hrough the
kitchen, where the now subdued La Violette greeted us with a silent
bow, Holmes's eagle eye caught sight of Uncle Tooter's coat-tail just
disappearing behind the cellar-door. With a whispered warning to me
and a quiet seizure of my arm, Holmes tiptoed after him, softly opened
the cellar-door, and as Tooter's steps died away along the cement
floor of the cellar, we went inside, locked the door, and I stationed
myself on the top step, while Holmes went down.

CHAPTER XVII

Holmes quietly hid behind a large beer-barrel at the foot of the
stairs, while I could hear old man Tooter rattling several bottles at
the other end of the cellar, and talking to himself the while.

"Let's see: Here's the beautiful Amontillado wine from that lovely
Spain that gave me my Teresa," muttered the aged dotard.

Then I heard the sound of something gurgling in his throat, evidently
the Spanish wine that he had poured out, as there was always a good
supply of glasses alongside the wine-bins.

"Now where in thunder did I put that diamond cuff-button?" came the
voice of Tooter again, while I sat still on the top step of the
cellar-stairs, just inside the door, from which point I could see the
tip of Holmes's long, lean, aquiline nose peering out from behind the
barrel below me.

"It isn't under the Muenchener barrel,--it must be under the
Dortmunder," continued Tooter to himself, as I heard him laboriously
heave over the barrel and paw around on the cement floor under it, in
the space between the head of the barrel and the raised ends of the
staves, "Ah! here it is,--the cute little diamond that that nutty
George has been after, which I have been keeping since last Monday to
oblige a fellow-sport, Billie Budd, but which I have decided must be
taken out of the vulgar crude cuff-button and reset in an engagement
ring for Teresa, since she is so dippy after historical relics!"

Then I heard a long-drawn sigh of relief, as Tooter drew himself a
foaming stein-ful of the Dortmunder beer.

In a minute more he started back toward the stairs, and as he passed
the barrel there at the foot of the stairs, Holmes suddenly jumped out
and grabbed him with both hands, seizing the diamond cuff-button from
him at the same instant.

"Ah! I've got you now, old wine-bibber! old diamond-thief! Look thou
not upon the German beer when it is light yellow, or it shall surely
get thee, sooner or later!" shouted Holmes in triumph, while Tooter