Louis got more confused and embarrassed than ever, and was about to make some kind of answer when Donald MacTavish appeared in the doorway leading from the cellar, wiping his lips, and with a fatuous grin on his face.
"Oh, Scotty, Scotty! I am sure you'll never get to be a member of the W. C. T. U. when you carry on like that," said Holmes, noticing the footman's caught-with-the-goods expression. "Down in the Earl's wine-cellar again, sampling 'em up, eh?"
The second footman bowed awkwardly, and was about to pass into the dining-room when Holmes caught the glint of something sparkling in his left hand.
Chapter XVI
"Stop right where you are, MacTavish!" Holmes shouted commandingly, "and show me your left paw so I can see what you are trying to carry away with you. Something more valuable than the tinfoil off a wine-bottle top, I'll warrant!"
The footman looked around at me, then at Louis and Ivan, and finally at Holmes, whose threatening expression cowed him, and he shambled over and, with a deep-drawn sigh, gave up the eighth diamond cuff-button.
"Well, I was afraid that sooner or later something like this would happen," he remarked with downcast eyes, "and I would be jerked up sharp and the darned thing taken away from me. Blast that man Weelum Budd, anyhow! He came to me last Monday and talked me into hiding the shiner for him, so he could play it safe up in the drawing-room and I would have to take the blame for it if it was captured by you before he could get back!"
With undisguised pleasure my partner took the gem, holding it up so that Louis could view it plainly, and said: "But where has your base tempter been keeping himself these past two days, Donald? Have you had any secret communications with him? Better 'fess up, or it may go hard with you."