at luncheon on
Tuesday. How are you going to account for them,--huh?" I inquired.

"Now, Doc, you betray a reprehensible desire to anticipate the
prescience of the Almighty in thus seeking to ascertain the future
while we are still in the present tense, similar to the people who go
to call on fortune-tellers, and the girls who always read the last
page of a novel first, to see how it comes out! But suffice it to say
that I found both Pampango cigar ashes and the toilet-powder that the
Earl uses on Budd's shoes; wine-stains on Uncle Tooter's shoes; flour
on Hicks's shoes, and garden earth on Launcelot's shoes. I'll tell you
more later."

Having given forth this cryptic information, Holmes arose, brushed off
his trousers, and added that we'd better be getting back to the
castle, or the Earl would be sending out a general alarm for us. And
that's all I could possibly get out of him.

At the edge of the woods there was a considerable stretch of bare
pebbly ground before we came to the rear lawn, and I stumbled over a
fair-sized pebble, which gave me an idea.

"Holmes," I said, "I think I know the derivation of the name of the
noble castle out in front there,--Normanstow Towers. You see they
claim that the oldest part of the castle dates from the Norman
Conquest, though the rest of it only goes back to about 1400, and if
all these pebbles were here at the time of William the Norman, then
this is the place where probably William the Norman stubbed his toe,
as he was chasing around inspecting the castles he had set up to keep
the Saxons in subjection, hence, Norman's toe,--Normanstow! How's that
for etymology?"

"Watson, you ought to be shot for a joke like that,--darned if you
oughtn't," replied Holmes with a smile.

We then continued our walk to the castle, where we turned in at the
kitchen door at his request, all the rest of our party having
reentered the castle by the front door.

"Now here is where I will have a difficult job ahead of me, handling
the touchy and sensitive supervisor of this hash-foundry, Watson,"
Holmes remarked as we entered the kitchen and said "Good morning" to
Louis La Violette the chef; "for I have good reason to believe that he
knows where a certain party has hidden one of the remaining
cuff-buttons."

"Louis," he began, turning to that worthy, who was putting away the
breakfast dishes, while Ivan, his assistant, sat in a corner picking
out the stems from some hothouse strawberries; "I c