CHAPTER XIV
"Well, what'll you have, gentlemen?" asked Joseph the butler, alwaysappearing at just the right moment. "We have Chateau 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?" pleadedHolmes. "I think you may crack me a bottle of that Tokay over there. Ihave 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 rubbingmy chin and sizing up the immense array of wet goods in bottles andcasks that stretched along this part of the cellar,--on shelves and onthe cement floor; "I guess I'll take a little of each."
"Shame on you, Doc, both for your indiscriminate taste and your toogreat thirst," chided Holmes, as everybody else laughed.
Harrigan was kept busy for a while uncorking and pouring out thelibations, while we all drank to the recovery of the threecuff-buttons, and wished the old boy from Baker Street good luck ingetting back the rest of them.
Uncle Tooter was just lifting up a glass of madeira to propose a newtoast, when all of a sudden there came a terrible noise from thekitchen above us, a clatter of pots and pans, the overturning of atable, and the sound of angry voices.
"I guess Louis and Ivan must be breaking up housekeeping. Let's go upand see what the difficulty is," said the Earl.
And we all beat it upstairs to the kitchen. Arriving there, we foundthat the excitable French chef had treed his Russian assistant on topof a tall cupboard that ran along one side of the room, while variouskitchen utensils strewn over the floor testified to a preliminaryskirmish. As we entered the door leading from the cellar stairs Ivanjumped down and ran out the rear door, while La Violette grabbed up abutcher-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 twostarted a grand chase along the brick walk leading to the stables; butHolmes's long legs were too much for them, and in a trice he hadcaptured Louis and disarmed him, while Ivan hid behind a tree.Blumenroth, the gardener, digging up a flower-bed with a trowelnearby, put down his implement, and stared at the two cookssardonically.
"O that miserable barbarian! I'll kill him yet!" shouted the enragedLouis, as we gathered round him. "He had the audacity to take my verybest kettle to boil onions in, after I had told him repeatedly not todo so. I hate onions, anyhow; and besides, I was just going to usethat kettle to prepare some peas in!"
"Oh, is that all? I thought maybe he tried to murder you," venturedHolmes, coolly testing the edge of the butcher-knife with his finger.
"Is that all? I should think it was enough," cried Louis. "What areyou doing with Luigi's clothes on, by the way? Don't think that such aridiculous disguise could fool _me_."
"Far be it from me to attempt to put over anything on such an astuteperson as yourself," replied Holmes suavely, while his observant eyescaught every movement of the recreant Galetchkoff, who dodged behindthe tree every time the great detective looked in that direction. "Doyou think it probable that your friend Ivan could be implicated in thetheft of the diamond cuff-buttons, in addition to his crime with theonions?"
"Mr. Holmes," replied Louis earnestly, "that fellow Ivan is capable ofanything. If I were you I'd search him right now. I remember now thatI saw him put something back in his pocket very hastily a little whileago, when we were in the kitchen,--and he noticed me looking at him."
"Hum, this sounds interesting," muttered Holmes musingly. Then hecalled aloud: "Ivan, come over here, and Louis will forgive you forspoiling his best kettle with onions!"
The unsuspecting Ivan joined our little group there near an appletree, about halfway from the castle to the stables; and Holmesinstantly pulled out his revolver, covered him with it, and bade mesearch him.
I did so, and in the Russian's hip pocket found the fourthcuff-button, glistening and shining as brilliantly as ever!
"Well, here you are, Holmes," I said, handing it to him. "This one wasfound in between finds, I guess."
The seven of us collared Ivan immediately, and I feared the Earl wasabout to do him bodily harm, when Holmes interposed with a plea forleniency, 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 meto hide for him," claimed Ivan; "so I am not the original thief; and Idon't know a thing about the others."
The Earl eyed his second hash-mixer sardonically, while we gatheredround him there under the apple tree, and said with a snort: "Thisstuff about Billie Budd and not yourself being the culprit is gettingto be kind of a chestnut. You're the fourth person who has handed inthat alibi so far, and I guess the Australian sport didn't have to getdown 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 Violettechop you up for Hamburg steak,--a fate you richly deserve. Now beat itback into the kitchen, and don't let your boss there catch you usinghis favorite kettles again, to say nothing of keeping your hands offthe ancestral cuff-buttons."
Ivan was released and Heinie Blumenroth went back to his gardeningdisgustedly; while we returned to the wine-cellar for a few moredrinks, while the Earl lovingly patted his vest-pocket, where he hadstowed away the four gems, all recovered that morning by my lucky aswell as resourceful partner.
It was now half-past ten, and after we had helped to decrease for aquarter of an hour longer the visible supply of vinous, malt, andspirituous liquors in Normanstow Towers, Holmes suggested we go up tothe fourth floor and shoot a few games of pool before luncheon.
Everybody readily agreed, and in a little while we were engaged in agame up there in the spacious billiard room, Letstrayed evidentlyhaving wandered away from his sleeping-quarters on top of one of thetables. Holmes "bust," and put three balls in the pockets. As hereached into the third pocket to take out the pool-ball, his jawdropped, and his face showed great surprise.
"Well, what do you know about that, fellows! Darned if here ain't thefifth diamond cuff-button!" And he held it up to view. "Now how inTophet did that get into a pocket of the pool-table? I must freelyconfess that I hadn't expected it. Wait a moment, here comes somebodyalong the corridor."
In a minute more, the reddened and anxious face of Egbert Bunbury, thefirst 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 inhabitingthe billiard-room; but turned and ran for dear life back along thecorridor.
Holmes brought his Marathon legs into play then, and soon captured theobese footman, who puffed like a porpoise in the firm and musculargrasp 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 fourculprits, so you might as well begin to spill out your littlenarration of how it happened that you absent-mindedly left a valuablegem in a pool-table pocket," Holmes admonished, giving the gem to theEarl and jerking the perspiring footman into a more erect posture.
The Earl was contemplating his hireling, his face expressive of mixedemotions, 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 prevailedhon me to 'ide one of them for 'im. Said 'e would reward me when 'ecame back to dispose of them. But Hi didn't mean any 'arm by it, YourLordship,--er, Mr. 'Olmes. The reason Hi lost the cuff-button in 'erewas because Hi was shooting a little game of pool by myself just now,with the thing i
n my 'and, so Hi could hadmire it, and when Hi madethe last shot, it rolled away. Hi didn't know which pocket it wentinto, 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'llsentence you to help Yensen clean out the horses' stalls for yourtheft," said the Earl.
The fat footman, glad to be rid of the inquisition, went downstairs ina hurry.
Our little party now returned to the billiard room and finished ourgame, also a few more, playing until Donald MacTavish, the secondfootman, came in and announced luncheon, it now being twelve o'clock.After luncheon, during which Holmes made several more cracks about thepossible guilt of others in the diamond robbery, we adjourned to thelibrary, and Holmes settled himself in the best chair, still wearingLuigi Vermicelli's light green livery, consulted his old chronometeragain, and yawned.
"Well, it's still only a quarter of one. Hi! Ho! Hum! Nearly fourhours yet before I am to go down to the village and grab the secondgardener with his stolen pair of diamonds!" he remarked. Then turningto me, he added: "Doc, I believe the reaction is on me now. I haven'thad a shot in the arm since yesterday morning. Have you got thedope-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 hadpulled out his famous needle and inoculated himself again in the armwith the poisonous cocaine, and right in front of all the five peoplein the library, too,--the Earl, Thorneycroft, Launcelot, Tooter, andHicks,--who stared at him as if he were a dime-museum freak; whichindeed he was, to a certain extent.
The seven of us managed to kill time some way or another thatWednesday afternoon, while the sun shone through the ancient windows,and the birds sang their springtime songs in the trees outside, theCountess having retired to the music room to hammer Beethoven,--ormaybe it was Mendelssohn,--out of the piano.
I had grown considerably interested in a very romantic novel by Xavierde Montepin, and took no note of the passage of time until suddenly myunconventional partner jumped up and yelled:
"Arise and depart with me, John H. Watson, M. D.! The time nowapproaches when we shall accomplish the recovery of the sixth andseventh stolen piece of glass for His Nibs the Earl!"
And Holmes grabbed me by the shoulder so sharply that the book fellout of my hands.
"You don't need to throw a fit about it, anyhow," I grumbled, as Ihastened to accompany him out of the castle and down the somewhatdusty road to the village of Hedge-gutheridge.
The darned village was three-quarters of a mile from NormanstowTowers, and I didn't feel like taking a tramp just then, but Holmesseemed to be in high spirits as we passed along the ancient anddilapidated main street of the village, sizing up the signs above thestores until we came to one that read:
WILFRED WUXLEY FLOUR and FEED
It didn't look very inviting, being only a hundred feet away from thegrimy railroad station by which we had first come here, with cindersblown all over it, and if the building had been back in the U. S. A.and I was a deputy state fire marshal, I would have ordered it torndown at once. Of course none of the constables were in sight anywhere,probably being asleep in some back room!
Holmes led the way into the feed store, and we met the proprietor, whostrongly reminded me of Inspector Letstrayed and Egbert Bunbury by hisgeneral air of sleepy incompetence. It was now five minutes to five,and after Holmes had warned old man Wuxley of his identity beneath thevalet's livery, we decided to hide behind one of the barrels of branthat stood on one side of the store, and there await the coming ofDemetrius with his booty.
We didn't have long to wait, for he soon showed up in thedoorway,--with his swarthy face and shifty eyes,--and asked Wuxley ifLuigi had arrived yet to meet him. Suppressing a smile, Wuxleymotioned him in, saying that Luigi was in a back room.
As he passed the bran barrels Holmes and I jumped out and nailed him,and Holmes exclaimed:
"Well, here I am, Mr. Xanthopoulos. We'll catch the next train in toLondon and sell the diamonds,--maybe!"
But the wily Greek was quicker than I thought he would be; he jerkedloose as soon as he heard the tones of Holmes's well-remembered voicethat had bawled him out at the inquisition the day before, and in asecond had escaped by the back door, leaving Holmes with a shred ofcloth out of his coat-tail held between his fingers.
We two gave chase at once; out of the rickety old back door of thefeed store we sped, nearly breaking our necks in our stumble down theuneven steps that led to a weedy yard. There was a gate in the picketfence surrounding the yard, and through this we dashed madly after theswiftly retreating Demetrius, who led us down a narrow lane back ofthe stores fronting on the main street for several hundred feet, untilwe arrived at a small creek that paralleled the railroad tracks,--astream that I had not noticed on the way out from London the previousMonday.
As our ill luck would have it, Demetrius found a couple of dingyrowboats at the edge of the creek, and into one of them he jumped,grabbed the oars, and paddled himself down-stream at a pretty goodclip. Holmes swore, both in English and French, but quickly grabbedthe other boat, shoved me into it, and started to row after thegardener down the turbid and muddy waters of the creek, which wasabout sixty feet wide. As we rounded a sharp left bend in the creek,Holmes ran our boat in near the opposite shore and succeeded inhitting the side of Demetrius's boat with the prow of our own.
Demetrius yelled something unintelligible,--in his native Greek, Iguess,--and the collision threw him overboard, on the outer side ofhis boat, whereupon he began to swim across the creek to the fartherside.
"Come back here, or I'll throw this oar at you!" yelled Holmes,pulling it out of the row-lock, too excited to think of the revolverin his pocket, while I strove to row the boat as well as I could withthe one remaining oar.
Owing to Holmes's gyrations with the other oar, our boat capsized too,and the three of us were now struggling in the cold, muddy water,which, fortunately, was only shoulder-deep. We found it quicker towade out than to swim out, and as Demetrius scrambled up the oppositebank of the creek, Holmes was upon him, and grabbed him this time withan unbreakable grip.
"Here are the two cuff-buttons, Mr. Holmes," faltered the gardener, ashe nervously fumbled at his vest-pocket and handed over the two gems,none the worse for the wetting they had received. "Please don't killme now. Billie Budd made me and Vermicelli keep the cuff-buttons forhim, after he said he stole them; and as he didn't come back yet, wethought we'd sell 'em ourselves. And I'm liable to catch pneumoniafrom all this, anyhow!"
"We'll see about that when we get back to the castle,--I've got sevenof them now out of the eleven. Seven, come eleven!" said Holmes with agrim smile, as he put the two causes of Demetrius's downfall in hisown pocket.
The strangely assorted trio now walked back to the castle, the fewvillagers we met at the edge of Hedge-gutheridge staring at us insurprise on seeing our drenched and streaming condition.
The golden April sun was low in the western sky as we turned in at thecastle grounds, and I felt good and hungry, I can tell you, after allthe excitement. After explaining what had happened to the gapinghabitues of the castle, I hustled upstairs with Holmes, and we changedour wet clothes immediately, putting on dry ones, after advisingDemetrius to do the same. I prescribed a hot drink of whiskey-punchapiece for us in order to ward off pneumonia; and by half-past six wewere ready for dinner.
Everything passed off as well as before, and Holmes was effusivelycongratulated by the Earl for his recovery of the sixth and seventhdiamond cuff-buttons, His Lordship deciding at length that the secondgardener had been punished enough for his theft by being dumped intothe creek. They all echoed Holmes's slogan of: "Seven, come eleven!"for the recovery of the four remaining gems; and after an eveningspent in listening to Lord Launcelot play the mandolin, and to UncleTooter telling some more extravagant tales of his adventures in India,we retired at ten o'clock, and I soon fell asleep.
Then I dreamed that I was back in
the United States, on a MississippiRiver levee, throwing dice with several colored boys, who keptshouting: "Seven, come eleven!" when Hemlock Holmes came along andpinched us all for crap-shooting!
The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons Page 14
