his 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 is exempt. Your own story I have heard. Now, then----"

Here we were interrupted by the constable whom Holmes had set to guard
the front of the castle, who came in and said:

"Hi beg pahdon, Mr. 'Olmes, but here is Inspector Bahnabas Letstrayed,
just arrived from London, to see that everything is hall right."

"I don't see how it could be, when he ain't right himself!" snapped
Holmes, with a frown, as the bulky form of our old friend in previous
adventures loomed up in the doorway. "Well, come in, you old
nuisance," he added, as he motioned him to one end of the room. "It's
enough to make a man bite a piece out of the wall when he has to
contend with two such rummies as you and Doc Watson around him,
particularly when he has a job on hand that requires close and
attentive brain-work."

Inspector Letstrayed removed his tweed cap and joined us over by the
mantel, with a fatuous smile on his large face.

"As I was about to say, when Barnaby butted in, the first man who
noticed any of the cuff-buttons stolen, next to the Earl himself, was
Luigi Vermicelli, his Italian valet. Call him in," ordered Holmes.

On a motion from the Earl, his secretary Thorneycroft went out to the
corridor and brought in the more or less scared valet.

"What's your full name?" demanded Holmes.

"Luigi Vittorio Vermicelli."

"Where were you born?"

"At Brescia, in the north of Italy."

"How old are you,--and where did you work before you gave the Earl the
benefit of your services?"

"Thirty-two. I was valet to a prominent banker in Venice."

"Ever been in jail?"

"Why, er,--yes," and the Italian became embarrassed. "I was arrested
for intoxication once just before I left Venice; but I was impr