finished with me?"

"Entirely so, Your Ladyship, except to inform you that since breakfast
this morning I have recovered two other cuff-buttons beside this one,
from Thorneycroft and Yensen, and they both gave me the same song and
dance that you did, about the wicked William Budd having been the
author of their downfall. He seems to have had a whole lot to do with
the robbery, and is also the man who assaulted your husband during
Monday night when he entered his room to steal the last pair of the
cuff-buttons, and was evidently frightened away before he could smouch
the one in his left cuff, having taken the one in his right cuff. I am
satisfied that you had nothing to do with the assault, but your action
in receiving the one stolen gem from Budd, and then striving to throw
the blame for it on your brother-in-law, Lord Launcelot, is
reprehensible enough. I shall see what the Earl has to say about it."

And in a moment Holmes, bowing suavely, motioned me to follow him out
of the room.

We came downstairs again, and Holmes tackled the Earl in the library.

"Well, Your Lordship, here's the third one of your bally
cuff-buttons," he began, as he handed it to him. "And the name of the
person who had it is----"

The voice grew inaudible to me as Holmes bent down and whispered the
name into the Earl's ears.

At the shock of the revelation the Earl slid down in his chair until
he seemed to be sitting on his shoulder-blades, feebly put one hand up
to his brow, and exclaimed:

"What? My wife? Good Heavens! I say there, Harrigan, you may pour me
out a glass of wine,--I mean a stiff bracer of brandy!"

In a moment the butler came running in with a bottle of the
fire-water, and poured out a glass of it for the Earl, who grabbed it,
and downed it at one gulp, then said:

"Now I feel somewhat restored, Holmes. Tell me how on earth you found
out that she took it."

My marvelous partner told the gaping quintette,--composed of the Earl,
Tooter, Thorneycroft, Launcelot, and Hicks,--how he had pried the
third cuff-button out of Her Ladyship, and when he had finished the
Earl rang for Donald MacTavish, the second footman, and sent him after
the Countess. In a few minutes, Scotty had bowed the mistress of the
castle into our presence, and she stood in the doorway, very cold and
reserved.

"Well, Annabelle, what have you got to say for yourself?" demanded the
Earl. "I've been robbed by my coachman, robbed by my secretary, and
no