The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons Part 19

INSPECTOR BARNABAS LETSTRAYED, NORMANSTOW TOWERS, SURREY,

Have you found Puddingham's cuff-b.u.t.tons 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 pa.s.sed 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 ent.i.tled, "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 pa.s.sed 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 gla.s.s 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 a.s.sisted 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-b.u.t.tons. "Those constables would probably take a year getting out here anyhow, and I can also take your twelve cuff-b.u.t.tons 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 pa.s.senger 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' ign.o.ble 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 n.o.ble 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 n.o.biliary 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-b.u.t.tons 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!"