At the edge of the woods there was a considerable stretch of bare pebbly ground before we came to the rear lawn, and I stumbled over a fair-sized pebble, which gave me an idea.

"Holmes," I said, "I think I know the derivation of the name of the noble castle out in front there,—Normanstow Towers. You see they claim that the oldest part of the castle dates from the Norman Conquest, though the rest of it only goes back to about 1400, and if all these pebbles were here at the time of William the Norman, then this is the place where probably William the Norman stubbed his toe, as he was chasing around inspecting the castles he had set up to keep the Saxons in subjection, hence, Norman's toe,—Normanstow! How's that for etymology?"

"Watson, you ought to be shot for a joke like that,—darned if you oughtn't," replied Holmes with a smile.

We then continued our walk to the castle, where we turned in at the kitchen door at his request, all the rest of our party having reentered the castle by the front door.

"Now here is where I will have a difficult job ahead of me, handling the touchy and sensitive supervisor of this hash-foundry, Watson," Holmes remarked as we entered the kitchen and said "Good morning" to Louis La Violette the chef; "for I have good reason to believe that he knows where a certain party has hidden one of the remaining cuff-buttons."

"Louis," he began, turning to that worthy, who was putting away the breakfast dishes, while Ivan, his assistant, sat in a corner picking out the stems from some hothouse strawberries; "I called to congratulate you on the uniform excellence of the repasts you have prepared since I have been an honored guest in this castle, and to say that I consider them absolutely Lucullan, not to say Apician, in their delicious sumptuousness. Here, have a cigarette on me." And Holmes politely proffered to the chef his silver cigarette case,—the one that the Sultan of Zanzibar had given him three years before as a reward on a certain case.

La Violette swelled up like a pouter pigeon on hearing this taffy from the great detective, and bowed profoundly, his black eyes gleaming, as he took a cigarette and lit it.

"Thank you, Mr. Holmes. I always endeavor to do my best in the culinary line, with the help of Monsieur Harrigan, who serves the wines at the end of the dinners I prepare," replied he.

"You are both geniuses in your line," agreed Holmes, as we settled down in a couple of kitchen chairs, and I listened while he tried to pull the chef's leg for some cuff-button information; "and I can appreciate your cookery all the more, since I am half a fellow-country-man of yours. My mother was French, as Doctor Watson informed the world in one of my very first adventures."

"Ah! You don't say so! Why in the world didn't you tell me about it before? May I ask what your mother's maiden name was?" queried the pleased Louis.

"Le Sage. She was a direct descendant of the family of the great French author of the seventeenth century, Alain Rene Le Sage," answered Holmes.

"Well, well, well! I must treat on that," returned Louis, and he bustled around into the pantry, and got out a bottle of Bordeaux wine he had hidden there by the flour-bin for contingencies. "Here, just try some of this elegant wine from my native province of Guienne," he added, filling three glasses, which he offered one each to Holmes and myself.

"Fine, fine!" commended Holmes, as he smacked his lips. "By the way, Louis, what do you think about the four remaining diamond cuff-buttons still floating around? I have reason to believe they are still inside the castle, and that Billie Budd did not get away with them."

Louis put down his glass, and regarded Holmes peculiarly.

"Those cuff-buttons are not worrying me one single bit, and if I had taken any of the worthless gewgaws, which are hardly fit for a Latin Quarter masquerade ball, I would have assuredly soon become ashamed of having them in my possession and have returned them to the Earl. However," and Louis seemed to hesitate a moment, "if anybody else in Normanstow Towers still holds the gems, there is no telling what may happen to them. I wish I could help you find the things; but when a Canadian gentleman who tells you he is half French, and used to live in that beautiful city of Quebec, comes and—and——"

Here Louis happened to notice Holmes watching him narrowly, and instantly realizing the horrible break he had made, got terribly embarrassed, and stammered out:

"Er, no, I mean, er—that is——"

But Holmes jumped up and didn't give him a chance to finish it.

"Ha, ha! The only Canadian in this neck of the woods is Mr. William Q. Hicks, of Saskatoon. I knew before that he stole one of the cuff-buttons, but now that you give yourself away and admit that you know of his theft also, you are in duty bound to tell me where he has hidden the darned thing. Come, Monsieur La Violette, I am more French than Hicks is, as my mother was born in France itself, while his was just a French-Canadian; so come across with your confidence, and rest assured that I will not misplace it by ever telling Hicks that you informed on him. The deadly flour-marks on the soles of his shoes indicated to my eagle eye, ably assisted by the magnifying glass, that Hicks had been loafing around in the pantry; which could only mean that he was having confidential relations with you, since the guests of an earl, from a far-off country, do not commonly come down from the drawing-room and associate with the chef in the pantry unless they have something very ulterior up their sleeve,—n'est-ce pas?"

Louis got more confused and embarrassed than ever, and was about to make some kind of answer when Donald MacTavish appeared in the doorway leading from the cellar, wiping his lips, and with a fatuous grin on his face.

"Oh, Scotty, Scotty! I am sure you'll never get to be a member of the W. C. T. U. when you carry on like that," said Holmes, noticing the footman's caught-with-the-goods expression. "Down in the Earl's wine-cellar again, sampling 'em up, eh?"

The second footman bowed awkwardly, and was about to pass into the dining-room when Holmes caught the glint of something sparkling in his left hand.



CHAPTER XVI

"Stop right where you are, MacTavish!" Holmes shouted commandingly, "and show me your left paw so I can see what you are trying to carry away with you. Something more valuable than the tinfoil off a wine-bottle top, I'll warrant!"

The footman looked around at me, then at Louis and Ivan, and finally at Holmes, whose threatening expression cowed him, and he shambled over and, with a deep-drawn sigh, gave up the eighth diamond cuff-button.

"Well, I was afraid that sooner or later something like this would happen," he remarked with downcast eyes, "and I would be jerked up sharp and the darned thing taken away from me. Blast that man Weelum Budd, anyhow! He came to me last Monday and talked me into hiding the shiner for him, so he could play it safe up in the drawing-room and I would have to take the blame for it if it was captured by you before he could get back!"

With undisguised pleasure my partner took the gem, holding it up so that Louis could view it plainly, and said: "But where has your base tempter been keeping himself these past two days, Donald? Have you had any secret communications with him? Better 'fess up, or it may go hard with you."

"Why, he came sneaking around here last night about nine-o'clock while you people were in the music room listening to Lord Launcelot play the mandolin, and he said he was boarding at the village inn under an assumed name——"

"And those rabbit-headed constables there couldn't recognize him!" growled Holmes, shaking his fist. "But did Budd tell you when he expects to collect the cuff-buttons from his dupes here and make a get-away!"

"Yes," replied Donald, "he said he would come for them to-morrow, Friday, morning, and he didn't seem to mind it when I told him that Mr. Hemlock Holmes had gotten back the first seven cuff-buttons, either; for he claimed he could swipe 'em all again, anyhow. Said that you were only a big bluff."

"Oh, I am, am I! Well, I can tell you that Mr. W. X. Budd, of Melbourne, Australia, will find to-morrow to be a darned unlucky Friday for him, all right. Now we'll just go into the library, where the Earl is probably indulging his great taste for literature by reading the labels on the wine-bottles, and we'll tell him how his good man Donald fell from grace through the wiles of an Australian thief. So, front and center, Scotty; forward, march!"

With these words Holmes waved smilingly to Louis, the chef, as a sign of what his friend Hicks could expect when Holmes the detective should collar him for the ninth cuff-button, and then he and I accompanied the scared footman into the presence of the Earl.

"Well, now what?" inquired the noble master of the castle, putting down a copy of London Punch on the library table, and turning to inspect the arrivals. "Don't tell me that that little cuss from Balmoral Palace there has been caught with any of my ancestral gems on him!"

"But I will tell you, anyhow, George, because it's the sad and undoubted truth," answered Holmes, as he handed over the eighth missing bauble to His Lordship, took out a cigarette, and lit it. "The time is now 9:15 a. m., and I herewith present you with eight-elevenths of your stolen property, trusting to have the other three-elevenths recovered for you before the sun goes down. As the old Roman Emperor Titus, or somebody, used to say:

"Count that day lost whose low descending sun Views from thy hand no diamond-capture done!"

"Eh, what? Well, by thunder, this is getting to be something fierce!" commented the Earl as he took the cuff-button from Holmes and stowed it away in his vest-pocket, "not the recovery of them, which I welcome, but the melancholy fact that I have been betrayed now by no less than, seven different people in whom I have reposed confidence,—my own wife, my secretary, my coachman, my second cook, my second gardener, and now by both my footmen! I wonder who is going to be the next guilty miscreant!"

And the Earl scratched his head with perplexity.

"Who did you think took them, anyhow? The horses out in the stables, huh?" inquired Holmes humorously. "But where is the rest of our recent little promenade party by this time? Watson and I got lost in the woods back there, and we lost sight of the others."

"Oh, they're up in the billiard-room, shoving the ivories around on the green tables," answered the Earl, rising and stretching himself.

"And with their heads containing about as much ivory as the billiard-balls, I suppose. Honestly, I never saw such a pack of gilded loafers in my life! Don't they ever try to improve their minds! It seems that you have some faint glimmerings of literary appreciation, since you read London Punch there, but those other ginks don't even read that much! Let's go up and inspect their playing, especially that of Mr. Hicks," Holmes concluded, winking meaningly at me, as we left the library and mounted the stairs.

Up on the fourth floor we entered the billiard-room where so much time was killed, and found Lord Launcelot, Hicks, Tooter, and Thorneycroft shooting a game of billiards, with old man Letstrayed, the so-called police inspector, fast asleep in one of the splint-bottomed chairs, as usual. Holmes picked up a cue, and playfully poked Letstrayed in the ribs with it.

"Wake up, Barney, and hear the birds sing!" he called out.

The sleepy inspector jumped up in surprise, while the other four men laughed and continued their game, and the Earl and I sat down as Holmes walked over and butted into the playing.

"Say, I don't think that Hicks is holding his cue just right, fellows," said he, grabbing that worthy's cue away from him and leaning over the table to try a shot himself. "Look,—this is the way to do it!"

"Aw, you're not holding it right yourself, Holmes," said Launcelot, who prided himself on his knowledge of billiards.

"Sneeze, kid, your brains are dusty. I guess I could shoot pool and billiards along with the world's experts when you were studying your A, B, C's! You see, I'm forty-nine years old, while you're barely thirty," replied the old boy, as sassy as ever.

"Hicks, I'm astonished at your playing," he continued in an authoritative tone; "why, a man so smart as to keep a diamond cuff-button hidden for three days while he confides in the Earl's chef down in the pantry should be able to play this intellectual game better than that!"

The Canadian's mouth opened, and his eyes bulged out with fright as he heard his recent deeds thus published to the assembled crowd, while all his audience showed astonishment as great as Hicks's.

"Now, look me in the eye, William Hicks!" Holmes went on, pointing his finger at his victim, "and tell His Lordship the Earl if that isn't the actual truth I just spoke."

"Er—er, ah,—I guess it is. I can't see how you ever found it out, but that crook of a Budd he came to me with one of the gems, and induced me to keep it for him till he called for it," was the admission of the confused Hicks, who, with reddened face, sheepishly fished out the stolen cuff-button and handed it to the astonished Earl.

"And now Billie Hicks is a thief, too!" said the latter. "How the Sam Hill did you ascertain that, Holmes?"

"Well, if Mr. Hicks hadn't been so careless as to stand around in the spilled flour on the pantry-floor when he was foolishly confiding his little game to the chef, perhaps I wouldn't have been able to apprehend him now," replied Holmes, clearing his throat. "Are you awake there, Letstrayed? You see that's how it's done, examining the incriminating stains on the soles of the shoes. Not the daintiest job in the world, perhaps, but it brings the results, and that's the main thing. This now makes a total of nine of the Puddingham cuff-buttons I have unearthed, and I have promised myself that I shall bag the other two by to-night."

"Do you always keep the promises you make to yourself, Holmes?" said Launcelot, with a grin.

"You just bet your life I do,—every time! But as His Lordship has evidently filed a nolle in the case of The State vs. Hicks, we'll go on with the billiards, with that Canadian gentleman remaining still unhanged. Now shoot 'em up, fellows."

So saying, the cold-blooded old sleuth sailed into the game with the other four men, and I sat tight in one of the chairs and talked about the weather with Letstrayed, which was about the extent of the latter's conversational abilities, although every once in a while I could hear him say to himself under his breath: "Nine down—two to come!"

They played on at the billiard-table for over two hours, and then it was noontime, and the still abashed MacTavish, the footman, came in and announced luncheon.

The Earl led the way down to the dining-room, and after we had been seated, Holmes told Harrigan to pass the word out to La Violette in the kitchen that his Canadian friend had confessed his share in the diamond robbery, but that Louis shouldn't worry about any possible indictment as an accomplice, and that he trusted that the green peas would be as good as ever, prepared under his able direction.

"Won't you try some of the Ceylon tea I brought in, Holmes?" asked Tooter. "I may as well advertise it all I can, now that you have exposed my secret salesmanship in the castle."

"No, thanks," said Holmes crisply, "I always prefer coffee, anyhow,—the stronger the better; and moreover, I am still more interested in what I thought that tea-packet was that you had upstairs when I intruded on your love-making."

"All right, suit yourself then, you old crab! I'm going right ahead with my plans for marrying Teresa Olivano anyhow, in spite of you and the Earl and your dodgasted cuff-buttons."

And Uncle J. Edmund Tooter said no more for the remainder of the luncheon.

When the meal was over, and Inspector Letstrayed seemed somewhat more overcome than usual, the party dispersed, and Holmes and I took a walk through the rooms on the first floor,—"just for fun," as he put it. It was then a little after one o'clock. As we were going through the kitchen, where the now subdued La Violette greeted us with a silent bow, Holmes's eagle eye caught sight of Uncle Tooter's coat-tail just disappearing behind the cellar-door. With a whispered warning to me and a quiet seizure of my arm, Holmes tiptoed after him, softly opened the cellar-door, and as Tooter's steps died away along the cement floor of the cellar, we went inside, locked the door, and I stationed myself on the top step, while Holmes went down.



CHAPTER XVII

Holmes quietly hid behind a large beer-barrel at the foot of the stairs, while I could hear old man Tooter rattling several bottles at the other end of the cellar, and talking to himself the while.

"Let's see: Here's the beautiful Amontillado wine from that lovely Spain that gave me my Teresa," muttered the aged dotard.

Then I heard the sound of something gurgling in his throat, evidently the Spanish wine that he had poured out, as there was always a good supply of glasses alongside the wine-bins.

"Now where in thunder did I put that diamond cuff-button?" came the voice of Tooter again, while I sat still on the top step of the cellar-stairs, just inside the door, from which point I could see the tip of Holmes's long, lean, aquiline nose peering out from behind the barrel below me.

"It isn't under the Muenchener barrel,—it must be under the Dortmunder," continued Tooter to himself, as I heard him laboriously heave over the barrel and paw around on the cement floor under it, in the space between the head of the barrel and the raised ends of the staves, "Ah! here it is,—the cute little diamond that that nutty George has been after, which I have been keeping since last Monday to oblige a fellow-sport, Billie Budd, but which I have decided must be taken out of the vulgar crude cuff-button and reset in an engagement ring for Teresa, since she is so dippy after historical relics!"

Then I heard a long-drawn sigh of relief, as Tooter drew himself a foaming stein-ful of the Dortmunder beer.

In a minute more he started back toward the stairs, and as he passed the barrel there at the foot of the stairs, Holmes suddenly jumped out and grabbed him with both hands, seizing the diamond cuff-button from him at the same instant.

"Ah! I've got you now, old wine-bibber! old diamond-thief! Look thou not upon the German beer when it is light yellow, or it shall surely get thee, sooner or later!" shouted Holmes in triumph, while Tooter was so surprised and scared he could hardly speak. "Watson, you can unlock the door up there now, and we'll proceed to the Earl's usual place of business and disburse unto him his tenth stolen cuff-button. You fooled me all right yesterday morning, Tooter, but,—by the brainless cranium of Barnabas Letstrayed, I've certainly got the goods on you now!"

I unlocked the cellar-door and stepped out into the kitchen, where the French and Russian pancake-tossers stared in astonishment as Hemlock Holmes came marching up the cellar-stairs with a firm hand on Uncle Tooter's shoulder, and then columned left in a parade through the dining-room on the way to the library.

"At-ten-shun!" called out my partner. "Present cuff-button! Salute! Most noble Earl of Puddingham, here is your tenth and second last stolen gem!"

Thereupon Holmes laid the glittering thing in the Earl's hand, while that worthy fell back weakly in his chair and stammered:

"What? Is Uncle Tooter guilty too? Ye gods and little fishes! Up to the very last I had hoped that none of the disgrace of this robbery would rest upon his sturdy shoulders, but now I see that it has, anyhow. And I suppose he claims that Billie Budd made him do it, against his better nature, like all the other simps you have jerked up, eh?"

"Yes, Billie Budd was in on this too," replied Holmes, as he carelessly lit another coffin-nail and turning around, calmly blew the smoke in the face of Thorneycroft, who had just come in; "but the old gent didn't have to tell me that. I overheard him conversing to himself about it down in your worshipful wine-cellar, where he had the cuff-button hidden under a beer-barrel. If Tooter ever expects to get along well in the diamond-swiping business, he will certainly have to cut out the highly reprehensible habit of talking to himself, particularly when somebody else might be listening. I guess that's all, Earl, for the present, although if I were you I would keep these ten recovered cuff-buttons in some safer place than that dinky little jewel cabinet on your dresser, since a little bird recently informed me that the desperate William X. Budd, the author of all these atrocities, is about to visit Normanstow Towers to-morrow morning, and attempt to carry them all off for good. Be advised in time now, George."

And Holmes quietly pushed Uncle Tooter into a Turkish rocker back of him, and walked serenely out of the room, his cocky old head in the air, and with me trailing humbly along behind him, because it had become the usual thing with me.

"Watson," said he, when he had led me out through a side entrance onto the noble castle lawn, "something tells me that we should take a little stroll around these lovely flower-beds that Herr Blumenroth has been so assiduously taking care of. See, there's the old boy now, kneeling down by that geranium bed over there, while his bone-headed assistant, Demetrius What's-his-name, wheels the barrowful of fertilizer down from the shed behind the stables. Let's go over."

We joined the elderly and phlegmatic gardener, and after joshing him a little about the beauty of the plants he was growing, Holmes began to ask him some leading questions about whether Lord Launcelot hadn't been loafing around the flower-beds on the previous Easter Monday at a time when he naturally would be expected to be up in the billiard room, shooting his head off at his favorite indoor game.

Heinrich was not at all backward about informing on the Earl's junior brother, and I gathered from his very frank remarks that he, Heinrich, did not hold a very high opinion of the said Launcelot's intellectual abilities. It seems that the latter had been loafing around Blumenroth most of the day Monday, and several times the gardener had caught him monkeying with his trowel, trying to dig up one of the flower-beds in a very unscientific manner, which same monkeying had greatly exacerbated Heinrich's none too admirable temper.

"It looked as if he was trying to hide something under the ground, Mr. Holmes, like a dog burying a bone," said the gardener to us; "and after he had kept it up awhile, interfering with my work all the time, I could stand it no longer and told him loudly to beat it, which he did. As soon as he was gone, I quickly turned over all the earth in the flower-bed with my trowel, but couldn't find a thing, so I suppose the simp must have taken it away with him, whatever it was."

"Not caring at all whether it was one of the diamond cuff-buttons we have been after or not, eh? My, but aren't you the independent cuss, Heinie? Why didn't you tell me this last Tuesday morning, when I interrogated you, among all the servants, huh?"

"Because you simply asked me then what I knew about the stolen diamonds, and I told you quite truthfully that I didn't know who stole them, though I might have added, just as truthfully, that I didn't care a darn who stole them! Sufficient unto the job is the regular labor thereof, without helping quasi-detectives from London to do their work for them. I'm being paid by the Earl to take care of the gardens, and that only; while you're the guy that he's paying to find his cussed old cuff-buttons for him. I wouldn't give a nickel for the whole lot of them, anyhow!"

And the gardener calmly turned his back on us, and went ahead with his spading up, while Demetrius spread the fertilizer.

"Gosh, that guy takes my breath away, he's so fresh! But then, we've got all the information out of him that we need, so come along, Watson."

Holmes then led me back to the castle, where we entered and proceeded along till we met Lord Launcelot idly fingering the keys of the piano in the music-room.

"Ah, good afternoon, Your Lordship," said Holmes suavely, as we entered the room and Launcelot faced about on the piano-stool toward us. "This thing called music is indeed a delightful surcease from the dull cares of the day, but finer still would be the resolution in young men of noble lineage to keep their lily-white hands off of property that is not listed on the tax-duplicate in their name, and to refrain from dishonest and secret contact with uncouth crooks from Australia, who induce them to forget their family pride and to conceal valuable gems from the eye of the law! In other words, to come right down to brass tacks, you stole one of the diamond cuff-buttons,—gol darn it!—and I want you to hand it back to me before I become so brutal as to seize you and take it away from you!"

Launcelot, however, did not avow his probable guilt so readily as his brother's revered uncle-in-law had done, but laughed right in Holmes's face as the latter concluded his little speech of accusation.

"Why, you old false alarm you,—do you think for a minute that you can bluff me like that? I didn't take any of the cuff-buttons. Go on and guess again. Maybe the cat took 'em, or maybe George walked in his sleep and threw them away down the road!" said he.

But his pleasantry was lost on Hemlock Holmes, who advanced a step toward him and, in menacing tones, demanded the instant return of the final cuff-button. At this point the door from the corridor opened, and old Uncle Tooter came in, without any present contrition for his recently confessed share in the robbery showing in his face.

"What's this stiff of a Holmes trying to hand you now, Launcie my boy?" he inquired, as Holmes turned and faced him angrily at the interruption and I held myself ready for an emergency.

"Why, the old magnifying-glass-peeker says that I stole one of the Earl's cuff-buttons! Wouldn't that frost you? I've been trying to get it into his head that he's struck a snag here, but he can't see it that way," replied Launcelot, rising from the piano-stool and brushing off his trouser-legs.

"Well, he'll have to, anyhow—that's all," said Tooter, and he added, as he grabbed Holmes around the body with both arms: "Run like h—— now, Launcie, and I'll hold him until you're safe!"

Launcelot instantly ran out of the room at top speed, while Holmes and Tooter wrestled around for a moment; then the former jerked himself away and chased out into the corridor after me, and up the stairway, where I had started to pursue the recreant Launcelot.

"Here, get out of the way, Watson, and let somebody run that can run!" he yelled, as he overtook me, legging it up four steps at a time.

The two of us then chased Launcelot up flight after flight of the green-carpeted stairs, to the second, third, fourth, and fifth stories, while I nearly lost my breath as we came to the fifth and top floor and saw Launcelot disappearing through a trapdoor leading to the castle roof. Up the narrow little wooden ladder we bounced after him, through the trapdoor, and out onto the broad spreading roof of the ancient and venerable Normanstow Towers.

"Oh, gee! first down in the cellar, and then up on the roof! This detective business is getting my goat!" I panted, leaning against a chimney-top where I stood gasping for breath, while the indomitable Holmes pursued the fleeing Launcelot across the stone roof to the opposite side, and there cornered him finally in an angle formed by the battlemented wall surrounding the roof and a small tower about ten feet in diameter at its edge.

Launcelot was squeezed up against the gray stone embrasure at that place by Holmes, who quickly forced the eleventh and last diamond cuff-button out of his nerveless grasp, then turned triumphantly to me, his faithful but out-of-breath squire, while the spring breezes ruffled the sparse hair on his uncovered head, and the gentle afternoon sun shone down on as queer a scene as had ever taken place during our association,—crying:

"Well, here we are at last, Watson. We've got each and every one of the Earl's diamonds now, and our labors are over, with a large part of County Surrey as the smiling audience for the finale of our little detective drama, as we stand up here sixty feet or more above the ground! Now let's go down and acquaint His Honor the Earl with the glad tidings before the wind blows all my hair off!"

He led the way back to the trapdoor, and down through it to the stairs, with Lord Launcelot following after us like a whipped cur.



CHAPTER XVIII

When we got down to the library, which seemed to be the Earl's usual hang-out, we found His Lordship sitting in a chair, with a book in his lap, but with his somewhat gloomy eyes gazing on the floor, and old Uncle Tooter, with his back turned to him, looking out of the window, as if they had just had a quarrel,—which was the case.

"Two o'clock on Thursday afternoon in Easter week and all is well, Your Lordship!" said Holmes triumphantly, with a smile over his mobile face that spread from ear to ear as he advanced and politely tendered the final diamond cuff-button to the Earl. "I have now the very great pleasure of presenting you with the last remaining stolen heirloom of the ancient House of Puddingham, thus recovering all the articles stolen from you on Easter Sunday night and throughout Easter Monday, which recovery is due to my herculean efforts, ably assisted from time to time by my old side-kicker, Doctor Watson. The only thing now remaining to be done is to seize Billie Budd when he comes up here in disguise to-morrow morning, and ship him into London with a ball and chain around his ankles."

The Earl arose and feelingly congratulated Holmes on the recovery of the gems, shaking hands with him warmly, and added:

"You will pardon me for not seeming more enthused over the event than I am, but Uncle Tooter and I have just had some words, the result of which is that he will leave this castle Friday afternoon with his bride-to-be, Teresa Olivano; and my six good pairs of diamond cuff-buttons will be sent in by express to the Bank of England, there to be placed in an iron-bound, steel-doored safety deposit vault, where no Billie Budds can break in and hypothecate them!"

"Yes, that's right," said Tooter, facing around in Holmes's direction; "and I can add that I am darned glad that I am not to be shadowed and dogged around by such a long-legged piece of impudence as you any longer. If a gentleman decides to play a trick on his nephew-in-law by hiding a worthless bauble for a few days, it's none of your business, and he should not be treated as if he was a hardened criminal for it. I am worth eight million pounds, and I don't have to take your sass, or the Earl's either, if I don't feel like it."

And the speaker cleared his throat and looked defiantly at me, as if I were responsible for all of Holmes's actions.

"Eight million pounds of what? Turnips?" said my unimpressed partner. "That doesn't cut any ice with me whatever! I only did my duty in going after the stolen gems in the most strenuous manner possible, and if you feel like putting on the gloves with me to have it out, I will meet you at any time at my rooms, 221-B Baker Street, in London, and then we'll see who's the better man."

And Hemlock lit another cigarette.

"Here, here! You don't have to fight about it, you know. I guess it's bad enough for Uncle Tooter to leave me to-morrow, without a threat of fisticuffs. Not that I care a hang about the social mesalliance he's committing in marrying the Countess's maid, but the fact of his implication in the robbery has me all cut up."

"Well, if that's the way you feel about it, Earl, you'd better grab hold of something for support when I inform you that the person who had the eleventh and last cuff-button in his wrongful possession was none other than your beloved brother and heir, Lord Launcelot. Here he comes now. I guess he must have been so out of breath from that hard race up to the roof that he couldn't walk down again as fast as we could."

Here Holmes pointed to Launcelot, who came into the library just then with a frown on his face and with most of his recent defiant manner gone. The Earl sat down hard in his chair, put his hands over his face for a moment, and then hollered for help to his best friend,—the butler.

"O Harrigan, Harrigan!" he called, "pour me out a glass of the stiffest brandy you've got in the place, with a dash of absinthe in it! Help! Life-saving service quick!"

"Yes, yes; I'm coming!" shouted Harrigan, who came running in, and ministered unto the Earl's needs from the supply of potables that was always kept handy on the sideboard in the dining-room, so he wouldn't have to lose so much time going all the way down to the wine-cellar.

"And say,—pour out a glass or two, or a decanter or two, of the castle's best wine for the Honorable Mr. Holmes, who has just now recovered all my stolen diamond cuff-buttons, Joe. Give him a barrelful of it if he can stand it,—give him anything he wants!—only for the love of Mike let me try to forget that the ancient honor of our noble House of Dunderhaugh and Puddingham has gone to pot in the unwelcome fact that my only brother and sole heir to the title, that shrimp of a Launcelot, has been mixed up in the robbery!"

The Earl yammered away at the butler for some time, while yours truly did not forget to help himself to the drinks while they were passing around, although I knew as a physician that they were not exactly the best thing for the lining of my stomach.

"Now then, Your Lordship, if you are sufficiently revived to talk business again, I would suggest that you give all those eleven recovered cuff-buttons, together with the twelfth and last one that the thieves didn't get, to me," said Holmes, "and I will keep them safely in my coat-pocket for you until you are ready to send them in to the bank in the city, protected the while by the revolver in my hip-pocket. I suppose you might as well forgive Launcelot as you forgave the others for their thefts, or rather for their receipt of stolen goods from Budd, as the main thing now will be to nab him, the author of the crime, when he comes to-morrow."

"Yes, I suppose so, Holmes," replied the Earl. "Come over to my room and I'll give you all the gems for safe keeping. Launcelot, you rummie, I'll forgive you, although I shouldn't; and I warn you and Uncle Tooter both not to interfere when Holmes arrests Budd to-morrow."

"All right, George. Thanks!" murmured Launcelot with downcast eyes, and Tooter also nodded assent.

When Holmes had got all the twelve gems stowed away in his right-hand coat-pocket, the Earl spoke of writing out a check for the twenty thousand pounds' reward he had promised him, but Holmes unexpectedly demurred,—saying he would wait until Billie Budd was captured first,—instead of grabbing feverishly for the coin, as I naturally thought he would.

"Well, there's nothing to do now but kill time until to-morrow when that scoundrel shows up in a spurious disguise," said Holmes, as he moved toward the door. "I move that we shoot several games of pool upstairs for the rest of this eventful afternoon.

"It ought to be about time now for old Chief Sleepy-eye to waddle in and ask about the stolen gems, after I've dug them all up, I guess."

"Old who, did you say?" inquired Thorneycroft with a smile.

"Why, old Chief Sleepy-eye,—that lethargic and comatose old piece of cheese that you call Letstrayed, of course. I suppose his ancestor must have got the name Letstrayed because he was let stray away from some asylum for the feeble-minded. Look, here he is now! Speak of the devil and he appears, darned if he don't!"

It was indeed the slow-moving and ponderous Inspector Barnabas Letstrayed that loomed up in the doorway and inquired about the cuff-buttons, while Holmes answered him very sharply:

"Wake up and come to life, old General Incompetence! All the eleven shiners have now been run down and captured before they could bite anybody, by me, you understand, me,—your ancient rival!"

"Well, er—ah, I suppose I shall have to send in a formal report to Scotland Yard about it, then, so the authorities will have official cognizance of the matter," said Letstrayed, as he scratched his somewhat thick head.

At this moment, the bell rang, and Egbert the first footman, answering it, brought in a telegram from Scotland Yard, which Letstrayed had just mentioned, and handed it to him. Holmes snatched it out of his hand, tore it open, and hastily read it to the crowd:

INSPECTOR BARNABAS LETSTRAYED, NORMANSTOW TOWERS, SURREY,

Have you found Puddingham's cuff-buttons yet? Answer.

O. U. DOOLITTLE, CHIEF OF SCOTLAND YARD.

"Wouldn't that knock the specs off your grandmother's nose?" sneered Holmes.

He hurriedly scrawled a reply, which he gave to the waiting messenger outside the front door, while Letstrayed fumed and stammered in protest.

This was the sarcastic message my partner sent back to London:

O. U. DOOLITTLE (well-named), CHIEF OF SCOTLAND YARD, LONDON,

No, of course not. How could he, when I grabbed them all? Now roll over and go to sleep again.

HEMLOCK HOLMES.

We all gave it up, and willingly joined the masterful dictator of the castle in the billiard-room on the fourth floor, where we played pool and billiards until the evening shadows fell and Donald the second footman came in and announced dinner.

The dinner passed off without excitement, except for the Earl's rising and proposing the health of Hemlock Holmes, which was responded to enthusiastically by all present except Letstrayed, who insisted on saying "we" instead of "you" when speaking to Holmes about the credit for the recovery of the gems. After dinner we adjourned to the music room, where the Countess Annabelle entertained us as on the evening before, playing a number of selections on the piano, including one little song entitled, "Once I Loved A Spanish Maid," which she repeated a couple of times with the evident purpose of kidding her uncle about his forthcoming marriage with her maid Teresa.

The next morning dawned bright and clear, with the sun shining warmly, and after breakfast we took a walk around the lawn in the rear of the castle, where Holmes claimed that intuition told him that Billie Budd would appear. It got around to a quarter after nine, and while we were chinning with Blumenroth the gardener and Yensen the coachman, I noticed a farmer dressed in a suit of blue overalls and a wide-brimmed straw hat come strolling along the graveled driveway that led back to the stables. He was a harmless-looking fellow, with bushy gray whiskers and old-fashioned spectacles, and he came up and addressed us in a somewhat squeaky voice, which aroused Holmes's suspicions at once.

"I say, gentlemen, could you tell me who has charge of His Lordship's hay in the stables? My name is Samuel Simmons, a farmer down the road a piece, and I would like to buy a ton or two of his hay, if he doesn't want too much for it."

And the alleged farmer took off his old straw hat and fanned himself with it after his long walk.

"Well, Sam, the guy who has charge of it is the coachman over there, that fat little fellow with the red face standing under the peach tree," replied Holmes in a well modulated tone, but with his eyes glittering with suppressed excitement. "And I suppose the Earl would sell you part of it, as I have good reason to know, to my cost, that he has more of it up there in the loft than he needs, and I think that you do, too. Weren't you up in the hayloft last Tuesday afternoon, Sam? Sure you were, and what's more, your name then was William X. Budd or I'm a Chinaman!"

And Holmes yelled out as he lunged at the so-called Samuel Simmons and pulled away his false whiskers, thereby disclosing to my astounded eyes the well-remembered face of Budd the crook.

Budd waited not a second, but put his speedy limbs into action down the driveway toward the open road a blamed sight faster than he came in, his spectacles and straw hat falling to the ground, while Holmes and I took after him as rapidly as we could.

"Hey! head him off! head him off there, somebody, for the love of Heaven!" shouted Holmes.

Our hopes were rewarded by Harrigan the butler, who came running out of a side entrance of the castle and made a flying leap at Budd from the side, just as the latter passed him.

Harrigan seized the runner around the knees, and they both came with a crash to the ground (making as fine a football tackle as I ever saw), where they rolled and wrestled, the butler on top.

Holmes and I ran up to them, and we soon got a pair of handcuffs,—which Holmes always carried with him,—around Budd's wrists and jerked him to his feet, while Harrigan arose and brushed off his clothes, just in time to meet the Earl, who hastened out of the castle and came over and clapped the butler on the back, shaking hands with him effusively.

"By Jove, Harrigan, you're a prince! Accept my heartiest thanks for the good work you did in capturing that scoundrel. I saw the whole thing from one of the windows, and knew right away that it must be Budd, in spite of the farmer's disguise," chortled the Earl. "Go inside and pour yourself out a glass of the best wine in the place on me!"

Harrigan left us with a grin, while Budd, handcuffed in Holmes's grasp, stood and scowled at us and ground his teeth with rage as the great detective said:

"We've got him at last, Your Lordship, and he'll certainly get all that's coming to him now. Just go inside and telephone down to the village to send up two of their constables, in order that he may be escorted into London in a manner befitting the enormity of the crime he has committed."

But as the Earl turned away to reenter the castle, the desperate Budd made another attempt to escape, and succeeded in breaking away from Holmes. Down the driveway he tore at a mile a minute or so, holding his manacled hands up before him, while Holmes for a moment seemed to be dying of heart failure, judging by the appearance of his face.

"Great guns!" he yelled, and a couple of other expletives as well, as he ran after the fugitive again; "he mustn't get away now, after all the trouble we've had to get him!"

But Budd developed remarkable speed, and there was no one now to head him off by a flank movement. But suddenly Holmes spied a farmer driving a small wagon with a single horse along the road out in front.

"Here! your horse and wagon are commandeered in the name of the law!" he shouted, jumping into the wagon and jerking the reins away from their astonished owner. Then he whipped up the horse after the fleeing Budd, who was making a large cloud of dust behind himself down the road toward the village. In a minute or two, the Earl and I, standing on the front lawn, saw Holmes and the farmer overtake Budd, with their horse galloping, and the wagon tearing along most of the time on three wheels. Leaping out of the wagon at just the right moment, my resourceful partner landed squarely on the back of Budd, and bore him to the ground in a cloud of dust and execrations, while the farmer, stopping his panting horse, got out and assisted Holmes to tie up Budd's ankles with a piece of rope that he fortunately had with him in the wagon. Then they lifted the now powerless crook into the wagon, and drove more slowly back to the castle, while Holmes explained the situation to the farmer.

"Well, I guess we might as well use this conveyance to take Budd down to the railroad station ourselves," said Holmes, as the wagon stopped in front of us, and he patted his coat-pocket where he had the dozen cuff-buttons. "Those constables would probably take a year getting out here anyhow, and I can also take your twelve cuff-buttons that caused all the trouble into London with me, instead of your waiting to send them by express. I'll take 'em to the Bank of England all right, get a receipt from the safety deposit department there, and mail it to you; and you can mail me your check for the twenty thousand pounds reward. You know my address, 221-B Baker Street. I can't stand on ceremony now, as I want to get this fellow Budd into the hands of the jailer P. D. Q., before he pulls off another attempted escape, so I'll just ask you to say good-by to Her Ladyship the Countess for me, and give my regards to Joe Harrigan, Louis La Violette, and Heinie Blumenroth,—the only three among the servants who showed any brains,—and my prayers for brains for all the others. Ta, ta! George! You're a pretty good fellow yourself!"

"Good-by, Holmes, and my best congratulations for capturing that man Budd the second time. I'll mail you the check right away, so you'll get it this afternoon in town."

And the Earl waved his hand at us, as I climbed into the wagon and joined Holmes on our farewell trip. Halfway down to the village, I took my handkerchief, at Holmes's command, and made a gag out of it to tie in Budd's mouth, to prevent the flow of a very profane line of talk that he inflicted on the atmosphere.

The farmer's name was Henry Hankins, and Holmes gave him a ten-pound note for his trouble in helping to recapture Budd. At the village, the three of us lifted the bound, gagged and shackled Budd out of the wagon and into a passenger coach on the 9:50 train for London, where Holmes silenced all excited inquirers by calmly showing them his card, at which every one drew back abashed, some even taking off their hats at sight of the celebrated name.

In a half-hour's time we arrived at the station in London, and when Budd was lifted out onto the platform, he showed his still impenitent desperation by actually trying to escape a third time, handcuffed and with his ankles tied as he was, by hopping along, both feet together.

We collared him soon, though, and bundled him into a cab for Scotland Yard, where, upon his arrival, the scoundrel again caused a rumpus by jumping and twisting around when they went to put him into a prison-cell, so that it required the combined efforts of four fat policemen to hold him down.

"Gosh! I feel as if I could sleep for a year, after all that excitement out at Normanstow Towers!" sighed Holmes, as he mopped his forehead on arriving finally at our old rooms on Baker Street, about a quarter after eleven that Friday morning.

"Same here, Holmes. You have nothing on me in that respect," I said, as I threw off my coat and put on my well-worn lavender smoking jacket, preparatory to sitting down in my old chair and enjoying a good, quiet, peaceful smoke before luncheon, far from the madding diamond-thieves' ignoble strife.

After luncheon, served by our old reliable landlady, Mrs. Hudson, who still did business at the old stand unmoved by the shame that had recently come to the noble House of Puddingham, we played chess until two o'clock, when the mail-carrier brought us an envelope addressed to Holmes, with an earl's coronet engraved on it. Tearing it open, Holmes found it to be a short note from our late host and friend the Earl, with a thin, pale blue check for twenty thousand perfectly good pounds sterling enclosed with it, drawn on the Bank of England, filled out in Thorneycroft's handwriting, and signed, as per the nobiliary custom, with simply the one word: "Puddingham."

"And the date of the check is April 12, 1912, Watson. And now I'm going to keep my promise I made to you out in the woods yesterday morning back of the castle," smiled Holmes, "I split with you fifty-fifty. When I go down to the bank now to deposit this check, I'll write you one of mine for ten thousand pounds, and you can come along to endorse it, deposit it to your credit, and we'll leave the Earl's diamond cuff-buttons at the safety deposit vault, mailing him the receipt for them from there."

"Holmes, you're certainly a gentleman and a scholar," I said. "Thanks."

On our return from the bank, after a few more games of chess, we had an early dinner and retired to a much needed rest, in our bedroom adjoining the celebrated sitting-room, but I couldn't get the case out of my head, and inquired:

"Say, Holmes, old boy, how was it you didn't grab Launcelot first instead of last, when you got all the evidence at once?"

Holmes had a grouch on just then,—for some reason or other,—and he answered me by throwing one of his shoes in my direction, which I hastily dodged by shoving my head under the bedclothes as he growled:

"Didn't you just make the equivalent of fifty thousand Yankee dollars for three or four days' work, the most of which I did, Watson? For the love of Pete, stow it away in your historical records somewhere and forget it! Dry up and lemme go to sleep now, or I'll climb out there and settle your hash for good!"

THE END