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It developed then that Inspector Barnabas Letstrayed, in spite of his nap on the billiard-table the day before, had also bestirred himself in an eleventh hour attempt to find some of the cuff-buttons before Holmes dug them all up, and he told us how he had been all through the servants' rooms on the fifth floor, rummaging in their dressers and clothes-closets, and peeking under the beds, in a vain endeavor to unearth at least one of the stolen gems.
"Well, all right, fellows, I'll be the goat if you'll send down to the village and telegraph in to headquarters in London now, telling them where I am. Say, Earl, haven't you got a pack of cigarettes about your person that isn't working?" asked Letstrayed, as he took up his station on a particularly soft pile of hay nearby, and stretched his fat legs over it comfortably. "What!
Smoke cigarettes up here in the hay, and burn down my ancestral stables for me!" shouted the Earl in surprise. "Good night! You've got about as much brains as Holmes says you have, Letstrayed. But here, I realize that it'll be pretty lonesome up here watching for a hidden crook with nobody but a lot of pigeons for company, so you can take this package of fine-cut, and chew to your heart's content.
I think you will find that I am right, when Holmes returns with the information he has pried out of the Inspector." Holmes returned soon afterward, still fuming and growling over his second setback of the day, with Letstrayed trailing along behind him, looking like a flour-sack that had been stepped on! The latter sat down quietly, without a word, and Holmes corroborated my deductions.
Harrigan," the Earl added, turning to the butler, who had just returned from the corridor, "pour us out one or two glasses of wine, or three or four of them. Drink up, gentlemen, you, too, Letstrayed." And the Earl winked at me. After we had all imbibed freely of the blood of the grape the Earl then led the way out to the front door.
When the meal was over, and Inspector Letstrayed seemed somewhat more overcome than usual, the party dispersed, and Holmes and I took a walk through the rooms on the first floor, "just for fun," as he put it. It was then a little after one o'clock.
Up on the fourth floor we entered the billiard-room where so much time was killed, and found Lord Launcelot, Hicks, Tooter, and Thorneycroft shooting a game of billiards, with old man Letstrayed, the so-called police inspector, fast asleep in one of the splint-bottomed chairs, as usual. Holmes picked up a cue, and playfully poked Letstrayed in the ribs with it.
Of course, it couldn't have been Letstrayed who shot the revolver off, because we found him still asleep and snoring; and he couldn't have shot first at Budd and then have been overpowered by the latter, because he didn't have time enough in the short minute between our hearing the shots and racing out there to have fallen asleep again, especially when he was tied up so tightly.
I only asked those routine questions of the first three servants to humor my fat friend from Scotland Yard here, Inspector Barnabas Letstrayed, who represents the slow and beef-witted majesty of the London police." And Holmes winked at me, as he added: "Now, Mac, have you ever been in prison?"
It was indeed the slow-moving and ponderous Inspector Barnabas Letstrayed that loomed up in the doorway and inquired about the cuff-buttons, while Holmes answered him very sharply: "Wake up and come to life, old General Incompetence! All the eleven shiners have now been run down and captured before they could bite anybody, by me, you understand, me, your ancient rival!"
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