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Launcelot, however, did not avow his probable guilt so readily as his brother's revered uncle-in-law had done, but laughed right in Holmes's face as the latter concluded his little speech of accusation. "Why, you old false alarm you, do you think for a minute that you can bluff me like that? I didn't take any of the cuff-buttons. Go on and guess again.
Budd only gave me one of the cuff-buttons, and I don't know where the others are, and I can't say that I care very much, either. Now are you finished with me?"
The fact that you also claimed to have been up here in your own room all during Monday morning shows that you had a strong motive for concealing your presence in the Earl's room at the time some of the cuff-buttons disappeared, which can only mean that you wished to cover up your theft. Is that clear enough?"
The absence of all articles of value, the disappearance of Johnstone's three superb ruby shirt-studs, and his magnificent single diamond cuff-buttons, told of the greed of the robbers, presumably familiar with his personal ornaments, while the terrific stab in the back showed that the heavy knife had been driven through the back up to its very hilt.
I'm going right ahead with my plans for marrying Teresa Olivano anyhow, in spite of you and the Earl and your dodgasted cuff-buttons." And Uncle J. Edmund Tooter said no more for the remainder of the luncheon.
Thursday morning, April the eleventh, found us none the worse for our wetting in the creek the afternoon before; and as Holmes and I were dressing in our room, he loudly boasted that before another day had passed he would succeed in finding the four remaining diamond cuff-buttons.
"Well, who said it was, you elongated chump?" shouted the aroused Tooter. "I don't know anything about the Earl's cuff-buttons. You've been hanging around here nearly two days now, and you haven't found any yet; and then you have the nerve to steal my tea sample!"
"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.
"Well, if you must know, I think that the Earl's Italian valet, Luigi Vermicelli, is the man. He was the last man near the cuff-buttons when the Earl retired Sunday night." "Yes, that's what Galetchkoff said. I should think that you'd show greater originality than that, Eustace. Lord Launcelot, I shall have to question you as to your opinion on the robbery."
In spite of their mother's feeble attempts at authority, the little girls pulled at the ribbons on her cap, picked at her cuff-buttons, and one of them made a sudden snatch at her brooch, my cherished gift; the mother ran to the rescue, but not till the pin attached to the brooch was first bent, then broken. "What shall I do with these children," said the mother.
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