"Hum, that's hard lines, ain't it, Launcelot?" said Holmes, as he waved him to a chair; "you'll excuse us if Watson and I go on with our luncheon while you talk. Got any idea who lifted the second and third pair,—any clues at all to the guilty wretches?"
"No, Mr. Holmes; I really haven't," replied Lord Launcelot, as he sat down. "It's quite annoying to have to think about such a disconcerting event, so much out of my usual line, doncherknow."
And the Earl's brother contemplated the floor in gloomy silence for the next twenty-five minutes, while H. H. and I were feeding our faces.
When we had finished and had lit a couple of cigarettes, Holmes, handing one to Launcelot, said:
"Well, it's just one o'clock. Time to beat it, boys!"
"All right, Mr. Holmes, I'm your man," said our visitor.
And, the rain having stopped now, we left the house together, after hurriedly packing a few things in our [suit-case].
We soon arrived at the station, where we boarded the Surrey train. No further word could be got out of our noble companion as we sped through the southern London suburbs and along the country landscape,—not even after the April sun had straggled through the clouds and begun to brighten up the scene.
"Ax-gibberish!" yelled the guard,—or words to that effect,—as he slammed open the door of our compartment, and the train slowed down and at length stopped in front of a dinky little two-by-four station, with a cluster of worm-eaten old houses and a couple of sloppy-looking store buildings near it that looked as if they had all been erected prior to the Norman Conquest, or even possibly antedated the Christian era.
"Well, I guess this must be Hedge-gutheridge all right, in spite of the guard's mispronunciation of its euphonious name," remarked Holmes, stepping off the train onto the decayed platform, which sagged perilously under his athletic tread.