ou burst into my office in Baker
Street to tell me of the loss, and your nervous excitement at the time
was a fake,--you big stiff?" Holmes asked, blowing out a cloud of
cigarette-smoke.

"Yes. I acknowledge with shame that I did. But it was that scoundrel
Budd that burglarized His Lordship's room and stole the jewels
originally, and the coachman and myself are both simply receivers of
stolen goods, not robbers. O Your Lordship, this is awful," Eustace
added, turning to the Earl. "I am a graduate and an honor man of
Oxford University, as you know, and I surely must have been
intoxicated when I let Budd entice me into his damnable scheme! The
reason he took the jewels was because he had been losing heavily at
cards in London recently, as he told me, and wanted to sell them to
recoup his losses. I'll swear I didn't have a thing to do with the
disappearance of the other nine cuff-buttons, because if I did, I'd
tell you. That's all."

The Earl looked at Holmes sitting there puffing out smoke in a very
_degage_ attitude, with the smile of triumph still on his eagle-like
face, in spite of his absurd disguise, then he looked at the confused
and embarrassed Thorneycroft standing at one side of the table,
anxiously rubbing his hands, then he looked at the red-faced Olaf
standing near him, and finally he looked at me sitting in another
chair, furnishing the calm and sober background for all this
sensationalism,--as usual.

"Well, by Jove, I hardly know _what_ to say, and that's the truth,
Holmes," he remarked at length; "but the fact that my recreant
secretary has just now voluntarily coughed up the second cuff-button
without trying to hide it again in his shoe, as he might have done,
inclines me to let him live this time. So I'll forgive you, Eustace,
but don't you ever let it happen again, or I might forget myself so
far as to have you blackballed from all of the London clubs you belong
to," added the Earl, shaking his finger at Eustace.

"Thank you, Your Lordship, thank you!" cried the latter profusely, "I
shall endeavor to deserve your consideration by doing my best to help
you find the other cuff-buttons still missing."

"Keep the change, Eustace," said the Earl dryly. "Now, Holmes, what'll
we do with this little stiff over here?"

And he pointed to the still trembling coachman, who stood fumbling his
cap in his hands.

"Why, he looks harmless enough," commented Holmes; "I knew he didn't
have brains sufficient to p