He sized up the bald-headed Thorneycroft with a critical eye, as he spoke, and suddenly changed his mind.
"No. I'll go down to Hedge-gutheridge myself and send the telegrams. Then I know it'll be done right, without a third balling-up. Ta, ta! I'll be back in half an hour."
And my erratic partner was out of the building before we hardly knew what had happened.
At a quarter of six he returned, somewhat out of breath, and announced that we might as well sit down to dinner, since he would not resume operations until morning. The Earl quietly accepted his tacit assumption of mastery of the castle, since he recognized by this time that Hemlock Holmes simply had to have his own way while on a case, or else he wouldn't play,—that's all!
The dinner as prepared by Louis La Violette,—and served by Joe Harrigan the butler,—was fully as scrumptious and all to the mustard as the one we had partaken of the evening before, and so was the wine served afterwards. We passed the evening in the library smoking and swapping lies, while Her Ladyship the Countess pleaded a severe headache and remained in her room, her dinner being served up there by her maid. At about half-past ten we retired; that is, the others retired, but Holmes grabbed me by the arm as soon as we had entered our room upstairs, and whispered:
"I'm going to pull off something now, Watson. We'll have to wait here until they're all asleep, as Letstrayed was out in the hayloft this afternoon, and then I'm going to get some evidence."
Chapter IX
Well, the two of us sat up in our room for an hour, and when his watch pointed to half-past eleven, my partner said: