Holmes turned pale with rage, and then he roared:
"Asleep at the switch! And Billie Budd far away by this time! Grab me, fellows, quick, before I forget myself and murder him where he lies! Oh, horrors!"
And he began to swear in French, which, as I have remarked in one of our previous adventures, was his mother's native tongue, to which he resorted when so excited that he couldn't express himself further in English.
The Earl and I untied the ropes that bound the sleeping Letstrayed, removed the gag from his mouth, which consisted of another piece of rope, and shook him to his feet, where he stood blinking in surprise, while Holmes leaned against the nearest wall and shook his fists in the air, while he made the air blue with variegated French cuss-words.
"Let's leave them alone, boys, and return to the castle, while the master-mind and his faithless guard have it out between themselves," suggested the Earl.
Whereupon we all followed him quietly back to the library, filled with mixed emotions. When we were back again in the seats from which we had recently been so sharply disturbed, the Earl said to me:
"Well, Doctor Watson, what do you make of it? You've had a good deal of experience with the great detective. Tell us what you think."
"What I think of Inspector Letstrayed wouldn't look very well in print," I began; "but it's easy enough to see what happened. The old dope fell asleep, so, of course, as soon as Budd heard those elephantine snores, he sneaked out from his hiding-place under the hay and tied him up with the ropes while he slept, took his revolver away from him, shot it off twice out of pure bravado, and then beat it for parts unknown. If he's as good a runner yet as he was this noon, he must be over in the next county by this time! 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 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. He said Letstrayed told him he didn't know a thing about what had taken place until we untied the ropes from him; for he had fallen asleep in his too comfortable position on the pile of hay, and had not been awakened even by the shots.
"I'm so mad I could chew nails," said Holmes. "The only thing I can do now is to send a telegram down to the village to be dispatched to the authorities in all the surrounding towns, asking them to apprehend Budd when he shows up. Can your secretary here be trusted to send the messages right, Earl?"