er forty million dollars, or eight million pounds, all made in
the tea and spice business in India and Ceylon."

"Well, what gets _me_ is why this Teresa ever turned him down, then,
instead of jumping at the offer the first time he proposed," said
Holmes, with a grin. "Forty million cold bones don't grow on _every_
bush, you know."

"Teresa is a rather peculiar girl, Holmes, and what would attract
others doesn't attract _her_," replied the Earl.

"Very, very peculiar, I'll say," commented Holmes cynically, as the
Countess, Tooter, Hicks, Budd, Letstrayed, Lord Launcelot, and
Thorneycroft stopped at the edge of the wide-spreading lawn on
observing its wetness.

"Come on, everybody, let's take a little stroll around these beautiful
ancestral acres. A few rain-drops won't hurt you."

And, so saying, the masterful detective grabbed the Earl and me by the
arm and signalled to the others to accompany us.

"I have a motive for doing this, Earl," whispered Holmes to the
latter, as the rest of the party reluctantly followed us, "which I
will let you in on later."

I consented to be hauled around over the drenched grass by my
domineering partner, as I knew from long experience that he was liable
to do almost anything while on a mystery-hunt, and I accordingly kept
my mouth closed. Billie Budd had his hat knocked off by a low-hanging
limb of a tree that we passed under, and he let out a few choice
Australian cuss-words that he had learned at the Ballarat gold mines,
as he scowled at Hemlock Holmes, the author of this unaccountable
promenade in the wet grass.

"Say, what do you think you're doing, anyhow, Mr. Smart-Alec from
London,--adopting the Kneipp cure?" he growled.

"Don't you worry, Budd old boy, maybe I'll find the lost diamond
cuff-buttons out here in the grass. The robbers may have dropped them
here as they fled," answered Holmes smilingly, as he slapped the Earl
on the back.

"Yes, and, then, again, they may not. I'll just bet you a five-pound
note, Holmes, that you don't recover a single one of the eleven
cuff-buttons to-day," said Budd.

"Done!" shouted my partner. "Doc Watson, you hold the stakes," he
added, turning to me; "here's my five."

"And here's _my_ five," said Budd, with a smile, as he handed me a
five-pound note to match Holmes's.

"That's it. I'm always the goat," I grumbled, as I shoved the kale in
my pocket. "Here I am with the responsibility of keeping ten pounds of
other people's mon