James Francis Thierry

“ 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?" ”

“ You're a fine bunch of rumdums, though, I must say, to leave a man like that, after he's been assaulted and robbed!" said the Earl, as he motioned to Harrigan to bring him some breakfast.
Holmes turned to me, with his customary irritating grin, and said: "Well, Doc; what did I tell you? Never count your coroner's fees before they're hatched!"
The Earl bade Harrigan summon one of the footmen and tell him to carry the news of his sudden return to life to the Countess in her room upstairs. Then he proceeded with his breakfast, just as much alive as ever. ”

“ If you've got the goods on anybody, as the quaint American expression has it, go ahead and arrest them," he finally stammered.
"What peculiar things you do say, Mr. Holmes," said the Countess, leaning forward with interest, as she looked meaningly at Lord Launcelot. "I wonder if your remarkable talents will discover who made away with my best pair of shoes last night. I missed them the first thing this morning, as they were the ones I wore Easter Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, and I wanted to wear them again to-day." ”

“ A man who would do that would steal sheep!"
"Well, Mr. Budd of Australia, we'll hear from you," said Holmes, as he stretched out his arms and yawned.
"Sorry as I am to say it, Mr. Holmes, there stands the guilty wretch!" and Mr. Budd pointed dramatically at the fidgeting and uneasy Thorneycroft. "I saw him come out of the Earl's room late Sunday night at an hour when all good citizens should be in bed."
"You're entirely mistaken, Budd, I assure you," said Thorneycroft nervously. "I am as innocent as you are, and you know it. ”

“ I really thought you could hand me something more plausible than that, Holmes. Unquestionably you do show flashes of genius sometimes in recovering articles or in spotting criminals guilty of murder and so on, but at other times you're simply playing to blind, dumb luck, only your vanity is so enormous that you won't admit it. You want everybody to believe that you dope out all your problems with that wonderful deductive reasoning power that you get from injecting 'coke' into your arm, and sitting still with a pipe in your mouth! ”

“ Thorneycroft turned pale when he saw his recent accomplice, Olaf Yensen, in the hands of the avenging detective, and he had to grab the edge of the table to steady himself.
"Your Lordship, here is the first one of the diamond cuff-buttons recovered for you, with my compliments," said Holmes triumphantly, laying the gem on the table before the astonished Earl. "Your coachman is not really the thief,—only a receiver of stolen goods. ”

“ What would you think of a man who would steal the Earl's diamond cuff-buttons?"
"I would say that he didn't show very good taste. They are too large and crude. Not fit to be worn to a prize-fight," answered Van Damm calmly.
"Impudent fellow! I'll fire you for that," growled the Earl.
"Hold on, Your Lordship, we may need this man later. Don't do anything rash. Thorneycroft, send candid Peter out, and bring in the first footman," Holmes commanded, consulting a list of the servants, which the Earl had given him. ”

“ Holmes, I don't like to say it, because he's an awfully good fellow, but between you and me, I think that Joe Harrigan, the butler, swiped the diamonds," answered the elderly man from India. "He gets pretty well soused sometimes, as I have observed, and you know that a man in that condition is likely to do almost anything."
"Under the same principle, then, you may be guilty also, Uncle Tooter," interposed the Earl, "because you know blamed well that I've caught both you and Harrigan down in the wine-cellar many a time since you've been here. I guess that'll be about all from you." ”

“ You see, Watson, there are more ways of killing a cat than by choking it to death with butter!"
As the sarcastic old cuss continued his lecture, he shoved all the twelve shoes he had examined into the lower drawer of the dresser in the room, locking it and putting the key in his pocket.
"I guess breakfast must be about ready now," said Holmes, as he glanced at his watch; "it's twenty minutes after seven. If there's any of that whiskey left that we found on the shelf in the lavatory yesterday morning, I'm going to help myself to some more of it. ”

“ 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! ”

“ Hicks, and Mr. Budd,—and Thorneycroft, too, Harrigan?"
"They're all up in the billiard room, trying to forget the unseemly tragedy that has marred the tranquil tenor of our lives here," replied Harrigan, winking at us again.
"Well, I only wish I, too, could forget it; but how can I? King George will never receive me again if those precious cuff-buttons aren't coughed up."
And the Earl started up the stairs to the second floor. "Come on up and join them, Mr. Holmes, before you begin your usual tape-measuring, snooping around with a magnifying-glass, and analyzing cigar ashes! ”

“ Well, just this Easter Monday morning, when the Earl was being dressed by his valet, an Italian named Luigi Vermicelli, he noticed with horror that his nice pink-and-green silk shirt, lying over the back of the mahogany arm-chair beside his bed, had the ancestral cuff-buttons missing from the cuffs! ”

“ 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 [Pg 161] 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. ”

“ And I disgustedly threw away another little sliver of wood I had picked off the tree-trunk.
Holmes merely laughed and said:
"I guess you're simply sore because I dumped you into the creek accidentally yesterday, Doc. The old saying has it that no man is a hero to his valet, but I guess I'm not a hero to my physician either. Cheer up though, Watson; when we get back to the little old rooms in Baker Street after this cuff-button fever is over, why I'll split up with you fifty-fifty on the reward I get from the Earl. ”

“ 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! ”

“ And what do you know about the diamonds?"
"Heinrich Blumenroth, formerly of His Majesty the King of Bavaria's royal gardens at Munich, Germany. I don't know who stole the diamonds, but I can say that any one in the place is likely to have stolen them, except Harrigan, La Violette, and myself. We are the only three that are worth a darn. Nothing else, is there? I'd like to get back to the gardens. Very busy this morning."
And the first gardener turned on his heel, whereupon Holmes remarked with a grin:
"Sorry to have troubled you, Herr Blumenroth. You're all right. You're exonerated. Next!" ”

“ 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. ”

“ Think, man, think! Where in this immediate vicinity did you see red clay like that before?" said Holmes. I scratched my head with perplexity, and after a moment it came to me:
"Oh, yes; out behind the stables, near where the horses' stalls are. I remember now having seen the clay there when we were out after Billie Budd yesterday afternoon."
"Well, that shows that Eustace Thorneycroft, the owner of the shoe, was out behind the stable some time recently," said Holmes; "a rather incongruous place for a private secretary, and one of such sedentary and scholarly appearance too. ”

“ Don't let him get away like that, you pack of rummies! Get up and chase him!" shouted Holmes in great excitement, as he pulled a revolver out of his hip-pocket and dashed madly out of the room after the fleeing and recreant Budd, while the rest of us, galvanized back to life by the sudden developments, took after the great detective down the corridor, in the way that they generally do in the movies, all hollering: "Stop—thief!" at the top of our voices. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Let you go now, and thereby give you a chance to warn your Greek accomplice in the gardens that I've got his note? Not so that you could notice it, Luigi," scoffed Holmes. "Up into your own room you go, behind lock and key, until after five o'clock, while I quietly don your light green clothes, and disguised as yourself, go down to the guilty rendezvous at Brother Wuxley's feed store, and take the cuff-buttons away from him. I'll have the cooks send you up something at noontime, so you won't starve in the meanwhile. Now march."
And Holmes flourished his revolver at the valet again. ”

“ Letstrayed is only a rumdum, anyhow, as I have found out from long experience with him. He's always making bad breaks like that. You really mustn't mind him." [Pg 52]
Louis shook off Holmes's grasp, and faced the Earl, crying out:
"But I will mind him. I have been insulted. I shall avenge it. I shall throw up my job, and return instantly to that dear Paris! Why did I ever leave it?"
"Good Heavens, Louis!" shouted the Earl in alarm, "you mustn't think of doing that! I couldn't get along without you and Harrigan, the butler. ”

“ I think that La Violette, the chef, is the man who stole the cuff-buttons. He's entirely too supercilious, and kicks me out of the kitchen every time I try to get in after a hand-out!"
"All right. If I were Louis I'd do the same. Beat it. Next!"
"Er, ah,——I beg pardon, Holmes, you have now examined all of the servants. Fourteen of them, you know," said Thorneycroft.
"Oh, yes. That's right," said Holmes, as he consulted the list in his hand; "but you people here will have to be examined too,—every one of you. No excuses, now," he added, as the Earl started to object. ”

“ 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. ”