The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons. Thierry James Francis

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ Holmes took command of the situation, like the old hand that he was, entirely used to such gruesome sights, and stepped to the telephone on a small table in one corner of the Earl's room.

      "Give me the village constables, – any of them, – at Hedge-gutheridge, quick!" he called through the instrument. "This one of the constables?" – after a moment. "This is Normanstow Towers. The Earl of Puddingham has apparently been murdered by some one attempting to steal the last of his diamond cuff-buttons… Hemlock Holmes, from London, talking. Have all your men come up here at once and surround the place, letting no one in or out!.. Whom do I suspect? Never mind whom I suspect. I'd never suspect you constables of having too much brains after the way you left here yesterday noon, with the castle unguarded, – that's a cinch!.. Now don't take all day getting here. Good-by!"

      And Holmes slammed the receiver back on the hook, whirled around on the chair, and faced the gaping crowd of people in the room.

      "Well, what are you looking at?" he demanded. "Get together there, some of you, and bring order out of chaos. You there, with the vacant look on your face, are you the Countess's maid?" – addressing one of the three woman servants. "Take care of your mistress there in that chair. Can't you see she's coming out of her faint? If the cook is among you, he'd better get back to the kitchen and prepare breakfast. Watson, you take this revolver here," – fishing a six-shooter out of his pocket and handing it to me, – "go to the rear entrance of the castle, and stand guard there till those tortoise-like constables arrive. Let no one in or out; and I will do the same at the front entrance. Do you get me, Steve?"

      And Holmes jumped up, full of renewed "pep," and boldly pushed those of the friends and servants of the deceased Earl who didn't move quickly right out of the room into the corridor, the Countess having been assisted in the meantime up to her own room on the second floor by her Spanish maid.

      "I say there, Holmes, don't you think you're going it pretty strong?" protested Billie Budd, the man from Australia, as he was shoved along with the rest of them by the masterful detective.

      "Just keep your shirt on, Mr. Budd," said the latter, as he locked the door of the Earl's room behind him and put the key in his pocket. "I'm running this show, not you. I was sent here to get results, and I'm going to get 'em, – see?"

      "I guess the old cocaine is beginning to work on him again," I muttered.

      Then I started with the gun to the rear door of the castle, while Holmes, after overawing the others, stationed himself at the front door, with another loaded and cocked revolver in his hand.

      After about fifteen minutes of tiresome waiting, while several of the servants peeped out at me from the rear rooms as I stood sentinel at the end of the corridor, just inside the great iron barred door, I heard Holmes's welcome shout from the front of the building:

      "All right, Watson; the constables are here!"

      In a moment a wooden-faced gink appeared, who said he had come to relieve me. I put the revolver in my pocket and rejoined Holmes in the drawing-room, where I found him with Lord Launcelot and the others.

      "Well, boys, I've got four constables completely surrounding the castle now, – one on each side, – so we'll sit down to breakfast. It's nearly nine o'clock now."

      And Holmes moved toward the dining-room.

      "All right, old top," said Launcelot, smiling at the detective. "As long as George Arthur, – the Earl, you know, – is disabled or dead, I am the master of the house, and I'll back you up in everything you do."

      "Even if I should happen to arrest you for stealing some of the cuff-buttons yourself, eh?" queried Holmes with a grin, as we sat down to our delayed breakfast.

      Launcelot sort of choked at this, stared at the speaker, and said:

      "What queer things you do get off, Mr. Holmes! Your idea of a joke, I suppose."

      Chapter IV

      The ever-smiling butler we had met the day before, whose spirits did not seem dampened by the tragedies that had lately occurred, moved around the table silently and quickly as he waited on us seven men partaking of breakfast, with a dead man in the other room.

      As I watched them there, I noticed that the five habitués of the castle all seemed rather embarrassed when Holmes looked at them, and would then look the other way, evidently on account of his brutal remark to the Earl's brother.

      Harrigan had just brought me a second cup of coffee, holding it poised over the edge of the table, when the door opened, and His Lordship, the deceased Earl of Puddingham, walked in on us, looking very pale, with one hand pressed to his forehead.

      I felt cold chills creep over me, as Harrigan dropped the cup of coffee crash-splash on the floor, yelling:

      "Good-night! A ghost!"

      Every one else in the room was so surprised that he sat speechless, except Holmes. Billie Budd swallowed a peach-stone in his astonishment, and coughed and spluttered for quite a while.

      "What, aren't you dead, George?" Launcelot finally managed to gasp, as the Earl walked over to his vacant chair at the head of the table and sat down in it.

      "Why, no; of course not. 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.

      "For the benefit of you who do not know, I will say that I have a very peculiar heart," he volunteered after a pause, "and it sometimes stops beating entirely for a while. All that I remember since I retired last night, – with my clothes on, after tossing off a few more glasses in the library, – was being awakened in the middle of the night by some one opening the door, darting over to me, and jerking the diamond cuff-button out of my right cuff, which was on the side nearest the door, and my rising up out of bed to hit him a crack, when I was knocked unconscious in my struggles by the iron poker, which the intruder seized from the fireplace. He hit me on the forehead, and I didn't know anything more until just a moment ago, when I woke up with a headache, and only one cuff-button left. If Mr. Holmes can lay hands on the unholy miscreant who is guilty of this and the previous outrages, he will have earned my everlasting gratitude, also a reward of twenty thousand pounds, – double what I had Thorneycroft offer him yesterday."

      "That sounds like business," said Holmes, as he jumped up, the Earl and all of us being finished by this time. "Watson, you can put it down in your little red notebook that at precisely" – here he glanced up at the ornate clock on the mantelpiece – "twenty minutes after nine, Tuesday morning, April the ninth, 1912, the burglar-hunt began; just exactly twenty-four hours, by the way, since we were first informed of the Earl's loss."

      "All right, go to it, Holmes," said the Earl. "I guess you know how. I give you carte blanche to go as far as you like."

      We at once adjourned to the drawing-room, at the right side of the front of the first floor of the castle, and Hemlock Holmes issued his orders.

      "Your Lordship, the first thing I will pull off is an examination of every one on the place, – your relatives, friends, servants and all, – no one СКАЧАТЬ