the room, and in a few minutes returned from the cellar
with a long dark bottle that seemed to hold the ruby-red sparkles of
the sunset on the hills of eastern France imprisoned in its depths. He
uncorked it, and deftly poured out three glasses of the ancient wine,
one of which the Earl took up in his hand while Holmes and I each took
one of the remaining two.

"Eustace, I'll have to cut you out of this, I'm sorry to say. Holmes,
I drink to your swift and happy recovery of the other nine
cuff-buttons. Prosit!"

At the welcome word of cheer we each put ourselves outside of the
finest fermented grape-juice that had ever tickled my throat.

"Thanks. Now we'll get down to business again," said Holmes, full of
renewed "pep," as he set down his glass on the table and turned to me.
"Doc, let's go up to our room while I get this horrible suit of
clothes off of me, and wash the red grease-paint off my face. Ta, ta,
Your Lordship; see you later, with some more cuff-buttons, I expect."

And we both left the library and went upstairs, where Holmes rapidly
changed his clothes and washed off the make-up in the lavatory nearby.
When he stood before me again in civilized habiliments, he began:

"Doc, I'm going to jump onto this man Vermicelli, the valet. My
deductions lead me to believe that he has another one of the jewels
stowed away somewhere, and it's up to me to find it."

So we left our room and went down the stairway, hot on the trail of
the slippery valet from Venice. As we rounded the foot of the stairway
at the second floor, halfway down to the main scene of operations,
Holmes's quick ear detected the sound of voices in a room nearby,
though my slower ears couldn't hear a thing.

He put his finger to his lips, took me by the arm, and quietly stole
along the corridor with me to the half-open door whence the subdued
voices proceeded. Arriving there, we halted, while Holmes cautiously
listened a moment, then put his head in at the door and coughed. He
pushed the door open immediately and walked in, with me at his heels,
determined not to miss any of it, whatever it was.

Seated in a rocking-chair by the window was the elderly figure of the
Countess's bachelor uncle, J. Edmund Tooter, the retired tea and spice
merchant from Hyderabad, India, holding his niece's Spanish maid,
Teresa Olivano, on his lap. As we entered so unceremoniously the two
of them ceased their billing and cooing, hastily relaxed the
half-Nelson grip