, while Holmes cautiously listened a moment, then put his head in at the door and coughed. He pushed the door open immediately and walked in, with me at his heels, determined not to miss any of it, whatever it was.

Seated in a rocking-chair by the window was the elderly figure of the Countess's bachelor uncle, J. Edmund Tooter, the retired tea and spice merchant from Hyderabad, India, holding his niece's Spanish maid, Teresa Olivano, on his lap. As we entered so unceremoniously the two of them ceased their billing and cooing, hastily relaxed the half-Nelson grip they had on each other, and faced us with considerable resentment showing in their faces, though Teresa didn't get off Tooter's lap, as I thought she would.

"Well, what do you mean by this impudent intrusion, Holmes?" demanded Tooter angrily. "I guess a man can hold his affianced wife in his lap if he feels like it, without having a cheeky detective walk in on him."

"Your what?" asked Holmes, with surprise.

"My affianced wife, I said. And it's none of your business, either, any more than it is my niece's, or the Earl's. We had planned to elope and get married in London this afternoon, but I suppose now you'll run around and tell everybody in sight what you know."

Tooter whispered something to Teresa, whereupon she gave him a parting kiss, flounced off his lap, and passed out of the room, with her head high in the air, her black eyes snapping, and saying something that sounded like: "Impertinent loafers!" as she passed us.

Uncle Tooter arose from the rocker and stood by the window, where he seemed to be trying to slide something from his left hand into his left trousers-pocket, his right side being turned to us.

Holmes noticed the act, as did I, but said nothing of it for the moment.

"Well, Tooter, by George, I'm surprised at you," he commented sarcastically; "to think that at your advanced age, – and you must be pretty well up in the fifties, – you'd fall for the sweet-love-in-the-springtime stuff that gets the younger people, and that you'd engage yourself in marriage with a servant, too, and one who had previously refused you a couple of times. Of course, as you say, it's none of my business, but I'm used to having people tell me that; and furthermore, it comes within the line of my duty to intrude my nose into other people's business whenever I judge it to be warranted by the circumstances. Teresa has been accused by Natalie, the first chambermaid, of having stolen the diamond cuff-buttons – "

"Which is an infernal lie, and I can prove it!" shouted Tooter.

"And you have been accused inferentially by the Earl of possible guilt in connection with the theft also, owing to your occasional lapses from sobriety, which is rather a polite way of putting it," went on the unperturbed Holmes. "By the way, I'll just trouble you for that little package you slid into your left trousers-pocket there."

Tooter flushed with embarrassment, and refused point-blank.

"Watson, lock the door, and put the key in your pocket!" yelled Holmes.

Chapter XII

I locked the door at once, put the key in my pocket, and then stood with my back up against it, while Holmes stood in the center of the room, facing the flushed and uncomfortable Tooter, who remained by the window, with his left hand clutching the mysterious little package in his pocket.

"Now then, Tooter, I've got the goods on you, both figuratively and literally, so you might as well come across with it," urged Holmes. "I don't want to resort to forcible methods unless I am compelled to."

"I'm sorry, Holmes. I'd like to oblige you, but if this gets out about me carrying it around with me, I'm a goner."

"I guess you will be a goner. The idea of a man of your standing stooping to such a trick as that! You can't plead any lack of funds as an excuse for your regrettable error, either, as you are known to be well heeled."

"But think of the resulting notoriety, Holmes. I could never again be received in the best circles of London society, and I'm sure the King would cut me dead!"

"Well, I suppose it would hurt your standing there, Tooter; but you've got to take the consequences of your act. You're considerably old enough to know what you're doing, you know. Come on, now, give it up peaceably, or I'll forget myself and try jiu-jitsu on you."

But Uncle Tooter still refused to give up the little package, and Holmes, losing his patience, walked over to him and grabbed his left arm, while Tooter doggedly tried to wriggle out of his grasp. In a moment, Holmes, by a quick turn of his wrist, had forced the little package out of Tooter's hand, and it fell on the floor. Holmes immediately pounced on it, picked it up, and started to open it, but suddenly his jaw dropped, his face showed deep disappointment, and he angrily confronted Tooter.

"Say, what in thunder are you trying to pull off here, anyhow? This is a sample package of your confounded 'Tooter's Best Teas, Imported From Ceylon.' It's not one of the diamond cuff-buttons at all!" he cried.

"Well, who said it was, you elongated chump?" shouted the aroused Tooter. "I don't know anything about the Earl's cuff-buttons. You've been hanging around here nearly two days now, and you haven't found any yet; and then you have the nerve to steal my tea sample!"

"Why, I just recovered two of the cuff-buttons a little while ago, one from Yensen, and one from Thorneycroft, and I supposed I was about to get back the third one from you," replied Holmes in angry perplexity; "you certainly talked as if you had one of the stolen gems there in your hand. What did you mean by agreeing with me that it would seriously hurt your social standing, when all you were trying to conceal was a tea-packet, huh?"

"Because I'm not supposed to be 'in trade,' that's why, Mr. Impudence. Any direct connection between myself and the tea industry, such as my bringing in this sample package to Teresa, so she could induce Louis the chef to use it in the castle, would at once bar me from further consideration as a retired gentleman by the London upper crust, into whose exclusive circles I have but recently wormed myself with such untiring pertinacity. Now, do you understand why I didn't want to show you the little package?"

Holmes scowled at the tea sample, as he turned it over in his hand, and cursed softly under his breath as he replied:

"I don't quite get you, Tooter. Everybody knows that you were born in obscurity, gradually worked your way up, and made all your money in the tea and spice business, so why in the deuce should they care if you take it into your head to be a salesman for your own teas at your nephew-in-law's residence?"

Tooter sighed deeply, shrugged his shoulders, answered:

"Well, that's the rigorous lesson I had to learn in the West End, Holmes. You are evidently not familiar with the customs and mental viewpoint of society people, or you would know that while it is permissible to acquire wealth by going out and working your head off for it, it is a most serious offense and an unforgivable faux pas if you are caught trying to drum up trade for your establishment after you have landed at the top of the social heap. You see, I am supposed to let my managers do that, while I confine myself to spending the coin that they make for me. I guess that's explaining it about as well as it could be."

And Tooter contemplated the scene outside the window, where the little green buds were just beginning to push themselves out on the tree limbs.

This explanation naturally didn't soothe Holmes to any great extent, as he had always despised society people and their ways, and the sudden shock of the disappointment, coming just after he had so successfully recovered the first two cuff-buttons, made him lose his temper entirely, particularly as he looked around and noticed me grinning at his sour expression. As a result, both his paternal English and his maternal French completely failed him in giving an outlet to his feelings, and he started to swear in German.

As the longer and heavier words of Teutonic profanity came from his lips, I quietly unlocked the door, and motioning to Uncle Tooter, we both tiptoed out of the room and started downstairs, leaving Holmes to his devotions. As I went down the stairway toward the library the last thing I heard him say was: "Schweinhund!" which sounds pretty bad.

Tooter and I walked in on the Earl and his secretary, and told them of the bad break Holmes had just made, which caused the Earl to lie back in his chair and roar, though Tooter was more concerned about the social disgrace of having been caught with the tea sample.

The Earl was an easy-going and good-natured cuss, without the narrow prejudices of his snobbish friends, and readily promised not to tell anybody about it. He also simply grinned when Tooter told him that Teresa had just promised to marry him, and said his revered uncle-in-law would have to assume the job of telling his niece that she would have to find a new maid.

In a few minutes Holmes rejoined us as if nothing had happened, and we forbore from kidding him about it.

"Well, the next victim I am going to jump onto is your valet, Your Lordship, and I think I'm going to strike pay dirt this time," were his first words. "Where is the rascal now?"

"He's over in my room, sorting out my clothes," said the Earl.

"All right. Come on, Watson, we'll nail him before he gets away from the scene of his crime."

Whereupon I accompanied Holmes across the corridor to the room back of the drawing-room, which was the Earl's.

Luigi was in there, engaged in laying out several suits of clothes on the bed. He looked up in surprise as we entered.

"Ah, Luigi, you haven't got any of the stolen cuff-buttons concealed up your sleeve there, have you? I would really hate to think that you had," remarked Holmes, grinning sardonically.

On hearing this thinly-veiled accusation Vermicelli's swarthy face got even blacker, if possible, than it generally was, and he snarled:

"No. I'm sick of hearing about them!"

"I'm afraid we can't take your unsupported word for that, though, Luigi. We'll have to frisk you. Now, then, stand still while Doc Watson goes through your pockets for the gems, or at least for some incriminating evidence."

And Hemlock pulled out his trusty six-shooter and covered the valet.

The latter got so scared at the sudden gun-play that he fell backward on the bed, right over one of the Earl's best suits, which made it easier for me to search him. I went through all his pockets without finding anything that we were after until I tapped his inside coat-pocket. Here I got hold of a small crumpled piece of paper, drew it out and read the following on it:

Dear Luigi: Meet me at Wuxley's feed store in the village at five p. m. to-day, and we'll go in to London and sell the pair of diamond cuff-buttons. Be on your guard against that Holmes fellow.

Demetrius.

"Ha, ha! Ha, ha! a couple of times!" chuckled Holmes, grabbing the note from me and eagerly glancing over it. "I can tell at once that this note was written by a man who thinks he is going to meet the Earl's valet, but who is bound to be disappointed."

"Well, will you let me go now? You've got the note," said Vermicelli, with a scowl at Holmes's gun, with which the detective still covered him.

"You don't think I'm so soft as all that, do you? Let you go now, and thereby give you a chance to warn your Greek accomplice in the gardens that I've got his note? Not so that you could notice it, Luigi," scoffed Holmes. "Up into your own room you go, behind lock and key, until after five o'clock, while I quietly don your light green clothes, and disguised as yourself, go down to the guilty rendezvous at Brother Wuxley's feed store, and take the cuff-buttons away from him. I'll have the cooks send you up something at noontime, so you won't starve in the meanwhile. Now march."

And Holmes flourished his revolver at the valet again.

Luigi didn't wait to be told a second time, but went up the stairs with considerable alacrity, while Holmes and I followed close behind. When we reached the fifth and top floor, we entered Luigi's room there, and the latter changed clothes with Holmes. As they were both of the same height and build, and were both of dark complexion, the second gardener would not recognize my partner that evening until he got up close to him, so Holmes was playing it rather safe.

"I think I'll just keep these valet's togs on, for the fun of it, and then I'll be all ready when five o'clock comes," said Holmes after we had locked Luigi in his room and were descending the stairs. "Gee, but I wish they'd put in an elevator in this darned old-fashioned castle! My legs are getting kind of tired running up and down five flights of stairs."

As we reëntered the library, where the Earl, Tooter, and Thorneycroft looked up with surprise as they saw Holmes come back in Vermicelli's clothes, Lord Launcelot and Billie Hicks came in. They had been up in the billiard room for some time, and came down to see whether anything had developed in their absence. Upon being told that Holmes had recovered two of the cuff-buttons from Yensen and Thorneycroft, and was in a fair way to recover a third one from Xanthopoulos, they were greatly surprised.

"We left Inspector Letstrayed asleep on one of the billiard tables," said Launcelot, with a grin; "but I guess Holmes was able to get along pretty well without him. A little while ago I heard the first gardener, Blumenroth, swearing something fierce on the second floor. What was he doing up there, anyhow?"

"How do you know it was Blumenroth?" asked Holmes, as he nudged me.

"Because it was in German, and he's the only German here."

"Do you understand German yourself?"

"No."

"Then how do you know it was swearing?"

"Oh, I could tell by the tone of it."

"Well, if you couldn't understand the words, no harm was done. Say, fellows, how do I look in the valet's togs?" asked Holmes turning around as if he was in a tailor shop trying on a new suit.

"It fits you kind of quick under the shoulders, Holmes, but I guess it will do," said the Earl, with a critical eye.

"What are you wearing those valet's clothes for, anyhow?" exclaimed Hicks.

Holmes winked his crafty old wink, and replied:

"Along about five-thirty this evening you'll find out, after I return from a little date I have made down at the village. It's twenty-five minutes of ten now, and a number of things may happen in between, so just keep your eyes peeled."

"This detective stuff is just one darned disguise after another, ain't it, Holmes? A little while ago you were a race-track loafer, now you're a valet, and Heaven only knows what you'll be to-morrow," said Launcelot, as he curled up in the window-seat and lit a cigarette.

"Well, I don't mind it," was Holmes's reply. "Now, Watson, I'll need you again. I've had my eye on a certain party since my deduction-trance yesterday noon, and was waiting for her sense of shame to impel her to confess her part in the cuff-button robbery; but since she has not as yet done so, I shall be forced to resort to sterner measures. Come with me, and leave these fellows to kill time any way they like until we return."

And the old sleuth started to lead me out of the room.

"She, did you say? Is one of the women servants guilty also?" queried the Earl.

"Well, why not?" snapped Holmes. "I don't believe in this doctrine of feminine impeccability. But don't try to spill the beans by getting me to reveal my hand before I've played it now. Good-by, George."

We left the room, going upstairs to the second floor, where Holmes tapped lightly on the door of the Countess's room.

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.