His face, voice, and manner—while I was in his company—were under such

perfect control that they set all scrutiny at defiance. But he had

given me one chance of looking under the smooth outer surface of him,

for all that. He had not shown the slightest sign of attempting to fix

anything that I had said to him in his mind, until I mentioned the time

at which it was customary to permit the earliest repayment, on the part

of a debtor, of money that had been advanced as a loan. When I gave him

that piece of information, he looked me straight in the face, while I

was speaking, for the first time. The inference I drew from this

was—that he had a special purpose in asking me his last question, and a

special interest in hearing my answer to it. The more carefully I

reflected on what had passed between us, the more shrewdly I suspected

the production of the casket, and the application for the loan, of

having been mere formalities, designed to pave the way for the parting

inquiry addressed to me.

I had satisfied myself of the correctness of this conclusion—and was

trying to get on a step further, and penetrate the Indian’s motives

next—when a letter was brought to me, which proved to be from no less a

person that Mr. Septimus Luker himself. He asked my pardon in terms of

sickening servility, and assured me that he could explain matters to my

satisfaction, if I would honour him by consenting to a personal

interview.

I made another unprofessional sacrifice to mere curiosity. I honoured

him by making an appointment at my office, for the next day.

Mr. Luker was, in every respect, such an inferior creature to the

Indian—he was so vulgar, so ugly, so cringing, and so prosy—that he is

quite unworthy of being reported, at any length, in these pages. The

substance of what he had to tell me may be fairly stated as follows:

The day before I had received the visit of the Indian, Mr. Luker had

been favoured with a call from that accomplished gentleman. In spite of

his European disguise, Mr. Luker had instantly identified his visitor

with the chief of the three Indians, who had formerly annoyed him by

loitering about his house, and who had left him no alternative but to

consult a magistrate. From this startling discovery he had rushed to

the conclusion (naturally enough I own) that he must certainly be in

the company of one of the three men, who had blindfolded him, gagged

him, and robbed him of his banker’s receipt. The result was that he

became quite paralysed with terror, and that he firmly believed his

last hour had come.

On his side, the Indian preserved the character of a perfect stranger.

He produced the little casket, and made exactly the same application

which he had afterwards made to me. As the speediest way of getting rid

of him, Mr. Luker had at once declared that he had no money. The Indian

had thereupon asked to be informed of the best and safest person to

apply to for the loan he wanted. Mr. Luker had answered that the best

and safest person, in such cases, was usually a respectable solicitor.

Asked to name some individual of that character and profession, Mr.

Luker had mentioned me—for the one simple reason that, in the extremity

of his terror, mine was the first name which occurred to him. “The

perspiration was pouring off me like rain, sir,” the wretched creature

concluded. “I didn’t know what I was talking about. And I hope you’ll

look over it, Mr. Bruff, sir, in consideration of my having been really

and truly frightened out of my wits.”

I excused the fellow graciously enough. It was the readiest way of

releasing myself from the sight of him. Before he left me, I detained

him to make one inquiry.

Had the Indian said anything noticeable, at the moment of quitting Mr.

Luker’s house?

Yes! The Indian had put precisely the same question to Mr. Luker, at

parting, which he had put to me; receiving of course, the same answer

as the answer which I had given him.

What did it mean? Mr. Luker’s explanation gave me no assistance towards

solving the problem. My own unaided ingenuity, consulted next, proved

quite unequal to grapple with the difficulty. I had a dinner engagement

that evening; and I went upstairs, in no very genial frame of mind,

little suspecting that the way to my dressing-room and the way to

discovery, meant, on this particular occasion, one and the same thing.

CHAPTER III

The prominent personage among the guests at the dinner party I found to

be Mr. Murthwaite.

On his appearance in England, after his wanderings, society had been

greatly interested in the traveller, as a man who had passed through

many dangerous adventures, and who had escaped to tell the tale. He had

now announced his intention of returning to the scene of his exploits,

and of penetrating into regions left still unexplored. This magnificent

indifference to placing his safety in peril for the second time,

revived the flagging interest of the worshippers in the hero. The law

of chances was clearly against his escaping on this occasion. It is not

every day that we can meet an eminent person at dinner, and feel that

there is a reasonable prospect of the news of his murder being the news

that we hear of him next.

When the gentlemen were left by themselves in the dining-room, I found

myself sitting next to Mr. Murthwaite. The guests present being all

English, it is needless to say that, as soon as the wholesome check

exercised by the presence of the ladies was removed, the conversation

turned on politics as a necessary result.

In respect to this all-absorbing national topic, I happen to be one of

the most un-English Englishmen living. As a general rule, political

talk appears to me to be of all talk the most dreary and the most

profitless. Glancing at Mr. Murthwaite, when the bottles had made their

first round of the table, I found that he was apparently of my way of

thinking. He was doing it very dexterously—with all possible

consideration for the feelings of his host—but it is not the less

certain that he was composing himself for a nap. It struck me as an

experiment worth attempting, to try whether a judicious allusion to the

subject of the Moonstone would keep him awake, and, if it did, to see

what _he_ thought of the last new complication in the Indian

conspiracy, as revealed in the prosaic precincts of my office.

“If I am not mistaken, Mr. Murthwaite,” I began, “you were acquainted

with the late Lady Verinder, and you took some interest in the strange

succession of events which ended in the loss of the Moonstone?”

The eminent traveller did me the honour of waking up in an instant, and

asking me who I was.

I informed him of my professional connection with the Herncastle

family, not forgetting the curious position which I had occupied

towards the Colonel and his Diamond in the bygone time.

Mr. Murthwaite shifted round in his chair, so as to put the rest of the

company behind him (Conservatives and Liberals alike), and concentrated

his whole attention on plain Mr. Bruff, of Gray’s Inn Square.

“Have you heard anything, lately, of the Indians?” he asked.

“I have every reason to believe,” I answered, “that one of them had an

interview with me, in my office, yesterday.”

Mr. Murthwaite was not an easy man to astonish; but that last answer of

mine completely staggered him. I described what had happened to Mr.

Luker, and what had happened to myself, exactly as I have described it

here. “It is clear that the Indian’s parting inquiry had an object,” I

added. “Why should he be so anxious to know the time at which a

borrower of money is usually privileged to pay the money back?”

“Is it possible that you don’t see his motive, Mr. Bruff?”

“I am ashamed of my stupidity, Mr. Murthwaite—but I certainly don’t see

it.”

The great traveller became quite interested in sounding the immense

vacuity of my dulness to its lowest depths.

“Let me ask you one question,” he said. “In what position does the

conspiracy to seize the Moonstone now stand?”

“I can’t say,” I answered. “The Indian plot is a mystery to me.”

“The Indian plot, Mr. Bruff, can only be a mystery to you, because you

have never seriously examined it. Shall we run it over together, from

the time when you drew Colonel Herncastle’s Will, to the time when the

Indian called at your office? In your position, it may be of very

serious importance to the interests of Miss Verinder, that you should

be able to take a clear view of this matter in case of need. Tell me,

bearing that in mind, whether you will penetrate the Indian’s motive

for yourself? or whether you wish me to save you the trouble of making

any inquiry into it?”

It is needless to say that I thoroughly appreciated the practical

purpose which I now saw that he had in view, and that the first of the

two alternatives was the alternative I chose.

“Very good,” said Mr. Murthwaite. “We will take the question of the

ages of the three Indians first. I can testify that they all look much

about the same age—and you can decide for yourself, whether the man

whom you saw was, or was not, in the prime of life. Not forty, you

think? My idea too. We will say not forty. Now look back to the time

when Colonel Herncastle came to England, and when you were concerned in

the plan he adopted to preserve his life. I don’t want you to count the

years. I will only say, it is clear that these present Indians, at

their age, must be the successors of three other Indians (high caste

Brahmins all of them, Mr. Bruff, when they left their native country!)

who followed the Colonel to these shores. Very well. These present men

of ours have succeeded to the men who were here before them. If they

had only done that, the matter would not have been worth inquiring

into. But they have done more. They have succeeded to the organisation

which their predecessors established in this country. Don’t start! The

organisation is a very trumpery affair, according to our ideas, I have

no doubt. I should reckon it up as including the command of money; the

services, when needed, of that shady sort of Englishman, who lives in

the byways of foreign life in London; and, lastly, the secret sympathy

of such few men of their own country, and (formerly, at least) of their

own religion, as happen to be employed in ministering to some of the

multitudinous wants of this great city. Nothing very formidable, as you

see! But worth notice at starting, because we _may_ find occasion to

refer to this modest little Indian organisation as we go on. Having now

cleared the ground, I am going to ask you a question; and I expect your

experience to answer it. What was the event which gave the Indians

their first chance of seizing the Diamond?”

I understood the allusion to my experience.

“The first chance they got,” I replied, “was clearly offered to them by

Colonel Herncastle’s death. They would be aware of his death, I

suppose, as a matter of course?”

“As a matter of course. And his death, as you say, gave them their

first chance. Up to that time the Moonstone was safe in the strongroom

of the bank. You drew the Colonel’s Will leaving his jewel to his

niece; and the Will was proved in the usual way. As a lawyer, you can

be at no loss to know what course the Indians would take (under English

advice) after _that_.”

“They would provide themselves with a copy of the Will from Doctors’

Commons,” I said.

“Exactly. One or other of those shady Englishmen to whom I have

alluded, would get them the copy you have described. That copy would

inform them that the Moonstone was bequeathed to the daughter of Lady

Verinder, and that Mr. Blake the elder, or some person appointed by

him, was to place it in her hands. You will agree with me that the

necessary information about persons in the position of Lady Verinder

and Mr. Blake, would be perfectly easy information to obtain. The one

difficulty for the Indians would be to decide whether they should make

their attempt on the Diamond when it was in course of removal from the

keeping of the bank, or whether they should wait until it was taken

down to Yorkshire to Lady Verinder’s house. The second way would be

manifestly the safest way—and there you have the explanation of the

appearance of the Indians at Frizinghall, disguised as jugglers, and

waiting their time. In London, it is needless to say, they had their

organisation at their disposal to keep them informed of events. Two men

would do it. One to follow anybody who went from Mr. Blake’s house to

the bank. And one to treat the lower men servants with beer, and to

hear the news of the house. These commonplace precautions would readily

inform them that Mr. Franklin Blake had been to the bank, and that Mr.

Franklin Blake was the only person in the house who was going to visit

Lady Verinder. What actually followed upon that discovery, you

remember, no doubt, quite as correctly as I do.”

I remembered that Franklin Blake had detected one of the spies, in the

street—that he had, in consequence, advanced the time of his arrival in

Yorkshire by some hours—and that (thanks to old Betteredge’s excellent

advice) he had lodged the Diamond in the bank at Frizinghall, before

the Indians were so much as prepared to see him in the neighbourhood.

All perfectly clear so far. But the Indians being ignorant of the

precautions thus taken, how was it that they had made no attempt on

Lady Verinder’s house (in which they must have supposed the Diamond to

be) through the whole of the interval that elapsed before Rachel’s

birthday?

In putting this difficulty to Mr. Murthwaite, I thought it right to add

that I had heard of the little boy, and the drop of ink, and the rest

of it, and that any explanation based on the theory of clairvoyance was

an explanation which would carry no conviction whatever with it, to

_my_ mind.

“Nor to mine either,” said Mr. Murthwaite. “The clairvoyance in this

case is simply a development of the romantic side of the Indian

character. It would be refreshment and an encouragement to those

men—quite inconceivable, I grant you, to the English mind—to surround

their wearisome and perilous errand in this country with a certain halo

of the marvellous and the supernatural. Their boy is unquestionably a

sensitive subject to the mesmeric influence—and, under that influence,

he has no doubt reflected what was already in the mind of the person

mesmerising him. I have tested the theory of clairvoyance—and I have

never found the manifestations get beyond that point. The Indians don’t

investigate the matter in this way; the Indians look upon their boy as

a Seer of things invisible to their eyes—and, I repeat, in that marvel

they find the source of a new interest in the purpose that unites them.

I only notice this as offering a curious view of human character, which

must be quite new to you. We have nothing whatever to do with

clairvoyance, or with mesmerism, or with anything else that is hard of

belief to a practical man, in the inquiry that we are now pursuing. My

object in following the Indian plot, step by step, is to trace results

back, by rational means, to natural causes. Have I succeeded to your

satisfaction so far?”

“Not a doubt of it, Mr. Murthwaite! I am waiting, however, with some

anxiety, to hear the rational explanation of the difficulty which I

have just had the honour of submitting to you.”

Mr. Murthwaite smiled. “It’s the easiest difficulty to deal with of

all,” he said. “Permit me to begin by admitting your statement of the

case as a perfectly correct one. The Indians were undoubtedly not aware

of what Mr. Franklin Blake had done with the Diamond—for we find them

making their first mistake, on the first night of Mr. Blake’s arrival

at his aunt’s house.”

“Their first mistake?” I repeated.

“Certainly! The mistake of allowing themselves to be surprised, lurking

about the terrace at night, by Gabriel Betteredge. However, they had

the merit of seeing for themselves that they had taken a false

step—for, as you say, again, with plenty of time at their disposal,

they never came near the house for weeks afterwards.”

“Why, Mr. Murthwaite? That’s what I want to know! Why?”

“Because no Indian, Mr. Bruff, ever runs an unnecessary risk. The

clause you drew in Colonel Herncastle’s Will, informed them (didn’t

it?) that the Moonstone was to pass absolutely into Miss Verinder’s

possession on her birthday. Very well. Tell me which was the safest

course for men in their position? To make their attempt on the Diamond

while it was under the control of Mr. Franklin Blake, who had shown

already that he could suspect and outwit them? Or to wait till the

Diamond was at the disposal of a young girl, who would innocently

delight in wearing the magnificent jewel at every possible opportunity?

Perhaps you want a proof that my theory is correct? Take the conduct of

the Indians themselves as the proof. They appeared at the house, after

waiting all those weeks, on Miss Verinder’s birthday; and they were

rewarded for the patient accuracy of their calculations by seeing the

Moonstone in the bosom of her dress! When I heard the story of the

Colonel and the Diamond, later in the evening, I felt so sure about the

risk Mr. Franklin Blake had run (they would have certainly attacked

him, if he had not happened to ride back to Lady Verinder’s in the

company of other people); and I was so strongly convinced of the worse

risk still, in store for Miss Verinder, that I recommended following

the Colonel’s plan, and destroying the identity of the gem by having it

cut into separate stones. How its extraordinary disappearance that

night, made my advice useless, and utterly defeated the Hindoo plot—and

how all further action on the part of the Indians was paralysed the

next day by their confinement in prison as rogues and vagabonds—you

know as well as I do. The first act in the conspiracy closes there.

Before we go on to the second, may I ask whether I have met your

difficulty, with an explanation which is satisfactory to the mind of a

practical man?”

It was impossible to deny that he had met my difficulty fairly; thanks

to his superior knowledge of the Indian character—and thanks to his not

having had hundreds of other Wills to think of since Colonel

Herncastle’s time!

“So far, so good,” resumed Mr. Murthwaite. “The first chance the

Indians had of seizing the Diamond was a chance lost, on the day when

they were committed to the prison at Frizinghall. When did the second

chance offer itself? The second chance offered itself—as I am in a

condition to prove—while they were still in confinement.”

He took out his pocket-book, and opened it at a particular leaf, before

he went on.

“I was staying,” he resumed, “with some friends at Frizinghall, at the

time. A day or two before the Indians were set free (on a Monday, I

think), the governor of the prison came to me with a letter. It had

been left for the Indians by one Mrs. Macann, of whom they had hired

the lodging in which they lived; and it had been delivered at Mrs.

Macann’s door, in ordinary course of post, on the previous morning. The

prison authorities had noticed that the postmark was ‘Lambeth,’ and

that the address on the outside, though expressed in correct English,

was, in form, oddly at variance with the customary method of directing

a letter. On opening it, they had found the contents to be written in a

foreign language, which they rightly guessed at as Hindustani. Their

object in coming to me was, of course, to have the letter translated to

them. I took a copy in my pocket-book of the original, and of my

translation—and there they are at your service.”

He handed me the open pocket-book. The address on the letter was the

first thing copied. It was all written in one paragraph, without any

attempt at punctuation, thus: “To the three Indian men living with the

lady called Macann at Frizinghall in Yorkshire.” The Hindoo characters

followed; and the English translation appeared at the end, expressed in

these mysterious words:

“In the name of the Regent of the Night, whose seat is on the Antelope,

whose arms embrace the four corners of the earth.

“Brothers, turn your faces to the south, and come to me in the street

of many noises, which leads down to the muddy river.

“The reason is this.

“My own eyes have seen it.”

There the letter ended, without either date or signature. I handed it

back to Mr. Murthwaite, and owned that this curious specimen of Hindoo

correspondence rather puzzled me.

“I can explain the first sentence to you,” he said; “and the conduct of

the Indians themselves will explain the rest. The god of the moon is

represented, in the Hindoo mythology, as a four-armed deity, seated on

an antelope; and one of his titles is the regent of the night. Here,

then, to begin with, is something which looks suspiciously like an

indirect reference to the Moonstone. Now, let us see what the Indians

did, after the prison authorities had allowed them to receive their

letter. On the very day when they were set free they went at once to

the railway station, and took their places in the first train that

started for London. We all thought it a pity at Frizinghall that their

proceedings were not privately watched. But, after Lady Verinder had

dismissed the police-officer, and had stopped all further inquiry into

the loss of the Diamond, no one else could presume to stir in the

matter. The Indians were free to go to London, and to London they went.

What was the next news we heard of them, Mr. Bruff?”

“They were annoying Mr. Luker,” I answered, “by loitering about the

house at Lambeth.”

“Did you read the report of Mr. Luker’s application to the magistrate?”

“Yes.”

“In the course of his statement he referred, if you remember, to a

foreign workman in his employment, whom he had just dismissed on

suspicion of attempted theft, and whom he also distrusted as possibly

acting in collusion with the Indians who had annoyed him. The inference

is pretty plain, Mr. Bruff, as to who wrote that letter which puzzled

you just now, and as to which of Mr. Luker’s Oriental treasures the

workman had attempted to steal.”

The inference (as I hastened to acknowledge) was too plain to need

being pointed out. I had never doubted that the Moonstone had found its

way into Mr. Luker’s hands, at the time Mr. Murthwaite alluded to. My

only question had been, How had the Indians discovered the

circumstance? This question (the most difficult to deal with of all, as

I had thought) had now received its answer, like the rest. Lawyer as I

was, I began to feel that I might trust Mr. Murthwaite to lead me

blindfold through the last windings of the labyrinth, along which he

had guided me thus far. I paid him the compliment of telling him this,

and found my little concession very graciously received.

“You shall give me a piece of information in your turn before we go

on,” he said. “Somebody must have taken the Moonstone from Yorkshire to

London. And somebody must have raised money on it, or it would never

have been in Mr. Luker’s possession. Has there been any discovery made

of who that person was?”

“None that I know of.”

“There was a story (was there not?) about Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite. I am

told he is an eminent philanthropist—which is decidedly against him, to

begin with.”

I heartily agreed in this with Mr. Murthwaite. At the same time, I felt

bound to inform him (without, it is needless to say, mentioning Miss

Verinder’s name) that Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite had been cleared of all

suspicion, on evidence which I could answer for as entirely beyond

dispute.

“Very well,” said Mr. Murthwaite, quietly, “let us leave it to time to

clear the matter up. In the meanwhile, Mr. Bruff, we must get back

again to the Indians, on your account. Their journey to London simply

ended in their becoming the victims of another defeat. The loss of

their second chance of seizing the Diamond is mainly attributable, as I

think, to the cunning and foresight of Mr. Luker—who doesn’t stand at

the top of the prosperous and ancient profession of usury for nothing!

By the prompt dismissal of the man in his employment, he deprived the

Indians of the assistance which their confederate would have rendered

them in getting into the house. By the prompt transport of the

Moonstone to his banker’s, he took the conspirators by surprise before

they were prepared with a new plan for robbing him. How the Indians, in

this latter case, suspected what he had done, and how they contrived to

possess themselves of his banker’s receipt, are events too recent to

need dwelling on. Let it be enough to say that they know the Moonstone

to be once more out of their reach; deposited (under the general

description of ‘a valuable of great price’) in a banker’s strong room.

Now, Mr. Bruff, what is their third chance of seizing the Diamond? and

when will it come?”

As the question passed his lips, I penetrated the motive of the

Indian’s visit to my office at last!

“I see it!” I exclaimed. “The Indians take it for granted, as we do,

that the Moonstone has been pledged; and they want to be certainly

informed of the earliest period at which the pledge can be

redeemed—because that will be the earliest period at which the Diamond

can be removed from the safe keeping of the bank!”

“I told you you would find it out for yourself, Mr. Bruff, if I only

gave you a fair chance. In a year from the time when the Moonstone was

pledged, the Indians will be on the watch for their third chance. Mr.

Luker’s own lips have told them how long they will have to wait, and

your respectable authority has satisfied them that Mr. Luker has spoken

the truth. When do we suppose, at a rough guess, that the Diamond found

its way into the money-lender’s hands?”

“Towards the end of last June,” I answered, “as well as I can reckon

it.”

“And we are now in the year ’forty-eight. Very good. If the unknown

person who has pledged the Moonstone can redeem it in a year, the jewel

will be in that person’s possession again at the end of June,

’forty-nine. I shall be thousands of miles from England and English

news at that date. But it may be worth _your_ while to take a note of

it, and to arrange to be in London at the time.”

“You think something serious will happen?” I said.

“I think I shall be safer,” he answered, “among the fiercest fanatics

of Central Asia than I should be if I crossed the door of the bank with

the Moonstone in my pocket. The Indians have been defeated twice

running, Mr. Bruff. It’s my firm belief that they won’t be defeated a

third time.”

Those were the last words he said on the subject. The coffee came in;

the guests rose, and dispersed themselves about the room; and we joined

the ladies of the dinner-party upstairs.

I made a note of the date, and it may not be amiss if I close my

narrative by repeating that note here:

_June, ’forty-nine. Expect news of the Indians, towards the end of the

month._

And that done, I hand the pen, which I have now no further claim to

use, to the writer who follows me next.

THIRD NARRATIVE.

_Contributed by Franklin Blake._

CHAPTER I

In the spring of the year eighteen hundred and forty-nine I was

wandering in the East, and had then recently altered the travelling

plans which I had laid out some months before, and which I had

communicated to my lawyer and my banker in London.

This change made it necessary for me to send one of my servants to

obtain my letters and remittances from the English consul in a certain

city, which was no longer included as one of my resting-places in my

new travelling scheme. The man was to join me again at an appointed

place and time. An accident, for which he was not responsible, delayed

him on his errand. For a week I and my people waited, encamped on the

borders of a desert. At the end of that time the missing man made his

appearance, with the money and the letters, at the entrance of my tent.

“I am afraid I bring you bad news, sir,” he said, and pointed to one of

the letters, which had a mourning border round it, and the address on

which was in the handwriting of Mr. Bruff.

I know nothing, in a case of this kind, so unendurable as suspense. The

letter with the mourning border was the letter that I opened first.

It informed me that my father was dead, and that I was heir to his

great fortune. The wealth which had thus fallen into my hands brought

its responsibilities with it, and Mr. Bruff entreated me to lose no

time in returning to England.

By daybreak the next morning, I was on my way back to my own country.

The picture presented of me, by my old friend Betteredge, at the time

of my departure from England, is (as I think) a little overdrawn. He

has, in his own quaint way, interpreted seriously one of his young

mistress’s many satirical references to my foreign education; and has

persuaded himself that he actually saw those French, German, and

Italian sides to my character, which my lively cousin only professed to

discover in jest, and which never had any real existence, except in our

good Betteredge’s own brain. But, barring this drawback, I am bound to

own that he has stated no more than the truth in representing me as

wounded to the heart by Rachel’s treatment, and as leaving England in

the first keenness of suffering caused by the bitterest disappointment

of my life.

I went abroad, resolved—if change and absence could help me—to forget

her. It is, I am persuaded, no true view of human nature which denies

that change and absence _do_ help a man under these circumstances; they

force his attention away from the exclusive contemplation of his own

sorrow. I never forgot her; but the pang of remembrance lost its worst

bitterness, little by little, as time, distance, and novelty interposed

themselves more and more effectually between Rachel and me.

On the other hand, it is no less certain that, with the act of turning

homeward, the remedy which had gained its ground so steadily, began

now, just as steadily, to drop back. The nearer I drew to the country

which she inhabited, and to the prospect of seeing her again, the more

irresistibly her influence began to recover its hold on me. On leaving

England she was the last person in the world whose name I would have

suffered to pass my lips. On returning to England, she was the first

person I inquired after, when Mr. Bruff and I met again.

I was informed, of course, of all that had happened in my absence; in

other words, of all that has been related here in continuation of

Betteredge’s narrative—one circumstance only being excepted. Mr. Bruff

did not, at that time, feel himself at liberty to inform me of the

motives which had privately influenced Rachel and Godfrey Ablewhite in

recalling the marriage promise, on either side. I troubled him with no

embarrassing questions on this delicate subject. It was relief enough

to me, after the jealous disappointment caused by hearing that she had

ever contemplated being Godfrey’s wife, to know that reflection had

convinced her of acting rashly, and that she had effected her own

release from her marriage engagement.

Having heard the story of the past, my next inquiries (still inquiries

after Rachel!) advanced naturally to the present time. Under whose care

had she been placed after leaving Mr. Bruff’s house? and where was she

living now?

She was living under the care of a widowed sister of the late Sir John

Verinder—one Mrs. Merridew—whom her mother’s executors had requested to

act as guardian, and who had accepted the proposal. They were reported

to me as getting on together admirably well, and as being now

established, for the season, in Mrs. Merridew’s house in Portland

Place.

Half an hour after receiving this information, I was on my way to

Portland Place—without having had the courage to own it to Mr. Bruff!

The man who answered the door was not sure whether Miss Verinder was at

home or not. I sent him upstairs with my card, as the speediest way of

setting the question at rest. The man came down again with an

impenetrable face, and informed me that Miss Verinder was out.

I might have suspected other people of purposely denying themselves to

me. But it was impossible to suspect Rachel. I left word that I would

call again at six o’clock that evening.

At six o’clock I was informed for the second time that Miss Verinder

was not at home. Had any message been left for me? No message had been

left for me. Had Miss Verinder not received my card? The servant begged

my pardon—Miss Verinder _had_ received it.

The inference was too plain to be resisted. Rachel declined to see me.

On my side, I declined to be treated in this way, without making an

attempt, at least, to discover a reason for it. I sent up my name to

Mrs. Merridew, and requested her to favour me with a personal interview

at any hour which it might be most convenient to her to name.

Mrs. Merridew made no difficulty about receiving me at once. I was

shown into a comfortable little sitting-room, and found myself in the

presence of a comfortable little elderly lady. She was so good as to

feel great regret and much surprise, entirely on my account. She was at

the same time, however, not in a position to offer me any explanation,

or to press Rachel on a matter which appeared to relate to a question

of private feeling alone. This was said over and over again, with a

polite patience that nothing could tire; and this was all I gained by

applying to Mrs. Merridew.

My last chance was to write to Rachel. My servant took a letter to her

the next day, with strict instructions to wait for an answer.

The answer came back, literally in one sentence.

“Miss Verinder begs to decline entering into any correspondence with

Mr. Franklin Blake.”

Fond as I was of her, I felt indignantly the insult offered to me in

that reply. Mr. Bruff came in to speak to me on business, before I had

recovered possession of myself. I dismissed the business on the spot,

and laid the whole case before him. He proved to be as incapable of

enlightening me as Mrs. Merridew herself. I asked him if any slander

had been spoken of me in Rachel’s hearing. Mr. Bruff was not aware of

any slander of which I was the object. Had she referred to me in any

way while she was staying under Mr. Bruff’s roof? Never. Had she not so

much as asked, during all my long absence, whether I was living or

dead? No such question had ever passed her lips. I took out of my

pocket-book the letter which poor Lady Verinder had written to me from

Frizinghall, on the day when I left her house in Yorkshire. And I

pointed Mr. Bruff’s attention to these two sentences in it:

“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.”

“Is it possible,” I asked, “that the feeling towards me which is there

described, is as bitter as ever against me now?”

Mr. Bruff looked unaffectedly distressed.

“If you insist on an answer,” he said, “I own I can place no other

interpretation on her conduct than that.”

I rang the bell, and directed my servant to pack my portmanteau, and to

send out for a railway guide. Mr. Bruff asked, in astonishment, what I

was going to do.

“I am going to Yorkshire,” I answered, “by the next train.”

“May I ask for what purpose?”

“Mr. Bruff, the assistance I innocently rendered to the inquiry after

the Diamond was an unpardoned offence, in Rachel’s mind, nearly a year

since; and it remains an unpardoned offence still. I won’t accept that

position! I am determined to find out the secret of her silence towards

her mother, and her enmity towards _me_. If time, pains, and money can

do it, I will lay my hand on the thief who took the Moonstone!”

The worthy old gentleman attempted to remonstrate—to induce me to

listen to reason—to do his duty towards me, in short. I was deaf to

everything that he could urge. No earthly consideration would, at that

moment, have shaken the resolution that was in me.

“I shall take up the inquiry again,” I went on, “at the point where I

dropped it; and I shall follow it onwards, step by step, till I come to

the present time. There are missing links in the evidence, as _I_ left

it, which Gabriel Betteredge can supply, and to Gabriel Betteredge I

go!”

Towards sunset that evening I stood again on the well-remembered

terrace, and looked once more at the peaceful old country house. The

gardener was the first person whom I saw in the deserted grounds. He

had left Betteredge, an hour since, sunning himself in the customary

corner of the back yard. I knew it well; and I said I would go and seek

him myself.

I walked round by the familiar paths and passages, and looked in at the

open gate of the yard.

There he was—the dear old friend of the happy days that were never to

come again—there he was in the old corner, on the old beehive chair,

with his pipe in his mouth, and his _Robinson Crusoe_ on his lap, and

his two friends, the dogs, dozing on either side of him! In the

position in which I stood, my shadow was projected in front of me by

the last slanting rays of the sun. Either the dogs saw it, or their

keen scent informed them of my approach; they started up with a growl.

Starting in his turn, the old man quieted them by a word, and then

shaded his failing eyes with his hand, and looked inquiringly at the

figure at the gate.

My own eyes were full of tears. I was obliged to wait a moment before I

could trust myself to speak to him.

CHAPTER II

“Betteredge!” I said, pointing to the well-remembered book on his knee,

“has _Robinson Crusoe_ informed you, this evening, that you might

expect to see Franklin Blake?”

“By the lord Harry, Mr. Franklin!” cried the old man, “that’s exactly

what _Robinson Crusoe_ has done!”

He struggled to his feet with my assistance, and stood for a moment,

looking backwards and forwards between _Robinson Crusoe_ and me,

apparently at a loss to discover which of us had surprised him most.

The verdict ended in favour of the book. Holding it open before him in

both hands, he surveyed the wonderful volume with a stare of

unutterable anticipation—as if he expected to see Robinson Crusoe

himself walk out of the pages, and favour us with a personal interview.

“Here’s the bit, Mr. Franklin!” he said, as soon as he had recovered

the use of his speech. “As I live by bread, sir, here’s the bit I was

reading, the moment before you came in! Page one hundred and fifty-six

as follows:—‘I stood like one Thunderstruck, or as if I had seen an

Apparition.’ If that isn’t as much as to say: ‘Expect the sudden

appearance of Mr. Franklin Blake’—there’s no meaning in the English

language!” said Betteredge, closing the book with a bang, and getting

one of his hands free at last to take the hand which I offered him.

I had expected him, naturally enough under the circumstances, to

overwhelm me with questions. But no—the hospitable impulse was the

uppermost impulse in the old servant’s mind, when a member of the

family appeared (no matter how!) as a visitor at the house.

“Walk in, Mr. Franklin,” he said, opening the door behind him, with his

quaint old-fashioned bow. “I’ll ask what brings you here afterwards—I

must make you comfortable first. There have been sad changes, since you

went away. The house is shut up, and the servants are gone. Never mind

that! I’ll cook your dinner; and the gardener’s wife will make your

bed—and if there’s a bottle of our famous Latour claret left in the

cellar, down your throat, Mr. Franklin, that bottle shall go. I bid you

welcome, sir! I bid you heartily welcome!” said the poor old fellow,

fighting manfully against the gloom of the deserted house, and

receiving me with the sociable and courteous attention of the bygone

time.

It vexed me to disappoint him. But the house was Rachel’s house, now.

Could I eat in it, or sleep in it, after what had happened in London?

The commonest sense of self-respect forbade me—properly forbade me—to

cross the threshold.

I took Betteredge by the arm, and led him out into the garden. There

was no help for it. I was obliged to tell him the truth. Between his

attachment to Rachel, and his attachment to me, he was sorely puzzled

and distressed at the turn things had taken. His opinion, when he

expressed it, was given in his usual downright manner, and was

agreeably redolent of the most positive philosophy I know—the

philosophy of the Betteredge school.

“Miss Rachel has her faults—I’ve never denied it,” he began. “And

riding the high horse, now and then, is one of them. She has been

trying to ride over _you_—and you have put up with it. Lord, Mr.

Franklin, don’t you know women by this time better than that? You have

heard me talk of the late Mrs. Betteredge?”

I had heard him talk of the late Mrs. Betteredge pretty

often—invariably producing her as his one undeniable example of the

inbred frailty and perversity of the other sex. In that capacity he

exhibited her now.

“Very well, Mr. Franklin. Now listen to me. Different women have

different ways of riding the high horse. The late Mrs. Betteredge took

her exercise on that favourite female animal whenever I happened to

deny her anything that she had set her heart on. So sure as I came home

from my work on these occasions, so sure was my wife to call to me up

the kitchen stairs, and to say that, after my brutal treatment of her,

she hadn’t the heart to cook me my dinner. I put up with it for some

time—just as you are putting up with it now from Miss Rachel. At last

my patience wore out. I went downstairs, and I took Mrs.

Betteredge—affectionately, you understand—up in my arms, and carried

her, holus-bolus, into the best parlour where she received her company.

I said ‘That’s the right place for you, my dear,’ and so went back to

the kitchen. I locked myself in, and took off my coat, and turned up my

shirt-sleeves, and cooked my own dinner. When it was done, I served it

up in my best manner, and enjoyed it most heartily. I had my pipe and

my drop of grog afterwards; and then I cleared the table, and washed

the crockery, and cleaned the knives and forks, and put the things

away, and swept up the hearth. When things were as bright and clean

again, as bright and clean could be, I opened the door and let Mrs.

Betteredge in. ‘I’ve had my dinner, my dear,’ I said; ‘and I hope you

will find that I have left the kitchen all that your fondest wishes can

desire.’ For the rest of that woman’s life, Mr. Franklin, I never had

to cook my dinner again! Moral: You have put up with Miss Rachel in

London; don’t put up with her in Yorkshire. Come back to the house!”

Quite unanswerable! I could only assure my good friend that even _his_

powers of persuasion were, in this case, thrown away on me.

“It’s a lovely evening,” I said. “I shall walk to Frizinghall, and stay

at the hotel, and you must come tomorrow morning and breakfast with me.

I have something to say to you.”

Betteredge shook his head gravely.

“I am heartily sorry for this,” he said. “I had hoped, Mr. Franklin, to

hear that things were all smooth and pleasant again between you and

Miss Rachel. If you must have your own way, sir,” he continued, after a

moment’s reflection, “there is no need to go to Frizinghall tonight for

a bed. It’s to be had nearer than that. There’s Hotherstone’s Farm,

barely two miles from here. You can hardly object to _that_ on Miss

Rachel’s account,” the old man added slily. “Hotherstone lives, Mr.

Franklin, on his own freehold.”

I remembered the place the moment Betteredge mentioned it. The

farm-house stood in a sheltered inland valley, on the banks of the

prettiest stream in that part of Yorkshire: and the farmer had a spare

bedroom and parlour, which he was accustomed to let to artists,

anglers, and tourists in general. A more agreeable place of abode,

during my stay in the neighbourhood, I could not have wished to find.

“Are the rooms to let?” I inquired.

“Mrs. Hotherstone herself, sir, asked for my good word to recommend the

rooms, yesterday.”

“I’ll take them, Betteredge, with the greatest pleasure.”

We went back to the yard, in which I had left my travelling-bag. After

putting a stick through the handle, and swinging the bag over his

shoulder, Betteredge appeared to relapse into the bewilderment which my

sudden appearance had caused, when I surprised him in the beehive

chair. He looked incredulously at the house, and then he wheeled about,

and looked more incredulously still at me.

“I’ve lived a goodish long time in the world,” said this best and

dearest of all old servants—“but the like of this, I never did expect

to see. There stands the house, and here stands Mr. Franklin Blake—and,

Damme, if one of them isn’t turning his back on the other, and going to

sleep in a lodging!”

He led the way out, wagging his head and growling ominously. “There’s

only one more miracle that _can_ happen,” he said to me, over his

shoulder. “The next thing you’ll do, Mr. Franklin, will be to pay me

back that seven-and-sixpence you borrowed of me when you were a boy.”

This stroke of sarcasm put him in a better humour with himself and with

me. We left the house, and passed through the lodge gates. Once clear

of the grounds, the duties of hospitality (in Betteredge’s code of

morals) ceased, and the privileges of curiosity began.

He dropped back, so as to let me get on a level with him. “Fine evening

for a walk, Mr. Franklin,” he said, as if we had just accidentally

encountered each other at that moment. “Supposing you had gone to the

hotel at Frizinghall, sir?”

“Yes?”

“I should have had the honour of breakfasting with you, tomorrow

morning.”

“Come and breakfast with me at Hotherstone’s Farm, instead.”

“Much obliged to you for your kindness, Mr. Franklin. But it wasn’t

exactly breakfast that I was driving at. I think you mentioned that you

had something to say to me? If it’s no secret, sir,” said Betteredge,

suddenly abandoning the crooked way, and taking the straight one, “I’m

burning to know what’s brought you down here, if you please, in this

sudden way.”

“What brought me here before?” I asked.

“The Moonstone, Mr. Franklin. But what brings you now, sir?”

“The Moonstone again, Betteredge.”

The old man suddenly stood still, and looked at me in the grey twilight

as if he suspected his own ears of deceiving him.

“If that’s a joke, sir,” he said, “I’m afraid I’m getting a little dull

in my old age. I don’t take it.”

“It’s no joke,” I answered. “I have come here to take up the inquiry

which was dropped when I left England. I have come here to do what

nobody has done yet—to find out who took the Diamond.”

“Let the Diamond be, Mr. Franklin! Take my advice, and let the Diamond

be! That cursed Indian jewel has misguided everybody who has come near

it. Don’t waste your money and your temper—in the fine spring time of

your life, sir—by meddling with the Moonstone. How can _you_ hope to

succeed (saving your presence), when Sergeant Cuff himself made a mess

of it? Sergeant Cuff!” repeated Betteredge, shaking his forefinger at

me sternly. “The greatest policeman in England!”

“My mind is made up, my old friend. Even Sergeant Cuff doesn’t daunt

me. By-the-bye, I may want to speak to him, sooner or later. Have you

heard anything of him lately?”

“The Sergeant won’t help you, Mr. Franklin.”

“Why not?”

“There has been an event, sir, in the police-circles, since you went

away. The great Cuff has retired from business. He has got a little

cottage at Dorking; and he’s up to his eyes in the growing of roses. I

have it in his own handwriting, Mr. Franklin. He has grown the white

moss rose, without budding it on the dog-rose first. And Mr. Begbie the

gardener is to go to Dorking, and own that the Sergeant has beaten him

at last.”

“It doesn’t much matter,” I said. “I must do without Sergeant Cuff’s

help. And I must trust to you, at starting.”

It is likely enough that I spoke rather carelessly.

At any rate, Betteredge seemed to be piqued by something in the reply

which I had just made to him. “You might trust to worse than me, Mr.

Franklin—I can tell you that,” he said a little sharply.

The tone in which he retorted, and a certain disturbance, after he had

spoken, which I detected in his manner, suggested to me that he was

possessed of some information which he hesitated to communicate.

“I expect you to help me,” I said, “in picking up the fragments of

evidence which Sergeant Cuff has left behind him. I know you can do

that. Can you do no more?”

“What more can you expect from me, sir?” asked Betteredge, with an

appearance of the utmost humility.

“I expect more—from what you said just now.”

“Mere boasting, Mr. Franklin,” returned the old man obstinately. “Some

people are born boasters, and they never get over it to their dying

day. I’m one of them.”

There was only one way to take with him. I appealed to his interest in

Rachel, and his interest in me.

“Betteredge, would you be glad to hear that Rachel and I were good

friends again?”

“I have served your family, sir, to mighty little purpose, if you doubt

it!”

“Do you remember how Rachel treated me, before I left England?”

“As well as if it was yesterday! My lady herself wrote you a letter

about it; and you were so good as to show the letter to me. It said

that Miss Rachel was mortally offended with you, for the part you had

taken in trying to recover her jewel. And neither my lady, nor you, nor

anybody else could guess why.

“Quite true, Betteredge! And I come back from my travels, and find her

mortally offended with me still. I knew that the Diamond was at the

bottom of it, last year, and I know that the Diamond is at the bottom

of it now. I have tried to speak to her, and she won’t see me. I have

tried to write to her, and she won’t answer me. How, in Heaven’s name,

am I to clear the matter up? The chance of searching into the loss of

the Moonstone, is the one chance of inquiry that Rachel herself has

left me.”

Those words evidently put the case before him, as he had not seen it

yet. He asked a question which satisfied me that I had shaken him.

“There is no ill-feeling in this, Mr. Franklin, on your side—is there?”

“There was some anger,” I answered, “when I left London. But that is

all worn out now. I want to make Rachel come to an understanding with

me—and I want nothing more.”

“You don’t feel any fear, sir—supposing you make any discoveries—in

regard to what you may find out about Miss Rachel?”

I understood the jealous belief in his young mistress which prompted

those words.

“I am as certain of her as you are,” I answered. “The fullest

disclosure of her secret will reveal nothing that can alter her place

in your estimation, or in mine.”

Betteredge’s last-left scruples vanished at that.

“If I am doing wrong to help you, Mr. Franklin,” he exclaimed, “all I

can say is—I am as innocent of seeing it as the babe unborn! I can put

you on the road to discovery, if you can only go on by yourself. You

remember that poor girl of ours—Rosanna Spearman?”

“Of course!”

“You always thought she had some sort of confession in regard to this

matter of the Moonstone, which she wanted to make to you?”

“I certainly couldn’t account for her strange conduct in any other

way.”

“You may set that doubt at rest, Mr. Franklin, whenever you please.”

It was my turn to come to a standstill now. I tried vainly, in the

gathering darkness, to see his face. In the surprise of the moment, I

asked a little impatiently what he meant.

“Steady, sir!” proceeded Betteredge. “I mean what I say. Rosanna

Spearman left a sealed letter behind her—a letter addressed to _you_.”

“Where is it?”

“In the possession of a friend of hers, at Cobb’s Hole. You must have

heard tell, when you were here last, sir, of Limping Lucy—a lame girl

with a crutch.”

“The fisherman’s daughter?”

“The same, Mr. Franklin.”

“Why wasn’t the letter forwarded to me?”

“Limping Lucy has a will of her own, sir. She wouldn’t give it into any

hands but yours. And you had left England before I could write to you.”

“Let’s go back, Betteredge, and get it at once!”

“Too late, sir, tonight. They’re great savers of candles along our

coast; and they go to bed early at Cobb’s Hole.”

“Nonsense! We might get there in half an hour.”

“_You_ might, sir. And when you did get there, you would find the door

locked.” He pointed to a light, glimmering below us; and, at the same

moment, I heard through the stillness of the evening the bubbling of a

stream. “There’s the Farm, Mr. Franklin! Make yourself comfortable for

tonight, and come to me tomorrow morning—if you’ll be so kind?”

“You will go with me to the fisherman’s cottage?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Early?”

“As early, Mr. Franklin, as you like.”

We descended the path that led to the Farm.

CHAPTER III

I have only the most indistinct recollection of what happened at

Hotherstone’s Farm.

I remember a hearty welcome; a prodigious supper, which would have fed

a whole village in the East; a delightfully clean bedroom, with nothing

in it to regret but that detestable product of the folly of our

forefathers—a feather-bed; a restless night, with much kindling of

matches, and many lightings of one little candle; and an immense

sensation of relief when the sun rose, and there was a prospect of

getting up.

It had been arranged over-night with Betteredge, that I was to call for

him, on our way to Cobb’s Hole, as early as I liked—which, interpreted

by my impatience to get possession of the letter, meant as early as I

could. Without waiting for breakfast at the Farm, I took a crust of

bread in my hand, and set forth, in some doubt whether I should not

surprise the excellent Betteredge in his bed. To my great relief he

proved to be quite as excited about the coming event as I was. I found

him ready, and waiting for me, with his stick in his hand.

“How are you this morning, Betteredge?”

“Very poorly, sir.”

“Sorry to hear it. What do you complain of?”

“I complain of a new disease, Mr. Franklin, of my own inventing. I

don’t want to alarm you, but you’re certain to catch it before the

morning is out.”

“The devil I am!”

“Do you feel an uncomfortable heat at the pit of your stomach, sir? and

a nasty thumping at the top of your head? Ah! not yet? It will lay hold

of you at Cobb’s Hole, Mr. Franklin. I call it the detective-fever; and

_I_ first caught it in the company of Sergeant Cuff.”

“Aye! aye! and the cure in this instance is to open Rosanna Spearman’s

letter, I suppose? Come along, and let’s get it.”

Early as it was, we found the fisherman’s wife astir in her kitchen. On

my presentation by Betteredge, good Mrs. Yolland performed a social

ceremony, strictly reserved (as I afterwards learnt) for strangers of

distinction. She put a bottle of Dutch gin and a couple of clean pipes

on the table, and opened the conversation by saying, “What news from

London, sir?”

Before I could find an answer to this immensely comprehensive question,

an apparition advanced towards me, out of a dark corner of the kitchen.

A wan, wild, haggard girl, with remarkably beautiful hair, and with a

fierce keenness in her eyes, came limping up on a crutch to the table

at which I was sitting, and looked at me as if I was an object of

mingled interest and horror, which it quite fascinated her to see.

“Mr. Betteredge,” she said, without taking her eyes off me, “mention

his name again, if you please.”

“This gentleman’s name,” answered Betteredge (with a strong emphasis on

_gentleman_), “is Mr. Franklin Blake.”

The girl turned her back on me, and suddenly left the room. Good Mrs.

Yolland—as I believe—made some apologies for her daughter’s odd

behaviour, and Betteredge (probably) translated them into polite

English. I speak of this in complete uncertainty. My attention was

absorbed in following the sound of the girl’s crutch. Thump-thump, up

the wooden stairs; thump-thump across the room above our heads;

thump-thump down the stairs again—and there stood the apparition at the

open door, with a letter in its hand, beckoning me out!

I left more apologies in course of delivery behind me, and followed

this strange creature—limping on before me, faster and faster—down the

slope of the beach. She led me behind some boats, out of sight and

hearing of the few people in the fishing-village, and then stopped, and

faced me for the first time.

“Stand there,” she said, “I want to look at you.”

There was no mistaking the expression on her face. I inspired her with

the strongest emotions of abhorrence and disgust. Let me not be vain

enough to say that no woman had ever looked at me in this manner

before. I will only venture on the more modest assertion that no woman

had ever let me perceive it yet. There is a limit to the length of the

inspection which a man can endure, under certain circumstances. I

attempted to direct Limping Lucy’s attention to some less revolting

object than my face.

“I think you have got a letter to give me,” I began. “Is it the letter

there, in your hand?”

“Say that again,” was the only answer I received.

I repeated the words, like a good child learning its lesson.

“No,” said the girl, speaking to herself, but keeping her eyes still

mercilessly fixed on me. “I can’t find out what she saw in his face. I

can’t guess what she heard in his voice.” She suddenly looked away from

me, and rested her head wearily on the top of her crutch. “Oh, my poor

dear!” she said, in the first soft tones which had fallen from her, in

my hearing. “Oh, my lost darling! what could you see in this man?” She

lifted her head again fiercely, and looked at me once more. “Can you

eat and drink?” she asked.

I did my best to preserve my gravity, and answered, “Yes.”

“Can you sleep?”

“Yes.”

“When you see a poor girl in service, do you feel no remorse?”

“Certainly not. Why should I?”

She abruptly thrust the letter (as the phrase is) into my face.

“Take it!” she exclaimed furiously. “I never set eyes on you before.

God Almighty forbid I should ever set eyes on you again.”

With those parting words she limped away from me at the top of her

speed. The one interpretation that I could put on her conduct has, no

doubt, been anticipated by everybody. I could only suppose that she was

mad.

Having reached that inevitable conclusion, I turned to the more

interesting object of investigation which was presented to me by

Rosanna Spearman’s letter. The address was written as follows:—“For

Franklin Blake, Esq. To be given into his own hands (and not to be

trusted to anyone else), by Lucy Yolland.”

I broke the seal. The envelope contained a letter: and this, in its

turn, contained a slip of paper. I read the letter first:—

“Sir,—If you are curious to know the meaning of my behaviour to you,

whilst you were staying in the house of my mistress, Lady Verinder, do

what you are told to do in the memorandum enclosed with this—and do it

without any person being present to overlook you. Your humble servant,

“ROSANNA SPEARMAN.”

I turned to the slip of paper next. Here is the literal copy of it,

word for word:

“Memorandum:—To go to the Shivering Sand at the turn of the tide. To

walk out on the South Spit, until I get the South Spit Beacon, and the

flagstaff at the Coast-guard station above Cobb’s Hole in a line

together. To lay down on the rocks, a stick, or any straight thing to

guide my hand, exactly in the line of the beacon and the flagstaff. To

take care, in doing this, that one end of the stick shall be at the

edge of the rocks, on the side of them which overlooks the quicksand.

To feel along the stick, among the seaweed (beginning from the end of

the stick which points towards the beacon), for the Chain. To run my

hand along the Chain, when found, until I come to the part of it which

stretches over the edge of the rocks, down into the quicksand. _And

then, to pull the chain._”

Just as I had read the last words—underlined in the original—I heard

the voice of Betteredge behind me. The inventor of the detective-fever

had completely succumbed to that irresistible malady. “I can’t stand it

any longer, Mr. Franklin. What does her letter say? For mercy’s sake,

sir, tell us, what does her letter say?”

I handed him the letter, and the memorandum. He read the first without

appearing to be much interested in it. But the second—the

memorandum—produced a strong impression on him.

“The Sergeant said it!” cried Betteredge. “From first to last, sir, the

Sergeant said she had got a memorandum of the hiding-place. And here it

is! Lord save us, Mr. Franklin, here is the secret that puzzled

everybody, from the great Cuff downwards, ready and waiting, as one may

say, to show itself to _you!_ It’s the ebb now, sir, as anybody may see

for themselves. How long will it be till the turn of the tide?” He

looked up, and observed a lad at work, at some little distance from us,

mending a net. “Tammie Bright!” he shouted at the top of his voice.

“I hear you!” Tammie shouted back.

“When’s the turn of the tide?”

“In an hour’s time.”

We both looked at our watches.

“We can go round by the coast, Mr. Franklin,” said Betteredge; “and get

to the quicksand in that way with plenty of time to spare. What do you

say, sir?”

“Come along!”

On our way to the Shivering Sand, I applied to Betteredge to revive my

memory of events (as affecting Rosanna Spearman) at the period of

Sergeant Cuff’s inquiry. With my old friend’s help, I soon had the

succession of circumstances clearly registered in my mind. Rosanna’s

journey to Frizinghall, when the whole household believed her to be ill

in her own room—Rosanna’s mysterious employment of the night-time with

her door locked, and her candle burning till the morning—Rosanna’s

suspicious purchase of the japanned tin case, and the two dog’s chains

from Mrs. Yolland—the Sergeant’s positive conviction that Rosanna had

hidden something at the Shivering Sand, and the Sergeant’s absolute

ignorance as to what that something might be—all these strange results

of the abortive inquiry into the loss of the Moonstone were clearly

present to me again, when we reached the quicksand, and walked out

together on the low ledge of rocks called the South Spit.

With Betteredge’s help, I soon stood in the right position to see the

Beacon and the Coast-guard flagstaff in a line together. Following the

memorandum as our guide, we next laid my stick in the necessary

direction, as neatly as we could, on the uneven surface of the rocks.

And then we looked at our watches once more.

It wanted nearly twenty minutes yet of the turn of the tide. I

suggested waiting through this interval on the beach, instead of on the

wet and slippery surface of the rocks. Having reached the dry sand, I

prepared to sit down; and, greatly to my surprise, Betteredge prepared

to leave me.

“What are you going away for?” I asked.

“Look at the letter again, sir, and you will see.”

A glance at the letter reminded me that I was charged, when I made my

discovery, to make it alone.

“It’s hard enough for me to leave you, at such a time as this,” said

Betteredge. “But she died a dreadful death, poor soul—and I feel a kind

of call on me, Mr. Franklin, to humour that fancy of hers. Besides,” he

added, confidentially, “there’s nothing in the letter against your

letting out the secret afterwards. I’ll hang about in the

fir-plantation, and wait till you pick me up. Don’t be longer than you

can help, sir. The detective-fever isn’t an easy disease to deal with,

under _these_ circumstances.”

With that parting caution, he left me.

The interval of expectation, short as it was when reckoned by the

measure of time, assumed formidable proportions when reckoned by the

measure of suspense. This was one of the occasions on which the

invaluable habit of smoking becomes especially precious and

consolatory. I lit a cigar, and sat down on the slope of the beach.

The sunlight poured its unclouded beauty on every object that I could

see. The exquisite freshness of the air made the mere act of living and

breathing a luxury. Even the lonely little bay welcomed the morning

with a show of cheerfulness; and the bared wet surface of the quicksand

itself, glittering with a golden brightness, hid the horror of its

false brown face under a passing smile. It was the finest day I had

seen since my return to England.

The turn of the tide came, before my cigar was finished. I saw the

preliminary heaving of the Sand, and then the awful shiver that crept

over its surface—as if some spirit of terror lived and moved and

shuddered in the fathomless deeps beneath. I threw away my cigar, and

went back again to the rocks.

My directions in the memorandum instructed me to feel along the line

traced by the stick, beginning with the end which was nearest to the

beacon.

I advanced, in this manner, more than half way along the stick, without

encountering anything but the edges of the rocks. An inch or two

further on, however, my patience was rewarded. In a narrow little

fissure, just within reach of my forefinger, I felt the chain.

Attempting, next, to follow it, by touch, in the direction of the

quicksand, I found my progress stopped by a thick growth of

seaweed—which had fastened itself into the fissure, no doubt, in the

time that had elapsed since Rosanna Spearman had chosen her

hiding-place.

It was equally impossible to pull up the seaweed, or to force my hand

through it. After marking the spot indicated by the end of the stick

which was placed nearest to the quicksand, I determined to pursue the

search for the chain on a plan of my own. My idea was to “sound”

immediately under the rocks, on the chance of recovering the lost trace

of the chain at the point at which it entered the sand. I took up the

stick, and knelt down on the brink of the South Spit.

In this position, my face was within a few feet of the surface of the

quicksand. The sight of it so near me, still disturbed at intervals by

its hideous shivering fit, shook my nerves for the moment. A horrible

fancy that the dead woman might appear on the scene of her suicide, to

assist my search—an unutterable dread of seeing her rise through the

heaving surface of the sand, and point to the place—forced itself into

my mind, and turned me cold in the warm sunlight. I own I closed my

eyes at the moment when the point of the stick first entered the

quicksand.

The instant afterwards, before the stick could have been submerged more

than a few inches, I was free from the hold of my own superstitious

terror, and was throbbing with excitement from head to foot. Sounding

blindfold, at my first attempt—at that first attempt I had sounded

right! The stick struck the chain.

Taking a firm hold of the roots of the seaweed with my left hand, I

laid myself down over the brink, and felt with my right hand under the

overhanging edges of the rock. My right hand found the chain.

I drew it up without the slightest difficulty. And there was the

japanned tin case fastened to the end of it.

The action of the water had so rusted the chain, that it was impossible

for me to unfasten it from the hasp which attached it to the case.

Putting the case between my knees and exerting my utmost strength, I

contrived to draw off the cover. Some white substance filled the whole

interior when I looked in. I put in my hand, and found it to be linen.

In drawing out the linen, I also drew out a letter crumpled up with it.

After looking at the direction, and discovering that it bore my name, I

put the letter in my pocket, and completely removed the linen. It came

out in a thick roll, moulded, of course, to the shape of the case in

which it had been so long confined, and perfectly preserved from any

injury by the sea.

I carried the linen to the dry sand of the beach, and there unrolled

and smoothed it out. There was no mistaking it as an article of dress.

It was a nightgown.

The uppermost side, when I spread it out, presented to view innumerable

folds and creases, and nothing more. I tried the undermost side,

next—and instantly discovered the smear of the paint from the door of

Rachel’s boudoir!

My eyes remained riveted on the stain, and my mind took me back at a

leap from present to past. The very words of Sergeant Cuff recurred to

me, as if the man himself was at my side again, pointing to the

unanswerable inference which he drew from the smear on the door.

“Find out whether there is any article of dress in this house with the

stain of paint on it. Find out who that dress belongs to. Find out how

the person can account for having been in the 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 took the

Diamond.”

One after another those words travelled over my memory, repeating

themselves again and again with a wearisome, mechanical reiteration. I

was roused from what felt like a trance of many hours—from what was

really, no doubt, the pause of a few moments only—by a voice calling to

me. I looked up, and saw that Betteredge’s patience had failed him at

last. He was just visible between the sandhills, returning to the

beach.

The old man’s appearance recalled me, the moment I perceived it, to my

sense of present things, and reminded me that the inquiry which I had

pursued thus far still remained incomplete. I had discovered the smear

on the nightgown. To whom did the nightgown belong?

My first impulse was to consult the letter in my pocket—the letter

which I had found in the case.

As I raised my hand to take it out, I remembered that there was a

shorter way to discovery than this. The nightgown itself would reveal

the truth, for, in all probability, the nightgown was marked with its

owner’s name.

I took it up from the sand, and looked for the mark.

I found the mark, and read—MY OWN NAME.

There were the familiar letters which told me that the nightgown was

mine. I looked up from them. There was the sun; there were the

glittering waters of the bay; there was old Betteredge, advancing

nearer and nearer to me. I looked back again at the letters. My own

name. Plainly confronting me—my own name.

“If time, pains, and money can do it, I will lay my hand on the thief

who took the Moonstone.”—I had left London, with those words on my

lips. I had penetrated the secret which the quicksand had kept from

every other living creature. And, on the unanswerable evidence of the

paint-stain, I had discovered Myself as the Thief.

CHAPTER IV

I have not a word to say about my own sensations.

My impression is that the shock inflicted on me completely suspended my

thinking and feeling power. I certainly could not have known what I was

about when Betteredge joined me—for I have it on his authority that I

laughed, when he asked what was the matter, and putting the nightgown

into his hands, told him to read the riddle for himself.

Of what was said between us on the beach, I have not the faintest

recollection. The first place in which I can now see myself again

plainly is the plantation of firs. Betteredge and I are walking back

together to the house; and Betteredge is telling me that I shall be

able to face it, and he will be able to face it, when we have had a

glass of grog.

The scene shifts from the plantation, to Betteredge’s little

sitting-room. My resolution not to enter Rachel’s house is forgotten. I

feel gratefully the coolness and shadiness and quiet of the room. I

drink the grog (a perfectly new luxury to me, at that time of day),

which my good old friend mixes with icy-cold water from the well. Under

any other circumstances, the drink would simply stupefy me. As things

are, it strings up my nerves. I begin to “face it,” as Betteredge has

predicted. And Betteredge, on his side, begins to “face it,” too.

The picture which I am now presenting of myself, will, I suspect, be

thought a very strange one, to say the least of it. Placed in a

situation which may, I think, be described as entirely without

parallel, what is the first proceeding to which I resort? Do I seclude

myself from all human society? Do I set my mind to analyse the

abominable impossibility which, nevertheless, confronts me as an

undeniable fact? Do I hurry back to London by the first train to

consult the highest authorities, and to set a searching inquiry on foot

immediately? No. I accept the shelter of a house which I had resolved

never to degrade myself by entering again; and I sit, tippling spirits

and water in the company of an old servant, at ten o’clock in the

morning. Is this the conduct that might have been expected from a man

placed in my horrible position? I can only answer that the sight of old

Betteredge’s familiar face was an inexpressible comfort to me, and that

the drinking of old Betteredge’s grog helped me, as I believe nothing

else would have helped me, in the state of complete bodily and mental

prostration into which I had fallen. I can only offer this excuse for

myself; and I can only admire that invariable preservation of dignity,

and that strictly logical consistency of conduct which distinguish

every man and woman who may read these lines, in every emergency of

their lives from the cradle to the grave.

“Now, Mr. Franklin, there’s one thing certain, at any rate,” said

Betteredge, throwing the nightgown down on the table between us, and

pointing to it as if it was a living creature that could hear him.

“_He’s_ a liar, to begin with.”

This comforting view of the matter was not the view that presented

itself to my mind.

“I am as innocent of all knowledge of having taken the Diamond as you

are,” I said. “But there is the witness against me! The paint on the

nightgown, and the name on the nightgown are facts.”

Betteredge lifted my glass, and put it persuasively into my hand.

“Facts?” he repeated. “Take a drop more grog, Mr. Franklin, and you’ll

get over the weakness of believing in facts! Foul play, sir!” he

continued, dropping his voice confidentially. “That is how I read the

riddle. Foul play somewhere—and you and I must find it out. Was there

nothing else in the tin case, when you put your hand into it?”

The question instantly reminded me of the letter in my pocket. I took

it out, and opened it. It was a letter of many pages, closely written.

I looked impatiently for the signature at the end. “Rosanna Spearman.”

As I read the name, a sudden remembrance illuminated my mind, and a

sudden suspicion rose out of the new light.

“Stop!” I exclaimed. “Rosanna Spearman came to my aunt out of a

reformatory? Rosanna Spearman had once been a thief?”

“There’s no denying that, Mr. Franklin. What of it now, if you please?”

“What of it now? How do we know she may not have stolen the Diamond

after all? How do we know she may not have smeared my nightgown

purposely with the paint?”

Betteredge laid his hand on my arm, and stopped me before I could say

any more.

“You will be cleared of this, Mr. Franklin, beyond all doubt. But I

hope you won’t be cleared in _that_ way. See what the letter says, sir.

In justice to the girl’s memory, see what it says.”

I felt the earnestness with which he spoke—felt it as a friendly rebuke

to me. “You shall form your own judgment on her letter,” I said. “I

will read it out.”

I began—and read these lines:

“Sir—I have something to own to you. A confession which means much

misery, may sometimes be made in very few words. This confession can be

made in three words. I love you.”

The letter dropped from my hand. I looked at Betteredge. “In the name

of Heaven,” I said, “what does it mean?”

He seemed to shrink from answering the question.

“You and Limping Lucy were alone together this morning, sir,” he said.

“Did she say nothing about Rosanna Spearman?”

“She never even mentioned Rosanna Spearman’s name.”

“Please to go back to the letter, Mr. Franklin. I tell you plainly, I

can’t find it in my heart to distress you, after what you have had to

bear already. Let her speak for herself, sir. And get on with your

grog. For your own sake, get on with your grog.”

I resumed the reading of the letter.

“It would be very disgraceful to me to tell you this, if I was a living

woman when you read it. I shall be dead and gone, sir, when you find my

letter. It is that which makes me bold. Not even my grave will be left

to tell of me. I may own the truth—with the quicksand waiting to hide

me when the words are written.

“Besides, you will find your nightgown in my hiding-place, with the

smear of the paint on it; and you will want to know how it came to be

hidden by me? and why I said nothing to you about it in my life-time? I

have only one reason to give. I did these strange things, because I

loved you.

“I won’t trouble you with much about myself, or my life, before you

came to my lady’s house. Lady Verinder took me out of a reformatory. I

had gone to the reformatory from the prison. I was put in the prison,

because I was a thief. I was a thief, because my mother went on the

streets when I was quite a little girl. My mother went on the streets,

because the gentleman who was my father deserted her. There is no need

to tell such a common story as this, at any length. It is told quite

often enough in the newspapers.

“Lady Verinder was very kind to me, and Mr. Betteredge was very kind to

me. Those two, and the matron at the reformatory, are the only good

people I have ever met with in all my life. I might have got on in my

place—not happily—but I might have got on, if you had not come

visiting. I don’t blame _you_, sir. It’s my fault—all my fault.

“Do you remember when you came out on us from among the sandhills, that

morning, looking for Mr. Betteredge? You were like a prince in a

fairy-story. You were like a lover in a dream. You were the most

adorable human creature I had ever seen. Something that felt like the

happy life I had never led yet, leapt up in me at the instant I set

eyes on you. Don’t laugh at this if you can help it. Oh, if I could

only make you feel how serious it is to _me!_

“I went back to the house, and wrote your name and mine in my work-box,

and drew a true lovers’ knot under them. Then, some devil—no, I ought

to say some good angel—whispered to me, ‘Go and look in the glass.’ The

glass told me—never mind what. I was too foolish to take the warning. I

went on getting fonder and fonder of you, just as if I was a lady in

your own rank of life, and the most beautiful creature your eyes ever

rested on. I tried—oh, dear, how I tried—to get you to look at me. If

you had known how I used to cry at night with the misery and the

mortification of your never taking any notice of me, you would have

pitied me perhaps, and have given me a look now and then to live on.

“It would have been no very kind look, perhaps, if you had known how I

hated Miss Rachel. I believe I found out you were in love with her,

before you knew it yourself. She used to give you roses to wear in your

button-hole. Ah, Mr. Franklin, you wore _my_ roses oftener than either

you or she thought! The only comfort I had at that time, was putting my

rose secretly in your glass of water, in place of hers—and then

throwing her rose away.

“If she had been really as pretty as you thought her, I might have

borne it better. No; I believe I should have been more spiteful against

her still. Suppose you put Miss Rachel into a servant’s dress, and took

her ornaments off? I don’t know what is the use of my writing in this

way. It can’t be denied that she had a bad figure; she was too thin.

But who can tell what the men like? And young ladies may behave in a

manner which would cost a servant her place. It’s no business of mine.

I can’t expect you to read my letter, if I write it in this way. But it

does stir one up to hear Miss Rachel called pretty, when one knows all

the time that it’s her dress does it, and her confidence in herself.

“Try not to lose patience with me, sir. I will get on as fast as I can

to the time which is sure to interest you—the time when the Diamond was

lost.

“But there is one thing which I have got it on my mind to tell you

first.

“My life was not a very hard life to bear, while I was a thief. It was

only when they had taught me at the reformatory to feel my own

degradation, and to try for better things, that the days grew long and

weary. Thoughts of the future forced themselves on me now. I felt the

dreadful reproach that honest people—even the kindest of honest

people—were to me in themselves. A heart-breaking sensation of

loneliness kept with me, go where I might, and do what I might, and see

what persons I might. It was my duty, I know, to try and get on with my

fellow-servants in my new place. Somehow, I couldn’t make friends with

them. They looked (or I thought they looked) as if they suspected what

I had been. I don’t regret, far from it, having been roused to make the

effort to be a reformed woman—but, indeed, indeed it was a weary life.

You had come across it like a beam of sunshine at first—and then you

too failed me. I was mad enough to love you; and I couldn’t even

attract your notice. There was great misery—there really was great

misery in that.

“Now I am coming to what I wanted to tell you. In those days of

bitterness, I went two or three times, when it was my turn to go out,

to my favourite place—the beach above the Shivering Sand. And I said to

myself, ‘I think it will end here. When I can bear it no longer, I

think it will end here.’ You will understand, sir, that the place had

laid a kind of spell on me before you came. I had always had a notion

that something would happen to me at the quicksand. But I had never

looked at it, with the thought of its being the means of my making away

with myself, till the time came of which I am now writing. Then I did

think that here was a place which would end all my troubles for me in a

moment or two—and hide me for ever afterwards.

“This is all I have to say about myself, reckoning from the morning

when I first saw you, to the morning when the alarm was raised in the

house that the Diamond was lost.

“I was so aggravated by the foolish talk among the women servants, all

wondering who was to be suspected first; and I was so angry with you

(knowing no better at that time) for the pains you took in hunting for

the jewel, and sending for the police, that I kept as much as possible

away by myself, until later in the day, when the officer from

Frizinghall came to the house.

“Mr. Seegrave began, as you may remember, by setting a guard on the

women’s bedrooms; and the women all followed him upstairs in a rage, to

know what he meant by the insult he had put on them. I went with the

rest, because if I had done anything different from the rest, Mr.

Seegrave was the sort of man who would have suspected me directly. We

found him in Miss Rachel’s room. He told us he wouldn’t have a lot of

women there; and he pointed to the smear on the painted door, and said

some of our petticoats had done the mischief, and sent us all

downstairs again.

“After leaving Miss Rachel’s room, I stopped a moment on one of the

landings, by myself, to see if I had got the paint-stain by any chance

on _my_ gown. Penelope Betteredge (the only one of the women with whom

I was on friendly terms) passed, and noticed what I was about.

“‘You needn’t trouble yourself, Rosanna,’ she said. ‘The paint on Miss

Rachel’s door has been dry for hours. If Mr. Seegrave hadn’t set a

watch on our bedrooms, I might have told him as much. I don’t know what

_you_ think—_I_ was never so insulted before in my life!’

“Penelope was a hot-tempered girl. I quieted her, and brought her back

to what she had said about the paint on the door having been dry for

hours.

“‘How do you know that?’ I asked.

“‘I was with Miss Rachel, and Mr. Franklin, all yesterday morning,’

Penelope said, ‘mixing the colours, while they finished the door. I

heard Miss Rachel ask whether the door would be dry that evening, in

time for the birthday company to see it. And Mr. Franklin shook his

head, and said it wouldn’t be dry in less than twelve hours. It was

long past luncheon-time—it was three o’clock before they had done. What

does your arithmetic say, Rosanna? Mine says the door was dry by three

this morning.’

“‘Did some of the ladies go upstairs yesterday evening to see it?’ I

asked. ‘I thought I heard Miss Rachel warning them to keep clear of the

door.’

“‘None of the ladies made the smear,’ Penelope answered. ‘I left Miss

Rachel in bed at twelve last night. And I noticed the door, and there

was nothing wrong with it then.’

“‘Oughtn’t you to mention this to Mr. Seegrave, Penelope?’

“‘I wouldn’t say a word to help Mr. Seegrave for anything that could be

offered to me!’

“She went to her work, and I went to mine.

“My work, sir, was to make your bed, and to put your room tidy. It was

the happiest hour I had in the whole day. I used to kiss the pillow on

which your head had rested all night. No matter who has done it since,

you have never had your clothes folded as nicely as I folded them for

you. Of all the little knick-knacks in your dressing-case, there wasn’t

one that had so much as a speck on it. You never noticed it, any more

than you noticed me. I beg your pardon; I am forgetting myself. I will

make haste, and go on again.

“Well, I went in that morning to do my work in your room. There was

your nightgown tossed across the bed, just as you had thrown it off. I

took it up to fold it—and I saw the stain of the paint from Miss

Rachel’s door!

“I was so startled by the discovery that I ran out with the nightgown

in my hand, and made for the back stairs, and locked myself into my own

room, to look at it in a place where nobody could intrude and interrupt

me.

“As soon as I got my breath again, I called to mind my talk with

Penelope, and I said to myself, ‘Here’s the proof that he was in Miss

Rachel’s sitting-room between twelve last night, and three this

morning!’

“I shall not tell you in plain words what was the first suspicion that

crossed my mind, when I had made that discovery. You would only be

angry—and, if you were angry, you might tear my letter up and read no

more of it.

“Let it be enough, if you please, to say only this. After thinking it

over to the best of my ability, I made it out that the thing wasn’t

likely, for a reason that I will tell you. If you had been in Miss

Rachel’s sitting-room, at that time of night, with Miss Rachel’s

knowledge (and if you had been foolish enough to forget to take care of

the wet door) _she_ would have reminded you—_she_ would never have let

you carry away such a witness against her, as the witness I was looking

at now! At the same time, I own I was not completely certain in my own

mind that I had proved my own suspicion to be wrong. You will not have

forgotten that I have owned to hating Miss Rachel. Try to think, if you

can, that there was a little of that hatred in all this. It ended in my

determining to keep the nightgown, and to wait, and watch, and see what

use I might make of it. At that time, please to remember, not the ghost

of an idea entered my head that _you_ had stolen the Diamond.”

There, I broke off in the reading of the letter for the second time.

I had read those portions of the miserable woman’s confession which

related to myself, with unaffected surprise, and, I can honestly add,

with sincere distress. I had regretted, truly regretted, the aspersion

which I had thoughtlessly cast on her memory, before I had seen a line

of her letter. But when I had advanced as far as the passage which is

quoted above, I own I felt my mind growing bitterer and bitterer

against Rosanna Spearman as I went on. “Read the rest for yourself,” I

said, handing the letter to Betteredge across the table. “If there is

anything in it that I _must_ look at, you can tell me as you go on.”

“I understand you, Mr. Franklin,” he answered. “It’s natural, sir, in

_you_. And, God help us all!” he added, in a lower tone, “it’s no less

natural in _her_.”

I proceed to copy the continuation of the letter from the original, in

my own possession:—

“Having determined to keep the nightgown, and to see what use my love,

or my revenge (I hardly know which) could turn it to in the future, the

next thing to discover was how to keep it without the risk of being

found out.

“There was only one way—to make another nightgown exactly like it,

before Saturday came, and brought the laundry-woman and her inventory

to the house.

“I was afraid to put it off till next day (the Friday); being in doubt

lest some accident might happen in the interval. I determined to make

the new nightgown on that same day (the Thursday), while I could count,

if I played my cards properly, on having my time to myself. The first

thing to do (after locking up your nightgown in my drawer) was to go

back to your bedroom—not so much to put it to rights (Penelope would

have done that for me, if I had asked her) as to find out whether you

had smeared off any of the paint-stain from your nightgown, on the bed,

or on any piece of furniture in the room.

“I examined everything narrowly, and at last, I found a few streaks of

the paint on the inside of your dressing-gown—not the linen

dressing-gown you usually wore in that summer season, but a flannel

dressing-gown which you had with you also. I suppose you felt chilly

after walking to and fro in nothing but your nightdress, and put on the

warmest thing you could find. At any rate, there were the stains, just

visible, on the inside of the dressing-gown. I easily got rid of these

by scraping away the stuff of the flannel. This done, the only proof

left against you was the proof locked up in my drawer.

“I had just finished your room when I was sent for to be questioned by

Mr. Seegrave, along with the rest of the servants. Next came the

examination of all our boxes. And then followed the most extraordinary

event of the day—to _me_—since I had found the paint on your nightgown.

This event came out of the second questioning of Penelope Betteredge by

Superintendent Seegrave.

“Penelope returned to us quite beside herself with rage at the manner

in which Mr. Seegrave had treated her. He had hinted, beyond the

possibility of mistaking him, that he suspected her of being the thief.

We were all equally astonished at hearing this, and we all asked, Why?

“‘Because the Diamond was in Miss Rachel’s sitting-room,’ Penelope

answered. ‘And because I was the last person in the sitting-room at

night!’

“Almost before the words had left her lips, I remembered that another

person had been in the sitting-room later than Penelope. That person

was yourself. My head whirled round, and my thoughts were in dreadful

confusion. In the midst of it all, something in my mind whispered to me

that the smear on your nightgown might have a meaning entirely

different to the meaning which I had given to it up to that time. ‘If

the last person who was in the room is the person to be suspected,’ I

thought to myself, ‘the thief is not Penelope, but Mr. Franklin Blake!’

“In the case of any other gentleman, I believe I should have been

ashamed of suspecting him of theft, almost as soon as the suspicion had

passed through my mind.

“But the bare thought that _you_ had let yourself down to my level, and

that I, in possessing myself of your nightgown, had also possessed

myself of the means of shielding you from being discovered, and

disgraced for life—I say, sir, the bare thought of this seemed to open

such a chance before me of winning your good will, that I passed

blindfold, as one may say, from suspecting to believing. I made up my

mind, on the spot, that you had shown yourself the busiest of anybody

in fetching the police, as a blind to deceive us all; and that the hand

which had taken Miss Rachel’s jewel could by no possibility be any

other hand than yours.

“The excitement of this new discovery of mine must, I think, have

turned my head for a while. I felt such a devouring eagerness to see

you—to try you with a word or two about the Diamond, and to _make_ you

look at me, and speak to me, in that way—that I put my hair tidy, and

made myself as nice as I could, and went to you boldly in the library

where I knew you were writing.

“You had left one of your rings upstairs, which made as good an excuse

for my intrusion as I could have desired. But, oh, sir! if you have

ever loved, you will understand how it was that all my courage cooled,

when I walked into the room, and found myself in your presence. And

then, you looked up at me so coldly, and you thanked me for finding

your ring in such an indifferent manner, that my knees trembled under

me, and I felt as if I should drop on the floor at your feet. When you

had thanked me, you looked back, if you remember, at your writing. I

was so mortified at being treated in this way, that I plucked up spirit

enough to speak. I said, ‘This is a strange thing about the Diamond,

sir.’ And you looked up again, and said, ‘Yes, it is!’ You spoke

civilly (I can’t deny that); but still you kept a distance—a cruel

distance between us. Believing, as I did, that you had got the lost

Diamond hidden about you, while you were speaking, your coolness so

provoked me that I got bold enough, in the heat of the moment, to give

you a hint. I said, ‘They will never find the Diamond, sir, will they?

No! nor the person who took it—I’ll answer for that.’ I nodded, and

smiled at you, as much as to say, ‘I know!’ _This_ time, you looked up

at me with something like interest in your eyes; and I felt that a few

more words on your side and mine might bring out the truth. Just at

that moment, Mr. Betteredge spoilt it all by coming to the door. I knew

his footstep, and I also knew that it was against his rules for me to

be in the library at that time of day—let alone being there along with

you. I had only just time to get out of my own accord, before he could

come in and tell me to go. I was angry and disappointed; but I was not

entirely without hope for all that. The ice, you see, was broken

between us—and I thought I would take care, on the next occasion, that

Mr. Betteredge was out of the way.

“When I got back to the servants’ hall, the bell was going for our

dinner. Afternoon already! and the materials for making the new

nightgown were still to be got! There was but one chance of getting

them. I shammed ill at dinner; and so secured the whole of the interval

from then till tea-time to my own use.

“What I was about, while the household believed me to be lying down in

my own room; and how I spent the night, after shamming ill again at

tea-time, and having been sent up to bed, there is no need to tell you.

Sergeant Cuff discovered that much, if he discovered nothing more. And

I can guess how. I was detected (though I kept my veil down) in the

draper’s shop at Frizinghall. There was a glass in front of me, at the

counter where I was buying the longcloth; and—in that glass—I saw one

of the shopmen point to my shoulder and whisper to another. At night

again, when I was secretly at work, locked into my room, I heard the

breathing of the women servants who suspected me, outside my door.

“It didn’t matter then; it doesn’t matter now. On the Friday morning,

hours before Sergeant Cuff entered the house, there was the new

nightgown—to make up your number in place of the nightgown that I had

got—made, wrung out, dried, ironed, marked, and folded as the laundry

woman folded all the others, safe in your drawer. There was no fear (if

the linen in the house was examined) of the newness of the nightgown

betraying me. All your underclothing had been renewed, when you came to

our house—I suppose on your return home from foreign parts.

“The next thing was the arrival of Sergeant Cuff; and the next great

surprise was the announcement of what _he_ thought about the smear on

the door.

“I had believed you to be guilty (as I have owned), more because I

wanted you to be guilty than for any other reason. And now, the

Sergeant had come round by a totally different way to the same

conclusion (respecting the nightgown) as mine! And I had got the dress

that was the only proof against you! And not a living creature knew

it—yourself included! I am afraid to tell you how I felt when I called

these things to mind—you would hate my memory for ever afterwards.”

At that place, Betteredge looked up from the letter.

“Not a glimmer of light so far, Mr. Franklin,” said the old man, taking

off his heavy tortoiseshell spectacles, and pushing Rosanna Spearman’s

confession a little away from him. “Have you come to any conclusion,

sir, in your own mind, while I have been reading?”

“Finish the letter first, Betteredge; there may be something to

enlighten us at the end of it. I shall have a word or two to say to you

after that.”

“Very good, sir. I’ll just rest my eyes, and then I’ll go on again. In

the meantime, Mr. Franklin—I don’t want to hurry you—but would you mind

telling me, in one word, whether you see your way out of this dreadful

mess yet?”

“I see my way back to London,” I said, “to consult Mr. Bruff. If he

can’t help me——”

“Yes, sir?”

“And if the Sergeant won’t leave his retirement at Dorking——”

“He won’t, Mr. Franklin!”

“Then, Betteredge—as far as I can see now—I am at the end of my

resources. After Mr. Bruff and the Sergeant, I don’t know of a living

creature who can be of the slightest use to me.”

As the words passed my lips, some person outside knocked at the door of

the room.

Betteredge looked surprised as well as annoyed by the interruption.

“Come in,” he called out, irritably, “whoever you are!”

The door opened, and there entered to us, quietly, the most

remarkable-looking man that I had ever seen. Judging him by his figure

and his movements, he was still young. Judging him by his face, and

comparing him with Betteredge, he looked the elder of the two. His

complexion was of a gipsy darkness; his fleshless cheeks had fallen

into deep hollows, over which the bone projected like a penthouse. His

nose presented the fine shape and modelling so often found among the

ancient people of the East, so seldom visible among the newer races of

the West. His forehead rose high and straight from the brow. His marks

and wrinkles were innumerable. From this strange face, eyes, stranger

still, of the softest brown—eyes dreamy and mournful, and deeply sunk

in their orbits—looked out at you, and (in my case, at least) took your

attention captive at their will. Add to this a quantity of thick

closely-curling hair, which, by some freak of Nature, had lost its

colour in the most startlingly partial and capricious manner. Over the

top of his head it was still of the deep black which was its natural

colour. Round the sides of his head—without the slightest gradation of

grey to break the force of the extraordinary contrast—it had turned

completely white. The line between the two colours preserved no sort of

regularity. At one place, the white hair ran up into the black; at

another, the black hair ran down into the white. I looked at the man

with a curiosity which, I am ashamed to say, I found it quite

impossible to control. His soft brown eyes looked back at me gently;

and he met my involuntary rudeness in staring at him, with an apology

which I was conscious that I had not deserved.

“I beg your pardon,” he said. “I had no idea that Mr. Betteredge was

engaged.” He took a slip of paper from his pocket, and handed it to

Betteredge. “The list for next week,” he said. His eyes just rested on

me again—and he left the room as quietly as he had entered it.

“Who is that?” I asked.

“Mr. Candy’s assistant,” said Betteredge. “By-the-bye, Mr. Franklin,

you will be sorry to hear that the little doctor has never recovered

that illness he caught, going home from the birthday dinner. He’s

pretty well in health; but he lost his memory in the fever, and he has

never recovered more than the wreck of it since. The work all falls on

his assistant. Not much of it now, except among the poor. _They_ can’t

help themselves, you know. _They_ must put up with the man with the

piebald hair, and the gipsy complexion—or they would get no doctoring

at all.”

“You don’t seem to like him, Betteredge?”

“Nobody likes him, sir.”

“Why is he so unpopular?”

“Well, Mr. Franklin, his appearance is against him, to begin with. And

then there’s a story that Mr. Candy took him with a very doubtful

character. Nobody knows who he is—and he hasn’t a friend in the place.

How can you expect one to like him, after that?”

“Quite impossible, of course! May I ask what he wanted with you, when

he gave you that bit of paper?”

“Only to bring me the weekly list of the sick people about here, sir,

who stand in need of a little wine. My lady always had a regular

distribution of good sound port and sherry among the infirm poor; and

Miss Rachel wishes the custom to be kept up. Times have changed! times

have changed! I remember when Mr. Candy himself brought the list to my

mistress. Now it’s Mr. Candy’s assistant who brings the list to me.

I’ll go on with the letter, if you will allow me, sir,” said

Betteredge, drawing Rosanna Spearman’s confession back to him. “It

isn’t lively reading, I grant you. But, there! it keeps me from getting

sour with thinking of the past.” He put on his spectacles, and wagged

his head gloomily. “There’s a bottom of good sense, Mr. Franklin, in

our conduct to our mothers, when they first start us on the journey of

life. We are all of us more or less unwilling to be brought into the

world. And we are all of us right.”

Mr. Candy’s assistant had produced too strong an impression on me to be

immediately dismissed from my thoughts. I passed over the last

unanswerable utterance of the Betteredge philosophy; and returned to

the subject of the man with the piebald hair.

“What is his name?” I asked.

“As ugly a name as need be,” Betteredge answered gruffly. “Ezra

Jennings.”

CHAPTER V

Having told me the name of Mr. Candy’s assistant, Betteredge appeared

to think that we had wasted enough of our time on an insignificant

subject. He resumed the perusal of Rosanna Spearman’s letter.

On my side, I sat at the window, waiting until he had done. Little by

little, the impression produced on me by Ezra Jennings—it seemed

perfectly unaccountable, in such a situation as mine, that any human

being should have produced an impression on me at all!—faded from my

mind. My thoughts flowed back into their former channel. Once more, I

forced myself to look my own incredible position resolutely in the

face. Once more, I reviewed in my own mind the course which I had at

last summoned composure enough to plan out for the future.

To go back to London that day; to put the whole case before Mr. Bruff;

and, last and most important, to obtain (no matter by what means or at

what sacrifice) a personal interview with Rachel—this was my plan of

action, so far as I was capable of forming it at the time. There was

more than an hour still to spare before the train started. And there

was the bare chance that Betteredge might discover something in the

unread portion of Rosanna Spearman’s letter, which it might be useful

for me to know before I left the house in which the Diamond had been

lost. For that chance I was now waiting.

The letter ended in these terms:

“You have no need to be angry, Mr. Franklin, even if I did feel some

little triumph at knowing that I held all your prospects in life in my

own hands. Anxieties and fears soon came back to me. With the view

Sergeant Cuff took of the loss of the Diamond, he would be sure to end

in examining our linen and our dresses. There was no place in my

room—there was no place in the house—which I could feel satisfied would

be safe from him. How to hide the nightgown so that not even the

Sergeant could find it? and how to do that without losing one moment of

precious time?—these were not easy questions to answer. My

uncertainties ended in my taking a way that may make you laugh. I

undressed, and put the nightgown on me. You had worn it—and I had

another little moment of pleasure in wearing it after you.

“The next news that reached us in the servants’ hall showed that I had

not made sure of the nightgown a moment too soon. Sergeant Cuff wanted

to see the washing-book.

“I found it, and took it to him in my lady’s sitting-room. The Sergeant

and I had come across each other more than once in former days. I was

certain he would know me again—and I was _not_ certain of what he might

do when he found me employed as servant in a house in which a valuable

jewel had been lost. In this suspense, I felt it would be a relief to

me to get the meeting between us over, and to know the worst of it at

once.

“He looked at me as if I was a stranger, when I handed him the

washing-book; and he was very specially polite in thanking me for

bringing it. I thought those were both bad signs. There was no knowing

what he might say of me behind my back; there was no knowing how soon I

might not find myself taken in custody on suspicion, and searched. It

was then time for your return from seeing Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite off by

the railway; and I went to your favourite walk in the shrubbery, to try

for another chance of speaking to you—the last chance, for all I knew

to the contrary, that I might have.

“You never appeared; and, what was worse still, Mr. Betteredge and

Sergeant Cuff passed by the place where I was hiding—and the Sergeant

saw me.

“I had no choice, after that, but to return to my proper place and my

proper work, before more disasters happened to me. Just as I was going

to step across the path, you came back from the railway. You were

making straight for the shrubbery, when you saw me—I am certain, sir,

you saw me—and you turned away as if I had got the plague, and went

into the house.*

* NOTE; by Franklin Blake.—The writer is entirely mistaken, poor

creature. I never noticed her. My intention was certainly to have taken

a turn in the shrubbery. But, remembering at the same moment that my

aunt might wish to see me, after my return from the railway, I altered

my mind, and went into the house.

“I made the best of my way indoors again, returning by the servants’

entrance. There was nobody in the laundry-room at that time; and I sat

down there alone. I have told you already of the thoughts which the

Shivering Sand put into my head. Those thoughts came back to me now. I

wondered in myself which it would be harder to do, if things went on in

this manner—to bear Mr. Franklin Blake’s indifference to me, or to jump

into the quicksand and end it for ever in that way?

“It’s useless to ask me to account for my own conduct, at this time. I

try—and I can’t understand it myself.

“Why didn’t I stop you, when you avoided me in that cruel manner? Why

didn’t I call out, ‘Mr. Franklin, I have got something to say to you;

it concerns yourself, and you must, and shall, hear it?’ You were at my

mercy—I had got the whip-hand of you, as they say. And better than

that, I had the means (if I could only make you trust me) of being

useful to you in the future. Of course, I never supposed that you—a

gentleman—had stolen the Diamond for the mere pleasure of stealing it.

No. Penelope had heard Miss Rachel, and I had heard Mr. Betteredge,

talk about your extravagance and your debts. It was plain enough to me

that you had taken the Diamond to sell it, or pledge it, and so to get

the money of which you stood in need. Well! I could have told you of a

man in London who would have advanced a good large sum on the jewel,

and who would have asked no awkward questions about it either.

“Why didn’t I speak to you! why didn’t I speak to you!

“I wonder whether the risks and difficulties of keeping the nightgown

were as much as I could manage, without having other risks and

difficulties added to them? This might have been the case with some

women—but how could it be the case with me? In the days when I was a

thief, I had run fifty times greater risks, and found my way out of

difficulties to which _this_ difficulty was mere child’s play. I had

been apprenticed, as you may say, to frauds and deceptions—some of them

on such a grand scale, and managed so cleverly, that they became

famous, and appeared in the newspapers. Was such a little thing as the

keeping of the nightgown likely to weigh on my spirits, and to set my

heart sinking within me, at the time when I ought to have spoken to

you? What nonsense to ask the question! The thing couldn’t be.

“Where is the use of my dwelling in this way on my own folly? The plain

truth is plain enough, surely? Behind your back, I loved you with all

my heart and soul. Before your face—there’s no denying it—I was

frightened of you; frightened of making you angry with me; frightened

of what you might say to me (though you _had_ taken the Diamond) if I

presumed to tell you that I had found it out. I had gone as near to it

as I dared when I spoke to you in the library. You had not turned your

back on me then. You had not started away from me as if I had got the

plague. I tried to provoke myself into feeling angry with you, and to

rouse up my courage in that way. No! I couldn’t feel anything but the

misery and the mortification of it. ‘You’re a plain girl; you have got a

crooked shoulder; you’re only a housemaid—what do you mean by

attempting to speak to Me?’ You never uttered a word of that, Mr.

Franklin; but you said it all to me, nevertheless! Is such madness as

this to be accounted for? No. There is nothing to be done but to

confess it, and let it be.

“I ask your pardon, once more, for this wandering of my pen. There is

no fear of its happening again. I am close at the end now.

“The first person who disturbed me by coming into the empty room was

Penelope. She had found out my secret long since, and she had done her

best to bring me to my senses—and done it kindly too.