CHAPTER II
As Holmes and I were sitting down to luncheon at twelve-thirty thatnoon, and Mrs. Hudson, our old reliable landlady, was placing a friedpork-chop on my plate, we were again startled at hearing a terrificbanging at the front door. The rain had died down somewhat, but it wasstill cloudy and disagreeable outside. In a moment more our own doorwas thrust open, and another visitor,--a young man of aboutthirty,--butted in on our privacy.
"Oh, I'm sure I beg your pardon, gentlemen," said this guy as heentered, "but I am Lord Launcelot Dunderhaugh, younger brother of theEarl of Puddingham, whose secretary, Mr. Thorneycroft, was here thismorning. I came to tell you that since his return, two more pairs ofthose historic cuff-buttons have been stolen, and to see that you comeout to the castle on the one-twenty-two train without fail!"
"Hum, that's hard lines, ain't it, Launcelot?" said Holmes, as hewaved him to a chair; "you'll excuse us if Watson and I go on with ourluncheon while you talk. Got any idea who lifted the second and thirdpair,--any clues at all to the guilty wretches?"
"No, Mr. Holmes; I really haven't," replied Lord Launcelot, as he satdown. "It's quite annoying to have to think about such a disconcertingevent, so much out of my usual line, doncherknow."
And the Earl's brother contemplated the floor in gloomy silence forthe next twenty-five minutes, while H. H. and I were feeding ourfaces.
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, afterhurriedly packing a few things in our suit-case.
We soon arrived at the station, where we boarded the Surrey train. Nofurther word could be got out of our noble companion as we spedthrough the southern London suburbs and along the countrylandscape,--not even after the April sun had straggled through theclouds and begun to brighten up the scene.
"Ax-gibberish!" yelled the guard,--or words to that effect,--as heslammed open the door of our compartment, and the train slowed downand 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-lookingstore buildings near it that looked as if they had all been erectedprior to the Norman Conquest, or even possibly antedated the Christianera.
"Well, I guess this must be Hedge-gutheridge all right, in spite ofthe guard's mispronunciation of its euphonious name," remarked Holmes,stepping off the train onto the decayed platform, which saggedperilously under his athletic tread.
As Launcelot and I followed suit, a short, nervous-looking man ofabout thirty-five, with a florid countenance, rushed out of theancient station toward us, and shouted:
"O Launcie, Launcie, misfortune has followed misfortune upon ourvenerable family of Dunderhaugh this miserable day! Two more pairs ofthose cuff-buttons have been abstracted during your absence, makingfive 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 theegregious Dr. Watson, also at your service. You see, he's my oldside-kicker, and I couldn't think of entering upon a crook-chasewithout him tagging along after me to write it up in well-chosenlanguage. Do you get me, Steve? And, say, don't worry about thecuff-buttons. We'll find 'em all right."
"Assuredly, Mr. Holmes," said the Earl, as we all stepped into a coachthat was waiting back of the station, with Launcelot more gloomy anddepressed than ever.
"Home, Olaf! And get a move on!" This to the fat little coachman whodrove the ancestral chariot.
"Ay bane get there pooty qvick, Your Lordship," said that Norwegianworthy, as he whipped up the horses, and in five minutes' time we haddashed up to a large and imposing stone castle with round towers ateach corner,--apparently about five hundred years old and five storieshigh,--surrounded by an extensive garden and park, with a small woodsin the rear: just the kind you read about, with green gobs of ivyhanging 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'ssee if I've still got the sixth and last pair of my diamondcuff-buttons safe here."
He fumbled with his cuffs a moment, and added:
"Yes, they're still here. What with Lloyd-George soaking all theBritish nobility with his preposterous income-tax, and everythinggoing to the demnition bow-wows generally, you can't tell but thatyou'll be beaten out of your eye-teeth the next minute!"
As Holmes stepped out of the Puddingham coach and started up the broadstone stairway leading to the main entrance of the five-story castle,he stumbled over a good-sized rock lying on the graveled road at thefoot of the stairs, and would have landed on his revered nose if I hadnot caught him.
"I fear that this is a bad omen," said the Earl, frowning; "but Itrust 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 Londonstyle (or maybe it was Paris) greeted us with:
"Welcome to Normanstow Towers, Mr. Holmes, and Dr. Watson, also. I amsure that my husband the Earl and all of us will be more than glad ifyou 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 asshe went into the drawing-room on one side of the corridor, andbeckoned to us to enter the library on the other side.
"Well, Harrigan, you may pour us out each a glass of wine," said theEarl, as Holmes, Lord Launcelot, and I followed him into the room.
The library was a very handsomely furnished library, but it looked asif the noble master of Normanstow Towers did more drinking thanreading in its luxurious interior, as three trays with at least adozen empty glasses stood on the broad mahogany table, while adecanter of whiskey, a siphon of seltzer-water, and five quart bottlesof wine decorated a smaller table at one side.
The butler filled four glasses with some excellent Burgundy, and as wefinished 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 unseemlytragedy that has marred the tranquil tenor of our lives here," repliedHarrigan, winking at us again.
"Well, I only wish I, too, could forget it; but how can I? King Georgewill never receive me again if those precious cuff-buttons aren'tcoughed up."
And the Earl started up the stairs to the second floor. "Come on upand 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. Idon't mind stalling awhile before I begin pulling off my historicstunts, as this detective business is only a graft anyhow. But as mylong suit has always been to criticize the regular police force, Imust ask you why in thunder those constables from the village aren'there on guard, considering that three successive thefts have occurredhere 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 sixpairs 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 theelegant stairway to the fourth floor. "These guys are just about asbrainy as the average American cop I bumped into on the other side ofthe Big Pond."
On the fourth floor we entered a large room with a billiard table anda pool table in it, where four men were busily engaged in killingtime,--two at
each table.
"Put up your cues a minute, Uncle Tooter and the rest of you, while Iintroduce you to Mr. Hemlock Holmes, the celebrated butter-in on otherpeople's business, whom I have hired at an exorbitant price to rundown the depraved scoundrels who cabbaged my diamond cuff-buttons. Ifhe can't catch 'em, nobody can, I guess. Mr. Holmes, meet theCountess's uncle, Mr. J. Edmund Tooter, of Hyderabad, India; myfriend, Mr. William Q. Hicks, of Saskatoon, Canada; and Mr. William X.Budd, of Melbourne, Australia." The Earl had us shake hands with thethree. "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 formy limited intellect to follow."
"All right," agreed Holmes with a grin.
The Earl stepped to a speaking-tube on the wall and called downstairsto the butler:
"Say, Harrigan, hurry us up a box of Havanas,--will you?"
In a minute the jovial master of refreshments came running up thestairs 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 theEarl. "'Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.' As long as I'vestill got the last pair of those blarsted cuff-buttons in mycuffs,"--here he took off his coat and displayed to full view thefamous heirlooms, which gleamed like a pair of locomotiveheadlights,--"we'll wait till to-morrow before tearing up thefoundations of the castle looking for the others!"
So they played on, at pool and billiards, for the rest of that Mondayafternoon, Hemlock Holmes and the six gilded loafers, while I sat idlyin a chair at one side, smoking several good cigars, my job being thatof an innocent looker-on, trying to figure out who was the biggestfool in the place,--the easy-going Earl of Puddingham, for shovelingout good money to my grafting partner, or Holmes himself, forfrittering away his brilliant talents in such piffle pastimes.
At six o'clock we were served a delectable dinner in the greatoak-paneled dining-room of the castle, prepared by the Earl's Frenchchef, Louis La Violette; and we passed the evening in the library,sipping away several more bottles of the Earl's best vintages andlistening to the more or less improbable tales of their adventures inthe three faraway realms of the world by Messrs. Tooter, Hicks, andBudd, while Holmes managed to pump Harrigan on the Q. T., and foundout from him that the Earl was rated at two million pounds, in theform 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 beenassigned to one of the spacious guest-rooms on the third floor; andsoon we were wrapped in slumber.