Sherlock Holmes Great War Parodies and Pastiches II

by Bill Peschel

  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 reentered 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 o
nly 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.

  “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 barbar
ian! 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.