on to all your little tricks."

"Well, say, hold on a minute, Puddy,--er, I mean Your Lordship. I
don't mind stalling awhile before I begin pulling off my historic
stunts, as this detective business is only a graft anyhow. But as my
long suit has always been to criticize the regular police force, I
must ask you why in thunder those constables from the village aren't
here on guard, considering that three successive thefts have occurred
here in the same day," remonstrated my friend.

"Oh, they went back to Hedge-gutheridge at noon," replied the Earl,
shrugging his shoulders, "telling me they would wait till all six
pairs of cuff-buttons were stolen before they would do anything more,
as they would then probably have more clues to follow!"

"Can you beat it, Watson?" said Holmes to me as we ascended the
elegant stairway to the fourth floor. "These guys are just about as
brainy as the average American cop I bumped into on the other side of
the Big Pond."

On the fourth floor we entered a large room with a billiard table and
a pool table in it, where four men were busily engaged in killing
time,--two at each table.

"Put up your cues a minute, Uncle Tooter and the rest of you, while I
introduce you to Mr. Hemlock Holmes, the celebrated butter-in on other
people's business, whom I have hired at an exorbitant price to run
down the depraved scoundrels who cabbaged my diamond cuff-buttons. If
he can't catch 'em, nobody can, I guess. Mr. Holmes, meet the
Countess's uncle, Mr. J. Edmund Tooter, of Hyderabad, India; my
friend, Mr. William Q. Hicks, of Saskatoon, Canada; and Mr. William X.
Budd, of Melbourne, Australia." The Earl had us shake hands with the
three. "My secretary, Eustace Thorneycroft, you have already met."

"Hello, Holmes, old fellow," was the smiling greeting of this worthy.
"I'll shoot you a game of pool. Billiards is too intricate a game for
my limited intellect to follow."

"All right," agreed Holmes with a grin.

The Earl stepped to a speaking-tube on the wall and called downstairs
to the butler:

"Say, Harrigan, hurry us up a box of Havanas,--will you?"

In a minute the jovial master of refreshments came running up the
stairs with a box of cigars under each arm.

"I thought I might as well bring two, Your Lordship," he explained.

"Sure, Harrigan; hand 'em around. Now, smoke up, gents," said the
Earl. "'Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.' As long as I've
still got the last pair of thos