PROLOGUE
THE STORMING OF SERINGAPATAM (1799)
Extracted from a Family Paper
I address these lines—written in India—to my relatives in
England.
My object is to explain the motive which has induced me
to refuse the right hand of friendship to my cousin, John
Herncastle. The reserve which I have hitherto maintained in
this matter has been misinterpreted by members of my family
whose good opinion I cannot consent to forfeit. I request
them to suspend their decision until they have read my
narrative. And I declare, on my word of honour, that what I
am now about to write is, strictly and literally, the truth.
The private difference between my cousin and me took its
rise in a great public event in which we were both
concerned—the storming of Seringapatam, under General Baird,
on the 4th of May, 1799.
In order that the circumstances may be clearly
understood, I must revert for a moment to the period before
the assault, and to the stories current in our camp of the
treasure in jewels and gold stored up in the Palace of
Seringapatam.
II
One of the wildest of these stories related to a Yellow
Diamond—a famous gem in the native annals of India.
The earliest known traditions describe the stone as
having been set in the forehead of the four-handed Indian
god who typifies the Moon. Partly from its peculiar colour,
partly from a superstition which represented it as feeling
the influence of the deity whom it adorned, and growing and
lessening in lustre with the waxing and waning of the moon,
it first gained the name by which it continues to be known
in India to this day—the name of THE MOONSTONE. A similar
superstition was once prevalent, as I have heard, in ancient
Greece and Rome; not applying, however (as in India), to a
diamond devoted to the service of a god, but to a
semi-transparent stone of the inferior order of gems,
supposed to be affected by the lunar influences—the moon, in
this latter case also, giving the name by which the stone is
still known to collectors in our own time.
The adventures of the Yellow Diamond begin with the
eleventh century of the Christian era.
At that date, the Mohammedan conqueror, Mahmoud of
Ghizni, crossed India; seized on the holy city of Somnauth;
and stripped of its treasures the famous temple, which had
stood for centuries—the shrine of Hindoo pilgrimage, and the
wonder of the Eastern world.
Of all the deities worshipped in the temple, the moon-god
alone escaped the rapacity of the conquering Mohammedans.
Preserved by three Brahmins, the inviolate deity, bearing
the Yellow Diamond in its forehead, was removed by night,
and was transported to the second of the sacred cities of
India—the city of Benares.
Here, in a new shrine—in a hall inlaid with precious
stones, under a roof supported by pillars of gold—the
moon-god was set up and worshipped. Here, on the night when
the shrine was completed, Vishnu the Preserver appeared to
the three Brahmins in a dream.
The deity breathed the breath of his divinity on the
Diamond in the forehead of the god. And the Brahmins knelt
and hid their faces in their robes. The deity commanded that
the Moonstone should be watched, from that time forth, by
three priests in turn, night and day, to the end of the
generations of men. And the Brahmins heard, and bowed before
his will. The deity predicted certain disaster to the
presumptuous mortal who laid hands on the sacred gem, and to
all of his house and name who received it after him. And the
Brahmins caused the prophecy to be written over the gates of
the shrine in letters of gold.
One age followed another—and still, generation after
generation, the successors of the three Brahmins watched
their priceless Moonstone, night and day. One age followed
another until the first years of the eighteenth Christian
century saw the reign of Aurungzebe, Emperor of the Moguls.
At his command havoc and rapine were let loose once more
among the temples of the worship of Brahmah. The shrine of
the four-handed god was polluted by the slaughter of sacred
animals; the images of the deities were broken in pieces;
and the Moonstone was seized by an officer of rank in the
army of Aurungzebe.
Powerless to recover their lost treasure by open force,
the three guardian priests followed and watched it in
disguise. The generations succeeded each other; the warrior
who had committed the sacrilege perished miserably; the
Moonstone passed (carrying its curse with it) from one
lawless Mohammedan hand to another; and still, through all
chances and changes, the successors of the three guardian
priests kept their watch, waiting the day when the will of
Vishnu the Preserver should restore to them their sacred
gem. Time rolled on from the first to the last years of the
eighteenth Christian century. The Diamond fell into the
possession of Tippoo, Sultan of Seringapatam, who caused it
to be placed as an ornament in the handle of a dagger, and
who commanded it to be kept among the choicest treasures of
his armoury. Even then—in the palace of the Sultan
himself—the three guardian priests still kept their watch in
secret. There were three officers of Tippoo's household,
strangers to the rest, who had won their master's confidence
by conforming, or appearing to conform, to the Mussulman
faith; and to those three men report pointed as the three
priests in disguise.
III
So, as told in our camp, ran the fanciful story of the
Moonstone. It made no serious impression on any of us except
my cousin—whose love of the marvellous induced him to
believe it. On the night before the assault on Seringapatam,
he was absurdly angry with me, and with others, for treating
the whole thing as a fable. A foolish wrangle followed; and
Herncastle's unlucky temper got the better of him. He
declared, in his boastful way, that we should see the
Diamond on his finger, if the English army took
Seringapatam. The sally was saluted by a roar of laughter,
and there, as we all thought that night, the thing ended.
Let me now take you on to the day of the assault. My
cousin and I were separated at the outset. I never saw him
when we forded the river; when we planted the English flag
in the first breach; when we crossed the ditch beyond; and,
fighting every inch of our way, entered the town. It was
only at dusk, when the place was ours, and after General
Baird himself had found the dead body of Tippoo under a heap
of the slain, that Herncastle and I met.
We were each attached to a party sent out by the
general's orders to prevent the plunder and confusion which
followed our conquest. The camp-followers committed
deplorable excesses; and, worse still, the soldiers found
their way, by a guarded door, into the treasury of the
Palace, and loaded themselves with gold and jewels. It was
in the court outside the treasury that my cousin and I met,
to enforce the laws of discipline on our own soldiers.
Herncastle's fiery temper had been, as I could plainly see,
exasperated to a kind of frenzy by the terrible slaughter
through which we had passed. He was very unfit, in my
opinion, to perform the duty that had been entrusted to him.
There was riot and confusion enough in the treasury, but
no violence that I saw. The men (if I may use such an
expression) disgraced themselves good-humouredly. All sorts
of rough jests and catchwords were bandied about among them;
and the story of the Diamond turned up again unexpectedly,
in the form of a mischievous joke. "Who's got the
Moonstone?" was the rallying cry which perpetually caused
the plundering, as soon as it was stopped in one place, to
break out in another. While I was still vainly trying to
establish order, I heard a frightful yelling on the other
side of the courtyard, and at once ran towards the cries, in
dread of finding some new outbreak of the pillage in that
direction.
I got to an open door, and saw the bodies of two Indians
(by their dress, as I guessed, officers of the palace) lying
across the entrance, dead.
A cry inside hurried me into a room, which appeared to
serve as an armoury. A third Indian, mortally wounded, was
sinking at the feet of a man whose back was towards me. The
man turned at the instant when I came in, and I saw John
Herncastle, with a torch in one hand, and a dagger dripping
with blood in the other. A stone, set like a pommel, in the
end of the dagger's handle, flashed in the torchlight, as he
turned on me, like a gleam of fire. The dying Indian sank to
his knees, pointed to the dagger in Herncastle's hand, and
said, in his native language—"The Moonstone will have its
vengeance yet on you and yours!" He spoke those words, and
fell dead on the floor.
Before I could stir in the matter, the men who had
followed me across the courtyard crowded in. My cousin
rushed to meet them, like a madman. "Clear the room!" he
shouted to me, "and set a guard on the door!" The men fell
back as he threw himself on them with his torch and his
dagger. I put two sentinels of my own company, on whom I
could rely, to keep the door. Through the remainder of the
night, I saw no more of my cousin.
Early in the morning, the plunder still going on, General
Baird announced publicly by beat of drum, that any thief
detected in the fact, be he whom he might, should be hung.
The provost-marshal was in attendance, to prove that the
General was in earnest; and in the throng that followed the
proclamation, Herncastle and I met again.
He held out his hand, as usual, and said, "Good morning."
I waited before I gave him my hand in return.
"Tell me first," I said, "how the Indian in the armoury
met his death, and what those last words meant, when he
pointed to the dagger in your hand."
"The Indian met his death, as I suppose, by a mortal
wound," said Herncastle. "What his last words meant I know
no more than you do."
I looked at him narrowly. His frenzy of the previous day
had all calmed down. I determined to give him another
chance.
"Is that all you have to tell me?" I asked.
He answered, "That is all."
I turned my back on him; and we have not spoken since.
IV
I beg it to be understood that what I write here about my
cousin (unless some necessity should arise for making it
public) is for the information of the family only.
Herncastle has said nothing that can justify me in speaking
to our commanding officer. He has been taunted more than
once about the Diamond, by those who recollect his angry
outbreak before the assault; but, as may easily be imagined,
his own remembrance of the circumstances under which I
surprised him in the armoury has been enough to keep him
silent. It is reported that he means to exchange into
another regiment, avowedly for the purpose of separating
himself from ME.
Whether this be true or not, I cannot prevail upon myself
to become his accuser—and I think with good reason. If I
made the matter public, I have no evidence but moral
evidence to bring forward. I have not only no proof that he
killed the two men at the door; I cannot even declare that
he killed the third man inside—for I cannot say that my own
eyes saw the deed committed. It is true that I heard the
dying Indian's words; but if those words were pronounced to
be the ravings of delirium, how could I contradict the
assertion from my own knowledge? Let our relatives, on
either side, form their own opinion on what I have written,
and decide for themselves whether the aversion I now feel
towards this man is well or ill founded.
Although I attach no sort of credit to the fantastic
Indian legend of the gem, I must acknowledge, before I
conclude, that I am influenced by a certain superstition of
my own in this matter. It is my conviction, or my delusion,
no matter which, that crime brings its own fatality with it.
I am not only persuaded of Herncastle's guilt; I am even
fanciful enough to believe that he will live to regret it,
if he keeps the Diamond; and that others will live to regret
taking it from him, if he gives the Diamond away.
THE STORY
FIRST PERIOD
THE LOSS OF THE DIAMOND (1848)
The events related by GABRIEL BETTEREDGE, house-steward
in the service of JULIA, LADY VERINDER.
CHAPTER I
In the first part of ROBINSON CRUSOE, at page one hundred
and twenty-nine, you will find it thus written:
"Now I saw, though too late, the Folly of beginning a
Work before we count the Cost, and before we judge rightly
of our own Strength to go through with it."
Only yesterday, I opened my ROBINSON CRUSOE at that
place. Only this morning (May twenty-first, Eighteen hundred
and fifty), came my lady's nephew, Mr. Franklin Blake, and
held a short conversation with me, as follows:—
"Betteredge," says Mr. Franklin, "I have been to the
lawyer's about some family matters; and, among other things,
we have been talking of the loss of the Indian Diamond, in
my aunt's house in Yorkshire, two years since. Mr. Bruff
thinks as I think, that the whole story ought, in the
interests of truth, to be placed on record in writing—and
the sooner the better."
Not perceiving his drift yet, and thinking it always
desirable for the sake of peace and quietness to be on the
lawyer's side, I said I thought so too. Mr. Franklin went
on.
"In this matter of the Diamond," he said, "the characters
of innocent people have suffered under suspicion already—as
you know. The memories of innocent people may suffer,
hereafter, for want of a record of the facts to which those
who come after us can appeal. There can be no doubt that
this strange family story of ours ought to be told. And I
think, Betteredge, Mr. Bruff and I together have hit on the
right way of telling it."
Very satisfactory to both of them, no doubt. But I failed
to see what I myself had to do with it, so far.
"We have certain events to relate," Mr. Franklin
proceeded; "and we have certain persons concerned in those
events who are capable of relating them. Starting from these
plain facts, the idea is that we should all write the story
of the Moonstone in turn—as far as our own personal
experience extends, and no farther. We must begin by showing
how the Diamond first fell into the hands of my uncle
Herncastle, when he was serving in India fifty years since.
This prefatory narrative I have already got by me in the
form of an old family paper, which relates the necessary
particulars on the authority of an eye-witness. The next
thing to do is to tell how the Diamond found its way into my
aunt's house in Yorkshire, two years ago, and how it came to
be lost in little more than twelve hours afterwards. Nobody
knows as much as you do, Betteredge, about what went on in
the house at that time. So you must take the pen in hand,
and start the story."
In those terms I was informed of what my personal concern
was with the matter of the Diamond. If you are curious to
know what course I took under the circumstances, I beg to
inform you that I did what you would probably have done in
my place. I modestly declared myself to be quite unequal to
the task imposed upon me—and I privately felt, all the time,
that I was quite clever enough to perform it, if I only gave
my own abilities a fair chance. Mr. Franklin, I imagine,
must have seen my private sentiments in my face. He declined
to believe in my modesty; and he insisted on giving my
abilities a fair chance.
Two hours have passed since Mr. Franklin left me. As soon
as his back was turned, I went to my writing desk to start
the story. There I have sat helpless (in spite of my
abilities) ever since; seeing what Robinson Crusoe saw, as
quoted above—namely, the folly of beginning a work before we
count the cost, and before we judge rightly of our own
strength to go through with it. Please to remember, I opened
the book by accident, at that bit, only the day before I
rashly undertook the business now in hand; and, allow me to
ask—if THAT isn't prophecy, what is?
I am not superstitious; I have read a heap of books in my
time; I am a scholar in my own way. Though turned seventy, I
possess an active memory, and legs to correspond. You are
not to take it, if you please, as the saying of an ignorant
man, when I express my opinion that such a book as ROBINSON
CRUSOE never was written, and never will be written again. I
have tried that book for years—generally in combination with
a pipe of tobacco—and I have found it my friend in need in
all the necessities of this mortal life. When my spirits are
bad—ROBINSON CRUSOE. When I want advice—ROBINSON CRUSOE. In
past times when my wife plagued me; in present times when I
have had a drop too much—ROBINSON CRUSOE. I have worn out
six stout ROBINSON CRUSOES with hard work in my service. On
my lady's last birthday she gave me a seventh. I took a drop
too much on the strength of it; and ROBINSON CRUSOE put me
right again. Price four shillings and sixpence, bound in
blue, with a picture into the bargain.
Still, this don't look much like starting the story of
the Diamond—does it? I seem to be wandering off in search of
Lord knows what, Lord knows where. We will take a new sheet
of paper, if you please, and begin over again, with my best
respects to you.
CHAPTER II
I spoke of my lady a line or two back. Now the Diamond
could never have been in our house, where it was lost, if it
had not been made a present of to my lady's daughter; and my
lady's daughter would never have been in existence to have
the present, if it had not been for my lady who (with pain
and travail) produced her into the world. Consequently, if
we begin with my lady, we are pretty sure of beginning far
enough back. And that, let me tell you, when you have got
such a job as mine in hand, is a real comfort at starting.
If you know anything of the fashionable world, you have
heard tell of the three beautiful Miss Herncastles. Miss
Adelaide; Miss Caroline; and Miss Julia—this last being the
youngest and the best of the three sisters, in my opinion;
and I had opportunities of judging, as you shall presently
see. I went into the service of the old lord, their father
(thank God, we have got nothing to do with him, in this
business of the Diamond; he had the longest tongue and the
shortest temper of any man, high or low, I ever met with)—I
say, I went into the service of the old lord, as page-boy in
waiting on the three honourable young ladies, at the age of
fifteen years. There I lived till Miss Julia married the
late Sir John Verinder. An excellent man, who only wanted
somebody to manage him; and, between ourselves, he found
somebody to do it; and what is more, he throve on it and
grew fat on it, and lived happy and died easy on it, dating
from the day when my lady took him to church to be married,
to the day when she relieved him of his last breath, and
closed his eyes for ever.
I have omitted to state that I went with the bride to the
bride's husband's house and lands down here. "Sir John," she
says, "I can't do without Gabriel Betteredge." "My lady,"
says Sir John, "I can't do without him, either." That was
his way with her—and that was how I went into his service.
It was all one to me where I went, so long as my mistress
and I were together.
Seeing that my lady took an interest in the out-of-door
work, and the farms, and such like, I took an interest in
them too—with all the more reason that I was a small
farmer's seventh son myself. My lady got me put under the
bailiff, and I did my best, and gave satisfaction, and got
promotion accordingly. Some years later, on the Monday as it
might be, my lady says, "Sir John, your bailiff is a stupid
old man. Pension him liberally, and let Gabriel Betteredge
have his place." On the Tuesday as it might be, Sir John
says, "My lady, the bailiff is pensioned liberally; and
Gabriel Betteredge has got his place." You hear more than
enough of married people living together miserably. Here is
an example to the contrary. Let it be a warning to some of
you, and an encouragement to others. In the meantime, I will
go on with my story.
Well, there I was in clover, you will say. Placed in a
position of trust and honour, with a little cottage of my
own to live in, with my rounds on the estate to occupy me in
the morning, and my accounts in the afternoon, and my pipe
and my ROBINSON CRUSOE in the evening—what more could I
possibly want to make me happy? Remember what Adam wanted
when he was alone in the Garden of Eden; and if you don't
blame it in Adam, don't blame it in me.
The woman I fixed my eye on, was the woman who kept house
for me at my cottage. Her name was Selina Goby. I agree with
the late William Cobbett about picking a wife. See that she
chews her food well and sets her foot down firmly on the
ground when she walks, and you're all right. Selina Goby was
all right in both these respects, which was one reason for
marrying her. I had another reason, likewise, entirely of my
own discovering. Selina, being a single woman, made me pay
so much a week for her board and services. Selina, being my
wife, couldn't charge for her board, and would have to give
me her services for nothing. That was the point of view I
looked at it from. Economy—with a dash of love. I put it to
my mistress, as in duty bound, just as I had put it to
myself.
"I have been turning Selina Goby over in my mind," I
said, "and I think, my lady, it will be cheaper to marry her
than to keep her."
My lady burst out laughing, and said she didn't know
which to be most shocked at—my language or my principles.
Some joke tickled her, I suppose, of the sort that you can't
take unless you are a person of quality. Understanding
nothing myself but that I was free to put it next to Selina,
I went and put it accordingly. And what did Selina say?
Lord! how little you must know of women, if you ask that. Of
course she said, Yes.
As my time drew nearer, and there got to be talk of my
having a new coat for the ceremony, my mind began to misgive
me. I have compared notes with other men as to what they
felt while they were in my interesting situation; and they
have all acknowledged that, about a week before it happened,
they privately wished themselves out of it. I went a trifle
further than that myself; I actually rose up, as it were,
and tried to get out of it. Not for nothing! I was too just
a man to expect she would let me off for nothing.
Compensation to the woman when the man gets out of it, is
one of the laws of England. In obedience to the laws, and
after turning it over carefully in my mind, I offered Selina
Goby a feather-bed and fifty shillings to be off the
bargain. You will hardly believe it, but it is nevertheless
true—she was fool enough to refuse.
After that it was all over with me, of course. I got the
new coat as cheap as I could, and I went through all the
rest of it as cheap as I could. We were not a happy couple,
and not a miserable couple. We were six of one and
half-a-dozen of the other. How it was I don't understand,
but we always seemed to be getting, with the best of
motives, in one another's way. When I wanted to go
up-stairs, there was my wife coming down; or when my wife
wanted to go down, there was I coming up. That is married
life, according to my experience of it.
After five years of misunderstandings on the stairs, it
pleased an all-wise Providence to relieve us of each other
by taking my wife. I was left with my little girl Penelope,
and with no other child. Shortly afterwards Sir John died,
and my lady was left with her little girl, Miss Rachel, and
no other child. I have written to very poor purpose of my
lady, if you require to be told that my little Penelope was
taken care of, under my good mistress's own eye, and was
sent to school and taught, and made a sharp girl, and
promoted, when old enough, to be Miss Rachel's own maid.
As for me, I went on with my business as bailiff year
after year up to Christmas 1847, when there came a change in
my life. On that day, my lady invited herself to a cup of
tea alone with me in my cottage. She remarked that,
reckoning from the year when I started as page-boy in the
time of the old lord, I had been more than fifty years in
her service, and she put into my hands a beautiful waistcoat
of wool that she had worked herself, to keep me warm in the
bitter winter weather.
I received this magnificent present quite at a loss to
find words to thank my mistress with for the honour she had
done me. To my great astonishment, it turned out, however,
that the waistcoat was not an honour, but a bribe. My lady
had discovered that I was getting old before I had
discovered it myself, and she had come to my cottage to
wheedle me (if I may use such an expression) into giving up
my hard out-of-door work as bailiff, and taking my ease for
the rest of my days as steward in the house. I made as good
a fight of it against the indignity of taking my ease as I
could. But my mistress knew the weak side of me; she put it
as a favour to herself. The dispute between us ended, after
that, in my wiping my eyes, like an old fool, with my new
woollen waistcoat, and saying I would think about it.
The perturbation in my mind, in regard to thinking about
it, being truly dreadful after my lady had gone away, I
applied the remedy which I have never yet found to fail me
in cases of doubt and emergency. I smoked a pipe and took a
turn at ROBINSON CRUSOE. Before I had occupied myself with
that extraordinary book five minutes, I came on a comforting
bit (page one hundred and fifty-eight), as follows: "To-day
we love, what to-morrow we hate." I saw my way clear
directly. To-day I was all for continuing to be
farm-bailiff; to-morrow, on the authority of ROBINSON
CRUSOE, I should be all the other way. Take myself to-morrow
while in to-morrow's humour, and the thing was done. My mind
being relieved in this manner, I went to sleep that night in
the character of Lady Verinder's farm bailiff, and I woke up
the next morning in the character of Lady Verinder's
house-steward. All quite comfortable, and all through
ROBINSON CRUSOE!
My daughter Penelope has just looked over my shoulder to
see what I have done so far. She remarks that it is
beautifully written, and every word of it true. But she
points out one objection. She says what I have done so far
isn't in the least what I was wanted to do. I am asked to
tell the story of the Diamond and, instead of that, I have
been telling the story of my own self. Curious, and quite
beyond me to account for. I wonder whether the gentlemen who
make a business and a living out of writing books, ever find
their own selves getting in the way of their subjects, like
me? If they do, I can feel for them. In the meantime, here
is another false start, and more waste of good
writing-paper. What's to be done now? Nothing that I know
of, except for you to keep your temper, and for me to begin
it all over again for the third time.
CHAPTER III
The question of how I am to start the story properly I
have tried to settle in two ways. First, by scratching my
head, which led to nothing. Second, by consulting my
daughter Penelope, which has resulted in an entirely new
idea.
Penelope's notion is that I should set down what
happened, regularly day by day, beginning with the day when
we got the news that Mr. Franklin Blake was expected on a
visit to the house. When you come to fix your memory with a
date in this way, it is wonderful what your memory will pick
up for you upon that compulsion. The only difficulty is to
fetch out the dates, in the first place. This Penelope
offers to do for me by looking into her own diary, which she
was taught to keep when she was at school, and which she has
gone on keeping ever since. In answer to an improvement on
this notion, devised by myself, namely, that she should tell
the story instead of me, out of her own diary, Penelope
observes, with a fierce look and a red face, that her
journal is for her own private eye, and that no living
creature shall ever know what is in it but herself. When I
inquire what this means, Penelope says, "Fiddlesticks!" I
say, Sweethearts.
Beginning, then, on Penelope's plan, I beg to mention
that I was specially called one Wednesday morning into my
lady's own sitting-room, the date being the twenty-fourth of
May, Eighteen hundred and forty-eight.
"Gabriel," says my lady, "here is news that will surprise
you. Franklin Blake has come back from abroad. He has been
staying with his father in London, and he is coming to us
to-morrow to stop till next month, and keep Rachel's
birthday."
If I had had a hat in my hand, nothing but respect would
have prevented me from throwing that hat up to the ceiling.
I had not seen Mr. Franklin since he was a boy, living along
with us in this house. He was, out of all sight (as I
remember him), the nicest boy that ever spun a top or broke
a window. Miss Rachel, who was present, and to whom I made
that remark, observed, in return, that SHE remembered him as
the most atrocious tyrant that ever tortured a doll, and the
hardest driver of an exhausted little girl in string harness
that England could produce. "I burn with indignation, and I
ache with fatigue," was the way Miss Rachel summed it up,
"when I think of Franklin Blake."
Hearing what I now tell you, you will naturally ask how
it was that Mr. Franklin should have passed all the years,
from the time when he was a boy to the time when he was a
man, out of his own country. I answer, because his father
had the misfortune to be next heir to a Dukedom, and not to
be able to prove it.
In two words, this was how the thing happened:
My lady's eldest sister married the celebrated Mr.
Blake—equally famous for his great riches, and his great
suit at law. How many years he went on worrying the
tribunals of his country to turn out the Duke in possession,
and to put himself in the Duke's place—how many lawyer's
purses he filled to bursting, and how many otherwise
harmless people he set by the ears together disputing
whether he was right or wrong—is more by a great deal than I
can reckon up. His wife died, and two of his three children
died, before the tribunals could make up their minds to show
him the door and take no more of his money. When it was all
over, and the Duke in possession was left in possession, Mr.
Blake discovered that the only way of being even with his
country for the manner in which it had treated him, was not
to let his country have the honour of educating his son.
"How can I trust my native institutions," was the form in
which he put it, "after the way in which my native
institutions have behaved to ME?" Add to this, that Mr.
Blake disliked all boys, his own included, and you will
admit that it could only end in one way. Master Franklin was
taken from us in England, and was sent to institutions which
his father COULD trust, in that superior country, Germany;
Mr. Blake himself, you will observe, remaining snug in
England, to improve his fellow-countrymen in the Parliament
House, and to publish a statement on the subject of the Duke
in possession, which has remained an unfinished statement
from that day to this.
There! thank God, that's told! Neither you nor I need
trouble our heads any more about Mr. Blake, senior. Leave
him to the Dukedom; and let you and I stick to the Diamond.
The Diamond takes us back to Mr. Franklin, who was the
innocent means of bringing that unlucky jewel into the
house.
Our nice boy didn't forget us after he went abroad. He
wrote every now and then; sometimes to my lady, sometimes to
Miss Rachel, and sometimes to me. We had had a transaction
together, before he left, which consisted in his borrowing
of me a ball of string, a four-bladed knife, and
seven-and-sixpence in money—the colour of which last I have
not seen, and never expect to see again. His letters to me
chiefly related to borrowing more. I heard, however, from my
lady, how he got on abroad, as he grew in years and stature.
After he had learnt what the institutions of Germany could
teach him, he gave the French a turn next, and the Italians
a turn after that. They made him among them a sort of
universal genius, as well as I could understand it. He wrote
a little; he painted a little; he sang and played and
composed a little—borrowing, as I suspect, in all these
cases, just as he had borrowed from me. His mother's fortune
(seven hundred a year) fell to him when he came of age, and
ran through him, as it might be through a sieve. The more
money he had, the more he wanted; there was a hole in Mr.
Franklin's pocket that nothing would sew up. Wherever he
went, the lively, easy way of him made him welcome. He lived
here, there, and everywhere; his address (as he used to put
it himself) being "Post Office, Europe—to be left till
called for." Twice over, he made up his mind to come back to
England and see us; and twice over (saving your presence),
some unmentionable woman stood in the way and stopped him.
His third attempt succeeded, as you know already from what
my lady told me. On Thursday the twenty-fifth of May, we
were to see for the first time what our nice boy had grown
to be as a man. He came of good blood; he had a high
courage; and he was five-and-twenty years of age, by our
reckoning. Now you know as much of Mr. Franklin Blake as I
did—before Mr. Franklin Blake came down to our house.
The Thursday was as fine a summer's day as ever you saw:
and my lady and Miss Rachel (not expecting Mr. Franklin till
dinner-time) drove out to lunch with some friends in the
neighbourhood.
When they were gone, I went and had a look at the bedroom
which had been got ready for our guest, and saw that all was
straight. Then, being butler in my lady's establishment, as
well as steward (at my own particular request, mind, and
because it vexed me to see anybody but myself in possession
of the key of the late Sir John's cellar)—then, I say, I
fetched up some of our famous Latour claret, and set it in
the warm summer air to take off the chill before dinner.
Concluding to set myself in the warm summer air next—seeing
that what is good for old claret is equally good for old
age—I took up my beehive chair to go out into the back
court, when I was stopped by hearing a sound like the soft
beating of a drum, on the terrace in front of my lady's
residence.
Going round to the terrace, I found three
mahogany-coloured Indians, in white linen frocks and
trousers, looking up at the house.
The Indians, as I saw on looking closer, had small
hand-drums slung in front of them. Behind them stood a
little delicate-looking light-haired English boy carrying a
bag. I judged the fellows to be strolling conjurors, and the
boy with the bag to be carrying the tools of their trade.
One of the three, who spoke English and who exhibited, I
must own, the most elegant manners, presently informed me
that my judgment was right. He requested permission to show
his tricks in the presence of the lady of the house.
Now I am not a sour old man. I am generally all for
amusement, and the last person in the world to distrust
another person because he happens to be a few shades darker
than myself. But the best of us have our weaknesses—and my
weakness, when I know a family plate-basket to be out on a
pantry-table, is to be instantly reminded of that basket by
the sight of a strolling stranger whose manners are superior
to my own. I accordingly informed the Indian that the lady
of the house was out; and I warned him and his party off the
premises. He made me a beautiful bow in return; and he and
his party went off the premises. On my side, I returned to
my beehive chair, and set myself down on the sunny side of
the court, and fell (if the truth must be owned), not
exactly into a sleep, but into the next best thing to it.
I was roused up by my daughter Penelope running out at me
as if the house was on fire. What do you think she wanted?
She wanted to have the three Indian jugglers instantly taken
up; for this reason, namely, that they knew who was coming
from London to visit us, and that they meant some mischief
to Mr. Franklin Blake.
Mr. Franklin's name roused me. I opened my eyes, and made
my girl explain herself.
It appeared that Penelope had just come from our lodge,
where she had been having a gossip with the lodge-keeper's
daughter. The two girls had seen the Indians pass out, after
I had warned them off, followed by their little boy. Taking
it into their heads that the boy was ill-used by the
foreigners—for no reason that I could discover, except that
he was pretty and delicate-looking—the two girls had stolen
along the inner side of the hedge between us and the road,
and had watched the proceedings of the foreigners on the
outer side. Those proceedings resulted in the performance of
the following extraordinary tricks.
They first looked up the road, and down the road, and
made sure that they were alone. Then they all three faced
about, and stared hard in the direction of our house. Then
they jabbered and disputed in their own language, and looked
at each other like men in doubt. Then they all turned to
their little English boy, as if they expected HIM to help
them. And then the chief Indian, who spoke English, said to
the boy, "Hold out your hand."
On hearing those dreadful words, my daughter Penelope
said she didn't know what prevented her heart from flying
straight out of her. I thought privately that it might have
been her stays. All I said, however, was, "You make my flesh
creep." (NOTA BENE: Women like these little compliments.)
Well, when the Indian said, "Hold out your hand," the boy
shrunk back, and shook his head, and said he didn't like it.
The Indian, thereupon, asked him (not at all unkindly),
whether he would like to be sent back to London, and left
where they had found him, sleeping in an empty basket in a
market—a hungry, ragged, and forsaken little boy. This, it
seems, ended the difficulty. The little chap unwillingly
held out his hand. Upon that, the Indian took a bottle from
his bosom, and poured out of it some black stuff, like ink,
into the palm of the boy's hand. The Indian—first touching
the boy's head, and making signs over it in the air—then
said, "Look." The boy became quite stiff, and stood like a
statue, looking into the ink in the hollow of his hand.
(So far, it seemed to me to be juggling, accompanied by a
foolish waste of ink. I was beginning to feel sleepy again,
when Penelope's next words stirred me up.)
The Indians looked up the road and down the road once
more—and then the chief Indian said these words to the boy;
"See the English gentleman from foreign parts."
The boy said, "I see him."
The Indian said, "Is it on the road to this house, and on
no other, that the English gentleman will travel to-day?"
The boy said, "It is on the road to this house, and on no
other, that the English gentleman will travel to-day." The
Indian put a second question—after waiting a little first.
He said: "Has the English gentleman got It about him?"
The boy answered—also, after waiting a little
first—"Yes."
The Indian put a third and last question: "Will the
English gentleman come here, as he has promised to come, at
the close of day?"
The boy said, "I can't tell."
The Indian asked why.
The boy said, "I am tired. The mist rises in my head, and
puzzles me. I can see no more to-day."
With that the catechism ended. The chief Indian said
something in his own language to the other two, pointing to
the boy, and pointing towards the town, in which (as we
afterwards discovered) they were lodged. He then, after
making more signs on the boy's head, blew on his forehead,
and so woke him up with a start. After that, they all went
on their way towards the town, and the girls saw them no
more.
Most things they say have a moral, if you only look for
it. What was the moral of this?
The moral was, as I thought: First, that the chief
juggler had heard Mr. Franklin's arrival talked of among the
servants out-of-doors, and saw his way to making a little
money by it. Second, that he and his men and boy (with a
view to making the said money) meant to hang about till they
saw my lady drive home, and then to come back, and foretell
Mr. Franklin's arrival by magic. Third, that Penelope had
heard them rehearsing their hocus-pocus, like actors
rehearsing a play. Fourth, that I should do well to have an
eye, that evening, on the plate-basket. Fifth, that Penelope
would do well to cool down, and leave me, her father, to
doze off again in the sun.
That appeared to me to be the sensible view. If you know
anything of the ways of young women, you won't be surprised
to hear that Penelope wouldn't take it. The moral of the
thing was serious, according to my daughter. She
particularly reminded me of the Indian's third question, Has
the English gentleman got It about him? "Oh, father!" says
Penelope, clasping her hands, "don't joke about this. What
does 'It' mean?"
"We'll ask Mr. Franklin, my dear," I said, "if you can
wait till Mr. Franklin comes." I winked to show I meant that
in joke. Penelope took it quite seriously. My girl's
earnestness tickled me. "What on earth should Mr. Franklin
know about it?" I inquired. "Ask him," says Penelope. "And
see whether HE thinks it a laughing matter, too." With that
parting shot, my daughter left me.
I settled it with myself, when she was gone, that I
really would ask Mr. Franklin—mainly to set Penelope's mind
at rest. What was said between us, when I did ask him, later
on that same day, you will find set out fully in its proper
place. But as I don't wish to raise your expectations and
then disappoint them, I will take leave to warn you
here—before we go any further—that you won't find the ghost
of a joke in our conversation on the subject of the
jugglers. To my great surprise, Mr. Franklin, like Penelope,
took the thing seriously. How seriously, you will
understand, when I tell you that, in his opinion, "It" meant
the Moonstone.
CHAPTER IV
I am truly sorry to detain you over me and my beehive
chair. A sleepy old man, in a sunny back yard, is not an
interesting object, I am well aware. But things must be put
down in their places, as things actually happened—and you
must please to jog on a little while longer with me, in
expectation of Mr. Franklin Blake's arrival later in the
day.
Before I had time to doze off again, after my daughter
Penelope had left me, I was disturbed by a rattling of
plates and dishes in the servants' hall, which meant that
dinner was ready. Taking my own meals in my own
sitting-room, I had nothing to do with the servants' dinner,
except to wish them a good stomach to it all round, previous
to composing myself once more in my chair. I was just
stretching my legs, when out bounced another woman on me.
Not my daughter again; only Nancy, the kitchen-maid, this
time. I was straight in her way out; and I observed, as she
asked me to let her by, that she had a sulky face—a thing
which, as head of the servants, I never allow, on principle,
to pass me without inquiry.
"What are you turning your back on your dinner for?" I
asked. "What's wrong now, Nancy?"
Nancy tried to push by, without answering; upon which I
rose up, and took her by the ear. She is a nice plump young
lass, and it is customary with me to adopt that manner of
showing that I personally approve of a girl.
"What's wrong now?" I said once more.
"Rosanna's late again for dinner," says Nancy. "And I'm
sent to fetch her in. All the hard work falls on my
shoulders in this house. Let me alone, Mr. Betteredge!"
The person here mentioned as Rosanna was our second
housemaid. Having a kind of pity for our second housemaid
(why, you shall presently know), and seeing in Nancy's face,
that she would fetch her fellow-servant in with more hard
words than might be needful under the circumstances, it
struck me that I had nothing particular to do, and that I
might as well fetch Rosanna myself; giving her a hint to be
punctual in future, which I knew she would take kindly from
ME.
"Where is Rosanna?" I inquired.
"At the sands, of course!" says Nancy, with a toss of her
head. "She had another of her fainting fits this morning,
and she asked to go out and get a breath of fresh air. I
have no patience with her!"
"Go back to your dinner, my girl," I said. "I have
patience with her, and I'll fetch her in."
Nancy (who has a fine appetite) looked pleased. When she
looks pleased, she looks nice. When she looks nice, I chuck
her under the chin. It isn't immorality—it's only habit.
Well, I took my stick, and set off for the sands.
No! it won't do to set off yet. I am sorry again to
detain you; but you really must hear the story of the sands,
and the story of Rosanna—for this reason, that the matter of
the Diamond touches them both nearly. How hard I try to get
on with my statement without stopping by the way, and how
badly I succeed! But, there!—Persons and Things do turn up
so vexatiously in this life, and will in a manner insist on
being noticed. Let us take it easy, and let us take it
short; we shall be in the thick of the mystery soon, I
promise you!
Rosanna (to put the Person before the Thing, which is but
common politeness) was the only new servant in our house.
About four months before the time I am writing of, my lady
had been in London, and had gone over a Reformatory,
intended to save forlorn women from drifting back into bad
ways, after they had got released from prison. The matron,
seeing my lady took an interest in the place, pointed out a
girl to her, named Rosanna Spearman, and told her a most
miserable story, which I haven't the heart to repeat here;
for I don't like to be made wretched without any use, and no
more do you. The upshot of it was, that Rosanna Spearman had
been a thief, and not being of the sort that get up
Companies in the City, and rob from thousands, instead of
only robbing from one, the law laid hold of her, and the
prison and the reformatory followed the lead of the law. The
matron's opinion of Rosanna was (in spite of what she had
done) that the girl was one in a thousand, and that she only
wanted a chance to prove herself worthy of any Christian
woman's interest in her. My lady (being a Christian woman,
if ever there was one yet) said to the matron, upon that,
"Rosanna Spearman shall have her chance, in my service." In
a week afterwards, Rosanna Spearman entered this
establishment as our second housemaid.
Not a soul was told the girl's story, excepting Miss
Rachel and me. My lady, doing me the honour to consult me
about most things, consulted me about Rosanna. Having fallen
a good deal latterly into the late Sir John's way of always
agreeing with my lady, I agreed with her heartily about
Rosanna Spearman.
A fairer chance no girl could have had than was given to
this poor girl of ours. None of the servants could cast her
past life in her teeth, for none of the servants knew what
it had been. She had her wages and her privileges, like the
rest of them; and every now and then a friendly word from my
lady, in private, to encourage her. In return, she showed
herself, I am bound to say, well worthy of the kind
treatment bestowed upon her. Though far from strong, and
troubled occasionally with those fainting-fits already
mentioned, she went about her work modestly and
uncomplainingly, doing it carefully, and doing it well. But,
somehow, she failed to make friends among the other women
servants, excepting my daughter Penelope, who was always
kind to Rosanna, though never intimate with her.
I hardly know what the girl did to offend them. There was
certainly no beauty about her to make the others envious;
she was the plainest woman in the house, with the additional
misfortune of having one shoulder bigger than the other.
What the servants chiefly resented, I think, was her silent
tongue and her solitary ways. She read or worked in leisure
hours when the rest gossiped. And when it came to her turn
to go out, nine times out of ten she quietly put on her
bonnet, and had her turn by herself. She never quarrelled,
she never took offence; she only kept a certain distance,
obstinately and civilly, between the rest of them and
herself. Add to this that, plain as she was, there was just
a dash of something that wasn't like a housemaid, and that
WAS like a lady, about her. It might have been in her voice,
or it might have been in her face. All I can say is, that
the other women pounced on it like lightning the first day
she came into the house, and said (which was most unjust)
that Rosanna Spearman gave herself airs.
Having now told the story of Rosanna, I have only to
notice one of the many queer ways of this strange girl to
get on next to the story of the sands.
Our house is high up on the Yorkshire coast, and close by
the sea. We have got beautiful walks all round us, in every
direction but one. That one I acknowledge to be a horrid
walk. It leads, for a quarter of a mile, through a
melancholy plantation of firs, and brings you out between
low cliffs on the loneliest and ugliest little bay on all
our coast.
The sand-hills here run down to the sea, and end in two
spits of rock jutting out opposite each other, till you lose
sight of them in the water. One is called the North Spit,
and one the South. Between the two, shifting backwards and
forwards at certain seasons of the year, lies the most
horrible quicksand on the shores of Yorkshire. At the turn
of the tide, something goes on in the unknown deeps below,
which sets the whole face of the quicksand shivering and
trembling in a manner most remarkable to see, and which has
given to it, among the people in our parts, the name of the
Shivering Sand. A great bank, half a mile out, nigh the
mouth of the bay, breaks the force of the main ocean coming
in from the offing. Winter and summer, when the tide flows
over the quicksand, the sea seems to leave the waves behind
it on the bank, and rolls its waters in smoothly with a
heave, and covers the sand in silence. A lonesome and a
horrid retreat, I can tell you! No boat ever ventures into
this bay. No children from our fishing-village, called
Cobb's Hole, ever come here to play. The very birds of the
air, as it seems to me, give the Shivering Sand a wide
berth. That a young woman, with dozens of nice walks to
choose from, and company to go with her, if she only said
"Come!" should prefer this place, and should sit and work or
read in it, all alone, when it's her turn out, I grant you,
passes belief. It's true, nevertheless, account for it as
you may, that this was Rosanna Spearman's favourite walk,
except when she went once or twice to Cobb's Hole, to see
the only friend she had in our neighbourhood, of whom more
anon. It's also true that I was now setting out for this
same place, to fetch the girl in to dinner, which brings us
round happily to our former point, and starts us fair again
on our way to the sands.
I saw no sign of the girl in the plantation. When I got
out, through the sand-hills, on to the beach, there she was,
in her little straw bonnet, and her plain grey cloak that
she always wore to hide her deformed shoulder as much as
might be—there she was, all alone, looking out on the
quicksand and the sea.
She started when I came up with her, and turned her head
away from me. Not looking me in the face being another of
the proceedings, which, as head of the servants, I never
allow, on principle, to pass without inquiry—I turned her
round my way, and saw that she was crying. My bandanna
handkerchief—one of six beauties given to me by my lady—was
handy in my pocket. I took it out, and I said to Rosanna,
"Come and sit down, my dear, on the slope of the beach along
with me. I'll dry your eyes for you first, and then I'll
make so bold as to ask what you have been crying about."
When you come to my age, you will find sitting down on
the slope of a beach a much longer job than you think it
now. By the time I was settled, Rosanna had dried her own
eyes with a very inferior handkerchief to mine—cheap
cambric. She looked very quiet, and very wretched; but she
sat down by me like a good girl, when I told her. When you
want to comfort a woman by the shortest way, take her on
your knee. I thought of this golden rule. But there! Rosanna
wasn't Nancy, and that's the truth of it!
"Now, tell me, my dear," I said, "what are you crying
about?"
"About the years that are gone, Mr. Betteredge," says
Rosanna quietly. "My past life still comes back to me
sometimes."
"Come, come, my girl," I said, "your past life is all
sponged out. Why can't you forget it?"
She took me by one of the lappets of my coat. I am a
slovenly old man, and a good deal of my meat and drink gets
splashed about on my clothes. Sometimes one of the women,
and sometimes another, cleans me of my grease. The day
before, Rosanna had taken out a spot for me on the lappet of
my coat, with a new composition, warranted to remove
anything. The grease was gone, but there was a little dull
place left on the nap of the cloth where the grease had
been. The girl pointed to that place, and shook her head.
"The stain is taken off," she said. "But the place shows,
Mr. Betteredge—the place shows!"
A remark which takes a man unawares by means of his own
coat is not an easy remark to answer. Something in the girl
herself, too, made me particularly sorry for her just then.
She had nice brown eyes, plain as she was in other ways—and
she looked at me with a sort of respect for my happy old age
and my good character, as things for ever out of her own
reach, which made my heart heavy for our second housemaid.
Not feeling myself able to comfort her, there was only one
other thing to do. That thing was—to take her in to dinner.
"Help me up," I said. "You're late for dinner,
Rosanna—and I have come to fetch you in."
"You, Mr. Betteredge!" says she.
"They told Nancy to fetch you," I said. "But thought you
might like your scolding better, my dear, if it came from
me."
Instead of helping me up, the poor thing stole her hand
into mine, and gave it a little squeeze. She tried hard to
keep from crying again, and succeeded—for which I respected
her. "You're very kind, Mr. Betteredge," she said. "I don't
want any dinner to-day—let me bide a little longer here."
"What makes you like to be here?" I asked. "What is it
that brings you everlastingly to this miserable place?"
"Something draws me to it," says the girl, making images
with her finger in the sand. "I try to keep away from it,
and I can't. Sometimes," says she in a low voice, as if she
was frightened at her own fancy, "sometimes, Mr. Betteredge,
I think that my grave is waiting for me here."
"There's roast mutton and suet-pudding waiting for you!"
says I. "Go in to dinner directly. This is what comes,
Rosanna, of thinking on an empty stomach!" I spoke severely,
being naturally indignant (at my time of life) to hear a
young woman of five-and-twenty talking about her latter end!
She didn't seem to hear me: she put her hand on my
shoulder, and kept me where I was, sitting by her side.
"I think the place has laid a spell on me," she said. "I
dream of it night after night; I think of it when I sit
stitching at my work. You know I am grateful, Mr.
Betteredge—you know I try to deserve your kindness, and my
lady's confidence in me. But I wonder sometimes whether the
life here is too quiet and too good for such a woman as I
am, after all I have gone through, Mr. Betteredge—after all
I have gone through. It's more lonely to me to be among the
other servants, knowing I am not what they are, than it is
to be here. My lady doesn't know, the matron at the
reformatory doesn't know, what a dreadful reproach honest
people are in themselves to a woman like me. Don't scold me,
there's a dear good man. I do my work, don't I? Please not
to tell my lady I am discontented—I am not. My mind's
unquiet, sometimes, that's all." She snatched her hand off
my shoulder, and suddenly pointed down to the quicksand.
"Look!" she said "Isn't it wonderful? isn't it terrible? I
have seen it dozens of times, and it's always as new to me
as if I had never seen it before!"
I looked where she pointed. The tide was on the turn, and
the horrid sand began to shiver. The broad brown face of it
heaved slowly, and then dimpled and quivered all over. "Do
you know what it looks like to ME?" says Rosanna, catching
me by the shoulder again. "It looks as if it had hundreds of
suffocating people under it—all struggling to get to the
surface, and all sinking lower and lower in the dreadful
deeps! Throw a stone in, Mr. Betteredge! Throw a stone in,
and let's see the sand suck it down!"
Here was unwholesome talk! Here was an empty stomach
feeding on an unquiet mind! My answer—a pretty sharp one, in
the poor girl's own interests, I promise you!—was at my
tongue's end, when it was snapped short off on a sudden by a
voice among the sand-hills shouting for me by my name.
"Betteredge!" cries the voice, "where are you?" "Here!" I
shouted out in return, without a notion in my mind of who it
was. Rosanna started to her feet, and stood looking towards
the voice. I was just thinking of getting on my own legs
next, when I was staggered by a sudden change in the girl's
face.
Her complexion turned of a beautiful red, which I had
never seen in it before; she brightened all over with a kind
of speechless and breathless surprise. "Who is it?" I asked.
Rosanna gave me back my own question. "Oh! who is it?" she
said softly, more to herself than to me. I twisted round on
the sand and looked behind me. There, coming out on us from
among the hills, was a bright-eyed young gentleman, dressed
in a beautiful fawn-coloured suit, with gloves and hat to
match, with a rose in his button-hole, and a smile on his
face that might have set the Shivering Sand itself smiling
at him in return. Before I could get on my legs, he plumped
down on the sand by the side of me, put his arm round my
neck, foreign fashion, and gave me a hug that fairly
squeezed the breath out of my body. "Dear old Betteredge!"
says he. "I owe you seven-and-sixpence. Now do you know who
I am?"
Lord bless us and save us! Here—four good hours before we
expected him—was Mr. Franklin Blake!
Before I could say a word, I saw Mr. Franklin, a little
surprised to all appearance, look up from me to Rosanna.
Following his lead, I looked at the girl too. She was
blushing of a deeper red than ever, seemingly at having
caught Mr. Franklin's eye; and she turned and left us
suddenly, in a confusion quite unaccountable to my mind,
without either making her curtsey to the gentleman or saying
a word to me. Very unlike her usual self: a civiller and
better-behaved servant, in general, you never met with.
"That's an odd girl," says Mr. Franklin. "I wonder what
she sees in me to surprise her?"
"I suppose, sir," I answered, drolling on our young
gentleman's Continental education, "it's the varnish from
foreign parts."
I set down here Mr. Franklin's careless question, and my
foolish answer, as a consolation and encouragement to all
stupid people—it being, as I have remarked, a great
satisfaction to our inferior fellow-creatures to find that
their betters are, on occasions, no brighter than they are.
Neither Mr. Franklin, with his wonderful foreign training,
nor I, with my age, experience, and natural mother-wit, had
the ghost of an idea of what Rosanna Spearman's
unaccountable behaviour really meant. She was out of our
thoughts, poor soul, before we had seen the last flutter of
her little grey cloak among the sand-hills. And what of
that? you will ask, naturally enough. Read on, good friend,
as patiently as you can, and perhaps you will be as sorry
for Rosanna Spearman as I was, when I found out the truth.
CHAPTER V
The first thing I did, after we were left together alone,
was to make a third attempt to get up from my seat on the
sand. Mr. Franklin stopped me.
"There is one advantage about this horrid place," he
said; "we have got it all to ourselves. Stay where you are,
Betteredge; I have something to say to you."
While he was speaking, I was looking at him, and trying
to see something of the boy I remembered, in the man before
me. The man put me out. Look as I might, I could see no more
of his boy's rosy cheeks than of his boy's trim little
jacket. His complexion had got pale: his face, at the lower
part was covered, to my great surprise and disappointment,
with a curly brown beard and mustachios. He had a lively
touch-and-go way with him, very pleasant and engaging, I
admit; but nothing to compare with his free-and-easy manners
of other times. To make matters worse, he had promised to be
tall, and had not kept his promise. He was neat, and slim,
and well made; but he wasn't by an inch or two up to the
middle height. In short, he baffled me altogether. The years
that had passed had left nothing of his old self, except the
bright, straightforward look in his eyes. There I found our
nice boy again, and there I concluded to stop in my
investigation.
"Welcome back to the old place, Mr. Franklin," I said.
"All the more welcome, sir, that you have come some hours
before we expected you."
"I have a reason for coming before you expected me,"
answered Mr. Franklin. "I suspect, Betteredge, that I have
been followed and watched in London, for the last three or
four days; and I have travelled by the morning instead of
the afternoon train, because I wanted to give a certain
dark-looking stranger the slip."
Those words did more than surprise me. They brought back
to my mind, in a flash, the three jugglers, and Penelope's
notion that they meant some mischief to Mr. Franklin Blake.
"Who's watching you, sir,—and why?" I inquired.
"Tell me about the three Indians you have had at the
house to-day," says Mr. Franklin, without noticing my
question. "It's just possible, Betteredge, that my stranger
and your three jugglers may turn out to be pieces of the
same puzzle."
"How do you come to know about the jugglers, sir?" I
asked, putting one question on the top of another, which was
bad manners, I own. But you don't expect much from poor
human nature—so don't expect much from me.
"I saw Penelope at the house," says Mr. Franklin; "and
Penelope told me. Your daughter promised to be a pretty
girl, Betteredge, and she has kept her promise. Penelope has
got a small ear and a small foot. Did the late Mrs.
Betteredge possess those inestimable advantages?"
"The late Mrs. Betteredge possessed a good many defects,
sir," says I. "One of them (if you will pardon my mentioning
it) was never keeping to the matter in hand. She was more
like a fly than a woman: she couldn't settle on anything."
"She would just have suited me," says Mr. Franklin. "I
never settle on anything either. Betteredge, your edge is
better than ever. Your daughter said as much, when I asked
for particulars about the jugglers. 'Father will tell you,
sir. He's a wonderful man for his age; and he expresses
himself beautifully.' Penelope's own words—blushing
divinely. Not even my respect for you prevented me
from—never mind; I knew her when she was a child, and she's
none the worse for it. Let's be serious. What did the
jugglers do?"
I was something dissatisfied with my daughter—not for
letting Mr. Franklin kiss her; Mr. Franklin was welcome to
THAT—but for forcing me to tell her foolish story at second
hand. However, there was no help for it now but to mention
the circumstances. Mr. Franklin's merriment all died away as
I went on. He sat knitting his eyebrows, and twisting his
beard. When I had done, he repeated after me two of the
questions which the chief juggler had put to the
boy—seemingly for the purpose of fixing them well in his
mind.
"'Is it on the road to this house, and on no other, that
the English gentleman will travel to-day?' 'Has the English
gentleman got It about him?' I suspect," says Mr. Franklin,
pulling a little sealed paper parcel out of his pocket,
"that 'It' means THIS. And 'this,' Betteredge, means my
uncle Herncastle's famous Diamond."
"Good Lord, sir!" I broke out, "how do you come to be in
charge of the wicked Colonel's Diamond?"
"The wicked Colonel's will has left his Diamond as a
birthday present to my cousin Rachel," says Mr. Franklin.
"And my father, as the wicked Colonel's executor, has given
it in charge to me to bring down here."
If the sea, then oozing in smoothly over the Shivering
Sand, had been changed into dry land before my own eyes, I
doubt if I could have been more surprised than I was when
Mr. Franklin spoke those words.
"The Colonel's Diamond left to Miss Rachel!" says I. "And
your father, sir, the Colonel's executor! Why, I would have
laid any bet you like, Mr. Franklin, that your father
wouldn't have touched the Colonel with a pair of tongs!"
"Strong language, Betteredge! What was there against the
Colonel. He belonged to your time, not to mine. Tell me what
you know about him, and I'll tell you how my father came to
be his executor, and more besides. I have made some
discoveries in London about my uncle Herncastle and his
Diamond, which have rather an ugly look to my eyes; and I
want you to confirm them. You called him the 'wicked
Colonel' just now. Search your memory, my old friend, and
tell me why."
I saw he was in earnest, and I told him.
Here follows the substance of what I said, written out
entirely for your benefit. Pay attention to it, or you will
be all abroad, when we get deeper into the story. Clear your
mind of the children, or the dinner, or the new bonnet, or
what not. Try if you can't forget politics, horses, prices
in the City, and grievances at the club. I hope you won't
take this freedom on my part amiss; it's only a way I have
of appealing to the gentle reader. Lord! haven't I seen you
with the greatest authors in your hands, and don't I know
how ready your attention is to wander when it's a book that
asks for it, instead of a person?
I spoke, a little way back, of my lady's father, the old
lord with the short temper and the long tongue. He had five
children in all. Two sons to begin with; then, after a long
time, his wife broke out breeding again, and the three young
ladies came briskly one after the other, as fast as the
nature of things would permit; my mistress, as before
mentioned, being the youngest and best of the three. Of the
two sons, the eldest, Arthur, inherited the title and
estates. The second, the Honourable John, got a fine fortune
left him by a relative, and went into the army.
It's an ill bird, they say, that fouls its own nest. I
look on the noble family of the Herncastles as being my
nest; and I shall take it as a favour if I am not expected
to enter into particulars on the subject of the Honourable
John. He was, I honestly believe, one of the greatest
blackguards that ever lived. I can hardly say more or less
for him than that. He went into the army, beginning in the
Guards. He had to leave the Guards before he was
two-and-twenty—never mind why. They are very strict in the
army, and they were too strict for the Honourable John. He
went out to India to see whether they were equally strict
there, and to try a little active service. In the matter of
bravery (to give him his due), he was a mixture of bull-dog
and game-cock, with a dash of the savage. He was at the
taking of Seringapatam. Soon afterwards he changed into
another regiment, and, in course of time, changed into a
third. In the third he got his last step as
lieutenant-colonel, and, getting that, got also a sunstroke,
and came home to England.
He came back with a character that closed the doors of
all his family against him, my lady (then just married)
taking the lead, and declaring (with Sir John's approval, of
course) that her brother should never enter any house of
hers. There was more than one slur on the Colonel that made
people shy of him; but the blot of the Diamond is all I need
mention here.
It was said he had got possession of his Indian jewel by
means which, bold as he was, he didn't dare acknowledge. He
never attempted to sell it—not being in need of money, and
not (to give him his due again) making money an object. He
never gave it away; he never even showed it to any living
soul. Some said he was afraid of its getting him into a
difficulty with the military authorities; others (very
ignorant indeed of the real nature of the man) said he was
afraid, if he showed it, of its costing him his life.
There was perhaps a grain of truth mixed up with this
last report. It was false to say that he was afraid; but it
was a fact that his life had been twice threatened in India;
and it was firmly believed that the Moonstone was at the
bottom of it. When he came back to England, and found
himself avoided by everybody, the Moonstone was thought to
be at the bottom of it again. The mystery of the Colonel's
life got in the Colonel's way, and outlawed him, as you may
say, among his own people. The men wouldn't let him into
their clubs; the women—more than one—whom he wanted to
marry, refused him; friends and relations got too
near-sighted to see him in the street.
Some men in this mess would have tried to set themselves
right with the world. But to give in, even when he was
wrong, and had all society against him, was not the way of
the Honourable John. He had kept the Diamond, in flat
defiance of assassination, in India. He kept the Diamond, in
flat defiance of public opinion, in England. There you have
the portrait of the man before you, as in a picture: a
character that braved everything; and a face, handsome as it
was, that looked possessed by the devil.
We heard different rumours about him from time to time.
Sometimes they said he was given up to smoking opium and
collecting old books; sometimes he was reported to be trying
strange things in chemistry; sometimes he was seen carousing
and amusing himself among the lowest people in the lowest
slums of London. Anyhow, a solitary, vicious, underground
life was the life the Colonel led. Once, and once only,
after his return to England, I myself saw him, face to face.
About two years before the time of which I am now
writing, and about a year and a half before the time of his
death, the Colonel came unexpectedly to my lady's house in
London. It was the night of Miss Rachel's birthday, the
twenty-first of June; and there was a party in honour of it,
as usual. I received a message from the footman to say that
a gentleman wanted to see me. Going up into the hall, there
I found the Colonel, wasted, and worn, and old, and shabby,
and as wild and as wicked as ever.
"Go up to my sister," says he; "and say that I have
called to wish my niece many happy returns of the day."
He had made attempts by letter, more than once already,
to be reconciled with my lady, for no other purpose, I am
firmly persuaded, than to annoy her. But this was the first
time he had actually come to the house. I had it on the tip
of my tongue to say that my mistress had a party that night.
But the devilish look of him daunted me. I went up-stairs
with his message, and left him, by his own desire, waiting
in the hall. The servants stood staring at him, at a
distance, as if he was a walking engine of destruction,
loaded with powder and shot, and likely to go off among them
at a moment's notice.
My lady had a dash—no more—of the family temper. "Tell
Colonel Herncastle," she said, when I gave her her brother's
message, "that Miss Verinder is engaged, and that I decline
to see him." I tried to plead for a civiller answer than
that; knowing the Colonel's constitutional superiority to
the restraints which govern gentlemen in general. Quite
useless! The family temper flashed out at me directly. "When
I want your advice," says my lady, "you know that I always
ask for it. I don't ask for it now." I went downstairs with
the message, of which I took the liberty of presenting a new
and amended edition of my own contriving, as follows: "My
lady and Miss Rachel regret that they are engaged, Colonel;
and beg to be excused having the honour of seeing you."
I expected him to break out, even at that polite way of
putting it. To my surprise he did nothing of the sort; he
alarmed me by taking the thing with an unnatural quiet. His
eyes, of a glittering bright grey, just settled on me for a
moment; and he laughed, not out of himself, like other
people, but INTO himself, in a soft, chuckling, horridly
mischievous way. "Thank you, Betteredge," he said. "I shall
remember my niece's birthday." With that, he turned on his
heel, and walked out of the house.
The next birthday came round, and we heard he was ill in
bed. Six months afterwards—that is to say, six months before
the time I am now writing of—there came a letter from a
highly respectable clergyman to my lady. It communicated two
wonderful things in the way of family news. First, that the
Colonel had forgiven his sister on his death-bed. Second,
that he had forgiven everybody else, and had made a most
edifying end. I have myself (in spite of the bishops and the
clergy) an unfeigned respect for the Church; but I am firmly
persuaded, at the same time, that the devil remained in
undisturbed possession of the Honourable John, and that the
last abominable act in the life of that abominable man was
(saving your presence) to take the clergyman in!
This was the sum-total of what I had to tell Mr.
Franklin. I remarked that he listened more and more eagerly
the longer I went on. Also, that the story of the Colonel
being sent away from his sister's door, on the occasion of
his niece's birthday, seemed to strike Mr. Franklin like a
shot that had hit the mark. Though he didn't acknowledge it,
I saw that I had made him uneasy, plainly enough, in his
face.
"You have said your say, Betteredge," he remarked. "It's
my turn now. Before, however, I tell you what discoveries I
have made in London, and how I came to be mixed up in this
matter of the Diamond, I want to know one thing. You look,
my old friend, as if you didn't quite understand the object
to be answered by this consultation of ours. Do your looks
belie you?"
"No, sir," I said. "My looks, on this occasion at any
rate, tell the truth."
"In that case," says Mr. Franklin, "suppose I put you up
to my point of view, before we go any further. I see three
very serious questions involved in the Colonel's
birthday-gift to my cousin Rachel. Follow me carefully,
Betteredge; and count me off on your fingers, if it will
help you," says Mr. Franklin, with a certain pleasure in
showing how clear-headed he could be, which reminded me
wonderfully of old times when he was a boy. "Question the
first: Was the Colonel's Diamond the object of a conspiracy
in India? Question the second: Has the conspiracy followed
the Colonel's Diamond to England? Question the third: Did
the Colonel know the conspiracy followed the Diamond; and
has he purposely left a legacy of trouble and danger to his
sister, through the innocent medium of his sister's child?
THAT is what I am driving at, Betteredge. Don't let me
frighten you."
It was all very well to say that, but he HAD frightened
me.
If he was right, here was our quiet English house
suddenly invaded by a devilish Indian Diamond—bringing after
it a conspiracy of living rogues, set loose on us by the
vengeance of a dead man. There was our situation as revealed
to me in Mr. Franklin's last words! Who ever heard the like
of it—in the nineteenth century, mind; in an age of
progress, and in a country which rejoices in the blessings
of the British constitution? Nobody ever heard the like of
it, and, consequently, nobody can be expected to believe it.
I shall go on with my story, however, in spite of that.
When you get a sudden alarm, of the sort that I had got
now, nine times out of ten the place you feel it in is your
stomach. When you feel it in your stomach, your attention
wanders, and you begin to fidget. I fidgeted silently in my
place on the sand. Mr. Franklin noticed me, contending with
a perturbed stomach or mind—which you please; they mean the
same thing—and, checking himself just as he was starting
with his part of the story, said to me sharply, "What do you
want?"
What did I want? I didn't tell HIM; but I'll tell YOU, in
confidence. I wanted a whiff of my pipe, and a turn at
ROBINSON CRUSOE.
CHAPTER VI
Keeping my private sentiments to myself, I respectfully
requested Mr. Franklin to go on. Mr. Franklin replied,
"Don't fidget, Betteredge," and went on.
Our young gentleman's first words informed me that his
discoveries, concerning the wicked Colonel and the Diamond,
had begun with a visit which he had paid (before he came to
us) to the family lawyer, at Hampstead. A chance word
dropped by Mr. Franklin, when the two were alone, one day,
after dinner, revealed that he had been charged by his
father with a birthday present to be taken to Miss Rachel.
One thing led to another; and it ended in the lawyer
mentioning what the present really was, and how the friendly
connexion between the late Colonel and Mr. Blake, senior,
had taken its rise. The facts here are really so
extraordinary, that I doubt if I can trust my own language
to do justice to them. I prefer trying to report Mr.
Franklin's discoveries, as nearly as may be, in Mr.
Franklin's own words.
"You remember the time, Betteredge," he said, "when my
father was trying to prove his title to that unlucky
Dukedom? Well! that was also the time when my uncle
Herncastle returned from India. My father discovered that
his brother-in-law was in possession of certain papers which
were likely to be of service to him in his lawsuit. He
called on the Colonel, on pretence of welcoming him back to
England. The Colonel was not to be deluded in that way. 'You
want something,' he said, 'or you would never have
compromised your reputation by calling on ME.' My father saw
that the one chance for him was to show his hand; he
admitted, at once, that he wanted the papers. The Colonel
asked for a day to consider his answer. His answer came in
the shape of a most extraordinary letter, which my friend
the lawyer showed me. The Colonel began by saying that he
wanted something of my father, and that he begged to propose
an exchange of friendly services between them. The fortune
of war (that was the expression he used) had placed him in
possession of one of the largest Diamonds in the world; and
he had reason to believe that neither he nor his precious
jewel was safe in any house, in any quarter of the globe,
which they occupied together. Under these alarming
circumstances, he had determined to place his Diamond in the
keeping of another person. That person was not expected to
run any risk. He might deposit the precious stone in any
place especially guarded and set apart—like a banker's or
jeweller's strong-room—for the safe custody of valuables of
high price. His main personal responsibility in the matter
was to be of the passive kind. He was to undertake either by
himself, or by a trustworthy representative—to receive at a
prearranged address, on certain prearranged days in every
year, a note from the Colonel, simply stating the fact that
he was a living man at that date. In the event of the date
passing over without the note being received, the Colonel's
silence might be taken as a sure token of the Colonel's
death by murder. In that case, and in no other, certain
sealed instructions relating to the disposal of the Diamond,
and deposited with it, were to be opened, and followed
implicitly. If my father chose to accept this strange
charge, the Colonel's papers were at his disposal in return.
That was the letter."
"What did your father do, sir?" I asked.
"Do?" says Mr. Franklin. "I'll tell you what he did. He
brought the invaluable faculty, called common sense, to bear
on the Colonel's letter. The whole thing, he declared, was
simply absurd. Somewhere in his Indian wanderings, the
Colonel had picked up with some wretched crystal which he
took for a diamond. As for the danger of his being murdered,
and the precautions devised to preserve his life and his
piece of crystal, this was the nineteenth century, and any
man in his senses had only to apply to the police. The
Colonel had been a notorious opium-eater for years past;
and, if the only way of getting at the valuable papers he
possessed was by accepting a matter of opium as a matter of
fact, my father was quite willing to take the ridiculous
responsibility imposed on him—all the more readily that it
involved no trouble to himself. The Diamond and the sealed
instructions went into his banker's strong-room, and the
Colonel's letters, periodically reporting him a living man,
were received and opened by our family lawyer, Mr. Bruff, as
my father's representative. No sensible person, in a similar
position, could have viewed the matter in any other way.
Nothing in this world, Betteredge, is probable unless it
appeals to our own trumpery experience; and we only believe
in a romance when we see it in a newspaper."
It was plain to me from this, that Mr. Franklin thought
his father's notion about the Colonel hasty and wrong.
"What is your own private opinion about the matter, sir?"
I asked.
"Let's finish the story of the Colonel first," says Mr.
Franklin. "There is a curious want of system, Betteredge, in
the English mind; and your question, my old friend, is an
instance of it. When we are not occupied in making
machinery, we are (mentally speaking) the most slovenly
people in the universe."
"So much," I thought to myself, "for a foreign education!
He has learned that way of girding at us in France, I
suppose."
Mr. Franklin took up the lost thread, and went on.
"My father," he said, "got the papers he wanted, and
never saw his brother-in-law again from that time. Year
after year, on the prearranged days, the prearranged letter
came from the Colonel, and was opened by Mr. Bruff. I have
seen the letters, in a heap, all of them written in the same
brief, business-like form of words: 'Sir,—This is to certify
that I am still a living man. Let the Diamond be. John
Herncastle.' That was all he ever wrote, and that came
regularly to the day; until some six or eight months since,
when the form of the letter varied for the first time. It
ran now: 'Sir,—They tell me I am dying. Come to me, and help
me to make my will.' Mr. Bruff went, and found him, in the
little suburban villa, surrounded by its own grounds, in
which he had lived alone, ever since he had left India. He
had dogs, cats, and birds to keep him company; but no human
being near him, except the person who came daily to do the
house-work, and the doctor at the bedside. The will was a
very simple matter. The Colonel had dissipated the greater
part of his fortune in his chemical investigations. His will
began and ended in three clauses, which he dictated from his
bed, in perfect possession of his faculties. The first
clause provided for the safe keeping and support of his
animals. The second founded a professorship of experimental
chemistry at a northern university. The third bequeathed the
Moonstone as a birthday present to his niece, on condition
that my father would act as executor. My father at first
refused to act. On second thoughts, however, he gave way,
partly because he was assured that the executorship would
involve him in no trouble; partly because Mr. Bruff
suggested, in Rachel's interest, that the Diamond might be
worth something, after all."
"Did the Colonel give any reason, sir," I inquired, "why
he left the Diamond to Miss Rachel?"
"He not only gave the reason—he had the reason written in
his will," said Mr. Franklin. "I have got an extract, which
you shall see presently. Don't be slovenly-minded,
Betteredge! One thing at a time. You have heard about the
Colonel's Will; now you must hear what happened after the
Colonel's death. It was formally necessary to have the
Diamond valued, before the Will could be proved. All the
jewellers consulted, at once confirmed the Colonel's
assertion that he possessed one of the largest diamonds in
the world. The question of accurately valuing it presented
some serious difficulties. Its size made it a phenomenon in
the diamond market; its colour placed it in a category by
itself; and, to add to these elements of uncertainty, there
was a defect, in the shape of a flaw, in the very heart of
the stone. Even with this last serious draw-back, however,
the lowest of the various estimates given was twenty
thousand pounds. Conceive my father's astonishment! He had
been within a hair's-breadth of refusing to act as executor,
and of allowing this magnificent jewel to be lost to the
family. The interest he took in the matter now, induced him
to open the sealed instructions which had been deposited
with the Diamond. Mr. Bruff showed this document to me, with
the other papers; and it suggests (to my mind) a clue to the
nature of the conspiracy which threatened the Colonel's
life."
"Then you do believe, sir," I said, "that there was a
conspiracy?"
"Not possessing my father's excellent common sense,"
answered Mr. Franklin, "I believe the Colonel's life was
threatened, exactly as the Colonel said. The sealed
instructions, as I think, explain how it was that he died,
after all, quietly in his bed. In the event of his death by
violence (that is to say, in the absence of the regular
letter from him at the appointed date), my father was then
directed to send the Moonstone secretly to Amsterdam. It was
to be deposited in that city with a famous diamond-cutter,
and it was to be cut up into from four to six separate
stones. The stones were then to be sold for what they would
fetch, and the proceeds were to be applied to the founding
of that professorship of experimental chemistry, which the
Colonel has since endowed by his Will. Now, Betteredge,
exert those sharp wits of yours, and observe the conclusion
to which the Colonel's instructions point!"
I instantly exerted my wits. They were of the slovenly
English sort; and they consequently muddled it all, until
Mr. Franklin took them in hand, and pointed out what they
ought to see.
"Remark," says Mr. Franklin, "that the integrity of the
Diamond, as a whole stone, is here artfully made dependent
on the preservation from violence of the Colonel's life. He
is not satisfied with saying to the enemies he dreads, 'Kill
me—and you will be no nearer to the Diamond than you are
now; it is where you can't get at it—in the guarded
strong-room of a bank.' He says instead, 'Kill me—and the
Diamond will be the Diamond no longer; its identity will be
destroyed.' What does that mean?"
Here I had (as I thought) a flash of the wonderful
foreign brightness.
"I know," I said. "It means lowering the value of the
stone, and cheating the rogues in that way!"
"Nothing of the sort," says Mr. Franklin. "I have
inquired about that. The flawed Diamond, cut up, would
actually fetch more than the Diamond as it now is; for this
plain reason—that from four to six perfect brilliants might
be cut from it, which would be, collectively, worth more
money than the large—but imperfect single stone. If robbery
for the purpose of gain was at the bottom of the conspiracy,
the Colonel's instructions absolutely made the Diamond
better worth stealing. More money could have been got for
it, and the disposal of it in the diamond market would have
been infinitely easier, if it had passed through the hands
of the workmen of Amsterdam."
"Lord bless us, sir!" I burst out. "What was the plot,
then?"
"A plot organised among the Indians who originally owned
the jewel," says Mr. Franklin—"a plot with some old Hindoo
superstition at the bottom of it. That is my opinion,
confirmed by a family paper which I have about me at this
moment."
I saw, now, why the appearance of the three Indian
jugglers at our house had presented itself to Mr. Franklin
in the light of a circumstance worth noting.
"I don't want to force my opinion on you," Mr. Franklin
went on. "The idea of certain chosen servants of an old
Hindoo superstition devoting themselves, through all
difficulties and dangers, to watching the opportunity of
recovering their sacred gem, appears to me to be perfectly
consistent with everything that we know of the patience of
Oriental races, and the influence of Oriental religions. But
then I am an imaginative man; and the butcher, the baker,
and the tax-gatherer, are not the only credible realities in
existence to my mind. Let the guess I have made at the truth
in this matter go for what it is worth, and let us get on to
the only practical question that concerns us. Does the
conspiracy against the Moonstone survive the Colonel's
death? And did the Colonel know it, when he left the
birthday gift to his niece?"
I began to see my lady and Miss Rachel at the end of it
all, now. Not a word he said escaped me.
"I was not very willing, when I discovered the story of
the Moonstone," said Mr. Franklin, "to be the means of
bringing it here. But Mr. Bruff reminded me that somebody
must put my cousin's legacy into my cousin's hands—and that
I might as well do it as anybody else. After taking the
Diamond out of the bank, I fancied I was followed in the
streets by a shabby, dark-complexioned man. I went to my
father's house to pick up my luggage, and found a letter
there, which unexpectedly detained me in London. I went back
to the bank with the Diamond, and thought I saw the shabby
man again. Taking the Diamond once more out of the bank this
morning, I saw the man for the third time, gave him the
slip, and started (before he recovered the trace of me) by
the morning instead of the afternoon train. Here I am, with
the Diamond safe and sound—and what is the first news that
meets me? I find that three strolling Indians have been at
the house, and that my arrival from London, and something
which I am expected to have about me, are two special
objects of investigation to them when they believe
themselves to be alone. I don't waste time and words on
their pouring the ink into the boy's hand, and telling him
to look in it for a man at a distance, and for something in
that man's pocket. The thing (which I have often seen done
in the East) is 'hocus-pocus' in my opinion, as it is in
yours. The present question for us to decide is, whether I
am wrongly attaching a meaning to a mere accident? or
whether we really have evidence of the Indians being on the
track of the Moonstone, the moment it is removed from the
safe keeping of the bank?"
Neither he nor I seemed to fancy dealing with this part
of the inquiry. We looked at each other, and then we looked
at the tide, oozing in smoothly, higher and higher, over the
Shivering Sand.
"What are you thinking of?" says Mr. Franklin, suddenly.
"I was thinking, sir," I answered, "that I should like to
shy the Diamond into the quicksand, and settle the question
in THAT way."
"If you have got the value of the stone in your pocket,"
answered Mr. Franklin, "say so, Betteredge, and in it goes!"
It's curious to note, when your mind's anxious, how very
far in the way of relief a very small joke will go. We found
a fund of merriment, at the time, in the notion of making
away with Miss Rachel's lawful property, and getting Mr.
Blake, as executor, into dreadful trouble—though where the
merriment was, I am quite at a loss to discover now.
Mr. Franklin was the first to bring the talk back to the
talk's proper purpose. He took an envelope out of his
pocket, opened it, and handed to me the paper inside.
"Betteredge," he said, "we must face the question of the
Colonel's motive in leaving this legacy to his niece, for my
aunt's sake. Bear in mind how Lady Verinder treated her
brother from the time when he returned to England, to the
time when he told you he should remember his niece's
birthday. And read that."
He gave me the extract from the Colonel's Will. I have
got it by me while I write these words; and I copy it, as
follows, for your benefit:
"Thirdly, and lastly, I give and bequeath to my niece,
Rachel Verinder, daughter and only child of my sister, Julia
Verinder, widow—if her mother, the said Julia Verinder,
shall be living on the said Rachel Verinder's next Birthday
after my death—the yellow Diamond belonging to me, and known
in the East by the name of The Moonstone: subject to this
condition, that her mother, the said Julia Verinder, shall
be living at the time. And I hereby desire my executor to
give my Diamond, either by his own hands or by the hands of
some trustworthy representative whom he shall appoint, into
the personal possession of my said niece Rachel, on her next
birthday after my death, and in the presence, if possible,
of my sister, the said Julia Verinder. And I desire that my
said sister may be informed, by means of a true copy of
this, the third and last clause of my Will, that I give the
Diamond to her daughter Rachel, in token of my free
forgiveness of the injury which her conduct towards me has
been the means of inflicting on my reputation in my
lifetime; and especially in proof that I pardon, as becomes
a dying man, the insult offered to me as an officer and a
gentleman, when her servant, by her orders, closed the door
of her house against me, on the occasion of her daughter's
birthday."
More words followed these, providing if my lady was dead,
or if Miss Rachel was dead, at the time of the testator's
decease, for the Diamond being sent to Holland, in
accordance with the sealed instructions originally deposited
with it. The proceeds of the sale were, in that case, to be
added to the money already left by the Will for the
professorship of chemistry at the university in the north.
I handed the paper back to Mr. Franklin, sorely troubled
what to say to him. Up to that moment, my own opinion had
been (as you know) that the Colonel had died as wickedly as
he had lived. I don't say the copy from his Will actually
converted me from that opinion: I only say it staggered me.
"Well," says Mr. Franklin, "now you have read the
Colonel's own statement, what do you say? In bringing the
Moonstone to my aunt's house, am I serving his vengeance
blindfold, or am I vindicating him in the character of a
penitent and Christian man?"
"It seems hard to say, sir," I answered, "that he died
with a horrid revenge in his heart, and a horrid lie on his
lips. God alone knows the truth. Don't ask me."
Mr. Franklin sat twisting and turning the extract from
the Will in his fingers, as if he expected to squeeze the
truth out of it in that manner. He altered quite remarkably,
at the same time. From being brisk and bright, he now
became, most unaccountably, a slow, solemn, and pondering
young man.
"This question has two sides," he said. "An Objective
side, and a Subjective side. Which are we to take?"
He had had a German education as well as a French. One of
the two had been in undisturbed possession of him (as I
supposed) up to this time. And now (as well as I could make
out) the other was taking its place. It is one of my rules
in life, never to notice what I don't understand. I steered
a middle course between the Objective side and the
Subjective side. In plain English I stared hard, and said
nothing.
"Let's extract the inner meaning of this," says Mr.
Franklin. "Why did my uncle leave the Diamond to Rachel? Why
didn't he leave it to my aunt?"
"That's not beyond guessing, sir, at any rate," I said.
"Colonel Herncastle knew my lady well enough to know that
she would have refused to accept any legacy that came to her
from HIM."
"How did he know that Rachel might not refuse to accept
it, too?"
"Is there any young lady in existence, sir, who could
resist the temptation of accepting such a birthday present
as The Moonstone?"
"That's the Subjective view," says Mr. Franklin. "It does
you great credit, Betteredge, to be able to take the
Subjective view. But there's another mystery about the
Colonel's legacy which is not accounted for yet. How are we
to explain his only giving Rachel her birthday present
conditionally on her mother being alive?"
"I don't want to slander a dead man, sir," I answered.
"But if he HAS purposely left a legacy of trouble and danger
to his sister, by the means of her child, it must be a
legacy made conditional on his sister's being alive to feel
the vexation of it."
"Oh! That's your interpretation of his motive, is it? The
Subjective interpretation again! Have you ever been in
Germany, Betteredge?"
"No, sir. What's your interpretation, if you please?"
"I can see," says Mr. Franklin, "that the Colonel's
object may, quite possibly, have been—not to benefit his
niece, whom he had never even seen—but to prove to his
sister that he had died forgiving her, and to prove it very
prettily by means of a present made to her child. There is a
totally different explanation from yours, Betteredge, taking
its rise in a Subjective-Objective point of view. From all I
can see, one interpretation is just as likely to be right as
the other."
Having brought matters to this pleasant and comforting
issue, Mr. Franklin appeared to think that he had completed
all that was required of him. He laid down flat on his back
on the sand, and asked what was to be done next.
He had been so clever, and clear-headed (before he began
to talk the foreign gibberish), and had so completely taken
the lead in the business up to the present time, that I was
quite unprepared for such a sudden change as he now
exhibited in this helpless leaning upon me. It was not till
later that I learned—by assistance of Miss Rachel, who was
the first to make the discovery—that these puzzling shifts
and transformations in Mr. Franklin were due to the effect
on him of his foreign training. At the age when we are all
of us most apt to take our colouring, in the form of a
reflection from the colouring of other people, he had been
sent abroad, and had been passed on from one nation to
another, before there was time for any one colouring more
than another to settle itself on him firmly. As a
consequence of this, he had come back with so many different
sides to his character, all more or less jarring with each
other, that he seemed to pass his life in a state of
perpetual contradiction with himself. He could be a busy
man, and a lazy man; cloudy in the head, and clear in the
head; a model of determination, and a spectacle of
helplessness, all together. He had his French side, and his
German side, and his Italian side—the original English
foundation showing through, every now and then, as much as
to say, "Here I am, sorely transmogrified, as you see, but
there's something of me left at the bottom of him still."
Miss Rachel used to remark that the Italian side of him was
uppermost, on those occasions when he unexpectedly gave in,
and asked you in his nice sweet-tempered way to take his own
responsibilities on your shoulders. You will do him no
injustice, I think, if you conclude that the Italian side of
him was uppermost now.
"Isn't it your business, sir," I asked, "to know what to
do next? Surely it can't be mine?"
Mr. Franklin didn't appear to see the force of my
question—not being in a position, at the time, to see
anything but the sky over his head.
"I don't want to alarm my aunt without reason," he said.
"And I don't want to leave her without what may be a needful
warning. If you were in my place, Betteredge, tell me, in
one word, what would you do?"
In one word, I told him: "Wait."
"With all my heart," says Mr. Franklin. "How long?"
I proceeded to explain myself.
"As I understand it, sir," I said, "somebody is bound to
put this plaguy Diamond into Miss Rachel's hands on her
birthday—and you may as well do it as another. Very good.
This is the twenty-fifth of May, and the birthday is on the
twenty-first of June. We have got close on four weeks before
us. Let's wait and see what happens in that time; and let's
warn my lady, or not, as the circumstances direct us."
"Perfect, Betteredge, as far as it goes!" says Mr.
Franklin. "But between this and the birthday, what's to be
done with the Diamond?"
"What your father did with it, to be sure, sir!" I
answered. "Your father put it in the safe keeping of a bank
in London. You put in the safe keeping of the bank at
Frizinghall." (Frizinghall was our nearest town, and the
Bank of England wasn't safer than the bank there.) "If I
were you, sir," I added, "I would ride straight away with it
to Frizinghall before the ladies come back."
The prospect of doing something—and, what is more, of
doing that something on a horse—brought Mr. Franklin up like
lightning from the flat of his back. He sprang to his feet,
and pulled me up, without ceremony, on to mine. "Betteredge,
you are worth your weight in gold," he said. "Come along,
and saddle the best horse in the stables directly."
Here (God bless it!) was the original English foundation
of him showing through all the foreign varnish at last! Here
was the Master Franklin I remembered, coming out again in
the good old way at the prospect of a ride, and reminding me
of the good old times! Saddle a horse for him? I would have
saddled a dozen horses, if he could only have ridden them
all!
We went back to the house in a hurry; we had the fleetest
horse in the stables saddled in a hurry; and Mr. Franklin
rattled off in a hurry, to lodge the cursed Diamond once
more in the strong-room of a bank. When I heard the last of
his horse's hoofs on the drive, and when I turned about in
the yard and found I was alone again, I felt half inclined
to ask myself if I hadn't woke up from a dream.
CHAPTER VII
While I was in this bewildered frame of mind, sorely
needing a little quiet time by myself to put me right again,
my daughter Penelope got in my way (just as her late mother
used to get in my way on the stairs), and instantly summoned
me to tell her all that had passed at the conference between
Mr. Franklin and me. Under present circumstances, the one
thing to be done was to clap the extinguisher upon
Penelope's curiosity on the spot. I accordingly replied that
Mr. Franklin and I had both talked of foreign politics, till
we could talk no longer, and had then mutually fallen asleep
in the heat of the sun. Try that sort of answer when your
wife or your daughter next worries you with an awkward
question at an awkward time, and depend on the natural
sweetness of women for kissing and making it up again at the
next opportunity.
The afternoon wore on, and my lady and Miss Rachel came
back.
Needless to say how astonished they were, when they heard
that Mr. Franklin Blake had arrived, and had gone off again
on horseback. Needless also to say, that THEY asked awkward
questions directly, and that the "foreign politics" and the
"falling asleep in the sun" wouldn't serve a second time
over with THEM. Being at the end of my invention, I said Mr.
Franklin's arrival by the early train was entirely
attributable to one of Mr. Franklin's freaks. Being asked,
upon that, whether his galloping off again on horseback was
another of Mr. Franklin's freaks, I said, "Yes, it was;" and
slipped out of it—I think very cleverly—in that way.
Having got over my difficulties with the ladies, I found
more difficulties waiting for me when I went back to my own
room. In came Penelope—with the natural sweetness of
women—to kiss and make it up again; and—with the natural
curiosity of women—to ask another question. This time she
only wanted me to tell her what was the matter with our
second housemaid, Rosanna Spearman.
After leaving Mr. Franklin and me at the Shivering Sand,
Rosanna, it appeared, had returned to the house in a very
unaccountable state of mind. She had turned (if Penelope was
to be believed) all the colours of the rainbow. She had been
merry without reason, and sad without reason. In one breath
she asked hundreds of questions about Mr. Franklin Blake,
and in another breath she had been angry with Penelope for
presuming to suppose that a strange gentleman could possess
any interest for her. She had been surprised, smiling, and
scribbling Mr. Franklin's name inside her workbox. She had
been surprised again, crying and looking at her deformed
shoulder in the glass. Had she and Mr. Franklin known
anything of each other before to-day? Quite impossible! Had
they heard anything of each other? Impossible again! I could
speak to Mr. Franklin's astonishment as genuine, when he saw
how the girl stared at him. Penelope could speak to the
girl's inquisitiveness as genuine, when she asked questions
about Mr. Franklin. The conference between us, conducted in
this way, was tiresome enough, until my daughter suddenly
ended it by bursting out with what I thought the most
monstrous supposition I had ever heard in my life.
"Father!" says Penelope, quite seriously, "there's only
one explanation of it. Rosanna has fallen in love with Mr.
Franklin Blake at first sight!"
You have heard of beautiful young ladies falling in love
at first sight, and have thought it natural enough. But a
housemaid out of a reformatory, with a plain face and a
deformed shoulder, falling in love, at first sight, with a
gentleman who comes on a visit to her mistress's house,
match me that, in the way of an absurdity, out of any
story-book in Christendom, if you can! I laughed till the
tears rolled down my cheeks. Penelope resented my merriment,
in rather a strange way. "I never knew you cruel before,
father," she said, very gently, and went out.
My girl's words fell upon me like a splash of cold water.
I was savage with myself, for feeling uneasy in myself the
moment she had spoken them—but so it was. We will change the
subject, if you please. I am sorry I drifted into writing
about it; and not without reason, as you will see when we
have gone on together a little longer.
The evening came, and the dressing-bell for dinner rang,
before Mr. Franklin returned from Frizinghall. I took his
hot water up to his room myself, expecting to hear, after
this extraordinary delay, that something had happened. To my
great disappointment (and no doubt to yours also), nothing
had happened. He had not met with the Indians, either going
or returning. He had deposited the Moonstone in the
bank—describing it merely as a valuable of great price—and
he had got the receipt for it safe in his pocket. I went
down-stairs, feeling that this was rather a flat ending,
after all our excitement about the Diamond earlier in the
day.
How the meeting between Mr. Franklin and his aunt and
cousin went off, is more than I can tell you.
I would have given something to have waited at table that
day. But, in my position in the household, waiting at dinner
(except on high family festivals) was letting down my
dignity in the eyes of the other servants—a thing which my
lady considered me quite prone enough to do already, without
seeking occasions for it. The news brought to me from the
upper regions, that evening, came from Penelope and the
footman. Penelope mentioned that she had never known Miss
Rachel so particular about the dressing of her hair, and had
never seen her look so bright and pretty as she did when she
went down to meet Mr. Franklin in the drawing-room. The
footman's report was, that the preservation of a respectful
composure in the presence of his betters, and the waiting on
Mr. Franklin Blake at dinner, were two of the hardest things
to reconcile with each other that had ever tried his
training in service. Later in the evening, we heard them
singing and playing duets, Mr. Franklin piping high, Miss
Rachel piping higher, and my lady, on the piano, following
them as it were over hedge and ditch, and seeing them safe
through it in a manner most wonderful and pleasant to hear
through the open windows, on the terrace at night. Later
still, I went to Mr. Franklin in the smoking-room, with the
soda-water and brandy, and found that Miss Rachel had put
the Diamond clean out of his head. "She's the most charming
girl I have seen since I came back to England!" was all I
could extract from him, when I endeavoured to lead the
conversation to more serious things.
Towards midnight, I went round the house to lock up,
accompanied by my second in command (Samuel, the footman),
as usual. When all the doors were made fast, except the side
door that opened on the terrace, I sent Samuel to bed, and
stepped out for a breath of fresh air before I too went to
bed in my turn.
The night was still and close, and the moon was at the
full in the heavens. It was so silent out of doors, that I
heard from time to time, very faint and low, the fall of the
sea, as the ground-swell heaved it in on the sand-bank near
the mouth of our little bay. As the house stood, the terrace
side was the dark side; but the broad moonlight showed fair
on the gravel walk that ran along the next side to the
terrace. Looking this way, after looking up at the sky, I
saw the shadow of a person in the moonlight thrown forward
from behind the corner of the house.
Being old and sly, I forbore to call out; but being also,
unfortunately, old and heavy, my feet betrayed me on the
gravel. Before I could steal suddenly round the corner, as I
had proposed, I heard lighter feet than mine—and more than
one pair of them as I thought—retreating in a hurry. By the
time I had got to the corner, the trespassers, whoever they
were, had run into the shrubbery at the off side of the
walk, and were hidden from sight among the thick trees and
bushes in that part of the grounds. From the shrubbery, they
could easily make their way, over our fence into the road.
If I had been forty years younger, I might have had a chance
of catching them before they got clear of our premises. As
it was, I went back to set a-going a younger pair of legs
than mine. Without disturbing anybody, Samuel and I got a
couple of guns, and went all round the house and through the
shrubbery. Having made sure that no persons were lurking
about anywhere in our grounds, we turned back. Passing over
the walk where I had seen the shadow, I now noticed, for the
first time, a little bright object, lying on the clean
gravel, under the light of the moon. Picking the object up,
I discovered it was a small bottle, containing a thick
sweet-smelling liquor, as black as ink.
I said nothing to Samuel. But, remembering what Penelope
had told me about the jugglers, and the pouring of the
little pool of ink into the palm of the boy's hand, I
instantly suspected that I had disturbed the three Indians,
lurking about the house, and bent, in their heathenish way,
on discovering the whereabouts of the Diamond that night.
CHAPTER VIII
Here, for one moment, I find it necessary to call a halt.
On summoning up my own recollections—and on getting
Penelope to help me, by consulting her journal—I find that
we may pass pretty rapidly over the interval between Mr.
Franklin Blake's arrival and Miss Rachel's birthday. For the
greater part of that time the days passed, and brought
nothing with them worth recording. With your good leave,
then, and with Penelope's help, I shall notice certain dates
only in this place; reserving to myself to tell the story
day by day, once more, as soon as we get to the time when
the business of the Moonstone became the chief business of
everybody in our house.
This said, we may now go on again—beginning, of course,
with the bottle of sweet-smelling ink which I found on the
gravel walk at night.
On the next morning (the morning of the twenty-sixth) I
showed Mr. Franklin this article of jugglery, and told him
what I have already told you. His opinion was, not only that
the Indians had been lurking about after the Diamond, but
also that they were actually foolish enough to believe in
their own magic—meaning thereby the making of signs on a
boy's head, and the pouring of ink into a boy's hand, and
then expecting him to see persons and things beyond the
reach of human vision. In our country, as well as in the
East, Mr. Franklin informed me, there are people who
practise this curious hocus-pocus (without the ink,
however); and who call it by a French name, signifying
something like brightness of sight. "Depend upon it," says
Mr. Franklin, "the Indians took it for granted that we
should keep the Diamond here; and they brought their
clairvoyant boy to show them the way to it, if they
succeeded in getting into the house last night."
"Do you think they'll try again, sir?" I asked.
"It depends," says Mr. Franklin, "on what the boy can
really do. If he can see the Diamond through the iron safe
of the bank at Frizinghall, we shall be troubled with no
more visits from the Indians for the present. If he can't,
we shall have another chance of catching them in the
shrubbery, before many more nights are over our heads."
I waited pretty confidently for that latter chance; but,
strange to relate, it never came.
Whether the jugglers heard, in the town, of Mr. Franklin
having been seen at the bank, and drew their conclusions
accordingly; or whether the boy really did see the Diamond
where the Diamond was now lodged (which I, for one, flatly
disbelieve); or whether, after all, it was a mere effect of
chance, this at any rate is the plain truth—not the ghost of
an Indian came near the house again, through the weeks that
passed before Miss Rachel's birthday. The jugglers remained
in and about the town plying their trade; and Mr. Franklin
and I remained waiting to see what might happen, and
resolute not to put the rogues on their guard by showing our
suspicions of them too soon. With this report of the
proceedings on either side, ends all that I have to say
about the Indians for the present.
On the twenty-ninth of the month, Miss Rachel and Mr.
Franklin hit on a new method of working their way together
through the time which might otherwise have hung heavy on
their hands. There are reasons for taking particular notice
here of the occupation that amused them. You will find it
has a bearing on something that is still to come.
Gentlefolks in general have a very awkward rock ahead in
life—the rock ahead of their own idleness. Their lives
being, for the most part, passed in looking about them for
something to do, it is curious to see—especially when their
tastes are of what is called the intellectual sort—how often
they drift blindfold into some nasty pursuit. Nine times out
of ten they take to torturing something, or to spoiling
something—and they firmly believe they are improving their
minds, when the plain truth is, they are only making a mess
in the house. I have seen them (ladies, I am sorry to say,
as well as gentlemen) go out, day after day, for example,
with empty pill-boxes, and catch newts, and beetles, and
spiders, and frogs, and come home and stick pins through the
miserable wretches, or cut them up, without a pang of
remorse, into little pieces. You see my young master, or my
young mistress, poring over one of their spiders' insides
with a magnifying-glass; or you meet one of their frogs
walking downstairs without his head—and when you wonder what
this cruel nastiness means, you are told that it means a
taste in my young master or my young mistress for natural
history. Sometimes, again, you see them occupied for hours
together in spoiling a pretty flower with pointed
instruments, out of a stupid curiosity to know what the
flower is made of. Is its colour any prettier, or its scent
any sweeter, when you DO know? But there! the poor souls
must get through the time, you see—they must get through the
time. You dabbled in nasty mud, and made pies, when you were
a child; and you dabble in nasty science, and dissect
spiders, and spoil flowers, when you grow up. In the one
case and in the other, the secret of it is, that you have
got nothing to think of in your poor empty head, and nothing
to do with your poor idle hands. And so it ends in your
spoiling canvas with paints, and making a smell in the
house; or in keeping tadpoles in a glass box full of dirty
water, and turning everybody's stomach in the house; or in
chipping off bits of stone here, there, and everywhere, and
dropping grit into all the victuals in the house; or in
staining your fingers in the pursuit of photography, and
doing justice without mercy on everybody's face in the
house. It often falls heavy enough, no doubt, on people who
are really obliged to get their living, to be forced to work
for the clothes that cover them, the roof that shelters
them, and the food that keeps them going. But compare the
hardest day's work you ever did with the idleness that
splits flowers and pokes its way into spiders' stomachs, and
thank your stars that your head has got something it MUST
think of, and your hands something that they MUST do.
As for Mr. Franklin and Miss Rachel, they tortured
nothing, I am glad to say. They simply confined themselves
to making a mess; and all they spoilt, to do them justice,
was the panelling of a door.
Mr. Franklin's universal genius, dabbling in everything,
dabbled in what he called "decorative painting." He had
invented, he informed us, a new mixture to moisten paint
with, which he described as a "vehicle." What it was made
of, I don't know. What it did, I can tell you in two
words—it stank. Miss Rachel being wild to try her hand at
the new process, Mr. Franklin sent to London for the
materials; mixed them up, with accompaniment of a smell
which made the very dogs sneeze when they came into the
room; put an apron and a bib over Miss Rachel's gown, and
set her to work decorating her own little
sitting-room—called, for want of English to name it in, her
"boudoir." They began with the inside of the door. Mr.
Franklin scraped off all the nice varnish with pumice-stone,
and made what he described as a surface to work on. Miss
Rachel then covered the surface, under his directions and
with his help, with patterns and devices—griffins, birds,
flowers, cupids, and such like—copied from designs made by a
famous Italian painter, whose name escapes me: the one, I
mean, who stocked the world with Virgin Maries, and had a
sweetheart at the baker's. Viewed as work, this decoration
was slow to do, and dirty to deal with. But our young lady
and gentleman never seemed to tire of it. When they were not
riding, or seeing company, or taking their meals, or piping
their songs, there they were with their heads together, as
busy as bees, spoiling the door. Who was the poet who said
that Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do?
If he had occupied my place in the family, and had seen Miss
Rachel with her brush, and Mr. Franklin with his vehicle, he
could have written nothing truer of either of them than
that.
The next date worthy of notice is Sunday the fourth of
June.
On that evening we, in the servants' hall, debated a
domestic question for the first time, which, like the
decoration of the door, has its bearing on something that is
still to come.
Seeing the pleasure which Mr. Franklin and Miss Rachel
took in each other's society, and noting what a pretty match
they were in all personal respects, we naturally speculated
on the chance of their putting their heads together with
other objects in view besides the ornamenting of a door.
Some of us said there would be a wedding in the house before
the summer was over. Others (led by me) admitted it was
likely enough Miss Rachel might be married; but we doubted
(for reasons which will presently appear) whether her
bridegroom would be Mr. Franklin Blake.
That Mr. Franklin was in love, on his side, nobody who
saw and heard him could doubt. The difficulty was to fathom
Miss Rachel. Let me do myself the honour of making you
acquainted with her; after which, I will leave you to fathom
for yourself—if you can.
My young lady's eighteenth birthday was the birthday now
coming, on the twenty-first of June. If you happen to like
dark women (who, I am informed, have gone out of fashion
latterly in the gay world), and if you have no particular
prejudice in favour of size, I answer for Miss Rachel as one
of the prettiest girls your eyes ever looked on. She was
small and slim, but all in fine proportion from top to toe.
To see her sit down, to see her get up, and specially to see
her walk, was enough to satisfy any man in his senses that
the graces of her figure (if you will pardon me the
expression) were in her flesh and not in her clothes. Her
hair was the blackest I ever saw. Her eyes matched her hair.
Her nose was not quite large enough, I admit. Her mouth and
chin were (to quote Mr. Franklin) morsels for the gods; and
her complexion (on the same undeniable authority) was as
warm as the sun itself, with this great advantage over the
sun, that it was always in nice order to look at. Add to the
foregoing that she carried her head as upright as a dart, in
a dashing, spirited, thoroughbred way—that she had a clear
voice, with a ring of the right metal in it, and a smile
that began very prettily in her eyes before it got to her
lips—and there behold the portrait of her, to the best of my
painting, as large as life!
And what about her disposition next? Had this charming
creature no faults? She had just as many faults as you have,
ma'am—neither more nor less.
To put it seriously, my dear pretty Miss Rachel,
possessing a host of graces and attractions, had one defect,
which strict impartiality compels me to acknowledge. She was
unlike most other girls of her age, in this—that she had
ideas of her own, and was stiff-necked enough to set the
fashions themselves at defiance, if the fashions didn't suit
her views. In trifles, this independence of hers was all
well enough; but in matters of importance, it carried her
(as my lady thought, and as I thought) too far. She judged
for herself, as few women of twice her age judge in general;
never asked your advice; never told you beforehand what she
was going to do; never came with secrets and confidences to
anybody, from her mother downwards. In little things and
great, with people she loved, and people she hated (and she
did both with equal heartiness), Miss Rachel always went on
a way of her own, sufficient for herself in the joys and
sorrows of her life. Over and over again I have heard my
lady say, "Rachel's best friend and Rachel's worst enemy
are, one and the other—Rachel herself."
Add one thing more to this, and I have done.
With all her secrecy, and self-will, there was not so
much as the shadow of anything false in her. I never
remember her breaking her word; I never remember her saying
No, and meaning Yes. I can call to mind, in her childhood,
more than one occasion when the good little soul took the
blame, and suffered the punishment, for some fault committed
by a playfellow whom she loved. Nobody ever knew her to
confess to it, when the thing was found out, and she was
charged with it afterwards. But nobody ever knew her to lie
about it, either. She looked you straight in the face, and
shook her little saucy head, and said plainly, "I won't tell
you!" Punished again for this, she would own to being sorry
for saying "won't;" but, bread and water notwithstanding,
she never told you. Self-willed—devilish self-willed
sometimes—I grant; but the finest creature, nevertheless,
that ever walked the ways of this lower world. Perhaps you
think you see a certain contradiction here? In that case, a
word in your ear. Study your wife closely, for the next
four-and-twenty hours. If your good lady doesn't exhibit
something in the shape of a contradiction in that time,
Heaven help you!—you have married a monster.
I have now brought you acquainted with Miss Rachel, which
you will find puts us face to face, next, with the question
of that young lady's matrimonial views.
On June the twelfth, an invitation from my mistress was
sent to a gentleman in London, to come and help to keep Miss
Rachel's birthday. This was the fortunate individual on whom
I believed her heart to be privately set! Like Mr. Franklin,
he was a cousin of hers. His name was Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite.
My lady's second sister (don't be alarmed; we are not
going very deep into family matters this time)—my lady's
second sister, I say, had a disappointment in love; and
taking a husband afterwards, on the neck or nothing
principle, made what they call a misalliance. There was
terrible work in the family when the Honourable Caroline
insisted on marrying plain Mr. Ablewhite, the banker at
Frizinghall. He was very rich and very respectable, and he
begot a prodigious large family—all in his favour, so far.
But he had presumed to raise himself from a low station in
the world—and that was against him. However, Time and the
progress of modern enlightenment put things right; and the
mis-alliance passed muster very well. We are all getting
liberal now; and (provided you can scratch me, if I scratch
you) what do I care, in or out of Parliament, whether you
are a Dustman or a Duke? That's the modern way of looking at
it—and I keep up with the modern way. The Ablewhites lived
in a fine house and grounds, a little out of Frizinghall.
Very worthy people, and greatly respected in the
neighbourhood. We shall not be much troubled with them in
these pages—excepting Mr. Godfrey, who was Mr. Ablewhite's
second son, and who must take his proper place here, if you
please, for Miss Rachel's sake.
With all his brightness and cleverness and general good
qualities, Mr. Franklin's chance of topping Mr. Godfrey in
our young lady's estimation was, in my opinion, a very poor
chance indeed.
In the first place, Mr. Godfrey was, in point of size,
the finest man by far of the two. He stood over six feet
high; he had a beautiful red and white colour; a smooth
round face, shaved as bare as your hand; and a head of
lovely long flaxen hair, falling negligently over the poll
of his neck. But why do I try to give you this personal
description of him? If you ever subscribed to a Ladies'
Charity in London, you know Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite as well as
I do. He was a barrister by profession; a ladies' man by
temperament; and a good Samaritan by choice. Female
benevolence and female destitution could do nothing without
him. Maternal societies for confining poor women; Magdalen
societies for rescuing poor women; strong-minded societies
for putting poor women into poor men's places, and leaving
the men to shift for themselves;—he was vice-president,
manager, referee to them all. Wherever there was a table
with a committee of ladies sitting round it in council there
was Mr. Godfrey at the bottom of the board, keeping the
temper of the committee, and leading the dear creatures
along the thorny ways of business, hat in hand. I do suppose
this was the most accomplished philanthropist (on a small
independence) that England ever produced. As a speaker at
charitable meetings the like of him for drawing your tears
and your money was not easy to find. He was quite a public
character. The last time I was in London, my mistress gave
me two treats. She sent me to the theatre to see a dancing
woman who was all the rage; and she sent me to Exeter Hall
to hear Mr. Godfrey. The lady did it, with a band of music.
The gentleman did it, with a handkerchief and a glass of
water. Crowds at the performance with the legs. Ditto at the
performance with the tongue. And with all this, the sweetest
tempered person (I allude to Mr. Godfrey)—the simplest and
pleasantest and easiest to please—you ever met with. He
loved everybody. And everybody loved HIM. What chance had
Mr. Franklin—what chance had anybody of average reputation
and capacities—against such a man as this?
On the fourteenth, came Mr. Godfrey's answer.
He accepted my mistress's invitation, from the Wednesday
of the birthday to the evening of Friday—when his duties to
the Ladies' Charities would oblige him to return to town. He
also enclosed a copy of verses on what he elegantly called
his cousin's "natal day." Miss Rachel, I was informed,
joined Mr. Franklin in making fun of the verses at dinner;
and Penelope, who was all on Mr. Franklin's side, asked me,
in great triumph, what I thought of that. "Miss Rachel has
led you off on a false scent, my dear," I replied; "but MY
nose is not so easily mystified. Wait till Mr. Ablewhite's
verses are followed by Mr. Ablewhite himself."
My daughter replied, that Mr. Franklin might strike in,
and try his luck, before the verses were followed by the
poet. In favour of this view, I must acknowledge that Mr.
Franklin left no chance untried of winning Miss Rachel's
good graces.
Though one of the most inveterate smokers I ever met
with, he gave up his cigar, because she said, one day, she
hated the stale smell of it in his clothes. He slept so
badly, after this effort of self-denial, for want of the
composing effect of the tobacco to which he was used, and
came down morning after morning looking so haggard and worn,
that Miss Rachel herself begged him to take to his cigars
again. No! he would take to nothing again that could cause
her a moment's annoyance; he would fight it out resolutely,
and get back his sleep, sooner or later, by main force of
patience in waiting for it. Such devotion as this, you may
say (as some of them said downstairs), could never fail of
producing the right effect on Miss Rachel—backed up, too, as
it was, by the decorating work every day on the door. All
very well—but she had a photograph of Mr. Godfrey in her
bed-room; represented speaking at a public meeting, with all
his hair blown out by the breath of his own eloquence, and
his eyes, most lovely, charming the money out of your
pockets. What do you say to that? Every morning—as Penelope
herself owned to me—there was the man whom the women
couldn't do without, looking on, in effigy, while Miss
Rachel was having her hair combed. He would be looking on,
in reality, before long—that was my opinion of it.
June the sixteenth brought an event which made Mr.
Franklin's chance look, to my mind, a worse chance than
ever.
A strange gentleman, speaking English with a foreign
accent, came that morning to the house, and asked to see Mr.
Franklin Blake on business. The business could not possibly
have been connected with the Diamond, for these two
reasons—first, that Mr. Franklin told me nothing about it;
secondly, that he communicated it (when the gentleman had
gone, as I suppose) to my lady. She probably hinted
something about it next to her daughter. At any rate, Miss
Rachel was reported to have said some severe things to Mr.
Franklin, at the piano that evening, about the people he had
lived among, and the principles he had adopted in foreign
parts. The next day, for the first time, nothing was done
towards the decoration of the door. I suspect some
imprudence of Mr. Franklin's on the Continent—with a woman
or a debt at the bottom of it—had followed him to England.
But that is all guesswork. In this case, not only Mr.
Franklin, but my lady too, for a wonder, left me in the
dark.
On the seventeenth, to all appearance, the cloud passed
away again. They returned to their decorating work on the
door, and seemed to be as good friends as ever. If Penelope
was to be believed, Mr. Franklin had seized the opportunity
of the reconciliation to make an offer to Miss Rachel, and
had neither been accepted nor refused. My girl was sure
(from signs and tokens which I need not trouble you with)
that her young mistress had fought Mr. Franklin off by
declining to believe that he was in earnest, and had then
secretly regretted treating him in that way afterwards.
Though Penelope was admitted to more familiarity with her
young mistress than maids generally are—for the two had been
almost brought up together as children—still I knew Miss
Rachel's reserved character too well to believe that she
would show her mind to anybody in this way. What my daughter
told me, on the present occasion, was, as I suspected, more
what she wished than what she really knew.
On the nineteenth another event happened. We had the
doctor in the house professionally. He was summoned to
prescribe for a person whom I have had occasion to present
to you in these pages—our second housemaid, Rosanna
Spearman.
This poor girl—who had puzzled me, as you know already,
at the Shivering Sand—puzzled me more than once again, in
the interval time of which I am now writing. Penelope's
notion that her fellow-servant was in love with Mr. Franklin
(which my daughter, by my orders, kept strictly secret)
seemed to be just as absurd as ever. But I must own that
what I myself saw, and what my daughter saw also, of our
second housemaid's conduct, began to look mysterious, to say
the least of it.
For example, the girl constantly put herself in Mr.
Franklin's way—very slyly and quietly, but she did it. He
took about as much notice of her as he took of the cat; it
never seemed to occur to him to waste a look on Rosanna's
plain face. The poor thing's appetite, never much, fell away
dreadfully; and her eyes in the morning showed plain signs
of waking and crying at night. One day Penelope made an
awkward discovery, which we hushed up on the spot. She
caught Rosanna at Mr. Franklin's dressing-table, secretly
removing a rose which Miss Rachel had given him to wear in
his button-hole, and putting another rose like it, of her
own picking, in its place. She was, after that, once or
twice impudent to me, when I gave her a well-meant general
hint to be careful in her conduct; and, worse still, she was
not over-respectful now, on the few occasions when Miss
Rachel accidentally spoke to her.
My lady noticed the change, and asked me what I thought
about it. I tried to screen the girl by answering that I
thought she was out of health; and it ended in the doctor
being sent for, as already mentioned, on the nineteenth. He
said it was her nerves, and doubted if she was fit for
service. My lady offered to remove her for change of air to
one of our farms, inland. She begged and prayed, with the
tears in her eyes, to be let to stop; and, in an evil hour,
I advised my lady to try her for a little longer. As the
event proved, and as you will soon see, this was the worst
advice I could have given. If I could only have looked a
little way into the future, I would have taken Rosanna
Spearman out of the house, then and there, with my own hand.
On the twentieth, there came a note from Mr. Godfrey. He
had arranged to stop at Frizinghall that night, having
occasion to consult his father on business. On the afternoon
of the next day, he and his two eldest sisters would ride
over to us on horseback, in good time before dinner. An
elegant little casket in China accompanied the note,
presented to Miss Rachel, with her cousin's love and best
wishes. Mr. Franklin had only given her a plain locket not
worth half the money. My daughter Penelope,
nevertheless—such is the obstinacy of women—still backed him
to win.
Thanks be to Heaven, we have arrived at the eve of the
birthday at last! You will own, I think, that I have got you
over the ground this time, without much loitering by the
way. Cheer up! I'll ease you with another new chapter
here—and, what is more, that chapter shall take you straight
into the thick of the story.
CHAPTER IX
June twenty-first, the day of the birthday, was cloudy
and unsettled at sunrise, but towards noon it cleared up
bravely.
We, in the servants' hall, began this happy anniversary,
as usual, by offering our little presents to Miss Rachel,
with the regular speech delivered annually by me as the
chief. I follow the plan adopted by the Queen in opening
Parliament—namely, the plan of saying much the same thing
regularly every year. Before it is delivered, my speech
(like the Queen's) is looked for as eagerly as if nothing of
the kind had ever been heard before. When it is delivered,
and turns out not to be the novelty anticipated, though they
grumble a little, they look forward hopefully to something
newer next year. An easy people to govern, in the Parliament
and in the Kitchen—that's the moral of it. After breakfast,
Mr. Franklin and I had a private conference on the subject
of the Moonstone—the time having now come for removing it
from the bank at Frizinghall, and placing it in Miss
Rachel's own hands.
Whether he had been trying to make love to his cousin
again, and had got a rebuff—or whether his broken rest,
night after night, was aggravating the queer contradictions
and uncertainties in his character—I don't know. But certain
it is, that Mr. Franklin failed to show himself at his best
on the morning of the birthday. He was in twenty different
minds about the Diamond in as many minutes. For my part, I
stuck fast by the plain facts a we knew them. Nothing had
happened to justify us in alarming my lady on the subject of
the jewel; and nothing could alter the legal obligation that
now lay on Mr. Franklin to put it in his cousin's
possession. That was my view of the matter; and, twist and
turn it as he might, he was forced in the end to make it his
view too. We arranged that he was to ride over, after lunch,
to Frizinghall, and bring the Diamond back, with Mr. Godfrey
and the two young ladies, in all probability, to keep him
company on the way home again.
This settled, our young gentleman went back to Miss
Rachel.
They consumed the whole morning, and part of the
afternoon, in the everlasting business of decorating the
door, Penelope standing by to mix the colours, as directed;
and my lady, as luncheon time drew near, going in and out of
the room, with her handkerchief to her nose (for they used a
deal of Mr. Franklin's vehicle that day), and trying vainly
to get the two artists away from their work. It was three
o'clock before they took off their aprons, and released
Penelope (much the worse for the vehicle), and cleaned
themselves of their mess. But they had done what they
wanted—they had finished the door on the birthday, and proud
enough they were of it. The griffins, cupids, and so on,
were, I must own, most beautiful to behold; though so many
in number, so entangled in flowers and devices, and so
topsy-turvy in their actions and attitudes, that you felt
them unpleasantly in your head for hours after you had done
with the pleasure of looking at them. If I add that Penelope
ended her part of the morning's work by being sick in the
back-kitchen, it is in no unfriendly spirit towards the
vehicle. No! no! It left off stinking when it dried; and if
Art requires these sort of sacrifices—though the girl is my
own daughter—I say, let Art have them!
Mr. Franklin snatched a morsel from the luncheon-table,
and rode off to Frizinghall—to escort his cousins, as he
told my lady. To fetch the Moonstone, as was privately known
to himself and to me.
This being one of the high festivals on which I took my
place at the side-board, in command of the attendance at
table, I had plenty to occupy my mind while Mr. Franklin was
away. Having seen to the wine, and reviewed my men and women
who were to wait at dinner, I retired to collect myself
before the company came. A whiff of—you know what, and a
turn at a certain book which I have had occasion to mention
in these pages, composed me, body and mind. I was aroused
from what I am inclined to think must have been, not a nap,
but a reverie, by the clatter of horses' hoofs outside; and,
going to the door, received a cavalcade comprising Mr.
Franklin and his three cousins, escorted by one of old Mr.
Ablewhite's grooms.
Mr. Godfrey struck me, strangely enough, as being like
Mr. Franklin in this respect—that he did not seem to be in
his customary spirits. He kindly shook hands with me as
usual, and was most politely glad to see his old friend
Betteredge wearing so well. But there was a sort of cloud
over him, which I couldn't at all account for; and when I
asked how he had found his father in health, he answered
rather shortly, "Much as usual." However, the two Miss
Ablewhites were cheerful enough for twenty, which more than
restored the balance. They were nearly as big as their
brother; spanking, yellow-haired, rosy lasses, overflowing
with super-abundant flesh and blood; bursting from head to
foot with health and spirits. The legs of the poor horses
trembled with carrying them; and when they jumped from their
saddles (without waiting to be helped), I declare they
bounced on the ground as if they were made of india-rubber.
Everything the Miss Ablewhites said began with a large O;
everything they did was done with a bang; and they giggled
and screamed, in season and out of season, on the smallest
provocation. Bouncers—that's what I call them.
Under cover of the noise made by the young ladies, I had
an opportunity of saying a private word to Mr. Franklin in
the hall.
"Have you got the Diamond safe, sir?"
He nodded, and tapped the breast-pocket of his coat.
"Have you seen anything of the Indians?"
"Not a glimpse." With that answer, he asked for my lady,
and, hearing she was in the small drawing-room, went there
straight. The bell rang, before he had been a minute in the
room, and Penelope was sent to tell Miss Rachel that Mr.
Franklin Blake wanted to speak to her.
Crossing the hall, about half an hour afterwards, I was
brought to a sudden standstill by an outbreak of screams
from the small drawing-room. I can't say I was at all
alarmed; for I recognised in the screams the favourite large
O of the Miss Ablewhites. However, I went in (on pretence of
asking for instructions about the dinner) to discover
whether anything serious had really happened.
There stood Miss Rachel at the table, like a person
fascinated, with the Colonel's unlucky Diamond in her hand.
There, on either side of her, knelt the two Bouncers,
devouring the jewel with their eyes, and screaming with
ecstasy every time it flashed on them in a new light. There,
at the opposite side of the table, stood Mr. Godfrey,
clapping his hands like a large child, and singing out
softly, "Exquisite! exquisite!" There sat Mr. Franklin in a
chair by the book-case, tugging at his beard, and looking
anxiously towards the window. And there, at the window,
stood the object he was contemplating—my lady, having the
extract from the Colonel's Will in her hand, and keeping her
back turned on the whole of the company.
She faced me, when I asked for my instructions; and I saw
the family frown gathering over her eyes, and the family
temper twitching at the corners of her mouth.
"Come to my room in half an hour," she answered. "I shall
have something to say to you then."
With those words she went out. It was plain enough that
she was posed by the same difficulty which had posed Mr.
Franklin and me in our conference at the Shivering Sand. Was
the legacy of the Moonstone a proof that she had treated her
brother with cruel injustice? or was it a proof that he was
worse than the worst she had ever thought of him? Serious
questions those for my lady to determine, while her
daughter, innocent of all knowledge of the Colonel's
character, stood there with the Colonel's birthday gift in
her hand.
Before I could leave the room in my turn, Miss Rachel,
always considerate to the old servant who had been in the
house when she was born, stopped me. "Look, Gabriel!" she
said, and flashed the jewel before my eyes in a ray of
sunlight that poured through the window.
Lord bless us! it WAS a Diamond! As large, or nearly, as
a plover's egg! The light that streamed from it was like the
light of the harvest moon. When you looked down into the
stone, you looked into a yellow deep that drew your eyes
into it so that they saw nothing else. It seemed
unfathomable; this jewel, that you could hold between your
finger and thumb, seemed unfathomable as the heavens
themselves. We set it in the sun, and then shut the light
out of the room, and it shone awfully out of the depths of
its own brightness, with a moony gleam, in the dark. No
wonder Miss Rachel was fascinated: no wonder her cousins
screamed. The Diamond laid such a hold on ME that I burst
out with as large an "O" as the Bouncers themselves. The
only one of us who kept his senses was Mr. Godfrey. He put
an arm round each of his sister's waists, and, looking
compassionately backwards and forwards between the Diamond
and me, said, "Carbon Betteredge! mere carbon, my good
friend, after all!"
His object, I suppose, was to instruct me. All he did,
however, was to remind me of the dinner. I hobbled off to my
army of waiters downstairs. As I went out, Mr. Godfrey said,
"Dear old Betteredge, I have the truest regard for him!" He
was embracing his sisters, and ogling Miss Rachel, while he
honoured me with that testimony of affection. Something like
a stock of love to draw on THERE! Mr. Franklin was a perfect
savage by comparison with him.
At the end of half an hour, I presented myself, as
directed, in my lady's room.
What passed between my mistress and me, on this occasion,
was, in the main, a repetition of what had passed between
Mr. Franklin and me at the Shivering Sand—with this
difference, that I took care to keep my own counsel about
the jugglers, seeing that nothing had happened to justify me
in alarming my lady on this head. When I received my
dismissal, I could see that she took the blackest view
possible of the Colonel's motives, and that she was bent on
getting the Moonstone out of her daughter's possession at
the first opportunity.
On my way back to my own part of the house, I was
encountered by Mr. Franklin. He wanted to know if I had seen
anything of his cousin Rachel. I had seen nothing of her.
Could I tell him where his cousin Godfrey was? I didn't
know; but I began to suspect that cousin Godfrey might not
be far away from cousin Rachel. Mr. Franklin's suspicions
apparently took the same turn. He tugged hard at his beard,
and went and shut himself up in the library with a bang of
the door that had a world of meaning in it.
I was interrupted no more in the business of preparing
for the birthday dinner till it was time for me to smarten
myself up for receiving the company. Just as I had got my
white waistcoat on, Penelope presented herself at my toilet,
on pretence of brushing what little hair I have got left,
and improving the tie of my white cravat. My girl was in
high spirits, and I saw she had something to say to me. She
gave me a kiss on the top of my bald head, and whispered,
"News for you, father! Miss Rachel has refused him."
"Who's 'HIM'?" I asked.
"The ladies' committee-man, father," says Penelope. "A
nasty sly fellow! I hate him for trying to supplant Mr.
Franklin!"
If I had had breath enough, I should certainly have
protested against this indecent way of speaking of an
eminent philanthropic character. But my daughter happened to
be improving the tie of my cravat at that moment, and the
whole strength of her feelings found its way into her
fingers. I never was more nearly strangled in my life.
"I saw him take her away alone into the rose-garden,"
says Penelope. "And I waited behind the holly to see how
they came back. They had gone out arm-in-arm, both laughing.
They came back, walking separate, as grave as grave could
be, and looking straight away from each other in a manner
which there was no mistaking. I never was more delighted,
father, in my life! There's one woman in the world who can
resist Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite, at any rate; and, if I was a
lady, I should be another!"
Here I should have protested again. But my daughter had
got the hair-brush by this time, and the whole strength of
her feelings had passed into THAT. If you are bald, you will
understand how she sacrificed me. If you are not, skip this
bit, and thank God you have got something in the way of a
defence between your hair-brush and your head.
"Just on the other side of the holly," Penelope went on,
"Mr. Godfrey came to a standstill. 'You prefer,' says he,
'that I should stop here as if nothing had happened?' Miss
Rachel turned on him like lightning. 'You have accepted my
mother's invitation,' she said; 'and you are here to meet
her guests. Unless you wish to make a scandal in the house,
you will remain, of course!' She went on a few steps, and
then seemed to relent a little. 'Let us forget what has
passed, Godfrey,' she said, 'and let us remain cousins
still.' She gave him her hand. He kissed it, which I should
have considered taking a liberty, and then she left him. He
waited a little by himself, with his head down, and his heel
grinding a hole slowly in the gravel walk; you never saw a
man look more put out in your life. 'Awkward!' he said
between his teeth, when he looked up, and went on to the
house—'very awkward!' If that was his opinion of himself, he
was quite right. Awkward enough, I'm sure. And the end of it
is, father, what I told you all along," cries Penelope,
finishing me off with a last scarification, the hottest of
all. "Mr. Franklin's the man!"
I got possession of the hair-brush, and opened my lips to
administer the reproof which, you will own, my daughter's
language and conduct richly deserved.
Before I could say a word, the crash of carriage-wheels
outside struck in, and stopped me. The first of the
dinner-company had come. Penelope instantly ran off. I put
on my coat, and looked in the glass. My head was as red as a
lobster; but, in other respects, I was as nicely dressed for
the ceremonies of the evening as a man need be. I got into
the hall just in time to announce the two first of the
guests. You needn't feel particularly interested about them.
Only the philanthropist's father and mother—Mr. and Mrs.
Ablewhite.
CHAPTER X
One on the top of the other the rest of the company
followed the Ablewhites, till we had the whole tale of them
complete. Including the family, they were twenty-four in
all. It was a noble sight to see, when they were settled in
their places round the dinner-table, and the Rector of
Frizinghall (with beautiful elocution) rose and said grace.
There is no need to worry you with a list of the guests.
You will meet none of them a second time—in my part of the
story, at any rate—with the exception of two.
Those two sat on either side of Miss Rachel, who, as
queen of the day, was naturally the great attraction of the
party. On this occasion she was more particularly the
centre-point towards which everybody's eyes were directed;
for (to my lady's secret annoyance) she wore her wonderful
birthday present, which eclipsed all the rest—the Moonstone.
It was without any setting when it had been placed in her
hands; but that universal genius, Mr. Franklin, had
contrived, with the help of his neat fingers and a little
bit of silver wire, to fix it as a brooch in the bosom of
her white dress. Everybody wondered at the prodigious size
and beauty of the Diamond, as a matter of course. But the
only two of the company who said anything out of the common
way about it were those two guests I have mentioned, who sat
by Miss Rachel on her right hand and her left.
The guest on her left was Mr. Candy, our doctor at
Frizinghall.
This was a pleasant, companionable little man, with the
drawback, however, I must own, of being too fond, in season
and out of season, of his joke, and of his plunging in
rather a headlong manner into talk with strangers, without
waiting to feel his way first. In society he was constantly
making mistakes, and setting people unintentionally by the
ears together. In his medical practice he was a more prudent
man; picking up his discretion (as his enemies said) by a
kind of instinct, and proving to be generally right where
more carefully conducted doctors turned out to be wrong.
What HE said about the Diamond to Miss Rachel was said,
as usual, by way of a mystification or joke. He gravely
entreated her (in the interests of science) to let him take
it home and burn it. "We will first heat it, Miss Rachel,"
says the doctor, "to such and such a degree; then we will
expose it to a current of air; and, little by
little—puff!—we evaporate the Diamond, and spare you a world
of anxiety about the safe keeping of a valuable precious
stone!" My lady, listening with rather a careworn expression
on her face, seemed to wish that the doctor had been in
earnest, and that he could have found Miss Rachel zealous
enough in the cause of science to sacrifice her birthday
gift.
The other guest, who sat on my young lady's right hand,
was an eminent public character—being no other than the
celebrated Indian traveller, Mr. Murthwaite, who, at risk of
his life, had penetrated in disguise where no European had
ever set foot before.
This was a long, lean, wiry, brown, silent man. He had a
weary look, and a very steady, attentive eye. It was
rumoured that he was tired of the humdrum life among the
people in our parts, and longing to go back and wander off
on the tramp again in the wild places of the East. Except
what he said to Miss Rachel about her jewel, I doubt if he
spoke six words or drank so much as a single glass of wine,
all through the dinner. The Moonstone was the only object
that interested him in the smallest degree. The fame of it
seemed to have reached him, in some of those perilous Indian
places where his wanderings had lain. After looking at it
silently for so long a time that Miss Rachel began to get
confused, he said to her in his cool immovable way, "If you
ever go to India, Miss Verinder, don't take your uncle's
birthday gift with you. A Hindoo diamond is sometimes part
of a Hindoo religion. I know a certain city, and a certain
temple in that city, where, dressed as you are now, your
life would not be worth five minutes' purchase." Miss
Rachel, safe in England, was quite delighted to hear of her
danger in India. The Bouncers were more delighted still;
they dropped their knives and forks with a crash, and burst
out together vehemently, "O! how interesting!" My lady
fidgeted in her chair, and changed the subject.
As the dinner got on, I became aware, little by little,
that this festival was not prospering as other like
festivals had prospered before it.
Looking back at the birthday now, by the light of what
happened afterwards, I am half inclined to think that the
cursed Diamond must have cast a blight on the whole company.
I plied them well with wine; and being a privileged
character, followed the unpopular dishes round the table,
and whispered to the company confidentially, "Please to
change your mind and try it; for I know it will do you
good." Nine times out of ten they changed their minds—out of
regard for their old original Betteredge, they were pleased
to say—but all to no purpose. There were gaps of silence in
the talk, as the dinner got on, that made me feel personally
uncomfortable. When they did use their tongues again, they
used them innocently, in the most unfortunate manner and to
the worst possible purpose. Mr. Candy, the doctor, for
instance, said more unlucky things than I ever knew him to
say before. Take one sample of the way in which he went on,
and you will understand what I had to put up with at the
sideboard, officiating as I was in the character of a man
who had the prosperity of the festival at heart.
One of our ladies present at dinner was worthy Mrs.
Threadgall, widow of the late Professor of that name.
Talking of her deceased husband perpetually, this good lady
never mentioned to strangers that he WAS deceased. She
thought, I suppose, that every able-bodied adult in England
ought to know as much as that. In one of the gaps of
silence, somebody mentioned the dry and rather nasty subject
of human anatomy; whereupon good Mrs. Threadgall straightway
brought in her late husband as usual, without mentioning
that he was dead. Anatomy she described as the Professor's
favourite recreation in his leisure hours. As ill-luck would
have it, Mr. Candy, sitting opposite (who knew nothing of
the deceased gentleman), heard her. Being the most polite of
men, he seized the opportunity of assisting the Professor's
anatomical amusements on the spot.
"They have got some remarkably fine skeletons lately at
the College of Surgeons," says Mr. Candy, across the table,
in a loud cheerful voice. "I strongly recommend the
Professor, ma'am, when he next has an hour to spare, to pay
them a visit."
You might have heard a pin fall. The company (out of
respect to the Professor's memory) all sat speechless. I was
behind Mrs. Threadgall at the time, plying her
confidentially with a glass of hock. She dropped her head,
and said in a very low voice, "My beloved husband is no
more."
Unluckily Mr. Candy, hearing nothing, and miles away from
suspecting the truth, went on across the table louder and
politer than ever.
"The Professor may not be aware," says he, "that the card
of a member of the College will admit him, on any day but
Sunday, between the hours of ten and four."
Mrs. Threadgall dropped her head right into her tucker,
and, in a lower voice still, repeated the solemn words, "My
beloved husband is no more."
I winked hard at Mr. Candy across the table. Miss Rachel
touched his arm. My lady looked unutterable things at him.
Quite useless! On he went, with a cordiality that there was
no stopping anyhow. "I shall be delighted," says he, "to
send the Professor my card, if you will oblige me by
mentioning his present address."
"His present address, sir, is THE GRAVE," says Mrs.
Threadgall, suddenly losing her temper, and speaking with an
emphasis and fury that made the glasses ring again. "The
Professor has been dead these ten years."
"Oh, good heavens!" says Mr. Candy. Excepting the
Bouncers, who burst out laughing, such a blank now fell on
the company, that they might all have been going the way of
the Professor, and hailing as he did from the direction of
the grave.
So much for Mr. Candy. The rest of them were nearly as
provoking in their different ways as the doctor himself.
When they ought to have spoken, they didn't speak; or when
they did speak they were perpetually at cross purposes. Mr.
Godfrey, though so eloquent in public, declined to exert
himself in private. Whether he was sulky, or whether he was
bashful, after his discomfiture in the rose-garden, I can't
say. He kept all his talk for the private ear of the lady (a
member of our family) who sat next to him. She was one of
his committee-women—a spiritually-minded person, with a fine
show of collar-bone and a pretty taste in champagne; liked
it dry, you understand, and plenty of it. Being close behind
these two at the sideboard, I can testify, from what I heard
pass between them, that the company lost a good deal of very
improving conversation, which I caught up while drawing the
corks, and carving the mutton, and so forth. What they said
about their Charities I didn't hear. When I had time to
listen to them, they had got a long way beyond their women
to be confined, and their women to be rescued, and were
disputing on serious subjects. Religion (I understand Mr.
Godfrey to say, between the corks and the carving) meant
love. And love meant religion. And earth was heaven a little
the worse for wear. And heaven was earth, done up again to
look like new. Earth had some very objectionable people in
it; but, to make amends for that, all the women in heaven
would be members of a prodigious committee that never
quarrelled, with all the men in attendance on them as
ministering angels. Beautiful! beautiful! But why the
mischief did Mr. Godfrey keep it all to his lady and
himself?
Mr. Franklin again—surely, you will say, Mr. Franklin
stirred the company up into making a pleasant evening of it?
Nothing of the sort! He had quite recovered himself, and
he was in wonderful force and spirits, Penelope having
informed him, I suspect, of Mr. Godfrey's reception in the
rose-garden. But, talk as he might, nine times out of ten he
pitched on the wrong subject, or he addressed himself to the
wrong person; the end of it being that he offended some, and
puzzled all of them. That foreign training of his—those
French and German and Italian sides of him, to which I have
already alluded—came out, at my lady's hospitable board, in
a most bewildering manner.
What do you think, for instance, of his discussing the
lengths to which a married woman might let her admiration go
for a man who was not her husband, and putting it in his
clear-headed witty French way to the maiden aunt of the
Vicar of Frizinghall? What do you think, when he shifted to
the German side, of his telling the lord of the manor, while
that great authority on cattle was quoting his experience in
the breeding of bulls, that experience, properly understood
counted for nothing, and that the proper way to breed bulls
was to look deep into your own mind, evolve out of it the
idea of a perfect bull, and produce him? What do you say,
when our county member, growing hot, at cheese and salad
time, about the spread of democracy in England, burst out as
follows: "If we once lose our ancient safeguards, Mr. Blake,
I beg to ask you, what have we got left?"—what do you say to
Mr. Franklin answering, from the Italian point of view: "We
have got three things left, sir—Love, Music, and Salad"? He
not only terrified the company with such outbreaks as these,
but, when the English side of him turned up in due course,
he lost his foreign smoothness; and, getting on the subject
of the medical profession, said such downright things in
ridicule of doctors, that he actually put good-humoured
little Mr. Candy in a rage.
The dispute between them began in Mr. Franklin being
led—I forget how—to acknowledge that he had latterly slept
very badly at night. Mr. Candy thereupon told him that his
nerves were all out of order and that he ought to go through
a course of medicine immediately. Mr. Franklin replied that
a course of medicine, and a course of groping in the dark,
meant, in his estimation, one and the same thing. Mr. Candy,
hitting back smartly, said that Mr Franklin himself was,
constitutionally speaking, groping in the dark after sleep,
and that nothing but medicine could help him to find it. Mr.
Franklin, keeping the ball up on his side, said he had often
heard of the blind leading the blind, and now, for the first
time, he knew what it meant. In this way, they kept it going
briskly, cut and thrust, till they both of them got hot—Mr.
Candy, in particular, so completely losing his self-control,
in defence of his profession, that my lady was obliged to
interfere, and forbid the dispute to go on. This necessary
act of authority put the last extinguisher on the spirits of
the company. The talk spurted up again here and there, for a
minute or two at a time; but there was a miserable lack of
life and sparkle in it. The Devil (or the Diamond) possessed
that dinner-party; and it was a relief to everybody when my
mistress rose, and gave the ladies the signal to leave the
gentlemen over their wine.
I had just ranged the decanters in a row before old Mr.
Ablewhite (who represented the master of the house), when
there came a sound from the terrace which, startled me out
of my company manners on the instant. Mr. Franklin and I
looked at each other; it was the sound of the Indian drum.
As I live by bread, here were the jugglers returning to us
with the return of the Moonstone to the house!
As they rounded the corner of the terrace, and came in
sight, I hobbled out to warn them off. But, as ill-luck
would have it, the two Bouncers were beforehand with me.
They whizzed out on to the terrace like a couple of
skyrockets, wild to see the Indians exhibit their tricks.
The other ladies followed; the gentlemen came out on their
side. Before you could say, "Lord bless us!" the rogues were
making their salaams; and the Bouncers were kissing the
pretty little boy.
Mr. Franklin got on one side of Miss Rachel, and I put
myself behind her. If our suspicions were right, there she
stood, innocent of all knowledge of the truth, showing the
Indians the Diamond in the bosom of her dress!
I can't tell you what tricks they performed, or how they
did it. What with the vexation about the dinner, and what
with the provocation of the rogues coming back just in the
nick of time to see the jewel with their own eyes, I own I
lost my head. The first thing that I remember noticing was
the sudden appearance on the scene of the Indian traveller,
Mr. Murthwaite. Skirting the half-circle in which the
gentlefolks stood or sat, he came quietly behind the
jugglers and spoke to them on a sudden in the language of
their own country.
If he had pricked them with a bayonet, I doubt if the
Indians could have started and turned on him with a more
tigerish quickness than they did, on hearing the first words
that passed his lips. The next moment they were bowing and
salaaming to him in their most polite and snaky way. After a
few words in the unknown tongue had passed on either side,
Mr. Murthwaite withdrew as quietly as he had approached. The
chief Indian, who acted as interpreter, thereupon wheeled
about again towards the gentlefolks. I noticed that the
fellow's coffee-coloured face had turned grey since Mr.
Murthwaite had spoken to him. He bowed to my lady, and
informed her that the exhibition was over. The Bouncers,
indescribably disappointed, burst out with a loud "O!"
directed against Mr. Murthwaite for stopping the
performance. The chief Indian laid his hand humbly on his
breast, and said a second time that the juggling was over.
The little boy went round with the hat. The ladies withdrew
to the drawing-room; and the gentlemen (excepting Mr.
Franklin and Mr. Murthwaite) returned to their wine. I and
the footman followed the Indians, and saw them safe off the
premises.
Going back by way of the shrubbery, I smelt tobacco, and
found Mr. Franklin and Mr. Murthwaite (the latter smoking a
cheroot) walking slowly up and down among the trees. Mr.
Franklin beckoned to me to join them.
"This," says Mr. Franklin, presenting me to the great
traveller, "is Gabriel Betteredge, the old servant and
friend of our family of whom I spoke to you just now. Tell
him, if you please, what you have just told me."
Mr. Murthwaite took his cheroot out of his mouth, and
leaned, in his weary way, against the trunk of a tree.
"Mr. Betteredge," he began, "those three Indians are no
more jugglers than you and I are."
Here was a new surprise! I naturally asked the traveller
if he had ever met with the Indians before.
"Never," says Mr. Murthwaite; "but I know what Indian
juggling really is. All you have seen to-night is a very bad
and clumsy imitation of it. Unless, after long experience, I
am utterly mistaken, those men are high-caste Brahmins. I
charged them with being disguised, and you saw how it told
on them, clever as the Hindoo people are in concealing their
feelings. There is a mystery about their conduct that I
can't explain. They have doubly sacrificed their
caste—first, in crossing the sea; secondly, in disguising
themselves as jugglers. In the land they live in that is a
tremendous sacrifice to make. There must be some very
serious motive at the bottom of it, and some justification
of no ordinary kind to plead for them, in recovery of their
caste, when they return to their own country."
I was struck dumb. Mr. Murthwaite went on with his
cheroot. Mr. Franklin, after what looked to me like a little
private veering about between the different sides of his
character, broke the silence as follows:
"I feel some hesitation, Mr. Murthwaite, in troubling you
with family matters, in which you can have no interest and
which I am not very willing to speak of out of our own
circle. But, after what you have said, I feel bound, in the
interests of Lady Verinder and her daughter, to tell you
something which may possibly put the clue into your hands. I
speak to you in confidence; you will oblige me, I am sure,
by not forgetting that?"
With this preface, he told the Indian traveller all that
he had told me at the Shivering Sand. Even the immovable Mr.
Murthwaite was so interested in what he heard, that he let
his cheroot go out.
"Now," says Mr. Franklin, when he had done, "what does
your experience say?"
"My experience," answered the traveller, "says that you
have had more narrow escapes of your life, Mr. Franklin
Blake, than I have had of mine; and that is saying a great
deal."
It was Mr. Franklin's turn to be astonished now.
"Is it really as serious as that?" he asked.
"In my opinion it is," answered Mr. Murthwaite. "I can't
doubt, after what you have told me, that the restoration of
the Moonstone to its place on the forehead of the Indian
idol, is the motive and the justification of that sacrifice
of caste which I alluded to just now. Those men will wait
their opportunity with the patience of cats, and will use it
with the ferocity of tigers. How you have escaped them I
can't imagine," says the eminent traveller, lighting his
cheroot again, and staring hard at Mr. Franklin. "You have
been carrying the Diamond backwards and forwards, here and
in London, and you are still a living man! Let us try and
account for it. It was daylight, both times, I suppose, when
you took the jewel out of the bank in London?"
"Broad daylight," says Mr. Franklin.
"And plenty of people in the streets?"
"Plenty."
"You settled, of course, to arrive at Lady Verinder's
house at a certain time? It's a lonely country between this
and the station. Did you keep your appointment?"
"No. I arrived four hours earlier than my appointment."
"I beg to congratulate you on that proceeding! When did
you take the Diamond to the bank at the town here?"
"I took it an hour after I had brought it to this
house—and three hours before anybody was prepared for seeing
me in these parts."
"I beg to congratulate you again! Did you bring it back
here alone?"
"No. I happened to ride back with my cousins and the
groom."
"I beg to congratulate you for the third time! If you
ever feel inclined to travel beyond the civilised limits,
Mr. Blake, let me know, and I will go with you. You are a
lucky man."
Here I struck in. This sort of thing didn't at all square
with my English ideas.
"You don't really mean to say, sir," I asked, "that they
would have taken Mr. Franklin's life, to get their Diamond,
if he had given them the chance?"
"Do you smoke, Mr. Betteredge?" says the traveller.
"Yes, sir.
"Do you care much for the ashes left in your pipe when
you empty it?"
"No, sir."
"In the country those men came from, they care just as
much about killing a man, as you care about emptying the
ashes out of your pipe. If a thousand lives stood between
them and the getting back of their Diamond—and if they
thought they could destroy those lives without
discovery—they would take them all. The sacrifice of caste
is a serious thing in India, if you like. The sacrifice of
life is nothing at all."
I expressed my opinion upon this, that they were a set of
murdering thieves. Mr. Murthwaite expressed HIS opinion that
they were a wonderful people. Mr. Franklin, expressing no
opinion at all, brought us back to the matter in hand.
"They have seen the Moonstone on Miss Verinder's dress,"
he said. "What is to be done?"
"What your uncle threatened to do," answered Mr.
Murthwaite. "Colonel Herncastle understood the people he had
to deal with. Send the Diamond to-morrow (under guard of
more than one man) to be cut up at Amsterdam. Make half a
dozen diamonds of it, instead of one. There is an end of its
sacred identity as The Moonstone—and there is an end of the
conspiracy."
Mr. Franklin turned to me.
"There is no help for it," he said. "We must speak to
Lady Verinder to-morrow."
"What about to-night, sir?" I asked. "Suppose the Indians
come back?"
Mr. Murthwaite answered me before Mr. Franklin could
speak.
"The Indians won't risk coming back to-night," he said.
"The direct way is hardly ever the way they take to
anything—let alone a matter like this, in which the
slightest mistake might be fatal to their reaching their
end."
"But suppose the rogues are bolder than you think, sir?"
I persisted.
"In that case," says Mr. Murthwaite, "let the dogs loose.
Have you got any big dogs in the yard?"
"Two, sir. A mastiff and a bloodhound."
"They will do. In the present emergency, Mr. Betteredge,
the mastiff and the bloodhound have one great merit—they are
not likely to be troubled with your scruples about the
sanctity of human life."
The strumming of the piano reached us from the
drawing-room, as he fired that shot at me. He threw away his
cheroot, and took Mr. Franklin's arm, to go back to the
ladies. I noticed that the sky was clouding over fast, as I
followed them to the house. Mr. Murthwaite noticed it too.
He looked round at me, in his dry, droning way, and said:
"The Indians will want their umbrellas, Mr. Betteredge,
to-night!"
It was all very well for HIM to joke. But I was not an
eminent traveller—and my way in this world had not led me
into playing ducks and drakes with my own life, among
thieves and murderers in the outlandish places of the earth.
I went into my own little room, and sat down in my chair in
a perspiration, and wondered helplessly what was to be done
next. In this anxious frame of mind, other men might have
ended by working themselves up into a fever; I ended in a
different way. I lit my pipe, and took a turn at ROBINSON
CRUSOE.
Before I had been at it five minutes, I came to this
amazing bit—page one hundred and sixty-one—as follows:
"Fear of Danger is ten thousand times more terrifying
than Danger itself, when apparent to the Eyes; and we find
the Burthen of Anxiety greater, by much, than the Evil which
we are anxious about."
The man who doesn't believe in ROBINSON CRUSOE, after
THAT, is a man with a screw loose in his understanding, or a
man lost in the mist of his own self-conceit! Argument is
thrown away upon him; and pity is better reserved for some
person with a livelier faith.
I was far on with my second pipe, and still lost in
admiration of that wonderful book, when Penelope (who had
been handing round the tea) came in with her report from the
drawing-room. She had left the Bouncers singing a duet—words
beginning with a large "O," and music to correspond. She had
observed that my lady made mistakes in her game of whist for
the first time in our experience of her. She had seen the
great traveller asleep in a corner. She had overheard Mr.
Franklin sharpening his wits on Mr. Godfrey, at the expense
of Ladies' Charities in general; and she had noticed that
Mr. Godfrey hit him back again rather more smartly than
became a gentleman of his benevolent character. She had
detected Miss Rachel, apparently engaged in appeasing Mrs.
Threadgall by showing her some photographs, and really
occupied in stealing looks at Mr. Franklin, which no
intelligent lady's maid could misinterpret for a single
instant. Finally, she had missed Mr. Candy, the doctor, who
had mysteriously disappeared from the drawing-room, and had
then mysteriously returned, and entered into conversation
with Mr. Godfrey. Upon the whole, things were prospering
better than the experience of the dinner gave us any right
to expect. If we could only hold on for another hour, old
Father Time would bring up their carriages, and relieve us
of them altogether.
Everything wears off in this world; and even the
comforting effect of ROBINSON CRUSOE wore off, after
Penelope left me. I got fidgety again, and resolved on
making a survey of the grounds before the rain came. Instead
of taking the footman, whose nose was human, and therefore
useless in any emergency, I took the bloodhound with me. HIS
nose for a stranger was to be depended on. We went all round
the premises, and out into the road—and returned as wise as
we went, having discovered no such thing as a lurking human
creature anywhere.
The arrival of the carriages was the signal for the
arrival of the rain. It poured as if it meant to pour all
night. With the exception of the doctor, whose gig was
waiting for him, the rest of the company went home snugly,
under cover, in close carriages. I told Mr. Candy that I was
afraid he would get wet through. He told me, in return, that
he wondered I had arrived at my time of life, without
knowing that a doctor's skin was waterproof. So he drove
away in the rain, laughing over his own little joke; and so
we got rid of our dinner company.
The next thing to tell is the story of the night.
CHAPTER XI
When the last of the guests had driven away, I went back
into the inner hall and found Samuel at the side-table,
presiding over the brandy and soda-water. My lady and Miss
Rachel came out of the drawing-room, followed by the two
gentlemen. Mr. Godfrey had some brandy and soda-water, Mr.
Franklin took nothing. He sat down, looking dead tired; the
talking on this birthday occasion had, I suppose, been too
much for him.
My lady, turning round to wish them good-night, looked
hard at the wicked Colonel's legacy shining in her
daughter's dress.
"Rachel," she asked, "where are you going to put your
Diamond to-night?"
Miss Rachel was in high good spirits, just in that humour
for talking nonsense, and perversely persisting in it as if
it was sense, which you may sometimes have observed in young
girls, when they are highly wrought up, at the end of an
exciting day. First, she declared she didn't know where to
put the Diamond. Then she said, "on her dressing-table, of
course, along with her other things." Then she remembered
that the Diamond might take to shining of itself, with its
awful moony light in the dark—and that would terrify her in
the dead of night. Then she bethought herself of an Indian
cabinet which stood in her sitting-room; and instantly made
up her mind to put the Indian diamond in the Indian cabinet,
for the purpose of permitting two beautiful native
productions to admire each other. Having let her little flow
of nonsense run on as far as that point, her mother
interposed and stopped her.
"My dear! your Indian cabinet has no lock to it," says my
lady.
"Good Heavens, mamma!" cried Miss Rachel, "is this an
hotel? Are there thieves in the house?"
Without taking notice of this fantastic way of talking,
my lady wished the gentlemen good-night. She next turned to
Miss Rachel, and kissed her. "Why not let ME keep the
Diamond for you to-night?" she asked.
Miss Rachel received that proposal as she might, ten
years since, have received a proposal to part her from a new
doll. My lady saw there was no reasoning with her that
night. "Come into my room, Rachel, the first thing to-morrow
morning," she said. "I shall have something to say to you."
With those last words she left us slowly; thinking her own
thoughts, and, to all appearance, not best pleased with the
way by which they were leading her.
Miss Rachel was the next to say good-night. She shook
hands first with Mr. Godfrey, who was standing at the other
end of the hall, looking at a picture. Then she turned back
to Mr. Franklin, still sitting weary and silent in a corner.
What words passed between them I can't say. But standing
near the old oak frame which holds our large looking-glass,
I saw her reflected in it, slyly slipping the locket which
Mr. Franklin had given to her, out of the bosom of her
dress, and showing it to him for a moment, with a smile
which certainly meant something out of the common, before
she tripped off to bed. This incident staggered me a little
in the reliance I had previously felt on my own judgment. I
began to think that Penelope might be right about the state
of her young lady's affections, after all.
As soon as Miss Rachel left him eyes to see with, Mr.
Franklin noticed me. His variable humour, shifting about
everything, had shifted about the Indians already.
"Betteredge," he said, "I'm half inclined to think I took
Mr. Murthwaite too seriously, when we had that talk in the
shrubbery. I wonder whether he has been trying any of his
traveller's tales on us? Do you really mean to let the dogs
loose?"
"I'll relieve them of their collars, sir," I answered,
"and leave them free to take a turn in the night, if they
smell a reason for it."
"All right," says Mr. Franklin. "We'll see what is to be
done to-morrow. I am not at all disposed to alarm my aunt,
Betteredge, without a very pressing reason for it.
Good-night."
He looked so worn and pale as he nodded to me, and took
his candle to go up-stairs, that I ventured to advise his
having a drop of brandy-and-water, by way of night-cap. Mr.
Godfrey, walking towards us from the other end of the hall,
backed me. He pressed Mr. Franklin, in the friendliest
manner, to take something, before he went to bed.
I only note these trifling circumstances, because, after
all I had seen and heard, that day, it pleased me to observe
that our two gentlemen were on just as good terms as ever.
Their warfare of words (heard by Penelope in the
drawing-room), and their rivalry for the best place in Miss
Rachel's good graces, seemed to have set no serious
difference between them. But there! they were both
good-tempered, and both men of the world. And there is
certainly this merit in people of station, that they are not
nearly so quarrelsome among each other as people of no
station at all.
Mr. Franklin declined the brandy-and-water, and went
up-stairs with Mr. Godfrey, their rooms being next door to
each other. On the landing, however, either his cousin
persuaded him, or he veered about and changed his mind as
usual. "Perhaps I may want it in the night," he called down
to me. "Send up some brandy-and-water into my room."
I sent up Samuel with the brandy-and-water; and then went
out and unbuckled the dogs' collars. They both lost their
heads with astonishment on being set loose at that time of
night, and jumped upon me like a couple of puppies! However,
the rain soon cooled them down again: they lapped a drop of
water each, and crept back into their kennels. As I went
into the house I noticed signs in the sky which betokened a
break in the weather for the better. For the present, it
still poured heavily, and the ground was in a perfect sop.
Samuel and I went all over the house, and shut up as
usual. I examined everything myself, and trusted nothing to
my deputy on this occasion. All was safe and fast when I
rested my old bones in bed, between midnight and one in the
morning.
The worries of the day had been a little too much for me,
I suppose. At any rate, I had a touch of Mr. Franklin's
malady that night. It was sunrise before I fell off at last
into a sleep. All the time I lay awake the house was as
quiet as the grave. Not a sound stirred but the splash of
the rain, and the sighing of the wind among the trees as a
breeze sprang up with the morning.
About half-past seven I woke, and opened my window on a
fine sunshiny day. The clock had struck eight, and I was
just going out to chain up the dogs again, when I heard a
sudden whisking of petticoats on the stairs behind me.
I turned about, and there was Penelope flying down after
me like mad. "Father!" she screamed, "come up-stairs, for
God's sake! THE DIAMOND IS GONE!" "Are you out of your
mind?" I asked her.
"Gone!" says Penelope. "Gone, nobody knows how! Come up
and see."
She dragged me after her into our young lady's
sitting-room, which opened into her bedroom. There, on the
threshold of her bedroom door, stood Miss Rachel, almost as
white in the face as the white dressing-gown that clothed
her. There also stood the two doors of the Indian cabinet,
wide open. One, of the drawers inside was pulled out as far
as it would go.
"Look!" says Penelope. "I myself saw Miss Rachel put the
Diamond into that drawer last night." I went to the cabinet.
The drawer was empty.
"Is this true, miss?" I asked.
With a look that was not like herself, with a voice that
was not like her own, Miss Rachel answered as my daughter
had answered: "The Diamond is gone!" Having said those
words, she withdrew into her bedroom, and shut and locked
the door.
Before we knew which way to turn next, my lady came in,
hearing my voice in her daughter's sitting-room, and
wondering what had happened. The news of the loss of the
Diamond seemed to petrify her. She went straight to Miss
Rachel's bedroom, and insisted on being admitted. Miss
Rachel let here in.
The alarm, running through the house like fire, caught
the two gentlemen next.
Mr. Godfrey was the first to come out of his room. All he
did when he heard what had happened was to hold up his hands
in a state of bewilderment, which didn't say much for his
natural strength of mind. Mr. Franklin, whose clear head I
had confidently counted on to advise us, seemed to be as
helpless as his cousin when he heard the news in his turn.
For a wonder, he had had a good night's rest at last; and
the unaccustomed luxury of sleep had, as he said himself,
apparently stupefied him. However, when he had swallowed his
cup of coffee—which he always took, on the foreign plan,
some hours before he ate any breakfast—his brains
brightened; the clear-headed side of him turned up, and he
took the matter in hand, resolutely and cleverly, much as
follows:
He first sent for the servants, and told them to leave
all the lower doors and windows (with the exception of the
front door, which I had opened) exactly as they had been
left when we locked up over night. He next proposed to his
cousin and to me to make quite sure, before we took any
further steps, that the Diamond had not accidentally dropped
somewhere out of sight—say at the back of the cabinet, or
down behind the table on which the cabinet stood. Having
searched in both places, and found nothing—having also
questioned Penelope, and discovered from her no more than
the little she had already told me—Mr. Franklin suggested
next extending our inquiries to Miss Rachel, and sent
Penelope to knock at her bed-room door.
My lady answered the knock, and closed the door behind
her. The moment after we heard it locked inside by Miss
Rachel. My mistress came out among us, looking sorely
puzzled and distressed. "The loss of the Diamond seems to
have quite overwhelmed Rachel," she said, in reply to Mr.
Franklin. "She shrinks, in the strangest manner, from
speaking of it, even to ME. It is impossible you can see her
for the present." Having added to our perplexities by this
account of Miss Rachel, my lady, after a little effort,
recovered her usual composure, and acted with her usual
decision.
"I suppose there is no help for it?" she said, quietly.
"I suppose I have no alternative but to send for the
police?"
"And the first thing for the police to do," added Mr.
Franklin, catching her up, "is to lay hands on the Indian
jugglers who performed here last night."
My lady and Mr. Godfrey (not knowing what Mr. Franklin
and I knew) both started, and both looked surprised.
"I can't stop to explain myself now," Mr. Franklin went
on. "I can only tell you that the Indians have certainly
stolen the Diamond. Give me a letter of introduction," says
he, addressing my lady, "to one of the magistrates at
Frizinghall—merely telling him that I represent your
interests and wishes, and let me ride off with it instantly.
Our chance of catching the thieves may depend on our not
wasting one unnecessary minute." (Nota bene: Whether it was
the French side or the English, the right side of Mr.
Franklin seemed to be uppermost now. The only question was,
How long would it last?)
He put pen, ink, and paper before his aunt, who (as it
appeared to me) wrote the letter he wanted a little
unwillingly. If it had been possible to overlook such an
event as the loss of a jewel worth twenty thousand pounds, I
believe—with my lady's opinion of her late brother, and her
distrust of his birthday-gift—it would have been privately a
relief to her to let the thieves get off with the Moonstone
scot free.
I went out with Mr. Franklin to the stables, and took the
opportunity of asking him how the Indians (whom I suspected,
of course, as shrewdly as he did) could possibly have got
into the house.
"One of them might have slipped into the hall, in the
confusion, when the dinner company were going away," says
Mr. Franklin. "The fellow may have been under the sofa while
my aunt and Rachel were talking about where the Diamond was
to be put for the night. He would only have to wait till the
house was quiet, and there it would be in the cabinet, to be
had for the taking." With those words, he called to the
groom to open the gate, and galloped off.
This seemed certainly to be the only rational
explanation. But how had the thief contrived to make his
escape from the house? I had found the front door locked and
bolted, as I had left it at night, when I went to open it,
after getting up. As for the other doors and windows, there
they were still, all safe and fast, to speak for themselves.
The dogs, too? Suppose the thief had got away by dropping
from one of the upper windows, how had he escaped the dogs?
Had he come provided for them with drugged meat? As the
doubt crossed my mind, the dogs themselves came galloping at
me round a corner, rolling each other over on the wet grass,
in such lively health and spirits that it was with no small
difficulty I brought them to reason, and chained them up
again. The more I turned it over in my mind, the less
satisfactory Mr. Franklin's explanation appeared to be.
We had our breakfasts—whatever happens in a house,
robbery or murder, it doesn't matter, you must have your
breakfast. When we had done, my lady sent for me; and I
found myself compelled to tell her all that I had hitherto
concealed, relating to the Indians and their plot. Being a
woman of a high courage, she soon got over the first
startling effect of what I had to communicate. Her mind
seemed to be far more perturbed about her daughter than
about the heathen rogues and their conspiracy. "You know how
odd Rachel is, and how differently she behaves sometimes
from other girls," my lady said to me. "But I have never, in
all my experience, seen her so strange and so reserved as
she is now. The loss of her jewel seems almost to have
turned her brain. Who would have thought that horrible
Diamond could have laid such a hold on her in so short a
time?"
It was certainly strange. Taking toys and trinkets in
general, Miss Rachel was nothing like so mad after them as
most young girls. Yet there she was, still locked up
inconsolably in her bedroom. It is but fair to add that she
was not the only one of us in the house who was thrown out
of the regular groove. Mr. Godfrey, for instance—though
professionally a sort of consoler-general—seemed to be at a
loss where to look for his own resources. Having no company
to amuse him, and getting no chance of trying what his
experience of women in distress could do towards comforting
Miss Rachel, he wandered hither and thither about the house
and gardens in an aimless uneasy way. He was in two
different minds about what it became him to do, after the
misfortune that had happened to us. Ought he to relieve the
family, in their present situation, of the responsibility of
him as a guest, or ought he to stay on the chance that even
his humble services might be of some use? He decided
ultimately that the last course was perhaps the most
customary and considerate course to take, in such a very
peculiar case of family distress as this was. Circumstances
try the metal a man is really made of. Mr. Godfrey, tried by
circumstances, showed himself of weaker metal than I had
thought him to be. As for the women-servants excepting
Rosanna Spearman, who kept by herself—they took to
whispering together in corners, and staring at nothing
suspiciously, as is the manner of that weaker half of the
human family, when anything extraordinary happens in a
house. I myself acknowledge to have been fidgety and
ill-tempered. The cursed Moonstone had turned us all upside
down.
A little before eleven Mr. Franklin came back. The
resolute side of him had, to all appearance, given way, in
the interval since his departure, under the stress that had
been laid on it. He had left us at a gallop; he came back to
us at a walk. When he went away, he was made of iron. When
he returned, he was stuffed with cotton, as limp as limp
could be.
"Well," says my lady, "are the police coming?"
"Yes," says Mr. Franklin; "they said they would follow me
in a fly. Superintendent Seegrave, of your local police
force, and two of his men. A mere form! The case is
hopeless."
"What! have the Indians escaped, sir?" I asked.
"The poor ill-used Indians have been most unjustly put in
prison," says Mr. Franklin. "They are as innocent as the
babe unborn. My idea that one of them was hidden in the
house has ended, like all the rest of my ideas, in smoke.
It's been proved," says Mr. Franklin, dwelling with great
relish on his own incapacity, "to be simply impossible."
After astonishing us by announcing this totally new turn
in the matter of the Moonstone, our young gentleman, at his
aunt's request, took a seat, and explained himself.
It appeared that the resolute side of him had held out as
far as Frizinghall. He had put the whole case plainly before
the magistrate, and the magistrate had at once sent for the
police. The first inquiries instituted about the Indians
showed that they had not so much as attempted to leave the
town. Further questions addressed to the police, proved that
all three had been seen returning to Frizinghall with their
boy, on the previous night between ten and eleven—which
(regard being had to hours and distances) also proved that
they had walked straight back after performing on our
terrace. Later still, at midnight, the police, having
occasion to search the common lodging-house where they
lived, had seen them all three again, and their little boy
with them, as usual. Soon after midnight I myself had safely
shut up the house. Plainer evidence than this, in favour of
the Indians, there could not well be. The magistrate said
there was not even a case of suspicion against them so far.
But, as it was just possible, when the police came to
investigate the matter, that discoveries affecting the
jugglers might be made, he would contrive, by committing
them as rogues and vagabonds, to keep them at our disposal,
under lock and key, for a week. They had ignorantly done
something (I forget what) in the town, which barely brought
them within the operation of the law. Every human
institution (justice included) will stretch a little, if you
only pull it the right way. The worthy magistrate was an old
friend of my lady's, and the Indians were "committed" for a
week, as soon as the court opened that morning.
Such was Mr. Franklin's narrative of events at
Frizinghall. The Indian clue to the mystery of the lost
jewel was now, to all appearance, a clue that had broken in
our hands. If the jugglers were innocent, who, in the name
of wonder, had taken the Moonstone out of Miss Rachel's
drawer?
Ten minutes later, to our infinite relief; Superintendent
Seegrave arrived at the house. He reported passing Mr.
Franklin on the terrace, sitting in the sun (I suppose with
the Italian side of him uppermost), and warning the police,
as they went by, that the investigation was hopeless, before
the investigation had begun.
For a family in our situation, the Superintendent of the
Frizinghall police was the most comforting officer you could
wish to see. Mr. Seegrave was tall and portly, and military
in his manners. He had a fine commanding voice, and a mighty
resolute eye, and a grand frock-coat which buttoned
beautifully up to his leather stock. "I'm the man you want!"
was written all over his face; and he ordered his two
inferior police men about with a severity which convinced us
all that there was no trifling with HIM.
He began by going round the premises, outside and in; the
result of that investigation proving to him that no thieves
had broken in upon us from outside, and that the robbery,
consequently, must have been committed by some person in the
house. I leave you to imagine the state the servants were in
when this official announcement first reached their ears.
The Superintendent decided to begin by examining the
boudoir, and, that done, to examine the servants next. At
the same time, he posted one of his men on the staircase
which led to the servants' bedrooms, with instructions to
let nobody in the house pass him, till further orders.
At this latter proceeding, the weaker half of the human
family went distracted on the spot. They bounced out of
their comers, whisked up-stairs in a body to Miss Rachel's
room (Rosanna Spearman being carried away among them this
time), burst in on Superintendent Seegrave, and, all looking
equally guilty, summoned him to say which of them he
suspected, at once.
Mr. Superintendent proved equal to the occasion; he
looked at them with his resolute eye, and he cowed them with
his military voice.
"Now, then, you women, go down-stairs again, every one of
you; I won't have you here. Look!" says Mr. Superintendent,
suddenly pointing to a little smear of the decorative
painting on Miss Rachel's door, at the outer edge, just
under the lock. "Look what mischief the petticoats of some
of you have done already. Clear out! clear out!" Rosanna
Spearman, who was nearest to him, and nearest to the little
smear on the door, set the example of obedience, and slipped
off instantly to her work. The rest followed her out. The
Superintendent finished his examination of the room, and,
making nothing of it, asked me who had first discovered the
robbery. My daughter had first discovered it. My daughter
was sent for.
Mr. Superintendent proved to be a little too sharp with
Penelope at starting. "Now, young woman, attend to me, and
mind you speak the truth." Penelope fired up instantly.
"I've never been taught to tell lies Mr. Policeman!—and if
father can stand there and hear me accused of falsehood and
thieving, and my own bed-room shut against me, and my
character taken away, which is all a poor girl has left,
he's not the good father I take him for!" A timely word from
me put Justice and Penelope on a pleasanter footing
together. The questions and answers went swimmingly, and
ended in nothing worth mentioning. My daughter had seen Miss
Rachel put the Diamond in the drawer of the cabinet the last
thing at night. She had gone in with Miss Rachel's cup of
tea at eight the next morning, and had found the drawer open
and empty. Upon that, she had alarmed the house—and there
was an end of Penelope's evidence.
Mr. Superintendent next asked to see Miss Rachel herself.
Penelope mentioned his request through the door. The answer
reached us by the same road: "I have nothing to tell the
policeman—I can't see anybody." Our experienced officer
looked equally surprised and offended when he heard that
reply. I told him my young lady was ill, and begged him to
wait a little and see her later. We thereupon went
downstairs again, and were met by Mr. Godfrey and Mr.
Franklin crossing the hall.
The two gentlemen, being inmates of the house, were
summoned to say if they could throw any light on the matter.
Neither of them knew anything about it. Had they heard any
suspicious noises during the previous night? They had heard
nothing but the pattering of the rain. Had I, lying awake
longer than either of them, heard nothing either? Nothing!
Released from examination, Mr. Franklin, still sticking to
the helpless view of our difficulty, whispered to me: "That
man will be of no earthly use to us. Superintendent Seegrave
is an ass." Released in his turn, Mr. Godfrey whispered to
me—"Evidently a most competent person. Betteredge, I have
the greatest faith in him!" Many men, many opinions, as one
of the ancients said, before my time.
Mr. Superintendent's next proceeding took him back to the
"boudoir" again, with my daughter and me at his heels. His
object was to discover whether any of the furniture had been
moved, during the night, out of its customary place—his
previous investigation in the room having, apparently, not
gone quite far enough to satisfy his mind on this point.
While we were still poking about among the chairs and
tables, the door of the bed-room was suddenly opened. After
having denied herself to everybody, Miss Rachel, to our
astonishment, walked into the midst of us of her own accord.
She took up her garden hat from a chair, and then went
straight to Penelope with this question:—
"Mr. Franklin Blake sent you with a message to me this
morning?"
"Yes, miss."
"He wished to speak to me, didn't he?"
"Yes, miss."
"Where is he now?"
Hearing voices on the terrace below, I looked out of
window, and saw the two gentlemen walking up and down
together. Answering for my daughter, I said, "Mr. Franklin
is on the terrace, miss."
Without another word, without heeding Mr. Superintendent,
who tried to speak to her, pale as death, and wrapped up
strangely in her own thoughts, she left the room, and went
down to her cousins on the terrace.
It showed a want of due respect, it showed a breach of
good manners, on my part, but, for the life of me, I
couldn't help looking out of window when Miss Rachel met the
gentlemen outside. She went up to Mr. Franklin without
appearing to notice Mr. Godfrey, who thereupon drew back and
left them by themselves. What she said to Mr. Franklin
appeared to be spoken vehemently. It lasted but for a short
time, and, judging by what I saw of his face from the
window, seemed to astonish him beyond all power of
expression. While they were still together, my lady appeared
on the terrace. Miss Rachel saw her—said a few last words to
Mr. Franklin—and suddenly went back into the house again,
before her mother came up with her. My lady surprised
herself, and noticing Mr. Franklin's surprise, spoke to him.
Mr. Godfrey joined them, and spoke also. Mr. Franklin walked
away a little between the two, telling them what had
happened I suppose, for they both stopped short, after
taking a few steps, like persons struck with amazement. I
had just seen as much as this, when the door of the
sitting-room was opened violently. Miss Rachel walked
swiftly through to her bed-room, wild and angry, with fierce
eyes and flaming cheeks. Mr. Superintendent once more
attempted to question her. She turned round on him at her
bed-room door. "I have not sent for you!" she cried out
vehemently. "I don't want you. My Diamond is lost. Neither
you nor anybody else will ever find it!" With those words
she went in, and locked the door in our faces. Penelope,
standing nearest to it, heard her burst out crying the
moment she was alone again.
In a rage, one moment; in tears, the next! What did it
mean?
I told the Superintendent it meant that Miss Rachel's
temper was upset by the loss of her jewel. Being anxious for
the honour of the family, it distressed me to see my young
lady forget herself—even with a police-officer—and I made
the best excuse I could, accordingly. In my own private mind
I was more puzzled by Miss Rachel's extraordinary language
and conduct than words can tell. Taking what she had said at
her bed-room door as a guide to guess by, I could only
conclude that she was mortally offended by our sending for
the police, and that Mr. Franklin's astonishment on the
terrace was caused by her having expressed herself to him
(as the person chiefly instrumental in fetching the police)
to that effect. If this guess was right, why—having lost her
Diamond—should she object to the presence in the house of
the very people whose business it was to recover it for her?
And how, in Heaven's name, could SHE know that the Moonstone
would never be found again?
As things stood, at present, no answer to those questions
was to be hoped for from anybody in the house. Mr. Franklin
appeared to think it a point of honour to forbear repeating
to a servant—even to so old a servant as I was—what Miss
Rachel had said to him on the terrace. Mr. Godfrey, who, as
a gentleman and a relative, had been probably admitted into
Mr. Franklin's confidence, respected that confidence as he
was bound to do. My lady, who was also in the secret no
doubt, and who alone had access to Miss Rachel, owned openly
that she could make nothing of her. "You madden me when you
talk of the Diamond!" All her mother's influence failed to
extract from her a word more than that.
Here we were, then, at a dead-lock about Miss Rachel—and
at a dead-lock about the Moonstone. In the first case, my
lady was powerless to help us. In the second (as you shall
presently judge), Mr. Seegrave was fast approaching the
condition of a superintendent at his wits' end.
Having ferreted about all over the "boudoir," without
making any discoveries among the furniture, our experienced
officer applied to me to know, whether the servants in
general were or were not acquainted with the place in which
the Diamond had been put for the night.
"I knew where it was put, sir," I said, "to begin with.
Samuel, the footman, knew also—for he was present in the
hall, when they were talking about where the Diamond was to
be kept that night. My daughter knew, as she has already
told you. She or Samuel may have mentioned the thing to the
other servants—or the other servants may have heard the talk
for themselves, through the side-door of the hall, which
might have been open to the back staircase. For all I can
tell, everybody in the house may have known where the jewel
was, last night."
My answer presenting rather a wide field for Mr.
Superintendent's suspicions to range over, he tried to
narrow it by asking about the servants' characters next.
I thought directly of Rosanna Spearman. But it was
neither my place nor my wish to direct suspicion against a
poor girl, whose honesty had been above all doubt as long as
I had known her. The matron at the Reformatory had reported
her to my lady as a sincerely penitent and thoroughly
trustworthy girl. It was the Superintendent's business to
discover reason for suspecting her first—and then, and not
till then, it would be my duty to tell him how she came into
my lady's service. "All our people have excellent
characters," I said. "And all have deserved the trust their
mistress has placed in them." After that, there was but one
thing left for Mr. Seegrave to do—namely, to set to work,
and tackle the servants' characters himself.
One after another, they were examined. One after another,
they proved to have nothing to say—and said it (so far as
the women were concerned) at great length, and with a very
angry sense of the embargo laid on their bed-rooms. The rest
of them being sent back to their places downstairs, Penelope
was then summoned, and examined separately a second time.
My daughter's little outbreak of temper in the "boudoir,"
and her readiness to think herself suspected, appeared to
have produced an unfavourable impression on Superintendent
Seegrave. It seemed also to dwell a little on his mind, that
she had been the last person who saw the Diamond at night.
When the second questioning was over, my girl came back to
me in a frenzy. There was no doubt of it any longer—the
police-officer had almost as good as told her she was the
thief! I could scarcely believe him (taking Mr. Franklin's
view) to be quite such an ass as that. But, though he said
nothing, the eye with which he looked at my daughter was not
a very pleasant eye to see. I laughed it off with poor
Penelope, as something too ridiculous to be treated
seriously—which it certainly was. Secretly, I am afraid I
was foolish enough to be angry too. It was a little
trying—it was, indeed. My girl sat down in a corner, with
her apron over her head, quite broken-hearted. Foolish of
her, you will say. She might have waited till he openly
accused her. Well, being a man of just an equal temper, I
admit that. Still Mr. Superintendent might have
remembered—never mind what he might have remembered. The
devil take him!
The next and last step in the investigation brought
matters, as they say, to a crisis. The officer had an
interview (at which I was present) with my lady. After
informing her that the Diamond must have been taken by
somebody in the house, he requested permission for himself
and his men to search the servants' rooms and boxes on the
spot. My good mistress, like the generous high-bred woman
she was, refused to let us be treated like thieves. "I will
never consent to make such a return as that," she said, "for
all I owe to the faithful servants who are employed in my
house."
Mr. Superintendent made his bow, with a look in my
direction, which said plainly, "Why employ me, if you are to
tie my hands in this way?" As head of the servants, I felt
directly that we were bound, in justice to all parties, not
to profit by our mistress's generosity. "We gratefully thank
your ladyship," I said; "but we ask your permission to do
what is right in this matter by giving up our keys. When
Gabriel Betteredge sets the example," says I, stopping
Superintendent Seegrave at the door, "the rest of the
servants will follow, I promise you. There are my keys, to
begin with!" My lady took me by the hand, and thanked me
with the tears in her eyes. Lord! what would I not have
given, at that moment, for the privilege of knocking
Superintendent Seegrave down!
As I had promised for them, the other servants followed
my lead, sorely against the grain, of course, but all taking
the view that I took. The women were a sight to see, while
the police-officers were rummaging among their things. The
cook looked as if she could grill Mr. Superintendent alive
on a furnace, and the other women looked as if they could
eat him when he was done.
The search over, and no Diamond or sign of a Diamond
being found, of course, anywhere, Superintendent Seegrave
retired to my little room to consider with himself what he
was to do next. He and his men had now been hours in the
house, and had not advanced us one inch towards a discovery
of how the Moonstone had been taken, or of whom we were to
suspect as the thief.
While the police-officer was still pondering in solitude,
I was sent for to see Mr. Franklin in the library. To my
unutterable astonishment, just as my hand was on the door,
it was suddenly opened from the inside, and out walked
Rosanna Spearman!
After the library had been swept and cleaned in the
morning, neither first nor second housemaid had any business
in that room at any later period of the day. I stopped
Rosanna Spearman, and charged her with a breach of domestic
discipline on the spot.
"What might you want in the library at this time of day?"
I inquired.
"Mr. Franklin Blake dropped one of his rings up-stairs,"
says Rosanna; "and I have been into the library to give it
to him." The girl's face was all in a flush as she made me
that answer; and she walked away with a toss of her head and
a look of self-importance which I was quite at a loss to
account for. The proceedings in the house had doubtless
upset all the women-servants more or less; but none of them
had gone clean out of their natural characters, as Rosanna,
to all appearance, had now gone out of hers.
I found Mr. Franklin writing at the library-table. He
asked for a conveyance to the railway station the moment I
entered the room. The first sound of his voice informed me
that we now had the resolute side of him uppermost once
more. The man made of cotton had disappeared; and the man
made of iron sat before me again.
"Going to London, sir?" I asked.
"Going to telegraph to London," says Mr. Franklin. "I
have convinced my aunt that we must have a cleverer head
than Superintendent Seegrave's to help us; and I have got
her permission to despatch a telegram to my father. He knows
the Chief Commissioner of Police, and the Commissioner can
lay his hand on the right man to solve the mystery of the
Diamond. Talking of mysteries, by-the-bye," says Mr.
Franklin, dropping his voice, "I have another word to say to
you before you go to the stables. Don't breathe a word of it
to anybody as yet; but either Rosanna Spearman's head is not
quite right, or I am afraid she knows more about the
Moonstone than she ought to know."
I can hardly tell whether I was more startled or
distressed at hearing him say that. If I had been younger, I
might have confessed as much to Mr. Franklin. But when you
are old, you acquire one excellent habit. In cases where you
don't see your way clearly, you hold your tongue.
"She came in here with a ring I dropped in my bed-room,"
Mr. Franklin went on. "When I had thanked her, of course I
expected her to go. Instead of that, she stood opposite to
me at the table, looking at me in the oddest manner—half
frightened, and half familiar—I couldn't make it out. 'This
is a strange thing about the Diamond, sir,' she said, in a
curiously sudden, headlong way. I said, 'Yes, it was,' and
wondered what was coming next. Upon my honour, Betteredge, I
think she must be wrong in the head! She said, 'They will
never find the Diamond, sir, will they? No! nor the person
who took it—I'll answer for that.' She actually nodded and
smiled at me! Before I could ask her what she meant, we
heard your step outside. I suppose she was afraid of your
catching her here. At any rate, she changed colour, and left
the room. What on earth does it mean?"
I could not bring myself to tell him the girl's story,
even then. It would have been almost as good as telling him
that she was the thief. Besides, even if I had made a clean
breast of it, and even supposing she was the thief, the
reason why she should let out her secret to Mr. Franklin, of
all the people in the world, would have been still as far to
seek as ever.
"I can't bear the idea of getting the poor girl into a
scrape, merely because she has a flighty way with her, and
talks very strangely," Mr. Franklin went on. "And yet if she
had said to, the Superintendent what she said to me, fool as
he is, I'm afraid——" He stopped there, and left the rest
unspoken.
"The best way, sir," I said, "will be for me to say two
words privately to my mistress about it at the first
opportunity. My lady has a very friendly interest in
Rosanna; and the girl may only have been forward and
foolish, after all. When there's a mess of any kind in a
house, sir, the women-servants like to look at the gloomy
side—it gives the poor wretches a kind of importance in
their own eyes. If there's anybody ill, trust the women for
prophesying that the person will die. If it's a jewel lost,
trust them for prophesying that it will never be found
again."
This view (which I am bound to say, I thought a probable
view myself, on reflection) seemed to relieve Mr. Franklin
mightily: he folded up his telegram, and dismissed the
subject. On my way to the stables, to order the pony-chaise,
I looked in at the servants' hall, where they were at
dinner. Rosanna Spearman was not among them. On inquiry, I
found that she had been suddenly taken ill, and had gone
up-stairs to her own room to lie down.
"Curious! She looked well enough when I saw her last," I
remarked.
Penelope followed me out. "Don't talk in that way before
the rest of them, father," she said. "You only make them
harder on Rosanna than ever. The poor thing is breaking her
heart about Mr. Franklin Blake."
Here was another view of the girl's conduct. If it was
possible for Penelope to be right, the explanation of
Rosanna's strange language and behaviour might have been all
in this—that she didn't care what she said, so long as she
could surprise Mr. Franklin into speaking to her. Granting
that to be the right reading of the riddle, it accounted,
perhaps, for her flighty, self-conceited manner when she
passed me in the hall. Though he had only said three words,
still she had carried her point, and Mr. Franklin had spoken
to her.
I saw the pony harnessed myself. In the infernal network
of mysteries and uncertainties that now surrounded us, I
declare it was a relief to observe how well the buckles and
straps understood each other! When you had seen the pony
backed into the shafts of the chaise, you had seen something
there was no doubt about. And that, let me tell you, was
becoming a treat of the rarest kind in our household.
Going round with the chaise to the front door, I found
not only Mr. Franklin, but Mr. Godfrey and Superintendent
Seegrave also waiting for me on the steps.
Mr. Superintendent's reflections (after failing to find
the Diamond in the servants' rooms or boxes) had led him, it
appeared, to an entirely new conclusion. Still sticking to
his first text, namely, that somebody in the house had
stolen the jewel, our experienced officer was now of the
opinion that the thief (he was wise enough not to name poor
Penelope, whatever he might privately think of her!) had
been acting in concert with the Indians; and he accordingly
proposed shifting his inquiries to the jugglers in the
prison at Frizinghall. Hearing of this new move, Mr.
Franklin had volunteered to take the Superintendent back to
the town, from which he could telegraph to London as easily
as from our station. Mr. Godfrey, still devoutly believing
in Mr. Seegrave, and greatly interested in witnessing the
examination of the Indians, had begged leave to accompany
the officer to Frizinghall. One of the two inferior
policemen was to be left at the house, in case anything
happened. The other was to go back with the Superintendent
to the town. So the four places in the pony-chaise were just
filled.
Before he took the reins to drive off, Mr. Franklin
walked me away a few steps out of hearing of the others.
"I will wait to telegraph to London," he said, "till I
see what comes of our examination of the Indians. My own
conviction is, that this muddle-headed local police-officer
is as much in the dark as ever, and is simply trying to gain
time. The idea of any of the servants being in league with
the Indians is a preposterous absurdity, in my opinion. Keep
about the house, Betteredge, till I come back, and try what
you can make of Rosanna Spearman. I don't ask you to do
anything degrading to your own self-respect, or anything
cruel towards the girl. I only ask you to exercise your
observation more carefully than usual. We will make as light
of it as we can before my aunt—but this is a more important
matter than you may suppose."
"It is a matter of twenty thousand pounds, sir," I said,
thinking of the value of the Diamond.
"It's a matter of quieting Rachel's mind," answered Mr.
Franklin gravely. "I am very uneasy about her."
He left me suddenly; as if he desired to cut short any
further talk between us. I thought I understood why. Further
talk might have let me into the secret of what Miss Rachel
had said to him on the terrace.
So they drove away to Frizinghall. I was ready enough, in
the girl's own interest, to have a little talk with Rosanna
in private. But the needful opportunity failed to present
itself. She only came downstairs again at tea-time. When she
did appear, she was flighty and excited, had what they call
an hysterical attack, took a dose of sal-volatile by my
lady's order, and was sent back to her bed.
The day wore on to its end drearily and miserably enough,
I can tell you. Miss Rachel still kept her room, declaring
that she was too ill to come down to dinner that day. My
lady was in such low spirits about her daughter, that I
could not bring myself to make her additionally anxious, by
reporting what Rosanna Spearman had said to Mr. Franklin.
Penelope persisted in believing that she was to be forthwith
tried, sentenced, and transported for theft. The other women
took to their Bibles and hymn-books, and looked as sour as
verjuice over their reading—a result, which I have observed,
in my sphere of life, to follow generally on the performance
of acts of piety at unaccustomed periods of the day. As for
me, I hadn't even heart enough to open my ROBINSON CRUSOE. I
went out into the yard, and, being hard up for a little
cheerful society, set my chair by the kennels, and talked to
the dogs.
Half an hour before dinner-time, the two gentlemen came
back from Frizinghall, having arranged with Superintendent
Seegrave that he was to return to us the next day. They had
called on Mr. Murthwaite, the Indian traveller, at his
present residence, near the town. At Mr. Franklin's request,
he had kindly given them the benefit of his knowledge of the
language, in dealing with those two, out of the three
Indians, who knew nothing of English. The examination,
conducted carefully, and at great length, had ended in
nothing; not the shadow of a reason being discovered for
suspecting the jugglers of having tampered with any of our
servants. On reaching that conclusion, Mr. Franklin had sent
his telegraphic message to London, and there the matter now
rested till to-morrow came.
So much for the history of the day that followed the
birthday. Not a glimmer of light had broken in on us, so
far. A day or two after, however, the darkness lifted a
little. How, and with what result, you shall presently see.
CHAPTER XII
The Thursday night passed, and nothing happened. With the
Friday morning came two pieces of news.
Item the first: the baker's man declared he had met
Rosanna Spearman, on the previous afternoon, with a thick
veil on, walking towards Frizinghall by the foot-path way
over the moor. It seemed strange that anybody should be
mistaken about Rosanna, whose shoulder marked her out pretty
plainly, poor thing—but mistaken the man must have been; for
Rosanna, as you know, had been all the Thursday afternoon
ill up-stairs in her room.
Item the second came through the postman. Worthy Mr.
Candy had said one more of his many unlucky things, when he
drove off in the rain on the birthday night, and told me
that a doctor's skin was waterproof. In spite of his skin,
the wet had got through him. He had caught a chill that
night, and was now down with a fever. The last accounts,
brought by the postman, represented him to be
light-headed—talking nonsense as glibly, poor man, in his
delirium as he often talked it in his sober senses. We were
all sorry for the little doctor; but Mr. Franklin appeared
to regret his illness, chiefly on Miss Rachel's account.
From what he said to my lady, while I was in the room at
breakfast-time, he appeared to think that Miss Rachel—if the
suspense about the Moonstone was not soon set at rest—might
stand in urgent need of the best medical advice at our
disposal.
Breakfast had not been over long, when a telegram from
Mr. Blake, the elder, arrived, in answer to his son. It
informed us that he had laid hands (by help of his friend,
the Commissioner) on the right man to help us. The name of
him was Sergeant Cuff; and the arrival of him from London
might be expected by the morning train.
At reading the name of the new police-officer, Mr.
Franklin gave a start. It seems that he had heard some
curious anecdotes about Sergeant Cuff, from his father's
lawyer, during his stay in London.
"I begin to hope we are seeing the end of our anxieties
already," he said. "If half the stories I have heard are
true, when it comes to unravelling a mystery, there isn't
the equal in England of Sergeant Cuff!"
We all got excited and impatient as the time drew near
for the appearance of this renowned and capable character.
Superintendent Seegrave, returning to us at his appointed
time, and hearing that the Sergeant was expected, instantly
shut himself up in a room, with pen, ink, and paper, to make
notes of the Report which would be certainly expected from
him. I should have liked to have gone to the station myself,
to fetch the Sergeant. But my lady's carriage and horses
were not to be thought of, even for the celebrated Cuff; and
the pony-chaise was required later for Mr. Godfrey. He
deeply regretted being obliged to leave his aunt at such an
anxious time; and he kindly put off the hour of his
departure till as late as the last train, for the purpose of
hearing what the clever London police-officer thought of the
case. But on Friday night he must be in town, having a
Ladies' Charity, in difficulties, waiting to consult him on
Saturday morning.
When the time came for the Sergeant's arrival, I went
down to the gate to look out for him.
A fly from the railway drove up as I reached the lodge;
and out got a grizzled, elderly man, so miserably lean that
he looked as if he had not got an ounce of flesh on his
bones in any part of him. He was dressed all in decent
black, with a white cravat round his neck. His face was as
sharp as a hatchet, and the skin of it was as yellow and dry
and withered as an autumn leaf. His eyes, of a steely light
grey, had a very disconcerting trick, when they encountered
your eyes, of looking as if they expected something more
from you than you were aware of yourself. His walk was soft;
his voice was melancholy; his long lanky fingers were hooked
like claws. He might have been a parson, or an undertaker—or
anything else you like, except what he really was. A more
complete opposite to Superintendent Seegrave than Sergeant
Cuff, and a less comforting officer to look at, for a family
in distress, I defy you to discover, search where you may.
"Is this Lady Verinder's?" he asked.
"Yes, sir."
"I am Sergeant Cuff."
"This way, sir, if you please."
On our road to the house, I mentioned my name and
position in the family, to satisfy him that he might speak
to me about the business on which my lady was to employ him.
Not a word did he say about the business, however, for all
that. He admired the grounds, and remarked that he felt the
sea air very brisk and refreshing. I privately wondered, on
my side, how the celebrated Cuff had got his reputation. We
reached the house, in the temper of two strange dogs,
coupled up together for the first time in their lives by the
same chain.
Asking for my lady, and hearing that she was in one of
the conservatories, we went round to the gardens at the
back, and sent a servant to seek her. While we were waiting,
Sergeant Cuff looked through the evergreen arch on our left,
spied out our rosery, and walked straight in, with the first
appearance of anything like interest that he had shown yet.
To the gardener's astonishment, and to my disgust, this
celebrated policeman proved to be quite a mine of learning
on the trumpery subject of rose-gardens.
"Ah, you've got the right exposure here to the south and
sou'-west," says the Sergeant, with a wag of his grizzled
head, and a streak of pleasure in his melancholy voice.
"This is the shape for a rosery—nothing like a circle set in
a square. Yes, yes; with walks between all the beds. But
they oughtn't to be gravel walks like these. Grass, Mr.
Gardener—grass walks between your roses; gravel's too hard
for them. That's a sweet pretty bed of white roses and blush
roses. They always mix well together, don't they? Here's the
white musk rose, Mr. Betteredge—our old English rose holding
up its head along with the best and the newest of them.
Pretty dear!" says the Sergeant, fondling the Musk Rose with
his lanky fingers, and speaking to it as if he was speaking
to a child.
This was a nice sort of man to recover Miss Rachel's
Diamond, and to find out the thief who stole it!
"You seem to be fond of roses, Sergeant?" I remarked.
"I haven't much time to be fond of anything," says
Sergeant Cuff. "But when I have a moment's fondness
to bestow, most times, Mr. Betteredge, the roses get it. I
began my life among them in my father's nursery garden, and
I shall end my life among them, if I can. Yes. One of these
days (please God) I shall retire from catching thieves, and
try my hand at growing roses. There will be grass walks, Mr.
Gardener, between my beds," says the Sergeant, on whose mind
the gravel paths of our rosery seemed to dwell unpleasantly.
"It seems an odd taste, sir," I ventured to say, "for a
man in your line of life."
"If you will look about you (which most people won't
do)," says Sergeant Cuff, "you will see that the nature of a
man's tastes is, most times, as opposite as possible to the
nature of a man's business. Show me any two things more
opposite one from the other than a rose and a thief; and
I'll correct my tastes accordingly—if it isn't too late at
my time of life. You find the damask rose a goodish stock
for most of the tender sorts, don't you, Mr. Gardener? Ah! I
thought so. Here's a lady coming. Is it Lady Verinder?"
He had seen her before either I or the gardener had seen
her, though we knew which way to look, and he didn't. I
began to think him rather a quicker man than he appeared to
be at first sight.
The Sergeant's appearance, or the Sergeant's errand—one
or both—seemed to cause my lady some little embarrassment.
She was, for the first time in all my experience of her, at
a loss what to say at an interview with a stranger. Sergeant
Cuff put her at her ease directly. He asked if any other
person had been employed about the robbery before we sent
for him; and hearing that another person had been called in,
and was now in the house, begged leave to speak to him
before anything else was done.
My lady led the way back. Before he followed her, the
Sergeant relieved his mind on the subject of the gravel
walks by a parting word to the gardener. "Get her ladyship
to try grass," he said, with a sour look at the paths. "No
gravel! no gravel!"
Why Superintendent Seegrave should have appeared to be
several sizes smaller than life, on being presented to
Sergeant Cuff, I can't undertake to explain. I can only
state the fact. They retired together; and remained a weary
long time shut up from all mortal intrusion. When they came
out, Mr. Superintendent was excited, and Mr. Sergeant was
yawning.
"The Sergeant wishes to see Miss Verinder's
sitting-room," says Mr. Seegrave, addressing me with great
pomp and eagerness. "The Sergeant may have some questions to
ask. Attend the Sergeant, if you please!"
While I was being ordered about in this way, I looked at
the great Cuff. The great Cuff, on his side, looked at
Superintendent Seegrave in that quietly expecting way which
I have already noticed. I can't affirm that he was on the
watch for his brother officer's speedy appearance in the
character of an Ass—I can only say that I strongly suspected
it.
I led the way up-stairs. The Sergeant went softly all
over the Indian cabinet and all round the "boudoir;" asking
questions (occasionally only of Mr. Superintendent, and
continually of me), the drift of which I believe to have
been equally unintelligible to both of us. In due time, his
course brought him to the door, and put him face to face
with the decorative painting that you know of. He laid one
lean inquiring finger on the small smear, just under the
lock, which Superintendent Seegrave had already noticed,
when he reproved the women-servants for all crowding
together into the room.
"That's a pity," says Sergeant Cuff. "How did it happen?"
He put the question to me. I answered that the
women-servants had crowded into the room on the previous
morning, and that some of their petticoats had done the
mischief, "Superintendent Seegrave ordered them out, sir," I
added, "before they did any more harm."
"Right!" says Mr. Superintendent in his military way. "I
ordered them out. The petticoats did it, Sergeant—the
petticoats did it."
"Did you notice which petticoat did it?" asked Sergeant
Cuff, still addressing himself, not to his brother-officer,
but to me.
"No, sir."
He turned to Superintendent Seegrave upon that, and said,
"You noticed, I suppose?"
Mr. Superintendent looked a little taken aback; but he
made the best of it. "I can't charge my memory, Sergeant,"
he said, "a mere trifle—a mere trifle."
Sergeant Cuff looked at Mr. Seegrave, as he had looked at
the gravel walks in the rosery, and gave us, in his
melancholy way, the first taste of his quality which we had
had yet.
"I made a private inquiry last week, Mr. Superintendent,"
he said. "At one end of the inquiry there was a murder, and
at the other end there was a spot of ink on a table cloth
that nobody could account for. In all my experience along
the dirtiest ways of this dirty little world, I have never
met with such a thing as a trifle yet. Before we go a step
further in this business we must see the petticoat that made
the smear, and we must know for certain when that paint was
wet."
Mr. Superintendent—taking his set-down rather
sulkily—asked if he should summon the women. Sergeant Cuff,
after considering a minute, sighed, and shook his head.
"No," he said, "we'll take the matter of the paint first.
It's a question of Yes or No with the paint—which is short.
It's a question of petticoats with the women—which is long.
What o'clock was it when the servants were in this room
yesterday morning? Eleven o'clock—eh? Is there anybody in
the house who knows whether that paint was wet or dry, at
eleven yesterday morning?"
"Her ladyship's nephew, Mr. Franklin Blake, knows," I
said.
"Is the gentleman in the house?"
Mr. Franklin was as close at hand as could be—waiting for
his first chance of being introduced to the great Cuff. In
half a minute he was in the room, and was giving his
evidence as follows:
"That door, Sergeant," he said, "has been painted by Miss
Verinder, under my inspection, with my help, and in a
vehicle of my own composition. The vehicle dries whatever
colours may be used with it, in twelve hours."
"Do you remember when the smeared bit was done, sir?"
asked the Sergeant.
"Perfectly," answered Mr. Franklin. "That was the last
morsel of the door to be finished. We wanted to get it done,
on Wednesday last—and I myself completed it by three in the
afternoon, or soon after."
"To-day is Friday," said Sergeant Cuff, addressing
himself to Superintendent Seegrave. "Let us reckon back,
sir. At three on the Wednesday afternoon, that bit of the
painting was completed. The vehicle dried it in twelve
hours—that is to say, dried it by three o'clock on Thursday
morning. At eleven on Thursday morning you held your inquiry
here. Take three from eleven, and eight remains. That paint
had been EIGHT HOURS DRY, Mr. Superintendent, when you
supposed that the women-servants' petticoats smeared it."
First knock-down blow for Mr. Seegrave! If he had not
suspected poor Penelope, I should have pitied him.
Having settled the question of the paint, Sergeant Cuff,
from that moment, gave his brother-officer up as a bad
job—and addressed himself to Mr. Franklin, as the more
promising assistant of the two.
"It's quite on the cards, sir," he said, "that you have
put the clue into our hands."
As the words passed his lips, the bedroom door opened,
and Miss Rachel came out among us suddenly.
She addressed herself to the Sergeant, without appearing
to notice (or to heed) that he was a perfect stranger to
her.
"Did you say," she asked, pointing to Mr. Franklin, "that
HE had put the clue into your hands?"
("This is Miss Verinder," I whispered, behind the
Sergeant.)
"That gentleman, miss," says the Sergeant—with his
steely-grey eyes carefully studying my young lady's
face—"has possibly put the clue into our hands."
She turned for one moment, and tried to look at Mr.
Franklin. I say, tried, for she suddenly looked away again
before their eyes met. There seemed to be some strange
disturbance in her mind. She coloured up, and then she
turned pale again. With the paleness, there came a new look
into her face—a look which it startled me to see.
"Having answered your question, miss," says the Sergeant,
"I beg leave to make an inquiry in my turn. There is a smear
on the painting of your door, here. Do you happen to know
when it was done? or who did it?"
Instead of making any reply, Miss Rachel went on with her
questions, as if he had not spoken, or as if she had not
heard him.
"Are you another police-officer?" she asked.
"I am Sergeant Cuff, miss, of the Detective Police."
"Do you think a young lady's advice worth having?"
"I shall be glad to hear it, miss."
"Do your duty by yourself—and don't allow Mr Franklin
Blake to help you!"
She said those words so spitefully, so savagely, with
such an extraordinary outbreak of ill-will towards Mr.
Franklin, in her voice and in her look, that—though I had
known her from a baby, though I loved and honoured her next
to my lady herself—I was ashamed of Miss Rachel for the
first time in my life.
Sergeant Cuff's immovable eyes never stirred from off her
face. "Thank you, miss," he said. "Do you happen to know
anything about the smear? Might you have done it by accident
yourself?"
"I know nothing about the smear."
With that answer, she turned away, and shut herself up
again in her bed-room. This time, I heard her—as Penelope
had heard her before—burst out crying as soon as she was
alone again.
I couldn't bring myself to look at the Sergeant—I looked
at Mr. Franklin, who stood nearest to me. He seemed to be
even more sorely distressed at what had passed than I was.
"I told you I was uneasy about her," he said. "And now
you see why."
"Miss Verinder appears to be a little out of temper about
the loss of her Diamond," remarked the Sergeant. "It's a
valuable jewel. Natural enough! natural enough!"
Here was the excuse that I had made for her (when she
forgot herself before Superintendent Seegrave, on the
previous day) being made for her over again, by a man who
couldn't have had MY interest in making it—for he was a
perfect stranger! A kind of cold shudder ran through me,
which I couldn't account for at the time. I know, now, that
I must have got my first suspicion, at that moment, of a new
light (and horrid light) having suddenly fallen on the case,
in the mind of Sergeant Cuff—purely and entirely in
consequence of what he had seen in Miss Rachel, and heard
from Miss Rachel, at that first interview between them.
"A young lady's tongue is a privileged member, sir," says
the Sergeant to Mr. Franklin. "Let us forget what has
passed, and go straight on with this business. Thanks to
you, we know when the paint was dry. The next thing to
discover is when the paint was last seen without that smear.
YOU have got a head on your shoulders—and you understand
what I mean."
Mr. Franklin composed himself, and came back with an
effort from Miss Rachel to the matter in hand.
"I think I do understand," he said. "The more we narrow
the question of time, the more we also narrow the field of
inquiry."
"That's it, sir," said the Sergeant. "Did you notice your
work here, on the Wednesday afternoon, after you had done
it?"
Mr. Franklin shook his head, and answered, "I can't say I
did."
"Did you?" inquired Sergeant Cuff, turning to me.
"I can't say I did either, sir."
"Who was the last person in the room, the last thing on
Wednesday night?"
"Miss Rachel, I suppose, sir."
Mr. Franklin struck in there, "Or possibly your daughter,
Betteredge." He turned to Sergeant Cuff, and explained that
my daughter was Miss Verinder's maid.
"Mr. Betteredge, ask your daughter to step up. Stop!"
says the Sergeant, taking me away to the window, out of
earshot, "Your Superintendent here," he went on, in a
whisper, "has made a pretty full report to me of the manner
in which he has managed this case. Among other things, he
has, by his own confession, set the servants' backs up. It's
very important to smooth them down again. Tell your
daughter, and tell the rest of them, these two things, with
my compliments: First, that I have no evidence before me,
yet, that the Diamond has been stolen; I only know that the
Diamond has been lost. Second, that my business here with
the servants is simply to ask them to lay their heads
together and help me to find it."
My experience of the women-servants, when Superintendent
Seegrave laid his embargo on their rooms, came in handy
here.
"May I make so bold, Sergeant, as to tell the women a
third thing?" I asked. "Are they free (with your
compliments) to fidget up and downstairs, and whisk in and
out of their bed-rooms, if the fit takes them?"
"Perfectly free," said the Sergeant.
"THAT will smooth them down, sir," I remarked, "from the
cook to the scullion."
"Go, and do it at once, Mr. Betteredge."
I did it in less than five minutes. There was only one
difficulty when I came to the bit about the bed-rooms. It
took a pretty stiff exertion of my authority, as chief, to
prevent the whole of the female household from following me
and Penelope up-stairs, in the character of volunteer
witnesses in a burning fever of anxiety to help Sergeant
Cuff.
The Sergeant seemed to approve of Penelope. He became a
trifle less dreary; and he looked much as he had looked when
he noticed the white musk rose in the flower-garden. Here is
my daughter's evidence, as drawn off from her by the
Sergeant. She gave it, I think, very prettily—but, there!
she is my child all over: nothing of her mother in her; Lord
bless you, nothing of her mother in her!
Penelope examined: Took a lively interest in the painting
on the door, having helped to mix the colours. Noticed the
bit of work under the lock, because it was the last bit
done. Had seen it, some hours afterwards, without a smear.
Had left it, as late as twelve at night, without a smear.
Had, at that hour, wished her young lady good night in the
bedroom; had heard the clock strike in the "boudoir"; had
her hand at the time on the handle of the painted door; knew
the paint was wet (having helped to mix the colours, as
aforesaid); took particular pains not to touch it; could
swear that she held up the skirts of her dress, and that
there was no smear on the paint then; could not swear that
her dress mightn't have touched it accidentally in going
out; remembered the dress she had on, because it was new, a
present from Miss Rachel; her father remembered, and could
speak to it, too; could, and would, and did fetch it; dress
recognised by her father as the dress she wore that night;
skirts examined, a long job from the size of them; not the
ghost of a paint-stain discovered anywhere. End of
Penelope's evidence—and very pretty and convincing, too.
Signed, Gabriel Betteredge.
The Sergeant's next proceeding was to question me about
any large dogs in the house who might have got into the
room, and done the mischief with a whisk of their tails.
Hearing that this was impossible, he next sent for a
magnifying-glass, and tried how the smear looked, seen that
way. No skin-mark (as of a human hand) printed off on the
paint. All the signs visible—signs which told that the paint
had been smeared by some loose article of somebody's dress
touching it in going by. That somebody (putting together
Penelope's evidence and Mr. Franklin's evidence) must have
been in the room, and done the mischief, between midnight
and three o'clock on the Thursday morning.
Having brought his investigation to this point, Sergeant
Cuff discovered that such a person as Superintendent
Seegrave was still left in the room, upon which he summed up
the proceedings for his brother-officer's benefit, as
follows:
"This trifle of yours, Mr. Superintendent," says the
Sergeant, pointing to the place on the door, "has grown a
little in importance since you noticed it last. At the
present stage of the inquiry there are, as I take it, three
discoveries to make, starting from that smear. Find out
(first) whether there is any article of dress in this house
with the smear of the paint on it. Find out (second) who
that dress belongs to. Find out (third) how the person can
account for having been in this room, and smeared the paint,
between midnight and three in the morning. If the person
can't satisfy you, you haven't far to look for the hand that
has got the Diamond. I'll work this by myself, if you
please, and detain you no longer-from your regular business
in the town. You have got one of your men here, I see. Leave
him here at my disposal, in case I want him—and allow me to
wish you good morning."
Superintendent Seegrave's respect for the Sergeant was
great; but his respect for himself was greater still. Hit
hard by the celebrated Cuff, he hit back smartly, to the
best of his ability, on leaving the room.
"I have abstained from expressing any opinion, so far,"
says Mr. Superintendent, with his military voice still in
good working order. "I have now only one remark to offer on
leaving this case in your hands. There IS such a thing,
Sergeant, as making a mountain out of a molehill. Good
morning."
"There is also such a thing as making nothing out of a
molehill, in consequence of your head being too high to see
it." Having returned his brother-officer's compliments in
those terms, Sergeant Cuff wheeled about, and walked away to
the window by himself.
Mr. Franklin and I waited to see what was coming next.
The Sergeant stood at the window with his hands in his
pockets, looking out, and whistling the tune of "The Last
Rose of Summer" softly to himself. Later in the proceedings,
I discovered that he only forgot his manners so far as to
whistle, when his mind was hard at work, seeing its way inch
by inch to its own private ends, on which occasions "The
Last Rose of Summer" evidently helped and encouraged him. I
suppose it fitted in somehow with his character. It reminded
him, you see, of his favourite roses, and, as HE whistled
it, it was the most melancholy tune going.
Turning from the window, after a minute or two, the
Sergeant walked into the middle of the room, and stopped
there, deep in thought, with his eyes on Miss Rachel's
bed-room door. After a little he roused himself, nodded his
head, as much as to say, "That will do," and, addressing me,
asked for ten minutes' conversation with my mistress, at her
ladyship's earliest convenience.
Leaving the room with this message, I heard Mr. Franklin
ask the Sergeant a question, and stopped to hear the answer
also at the threshold of the door.
"Can you guess yet," inquired Mr. Franklin, "who has
stolen the Diamond?"
"NOBODY HAS STOLEN THE DIAMOND," answered Sergeant Cuff.
We both started at that extraordinary view of the case,
and both earnestly begged him to tell us what he meant.
"Wait a little," said the Sergeant. "The pieces of the
puzzle are not all put together yet."
CHAPTER XIII
I found my lady in her own sitting room. She started and
looked annoyed when I mentioned that Sergeant Cuff wished to
speak to her.
"MUST I see him?" she asked. "Can't you represent me,
Gabriel?"
I felt at a loss to understand this, and showed it
plainly, I suppose, in my face. My lady was so good as to
explain herself.
"I am afraid my nerves are a little shaken," she said.
"There is something in that police-officer from London which
I recoil from—I don't know why. I have a presentiment that
he is bringing trouble and misery with him into the house.
Very foolish, and very unlike ME—but so it is."
I hardly knew what to say to this. The more I saw of
Sergeant Cuff, the better I liked him. My lady rallied a
little after having opened her heart to me—being, naturally,
a woman of a high courage, as I have already told you.
"If I must see him, I must," she said. "But I can't
prevail on myself to see him alone. Bring him in, Gabriel,
and stay here as long as he stays."
This was the first attack of the megrims that I
remembered in my mistress since the time when she was a
young girl. I went back to the "boudoir." Mr. Franklin
strolled out into the garden, and joined Mr. Godfrey, whose
time for departure was now drawing near. Sergeant Cuff and I
went straight to my mistress's room.
I declare my lady turned a shade paler at the sight of
him! She commanded herself, however, in other respects, and
asked the Sergeant if he had any objection to my being
present. She was so good as to add, that I was her trusted
adviser, as well as her old servant, and that in anything
which related to the household I was the person whom it
might be most profitable to consult. The Sergeant politely
answered that he would take my presence as a favour, having
something to say about the servants in general, and having
found my experience in that quarter already of some use to
him. My lady pointed to two chairs, and we set in for our
conference immediately.
"I have already formed an opinion on this case," says
Sergeant Cuff, "which I beg your ladyship's permission to
keep to myself for the present. My business now is to
mention what I have discovered upstairs in Miss Verinder's
sitting-room, and what I have decided (with your ladyship's
leave) on doing next."
He then went into the matter of the smear on the paint,
and stated the conclusions he drew from it—just as he had
stated them (only with greater respect of language) to
Superintendent Seegrave. "One thing," he said, in
conclusion, "is certain. The Diamond is missing out of the
drawer in the cabinet. Another thing is next to certain. The
marks from the smear on the door must be on some article of
dress belonging to somebody in this house. We must discover
that article of dress before we go a step further."
"And that discovery," remarked my mistress, "implies, I
presume, the discovery of the thief?"
"I beg your ladyship's pardon—I don't say the Diamond is
stolen. I only say, at present, that the Diamond is missing.
The discovery of the stained dress may lead the way to
finding it."
Her ladyship looked at me. "Do you understand this?" she
said.
"Sergeant Cuff understands it, my lady," I answered.
"How do you propose to discover the stained dress?"
inquired my mistress, addressing herself once more to the
Sergeant. "My good servants, who have been with me for
years, have, I am ashamed to say, had their boxes and rooms
searched already by the other officer. I can't and won't
permit them to be insulted in that way a second time!"
(There was a mistress to serve! There was a woman in ten
thousand, if you like!)
"That is the very point I was about to put to your
ladyship," said the Sergeant. "The other officer has done a
world of harm to this inquiry, by letting the servants see
that he suspected them. If I give them cause to think
themselves suspected a second time, there's no knowing what
obstacles they may not throw in my way—the women especially.
At the same time, their boxes must be searched again—for
this plain reason, that the first investigation only looked
for the Diamond, and that the second investigation must look
for the stained dress. I quite agree with you, my lady, that
the servants' feelings ought to be consulted. But I am
equally clear that the servants' wardrobes ought to be
searched."
This looked very like a dead-lock. My lady said so, in
choicer language than mine.
"I have got a plan to meet the difficulty," said Sergeant
Cuff, "if your ladyship will consent to it. I propose
explaining the case to the servants."
"The women will think themselves suspected directly, I
said, interrupting him.
"The women won't, Mr. Betteredge," answered the Sergeant,
"if I can tell them I am going to examine the wardrobes of
EVERYBODY—from her ladyship downwards—who slept in the house
on Wednesday night. It's a mere formality," he added, with a
side look at my mistress; "but the servants will accept it
as even dealing between them and their betters; and, instead
of hindering the investigation, they will make a point of
honour of assisting it."
I saw the truth of that. My lady, after her first
surprise was over, saw the truth of it also.
"You are certain the investigation is necessary?" she
said.
"It's the shortest way that I can see, my lady, to the
end we have in view."
My mistress rose to ring the bell for her maid. "You
shall speak to the servants," she said, "with the keys of my
wardrobe in your hand."
Sergeant Cuff stopped her by a very unexpected question.
"Hadn't we better make sure first," he asked, "that the
other ladies and gentlemen in the house will consent, too?"
"The only other lady in the house is Miss Verinder,"
answered my mistress, with a look of surprise. "The only
gentlemen are my nephews, Mr. Blake and Mr. Ablewhite. There
is not the least fear of a refusal from any of the three."
I reminded my lady here that Mr. Godfrey was going away.
As I said the words, Mr. Godfrey himself knocked at the door
to say good-bye, and was followed in by Mr. Franklin, who
was going with him to the station. My lady explained the
difficulty. Mr. Godfrey settled it directly. He called to
Samuel, through the window, to take his portmanteau
up-stairs again, and he then put the key himself into
Sergeant Cuff's hand. "My luggage can follow me to London,"
he said, "when the inquiry is over." The Sergeant received
the key with a becoming apology. "I am sorry to put you to
any inconvenience, sir, for a mere formality; but the
example of their betters will do wonders in reconciling the
servants to this inquiry." Mr. Godfrey, after taking leave
of my lady, in a most sympathising manner? left a farewell
message for Miss Rachel, the terms of which made it clear to
my mind that he had not taken No for an answer, and that he
meant to put the marriage question to her once more, at the
next opportunity. Mr. Franklin, on following his cousin out,
informed the Sergeant that all his clothes were open to
examination, and that nothing he possessed was kept under
lock and key. Sergeant Cuff made his best acknowledgments.
His views, you will observe, had been met with the utmost
readiness by my lady, by Mr. Godfrey, and by Mr. Franklin.
There was only Miss. Rachel now wanting to follow their
lead, before we called the servants together, and began the
search for the stained dress.
My lady's unaccountable objection to the Sergeant seemed
to make our conference more distasteful to her than ever, as
soon as we were left alone again. "If I send you down Miss
Verinder's keys," she said to him, "I presume I shall have
done all you want of me for the present?"
"I beg your ladyship's pardon," said Sergeant Cuff.
"Before we begin, I should like, if convenient, to have the
washing-book. The stained article of dress may be an article
of linen. If the search leads to nothing, I want to be able
to account next for all the linen in the house, and for all
the linen sent to the wash. If there is an article missing,
there will be at least a presumption that it has got the
paint-stain on it, and that it has been purposely made away
with, yesterday or to-day, by the person owning it.
Superintendent Seegrave," added the Sergeant, turning to me,
"pointed the attention of the women-servants to the smear,
when they all crowded into the room on Thursday morning.
That may turn out, Mr. Betteredge, to have been one more of
Superintendent Seegrave's many mistakes."
My lady desired me to ring the bell, and order the
washing-book. She remained with us until it was produced, in
case Sergeant Cuff had any further request to make of her
after looking at it.
The washing-book was brought in by Rosanna Spearman. The
girl had come down to breakfast that morning miserably pale
and haggard, but sufficiently recovered from her illness of
the previous day to do her usual work. Sergeant Cuff looked
attentively at our second housemaid—at her face, when she
came in; at her crooked shoulder, when she went out.
"Have you anything more to say to me?" asked my lady,
still as eager as ever to be out of the Sergeant's society.
The great Cuff opened the washing-book, understood it
perfectly in half a minute, and shut it up again. "I venture
to trouble your ladyship with one last question," he said.
"Has the young woman who brought us this book been in your
employment as long as the other servants?"
"Why do you ask?" said my lady.
"The last time I saw her," answered the Sergeant, "she
was in prison for theft."
After that, there was no help for it, but to tell him the
truth. My mistress dwelt strongly on Rosanna's good conduct
in her service, and on the high opinion entertained of her
by the matron at the reformatory. "You don't suspect her, I
hope?" my lady added, in conclusion, very earnestly.
"I have already told your ladyship that I don't suspect
any person in the house of thieving—up to the present time."
After that answer, my lady rose to go up-stairs, and ask
for Miss Rachel's keys. The Sergeant was before-hand with me
in opening the door for her. He made a very low bow. My lady
shuddered as she passed him.
We waited, and waited, and no keys appeared. Sergeant
Cuff made no remark to me. He turned his melancholy face to
the window; he put his lanky hands into his pockets; and he
whistled "The Last Rose of Summer" softly to himself.
At last, Samuel came in, not with the keys, but with a
morsel of paper for me. I got at my spectacles, with some
fumbling and difficulty, feeling the Sergeant's dismal eyes
fixed on me all the time. There were two or three lines on
the paper, written in pencil by my lady. They informed me
that Miss Rachel flatly refused to have her wardrobe
examined. Asked for her reasons, she had burst out crying.
Asked again, she had said: "I won't, because I won't. I must
yield to force if you use it, but I will yield to nothing
else." I understood my lady's disinclination to face
Sergeant Cuff with such an answer from her daughter as that.
If I had not been too old for the amiable weaknesses of
youth, I believe I should have blushed at the notion of
facing him myself.
"Any news of Miss Verinder's keys?" asked the Sergeant.
"My young lady refuses to have her wardrobe examined."
"Ah!" said the Sergeant.
His voice was not quite in such a perfect state of
discipline as his face. When he said "Ah!" he said it in the
tone of a man who had heard something which he expected to
hear. He half angered and half frightened me—why, I couldn't
tell, but he did it.
"Must the search be given up?" I asked.
"Yes," said the Sergeant, "the search must be given up,
because your young lady refuses to submit to it like the
rest. We must examine all the wardrobes in the house or
none. Send Mr. Ablewhite's portmanteau to London by the next
train, and return the washing-book, with my compliments and
thanks, to the young woman who brought it in."
He laid the washing-book on the table, and taking out his
penknife, began to trim his nails.
"You don't seem to be much disappointed," I said.
"No," said Sergeant Cuff; "I am not much disappointed."
I tried to make him explain himself.
"Why should Miss Rachel put an obstacle in your way?" I
inquired. "Isn't it her interest to help you?"
"Wait a little, Mr. Betteredge—wait a little."
Cleverer heads than mine might have seen his drift. Or a
person less fond of Miss Rachel than I was, might have seen
his drift. My lady's horror of him might (as I have since
thought) have meant that she saw his drift (as the scripture
says) "in a glass darkly." I didn't see it yet—that's all I
know.
"What's to be done next?" I asked.
Sergeant Cuff finished the nail on which he was then at
work, looked at it for a moment with a melancholy interest,
and put up his penknife.
"Come out into the garden," he said, "and let's have a
look at the roses."
CHAPTER XIV
The nearest way to the garden, on going out of my lady's
sitting-room, was by the shrubbery path, which you already
know of. For the sake of your better understanding of what
is now to come, I may add to this, that the shrubbery path
was Mr. Franklin's favourite walk. When he was out in the
grounds, and when we failed to find him anywhere else, we
generally found him here.
I am afraid I must own that I am rather an obstinate old
man. The more firmly Sergeant Cuff kept his thoughts shut up
from me, the more firmly I persisted in trying to look in at
them. As we turned into the shrubbery path, I attempted to
circumvent him in another way.
"As things are now," I said, "if I was in your place, I
should be at my wits' end."
"If you were in my place," answered the Sergeant, "you
would have formed an opinion—and, as things are now, any
doubt you might previously have felt about your own
conclusions would be completely set at rest. Never mind for
the present what those conclusions are, Mr. Betteredge. I
haven't brought you out here to draw me like a badger; I
have brought you out here to ask for some information. You
might have given it to me no doubt, in the house, instead of
out of it. But doors and listeners have a knack of getting
together; and, in my line of life, we cultivate a healthy
taste for the open air."
Who was to circumvent THIS man? I gave in—and waited as
patiently as I could to hear what was coming next.
"We won't enter into your young lady's motives," the
Sergeant went on; "we will only say it's a pity she declines
to assist me, because, by so doing, she makes this
investigation more difficult than it might otherwise have
been. We must now try to solve the mystery of the smear on
the door—which, you may take my word for it, means the
mystery of the Diamond also—in some other way. I have
decided to see the servants, and to search their thoughts
and actions, Mr. Betteredge, instead of searching their
wardrobes. Before I begin, however, I want to ask you a
question or two. You are an observant man—did you notice
anything strange in any of the servants (making due
allowance, of course, for fright and fluster), after the
loss of the Diamond was found out? Any particular quarrel
among them? Any one of them not in his or her usual spirits?
Unexpectedly out of temper, for instance? or unexpectedly
taken ill?"
I had just time to think of Rosanna Spearman's sudden
illness at yesterday's dinner—but not time to make any
answer—when I saw Sergeant Cuff's eyes suddenly turn aside
towards the shrubbery; and I heard him say softly to
himself, "Hullo!"
"What's the matter?" I asked.
"A touch of the rheumatics in my back," said the
Sergeant, in a loud voice, as if he wanted some third person
to hear us. "We shall have a change in the weather before
long."
A few steps further brought us to the corner of the
house. Turning off sharp to the right, we entered on the
terrace, and went down, by the steps in the middle, into the
garden below. Sergeant Cuff stopped there, in the open
space, where we could see round us on every side.
"About that young person, Rosanna Spearman?" he said. "It
isn't very likely, with her personal appearance, that she
has got a lover. But, for the girl's own sake, I must ask
you at once whether SHE has provided herself with a
sweetheart, poor wretch, like the rest of them?"
What on earth did he mean, under present circumstances,
by putting such a question to me as that? I stared at him,
instead of answering him.
"I saw Rosanna Spearman hiding in the shrubbery as we
went by," said the Sergeant.
"When you said 'Hullo'?"
"Yes—when I said 'Hullo!' If there's a sweetheart in the
case, the hiding doesn't much matter. If there isn't—as
things are in this house—the hiding is a highly suspicious
circumstance, and it will be my painful duty to act on it
accordingly."
What, in God's name, was I to say to him? I knew the
shrubbery was Mr. Franklin's favourite walk; I knew he would
most likely turn that way when he came back from the
station; I knew that Penelope had over and over again caught
her fellow-servant hanging about there, and had always
declared to me that Rosanna's object was to attract Mr.
Franklin's attention. If my daughter was right, she might
well have been lying in wait for Mr. Franklin's return when
the Sergeant noticed her. I was put between the two
difficulties of mentioning Penelope's fanciful notion as if
it was mine, or of leaving an unfortunate creature to suffer
the consequences, the very serious consequences, of exciting
the suspicion of Sergeant Cuff. Out of pure pity for the
girl—on my soul and my character, out of pure pity for the
girl—I gave the Sergeant the necessary explanations, and
told him that Rosanna had been mad enough to set her heart
on Mr. Franklin Blake.
Sergeant Cuff never laughed. On the few occasions when
anything amused him, he curled up a little at the corners of
the lips, nothing more. He curled up now.
"Hadn't you better say she's mad enough to be an ugly
girl and only a servant?" he asked. "The falling in love
with a gentleman of Mr. Franklin Blake's manners and
appearance doesn't seem to me to be the maddest part of her
conduct by any means. However, I'm glad the thing is cleared
up: it relieves one's mind to have things cleared up. Yes,
I'll keep it a secret, Mr. Betteredge. I like to be tender
to human infirmity—though I don't get many chances of
exercising that virtue in my line of life. You think Mr.
Franklin Blake hasn't got a suspicion of the girl's fancy
for him? Ah! he would have found it out fast enough if she
had been nice-looking. The ugly women have a bad time of it
in this world; let's hope it will be made up to them in
another. You have got a nice garden here, and a well-kept
lawn. See for yourself how much better the flowers look with
grass about them instead of gravel. No, thank you. I won't
take a rose. It goes to my heart to break them off the stem.
Just as it goes to your heart, you know, when there's
something wrong in the servants' hall. Did you notice
anything you couldn't account for in any of the servants
when the loss of the Diamond was first found out?"
I had got on very fairly well with Sergeant Cuff so far.
But the slyness with which he slipped in that last question
put me on my guard. In plain English, I didn't at all relish
the notion of helping his inquiries, when those inquiries
took him (in the capacity of snake in the grass) among my
fellow-servants.
"I noticed nothing," I said, "except that we all lost our
heads together, myself included."
"Oh," says the Sergeant, "that's all you have to tell me,
is it?"
I answered, with (as I flattered myself) an unmoved
countenance, "That is all."
Sergeant Cuff's dismal eyes looked me hard in the face.
"Mr. Betteredge," he said, "have you any objection to
oblige me by shaking hands? I have taken an extraordinary
liking to you."
(Why he should have chosen the exact moment when I was
deceiving him to give me that proof of his good opinion, is
beyond all comprehension! I felt a little proud—I really did
feel a little proud of having been one too many at last for
the celebrated Cuff!)
We went back to the house; the Sergeant requesting that I
would give him a room to himself, and then send in the
servants (the indoor servants only), one after another, in
the order of their rank, from first to last.
I showed Sergeant Cuff into my own room, and then called
the servants together in the hall. Rosanna Spearman appeared
among them, much as usual. She was as quick in her way as
the Sergeant in his, and I suspect she had heard what he
said to me about the servants in general, just before he
discovered her. There she was, at any rate, looking as if
she had never heard of such a place as the shrubbery in her
life.
I sent them in, one by one, as desired. The cook was the
first to enter the Court of Justice, otherwise my room. She
remained but a short time. Report, on coming out: "Sergeant
Cuff is depressed in his spirits; but Sergeant Cuff is a
perfect gentleman." My lady's own maid followed. Remained
much longer. Report, on coming out: "If Sergeant Cuff
doesn't believe a respectable woman, he might keep his
opinion to himself, at any rate!" Penelope went next.
Remained only a moment or two. Report, on coming out:
"Sergeant Cuff is much to be pitied. He must have been
crossed in love, father, when he was a young man." The first
housemaid followed Penelope. Remained, like my lady's maid,
a long time. Report, on coming out: "I didn't enter her
ladyship's service, Mr. Betteredge, to be doubted to my face
by a low police-officer!" Rosanna Spearman went next.
Remained longer than any of them. No report on coming
out—dead silence, and lips as pale as ashes. Samuel, the
footman, followed Rosanna. Remained a minute or two. Report,
on coming out: "Whoever blacks Sergeant Cuff's boots ought
to be ashamed of himself." Nancy, the kitchen-maid, went
last. Remained a minute or two. Report, on coming out:
"Sergeant Cuff has a heart; HE doesn't cut jokes, Mr.
Betteredge, with a poor hard-working girl."
Going into the Court of Justice, when it was all over, to
hear if there were any further commands for me, I found the
Sergeant at his old trick—looking out of window, and
whistling "The Last Rose of Summer" to himself.
"Any discoveries, sir?" I inquired.
"If Rosanna Spearman asks leave to go out," said the
Sergeant, "let the poor thing go; but let me know first."
I might as well have held my tongue about Rosanna and Mr.
Franklin! It was plain enough; the unfortunate girl had
fallen under Sergeant Cuff's suspicions, in spite of all I
could do to prevent it.
"I hope you don't think Rosanna is concerned in the loss
of the Diamond?" I ventured to say.
The corners of the Sergeant's melancholy mouth curled up,
and he looked hard in my face, just as he had looked in the
garden.
"I think I had better not tell you, Mr. Betteredge," he
said. "You might lose your head, you know, for the second
time."
I began to doubt whether I had been one too many for the
celebrated Cuff, after all! It was rather a relief to me
that we were interrupted here by a knock at the door, and a
message from the cook. Rosanna Spearman HAD asked to go out,
for the usual reason, that her head was bad, and she wanted
a breath of fresh air. At a sign from the Sergeant, I said,
Yes. "Which is the servants' way out?" he asked, when the
messenger had gone. I showed him the servants' way out.
"Lock the door of your room," says the Sergeant; "and if
anybody asks for me, say I'm in there, composing my mind."
He curled up again at the corners of the lips, and
disappeared.
Left alone, under those circumstances, a devouring
curiosity pushed me on to make some discoveries for myself.
It was plain that Sergeant Cuff's suspicions of Rosanna
had been roused by something that he had found out at his
examination of the servants in my room. Now, the only two
servants (excepting Rosanna herself) who had remained under
examination for any length of time, were my lady's own maid
and the first housemaid, those two being also the women who
had taken the lead in persecuting their unfortunate
fellow-servant from the first. Reaching these conclusions, I
looked in on them, casually as it might be, in the servants'
hall, and, finding tea going forward, instantly invited
myself to that meal. (For, NOTA BENE, a drop of tea is to a
woman's tongue what a drop of oil is to a wasting lamp.)
My reliance on the tea-pot, as an ally, did not go
unrewarded. In less than half an hour I knew as much as the
Sergeant himself.
My lady's maid and the housemaid, had, it appeared,
neither of them believed in Rosanna's illness of the
previous day. These two devils—I ask your pardon; but how
else CAN you describe a couple of spiteful women?—had stolen
up-stairs, at intervals during the Thursday afternoon; had
tried Rosanna's door, and found it locked; had knocked, and
not been answered; had listened, and not heard a sound
inside. When the girl had come down to tea, and had been
sent up, still out of sorts, to bed again, the two devils
aforesaid had tried her door once more, and found it locked;
had looked at the keyhole, and found it stopped up; had seen
a light under the door at midnight, and had heard the
crackling of a fire (a fire in a servant's bed-room in the
month of June!) at four in the morning. All this they had
told Sergeant Cuff, who, in return for their anxiety to
enlighten him, had eyed them with sour and suspicious looks,
and had shown them plainly that he didn't believe either one
or the other. Hence, the unfavourable reports of him which
these two women had brought out with them from the
examination. Hence, also (without reckoning the influence of
the tea-pot), their readiness to let their tongues run to
any length on the subject of the Sergeant's ungracious
behaviour to them.
Having had some experience of the great Cuff's
round-about ways, and having last seen him evidently bent on
following Rosanna privately when she went out for her walk,
it seemed clear to me that he had thought it unadvisable to
let the lady's maid and the housemaid know how materially
they had helped him. They were just the sort of women, if he
had treated their evidence as trustworthy, to have been
puffed up by it, and to have said or done something which
would have put Rosanna Spearman on her guard.
I walked out in the fine summer afternoon, very sorry for
the poor girl, and very uneasy in my mind at the turn things
had taken. Drifting towards the shrubbery, some time later,
there I met Mr. Franklin. After returning from seeing his
cousin off at the station, he had been with my lady, holding
a long conversation with her. She had told him of Miss
Rachel's unaccountable refusal to let her wardrobe be
examined; and had put him in such low spirits about my young
lady that he seemed to shrink from speaking on the subject.
The family temper appeared in his face that evening, for the
first time in my experience of him.
"Well, Betteredge," he said, "how does the atmosphere of
mystery and suspicion in which we are all living now, agree
with you? Do you remember that morning when I first came
here with the Moonstone? I wish to God we had thrown it into
the quicksand!"
After breaking out in that way, he abstained from
speaking again until he had composed himself. We walked
silently, side by side, for a minute or two, and then he
asked me what had become of Sergeant Cuff. It was impossible
to put Mr. Franklin off with the excuse of the Sergeant
being in my room, composing his mind. I told him exactly
what had happened, mentioning particularly what my lady's
maid and the house-maid had said about Rosanna Spearman.
Mr. Franklin's clear head saw the turn the Sergeant's
suspicions had taken, in the twinkling of an eye.
"Didn't you tell me this morning," he said, "that one of
the tradespeople declared he had met Rosanna yesterday, on
the footway to Frizinghall, when we supposed her to be ill
in her room?"
"Yes, sir."
"If my aunt's maid and the other woman have spoken the
truth, you may depend upon it the tradesman did meet her.
The girl's attack of illness was a blind to deceive us. She
had some guilty reason for going to the town secretly. The
paint-stained dress is a dress of hers; and the fire heard
crackling in her room at four in the morning was a fire lit
to destroy it. Rosanna Spearman has stolen the Diamond. I'll
go in directly, and tell my aunt the turn things have
taken."
"Not just yet, if you please, sir," said a melancholy
voice behind us.
We both turned about, and found ourselves face to face
with Sergeant Cuff.
"Why not just yet?" asked Mr. Franklin.
"Because, sir, if you tell her ladyship, her ladyship
will tell Miss Verinder."
"Suppose she does. What then?" Mr. Franklin said those
words with a sudden heat and vehemence, as if the Sergeant
had mortally offended him.
"Do you think it's wise, sir," said Sergeant Cuff,
quietly, "to put such a question as that to me—at such a
time as this?"
There was a moment's silence between them: Mr. Franklin
walked close up to the Sergeant. The two looked each other
straight in the face. Mr. Franklin spoke first, dropping his
voice as suddenly as he had raised it.
"I suppose you know, Mr. Cuff," he said, "that you are
treading on delicate ground?"
"It isn't the first time, by a good many hundreds, that I
find myself treading on delicate ground," answered the
other, as immovable as ever.
"I am to understand that you forbid me to tell my aunt
what has happened?"
"You are to understand, if you please, sir, that I throw
up the case, if you tell Lady Verinder, or tell anybody,
what has happened, until I give you leave."
That settled it. Mr. Franklin had no choice but to
submit. He turned away in anger—and left us.
I had stood there listening to them, all in a tremble;
not knowing whom to suspect, or what to think next. In the
midst of my confusion, two things, however, were plain to
me. First, that my young lady was, in some unaccountable
manner, at the bottom of the sharp speeches that had passed
between them. Second, that they thoroughly understood each
other, without having previously exchanged a word of
explanation on either side.
"Mr. Betteredge," says the Sergeant, "you have done a
very foolish thing in my absence. You have done a little
detective business on your own account. For the future,
perhaps you will be so obliging as to do your detective
business along with me."
He took me by the arm, and walked me away with him along
the road by which he had come. I dare say I had deserved his
reproof—but I was not going to help him to set traps for
Rosanna Spearman, for all that. Thief or no thief, legal or
not legal, I don't care—I pitied her.
"What do you want of me?" I asked, shaking him off, and
stopping short.
"Only a little information about the country round here,"
said the Sergeant.
I couldn't well object to improve Sergeant Cuff in his
geography.
"Is there any path, in that direction, leading to the
sea-beach from this house?" asked the Sergeant. He pointed,
as he spoke, to the fir-plantation which led to the
Shivering Sand.
"Yes," I said, "there is a path."
"Show it to me."
Side by side, in the grey of the summer evening, Sergeant
Cuff and I set forth for the Shivering Sand.
CHAPTER XV
The Sergeant remained silent, thinking his own thoughts,
till we entered the plantation of firs which led to the
quicksand. There he roused himself, like a man whose mind
was made up, and spoke to me again.
"Mr. Betteredge," he said, "as you have honoured me by
taking an oar in my boat, and as you may, I think, be of
some assistance to me before the evening is out, I see no
use in our mystifying one another any longer, and I propose
to set you an example of plain speaking on my side. You are
determined to give me no information to the prejudice of
Rosanna Spearman, because she has been a good girl to YOU,
and because you pity her heartily. Those humane
considerations do you a world of credit, but they happen in
this instance to be humane considerations clean thrown away.
Rosanna Spearman is not in the slightest danger of getting
into trouble—no, not if I fix her with being concerned in
the disappearance of the Diamond, on evidence which is as
plain as the nose on your face!"
"Do you mean that my lady won't prosecute?" I asked.
"I mean that your lady CAN'T prosecute," said the
Sergeant. "Rosanna Spearman is simply an instrument in the
hands of another person, and Rosanna Spearman will be held
harmless for that other person's sake."
He spoke like a man in earnest—there was no denying that.
Still, I felt something stirring uneasily against him in my
mind. "Can't you give that other person a name?" I said.
"Can't you, Mr. Betteredge?"
"No."
Sergeant Cuff stood stock still, and surveyed me with a
look of melancholy interest.
"It's always a pleasure to me to be tender towards human
infirmity," he said. "I feel particularly tender at the
present moment, Mr. Betteredge, towards you. And you, with
the same excellent motive, feel particularly tender towards
Rosanna Spearman, don't you? Do you happen to know whether
she has had a new outfit of linen lately?"
What he meant by slipping in this extraordinary question
unawares, I was at a total loss to imagine. Seeing no
possible injury to Rosanna if I owned the truth, I answered
that the girl had come to us rather sparely provided with
linen, and that my lady, in recompense for her good conduct
(I laid a stress on her good conduct), had given her a new
outfit not a fortnight since.
"This is a miserable world," says the Sergeant. "Human
life, Mr. Betteredge, is a sort of target—misfortune is
always firing at it, and always hitting the mark. But for
that outfit, we should have discovered a new nightgown or
petticoat among Rosanna's things, and have nailed her in
that way. You're not at a loss to follow me, are you? You
have examined the servants yourself, and you know what
discoveries two of them made outside Rosanna's door. Surely
you know what the girl was about yesterday, after she was
taken ill? You can't guess? Oh dear me, it's as plain as
that strip of light there, at the end of the trees. At
eleven, on Thursday morning, Superintendent Seegrave (who is
a mass of human infirmity) points out to all the women
servants the smear on the door. Rosanna has her own reasons
for suspecting her own things; she takes the first
opportunity of getting to her room, finds the paint-stain on
her night-gown, or petticoat, or what not, shams ill and
slips away to the town, gets the materials for making a new
petticoat or nightgown, makes it alone in her room on the
Thursday night lights a fire (not to destroy it; two of her
fellow-servants are prying outside her door, and she knows
better than to make a smell of burning, and to have a lot of
tinder to get rid of)—lights a fire, I say, to dry and iron
the substitute dress after wringing it out, keeps the
stained dress hidden (probably ON her), and is at this
moment occupied in making away with it, in some convenient
place, on that lonely bit of beach ahead of us. I have
traced her this evening to your fishing village, and to one
particular cottage, which we may possibly have to visit,
before we go back. She stopped in the cottage for some time,
and she came out with (as I believe) something hidden under
her cloak. A cloak (on a woman's back) is an emblem of
charity—it covers a multitude of sins. I saw her set off
northwards along the coast, after leaving the cottage. Is
your sea-shore here considered a fine specimen of marine
landscape, Mr. Betteredge?"
I answered, "Yes," as shortly as might be.
"Tastes differ," says Sergeant Cuff. "Looking at it from
my point of view, I never saw a marine landscape that I
admired less. If you happen to be following another person
along your sea-coast, and if that person happens to look
round, there isn't a scrap of cover to hide you anywhere. I
had to choose between taking Rosanna in custody on
suspicion, or leaving her, for the time being, with her
little game in her own hands. For reasons which I won't
trouble you with, I decided on making any sacrifice rather
than give the alarm as soon as to-night to a certain person
who shall be nameless between us. I came back to the house
to ask you to take me to the north end of the beach by
another way. Sand—in respect of its printing off people's
footsteps—is one of the best detective officers I know. If
we don't meet with Rosanna Spearman by coming round on her
in this way, the sand may tell us what she has been at, if
the light only lasts long enough. Here IS the sand. If you
will excuse my suggesting it—suppose you hold your tongue,
and let me go first?"
If there is such a thing known at the doctor's shop as a
DETECTIVE-FEVER, that disease had now got fast hold of your
humble servant. Sergeant Cuff went on between the hillocks
of sand, down to the beach. I followed him (with my heart in
my mouth); and waited at a little distance for what was to
happen next.
As it turned out, I found myself standing nearly in the
same place where Rosanna Spearman and I had been talking
together when Mr. Franklin suddenly appeared before us, on
arriving at our house from London. While my eyes were
watching the Sergeant, my mind wandered away in spite of me
to what had passed, on that former occasion, between Rosanna
and me. I declare I almost felt the poor thing slip her hand
again into mine, and give it a little grateful squeeze to
thank me for speaking kindly to her. I declare I almost
heard her voice telling me again that the Shivering Sand
seemed to draw her to it against her own will, whenever she
went out—almost saw her face brighten again, as it
brightened when she first set eyes upon Mr. Franklin coming
briskly out on us from among the hillocks. My spirits fell
lower and lower as I thought of these things—and the view of
the lonesome little bay, when I looked about to rouse
myself, only served to make me feel more uneasy still.
The last of the evening light was fading away; and over
all the desolate place there hung a still and awful calm.
The heave of the main ocean on the great sandbank out in the
bay, was a heave that made no sound. The inner sea lay lost
and dim, without a breath of wind to stir it. Patches of
nasty ooze floated, yellow-white, on the dead surface of the
water. Scum and slime shone faintly in certain places, where
the last of the light still caught them on the two great
spits of rock jutting out, north and south, into the sea. It
was now the time of the turn of the tide: and even as I
stood there waiting, the broad brown face of the quicksand
began to dimple and quiver—the only moving thing in all the
horrid place.
I saw the Sergeant start as the shiver of the sand caught
his eye. After looking at it for a minute or so, he turned
and came back to me.
"A treacherous place, Mr. Betteredge," he said; "and no
signs of Rosanna Spearman anywhere on the beach, look where
you may."
He took me down lower on the shore, and I saw for myself
that his footsteps and mine were the only footsteps printed
off on the sand.
"How does the fishing village bear, standing where we are
now?" asked Sergeant Cuff.
"Cobb's Hole," I answered (that being the name of the
place), "bears as near as may be, due south."
"I saw the girl this evening, walking northward along the
shore, from Cobb's Hole," said the Sergeant. "Consequently,
she must have been walking towards this place. Is Cobb's
Hole on the other side of that point of land there? And can
we get to it—now it's low water—by the beach?"
I answered, "Yes," to both those questions.
"If you'll excuse my suggesting it, we'll step out
briskly," said the Sergeant. "I want to find the place where
she left the shore, before it gets dark."
We had walked, I should say, a couple of hundred yards
towards Cobb's Hole, when Sergeant Cuff suddenly went down
on his knees on the beach, to all appearance seized with a
sudden frenzy for saying his prayers.
"There's something to be said for your marine landscape
here, after all," remarked the Sergeant. "Here are a woman's
footsteps, Mr. Betteredge! Let us call them Rosanna's
footsteps, until we find evidence to the contrary that we
can't resist. Very confused footsteps, you will please to
observe—purposely confused, I should say. Ah, poor soul, she
understands the detective virtues of sand as well as I do!
But hasn't she been in rather too great a hurry to tread out
the marks thoroughly? I think she has. Here's one footstep
going FROM Cobb's Hole; and here is another going back to
it. Isn't that the toe of her shoe pointing straight to the
water's edge? And don't I see two heel-marks further down
the beach, close at the water's edge also? I don't want to
hurt your feelings, but I'm afraid Rosanna is sly. It looks
as if she had determined to get to that place you and I have
just come from, without leaving any marks on the sand to
trace her by. Shall we say that she walked through the water
from this point till she got to that ledge of rocks behind
us, and came back the same way, and then took to the beach
again where those two heel marks are still left? Yes, we'll
say that. It seems to fit in with my notion that she had
something under her cloak, when she left the cottage. No!
not something to destroy—for, in that case, where would have
been the need of all these precautions to prevent my tracing
the place at which her walk ended? Something to hide is, I
think, the better guess of the two. Perhaps, if we go on to
the cottage, we may find out what that something is?"
At this proposal, my detective-fever suddenly cooled.
"You don't want me," I said. "What good can I do?"
"The longer I know you, Mr. Betteredge," said the
Sergeant, "the more virtues I discover. Modesty—oh dear me,
how rare modesty is in this world! and how much of that
rarity you possess! If I go alone to the cottage, the
people's tongues will be tied at the first question I put to
them. If I go with you, I go introduced by a justly
respected neighbour, and a flow of conversation is the
necessary result. It strikes me in that light; how does it
strike you?"
Not having an answer of the needful smartness as ready as
I could have wished, I tried to gain time by asking him what
cottage he wanted to go to.
On the Sergeant describing the place, I recognised it as
a cottage inhabited by a fisherman named Yolland, with his
wife and two grown-up children, a son and a daughter. If you
will look back, you will find that, in first presenting
Rosanna Spearman to your notice, I have described her as
occasionally varying her walk to the Shivering Sand, by a
visit to some friends of hers at Cobb's Hole. Those friends
were the Yollands—respectable, worthy people, a credit to
the neighbourhood. Rosanna's acquaintance with them had
begun by means of the daughter, who was afflicted with a
misshapen foot, and who was known in our parts by the name
of Limping Lucy. The two deformed girls had, I suppose, a
kind of fellow-feeling for each other. Anyway, the Yollands
and Rosanna always appeared to get on together, at the few
chances they had of meeting, in a pleasant and friendly
manner. The fact of Sergeant Cuff having traced the girl to
THEIR cottage, set the matter of my helping his inquiries in
quite a new light. Rosanna had merely gone where she was in
the habit of going; and to show that she had been in company
with the fisherman and his family was as good as to prove
that she had been innocently occupied so far, at any rate.
It would be doing the girl a service, therefore, instead of
an injury, if I allowed myself to be convinced by Sergeant
Cuff's logic. I professed myself convinced by it
accordingly.
We went on to Cobb's Hole, seeing the footsteps on the
sand, as long as the light lasted.
On reaching the cottage, the fisherman and his son proved
to be out in the boat; and Limping Lucy, always weak and
weary, was resting on her bed up-stairs. Good Mrs. Yolland
received us alone in her kitchen. When she heard that
Sergeant Cuff was a celebrated character in London, she
clapped a bottle of Dutch gin and a couple of clean pipes on
the table, and stared as if she could never see enough of
him.
I sat quiet in a corner, waiting to hear how the Sergeant
would find his way to the subject of Rosanna Spearman. His
usual roundabout manner of going to work proved, on this
occasion, to be more roundabout than ever. How he managed it
is more than I could tell at the time, and more than I can
tell now. But this is certain, he began with the Royal
Family, the Primitive Methodists, and the price of fish; and
he got from that (in his dismal, underground way) to the
loss of the Moonstone, the spitefulness of our first
house-maid, and the hard behaviour of the women-servants
generally towards Rosanna Spearman. Having reached his
subject in this fashion, he described himself as making his
inquiries about the lost Diamond, partly with a view to find
it, and partly for the purpose of clearing Rosanna from the
unjust suspicions of her enemies in the house. In about a
quarter of an hour from the time when we entered the
kitchen, good Mrs. Yolland was persuaded that she was
talking to Rosanna's best friend, and was pressing Sergeant
Cuff to comfort his stomach and revive his spirits out of
the Dutch bottle.
Being firmly persuaded that the Sergeant was wasting his
breath to no purpose on Mrs. Yolland, I sat enjoying the
talk between them, much as I have sat, in my time, enjoying
a stage play. The great Cuff showed a wonderful patience;
trying his luck drearily this way and that way, and firing
shot after shot, as it were, at random, on the chance of
hitting the mark. Everything to Rosanna's credit, nothing to
Rosanna's prejudice—that was how it ended, try as he might;
with Mrs. Yolland talking nineteen to the dozen, and placing
the most entire confidence in him. His last effort was made,
when we had looked at our watches, and had got on our legs
previous to taking leave.
"I shall now wish you good-night, ma'am," says the
Sergeant. "And I shall only say, at parting, that Rosanna
Spearman has a sincere well-wisher in myself, your obedient
servant. But, oh dear me! she will never get on in her
present place; and my advice to her is—leave it."
"Bless your heart alive! she is GOING to leave it!" cries
Mrs. Yolland. (NOTA BENE—I translate Mrs. Yolland out of the
Yorkshire language into the English language. When I tell
you that the all-accomplished Cuff was every now and then
puzzled to understand her until I helped him, you will draw
your own conclusions as to what your state of mind would be
if I reported her in her native tongue.)
Rosanna Spearman going to leave us! I pricked up my ears
at that. It seemed strange, to say the least of it, that she
should have given no warning, in the first place, to my lady
or to me. A certain doubt came up in my mind whether
Sergeant Cuff's last random shot might not have hit the
mark. I began to question whether my share in the
proceedings was quite as harmless a one as I had thought it.
It might be all in the way of the Sergeant's business to
mystify an honest woman by wrapping her round in a network
of lies but it was my duty to have remembered, as a good
Protestant, that the father of lies is the Devil—and that
mischief and the Devil are never far apart. Beginning to
smell mischief in the air, I tried to take Sergeant Cuff
out. He sat down again instantly, and asked for a little
drop of comfort out of the Dutch bottle. Mrs Yolland sat
down opposite to him, and gave him his nip. I went on to the
door, excessively uncomfortable, and said I thought I must
bid them good-night—and yet I didn't go.
"So she means to leave?" says the Sergeant. "What is she
to do when she does leave? Sad, sad! The poor creature has
got no friends in the world, except you and me."
"Ah, but she has though!" says Mrs. Yolland. "She came in
here, as I told you, this evening; and, after sitting and
talking a little with my girl Lucy and me she asked to go
up-stairs by herself, into Lucy's room. It's the only room
in our place where there's pen and ink. 'I want to write a
letter to a friend,' she says 'and I can't do it for the
prying and peeping of the servants up at the house.' Who the
letter was written to I can't tell you: it must have been a
mortal long one, judging by the time she stopped up-stairs
over it. I offered her a postage-stamp when she came down.
She hadn't got the letter in her hand, and she didn't accept
the stamp. A little close, poor soul (as you know), about
herself and her doings. But a friend she has got somewhere,
I can tell you; and to that friend you may depend upon it,
she will go."
"Soon?" asked the Sergeant.
"As soon as she can." says Mrs. Yolland.
Here I stepped in again from the door. As chief of my
lady's establishment, I couldn't allow this sort of loose
talk about a servant of ours going, or not going, to proceed
any longer in my presence, without noticing it.
"You must be mistaken about Rosanna Spearman," I said.
"If she had been going to leave her present situation, she
would have mentioned it, in the first place, to me."
"Mistaken?" cries Mrs. Yolland. "Why, only an hour ago
she bought some things she wanted for travelling—of my own
self, Mr. Betteredge, in this very room. And that reminds
me," says the wearisome woman, suddenly beginning to feel in
her pocket, "of something I have got it on my mind to say
about Rosanna and her money. Are you either of you likely to
see her when you go back to the house?"
"I'll take a message to the poor thing, with the greatest
pleasure," answered Sergeant Cuff, before I could put in a
word edgewise.
Mrs. Yolland produced out of her pocket, a few shillings
and sixpences, and counted them out with a most particular
and exasperating carefulness in the palm of her hand. She
offered the money to the Sergeant, looking mighty loth to
part with it all the while.
"Might I ask you to give this back to Rosanna, with my
love and respects?" says Mrs. Yolland. "She insisted on
paying me for the one or two things she took a fancy to this
evening—and money's welcome enough in our house, I don't
deny it. Still, I'm not easy in my mind about taking the
poor thing's little savings. And to tell you the truth, I
don't think my man would like to hear that I had taken
Rosanna Spearman's money, when he comes back to-morrow
morning from his work. Please say she's heartily welcome to
the things she bought of me—as a gift. And don't leave the
money on the table," says Mrs. Yolland, putting it down
suddenly before the Sergeant, as if it burnt her
fingers—"don't, there's a good man! For times are hard, and
flesh is weak; and I MIGHT feel tempted to put it back in my
pocket again."
"Come along!" I said, "I can't wait any longer: I must go
back to the house."
"I'll follow you directly," says Sergeant Cuff.
For the second time, I went to the door; and, for the
second time, try as I might, I couldn't cross the threshold.
"It's a delicate matter, ma'am," I heard the Sergeant
say, "giving money back. You charged her cheap for the
things, I'm sure?"
"Cheap!" says Mrs. Yolland. "Come and judge for
yourself."
She took up the candle and led the Sergeant to a corner
of the kitchen. For the life of me, I couldn't help
following them. Shaken down in the corner was a heap of odds
and ends (mostly old metal), which the fisherman had picked
up at different times from wrecked ships, and which he
hadn't found a market for yet, to his own mind. Mrs. Yolland
dived into this rubbish, and brought up an old japanned tin
case, with a cover to it, and a hasp to hang it up by—the
sort of thing they use, on board ship, for keeping their
maps and charts, and such-like, from the wet.
"There!" says she. "When Rosanna came in this evening,
she bought the fellow to that. 'It will just do,' she says,
'to put my cuffs and collars in, and keep them from being
crumpled in my box.' One and ninepence, Mr. Cuff. As I live
by bread, not a halfpenny more!"
"Dirt cheap!" says the Sergeant, with a heavy sigh.
He weighed the case in his hand. I thought I heard a note
or two of "The Last Rose of Summer" as he looked at it.
There was no doubt now! He had made another discovery to the
prejudice of Rosanna Spearman, in the place of all others
where I thought her character was safest, and all through
me! I leave you to imagine what I felt, and how sincerely I
repented having been the medium of introduction between Mrs.
Yolland and Sergeant Cuff.
"That will do," I said. "We really must go."
Without paying the least attention to me, Mrs. Yolland
took another dive into the rubbish, and came up out of it,
this time, with a dog-chain.
"Weigh it in your hand, sir," she said to the Sergeant.
"We had three of these; and Rosanna has taken two of them.
'What can you want, my dear, with a couple of dog's chains?'
says I. 'If I join them together they'll do round my box
nicely,' says she. 'Rope's cheapest,' says I. 'Chain's
surest,' says she. 'Who ever heard of a box corded with
chain,' says I. 'Oh, Mrs. Yolland, don't make objections!'
says she; 'let me have my chains!' A strange girl, Mr.
Cuff—good as gold, and kinder than a sister to my Lucy—but
always a little strange. There! I humoured her. Three and
sixpence. On the word of an honest woman, three and
sixpence, Mr. Cuff!"
"Each?" says the Sergeant.
"Both together!" says Mrs. Yolland. "Three and sixpence
for the two."
"Given away, ma'am," says the Sergeant, shaking his head.
"Clean given away!"
"There's the money," says Mrs. Yolland, getting back
sideways to the little heap of silver on the table, as if it
drew her in spite of herself. "The tin case and the dog
chains were all she bought, and all she took away. One and
ninepence and three and sixpence—total, five and three. With
my love and respects—and I can't find it in my conscience to
take a poor girl's savings, when she may want them herself."
"I can't find it in MY conscience, ma'am, to give the
money back," says Sergeant Cuff. "You have as good as made
her a present of the things—you have indeed."
"Is that your sincere opinion, sir?" says Mrs. Yolland
brightening up wonderfully.
"There can't be a doubt about it," answered the Sergeant.
"Ask Mr. Betteredge."
It was no use asking ME. All they got out of ME was,
"Good-night."
"Bother the money!" says Mrs. Yolland. With these words,
she appeared to lose all command over herself; and, making a
sudden snatch at the heap of silver, put it back,
holus-bolus, in her pocket. "It upsets one's temper, it
does, to see it lying there, and nobody taking it," cries
this unreasonable woman, sitting down with a thump, and
looking at Sergeant Cuff, as much as to say, "It's in my
pocket again now—get it out if you can!"
This time, I not only went to the door, but went fairly
out on the road back. Explain it how you may, I felt as if
one or both of them had mortally offended me. Before I had
taken three steps down the village, I heard the Sergeant
behind me.
"Thank you for your introduction, Mr. Betteredge," he
said. "I am indebted to the fisherman's wife for an entirely
new sensation. Mrs. Yolland has puzzled me."
It was on the tip of my tongue to have given him a sharp
answer, for no better reason than this—that I was out of
temper with him, because I was out of temper with myself.
But when he owned to being puzzled, a comforting doubt
crossed my mind whether any great harm had been done after
all. I waited in discreet silence to hear more.
"Yes," says the Sergeant, as if he was actually reading
my thoughts in the dark. "Instead of putting me on the
scent, it may console you to know, Mr. Betteredge (with your
interest in Rosanna), that you have been the means of
throwing me off. What the girl has done, to-night, is clear
enough, of course. She has joined the two chains, and has
fastened them to the hasp in the tin case. She has sunk the
case, in the water or in the quicksand. She has made the
loose end of the chain fast to some place under the rocks,
known only to herself. And she will leave the case secure at
its anchorage till the present proceedings have come to an
end; after which she can privately pull it up again out of
its hiding-place, at her own leisure and convenience. All
perfectly plain, so far. But," says the Sergeant, with the
first tone of impatience in his voice that I had heard yet,
"the mystery is—what the devil has she hidden in the tin
case?"
I thought to myself, "The Moonstone!" But I only said to
Sergeant Cuff, "Can't you guess?"
"It's not the Diamond," says the Sergeant. "The whole
experience of my life is at fault, if Rosanna Spearman has
got the Diamond."
On hearing those words, the infernal detective-fever
began, I suppose, to burn in me again. At any rate, I forgot
myself in the interest of guessing this new riddle. I said
rashly, "The stained dress!"
Sergeant Cuff stopped short in the dark, and laid his
hand on my arm.
"Is anything thrown into that quicksand of yours, ever
thrown up on the surface again?" he asked.
"Never," I answered. "Light or heavy whatever goes into
the Shivering Sand is sucked down, and seen no more."
"Does Rosanna Spearman know that?"
"She knows it as well as I do."
"Then," says the Sergeant, "what on earth has she got to
do but to tie up a bit of stone in the stained dress and
throw it into the quicksand? There isn't the shadow of a
reason why she should have hidden it—and yet she must have
hidden it. Query," says the Sergeant, walking on again, "is
the paint-stained dress a petticoat or a night-gown? or is
it something else which there is a reason for preserving at
any risk? Mr. Betteredge, if nothing occurs to prevent it, I
must go to Frizinghall to-morrow, and discover what she
bought in the town, when she privately got the materials for
making the substitute dress. It's a risk to leave the house,
as things are now—but it's a worse risk still to stir
another step in this matter in the dark. Excuse my being a
little out of temper; I'm degraded in my own estimation—I
have let Rosanna Spearman puzzle me."
When we got back, the servants were at supper. The first
person we saw in the outer yard was the policeman whom
Superintendent Seegrave had left at the Sergeant's disposal.
The Sergeant asked if Rosanna Spearman had returned. Yes.
When? Nearly an hour since. What had she done? She had gone
up-stairs to take off her bonnet and cloak—and she was now
at supper quietly with the rest.
Without making any remark, Sergeant Cuff walked on,
sinking lower and lower in his own estimation, to the back
of the house. Missing the entrance in the dark, he went on
(in spite of my calling to him) till he was stopped by a
wicket-gate which led into the garden. When I joined him to
bring him back by the right way, I found that he was looking
up attentively at one particular window, on the bed-room
floor, at the back of the house.
Looking up, in my turn, I discovered that the object of
his contemplation was the window of Miss Rachel's room, and
that lights were passing backwards and forwards there as if
something unusual was going on.
"Isn't that Miss Verinder's room?" asked Sergeant Cuff.
I replied that it was, and invited him to go in with me
to supper. The Sergeant remained in his place, and said
something about enjoying the smell of the garden at night. I
left him to his enjoyment. Just as I was turning in at the
door, I heard "The Last Rose of Summer" at the wicket-gate.
Sergeant Cuff had made another discovery! And my young
lady's window was at the bottom of it this time!
The latter reflection took me back again to the Sergeant,
with a polite intimation that I could not find it in my
heart to leave him by himself. "Is there anything you don't
understand up there?" I added, pointing to Miss Rachel's
window.
Judging by his voice, Sergeant Cuff had suddenly risen
again to the right place in his own estimation. "You are
great people for betting in Yorkshire, are you not?" he
asked.
"Well?" I said. "Suppose we are?"
"If I was a Yorkshireman," proceeded the Sergeant, taking
my arm, "I would lay you an even sovereign, Mr. Betteredge,
that your young lady has suddenly resolved to leave the
house. If I won on that event, I should offer to lay another
sovereign, that the idea has occurred to her within the last
hour." The first of the Sergeant's guesses startled me. The
second mixed itself up somehow in my head with the report we
had heard from the policeman, that Rosanna Spearman had
returned from the sands with in the last hour. The two
together had a curious effect on me as we went in to supper.
I shook off Sergeant Cuff's arm, and, forgetting my manners,
pushed by him through the door to make my own inquiries for
myself.
Samuel, the footman, was the first person I met in the
passage.
"Her ladyship is waiting to see you and Sergeant Cuff,"
he said, before I could put any questions to him.
"How long has she been waiting?" asked the Sergeant's
voice behind me.
"For the last hour, sir."
There it was again! Rosanna had come back; Miss Rachel
had taken some resolution out of the common; and my lady had
been waiting to see the Sergeant—all within the last hour!
It was not pleasant to find these very different persons and
things linking themselves together in this way. I went on
upstairs, without looking at Sergeant Cuff, or speaking to
him. My hand took a sudden fit of trembling as I lifted it
to knock at my mistress's door.
"I shouldn't be surprised," whispered the Sergeant over
my shoulder, "if a scandal was to burst up in the house
to-night. Don't be alarmed! I have put the muzzle on worse
family difficulties than this, in my time."
As he said the words I heard my mistress's voice calling
to us to come in.
CHAPTER XVI
We found my lady with no light in the room but the
reading-lamp. The shade was screwed down so as to overshadow
her face. Instead of looking up at us in her usual
straightforward way, she sat close at the table, and kept
her eyes fixed obstinately on an open book.
"Officer," she said, "is it important to the inquiry you
are conducting, to know beforehand if any person now in this
house wishes to leave it?"
"Most important, my lady."
"I have to tell you, then, that Miss Verinder proposes
going to stay with her aunt, Mrs. Ablewhite, of Frizinghall.
She has arranged to leave us the first thing to-morrow
morning."
Sergeant Cuff looked at me. I made a step forward to
speak to my mistress—and, feeling my heart fail me (if I
must own it), took a step back again, and said nothing.
"May I ask your ladyship WHEN Miss Verinder informed you
that she was going to her aunt's?" inquired the Sergeant.
"About an hour since," answered my mistress.
Sergeant Cuff looked at me once more. They say old
people's hearts are not very easily moved. My heart couldn't
have thumped much harder than it did now, if I had been
five-and-twenty again!
"I have no claim, my lady," says the Sergeant, "to
control Miss Verinder's actions. All I can ask you to do is
to put off her departure, if possible, till later in the
day. I must go to Frizinghall myself to-morrow morning—and I
shall be back by two o'clock, if not before. If Miss
Verinder can be kept here till that time, I should wish to
say two words to her—unexpectedly—before she goes."
My lady directed me to give the coachman her orders, that
the carriage was not to come for Miss Rachel until two
o'clock. "Have you more to say?" she asked of the Sergeant,
when this had been done.
"Only one thing, your ladyship. If Miss Verinder is
surprised at this change in the arrangements, please not to
mention Me as being the cause of putting off her journey."
My mistress lifted her head suddenly from her book as if
she was going to say something—checked herself by a great
effort—and, looking back again at the open page, dismissed
us with a sign of her hand.
"That's a wonderful woman," said Sergeant Cuff, when we
were out in the hall again. "But for her self-control, the
mystery that puzzles you, Mr. Betteredge, would have been at
an end to-night."
At those words, the truth rushed at last into my stupid
old head. For the moment, I suppose I must have gone clean
out of my senses. I seized the Sergeant by the collar of his
coat, and pinned him against the wall.
"Damn you!" I cried out, "there's something wrong about
Miss Rachel—and you have been hiding it from me all this
time!"
Sergeant Cuff looked up at me—flat against the
wall—without stirring a hand, or moving a muscle of his
melancholy face.
"Ah," he said, "you've guessed it at last."
My hand dropped from his collar, and my head sunk on my
breast. Please to remember, as some excuse for my breaking
out as I did, that I had served the family for fifty years.
Miss Rachel had climbed upon my knees, and pulled my
whiskers, many and many a time when she was a child. Miss
Rachel, with all her faults, had been, to my mind, the
dearest and prettiest and best young mistress that ever an
old servant waited on, and loved. I begged Sergeant's Cuff's
pardon, but I am afraid I did it with watery eyes, and not
in a very becoming way.
"Don't distress yourself, Mr. Betteredge," says the
Sergeant, with more kindness than I had any right to expect
from him. "In my line of life if we were quick at taking
offence, we shouldn't be worth salt to our porridge. If it's
any comfort to you, collar me again. You don't in the least
know how to do it; but I'll overlook your awkwardness in
consideration of your feelings."
He curled up at the corners of his lips, and, in his own
dreary way, seemed to think he had delivered himself of a
very good joke.
I led him into my own little sitting-room, and closed the
door.
"Tell me the truth, Sergeant," I said. "What do you
suspect? It's no kindness to hide it from me now."
"I don't suspect," said Sergeant Cuff. "I know."
My unlucky temper began to get the better of me again.
"Do you mean to tell me, in plain English," I said, "that
Miss Rachel has stolen her own Diamond?"
"Yes," says the Sergeant; "that is what I mean to tell
you, in so many words. Miss Verinder has been in secret
possession of the Moonstone from first to last; and she has
taken Rosanna Spearman into her confidence, because she has
calculated on our suspecting Rosanna Spearman of the theft.
There is the whole case in a nutshell. Collar me again, Mr.
Betteredge. If it's any vent to your feelings, collar me
again."
God help me! my feelings were not to be relieved in that
way. "Give me your reasons!" That was all I could say to
him.
"You shall hear my reasons to-morrow," said the Sergeant.
"If Miss Verinder refuses to put off her visit to her aunt
(which you will find Miss Verinder will do), I shall be
obliged to lay the whole case before your mistress
to-morrow. And, as I don't know what may come of it, I shall
request you to be present, and to hear what passes on both
sides. Let the matter rest for to-night. No, Mr. Betteredge,
you don't get a word more on the subject of the Moonstone
out of me. There is your table spread for supper. That's one
of the many human infirmities which I always treat tenderly.
If you will ring the bell, I'll say grace. 'For what we are
going to receive——'"
"I wish you a good appetite to it, Sergeant," I said. "My
appetite is gone. I'll wait and see you served, and then
I'll ask you to excuse me, if I go away, and try to get the
better of this by myself."
I saw him served with the best of everything—and I
shouldn't have been sorry if the best of everything had
choked him. The head gardener (Mr. Begbie) came in at the
same time, with his weekly account. The Sergeant got on the
subject of roses and the merits of grass walks and gravel
walks immediately. I left the two together, and went out
with a heavy heart. This was the first trouble I remember
for many a long year which wasn't to be blown off by a whiff
of tobacco, and which was even beyond the reach of ROBINSON
CRUSOE.
Being restless and miserable, and having no particular
room to go to, I took a turn on the terrace, and thought it
over in peace and quietness by myself. It doesn't much
matter what my thoughts were. I felt wretchedly old, and
worn out, and unfit for my place—and began to wonder, for
the first time in my life, when it would please God to take
me. With all this, I held firm, notwithstanding, to my
belief in Miss Rachel. If Sergeant Cuff had been Solomon in
all his glory, and had told me that my young lady had mixed
herself up in a mean and guilty plot, I should have had but
one answer for Solomon, wise as he was, "You don't know her;
and I do."
My meditations were interrupted by Samuel. He brought me
a written message from my mistress.
Going into the house to get a light to read it by, Samuel
remarked that there seemed a change coming in the weather.
My troubled mind had prevented me from noticing it before.
But, now my attention was roused, I heard the dogs uneasy,
and the wind moaning low. Looking up at the sky, I saw the
rack of clouds getting blacker and blacker, and hurrying
faster and faster over a watery moon. Wild weather
coming—Samuel was right, wild weather coming.
The message from my lady informed me, that the magistrate
at Frizinghall had written to remind her about the three
Indians. Early in the coming week, the rogues must needs be
released, and left free to follow their own devices. If we
had any more questions to ask them, there was no time to
lose. Having forgotten to mention this, when she had last
seen Sergeant Cuff, my mistress now desired me to supply the
omission. The Indians had gone clean out of my head (as they
have, no doubt, gone clean out of yours). I didn't see much
use in stirring that subject again. However, I obeyed my
orders on the spot, as a matter of course.
I found Sergeant Cuff and the gardener, with a bottle of
Scotch whisky between them, head over ears in an argument on
the growing of roses. The Sergeant was so deeply interested
that he held up his hand, and signed to me not to interrupt
the discussion, when I came in. As far as I could understand
it, the question between them was, whether the white moss
rose did, or did not, require to be budded on the dog-rose
to make it grow well. Mr. Begbie said, Yes; and Sergeant
Cuff said, No. They appealed to me, as hotly as a couple of
boys. Knowing nothing whatever about the growing of roses, I
steered a middle course—just as her Majesty's judges do,
when the scales of justice bother them by hanging even to a
hair. "Gentlemen," I remarked, "there is much to be said on
both sides." In the temporary lull produced by that
impartial sentence, I laid my lady's written message on the
table, under the eyes of Sergeant Cuff.
I had got by this time, as nearly as might be, to hate
the Sergeant. But truth compels me to acknowledge that, in
respect of readiness of mind, he was a wonderful man.
In half a minute after he had read the message, he had
looked back into his memory for Superintendent Seegrave's
report; had picked out that part of it in which the Indians
were concerned; and was ready with his answer. A certain
great traveller, who understood the Indians and their
language, had figured in Mr. Seegrave's report, hadn't he?
Very well. Did I know the gentleman's name and address? Very
well again. Would I write them on the back of my lady's
message? Much obliged to me. Sergeant Cuff would look that
gentleman up, when he went to Frizinghall in the morning.
"Do you expect anything to come of it?" I asked.
"Superintendent Seegrave found the Indians as innocent as
the babe unborn."
"Superintendent Seegrave has been proved wrong, up to
this time, in all his conclusions," answered the Sergeant.
"It may be worth while to find out to-morrow whether
Superintendent Seegrave was wrong about the Indians as
well." With that he turned to Mr. Begbie, and took up the
argument again exactly at the place where it had left off.
"This question between us is a question of soils and
seasons, and patience and pains, Mr. Gardener. Now let me
put it to you from another point of view. You take your
white moss rose——"
By that time, I had closed the door on them, and was out
of hearing of the rest of the dispute.
In the passage, I met Penelope hanging about, and asked
what she was waiting for.
She was waiting for her young lady's bell, when her young
lady chose to call her back to go on with the packing for
the next day's journey. Further inquiry revealed to me, that
Miss Rachel had given it as a reason for wanting to go to
her aunt at Frizinghall, that the house was unendurable to
her, and that she could bear the odious presence of a
policeman under the same roof with herself no longer. On
being informed, half an hour since, that her departure would
be delayed till two in the afternoon, she had flown into a
violent passion. My lady, present at the time, had severely
rebuked her, and then (having apparently something to say,
which was reserved for her daughter's private ear) had sent
Penelope out of the room. My girl was in wretchedly low
spirits about the changed state of things in the house.
"Nothing goes right, father; nothing is like what it used to
be. I feel as if some dreadful misfortune was hanging over
us all."
That was my feeling too. But I put a good face on it,
before my daughter. Miss Rachel's bell rang while we were
talking. Penelope ran up the back stairs to go on with the
packing. I went by the other way to the hall, to see what
the glass said about the change in the weather.
Just as I approached the swing-door leading into the hall
from the servants' offices, it was violently opened from the
other side, and Rosanna Spearman ran by me, with a miserable
look of pain in her face, and one of her hands pressed hard
over her heart, as if the pang was in that quarter. "What's
the matter, my girl?" I asked, stopping her. "Are you ill?"
"For God's sake, don't speak to me," she answered, and
twisted herself out of my hands, and ran on towards the
servants' staircase. I called to the cook (who was within
hearing) to look after the poor girl. Two other persons
proved to be within hearing, as well as the cook. Sergeant
Cuff darted softly out of my room, and asked what was the
matter. I answered, "Nothing." Mr. Franklin, on the other
side, pulled open the swing-door, and beckoning me into the
hall, inquired if I had seen anything of Rosanna Spearman.
"She has just passed me, sir, with a very disturbed face,
and in a very odd manner."
"I am afraid I am innocently the cause of that
disturbance, Betteredge."
"You, sir!"
"I can't explain it," says Mr. Franklin; "but, if the
girl IS concerned in the loss of the Diamond, I do really
believe she was on the point of confessing everything—to me,
of all the people in the world—not two minutes since."
Looking towards the swing-door, as he said those last
words, I fancied I saw it opened a little way from the inner
side.
Was there anybody listening? The door fell to, before I
could get to it. Looking through, the moment after, I
thought I saw the tails of Sergeant Cuff's respectable black
coat disappearing round the corner of the passage. He knew,
as well as I did, that he could expect no more help from me,
now that I had discovered the turn which his investigations
were really taking. Under those circumstances, it was quite
in his character to help himself, and to do it by the
underground way.
Not feeling sure that I had really seen the Sergeant—and
not desiring to make needless mischief, where, Heaven knows,
there was mischief enough going on already—I told Mr.
Franklin that I thought one of the dogs had got into the
house—and then begged him to describe what had happened
between Rosanna and himself.
"Were you passing through the hall, sir?" I asked. "Did
you meet her accidentally, when she spoke to you?"
Mr. Franklin pointed to the billiard-table.
"I was knocking the balls about," he said, "and trying to
get this miserable business of the Diamond out of my mind. I
happened to look up—and there stood Rosanna Spearman at the
side of me, like a ghost! Her stealing on me in that way was
so strange, that I hardly knew what to do at first. Seeing a
very anxious expression in her face, I asked her if she
wished to speak to me. She answered, 'Yes, if I dare.'
Knowing what suspicion attached to her, I could only put one
construction on such language as that. I confess it made me
uncomfortable. I had no wish to invite the girl's
confidence. At the same time, in the difficulties that now
beset us, I could hardly feel justified in refusing to
listen to her, if she was really bent on speaking to me. It
was an awkward position; and I dare say I got out of it
awkwardly enough. I said to her, 'I don't quite understand
you. Is there anything you want me to do?' Mind, Betteredge,
I didn't speak unkindly! The poor girl can't help being
ugly—I felt that, at the time. The cue was still in my hand,
and I went on knocking the balls about, to take off the
awkwardness of the thing. As it turned out, I only made
matters worse still. I'm afraid I mortified her without
meaning it! She suddenly turned away. 'He looks at the
billiard balls,' I heard her say. 'Anything rather than look
at me!' Before I could stop her, she had left the
hall. I am not quite easy about it, Betteredge. Would you
mind telling Rosanna that I meant no unkindness? I have been
a little hard on her, perhaps, in my own thoughts—I have
almost hoped that the loss of the Diamond might be traced to
her. Not from any ill-will to the poor girl: but——"
He stopped there, and going back to the billiard-table,
began to knock the balls about once more.
After what had passed between the Sergeant and me, I knew
what it was that he had left unspoken as well as he knew it
himself.
Nothing but the tracing of the Moonstone to our second
housemaid could now raise Miss Rachel above the infamous
suspicion that rested on her in the mind of Sergeant Cuff.
It was no longer a question of quieting my young lady's
nervous excitement; it was a question of proving her
innocence. If Rosanna had done nothing to compromise
herself, the hope which Mr. Franklin confessed to having
felt would have been hard enough on her in all conscience.
But this was not the case. She had pretended to be ill, and
had gone secretly to Frizinghall. She had been up all night,
making something or destroying something, in private. And
she had been at the Shivering Sand, that evening, under
circumstances which were highly suspicious, to say the least
of them. For all these reasons (sorry as I was for Rosanna)
I could not but think that Mr. Franklin's way of looking at
the matter was neither unnatural nor unreasonable, in Mr.
Franklin's position. I said a word to him to that effect.
"Yes, yes!" he said in return. "But there is just a
chance—a very poor one, certainly—that Rosanna's conduct may
admit of some explanation which we don't see at present. I
hate hurting a woman's feelings, Betteredge! Tell the poor
creature what I told you to tell her. And if she wants to
speak to me—I don't care whether I get into a scrape or
not—send her to me in the library." With those kind words he
laid down the cue and left me.
Inquiry at the servants' offices informed me that Rosanna
had retired to her own room. She had declined all offers of
assistance with thanks, and had only asked to be left to
rest in quiet. Here, therefore, was an end of any confession
on her part (supposing she really had a confession to make)
for that night. I reported the result to Mr. Franklin, who,
thereupon, left the library, and went up to bed.
I was putting the lights out, and making the windows
fast, when Samuel came in with news of the two guests whom I
had left in my room.
The argument about the white moss rose had apparently
come to an end at last. The gardener had gone home, and
Sergeant Cuff was nowhere to be found in the lower regions
of the house.
I looked into my room. Quite true—nothing was to be
discovered there but a couple of empty tumblers and a strong
smell of hot grog. Had the Sergeant gone of his own accord
to the bed-chamber that was prepared for him? I went
up-stairs to see.
After reaching the second landing, I thought I heard a
sound of quiet and regular breathing on my left-hand side.
My left-hand side led to the corridor which communicated
with Miss Rachel's room. I looked in, and there, coiled up
on three chairs placed right across the passage—there, with
a red handkerchief tied round his grizzled head, and his
respectable black coat rolled up for a pillow, lay and slept
Sergeant Cuff!
He woke, instantly and quietly, like a dog, the moment I
approached him.
"Good night, Mr. Betteredge," he said. "And mind, if you
ever take to growing roses, the white moss rose is all the
better for not being budded on the dog-rose, whatever the
gardener may say to the contrary!"
"What are you doing here?" I asked. "Why are you not in
your proper bed?"
"I am not in my proper bed," answered the Sergeant,
"because I am one of the many people in this miserable world
who can't earn their money honestly and easily at the same
time. There was a coincidence, this evening, between the
period of Rosanna Spearman's return from the Sands and the
period when Miss Verinder stated her resolution to leave the
house. Whatever Rosanna may have hidden, it's clear to my
mind that your young lady couldn't go away until she knew
that it WAS hidden. The two must have communicated privately
once already to-night. If they try to communicate again,
when the house is quiet, I want to be in the way, and stop
it. Don't blame me for upsetting your sleeping arrangements,
Mr. Betteredge—blame the Diamond."
"I wish to God the Diamond had never found its way into
this house!" I broke out.
Sergeant Cuff looked with a rueful face at the three
chairs on which he had condemned himself to pass the night.
"So do I," he said, gravely.
CHAPTER XVII
Nothing happened in the night; and (I am happy to add) no
attempt at communication between Miss Rachel and Rosanna
rewarded the vigilance of Sergeant Cuff.
I had expected the Sergeant to set off for Frizinghall
the first thing in the morning. He waited about, however, as
if he had something else to do first. I left him to his own
devices; and going into the grounds shortly after, met Mr.
Franklin on his favourite walk by the shrubbery side.
Before we had exchanged two words, the Sergeant
unexpectedly joined us. He made up to Mr. Franklin, who
received him, I must own, haughtily enough. "Have you
anything to say to me?" was all the return he got for
politely wishing Mr. Franklin good morning.
"I have something to say to you, sir," answered the
Sergeant, "on the subject of the inquiry I am conducting
here. You detected the turn that inquiry was really taking,
yesterday. Naturally enough, in your position, you are
shocked and distressed. Naturally enough, also, you visit
your own angry sense of your own family scandal upon Me."
"What do you want?" Mr. Franklin broke in, sharply
enough.
"I want to remind you, sir, that I have at any rate, thus
far, not been PROVED to be wrong. Bearing that in mind, be
pleased to remember, at the same time, that I am an officer
of the law acting here under the sanction of the mistress of
the house. Under these circumstances, is it, or is it not,
your duty as a good citizen, to assist me with any special
information which you may happen to possess?"
"I possess no special information," says Mr. Franklin.
Sergeant Cuff put that answer by him, as if no answer had
been made.
"You may save my time, sir, from being wasted on an
inquiry at a distance," he went on, "if you choose to
understand me and speak out."
"I don't understand you," answered Mr. Franklin; "and I
have nothing to say."
"One of the female servants (I won't mention names) spoke
to you privately, sir, last night."
Once more Mr. Franklin cut him short; once more Mr.
Franklin answered, "I have nothing to say."
Standing by in silence, I thought of the movement in the
swing-door on the previous evening, and of the coat-tails
which I had seen disappearing down the passage. Sergeant
Cuff had, no doubt, just heard enough, before I interrupted
him, to make him suspect that Rosanna had relieved her mind
by confessing something to Mr. Franklin Blake.
This notion had barely struck me—when who should appear
at the end of the shrubbery walk but Rosanna Spearman in her
own proper person! She was followed by Penelope, who was
evidently trying to make her retrace her steps to the house.
Seeing that Mr. Franklin was not alone, Rosanna came to a
standstill, evidently in great perplexity what to do next.
Penelope waited behind her. Mr. Franklin saw the girls as
soon as I saw them. The Sergeant, with his devilish cunning,
took on not to have noticed them at all. All this happened
in an instant. Before either Mr. Franklin or I could say a
word, Sergeant Cuff struck in smoothly, with an appearance
of continuing the previous conversation.
"You needn't be afraid of harming the girl, sir," he said
to Mr. Franklin, speaking in a loud voice, so that Rosanna
might hear him. "On the contrary, I recommend you to honour
me with your confidence, if you feel any interest in Rosanna
Spearman."
Mr. Franklin instantly took on not to have noticed the
girls either. He answered, speaking loudly on his side:
"I take no interest whatever in Rosanna Spearman."
I looked towards the end of the walk. All I saw at the
distance was that Rosanna suddenly turned round, the moment
Mr. Franklin had spoken. Instead of resisting Penelope, as
she had done the moment before, she now let my daughter take
her by the arm and lead her back to the house.
The breakfast-bell rang as the two girls disappeared—and
even Sergeant Cuff was now obliged to give it up as a bad
job! He said to me quietly, "I shall go to Frizinghall, Mr.
Betteredge; and I shall be back before two." He went his way
without a word more—and for some few hours we were well rid
of him.
"You must make it right with Rosanna," Mr. Franklin said
to me, when we were alone. "I seem to be fated to say or do
something awkward, before that unlucky girl. You must have
seen yourself that Sergeant Cuff laid a trap for both of us.
If he could confuse ME, or irritate HER into breaking out,
either she or I might have said something which would answer
his purpose. On the spur of the moment, I saw no better way
out of it than the way I took. It stopped the girl from
saying anything, and it showed the Sergeant that I saw
through him. He was evidently listening, Betteredge, when I
was speaking to you last night."
He had done worse than listen, as I privately thought to
myself. He had remembered my telling him that the girl was
in love with Mr. Franklin; and he had calculated on THAT,
when he appealed to Mr. Franklin's interest in Rosanna—in
Rosanna's hearing.
"As to listening, sir," I remarked (keeping the other
point to myself), "we shall all be rowing in the same boat
if this sort of thing goes on much longer. Prying, and
peeping, and listening are the natural occupations of people
situated as we are. In another day or two, Mr. Franklin, we
shall all be struck dumb together—for this reason, that we
shall all be listening to surprise each other's secrets, and
all know it. Excuse my breaking out, sir. The horrid mystery
hanging over us in this house gets into my head like liquor,
and makes me wild. I won't forget what you have told me.
I'll take the first opportunity of making it right with
Rosanna Spearman."
"You haven't said anything to her yet about last night,
have you?" Mr. Franklin asked.
"No, sir."
"Then say nothing now. I had better not invite the girl's
confidence, with the Sergeant on the look-out to surprise us
together. My conduct is not very consistent, Betteredge—is
it? I see no way out of this business, which isn't dreadful
to think of, unless the Diamond is traced to Rosanna. And
yet I can't, and won't, help Sergeant Cuff to find the girl
out."
Unreasonable enough, no doubt. But it was my state of
mind as well. I thoroughly understood him. If you will, for
once in your life, remember that you are mortal, perhaps you
will thoroughly understand him too.
The state of things, indoors and out, while Sergeant Cuff
was on his way to Frizinghall, was briefly this:
Miss Rachel waited for the time when the carriage was to
take her to her aunt's, still obstinately shut up in her own
room. My lady and Mr. Franklin breakfasted together. After
breakfast, Mr. Franklin took one of his sudden resolutions,
and went out precipitately to quiet his mind by a long walk.
I was the only person who saw him go; and he told me he
should be back before the Sergeant returned. The change in
the weather, foreshadowed overnight, had come. Heavy rain
had been followed soon after dawn, by high wind. It was
blowing fresh, as the day got on. But though the clouds
threatened more than once, the rain still held off. It was
not a bad day for a walk, if you were young and strong, and
could breast the great gusts of wind which came sweeping in
from the sea.
I attended my lady after breakfast, and assisted her in
the settlement of our household accounts. She only once
alluded to the matter of the Moonstone, and that was in the
way of forbidding any present mention of it between us.
"Wait till that man comes back," she said, meaning the
Sergeant. "We MUST speak of it then: we are not obliged to
speak of it now."
After leaving my mistress, I found Penelope waiting for
me in my room.
"I wish, father, you would come and speak to Rosanna,"
she said. "I am very uneasy about her."
I suspected what was the matter readily enough. But it is
a maxim of mine that men (being superior creatures) are
bound to improve women—if they can. When a woman wants me to
do anything (my daughter, or not, it doesn't matter), I
always insist on knowing why. The oftener you make them
rummage their own minds for a reason, the more manageable
you will find them in all the relations of life. It isn't
their fault (poor wretches!) that they act first and think
afterwards; it's the fault of the fools who humour them.
Penelope's reason why, on this occasion, may be given in
her own words. "I am afraid, father," she said, "Mr.
Franklin has hurt Rosanna cruelly, without intending it."
"What took Rosanna into the shrubbery walk?" I asked.
"Her own madness," says Penelope; "I can call it nothing
else. She was bent on speaking to Mr. Franklin, this
morning, come what might of it. I did my best to stop her;
you saw that. If I could only have got her away before she
heard those dreadful words——"
"There! there!" I said, "don't lose your head. I can't
call to mind that anything happened to alarm Rosanna."
"Nothing to alarm her, father. But Mr. Franklin said he
took no interest whatever in her—and, oh, he said it in such
a cruel voice!"
"He said it to stop the Sergeant's mouth," I answered.
"I told her that," says Penelope. "But you see, father
(though Mr. Franklin isn't to blame), he's been mortifying
and disappointing her for weeks and weeks past; and now this
comes on the top of it all! She has no right, of course, to
expect him to take any interest in her. It's quite monstrous
that she should forget herself and her station in that way.
But she seems to have lost pride, and proper feeling, and
everything. She frightened me, father, when Mr. Franklin
said those words. They seemed to turn her into stone. A
sudden quiet came over her, and she has gone about her work,
ever since, like a woman in a dream."
I began to feel a little uneasy. There was something in
the way Penelope put it which silenced my superior sense. I
called to mind, now my thoughts were directed that way, what
had passed between Mr. Franklin and Rosanna overnight. She
looked cut to the heart on that occasion; and now, as
ill-luck would have it, she had been unavoidably stung
again, poor soul, on the tender place. Sad! sad!—all the
more sad because the girl had no reason to justify her, and
no right to feel it.
I had promised Mr. Franklin to speak to Rosanna, and this
seemed the fittest time for keeping my word.
We found the girl sweeping the corridor outside the
bedrooms, pale and composed, and neat as ever in her modest
print dress. I noticed a curious dimness and dullness in her
eyes—not as if she had been crying but as if she had been
looking at something too long. Possibly, it was a misty
something raised by her own thoughts. There was certainly no
object about her to look at which she had not seen already
hundreds on hundreds of times.
"Cheer up, Rosanna!" I said. "You mustn't fret over your
own fancies. I have got something to say to you from Mr.
Franklin."
I thereupon put the matter in the right view before her,
in the friendliest and most comforting words I could find.
My principles, in regard to the other sex, are, as you may
have noticed, very severe. But somehow or other, when I come
face to face with the women, my practice (I own) is not
conformable.
"Mr. Franklin is very kind and considerate. Please to
thank him." That was all the answer she made me.
My daughter had already noticed that Rosanna went about
her work like a woman in a dream. I now added to this
observation, that she also listened and spoke like a woman
in a dream. I doubted if her mind was in a fit condition to
take in what I had said to her.
"Are you quite sure, Rosanna, that you understand me?" I
asked.
"Quite sure."
She echoed me, not like a living woman, but like a
creature moved by machinery. She went on sweeping all the
time. I took away the broom as gently and as kindly as I
could.
"Come, come, my girl!" I said, "this is not like
yourself. You have got something on your mind. I'm your
friend—and I'll stand your friend, even if you have done
wrong. Make a clean breast of it, Rosanna—make a clean
breast of it!"
The time had been, when my speaking to her in that way
would have brought the tears into her eyes. I could see no
change in them now.
"Yes," she said, "I'll make a clean breast of it."
"To my lady?" I asked.
"No."
"To Mr. Franklin?"
"Yes; to Mr. Franklin."
I hardly knew what to say to that. She was in no
condition to understand the caution against speaking to him
in private, which Mr. Franklin had directed me to give her.
Feeling my way, little by little, I only told her Mr.
Franklin had gone out for a walk.
"It doesn't matter," she answered. "I shan't trouble Mr.
Franklin, to-day."
"Why not speak to my lady?" I said. "The way to relieve
your mind is to speak to the merciful and Christian mistress
who has always been kind to you."
She looked at me for a moment with a grave and steady
attention, as if she was fixing what I said in her mind.
Then she took the broom out of my hands and moved off with
it slowly, a little way down the corridor.
"No," she said, going on with her sweeping, and speaking
to herself; "I know a better way of relieving my mind than
that."
"What is it?"
"Please to let me go on with my work."
Penelope followed her, and offered to help her.
She answered, "No. I want to do my work. Thank you,
Penelope." She looked round at me. "Thank you, Mr.
Betteredge."
There was no moving her—there was nothing more to be
said. I signed to Penelope to come away with me. We left
her, as we had found her, sweeping the corridor, like a
woman in a dream.
"This is a matter for the doctor to look into," I said.
"It's beyond me."
My daughter reminded me of Mr. Candy's illness, owing (as
you may remember) to the chill he had caught on the night of
the dinner-party. His assistant—a certain Mr. Ezra
Jennings—was at our disposal, to be sure. But nobody knew
much about him in our parts. He had been engaged by Mr.
Candy under rather peculiar circumstances; and, right or
wrong, we none of us liked him or trusted him. There were
other doctors at Frizinghall. But they were strangers to our
house; and Penelope doubted, in Rosanna's present state,
whether strangers might not do her more harm than good.
I thought of speaking to my lady. But, remembering the
heavy weight of anxiety which she already had on her mind, I
hesitated to add to all the other vexations this new
trouble. Still, there was a necessity for doing something.
The girl's state was, to my thinking, downright alarming—and
my mistress ought to be informed of it. Unwilling enough, I
went to her sitting-room. No one was there. My lady was shut
up with Miss Rachel. It was impossible for me to see her
till she came out again.
I waited in vain till the clock on the front staircase
struck the quarter to two. Five minutes afterwards, I heard
my name called, from the drive outside the house. I knew the
voice directly. Sergeant Cuff had returned from Frizinghall.
CHAPTER XVIII
Going down to the front door, I met the Sergeant on the
steps.
It went against the grain with me, after what had passed
between us, to show him that I felt any sort of interest in
his proceedings. In spite of myself, however, I felt an
interest that there was no resisting. My sense of dignity
sank from under me, and out came the words: "What news from
Frizinghall?"
"I have seen the Indians," answered Sergeant Cuff. "And I
have found out what Rosanna bought privately in the town, on
Thursday last. The Indians will be set free on Wednesday in
next week. There isn't a doubt on my mind, and there isn't a
doubt on Mr. Murthwaite's mind, that they came to this place
to steal the Moonstone. Their calculations were all thrown
out, of course, by what happened in the house on Wednesday
night; and they have no more to do with the actual loss of
the jewel than you have. But I can tell you one thing, Mr.
Betteredge—if WE don't find the Moonstone, THEY will. You
have not heard the last of the three jugglers yet."
Mr. Franklin came back from his walk as the Sergeant said
those startling words. Governing his curiosity better than I
had governed mine, he passed us without a word, and went on
into the house.
As for me, having already dropped my dignity, I
determined to have the whole benefit of the sacrifice. "So
much for the Indians," I said. "What about Rosanna next?"
Sergeant Cuff shook his head.
"The mystery in that quarter is thicker than ever," he
said. "I have traced her to a shop at Frizinghall, kept by a
linen draper named Maltby. She bought nothing whatever at
any of the other drapers' shops, or at any milliners' or
tailors' shops; and she bought nothing at Maltby's but a
piece of long cloth. She was very particular in choosing a
certain quality. As to quantity, she bought enough to make a
nightgown."
"Whose nightgown?" I asked.
"Her own, to be sure. Between twelve and three, on the
Thursday morning, she must have slipped down to your young
lady's room, to settle the hiding of the Moonstone while all
the rest of you were in bed. In going back to her own room,
her nightgown must have brushed the wet paint on the door.
She couldn't wash out the stain; and she couldn't safely
destroy the night-gown without first providing another like
it, to make the inventory of her linen complete."
"What proves that it was Rosanna's nightgown?" I
objected.
"The material she bought for making the substitute
dress," answered the Sergeant. "If it had been Miss
Verinder's nightgown, she would have had to buy lace, and
frilling, and Lord knows what besides; and she wouldn't have
had time to make it in one night. Plain long cloth means a
plain servant's nightgown. No, no, Mr. Betteredge—all that
is clear enough. The pinch of the question is—why, after
having provided the substitute dress, does she hide the
smeared nightgown, instead of destroying it? If the girl
won't speak out, there is only one way of settling the
difficulty. The hiding-place at the Shivering Sand must be
searched—and the true state of the case will be discovered
there."
"How are you to find the place?" I inquired.
"I am sorry to disappoint you," said the Sergeant—"but
that's a secret which I mean to keep to myself."
(Not to irritate your curiosity, as he irritated mine, I
may here inform you that he had come back from Frizinghall
provided with a search-warrant. His experience in such
matters told him that Rosanna was in all probability
carrying about her a memorandum of the hiding-place, to
guide her, in case she returned to it, under changed
circumstances and after a lapse of time. Possessed of this
memorandum, the Sergeant would be furnished with all that he
could desire.)
"Now, Mr. Betteredge," he went on, "suppose we drop
speculation, and get to business. I told Joyce to have an
eye on Rosanna. Where is Joyce?"
Joyce was the Frizinghall policeman, who had been left by
Superintendent Seegrave at Sergeant Cuff's disposal. The
clock struck two, as he put the question; and, punctual to
the moment, the carriage came round to take Miss Rachel to
her aunt's.
"One thing at a time," said the Sergeant, stopping me as
I was about to send in search of Joyce. "I must attend to
Miss Verinder first."
As the rain was still threatening, it was the close
carriage that had been appointed to take Miss Rachel to
Frizinghall. Sergeant Cuff beckoned Samuel to come down to
him from the rumble behind.
"You will see a friend of mine waiting among the trees,
on this side of the lodge gate," he said. "My friend,
without stopping the carriage, will get up into the rumble
with you. You have nothing to do but to hold your tongue,
and shut your eyes. Otherwise, you will get into trouble."
With that advice, he sent the footman back to his place.
What Samuel thought I don't know. It was plain, to my mind,
that Miss Rachel was to be privately kept in view from the
time when she left our house—if she did leave it. A watch
set on my young lady! A spy behind her in the rumble of her
mother's carriage! I could have cut my own tongue out for
having forgotten myself so far as to speak to Sergeant Cuff.
The first person to come out of the house was my lady.
She stood aside, on the top step, posting herself there to
see what happened. Not a word did she say, either to the
Sergeant or to me. With her lips closed, and her arms folded
in the light garden cloak which she had wrapped round her on
coming into the air, there she stood, as still as a statue,
waiting for her daughter to appear.
In a minute more, Miss Rachel came downstairs—very nicely
dressed in some soft yellow stuff, that set off her dark
complexion, and clipped her tight (in the form of a jacket)
round the waist. She had a smart little straw hat on her
head, with a white veil twisted round it. She had
primrose-coloured gloves that fitted her hands like a second
skin. Her beautiful black hair looked as smooth as satin
under her hat. Her little ears were like rosy shells—they
had a pearl dangling from each of them. She came swiftly out
to us, as straight as a lily on its stem, and as lithe and
supple in every movement she made as a young cat. Nothing
that I could discover was altered in her pretty face, but
her eyes and her lips. Her eyes were brighter and fiercer
than I liked to see; and her lips had so completely lost
their colour and their smile that I hardly knew them again.
She kissed her mother in a hasty and sudden manner on the
cheek. She said, "Try to forgive me, mamma"—and then pulled
down her veil over her face so vehemently that she tore it.
In another moment she had run down the steps, and had rushed
into the carriage as if it was a hiding-place.
Sergeant Cuff was just as quick on his side. He put
Samuel back, and stood before Miss Rachel, with the open
carriage-door in his hand, at the instant when she settled
herself in her place.
"What do you want?" says Miss Rachel, from behind her
veil.
"I want to say one word to you, miss," answered the
Sergeant, "before you go. I can't presume to stop your
paying a visit to your aunt. I can only venture to say that
your leaving us, as things are now, puts an obstacle in the
way of my recovering your Diamond. Please to understand
that; and now decide for yourself whether you go or stay."
Miss Rachel never even answered him. "Drive on, James!"
she called out to the coachman.
Without another word, the Sergeant shut the
carriage-door. Just as he closed it, Mr. Franklin came
running down the steps. "Good-bye, Rachel," he said, holding
out his hand.
"Drive on!" cried Miss Rachel, louder than ever, and
taking no more notice of Mr. Franklin than she had taken of
Sergeant Cuff.
Mr. Franklin stepped back thunderstruck, as well he might
be. The coachman, not knowing what to do, looked towards my
lady, still standing immovable on the top step. My lady,
with anger and sorrow and shame all struggling together in
her face, made him a sign to start the horses, and then
turned back hastily into the house. Mr. Franklin, recovering
the use of his speech, called after her, as the carriage
drove off, "Aunt! you were quite right. Accept my thanks for
all your kindness—and let me go."
My lady turned as though to speak to him. Then, as if
distrusting herself, waved her hand kindly. "Let me see you,
before you leave us, Franklin," she said, in a broken
voice—and went on to her own room.
"Do me a last favour, Betteredge," says Mr. Franklin,
turning to me, with the tears in his eyes. "Get me away to
the train as soon as you can!"
He too went his way into the house. For the moment, Miss
Rachel had completely unmanned him. Judge from that, how
fond he must have been of her!
Sergeant Cuff and I were left face to face, at the bottom
of the steps. The Sergeant stood with his face set towards a
gap in the trees, commanding a view of one of the windings
of the drive which led from the house. He had his hands in
his pockets, and he was softly whistling "The Last Rose of
Summer" to himself.
"There's a time for everything," I said savagely enough.
"This isn't a time for whistling."
At that moment, the carriage appeared in the distance,
through the gap, on its way to the lodge-gate. There was
another man, besides Samuel, plainly visible in the rumble
behind.
"All right!" said the Sergeant to himself. He turned
round to me. "It's no time for whistling, Mr. Betteredge, as
you say. It's time to take this business in hand, now,
without sparing anybody. We'll begin with Rosanna Spearman.
Where is Joyce?"
We both called for Joyce, and received no answer. I sent
one of the stable-boys to look for him.
"You heard what I said to Miss Verinder?" remarked the
Sergeant, while we were waiting. "And you saw how she
received it? I tell her plainly that her leaving us will be
an obstacle in the way of my recovering her Diamond—and she
leaves, in the face of that statement! Your young lady has
got a travelling companion in her mother's carriage, Mr.
Betteredge—and the name of it is, the Moonstone."
I said nothing. I only held on like death to my belief in
Miss Rachel.
The stable-boy came back, followed—very unwillingly, as
it appeared to me—by Joyce.
"Where is Rosanna Spearman?" asked Sergeant Cuff.
"I can't account for it, sir," Joyce began; "and I am
very sorry. But somehow or other——"
"Before I went to Frizinghall," said the Sergeant,
cutting him short, "I told you to keep your eyes on Rosanna
Spearman, without allowing her to discover that she was
being watched. Do you mean to tell me that you have let her
give you the slip?"
"I am afraid, sir," says Joyce, beginning to tremble,
"that I was perhaps a little TOO careful not to let her
discover me. There are such a many passages in the lower
parts of this house——"
"How long is it since you missed her?"
"Nigh on an hour since, sir."
"You can go back to your regular business at
Frizinghall," said the Sergeant, speaking just as composedly
as ever, in his usual quiet and dreary way. "I don't think
your talents are at all in our line, Mr. Joyce. Your present
form of employment is a trifle beyond you. Good morning."
The man slunk off. I find it very difficult to describe
how I was affected by the discovery that Rosanna Spearman
was missing. I seemed to be in fifty different minds about
it, all at the same time. In that state, I stood staring at
Sergeant Cuff—and my powers of language quite failed me.
"No, Mr. Betteredge," said the Sergeant, as if he had
discovered the uppermost thought in me, and was picking it
out to be answered, before all the rest. "Your young friend,
Rosanna, won't slip through my fingers so easy as you think.
As long as I know where Miss Verinder is, I have the means
at my disposal of tracing Miss Verinder's accomplice. I
prevented them from communicating last night. Very good.
They will get together at Frizinghall, instead of getting
together here. The present inquiry must be simply shifted
(rather sooner than I had anticipated) from this house, to
the house at which Miss Verinder is visiting. In the
meantime, I'm afraid I must trouble you to call the servants
together again."
I went round with him to the servants' hall. It is very
disgraceful, but it is not the less true, that I had another
attack of the detective-fever, when he said those last
words. I forgot that I hated Sergeant Cuff. I seized him
confidentially by the arm. I said, "For goodness' sake, tell
us what you are going to do with the servants now?"
The great Cuff stood stock still, and addressed himself
in a kind of melancholy rapture to the empty air.
"If this man," said the Sergeant (apparently meaning me),
"only understood the growing of roses he would be the most
completely perfect character on the face of creation!" After
that strong expression of feeling, he sighed, and put his
arm through mine. "This is how it stands," he said, dropping
down again to business. "Rosanna has done one of two things.
She has either gone direct to Frizinghall (before I can get
there), or she has gone first to visit her hiding-place at
the Shivering Sand. The first thing to find out is, which of
the servants saw the last of her before she left the house."
On instituting this inquiry, it turned out that the last
person who had set eyes on Rosanna was Nancy, the
kitchenmaid.
Nancy had seen her slip out with a letter in her hand,
and stop the butcher's man who had just been delivering some
meat at the back door. Nancy had heard her ask the man to
post the letter when he got back to Frizinghall. The man had
looked at the address, and had said it was a roundabout way
of delivering a letter directed to Cobb's Hole, to post it
at Frizinghall—and that, moreover, on a Saturday, which
would prevent the letter from getting to its destination
until Monday morning, Rosanna had answered that the delivery
of the letter being delayed till Monday was of no
importance. The only thing she wished to be sure of was that
the man would do what she told him. The man had promised to
do it, and had driven away. Nancy had been called back to
her work in the kitchen. And no other person had seen
anything afterwards of Rosanna Spearman.
"Well?" I asked, when we were alone again.
"Well," says the Sergeant. "I must go to Frizinghall."
"About the letter, sir?"
"Yes. The memorandum of the hiding-place is in that
letter. I must see the address at the post-office. If it is
the address I suspect, I shall pay our friend, Mrs. Yolland,
another visit on Monday next."
I went with the Sergeant to order the pony-chaise. In the
stable-yard we got a new light thrown on the missing girl.
CHAPTER XIX
The news of Rosanna's disappearance had, as it appeared,
spread among the out-of-door servants. They too had made
their inquiries; and they had just laid hands on a quick
little imp, nicknamed "Duffy"—who was occasionally employed
in weeding the garden, and who had seen Rosanna Spearman as
lately as half-an-hour since. Duffy was certain that the
girl had passed him in the fir-plantation, not walking, but
RUNNING, in the direction of the sea-shore.
"Does this boy know the coast hereabouts?" asked Sergeant
Cuff.
"He has been born and bred on the coast," I answered.
"Duffy!" says the Sergeant, "do you want to earn a
shilling? If you do, come along with me. Keep the
pony-chaise ready, Mr. Betteredge, till I come back."
He started for the Shivering Sand, at a rate that my legs
(though well enough preserved for my time of life) had no
hope of matching. Little Duffy, as the way is with the young
savages in our parts when they are in high spirits, gave a
howl, and trotted off at the Sergeant's heels.
Here again, I find it impossible to give anything like a
clear account of the state of my mind in the interval after
Sergeant Cuff had left us. A curious and stupefying
restlessness got possession of me. I did a dozen different
needless things in and out of the house, not one of which I
can now remember. I don't even know how long it was after
the Sergeant had gone to the sands, when Duffy came running
back with a message for me. Sergeant Cuff had given the boy
a leaf torn out of his pocket-book, on which was written in
pencil, "Send me one of Rosanna Spearman's boots, and be
quick about it."
I despatched the first woman-servant I could find to
Rosanna's room; and I sent the boy back to say that I myself
would follow him with the boot.
This, I am well aware, was not the quickest way to take
of obeying the directions which I had received. But I was
resolved to see for myself what new mystification was going
on before I trusted Rosanna's boot in the Sergeant's hands.
My old notion of screening the girl, if I could, seemed to
have come back on me again, at the eleventh hour. This state
of feeling (to say nothing of the detective-fever) hurried
me off, as soon as I had got the boot, at the nearest
approach to a run which a man turned seventy can reasonably
hope to make.
As I got near the shore, the clouds gathered black, and
the rain came down, drifting in great white sheets of water
before the wind. I heard the thunder of the sea on the
sand-bank at the mouth of the bay. A little further on, I
passed the boy crouching for shelter under the lee of the
sand hills. Then I saw the raging sea, and the rollers
tumbling in on the sand-bank, and the driven rain sweeping
over the waters like a flying garment, and the yellow
wilderness of the beach with one solitary black figure
standing on it—the figure of Sergeant Cuff.
He waved his hand towards the north, when he first saw
me. "Keep on that side!" he shouted. "And come on down here
to me!"
I went down to him, choking for breath, with my heart
leaping as if it was like to leap out of me. I was past
speaking. I had a hundred questions to put to him; and not
one of them would pass my lips. His face frightened me. I
saw a look in his eyes which was a look of horror. He
snatched the boot out of my hand, and set it in a footmark
on the sand, bearing south from us as we stood, and pointing
straight towards the rocky ledge called the South Spit. The
mark was not yet blurred out by the rain—and the girl's boot
fitted it to a hair.
The Sergeant pointed to the boot in the footmark, without
saying a word.
I caught at his arm, and tried to speak to him, and
failed as I had failed when I tried before. He went on,
following the footsteps down and down to where the rocks and
the sand joined. The South Spit was just awash with the
flowing tide; the waters heaved over the hidden face of the
Shivering Sand. Now this way and now that, with an obstinate
patience that was dreadful to see, Sergeant Cuff tried the
boot in the footsteps, and always found it pointing the same
way—straight TO the rocks. Hunt as he might, no sign could
he find anywhere of the footsteps walking FROM them.
He gave it up at last. Still keeping silence, he looked
again at me; and then he looked out at the waters before us,
heaving in deeper and deeper over the quicksand. I looked
where he looked—and I saw his thought in his face. A
dreadful dumb trembling crawled all over me on a sudden. I
fell upon my knees on the beach.
"She has been back at the hiding-place," I heard the
Sergeant say to himself. "Some fatal accident has happened
to her on those rocks."
The girl's altered looks, and words, and actions—the
numbed, deadened way in which she listened to me, and spoke
to me—when I had found her sweeping the corridor but a few
hours since, rose up in my mind, and warned me, even as the
Sergeant spoke, that his guess was wide of the dreadful
truth. I tried to tell him of the fear that had frozen me
up. I tried to say, "The death she has died, Sergeant, was a
death of her own seeking." No! the words wouldn't come. The
dumb trembling held me in its grip. I couldn't feel the
driving rain. I couldn't see the rising tide. As in the
vision of a dream, the poor lost creature came back before
me. I saw her again as I had seen her in the past time—on
the morning when I went to fetch her into the house. I heard
her again, telling me that the Shivering Sand seemed to draw
her to it against her will, and wondering whether her grave
was waiting for her THERE. The horror of it struck at me, in
some unfathomable way, through my own child. My girl was
just her age. My girl, tried as Rosanna was tried, might
have lived that miserable life, and died this dreadful
death.
The Sergeant kindly lifted me up, and turned me away from
the sight of the place where she had perished.
With that relief, I began to fetch my breath again, and
to see things about me, as things really were. Looking
towards the sand-hills, I saw the men-servants from
out-of-doors, and the fisherman, named Yolland, all running
down to us together; and all, having taken the alarm,
calling out to know if the girl had been found. In the
fewest words, the Sergeant showed them the evidence of the
footmarks, and told them that a fatal accident must have
happened to her. He then picked out the fisherman from the
rest, and put a question to him, turning about again towards
the sea: "Tell me," he said. "Could a boat have taken her
off, in such weather as this, from those rocks where her
footmarks stop?"
The fisherman pointed to the rollers tumbling in on the
sand-bank, and to the great waves leaping up in clouds of
foam against the headlands on either side of us.
"No boat that ever was built," he answered, "could have
got to her through THAT."
Sergeant Cuff looked for the last time at the foot-marks
on the sand, which the rain was now fast blurring out.
"There," he said, "is the evidence that she can't have
left this place by land. And here," he went on, looking at
the fisherman, "is the evidence that she can't have got away
by sea." He stopped, and considered for a minute. "She was
seen running towards this place, half an hour before I got
here from the house," he said to Yolland. "Some time has
passed since then. Call it, altogether, an hour ago. How
high would the water be, at that time, on this side of the
rocks?" He pointed to the south side—otherwise, the side
which was not filled up by the quicksand.
"As the tide makes to-day," said the fisherman, "there
wouldn't have been water enough to drown a kitten on that
side of the Spit, an hour since."
Sergeant Cuff turned about northward, towards the
quicksand.
"How much on this side?" he asked.
"Less still," answered Yolland. "The Shivering Sand would
have been just awash, and no more."
The Sergeant turned to me, and said that the accident
must have happened on the side of the quicksand. My tongue
was loosened at that. "No accident!" I told him. "When she
came to this place, she came weary of her life, to end it
here."
He started back from me. "How do you know?" he asked. The
rest of them crowded round. The Sergeant recovered himself
instantly. He put them back from me; he said I was an old
man; he said the discovery had shaken me; he said, "Let him
alone a little." Then he turned to Yolland, and asked, "Is
there any chance of finding her, when the tide ebbs again?"
And Yolland answered, "None. What the Sand gets, the Sand
keeps for ever." Having said that, the fisherman came a step
nearer, and addressed himself to me.
"Mr. Betteredge," he said, "I have a word to say to you
about the young woman's death. Four foot out, broadwise,
along the side of the Spit, there's a shelf of rock, about
half fathom down under the sand. My question is—why didn't
she strike that? If she slipped, by accident, from off the
Spit, she fell in where there's foothold at the bottom, at a
depth that would barely cover her to the waist. She must
have waded out, or jumped out, into the Deeps beyond—or she
wouldn't be missing now. No accident, sir! The Deeps of the
Quicksand have got her. And they have got her by her own
act."
After that testimony from a man whose knowledge was to be
relied on, the Sergeant was silent. The rest of us, like
him, held our peace. With one accord, we all turned back up
the slope of the beach.
At the sand-hillocks we were met by the under-groom,
running to us from the house. The lad is a good lad, and has
an honest respect for me. He handed me a little note, with a
decent sorrow in his face. "Penelope sent me with this, Mr.
Betteredge," he said. "She found it in Rosanna's room."
It was her last farewell word to the old man who had done
his best—thank God, always done his best—to befriend her.
"You have often forgiven me, Mr. Betteredge, in past
times. When you next see the Shivering Sand, try to forgive
me once more. I have found my grave where my grave was
waiting for me. I have lived, and died, sir, grateful for
your kindness."
There was no more than that. Little as it was, I hadn't
manhood enough to hold up against it. Your tears come easy,
when you're young, and beginning the world. Your tears come
easy, when you're old, and leaving it. I burst out crying.
Sergeant Cuff took a step nearer to me—meaning kindly, I
don't doubt. I shrank back from him. "Don't touch me," I
said. "It's the dread of you, that has driven her to it."
"You are wrong, Mr. Betteredge," he answered, quietly.
"But there will be time enough to speak of it when we are
indoors again."
I followed the rest of them, with the help of the groom's
arm. Through the driving rain we went back—to meet the
trouble and the terror that were waiting for us at the
house.
CHAPTER XX
Those in front had spread the news before us. We found
the servants in a state of panic. As we passed my lady's
door, it was thrown open violently from the inner side. My
mistress came out among us (with Mr. Franklin following, and
trying vainly to compose her), quite beside herself with the
horror of the thing.
"You are answerable for this!" she cried out, threatening
the Sergeant wildly with her hand. "Gabriel! give that
wretch his money—and release me from the sight of him!"
The Sergeant was the only one among us who was fit to
cope with her—being the only one among us who was in
possession of himself.
"I am no more answerable for this distressing calamity,
my lady, than you are," he said. "If, in half an hour from
this, you still insist on my leaving the house, I will
accept your ladyship's dismissal, but not your ladyship's
money."
It was spoken very respectfully, but very firmly at the
same time—and it had its effect on my mistress as well as on
me. She suffered Mr. Franklin to lead her back into the
room. As the door closed on the two, the Sergeant, looking
about among the women-servants in his observant way, noticed
that while all the rest were merely frightened, Penelope was
in tears. "When your father has changed his wet clothes," he
said to her, "come and speak to us, in your father's room."
Before the half-hour was out, I had got my dry clothes
on, and had lent Sergeant Cuff such change of dress as he
required. Penelope came in to us to hear what the Sergeant
wanted with her. I don't think I ever felt what a good
dutiful daughter I had, so strongly as I felt it at that
moment. I took her and sat her on my knee and I prayed God
bless her. She hid her head on my bosom, and put her arms
round my neck—and we waited a little while in silence. The
poor dead girl must have been at the bottom of it, I think,
with my daughter and with me. The Sergeant went to the
window, and stood there looking out. I thought it right to
thank him for considering us both in this way—and I did.
People in high life have all the luxuries to
themselves—among others, the luxury of indulging their
feelings. People in low life have no such privilege.
Necessity, which spares our betters, has no pity on us. We
learn to put our feelings back into ourselves, and to jog on
with our duties as patiently as may be. I don't complain of
this—I only notice it. Penelope and I were ready for the
Sergeant, as soon as the Sergeant was ready on his side.
Asked if she knew what had led her fellow-servant to destroy
herself, my daughter answered (as you will foresee) that it
was for love of Mr. Franklin Blake. Asked next, if she had
mentioned this notion of hers to any other person, Penelope
answered, "I have not mentioned it, for Rosanna's sake." I
felt it necessary to add a word to this. I said, "And for
Mr. Franklin's sake, my dear, as well. If Rosanna HAS died
for love of him, it is not with his knowledge or by his
fault. Let him leave the house to-day, if he does leave it,
without the useless pain of knowing the truth." Sergeant
Cuff said, "Quite right," and fell silent again; comparing
Penelope's notion (as it seemed to me) with some other
notion of his own which he kept to himself.
At the end of the half-hour, my mistress's bell rang.
On my way to answer it, I met Mr. Franklin coming out of
his aunt's sitting-room. He mentioned that her ladyship was
ready to see Sergeant Cuff—in my presence as before—and he
added that he himself wanted to say two words to the
Sergeant first. On our way back to my room, he stopped, and
looked at the railway time-table in the hall.
"Are you really going to leave us, sir?" I asked. "Miss
Rachel will surely come right again, if you only give her
time?"
"She will come right again," answered Mr. Franklin, "when
she hears that I have gone away, and that she will see me no
more."
I thought he spoke in resentment of my young lady's
treatment of him. But it was not so. My mistress had
noticed, from the time when the police first came into the
house, that the bare mention of him was enough to set Miss
Rachel's temper in a flame. He had been too fond of his
cousin to like to confess this to himself, until the truth
had been forced on him, when she drove off to her aunt's.
His eyes once opened in that cruel way which you know of,
Mr. Franklin had taken his resolution—the one resolution
which a man of any spirit COULD take—to leave the house.
What he had to say to the Sergeant was spoken in my
presence. He described her ladyship as willing to
acknowledge that she had spoken over-hastily. And he asked
if Sergeant Cuff would consent—in that case—to accept his
fee, and to leave the matter of the Diamond where the matter
stood now. The Sergeant answered, "No, sir. My fee is paid
me for doing my duty. I decline to take it, until my duty is
done."
"I don't understand you," says Mr. Franklin.
"I'll explain myself, sir," says the Sergeant. "When I
came here, I undertook to throw the necessary light on the
matter of the missing Diamond. I am now ready, and waiting
to redeem my pledge. When I have stated the case to Lady
Verinder as the case now stands, and when I have told her
plainly what course of action to take for the recovery of
the Moonstone, the responsibility will be off my shoulders.
Let her ladyship decide, after that, whether she does, or
does not, allow me to go on. I shall then have done what I
undertook to do—and I'll take my fee."
In those words Sergeant Cuff reminded us that, even in
the Detective Police, a man may have a reputation to lose.
The view he took was so plainly the right one, that there
was no more to be said. As I rose to conduct him to my
lady's room, he asked if Mr. Franklin wished to be present.
Mr. Franklin answered, "Not unless Lady Verinder desires
it." He added, in a whisper to me, as I was following the
Sergeant out, "I know what that man is going to say about
Rachel; and I am too fond of her to hear it, and keep my
temper. Leave me by myself."
I left him, miserable enough, leaning on the sill of my
window, with his face hidden in his hands and Penelope
peeping through the door, longing to comfort him. In Mr.
Franklin's place, I should have called her in. When you are
ill-used by one woman, there is great comfort in telling it
to another—because, nine times out of ten, the other always
takes your side. Perhaps, when my back was turned, he did
call her in? In that case it is only doing my daughter
justice to declare that she would stick at nothing, in the
way of comforting Mr. Franklin Blake.
In the meantime, Sergeant Cuff and I proceeded to my
lady's room.
At the last conference we had held with her, we had found
her not over willing to lift her eyes from the book which
she had on the table. On this occasion there was a change
for the better. She met the Sergeant's eye with an eye that
was as steady as his own. The family spirit showed itself in
every line of her face; and I knew that Sergeant Cuff would
meet his match, when a woman like my mistress was strung up
to hear the worst he could say to her.
CHAPTER XXI
The first words, when we had taken our seats, were spoken
by my lady.
"Sergeant Cuff," she said, "there was perhaps some excuse
for the inconsiderate manner in which I spoke to you half an
hour since. I have no wish, however, to claim that excuse. I
say, with perfect sincerity, that I regret it, if I wronged
you."
The grace of voice and manner with which she made him
that atonement had its due effect on the Sergeant. He
requested permission to justify himself—putting his
justification as an act of respect to my mistress. It was
impossible, he said, that he could be in any way responsible
for the calamity, which had shocked us all, for this
sufficient reason, that his success in bringing his inquiry
to its proper end depended on his neither saying nor doing
anything that could alarm Rosanna Spearman. He appealed to
me to testify whether he had, or had not, carried that
object out. I could, and did, bear witness that he had. And
there, as I thought, the matter might have been judiciously
left to come to an end.
Sergeant Cuff, however, took it a step further, evidently
(as you shall now judge) with the purpose of forcing the
most painful of all possible explanations to take place
between her ladyship and himself.
"I have heard a motive assigned for the young woman's
suicide," said the Sergeant, "which may possibly be the
right one. It is a motive quite unconnected with the case
which I am conducting here. I am bound to add, however, that
my own opinion points the other way. Some unbearable anxiety
in connexion with the missing Diamond, has, I believe,
driven the poor creature to her own destruction. I don't
pretend to know what that unbearable anxiety may have been.
But I think (with your ladyship's permission) I can lay my
hand on a person who is capable of deciding whether I am
right or wrong."
"Is the person now in the house?" my mistress asked,
after waiting a little.
"The person has left the house," my lady.
That answer pointed as straight to Miss Rachel as
straight could be. A silence dropped on us which I thought
would never come to an end. Lord! how the wind howled, and
how the rain drove at the window, as I sat there waiting for
one or other of them to speak again!
"Be so good as to express yourself plainly," said my
lady. "Do you refer to my daughter?"
"I do," said Sergeant Cuff, in so many words.
My mistress had her cheque-book on the table when we
entered the room—no doubt to pay the Sergeant his fee. She
now put it back in the drawer. It went to my heart to see
how her poor hand trembled—the hand that had loaded her old
servant with benefits; the hand that, I pray God, may take
mine, when my time comes, and I leave my place for ever!
"I had hoped," said my lady, very slowly and quietly, "to
have recompensed your services, and to have parted with you
without Miss Verinder's name having been openly mentioned
between us as it has been mentioned now. My nephew has
probably said something of this, before you came into my
room?"
"Mr. Blake gave his message, my lady. And I gave Mr.
Blake a reason——"
"It is needless to tell me your reason. After what you
have just said, you know as well as I do that you have gone
too far to go back. I owe it to myself, and I owe it to my
child, to insist on your remaining here, and to insist on
your speaking out."
The Sergeant looked at his watch.
"If there had been time, my lady," he answered, "I should
have preferred writing my report, instead of communicating
it by word of mouth. But, if this inquiry is to go on, time
is of too much importance to be wasted in writing. I am
ready to go into the matter at once. It is a very painful
matter for me to speak of, and for you to hear."
There my mistress stopped him once more.
"I may possibly make it less painful to you, and to my
good servant and friend here," she said, "if I set the
example of speaking boldly, on my side. You suspect Miss
Verinder of deceiving us all, by secreting the Diamond for
some purpose of her own? Is that true?"
"Quite true, my lady."
"Very well. Now, before you begin, I have to tell you, as
Miss Verinder's mother, that she is ABSOLUTELY INCAPABLE of
doing what you suppose her to have done. Your knowledge of
her character dates from a day or two since. My knowledge of
her character dates from the beginning of her life. State
your suspicion of her as strongly as you please—it is
impossible that you can offend me by doing so. I am sure,
beforehand, that (with all your experience) the
circumstances have fatally misled you in this case. Mind! I
am in possession of no private information. I am as
absolutely shut out of my daughter's confidence as you are.
My one reason for speaking positively, is the reason you
have heard already. I know my child."
She turned to me, and gave me her hand. I kissed it in
silence. "You may go on," she said, facing the Sergeant
again as steadily as ever.
Sergeant Cuff bowed. My mistress had produced but one
effect on him. His hatchet-face softened for a moment, as if
he was sorry for her. As to shaking him in his own
conviction, it was plain to see that she had not moved him
by a single inch. He settled himself in his chair; and he
began his vile attack on Miss Rachel's character in these
words:
"I must ask your ladyship," he said, "to look this matter
in the face, from my point of view as well as from yours.
Will you please to suppose yourself coming down here, in my
place, and with my experience? and will you allow me to
mention very briefly what that experience has been?"
My mistress signed to him that she would do this. The
Sergeant went on:
"For the last twenty years," he said, "I have been
largely employed in cases of family scandal, acting in the
capacity of confidential man. The one result of my domestic
practice which has any bearing on the matter now in hand, is
a result which I may state in two words. It is well within
my experience, that young ladies of rank and position do
occasionally have private debts which they dare not
acknowledge to their nearest relatives and friends.
Sometimes, the milliner and the jeweller are at the bottom
of it. Sometimes, the money is wanted for purposes which I
don't suspect in this case, and which I won't shock you by
mentioning. Bear in mind what I have said, my lady—and now
let us see how events in this house have forced me back on
my own experience, whether I liked it or not!"
He considered with himself for a moment, and went on—with
a horrid clearness that obliged you to understand him; with
an abominable justice that favoured nobody.
"My first information relating to the loss of the
Moonstone," said the Sergeant, "came to me from
Superintendent Seegrave. He proved to my complete
satisfaction that he was perfectly incapable of managing the
case. The one thing he said which struck me as worth
listening to, was this—that Miss Verinder had declined to be
questioned by him, and had spoken to him with a perfectly
incomprehensible rudeness and contempt. I thought this
curious—but I attributed it mainly to some clumsiness on the
Superintendent's part which might have offended the young
lady. After that, I put it by in my mind, and applied
myself, single-handed, to the case. It ended, as you are
aware, in the discovery of the smear on the door, and in Mr.
Franklin Blake's evidence satisfying me, that this same
smear, and the loss of the Diamond, were pieces of the same
puzzle. So far, if I suspected anything, I suspected that
the Moonstone had been stolen, and that one of the servants
might prove to be the thief. Very good. In this state of
things, what happens? Miss Verinder suddenly comes out of
her room, and speaks to me. I observe three suspicious
appearances in that young lady. She is still violently
agitated, though more than four-and-twenty hours have passed
since the Diamond was lost. She treats me as she has already
treated Superintendent Seegrave. And she is mortally
offended with Mr. Franklin Blake. Very good again. Here (I
say to myself) is a young lady who has lost a valuable
jewel—a young lady, also, as my own eyes and ears inform me,
who is of an impetuous temperament. Under these
circumstances, and with that character, what does she do?
She betrays an incomprehensible resentment against Mr.
Blake, Mr. Superintendent, and myself—otherwise, the very
three people who have all, in their different ways, been
trying to help her to recover her lost jewel. Having brought
my inquiry to that point—THEN, my lady, and not till then, I
begin to look back into my own mind for my own experience.
My own experience explains Miss Verinder's otherwise
incomprehensible conduct. It associates her with those other
young ladies that I know of. It tells me she has debts she
daren't acknowledge, that must be paid. And it sets me
asking myself, whether the loss of the Diamond may not
mean—that the Diamond must be secretly pledged to pay them.
That is the conclusion which my experience draws from plain
facts. What does your ladyship's experience say against it?"
"What I have said already," answered my mistress. "The
circumstances have misled you."
I said nothing on my side. ROBINSON CRUSOE—God knows
how—had got into my muddled old head. If Sergeant Cuff had
found himself, at that moment, transported to a desert
island, without a man Friday to keep him company, or a ship
to take him off—he would have found himself exactly where I
wished him to be! (Nota bene:—I am an average good
Christian, when you don't push my Christianity too far. And
all the rest of you—which is a great comfort—are, in this
respect, much the same as I am.)
Sergeant Cuff went on:
"Right or wrong, my lady," he said, "having drawn my
conclusion, the next thing to do was to put it to the test.
I suggested to your ladyship the examination of all the
wardrobes in the house. It was a means of finding the
article of dress which had, in all probability, made the
smear; and it was a means of putting my conclusion to the
test. How did it turn out? Your ladyship consented; Mr.
Blake consented; Mr. Ablewhite consented. Miss Verinder
alone stopped the whole proceeding by refusing point-blank.
That result satisfied me that my view was the right one. If
your ladyship and Mr. Betteredge persist in not agreeing
with me, you must be blind to what happened before you this
very day. In your hearing, I told the young lady that her
leaving the house (as things were then) would put an
obstacle in the way of my recovering her jewel. You saw
yourselves that she drove off in the face of that statement.
You saw yourself that, so far from forgiving Mr. Blake for
having done more than all the rest of you to put the clue
into my hands, she publicly insulted Mr. Blake, on the steps
of her mother's house. What do these things mean? If Miss
Verinder is not privy to the suppression of the Diamond,
what do these things mean?"
This time he looked my way. It was downright frightful to
hear him piling up proof after proof against Miss Rachel,
and to know, while one was longing to defend her, that there
was no disputing the truth of what he said. I am (thank
God!) constitutionally superior to reason. This enabled me
to hold firm to my lady's view, which was my view also. This
roused my spirit, and made me put a bold face on it before
Sergeant Cuff. Profit, good friends, I beseech you, by my
example. It will save you from many troubles of the vexing
sort. Cultivate a superiority to reason, and see how you
pare the claws of all the sensible people when they try to
scratch you for your own good!
Finding that I made no remark, and that my mistress made
no remark, Sergeant Cuff proceeded. Lord! how it did enrage
me to notice that he was not in the least put out by our
silence!
"There is the case, my lady, as it stands against Miss
Verinder alone," he said. "The next thing is to put the case
as it stands against Miss Verinder and the deceased Rosanna
Spearman taken together. We will go back for a moment, if
you please, to your daughter's refusal to let her wardrobe
be examined. My mind being made up, after that circumstance,
I had two questions to consider next. First, as to the right
method of conducting my inquiry. Second, as to whether Miss
Verinder had an accomplice among the female servants in the
house. After carefully thinking it over, I determined to
conduct the inquiry in, what we should call at our office, a
highly irregular manner. For this reason: I had a family
scandal to deal with, which it was my business to keep
within the family limits. The less noise made, and the fewer
strangers employed to help me, the better. As to the usual
course of taking people in custody on suspicion, going
before the magistrate, and all the rest of it—nothing of the
sort was to be thought of, when your ladyship's daughter was
(as I believed) at the bottom of the whole business. In this
case, I felt that a person of Mr. Betteredge's character and
position in the house—knowing the servants as he did, and
having the honour of the family at heart—would be safer to
take as an assistant than any other person whom I could lay
my hand on. I should have tried Mr. Blake as well—but for
one obstacle in the way. HE saw the drift of my proceedings
at a very early date; and, with his interest in Miss
Verinder, any mutual understanding was impossible between
him and me. I trouble your ladyship with these particulars
to show you that I have kept the family secret within the
family circle. I am the only outsider who knows it—and my
professional existence depends on holding my tongue."
Here I felt that my professional existence depended on
not holding my tongue. To be held up before my mistress, in
my old age, as a sort of deputy-policeman, was, once again,
more than my Christianity was strong enough to bear.
"I beg to inform your ladyship," I said, "that I never,
to my knowledge, helped this abominable detective business,
in any way, from first to last; and I summon Sergeant Cuff
to contradict me, if he dares!"
Having given vent in those words, I felt greatly
relieved. Her ladyship honoured me by a little friendly pat
on the shoulder. I looked with righteous indignation at the
Sergeant, to see what he thought of such a testimony as
THAT. The Sergeant looked back like a lamb, and seemed to
like me better than ever.
My lady informed him that he might continue his
statement. "I understand," she said, "that you have honestly
done your best, in what you believe to be my interest. I am
ready to hear what you have to say next."
"What I have to say next," answered Sergeant Cuff,
"relates to Rosanna Spearman. I recognised the young woman,
as your ladyship may remember, when she brought the
washing-book into this room. Up to that time I was inclined
to doubt whether Miss Verinder had trusted her secret to any
one. When I saw Rosanna, I altered my mind. I suspected her
at once of being privy to the suppression of the Diamond.
The poor creature has met her death by a dreadful end, and I
don't want your ladyship to think, now she's gone, that I
was unduly hard on her. If this had been a common case of
thieving, I should have given Rosanna the benefit of the
doubt just as freely as I should have given it to any of the
other servants in the house. Our experience of the
Reformatory woman is, that when tried in service—and when
kindly and judiciously treated—they prove themselves in the
majority of cases to be honestly penitent, and honestly
worthy of the pains taken with them. But this was not a
common case of thieving. It was a case—in my mind—of a
deeply planned fraud, with the owner of the Diamond at the
bottom of it. Holding this view, the first consideration
which naturally presented itself to me, in connection with
Rosanna, was this: Would Miss Verinder be satisfied (begging
your ladyship's pardon) with leading us all to think that
the Moonstone was merely lost? Or would she go a step
further, and delude us into believing that the Moonstone was
stolen? In the latter event there was Rosanna Spearman—with
the character of a thief—ready to her hand; the person of
all others to lead your ladyship off, and to lead me off, on
a false scent."
Was it possible (I asked myself) that he could put his
case against Miss Rachel and Rosanna in a more horrid point
of view than this? It WAS possible, as you shall now see.
"I had another reason for suspecting the deceased woman,"
he said, "which appears to me to have been stronger still.
Who would be the very person to help Miss Verinder in
raising money privately on the Diamond? Rosanna Spearman. No
young lady in Miss Verinder's position could manage such a
risky matter as that by herself. A go-between she must have,
and who so fit, I ask again, as Rosanna Spearman? Your
ladyship's deceased housemaid was at the top of her
profession when she was a thief. She had relations, to my
certain knowledge, with one of the few men in London (in the
money-lending line) who would advance a large sum on such a
notable jewel as the Moonstone, without asking awkward
questions, or insisting on awkward conditions. Bear this in
mind, my lady; and now let me show you how my suspicions
have been justified by Rosanna's own acts, and by the plain
inferences to be drawn from them."
He thereupon passed the whole of Rosanna's proceedings
under review. You are already as well acquainted with those
proceedings as I am; and you will understand how
unanswerably this part of his report fixed the guilt of
being concerned in the disappearance of the Moonstone on the
memory of the poor dead girl. Even my mistress was daunted
by what he said now. She made him no answer when he had
done. It didn't seem to matter to the Sergeant whether he
was answered or not. On he went (devil take him!), just as
steady as ever.
"Having stated the whole case as I understand it," he
said, "I have only to tell your ladyship, now, what I
propose to do next. I see two ways of bringing this inquiry
successfully to an end. One of those ways I look upon as a
certainty. The other, I admit, is a bold experiment, and
nothing more. Your ladyship shall decide. Shall we take the
certainty first?"
My mistress made him a sign to take his own way, and
choose for himself.
"Thank you," said the Sergeant. "We'll begin with the
certainty, as your ladyship is so good as to leave it to me.
Whether Miss Verinder remains at Frizinghall, or whether she
returns here, I propose, in either case, to keep a careful
watch on all her proceedings—on the people she sees, on the
rides and walks she may take, and on the letters she may
write and receive."
"What next?" asked my mistress.
"I shall next," answered the Sergeant, "request your
ladyship's leave to introduce into the house, as a servant
in the place of Rosanna Spearman, a woman accustomed to
private inquiries of this sort, for whose discretion I can
answer."
"What next?" repeated my mistress.
"Next," proceeded the Sergeant, "and last, I propose to
send one of my brother-officers to make an arrangement with
that money-lender in London, whom I mentioned just now as
formerly acquainted with Rosanna Spearman—and whose name and
address, your ladyship may rely on it, have been
communicated by Rosanna to Miss Verinder. I don't deny that
the course of action I am now suggesting will cost money,
and consume time. But the result is certain. We run a line
round the Moonstone, and we draw that line closer and closer
till we find it in Miss Verinder's possession, supposing she
decides to keep it. If her debts press, and she decides on
sending it away, then we have our man ready, and we meet the
Moonstone on its arrival in London."
To hear her own daughter made the subject of such a
proposal as this, stung my mistress into speaking angrily
for the first time.
"Consider your proposal declined, in every particular,"
she said. "And go on to your other way of bringing the
inquiry to an end."
"My other way," said the Sergeant, going on as easy as
ever, "is to try that bold experiment to which I have
alluded. I think I have formed a pretty correct estimate of
Miss Verinder's temperament. She is quite capable (according
to my belief) of committing a daring fraud. But she is too
hot and impetuous in temper, and too little accustomed to
deceit as a habit, to act the hypocrite in small things, and
to restrain herself under all provocations. Her feelings, in
this case, have repeatedly got beyond her control, at the
very time when it was plainly her interest to conceal them.
It is on this peculiarity in her character that I now
propose to act. I want to give her a great shock suddenly,
under circumstances that will touch her to the quick. In
plain English, I want to tell Miss Verinder, without a word
of warning, of Rosanna's death—on the chance that her own
better feelings will hurry her into making a clean breast of
it. Does your ladyship accept that alternative?"
My mistress astonished me beyond all power of expression.
She answered him on the instant:
"Yes; I do."
"The pony-chaise is ready," said the Sergeant. "I wish
your ladyship good morning."
My lady held up her hand, and stopped him at the door.
"My daughter's better feelings shall be appealed to, as
you propose," she said. "But I claim the right, as her
mother, of putting her to the test myself. You will remain
here, if you please; and I will go to Frizinghall."
For once in his life, the great Cuff stood speechless
with amazement, like an ordinary man.
My mistress rang the bell, and ordered her water-proof
things. It was still pouring with rain; and the close
carriage had gone, as you know, with Miss Rachel to
Frizinghall. I tried to dissuade her ladyship from facing
the severity of the weather. Quite useless! I asked leave to
go with her, and hold the umbrella. She wouldn't hear of it.
The pony-chaise came round, with the groom in charge. "You
may rely on two things," she said to Sergeant Cuff, in the
hall. "I will try the experiment on Miss Verinder as boldly
as you could try it yourself. And I will inform you of the
result, either personally or by letter, before the last
train leaves for London to-night."
With that, she stepped into the chaise, and, taking the
reins herself, drove off to Frizinghall.
CHAPTER XXII
My mistress having left us, I had leisure to think of
Sergeant Cuff. I found him sitting in a snug corner of the
hall, consulting his memorandum book, and curling up
viciously at the corners of the lips.
"Making notes of the case?" I asked.
"No," said the Sergeant. "Looking to see what my next
professional engagement is."
"Oh!" I said. "You think it's all over then, here?"
"I think," answered Sergeant Cuff, "that Lady Verinder is
one of the cleverest women in England. I also think a rose
much better worth looking at than a diamond. Where is the
gardener, Mr. Betteredge?"
There was no getting a word more out of him on the matter
of the Moonstone. He had lost all interest in his own
inquiry; and he would persist in looking for the gardener.
An hour afterwards, I heard them at high words in the
conservatory, with the dog-rose once more at the bottom of
the dispute.
In the meantime, it was my business to find out whether
Mr. Franklin persisted in his resolution to leave us by the
afternoon train. After having been informed of the
conference in my lady's room, and of how it had ended, he
immediately decided on waiting to hear the news from
Frizinghall. This very natural alteration in his
plans—which, with ordinary people, would have led to nothing
in particular—proved, in Mr. Franklin's case, to have one
objectionable result. It left him unsettled, with a legacy
of idle time on his hands, and, in so doing, it let out all
the foreign sides of his character, one on the top of
another, like rats out of a bag.
Now as an Italian-Englishman, now as a German-Englishman,
and now as a French-Englishman, he drifted in and out of all
the sitting-rooms in the house, with nothing to talk of but
Miss Rachel's treatment of him; and with nobody to address
himself to but me. I found him (for example) in the library,
sitting under the map of Modern Italy, and quite unaware of
any other method of meeting his troubles, except the method
of talking about them. "I have several worthy aspirations,
Betteredge; but what am I to do with them now? I am full of
dormant good qualities, if Rachel would only have helped me
to bring them out!" He was so eloquent in drawing the
picture of his own neglected merits, and so pathetic in
lamenting over it when it was done, that I felt quite at my
wits' end how to console him, when it suddenly occurred to
me that here was a case for the wholesome application of a
bit of ROBINSON CRUSOE. I hobbled out to my own room, and
hobbled back with that immortal book. Nobody in the library!
The map of Modern Italy stared at ME; and I stared at the
map of Modern Italy.
I tried the drawing-room. There was his handkerchief on
the floor, to prove that he had drifted in. And there was
the empty room to prove that he had drifted out again.
I tried the dining-room, and discovered Samuel with a
biscuit and a glass of sherry, silently investigating the
empty air. A minute since, Mr. Franklin had rung furiously
for a little light refreshment. On its production, in a
violent hurry, by Samuel, Mr. Franklin had vanished before
the bell downstairs had quite done ringing with the pull he
had given to it.
I tried the morning-room, and found him at last. There he
was at the window, drawing hieroglyphics with his finger in
the damp on the glass.
"Your sherry is waiting for you, sir," I said to him. I
might as well have addressed myself to one of the four walls
of the room; he was down in the bottomless deep of his own
meditations, past all pulling up. "How do YOU explain
Rachel's conduct, Betteredge?" was the only answer I
received. Not being ready with the needful reply, I produced
ROBINSON CRUSOE, in which I am firmly persuaded some
explanation might have been found, if we had only searched
long enough for it. Mr. Franklin shut up ROBINSON CRUSOE,
and floundered into his German-English gibberish on the
spot. "Why not look into it?" he said, as if I had
personally objected to looking into it. "Why the devil lose
your patience, Betteredge, when patience is all that's
wanted to arrive at the truth? Don't interrupt me. Rachel's
conduct is perfectly intelligible, if you will only do her
the common justice to take the Objective view first, and the
Subjective view next, and the Objective-Subjective view to
wind up with. What do we know? We know that the loss of the
Moonstone, on Thursday morning last, threw her into a state
of nervous excitement, from which she has not recovered yet.
Do you mean to deny the Objective view, so far? Very well,
then—don't interrupt me. Now, being in a state of nervous
excitement, how are we to expect that she should behave as
she might otherwise have behaved to any of the people about
her? Arguing in this way, from within-outwards, what do we
reach? We reach the Subjective view. I defy you to
controvert the Subjective view. Very well then—what follows?
Good Heavens! the Objective-Subjective explanation follows,
of course! Rachel, properly speaking, is not Rachel, but
Somebody Else. Do I mind being cruelly treated by Somebody
Else? You are unreasonable enough, Betteredge; but you can
hardly accuse me of that. Then how does it end? It ends, in
spite of your confounded English narrowness and prejudice,
in my being perfectly happy and comfortable. Where's the
sherry?"
My head was by this time in such a condition, that I was
not quite sure whether it was my own head, or Mr.
Franklin's. In this deplorable state, I contrived to do,
what I take to have been, three Objective things. I got Mr.
Franklin his sherry; I retired to my own room; and I solaced
myself with the most composing pipe of tobacco I ever
remember to have smoked in my life.
Don't suppose, however, that I was quit of Mr. Franklin
on such easy terms as these. Drifting again, out of the
morning-room into the hall, he found his way to the offices
next, smelt my pipe, and was instantly reminded that he had
been simple enough to give up smoking for Miss Rachel's
sake. In the twinkling of an eye, he burst in on me with his
cigar-case, and came out strong on the one everlasting
subject, in his neat, witty, unbelieving, French way. "Give
me a light, Betteredge. Is it conceivable that a man can
have smoked as long as I have without discovering that there
is a complete system for the treatment of women at the
bottom of his cigar-case? Follow me carefully, and I will
prove it in two words. You choose a cigar, you try it, and
it disappoints you. What do you do upon that? You throw it
away and try another. Now observe the application! You
choose a woman, you try her, and she breaks your heart.
Fool! take a lesson from your cigar-case. Throw her away,
and try another!"
I shook my head at that. Wonderfully clever, I dare say,
but my own experience was dead against it. "In the time of
the late Mrs. Betteredge," I said, "I felt pretty often
inclined to try your philosophy, Mr. Franklin. But the law
insists on your smoking your cigar, sir, when you have once
chosen it." I pointed that observation with a wink. Mr.
Franklin burst out laughing—and we were as merry as
crickets, until the next new side of his character turned up
in due course. So things went on with my young master and
me; and so (while the Sergeant and the gardener were
wrangling over the roses) we two spent the interval before
the news came back from Frizinghall.
The pony-chaise returned a good half hour before I had
ventured to expect it. My lady had decided to remain for the
present, at her sister's house. The groom brought two
letters from his mistress; one addressed to Mr. Franklin,
and the other to me.
Mr. Franklin's letter I sent to him in the library—into
which refuge his driftings had now taken him for the second
time. My own letter, I read in my own room. A cheque, which
dropped out when I opened it, informed me (before I had
mastered the contents) that Sergeant Cuff's dismissal from
the inquiry after the Moonstone was now a settled thing.
I sent to the conservatory to say that I wished to speak
to the Sergeant directly. He appeared, with his mind full of
the gardener and the dog-rose, declaring that the equal of
Mr. Begbie for obstinacy never had existed yet, and never
would exist again. I requested him to dismiss such wretched
trifling as this from our conversation, and to give his best
attention to a really serious matter. Upon that he exerted
himself sufficiently to notice the letter in my hand. "Ah!"
he said in a weary way, "you have heard from her ladyship.
Have I anything to do with it, Mr. Betteredge?"
"You shall judge for yourself, Sergeant." I thereupon
read him the letter (with my best emphasis and discretion),
in the following words:
"MY GOOD GABRIEL,—I request that you will inform Sergeant
Cuff, that I have performed the promise I made to him; with
this result, so far as Rosanna Spearman is concerned. Miss
Verinder solemnly declares, that she has never spoken a word
in private to Rosanna, since that unhappy woman first
entered my house. They never met, even accidentally, on the
night when the Diamond was lost; and no communication of any
sort whatever took place between them, from the Thursday
morning when the alarm was first raised in the house, to
this present Saturday afternoon, when Miss Verinder left us.
After telling my daughter suddenly, and in so many words, of
Rosanna Spearman's suicide—this is what has come of it."
Having reached that point, I looked up, and asked
Sergeant Cuff what he thought of the letter, so far?
"I should only offend you if I expressed MY opinion,"
answered the Sergeant. "Go on, Mr. Betteredge," he said,
with the most exasperating resignation, "go on."
When I remembered that this man had had the audacity to
complain of our gardener's obstinacy, my tongue itched to
"go on" in other words than my mistress's. This time,
however, my Christianity held firm. I proceeded steadily
with her ladyship's letter:
"Having appealed to Miss Verinder in the manner which the
officer thought most desirable, I spoke to her next in the
manner which I myself thought most likely to impress her. On
two different occasions, before my daughter left my roof, I
privately warned her that she was exposing herself to
suspicion of the most unendurable and most degrading kind. I
have now told her, in the plainest terms, that my
apprehensions have been realised.
"Her answer to this, on her own solemn affirmation, is as
plain as words can be. In the first place, she owes no money
privately to any living creature. In the second place, the
Diamond is not now, and never has been, in her possession,
since she put it into her cabinet on Wednesday night.
"The confidence which my daughter has placed in me goes
no further than this. She maintains an obstinate silence,
when I ask her if she can explain the disappearance of the
Diamond. She refuses, with tears, when I appeal to her to
speak out for my sake. 'The day will come when you will know
why I am careless about being suspected, and why I am silent
even to you. I have done much to make my mother pity
me—nothing to make my mother blush for me.' Those are my
daughter's own words.
"After what has passed between the officer and me, I
think—stranger as he is—that he should be made acquainted
with what Miss Verinder has said, as well as you. Read my
letter to him, and then place in his hands the cheque which
I enclose. In resigning all further claim on his services, I
have only to say that I am convinced of his honesty and his
intelligence; but I am more firmly persuaded than ever, that
the circumstances, in this case, have fatally misled him."
There the letter ended. Before presenting the cheque, I
asked Sergeant Cuff if he had any remark to make.
"It's no part of my duty, Mr. Betteredge," he answered,
"to make remarks on a case, when I have done with it."
I tossed the cheque across the table to him. "Do you
believe in THAT part of her ladyship's letter?" I said,
indignantly.
The Sergeant looked at the cheque, and lifted up his
dismal eyebrows in acknowledgment of her ladyship's
liberality.
"This is such a generous estimate of the value of my
time," he said, "that I feel bound to make some return for
it. I'll bear in mind the amount in this cheque, Mr.
Betteredge, when the occasion comes round for remembering
it."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"Her ladyship has smoothed matters over for the present
very cleverly," said the Sergeant. "But THIS family scandal
is of the sort that bursts up again when you least expect
it. We shall have more detective-business on our hands, sir,
before the Moonstone is many months older."
If those words meant anything, and if the manner in which
he spoke them meant anything—it came to this. My mistress's
letter had proved, to his mind, that Miss Rachel was
hardened enough to resist the strongest appeal that could be
addressed to her, and that she had deceived her own mother
(good God, under what circumstances!) by a series of
abominable lies. How other people, in my place, might have
replied to the Sergeant, I don't know. I answered what he
said in these plain terms:
"Sergeant Cuff, I consider your last observation as an
insult to my lady and her daughter!"
"Mr. Betteredge, consider it as a warning to yourself,
and you will be nearer the mark."
Hot and angry as I was, the infernal confidence with
which he gave me that answer closed my lips.
I walked to the window to compose myself. The rain had
given over; and, who should I see in the court-yard, but Mr.
Begbie, the gardener, waiting outside to continue the
dog-rose controversy with Sergeant Cuff.
"My compliments to the Sairgent," said Mr. Begbie, the
moment he set eyes on me. "If he's minded to walk to the
station, I'm agreeable to go with him."
"What!" cries the Sergeant, behind me, "are you not
convinced yet?"
"The de'il a bit I'm convinced!" answered Mr. Begbie.
"Then I'll walk to the station!" says the Sergeant.
"Then I'll meet you at the gate!" says Mr. Begbie.
I was angry enough, as you know—but how was any man's
anger to hold out against such an interruption as this?
Sergeant Cuff noticed the change in me, and encouraged it by
a word in season. "Come! come!" he said, "why not treat my
view of the case as her ladyship treats it? Why not say, the
circumstances have fatally misled me?"
To take anything as her ladyship took it was a privilege
worth enjoying—even with the disadvantage of its having been
offered to me by Sergeant Cuff. I cooled slowly down to my
customary level. I regarded any other opinion of Miss
Rachel, than my lady's opinion or mine, with a lofty
contempt. The only thing I could not do, was to keep off the
subject of the Moonstone! My own good sense ought to have
warned me, I know, to let the matter rest—but, there! the
virtues which distinguish the present generation were not
invented in my time. Sergeant Cuff had hit me on the raw,
and, though I did look down upon him with contempt, the
tender place still tingled for all that. The end of it was
that I perversely led him back to the subject of her
ladyship's letter. "I am quite satisfied myself," I said.
"But never mind that! Go on, as if I was still open to
conviction. You think Miss Rachel is not to be believed on
her word; and you say we shall hear of the Moonstone again.
Back your opinion, Sergeant," I concluded, in an airy way.
"Back your opinion."
Instead of taking offence, Sergeant Cuff seized my hand,
and shook it till my fingers ached again.
"I declare to heaven," says this strange officer
solemnly, "I would take to domestic service to-morrow, Mr.
Betteredge, if I had a chance of being employed along with
You! To say you are as transparent as a child, sir, is to
pay the children a compliment which nine out of ten of them
don't deserve. There! there! we won't begin to dispute
again. You shall have it out of me on easier terms than
that. I won't say a word more about her ladyship, or about
Miss Verinder—I'll only turn prophet, for once in a way, and
for your sake. I have warned you already that you haven't
done with the Moonstone yet. Very well. Now I'll tell you,
at parting, of three things which will happen in the future,
and which, I believe, will force themselves on your
attention, whether you like it or not."
"Go on!" I said, quite unabashed, and just as airy as
ever.
"First," said the Sergeant, "you will hear something from
the Yollands—when the postman delivers Rosanna's letter at
Cobb's Hole, on Monday next."
If he had thrown a bucket of cold water over me, I doubt
if I could have felt it much more unpleasantly than I felt
those words. Miss Rachel's assertion of her innocence had
left Rosanna's conduct—the making the new nightgown, the
hiding the smeared nightgown, and all the rest of
it—entirely without explanation. And this had never occurred
to me, till Sergeant Cuff forced it on my mind all in a
moment!
"In the second place," proceeded the Sergeant, "you will
hear of the three Indians again. You will hear of them in
the neighbourhood, if Miss Rachel remains in the
neighbourhood. You will hear of them in London, if Miss
Rachel goes to London."
Having lost all interest in the three jugglers, and
having thoroughly convinced myself of my young lady's
innocence, I took this second prophecy easily enough. "So
much for two of the three things that are going to happen,"
I said. "Now for the third!"
"Third, and last," said Sergeant Cuff, "you will, sooner
or later, hear something of that money-lender in London,
whom I have twice taken the liberty of mentioning already.
Give me your pocket-book, and I'll make a note for you of
his name and address—so that there may be no mistake about
it if the thing really happens."
He wrote accordingly on a blank leaf—"Mr. Septimus Luker,
Middlesex-place, Lambeth, London."
"There," he said, pointing to the address, "are the last
words, on the subject of the Moonstone, which I shall
trouble you with for the present. Time will show whether I
am right or wrong. In the meanwhile, sir, I carry away with
me a sincere personal liking for you, which I think does
honour to both of us. If we don't meet again before my
professional retirement takes place, I hope you will come
and see me in a little house near London, which I have got
my eye on. There will be grass walks, Mr. Betteredge, I
promise you, in my garden. And as for the white moss rose——"
"The de'il a bit ye'll get the white moss rose to grow,
unless you bud him on the dogue-rose first," cried a voice
at the window.
We both turned round. There was the everlasting Mr.
Begbie, too eager for the controversy to wait any longer at
the gate. The Sergeant wrung my hand, and darted out into
the court-yard, hotter still on his side. "Ask him about the
moss rose, when he comes back, and see if I have left him a
leg to stand on!" cried the great Cuff, hailing me through
the window in his turn. "Gentlemen, both!" I answered,
moderating them again as I had moderated them once already.
"In the matter of the moss rose there is a great deal to
be said on both sides!" I might as well (as the Irish say)
have whistled jigs to a milestone. Away they went together,
fighting the battle of the roses without asking or giving
quarter on either side. The last I saw of them, Mr. Begbie
was shaking his obstinate head, and Sergeant Cuff had got
him by the arm like a prisoner in charge. Ah, well! well! I
own I couldn't help liking the Sergeant—though I hated him
all the time.
Explain that state of mind, if you can. You will soon be
rid, now, of me and my contradictions. When I have reported
Mr. Franklin's departure, the history of the Saturday's
events will be finished at last. And when I have next
described certain strange things that happened in the course
of the new week, I shall have done my part of the Story, and
shall hand over the pen to the person who is appointed to
follow my lead. If you are as tired of reading this
narrative as I am of writing it—Lord, how we shall enjoy
ourselves on both sides a few pages further on!
CHAPTER XXIII
I had kept the pony chaise ready, in case Mr. Franklin
persisted in leaving us by the train that night. The
appearance of the luggage, followed downstairs by Mr.
Franklin himself, informed me plainly enough that he had
held firm to a resolution for once in his life.
"So you have really made up your mind, sir?" I said, as
we met in the hall. "Why not wait a day or two longer, and
give Miss Rachel another chance?"
The foreign varnish appeared to have all worn off Mr.
Franklin, now that the time had come for saying good-bye.
Instead of replying to me in words, he put the letter which
her ladyship had addressed to him into my hand. The greater
part of it said over again what had been said already in the
other communication received by me. But there was a bit
about Miss Rachel added at the end, which will account for
the steadiness of Mr. Franklin's determination, if it
accounts for nothing else.
"You will wonder, I dare say" (her ladyship wrote), "at
my allowing my own daughter to keep me perfectly in the
dark. A Diamond worth twenty thousand pounds has been
lost—and I am left to infer that the mystery of its
disappearance is no mystery to Rachel, and that some
incomprehensible obligation of silence has been laid on her,
by some person or persons utterly unknown to me, with some
object in view at which I cannot even guess. Is it
conceivable that I should allow myself to be trifled with in
this way? It is quite conceivable, in Rachel's present
state. She is in a condition of nervous agitation pitiable
to see. I dare not approach the subject of the Moonstone
again until time has done something to quiet her. To help
this end, I have not hesitated to dismiss the
police-officer. The mystery which baffles us, baffles him
too. This is not a matter in which any stranger can help us.
He adds to what I have to suffer; and he maddens Rachel if
she only hears his name.
"My plans for the future are as well settled as they can
be. My present idea is to take Rachel to London—partly to
relieve her mind by a complete change, partly to try what
may be done by consulting the best medical advice. Can I ask
you to meet us in town? My dear Franklin, you, in your way,
must imitate my patience, and wait, as I do, for a fitter
time. The valuable assistance which you rendered to the
inquiry after the lost jewel is still an unpardoned offence,
in the present dreadful state of Rachel's mind. Moving
blindfold in this matter, you have added to the burden of
anxiety which she has had to bear, by innocently threatening
her secret with discovery, through your exertions. It is
impossible for me to excuse the perversity that holds you
responsible for consequences which neither you nor I could
imagine or foresee. She is not to be reasoned with—she can
only be pitied. I am grieved to have to say it, but for the
present, you and Rachel are better apart. The only advice I
can offer you is, to give her time."
I handed the letter back, sincerely sorry for Mr.
Franklin, for I knew how fond he was of my young lady; and I
saw that her mother's account of her had cut him to the
heart. "You know the proverb, sir," was all I said to him.
"When things are at the worst, they're sure to mend. Things
can't be much worse, Mr. Franklin, than they are now."
Mr. Franklin folded up his aunt's letter, without
appearing to be much comforted by the remark which I had
ventured on addressing to him.
"When I came here from London with that horrible
Diamond," he said, "I don't believe there was a happier
household in England than this. Look at the household now!
Scattered, disunited—the very air of the place poisoned with
mystery and suspicion! Do you remember that morning at the
Shivering Sand, when we talked about my uncle Herncastle,
and his birthday gift? The Moonstone has served the
Colonel's vengeance, Betteredge, by means which the Colonel
himself never dreamt of!"
With that he shook me by the hand, and went out to the
pony chaise.
I followed him down the steps. It was very miserable to
see him leaving the old place, where he had spent the
happiest years of his life, in this way. Penelope (sadly
upset by all that had happened in the house) came round
crying, to bid him good-bye. Mr. Franklin kissed her. I
waved my hand as much as to say, "You're heartily welcome,
sir." Some of the other female servants appeared, peeping
after him round the corner. He was one of those men whom the
women all like. At the last moment, I stopped the pony
chaise, and begged as a favour that he would let us hear
from him by letter. He didn't seem to heed what I said—he
was looking round from one thing to another, taking a sort
of farewell of the old house and grounds. "Tell us where you
are going to, sir!" I said, holding on by the chaise, and
trying to get at his future plans in that way. Mr. Franklin
pulled his hat down suddenly over his eyes. "Going?" says
he, echoing the word after me. "I am going to the devil!"
The pony started at the word, as if he had felt a Christian
horror of it. "God bless you, sir, go where you may!" was
all I had time to say, before he was out of sight and
hearing. A sweet and pleasant gentleman! With all his faults
and follies, a sweet and pleasant gentleman! He left a sad
gap behind him, when he left my lady's house.
It was dull and dreary enough, when the long summer
evening closed in, on that Saturday night.
I kept my spirits from sinking by sticking fast to my
pipe and my ROBINSON CRUSOE. The women (excepting Penelope)
beguiled the time by talking of Rosanna's suicide. They were
all obstinately of opinion that the poor girl had stolen the
Moonstone, and that she had destroyed herself in terror of
being found out. My daughter, of course, privately held fast
to what she had said all along. Her notion of the motive
which was really at the bottom of the suicide failed, oddly
enough, just where my young lady's assertion of her
innocence failed also. It left Rosanna's secret journey to
Frizinghall, and Rosanna's proceedings in the matter of the
nightgown entirely unaccounted for. There was no use in
pointing this out to Penelope; the objection made about as
much impression on her as a shower of rain on a waterproof
coat. The truth is, my daughter inherits my superiority to
reason—and, in respect to that accomplishment, has got a
long way ahead of her own father.
On the next day (Sunday), the close carriage, which had
been kept at Mr. Ablewhite's, came back to us empty. The
coachman brought a message for me, and written instructions
for my lady's own maid and for Penelope.
The message informed me that my mistress had determined
to take Miss Rachel to her house in London, on the Monday.
The written instructions informed the two maids of the
clothing that was wanted, and directed them to meet their
mistresses in town at a given hour. Most of the other
servants were to follow. My lady had found Miss Rachel so
unwilling to return to the house, after what had happened in
it, that she had decided on going to London direct from
Frizinghall. I was to remain in the country, until further
orders, to look after things indoors and out. The servants
left with me were to be put on board wages.
Being reminded, by all this, of what Mr. Franklin had
said about our being a scattered and disunited household, my
mind was led naturally to Mr. Franklin himself. The more I
thought of him, the more uneasy I felt about his future
proceedings. It ended in my writing, by the Sunday's post,
to his father's valet, Mr. Jeffco (whom I had known in
former years) to beg he would let me know what Mr. Franklin
had settled to do, on arriving in London.
The Sunday evening was, if possible, duller even than the
Saturday evening. We ended the day of rest, as hundreds of
thousands of people end it regularly, once a week, in these
islands—that is to say, we all anticipated bedtime, and fell
asleep in our chairs.
How the Monday affected the rest of the household I don't
know. The Monday gave ME a good shake up. The first of
Sergeant Cuff's prophecies of what was to happen—namely,
that I should hear from the Yollands—came true on that day.
I had seen Penelope and my lady's maid off in the railway
with the luggage for London, and was pottering about the
grounds, when I heard my name called. Turning round, I found
myself face to face with the fisherman's daughter, Limping
Lucy. Bating her lame foot and her leanness (this last a
horrid draw-back to a woman, in my opinion), the girl had
some pleasing qualities in the eye of a man. A dark, keen,
clever face, and a nice clear voice, and a beautiful brown
head of hair counted among her merits. A crutch appeared in
the list of her misfortunes. And a temper reckoned high in
the sum total of her defects.
"Well, my dear," I said, "what do you want with me?"
"Where's the man you call Franklin Blake?" says the girl,
fixing me with a fierce look, as she rested herself on her
crutch.
"That's not a respectful way to speak of any gentleman,"
I answered. "If you wish to inquire for my lady's nephew,
you will please to mention him as MR. Franklin Blake."
She limped a step nearer to me, and looked as if she
could have eaten me alive. "MR. Franklin Blake?" she
repeated after me. "Murderer Franklin Blake would be a
fitter name for him."
My practice with the late Mrs. Betteredge came in handy
here. Whenever a woman tries to put you out of temper, turn
the tables, and put HER out of temper instead. They are
generally prepared for every effort you can make in your own
defence, but that. One word does it as well as a hundred;
and one word did it with Limping Lucy. I looked her
pleasantly in the face; and I said—"Pooh!"
The girl's temper flamed out directly. She poised herself
on her sound foot, and she took her crutch, and beat it
furiously three times on the ground. "He's a murderer! he's
a murderer! he's a murderer! He has been the death of
Rosanna Spearman!" She screamed that answer out at the top
of her voice. One or two of the people at work in the
grounds near us looked up—saw it was Limping Lucy—knew what
to expect from that quarter—and looked away again.
"He has been the death of Rosanna Spearman?" I repeated.
"What makes you say that, Lucy?"
"What do you care? What does any man care? Oh! if she had
only thought of the men as I think, she might have been
living now!"
"She always thought kindly of ME, poor soul," I said;
"and, to the best of my ability, I always tried to act
kindly by HER."
I spoke those words in as comforting a manner as I could.
The truth is, I hadn't the heart to irritate the girl by
another of my smart replies. I had only noticed her temper
at first. I noticed her wretchedness now—and wretchedness is
not uncommonly insolent, you will find, in humble life. My
answer melted Limping Lucy. She bent her head down, and laid
it on the top of her crutch.
"I loved her," the girl said softly. "She had lived a
miserable life, Mr. Betteredge—vile people had ill-treated
her and led her wrong—and it hadn't spoiled her sweet
temper. She was an angel. She might have been happy with me.
I had a plan for our going to London together like sisters,
and living by our needles. That man came here, and spoilt it
all. He bewitched her. Don't tell me he didn't mean it, and
didn't know it. He ought to have known it. He ought to have
taken pity on her. 'I can't live without him—and, oh, Lucy,
he never even looks at me.' That's what she said. Cruel,
cruel, cruel. I said, 'No man is worth fretting for in that
way.' And she said, 'There are men worth dying for, Lucy,
and he is one of them.' I had saved up a little money. I had
settled things with father and mother. I meant to take her
away from the mortification she was suffering here. We
should have had a little lodging in London, and lived
together like sisters. She had a good education, sir, as you
know, and she wrote a good hand. She was quick at her
needle. I have a good education, and I write a good hand. I
am not as quick at my needle as she was—but I could have
done. We might have got our living nicely. And, oh! what
happens this morning? what happens this morning? Her letter
comes and tells me that she has done with the burden of her
life. Her letter comes, and bids me good-bye for ever. Where
is he?" cries the girl, lifting her head from the crutch,
and flaming out again through her tears. "Where's this
gentleman that I mustn't speak of, except with respect? Ha,
Mr. Betteredge, the day is not far off when the poor will
rise against the rich. I pray Heaven they may begin with
HIM. I pray Heaven they may begin with HIM."
Here was another of your average good Christians, and
here was the usual break-down, consequent on that same
average Christianity being pushed too far! The parson
himself (though I own this is saying a great deal) could
hardly have lectured the girl in the state she was in now.
All I ventured to do was to keep her to the point—in the
hope of something turning up which might be worth hearing.
"What do you want with Mr. Franklin Blake?" I asked.
"I want to see him."
"For anything particular?"
"I have got a letter to give him."
"From Rosanna Spearman?"
"Yes."
"Sent to you in your own letter?"
"Yes."
Was the darkness going to lift? Were all the discoveries
that I was dying to make, coming and offering themselves to
me of their own accord? I was obliged to wait a moment.
Sergeant Cuff had left his infection behind him. Certain
signs and tokens, personal to myself, warned me that the
detective-fever was beginning to set in again.
"You can't see Mr. Franklin," I said.
"I must, and will, see him."
"He went to London last night."
Limping Lucy looked me hard in the face, and saw that I
was speaking the truth. Without a word more, she turned
about again instantly towards Cobb's Hole.
"Stop!" I said. "I expect news of Mr. Franklin Blake
to-morrow. Give me your letter, and I'll send it on to him
by the post."
Limping Lucy steadied herself on her crutch and looked
back at me over her shoulder.
"I am to give it from my hands into his hands," she said.
"And I am to give it to him in no other way."
"Shall I write, and tell him what you have said?"
"Tell him I hate him. And you will tell him the truth."
"Yes, yes. But about the letter?"
"If he wants the letter, he must come back here, and get
it from Me."
With those words she limped off on the way to Cobb's
Hole. The detective-fever burnt up all my dignity on the
spot. I followed her, and tried to make her talk. All in
vain. It was my misfortune to be a man—and Limping Lucy
enjoyed disappointing me. Later in the day, I tried my luck
with her mother. Good Mrs. Yolland could only cry, and
recommend a drop of comfort out of the Dutch bottle. I found
the fisherman on the beach. He said it was "a bad job," and
went on mending his net. Neither father nor mother knew more
than I knew. The one way left to try was the chance, which
might come with the morning, of writing to Mr. Franklin
Blake.
I leave you to imagine how I watched for the postman on
Tuesday morning. He brought me two letters. One, from
Penelope (which I had hardly patience enough to read),
announced that my lady and Miss Rachel were safely
established in London. The other, from Mr. Jeffco, informed
me that his master's son had left England already.
On reaching the metropolis, Mr. Franklin had, it
appeared, gone straight to his father's residence. He
arrived at an awkward time. Mr. Blake, the elder, was up to
his eyes in the business of the House of Commons, and was
amusing himself at home that night with the favourite
parliamentary plaything which they call "a private bill."
Mr. Jeffco himself showed Mr. Franklin into his father's
study. "My dear Franklin! why do you surprise me in this
way? Anything wrong?" "Yes; something wrong with Rachel; I
am dreadfully distressed about it." "Grieved to hear it. But
I can't listen to you now." "When can you listen?" "My dear
boy! I won't deceive you. I can listen at the end of the
session, not a moment before. Good-night." "Thank you, sir.
Good-night."
Such was the conversation, inside the study, as reported
to me by Mr. Jeffco. The conversation outside the study, was
shorter still. "Jeffco, see what time the tidal train starts
to-morrow morning." "At six-forty, Mr. Franklin." "Have me
called at five." "Going abroad, sir?" "Going, Jeffco,
wherever the railway chooses to take me." "Shall I tell your
father, sir?" "Yes; tell him at the end of the session."
The next morning Mr. Franklin had started for foreign
parts. To what particular place he was bound, nobody
(himself included) could presume to guess. We might hear of
him next in Europe, Asia, Africa, or America. The chances
were as equally divided as possible, in Mr. Jeffco's
opinion, among the four quarters of the globe.
This news—by closing up all prospects of my bringing
Limping Lucy and Mr. Franklin together—at once stopped any
further progress of mine on the way to discovery. Penelope's
belief that her fellow-servant had destroyed herself through
unrequited love for Mr. Franklin Blake, was confirmed—and
that was all. Whether the letter which Rosanna had left to
be given to him after her death did, or did not, contain the
confession which Mr. Franklin had suspected her of trying to
make to him in her life-time, it was impossible to say. It
might be only a farewell word, telling nothing but the
secret of her unhappy fancy for a person beyond her reach.
Or it might own the whole truth about the strange
proceedings in which Sergeant Cuff had detected her, from
the time when the Moonstone was lost, to the time when she
rushed to her own destruction at the Shivering Sand. A
sealed letter it had been placed in Limping Lucy's hand, and
a sealed letter it remained to me and to every one about the
girl, her own parents included. We all suspected her of
having been in the dead woman's confidence; we all tried to
make her speak; we all failed. Now one, and now another, of
the servants—still holding to the belief that Rosanna had
stolen the Diamond and had hidden it—peered and poked about
the rocks to which she had been traced, and peered and poked
in vain. The tide ebbed, and the tide flowed; the summer
went on, and the autumn came. And the Quicksand, which hid
her body, hid her secret too.
The news of Mr. Franklin's departure from England on the
Sunday morning, and the news of my lady's arrival in London
with Miss Rachel on the Monday afternoon, had reached me, as
you are aware, by the Tuesday's post. The Wednesday came,
and brought nothing. The Thursday produced a second budget
of news from Penelope.
My girl's letter informed me that some great London
doctor had been consulted about her young lady, and had
earned a guinea by remarking that she had better be amused.
Flower-shows, operas, balls—there was a whole round of
gaieties in prospect; and Miss Rachel, to her mother's
astonishment, eagerly took to it all. Mr. Godfrey had
called; evidently as sweet as ever on his cousin, in spite
of the reception he had met with, when he tried his luck on
the occasion of the birthday. To Penelope's great regret, he
had been most graciously received, and had added Miss
Rachel's name to one of his Ladies' Charities on the spot.
My mistress was reported to be out of spirits, and to have
held two long interviews with her lawyer. Certain
speculations followed, referring to a poor relation of the
family—one Miss Clack, whom I have mentioned in my account
of the birthday dinner, as sitting next to Mr. Godfrey, and
having a pretty taste in champagne. Penelope was astonished
to find that Miss Clack had not called yet. She would surely
not be long before she fastened herself on my lady as
usual—and so forth, and so forth, in the way women have of
girding at each other, on and off paper. This would not have
been worth mentioning, I admit, but for one reason. I hear
you are likely to be turned over to Miss Clack, after
parting with me. In that case, just do me the favour of not
believing a word she says, if she speaks of your humble
servant.
On Friday, nothing happened—except that one of the dogs
showed signs of a breaking out behind the ears. I gave him a
dose of syrup of buckthorn, and put him on a diet of
pot-liquor and vegetables till further orders. Excuse my
mentioning this. It has slipped in somehow. Pass it over
please. I am fast coming to the end of my offences against
your cultivated modern taste. Besides, the dog was a good
creature, and deserved a good physicking; he did indeed.
Saturday, the last day of the week, is also the last day
in my narrative.
The morning's post brought me a surprise in the shape of
a London newspaper. The handwriting on the direction puzzled
me. I compared it with the money-lender's name and address
as recorded in my pocket-book, and identified it at once as
the writing of Sergeant Cuff.
Looking through the paper eagerly enough, after this
discovery, I found an ink-mark drawn round one of the police
reports. Here it is, at your service. Read it as I read it,
and you will set the right value on the Sergeant's polite
attention in sending me the news of the day:
"LAMBETH—Shortly before the closing of the court, Mr.
Septimus Luker, the well-known dealer in ancient gems,
carvings, intagli, &c., &c., applied to the sitting
magistrate for advice. The applicant stated that he had been
annoyed, at intervals throughout the day, by the proceedings
of some of those strolling Indians who infest the streets.
The persons complained of were three in number. After having
been sent away by the police, they had returned again and
again, and had attempted to enter the house on pretence of
asking for charity. Warned off in the front, they had been
discovered again at the back of the premises. Besides the
annoyance complained of, Mr. Luker expressed himself as
being under some apprehension that robbery might be
contemplated. His collection contained many unique gems,
both classical and Oriental, of the highest value. He had
only the day before been compelled to dismiss a skilled
workman in ivory carving from his employment (a native of
India, as we understood), on suspicion of attempted theft;
and he felt by no means sure that this man and the street
jugglers of whom he complained, might not be acting in
concert. It might be their object to collect a crowd, and
create a disturbance in the street, and, in the confusion
thus caused, to obtain access to the house. In reply to the
magistrate, Mr. Luker admitted that he had no evidence to
produce of any attempt at robbery being in contemplation. He
could speak positively to the annoyance and interruption
caused by the Indians, but not to anything else. The
magistrate remarked that, if the annoyance were repeated,
the applicant could summon the Indians to that court, where
they might easily be dealt with under the Act. As to the
valuables in Mr. Luker's possession, Mr. Luker himself must
take the best measures for their safe custody. He would do
well perhaps to communicate with the police, and to adopt
such additional precautions as their experience might
suggest. The applicant thanked his worship, and withdrew."
One of the wise ancients is reported (I forget on what
occasion) as having recommended his fellow-creatures to
"look to the end." Looking to the end of these pages of
mine, and wondering for some days past how I should manage
to write it, I find my plain statement of facts coming to a
conclusion, most appropriately, of its own self. We have
gone on, in this matter of the Moonstone, from one marvel to
another; and here we end with the greatest marvel of
all—namely, the accomplishment of Sergeant Cuff's three
predictions in less than a week from the time when he had
made them.
After hearing from the Yollands on the Monday, I had now
heard of the Indians, and heard of the money-lender, in the
news from London—Miss Rachel herself remember, being also in
London at the time. You see, I put things at their worst,
even when they tell dead against my own view. If you desert
me, and side with the Sergeant, on the evidence before
you—if the only rational explanation you can see is, that
Miss Rachel and Mr. Luker must have got together, and that
the Moonstone must be now in pledge in the money-lender's
house—I own, I can't blame you for arriving at that
conclusion. In the dark, I have brought you thus far. In the
dark I am compelled to leave you, with my best respects.
Why compelled? it may be asked. Why not take the persons
who have gone along with me, so far, up into those regions
of superior enlightenment in which I sit myself?
In answer to this, I can only state that I am acting
under orders, and that those orders have been given to me
(as I understand) in the interests of truth. I am forbidden
to tell more in this narrative than I knew myself at the
time. Or, to put it plainer, I am to keep strictly within
the limits of my own experience, and am not to inform you of
what other persons told me—for the very sufficient reason
that you are to have the information from those other
persons themselves, at first hand. In this matter of the
Moonstone the plan is, not to present reports, but to
produce witnesses. I picture to myself a member of the
family reading these pages fifty years hence. Lord! what a
compliment he will feel it, to be asked to take nothing on
hear-say, and to be treated in all respects like a Judge on
the bench.
At this place, then, we part—for the present, at
least—after long journeying together, with a companionable
feeling, I hope, on both sides. The devil's dance of the
Indian Diamond has threaded its way to London; and to London
you must go after it, leaving me at the country-house.
Please to excuse the faults of this composition—my talking
so much of myself, and being too familiar, I am afraid, with
you. I mean no harm; and I drink most respectfully (having
just done dinner) to your health and prosperity, in a
tankard of her ladyship's ale. May you find in these leaves
of my writing, what ROBINSON CRUSOE found in his experience
on the desert island—namely, "something to comfort
yourselves from, and to set in the Description of Good and
Evil, on the Credit Side of the Account."—Farewell.
THE END OF THE FIRST PERIOD.
