 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins Chapter 21 The first words, when we had taken our seats, were spoken by my lady. Sergeant Cuff, she said, There was perhaps some excuse for the inconsiderate manner in which I spoke to you half an hour since. I have no wish, however, to claim that excuse. I say, with perfect sincerity, that I regret it if I wronged you. The grace of voice and manner with which you made him that atonement had its due effect on the sergeant. He requested permission to justify himself, putting his justification as an act of respect to my mistress. It was impossible, he said, that he could be in any way responsible for the calamity which had shocked us all, for this sufficient reason. That his success in bringing his inquiry to its proper end depended on his neither saying nor doing anything that could alarm Rosanna Spearman. He appealed to me to testify whether he had or had not carried that object out. I could and did bear witness that he had. And there, as I thought, the matter might have been judiciously left to come to an end. Sergeant Cuff, however, took it a step further, evidently, as you shall now judge, with the purpose of forcing the most painful of all possible explanations to take place between her ladyship and himself. I have heard a motive assigned for the young woman's suicide, said the sergeant, which may possibly be the right one. It is a motive quite unconnected with the case which I am conducting here. I am bound to add, however, that my own opinion points the other way. Some unbearable anxiety in connection with the missing diamond has, I believe, driven the poor creature to her own destruction. I don't pretend to know what that unbearable anxiety may have been, but I think, with your ladyship's permission, I can lay my hand on a person who is capable of deciding whether I am right or wrong. Is the person now in the house? My mistress asked, after waiting a little. The person has left the house, my lady. That answer pointed as straight to Miss Rachel as straight could be. A silence dropped on us which I thought would never come to an end. Lord, how the wind howled and how the rain drove at the window, as I sat there, waiting for one or the other of them to speak again. Be so good as to express yourself plainly, said my lady. Do you refer to my daughter? I do, said Sergeant Cuff, in so many words. My mistress had her check-book on the table when we entered the room. No doubt to pay the sergeant his fee. She now put it back in the drawer. It went to my heart to see how her poor hand trembled. The hand that had loaded her old servant with benefits. The hand that, I pray God, may take mine when my time comes, and I leave my place for ever. I had hoped, said my lady, very slowly and quietly, to have recompensed your services, and to have parted with you without Miss Veranda's name having been openly mentioned between us, as it has been mentioned now. My nephew has probably said something of this before you came into the room. Mr Blake gave his message, my lady, and I gave Mr Blake a reason. It is needless to tell me your reason. After what you have just said, you know, as well as I do, that you have gone too far to go back. I owe it to myself and I owe it to my child to insist on your remaining here and to insist on your speaking out. The sergeant looked at his watch. If there had been time, my lady, he answered, I should have preferred writing my report instead of communicating it by word of mouth. But if this inquiry is to go on, time is of too much importance to be wasted in writing. I am ready to go into the matter at once. It is a very painful matter for me to speak of and for you to hear. There my mistress stopped him once more. I may possibly make it less painful to you and to my good servant and friend here, she said, if I set the example of speaking boldly on my side. You suspect, Miss Verinda, of deceiving us all by secreting the diamond for some purpose of her own. Is that true? Quite true, my lady. Very well. Now, before you begin, I have to tell you, as Miss Verinda's mother, that she is absolutely incapable of doing what you suppose her to have done. Your knowledge of her character dates from a day or two since. My knowledge of her character dates from the beginning of her life. State your suspicion of her as strongly as you please. It is impossible that you can offend me by doing so. I am sure beforehand that, with all your experience, the circumstances have fatally misled you in this case. Mind, I am in possession of no private information. I am as absolutely shut out of my daughter's confidence as you are. My one reason for speaking positively is the reason you have heard already. I know my child. She turned to me and gave me her hand. I kissed it in silence. You may go on, she said, facing the sergeant again as steadily as ever. Sergeant Cuff bowed. My mistress had produced but one effect on him. His hatchet face softened for a moment, as if he was sorry for her. As to shaking him in his own conviction, it was plain to see that she had not moved him by a single inch. He settled himself in his chair, and he began his vile attack on Miss Rachel's character in these words. I must ask your ladyship, he said, to look at this matter in the face from my point of view as well as from yours. Will you please to suppose yourself coming down here in my place and with my experience? And will you allow me to mention very briefly what that experience has been? My mistress signed to him that she would do this. The sergeant went on. For the last twenty years, he said, I have been largely employed in cases of family scandal, acting in the capacity of confidential man. The one result of my domestic practice, which has any bearing on the matter now in hand, is a result which I may state in two words. It is well within my experience that young ladys of rank and position do occasionally have private debts which they dare not acknowledge to their nearest relatives and friends. Sometimes the milliner and jeweler are at the bottom of it. Sometimes the money is wanted for purposes which I don't suspect in this case and which I won't shock you by mentioning. Bear in mind what I have said, my lady, and now let us see how events in this house have forced me back on my own experience, whether I liked it or not. He considered with himself for a moment and went on, with a horrid clearness that obliged you to understand him with an abominable justice that favoured nobody. My first information relating to the loss of the Moonstone, said the sergeant, came to me from Superintendent Seagrave. He proved my complete satisfaction that he was perfectly incapable of managing the case. The one thing he said which struck me as worth listening to was this, that Miss Verinder had declined to be questioned by him, and had spoken to him with a perfectly incomprehensible rudeness and contempt. I thought this curious, but I attributed it mainly to some clumsiness on the superintendent's part which might have offended the young lady. After that I put it by my mind and applied myself single-handed to the case. It ended, as you are aware, in the discovery of the smear on the door, and in Mr Franklin Blake's evidence satisfying me that this same smear and the loss of the diamond were pieces of the same puzzle. So far, if I suspected anything, I suspected that the Moonstone had been stolen, and that one of the servants might prove to be the thief. Very good. In this state of things, what happens? Miss Verinder suddenly comes out of her room and speaks to me. I observe three suspicious appearances in that young lady. She is still violently agitated, though more than four and twenty hours have passed since the diamond was lost. She treats me as she has already treated Superintendent Seagrave, and she is mortally offended with Mr Franklin Blake. Very good again. Here, I say to myself, is a young lady who has lost a valuable jewel. A young lady also, as my own eyes and ears inform me, who is of an impetuous temperament. Under these circumstances and with that character, what does she do? She betrays an incomprehensible resentment against Mr Blake, Mr Superintendent and myself, otherwise the very three people who have all in their different ways been trying to help her to recover her lost jewel. Having brought my inquiry to that point, then, my lady, and not till then, I begin to look back in my own mind for my own experience. My own experience explains Miss Verinder's otherwise incomprehensible conduct. It associates her with those other young ladies that I know of. It tells me she has debts which she dare not acknowledge, and that must be paid. And it sets me asking myself whether the loss of the diamond may not mean that the diamond must be secretly pledged to pay them. That is the conclusion which my experience draws from plain facts. What does your ladyship's experience say against it? What I have said already, answered my mistress. The circumstances have misled you. I said nothing on my side. Robinson Crusoe, God knows how, had got into my muddled old head. If Sergeant Cuff had found himself, at that moment, transported to a desert island without a man Friday to keep him company or a ship to take him off, he would have found himself exactly where I wished him to be. No tabene, I am an average good Christian when you don't push my Christianity too far. And all the rest of you, which is a great comfort, are, in this respect, much the same as I am. Sergeant Cuff went on. Right or wrong, my lady, he said. Having drawn my conclusion, the next thing to do was to put it to the test. I suggested to your ladyship the examination of all the wardrobes in the house. It was a means of finding the article of dress which had, in all probability, made the smear, and it was a means of putting my conclusions to the test. How did it turn out? Your ladyship consented. Mr. Blake consented. Mr. Abelwhite consented. Miss Verinder alone stopped the whole proceeding by refusing point blank. That result satisfied me that my view was the right one. If your ladyship and Mr. Betteridge persist in not agreeing with me, you must be blind to what has happened here before you this very day. In your hearing I told the young lady that her leaving the house, as things were then, would put an obstacle in the way of my recovering her jewel. You saw yourselves that she drove off in the face of that statement. You saw yourself that, so far from forgiving Mr. Blake for having done more than all the rest of you to put the clue into my hands, she publicly insulted Mr. Blake on the steps of her mother's house. What do these things mean? If Miss Verinder is not privy to the suppression of the diamond, what do these things mean? This time he looked my way. It was downright frightful to hear him piling up proof after proof against Miss Rachel, and to know, while one was longing to defend her, that there was no disputing the truth of what he said. I am, thank God, constitutionally superior to reason. This enabled me to hold firm to my lady's view, which was my view also. This roused my spirit, and made me put a bold face on it before Sergeant Cuff. Prophet, good friends, I beseech you by my example. It will save you from many troubles of the vexing sort. Cultivate a superiority to reason, and see how you pair the claws of all the sensible people when they try to scratch you for your own good. Finding that I made no remark, and that my mistress made no remark, Sergeant Cuff proceeded. Lord, how it did enrage me to notice that he was not at the least put out by our silence. There is the case, my lady, as it stands against Miss Verinder alone, he said. The next thing is to put the case as it stands against Miss Verinder and the deceased Roseanna Spearman taken together. We will go back a moment, if you please, to your daughter's refusal to let her wardrobe be examined. My mind being made up, after that circumstance, I had two questions to consider next. First, as to the right method of conducting my inquiry. Second, as to whether Miss Verinder had an accomplice among the female servants in the house. After carefully thinking it over, I determined to conduct the inquiry in what we should call at our office a highly irregular manner, for this reason. I had a family scandal to deal with, which it was my business to keep within the family limits. The less noise made, and the fewer strangers employed to help me, the better. As to the usual course of taking people in custody on suspicion and going before the magistrate and all the rest of it, nothing of the sort was to be thought of when your ladyship's daughter was, as I believed, at the bottom of the whole business. In this case, I felt that a person of Mr. Betteridge's character and position in the house, knowing the servants as he did, and having the honour of the family at heart, which would be safer to take as an assistant than any other person whom I could lay my hand on. I should have tried Mr. Blake as well, but for one obstacle in the way. He saw the drift of my proceedings at a very early date, and with his interest in Miss Verinder any mutual understanding was impossible between him and me. I trouble your ladyship with these particulars to show you that I have kept the family secret within the family circle. I am the only outsider who knows it, and my professional existence depends on holding my tongue. Here I felt that my professional existence depended on not holding my tongue. To be held up before my mistress in my old age, as a sort of deputy policeman, was once again more than my Christianity was strong enough to bear. I beg to inform your ladyship, I said, that I never to my knowledge helped this abominable detective business in any way from first to last, and I summoned Sergeant Cuff to contradict me if he dares. Having given vent in those words, I felt greatly relieved. My ladyship honoured me by a little friendly pat on the shoulder. I looked with righteous indignation at the sergeant to see what he thought of such a testimony as that. The sergeant looked back like a lamb, and seemed to like me better than ever. My lady informed him that he might continue his statement. I understand, she said, that you have honestly done your best in what you believe to be my interest. I am ready to hear what you have to say next. What I have to say next, answered the sergeant, relates to Roseanna Spearman. I recognise the young woman as your ladyship may remember when she brought the washing-book into this room. Up to that time I was inclined to doubt whether Miss Verinder had trusted her secret to anyone. When I saw Roseanna, I altered my mind. I suspected her at once of being privy to the suppression of the diamond. The poor creature has met her death by a dreadful end, and I don't want your ladyship to think, now that she's gone, that I was unduly hard on her. If this had been a common case of thieving, I should have given Roseanna the benefit of the doubt, just as freely as I should have given it to any of the other servants in the house. Our experience of the reformatory woman is that, when tried in service, and when kindly and judiciously treated, they proved themselves in the majority of cases to be honestly penitent and honestly worthy of the pains taken with them. But this was not a common case of thieving. It was a case, in my mind, of a deeply planned fraud with the owner of the diamond at the bottom of it. Holding this view, the first consideration which naturally presented itself to me in connection with Roseanna was this. Would Miss Verinder be satisfied, begging your ladyship's pardon, with leading us all to think that the Moonstone was merely lost, or would she go a step further and delude us into believing that the Moonstone was stolen? In the latter event there was Roseanna Spearman, with the character of a thief ready to her hand, the person of all others to lead your ladyship off and to lead me off on a false scent. Was it possible, I asked myself, that he could put his case against Miss Rachel and Roseanna in a more horrid point of view than this? It was possible, as you shall now see. I had another reason for suspecting the deceased woman, he said, which appears to me to have been stronger still. Who would be the very person to help Miss Verinder in raising money privately on the diamond? Roseanna Spearman. No young lady in Miss Verinder's position could manage such a risky matter as that by herself. A go-between she must have, and who so fit again as Roseanna Spearman? Your ladyship's deceased housemaid was at the top of her profession when she was a thief. She had relations, to my certain knowledge, with one of the few men in London in the money-lending line who would advance a large sum on such a notable jewel as the Moonstone without asking awkward questions or insisting on awkward conditions. Bear this in mind, my lady, and now let me show you how my suspicions have been justified by Roseanna's own acts and by the plain inferences to be drawn on them. He thereupon passed the whole of Roseanna's proceedings under review. You are already well acquainted with those proceedings as I am, and you will understand how unanswerably this part of his report fixed the guilt of being concerned in the disappearance of the Moonstone on the memory of the poor dead girl. Even my mistress was daunted by what he said now. She made him no answer when he had done. It didn't seem to matter to the sergeant whether he was answered or not. On he went, devil-take him, just as steady as ever. Having stated the whole case as I understand it, he said, I have only to tell your ladyship now what I propose to do next. I see two ways of bringing this inquiry successfully to an end. One of those ways I look upon as a certainty. The other, I admit, is a bold experiment and nothing more. Your ladyship shall decide. Shall we take the certainty first? My mistress made him a sign to take his own way and choose for himself. Thank you, said the sergeant. We'll begin with the certainty as your ladyship is so good as to leave it to me. Whether Miss Verrinda remains at Fritzing Hall, or whether she returns here, I propose in either case to keep a careful watch on all her proceedings, on all the people she sees, on the rides and walks she may take, and on the letters that she may write or receive. What next? asked my mistress. I shall next, answered the sergeant, request your ladyship's leave to introduce into the house, as a servant in the place of Rosanna Spearman, a woman accustomed to private inquiries of this sort, for whose discretion I can answer. What next? repeated my mistress. Next, proceeded the sergeant, and last, I propose to send one of my brother officers to make an arrangement with that moneylender in London, whom I mention just now as formally acquainted with Rosanna Spearman, and whose name and address your ladyship may rely on it, have been communicated by Rosanna to Miss Verrinda. I don't deny that the course of action that I'm now suggesting will cost money and consume time, but the result is certain. We run a line round the moonstone and draw that line closer and closer till we find it in Miss Verrinda's possession, supposing she decides to keep it. If her debts press and she decides on sending it away, then we have our man ready, and we meet the moonstone on its arrival in London. To hear her own daughter made the subject of such a proposal as this, stung my mistress into speaking angrily for the first time. Consider your proposal declined in every particular, she said, and go on to your other way of bringing this inquiry to an end. My other way, said the sergeant, going on as easy as ever, is to try that bold experiment to which I have alluded. I think I have formed a pretty correct estimate of Miss Verrinda's temperament. She is quite capable, according to my belief, of committing a daring fraud, but she is too hot and impetuous in temper, and too little accustomed to deceit as a habit to act the hypocrite in small things, and to restrain herself under all provocations. Her feelings in this case have repeatedly got beyond her control, and at the very time when it was playly in her interest to conceal them. It is on this peculiarity in her character that I now propose to act, and want to give her a great shock suddenly, under circumstances that will touch her to the quick. In plain English I want to tell Miss Verrinda, without a word of warning, of Rosanna's death on the chance that her own better feelings will hurry her into making a clean rest of it. Does your ladyship accept that alternative? My mistress astonished me beyond all measure of expression. She answered him on the instant. Yes, I do. The pony-chase is ready, said the sergeant. I wish your ladyship good morning. My lady held up her hand and stopped him at the door. My daughter's better feelings shall be appealed to, as you propose, she said, but I claim the right as her mother of putting her to the test myself. You will remain here, if you please, and I will go to Fritzinghall. For once in his life the great cuffs stood speechless with amazement, like an ordinary man. My mistress rang the bell and ordered her waterproof things. It was still pouring with rain, and the close carriage was gone, as you know, with Miss Rachel to Fritzinghall. I tried to dissuade her ladyship from facing the severity of the weather. Quite useless. I asked Leave to go with her and hold the umbrella. She wouldn't hear of it. The pony-chase came round, with the groom in charge. You may rely on two things, she said to Sergeant Cuff in the call. I will try the experiment on Miss Verrinder, as boldly as you could try it yourself, and I will inform you of the result, either personally or by letter, before the last train leaves for London tonight. With that she stepped into the chase, and, taking the reins herself, drove off to Fritzinghall. End of Chapter 21 Chapter 22 My mistress having left us, I had leisure to think of Sergeant Cuff. I found him sitting in a snug corner of the hall, consulting his memorandum book and curling up viciously at the corners of the lips. Making notes of the case, I asked. No, said the sergeant, looking to see what my next professional engagement is. Oh-ho! I said. You think it's all over, then, here? I think, answered Sergeant Cuff, that Lady Verrinder is one of the cleverest women in England. I also think a rose much better worth looking at than a diamond. Where is the gardener, Mr. Betteridge? There was no getting a word more out of him on the subject of the Moonstone. He had lost all interest in his own inquiry, and he would persist in looking for the gardener. An hour afterwards I heard them at high words in the conservatory, with the dog-rose once more at the bottom of the dispute. In the meantime it was my business to find out whether Mr. Franklin persisted in his resolution to leave us by the afternoon train. After having been informed of the conference in my lady's room and of how it had ended, he immediately decided on waiting to hear the news from Fritzing Hall. This very natural alteration in his plans, which, with ordinary people, would have led to nothing in particular, proved in Mr. Franklin's case to have one objectionable result. It left him unsettled with a legacy of idle time on his hands, and in so doing it let out all the foreign sides of his character, one on top of another, like rats out of a bag. Now as an Italian Englishman, now as a German Englishman, and now as a French Englishman, he drifted in and out of all the sitting-rooms in the house, with nothing to talk of but Mr. Rachel's treatment of him, and with nobody to address himself to but me. I found him, for example, in the library, sitting under the map of modern Italy, and quite unaware of any other method of meeting his troubles, except the method of talking about them. I have several worthy aspirations, betterage, but what am I to do with them now? I am full of dormant good qualities if Rachel would only have helped me to bring them out. He was so eloquent in drawing the picture of his own neglected merits, and so pathetic in lamenting over it when it was done, that I felt quite at my wit's end how to console him, when it suddenly occurred to me that here was a case for the wholesome application of a bit of Robinson Crusoe. I hobbled out to my own room and hobbled back with that immortal book. Nobody in the library. The map of modern Italy stared at me, and I stared at the map of modern Italy. I tried the drawing-room. There was his handkerchief on the floor to prove that he had drifted in, and there was the empty room to prove that he had drifted out again. I tried the dining-room, and discovered Samuel with a biscuit and a glass of sherry, silently investigating the empty air. A minute since, Mr. Franklin had rung furiously for a little light refreshment. On its production, in a violent hurry by Samuel, Mr. Franklin had vanished before the bell downstairs had quite done ringing with the pull he had given to it. I tried the morning-room and found him at last. There he was at the window, drawing hieroglyphics with his finger in the damp on the glass. Your sherry is waiting for you, sir, I said to him. I might as well have addressed myself to one of the four walls in the room. He was down in the bottomless deep of his own meditations, past all pulling up. How do you explain Rachel's conduct betterage? Was the only answer I received? Not being ready with the needful reply, I produced Robinson Crusoe, in which I am firmly persuaded some explanation might have been found if we had only searched long enough for it. Mr. Franklin shut up Robinson Crusoe and floundered into his German-English gibberish on the spot. Why not look into it? He said, as if I had personally objected to looking into it. Why the devil lose your patience betterage when patience is all that's wanted to arrive at the truth? Don't interrupt me. Rachel's conduct is perfectly intelligible if you will only do her the common justice to take the objective view first and the subjective view next and the objective subjective view to wind up with. What do we know? We know that the loss of the Moonstone on Thursday morning last threw her into a state of nervous excitement from which she was not recovered yet. Do you mean to deny the objective view so far? Very well then. Don't interrupt me. Now, being in a state of nervous excitement how are we to expect that she should behave as she would otherwise have behaved to any of the people about her? Arguing in this way from within outwards what do we reach? We reach the subjective view. I defy you to convert the subjective view. Very well then. What follows? Good heavens, the objective subjective explanation follows, of course. Rachel, properly speaking, is not Rachel but somebody else. Do I mind being cruelly treated by somebody else? You are unreasonable enough betterage but you can hardly accuse me of that. How does it end? It ends in spite of your confounded English narrowness and prejudice in me being perfectly happy and comfortable. Where's the sherry? My head was by this time in such a condition that I was not quite sure whether it was my own head or Mr. Franklin's. In this deplorable state I contrived to do what I take to have been three objective things. I got Mr. Franklin his sherry. I retired to my own room and I solaced myself with the most composing pipe of tobacco I ever remember to have smoked in my life. Don't suppose, however, that I was quit of Mr. Franklin on such easy terms as these. Drifting again out of the morning-room into the hall he found his way to the offices next, smelt my pipe and was instantly reminded that he had been simple enough to give up smoking for Miss Rachel's sake. In the twinkling of an eye he burst in on me with his cigar-case and came out strong on the one everlasting subject in his neat, witty, unbelieving French way. Give me a light to betterage. Is it conceivable that a man can have smoked as long as I have without discovering that there is a complete system for the treatment of women at the bottom of his cigar-case? Follow me carefully and I'll prove it in two words. You choose a cigar. You try it. And it disappoints you. What do you do upon that? You throw it away and try another. Now observe the application. You choose a woman. You try her. And she breaks your heart. Fool! Take a lesson from your cigar-case. Throw her away and try another. I shook my head at that. Wonderfully clever, I daresay, but my own experience was dead against it. In the time of the late Mrs. Betteridge, I said, I felt pretty often inclined to try your philosophy, Mr. Franklin, but the law insists on your smoking your cigar once you have chosen it. I pointed that observation with a wink. Mr. Franklin burst out laughing, and we were as merry as crickets until the next new side of his character turned up in due course. So things went on with my young master and me, and so while the sergeant and the gardener were wrangling over the roses, we too sped the interval before the news came back from Fritzinghall. The pony-chase returned a good half-hour before I had ventured to expect it. My lady had decided to remain for the present at her sister's house. The groom brought two letters from his mistress, one addressed to Mr. Franklin and the other to me. Mr. Franklin's letter I sent to him in the library, into which refuge his driftings had now taken him for the second time. My own letter I read in my own room. A check which dropped out when I opened it informed me before I had mastered the contents that Sergeant Cuff's dismissal from the inquiry after the moonstone was now a settled thing. I sent to the conservatory to say that I wished to speak to the sergeant directly. He appeared with his mind full of the gardener and the dog-rose, declaring that the equal of Mr. Begbie for obscenity never had existed yet and never would exist again. I requested him to dismiss such wretched trifling as this from our conversation, and give his best attention to a really serious matter. Upon that he exerted himself sufficiently to notice the letter in my hand. Ah! he said in a weary way. You have heard from her ladyship. Have I anything to do with it, Mr. Betteridge? You shall judge for yourself, Sergeant. I thereupon read him the letter, with my best emphasis and discretion, in the following words. My good Gabriel, I request that you will inform Sergeant Cuff that I have performed the promise I made to him with this result. So far as Rosanna Spearman is concerned, Ms. Verrinder solemnly declares that she has never spoken a word in private to Rosanna since that unhappy woman first entered my house. They never met, even accidentally, on the night when the diamond was lost, and no communication of any sort took place between them, from Thursday morning when the alarm was first raised in the house, to this present Saturday afternoon when Ms. Verrinder left us. After telling my daughter suddenly, and in so many words, of Rosanna Spearman's suicide, this is what has come of it. Having reached that point I looked up and asked Sergeant Cuff what he thought of the letter so far. I should only offend you if I expressed my opinion. I answered the sergeant. Go on, Mr. Betteridge. He said with the most exasperating resignation. Go on. When I remembered that this man had had the audacity to complain of our gardener's obstinacy, my tongue itched to go on in other words than my mistresses. At this time, however, my Christianity held firm. I proceeded steadily with her Ladyship's letter. Having appealed to Ms. Verrinder in the manner which the officer thought most desirable, I spoke to her next in the manner which I myself thought most likely to impress her. On two different occasions before my daughter left my roof, I privately warned her that she was exposing herself to suspicion of the most unendurable and most degrading kind. I have now told her, in the plainest terms, that my apprehensions have been realized. Her answer to this, on her own solemn affirmation, is as plain as words can be. In the first place, she owes no money privately to any living creature. In the second place, the diamond is not now and never has been in her possession since she put it into the cabinet on Wednesday night. The confidence which my daughter has placed in me goes no further than this. She maintains an obstinate silence when I ask her if she can explain the disappearance of the diamond. She refuses with tears when I appeal to her to speak out for my sake. The day will come when you will know why I am careless about being suspected and why I am silent even with you. I have done much to make my mother pity me. Nothing to make my mother blush for me. Those are my daughter's own words. After what has passed between the officer and me, I think, stranger as he is, that he should be made acquainted with what Miss Verinder has said as well as you. Read my letter to him and then place in his hands the check which I enclose. In resigning all further claim on his services, I have only to say that I am convinced of his honesty and his intelligence, but I am more firmly persuaded than ever that the circumstances in this case have fatally misled him. There the letter ended. Before presenting the check, I asked Sergeant Cuff if he had any remark to make. It's no part of my duty, Mr. Betteridge, he answered, to make remarks on a case when I have done with it. I tossed the check across the table to him. Do you believe in that part of her Ladyship's letter? I said indignantly. The sergeant looked at the check and lifted up his dismal eyebrows in acknowledgement of her Ladyship's liberality. This is such a generous estimate of the value of my time. He said that I feel bound to make some return for it. I'll bear in mind the amount of this check, Mr. Betteridge, when the occasion comes round for remembering it. What do you mean? I asked. Her Ladyship has smoothed matters over for the present very cleverly, said the sergeant. But this family scandal is of the sort that bursts up again when you least expect it. We shall have more detective business on our hands, sir, before the Moonstone is many months older. If those words meant anything and if the manner in which he spoke them meant anything, it came to this. My mistress's letter had proved to his mind that Miss Rachel was hardened enough to resist the strongest appeal that could be addressed to her and that she had deceived her own mother. Good God, under what circumstances? By a series of abominable lies. How other people in my place might have replied to the sergeant I don't know. I answered what he said in these plain terms. Sergeant Cuff, I consider your last observation and insult to my lady and her daughter. Mr. Betteridge, consider it as a warning to yourself, and you'll be nearer the mark. Hot and angry as I was, the infernal confidence with which he gave me that answer closed my lips. I walked to the window to compose myself. The rain had given over, and who should I see in the courtyard, but Mr. Begbie, the gardener, waiting outside to continue the dog-rose controversy with Sergeant Cuff. My compliments to the sergeant, said Mr. Begbie the moment he set eyes on me. If he's minded to walk to the station, I'm agreeable to go with him. What, cries the sergeant behind me, are you not convinced yet? The day of the bit I'm convinced, answered Mr. Begbie. Then I'll walk to the station, says the sergeant. Then I'll meet you at the gate, says Mr. Begbie. I was angry enough, as you know, but how was any man's anger to hold out against such an interruption as this? Sergeant Cuff noticed the change in me and encouraged it by a word in season. Come, come, he said. Why not treat my view of the case as her ladyship treats it? Why not say the circumstances have fatally misled me? To take anything as her ladyship took it was a privilege worth enjoying, even with the disadvantage of having been offered to me by Sergeant Cuff. I cooled slowly down to my customary level. I regarded any other opinion of Miss Rachel than my ladys' opinion or mine, with a lofty contempt. The only thing I could not do was to keep off the subject of the Moonstone. My own good sense ought to have warned me, I know, to let the matter rest. But there the virtues which distinguished the present generation were not invented in my time. Sergeant Cuff had hit me on the roar and though I did look down upon him with contempt the tender place still stings for all that. The end of it was that I perversely led him back to the subject of her ladyship's letter. I am quite satisfied myself, I said, but never mind that. Go on as if I was still open to conviction. You think Miss Rachel is not to be believed on her word, and you say we shall hear of the Moonstone again. Back your opinion, Sergeant," I concluded, in an airy way, back your opinion. Instead of taking offense, Sergeant Cuff seized my hand and shook it till my fingers ached again. I declare to heaven," says this strange officer solemnly, I would take to domestic service tomorrow, Mr. Betteridge, if I had a chance of being employed along with you. To say you are as transparent as a child, sir, is to pay the children a compliment which nine out of ten of them don't deserve. There, there, we won't begin to dispute again. You shall have it out of me on easier terms than that. I won't say a word more about her ladyship or about Miss Verinda. I'll only turn profit for once in a way and for your sake. I have warned you already that you haven't done with the Moonstone yet. Very well. Now I'll tell you, at parting, of three things which will happen in the future and which I believe will force themselves to pay attention whether you like it or not. Go on," I said, quite unabashed and just as airy as ever. First, says the sergeant, you will hear something from the Yolans when the postman delivers Rosanna's letter at Cobbs Hole on Monday next. If he had thrown a bucket of cold water over me, I doubt if I could have felt it much more unpleasantly than I felt those words. Miss Rachel's acitation of her innocence had left Rosanna's contact, the making of the new nightgown, the hiding of the smeared nightgown and all the rest of it, entirely without explanation, and this had never occurred to me till Sergeant Cuff forced it on my mind all in a moment. In the second place, preceded the sergeant, you will hear of the three Indians again. You will hear of them in the neighbourhood if Miss Rachel remains in the neighbourhood. You will hear of them in London if Miss Rachel goes to London. Having lost all interest in the three jugglers and having thoroughly convinced myself of my young lady's innocence, I took this second prophecy easily enough. So much for two of the three things that are going to happen, I said. Now for the third. The third and last, said Sergeant Cuff, you will, sooner or later, hear something of that moneylender in London whom I have twice taken the liberty of mentioning already. Give me your pocketbook and I'll make a note for you of his name and address so that there may be no mistake about it if the thing really happens. He wrote accordingly on a blank leaf Mr. Septimus Luca, Middlesex Place, Lambeth, London. There, he said, pointing to the address, are the last words on the subject of the Moonstone which I shall trouble you with for the present. Time will show whether I am right or wrong. In the meanwhile, sir, I carry away with me a sincere personal liking for you which I think does honour to both of us. If we don't meet again before my professional retirement takes place, I hope you will come and see me in a little house near London which I have got my eye on. There will be grass walks, Mr. Betteridge, I promise you, in my garden, and as for the white moss rows, the dear little bit you get the white moss rows to grow unless you bud him on the dog rows first, cried a voice at the window. We both turned round. There was the everlasting Mr. Begbie too eager for the controversy to wait any longer at the gate. The sergeant rung my hand and darted out into the courtyard, hot as still on his side. I asked him about the white moss rows when he comes back and see if I have left him a leg to stand on, cried the great cuff, hailing me through the window in his turn. Gentlemen both, I answered, moderating them again as I have moderated them once already. In the matter of the moss rows there is a great deal to be said on both sides. I might as well, as the Irish say, have whistled jigs to a milestone. Away they went together, fighting the battle of the roses without asking or giving quarter on either side. The last I saw of them, Mr. Begbie was shaking his obstinate head and Sergeant Cuff had got him by the arm like a prisoner in charge. Ah, well, well. I own I couldn't help liking the sergeant, though I hated him all the time. Explain that state of mind, if you can. You will soon be rid now of me and my contradictions. When I have reported Mr. Franklin's departure the history of Sassaday's events will be finished at last. And when I have next described certain strange things that happened in the course of the new week, I shall have done my part of the story and shall hand over the pen to the person who is appointed to follow my lead. If you are as tired of reading this narrative as I am of writing it, Lord, how shall we enjoy ourselves on both sides, a few pages further on? End of Chapter 22 I had kept the pony-chase ready in case Mr. Franklin persisted in leaving us by the train that night. The appearance of the luggage followed downstairs by Mr. Franklin himself informed me plainly enough that he had held firm to a resolution for once in his life. So you have really made up your mind, sir, I said, as we met in the hall. Why not wait a day or two longer and give Miss Rachel another chance? The foreign varnish appeared to have all worn off, Mr. Franklin, now that the time had come for saying goodbye. Instead of replying to me in words, he put the letter which her ladyship had addressed to him into my hand. The greater part of it said over again what had been said already in the other communication received by me. But there was a bit about Miss Rachel added at the end, which will account for the steadiness of Mr. Franklin's determination if it accounts for nothing else. You will wonder, I daresay, her ladyship wrote, at my allowing my own daughter to keep me perfectly in the dark. A diamond worth twenty thousand pounds has been lost, and I am left to infer that the mystery of his disappearance is no mystery to Rachel, and that some incomprehensible obligation of silence has been laid on her by some person or persons utterly unknown to me, with some object in view which I cannot even guess. Is it conceivable that I should myself to be trifled with in this way? It is quite conceivable in Rachel's present state. She is in a condition of nervous agitation pitiable to see. I dare not approach the subject of the Moonstone again until time has done something to quiet her. To help this end I have not hesitated to dismiss the police officer. The mystery which baffles us baffles him too. This is not a matter in which any stranger can help us. He adds to what I have to suffer and he maddens Rachel if she only hears his name. My plans for the future are as well settled as they can be. My present idea is to take Rachel to London partly to relieve her mind by a complete change, partly to try what may be done by consulting the best medical advice. Can I ask you to meet us in town? My dear Franklin, you in your way must imitate my patience and wait as I do for a fitter time. The valuable assistance which you have rendered to the inquiry after the lost jewel is still an unpardoned offence in the present dreadful state of Rachel's mind. Moving blindfold in this matter you have added to the burden of anxiety which she has had to bear by innocently threatening her secret with discovery through your exertions. It is impossible for me to excuse the perversity that holds you responsible for consequences which neither you nor I could imagine or foresee. She is not to be reasoned with she can only be pitied. I am grieved to have to say it but for the present you and Rachel are better apart. The only advice I can offer you is to give her time. I handed the letter back sincerely sorry for Mr. Franklin for I knew how fond he was of my young lady and I saw that her mother's account of her had cut him to the heart. You know the proverb, sir was all I said to him when things are at the worst they're short of end things can't be much worse Mr. Franklin than they are now. Mr. Franklin folded up his aunt's letter without appearing to be much comforted by the remark that I had ventured on addressing to him. When I came here from London he said I don't believe there was a happier household in England than this. Look at the household now scattered, disunited the very air of the place poisoned with mystery and suspicion. Do you remember that morning at the Shivering Sand when we talked about my Uncle Herne Castle and his birthday gift? The Moonstone has served the Colonel's vengeance betterage by means which the Colonel himself never dreamt of. With that he shook me by the hand and went out to the pony-chase. I followed him down the steps it was very miserable to see him leaving the old place where he had spent the happiest years of his life in this way. Penelope, sadly upset by all that had happened in the house came round crying to bid him goodbye. Mr. Franklin kissed her I waved my hand as much as to say to him, Sir. Some of the other female servants peeping after him round the corner he was one of those men whom all the women like. At the last moment I stopped the pony-chase and begged as a favour that he would let us hear from him by letter. He didn't seem to heed what I said he was looking round from one thing to another taking a sort of farewell of the old house and grounds. Tell us where you're going to, Sir holding on by the chase and trying to get at his future plans that way. Mr. Franklin pulled his hat down suddenly over his eyes going, says he echoing the word after me I'm going to the devil the pony started at the word as if it had felt a Christian horror of it. God bless you, Sir go where you may was all I had time to say before he was out of sight and hearing. A sweet and pleasant gentleman with all his faults and follows a sweet and pleasant gentleman he left a sad gap behind him when he left my lady's house it was dull and dreary enough when the long summer evening closed in on that Saturday night I kept my spirits from sinking by sticking fast to my pipe and my Robinson Crusoe the women, accepting Penelope beguiled the time by talking of Rosanna's suicide they were all obstinately of the opinion that the poor girl had stolen the Moonstone and that she had destroyed herself in terror of being found out my daughter, of course, privately held fast to what she had said all along her notion of the motive which was really at the bottom of the suicide failed oddly enough just where my young lady's assertion of her innocence failed also it left Rosanna's secret journey to Fritzing Hall and Rosanna's proceedings in the matter of the nightgown that Rosanna wanted for there was no use in pointing this out to Penelope the objection made about as much impression on her as a shower of rain on a waterproof coat the truth is my daughter inherits my superiority to reason and in respect to that accomplishment has got a long way ahead of her own father on the next day, Sunday the closed carriage which had been kept at Mr. Abelweitz came back to us empty the coachman brought a message for me and written instructions for my lady's own maid and for Penelope the message informed me that my mistress had determined to take Miss Rachel to her house in London on the Monday the written instructions informed the two maids of the clothing that was wanted and directed them to meet their mistresses in town at the given hour most of the other servants were to follow my lady had found Miss Rachel so unwilling to return to the house after what had happened in it that she had decided on going to London direct from Fritzing Hall I was to remain in the country until further orders to look after things indoors and out the servants left with me were to be put on board wages being reminded by all this of what Mr. Franklin had said about our being a scattered and disunited household my mind was led naturally to Mr. Franklin himself the more I thought of him the more uneasy I felt about his future proceedings it ended in my writing by the Sunday's post to his father's valet Mr. Jeffco whom I had known in former years to beg he would let me know what Mr. Franklin had settled to do on arriving in London the Sunday evening was if possible duller even than the Saturday evening we ended the day of rest as hundreds of thousands of people end it regularly once a week in these islands that is to say we all anticipated bedtime and fell asleep in our chairs how the Monday affected the rest of the household I don't know the Monday gave me a good shake up the first of Sergeant Cuff's prophecies of what was to happen namely that I should hear from the Yolans came true on that day I had seen Penelope and my ladies made off in the railway with a luggage for London and was pottering about the grounds when I heard my name called turning round I found myself face to face with the fisherman's daughter Limping Lucy baiting her lame foot and her leanness the last horrid drawback in a woman in my opinion the girl had some pleasing qualities in the eye of a man a dark keen clever face and a nice clear voice and a beautiful brown head of hair counted among her merits a crutch appeared in the list of her misfortunes and a temper reckoned high in the sum total of her defects well my dear I said what do you want with me where's the man you call Franklin Blake says the girl fixing me with a fierce look as she rested herself on her crutch that's not a respectful way to speak of any gentleman I answered if you wish to inquire for my ladies nephew you will please mention him as Mr. Franklin Blake she limped a step nearer to me and looked as if she could have eaten me alive Mr. Franklin Blake she repeated after me murder of Franklin Blake would be a fitter name for him my practice with the late Mrs. Betteridge came in handy here whenever a woman tries to put you out of temper turn the tables and put her out of temper instead they're generally prepared for every effort you can make in your defence but that one word does it as well as a hundred and one word did it with limping Lucy I looked her pleasantly in the face and I said poo the girl's temper flamed out directly she poised herself on her sound foot and she took her crutch and beat it furiously three times on the ground he's a murderer he's a murderer he has been the death of Rosanna Spearman she screamed out that answer at the top of her voice one or two of the people that work in the grounds near us looked up saw it was limping Lucy knew what to expect from that quarter and looked away again he has been the death of Rosanna Spearman I repeated say that Lucy what do you care, what does any man care oh, if she had only thought of the men as I think she might have been living now she always thought kindly of me poor soul I said and to the best of my ability I have always tried to act kindly by her I spoke these words in as comforting manner as I could the truth is I hadn't the heart to irritate the girl by another of my smart replies I had only noticed her temper at first I noticed her wretchedness now and wretchedness is not uncommonly insolent you'll find in humble life my answer melted limping Lucy she bent her head down and laid it on the top of her crutch I loved her the girl said softly she had lived a miserable life Mr. Betteridge vile people had ill treated her and led her wrong and it hadn't spoiled her sweet temper she was an angel she might have been happy with me I had a plan for our going to London together like sisters and living by our needles that man came here and spoiled it all he bewitched her don't tell me he didn't mean it and didn't know it, he ought to have known it he ought to have taken pity on her I can't live without him he never even looks at me that's what she said cruel cruel cruel I said no man is worth fretting for in that way and she said there are men worth dying for Lucy and he is one of them I had saved up a little money I had settled things with father and mother I meant to take her away from the mortification she was suffering here we should have had a little lodging in London together, like sisters she had a good education, sir as you know and she wrote a good hand she was quick at her needle I have a good education and I write a good hand I'm not as quick at my needle as she was but I could have done we might have got our living nicely and what happens this morning what happens this morning her letter comes and tells me that she is done with the burden of her life her letter comes and bids me goodbye forever where is he? cries the girl lifting her head from the crutch and flaming out again through her tears where is this gentleman that I mustn't speak of except with respect Mr. Betteridge, the day is not far off when the poor will rise against the rich I pray heaven they may begin with him I pray heaven they may begin with him here was another of your average good Christians and here was the usual breakdown consequent of that same average Christianity being pushed too far the person himself though I own this is saying a great deal could hardly have lectured the girl in the stage she was in now all I ventured to do was to keep her to the point in the hope of something turning up which might be worth hearing what do you want with Mr. Franklin Blake I asked I want to see him for anything particular I have got a letter to give him from Rosanna Spearman yes sent to you in your own letter yes was the darkness going to lift were all the discoveries that I was dying to make coming and offering themselves to me of their own accord I was obliged to wait a moment Sergeant Cuff had left his infection behind him certain signs and tokens personal to myself warned me that the detective fever was beginning to set in again you can't see Mr. Franklin I said I must and will see him he went to London last night Limping Lucy looked me hard in the face and saw that I was speaking the truth without a word more she turned about again instantly towards Cobb's hole stop I said Franklin Blake tomorrow give me your letter and I'll send it on to him by the post Limping Lucy steadied herself on her crutch and looked back at me over her shoulder I am to give it from my hands into his hands she said and I am to give it to him in no other way shall I write and tell him what you have said tell him I hate him and you will tell him the truth but about the letter if he wants the letter he must come back here and get it from me with those words she limped off on the way to Cobb's hole the detective fever burnt up all my dignity on the spot I followed her and tried to make her talk all in vain it was my misfortune to be a man and Limping Lucy enjoyed disappointing me later in the day I tried my luck with her mother Good Mrs. Yoland could only cry and recommend a drop of comfort out of the Dutch bottle I found the fisherman on the beach he said it was a bad job and went on mending his net neither father nor mother knew more than I knew the only way left was to try the chance which might come with the morning of writing to Mr. Franklin Blake I leave you to imagine how I watched for the postman on Tuesday morning he brought me two letters one from Penelope which I had hardly the patience enough to read announced that my lady and Miss Rachel were safely established in London the other from Mr. Jeffco informed me that his master's son had left England already on reaching the metropolis Mr. Franklin had it appeared gone straight to his father's residence he arrived at an awkward time Mr. Blake the Elder was surprised in the business of the House of Commons and was amusing himself at home that night with the favourite parliamentary play thing which they call a private bill Mr. Jeffco himself showed Mr. Franklin into his father's study my dear Franklin why do you surprise me in this way anything wrong yes, something wrong with Rachel I am dreadfully distressed about it grieve to hear it but I can't listen to you now when can you listen my dear boy I won't deceive you I can listen at the end of the session not a moment before good night thank you sir and good night such was the conversation inside the study as reported to me by Mr. Jeffco the conversation outside the study was shorter still Jeffco see what time the tidal train starts tomorrow morning at 6.40 Mr. Franklin have me called at 5 going abroad sir going Jeffco wherever the railway chooses to take me shall I tell your father sir yes tell him at the end of the session the next morning Mr. Franklin has started for foreign parts to what particular place he was bound nobody himself included could presume to guess we might hear of him next in Europe Asia, Africa or America the chances were as equally divided as possible in Mr. Jeffco's opinion among the four quarters of the globe this news by closing up all prospects of my bringing Limping Lucy and Mr. Franklin together at once stopped any further progress of mine on the way to discovery Penelope's belief that her fellow servant had destroyed herself through unrequited love for Mr. Franklin Blake was confirmed and that was all whether the letter which Rosanna had left to be given to him after her death did or did not contain the confession which Mr. Franklin had suspected her of trying to make to him in her lifetime it was impossible to say it might only be a farewell word telling nothing but the secret of her unhappy fancy for a person beyond her reach or it might own the whole truth about the strange proceedings in which Sergeant Cuff had detected her from the time when the Moonstone was lost to the time when she rushed to her own destruction at the shivering sand a sealed letter it had been placed in Limping Lucy's hand and a sealed letter it remained to me and to everyone about the girl her own parents included we all suspected her of having been in the dead woman's confidence we all tried to make her speak we all failed now one and now another of the servants still holding to the belief that Rosanna had stolen the diamond and had hidden it peered and poked about the rocks to which she had been traced and peered and poked in vain the tide ebbed and the tide flowed the summer went on and the autumn came and the quicksand which hid her body hid her secret too the news of Mr. Franklin's departure from England on the Sunday morning and the news of my lady's arrival in London on the Monday afternoon had reached me as you are aware by the Tuesday's post the Wednesday came and brought nothing the Thursday produced a second budget of news from Penelope my girl's letter informed me that some great London doctor had been consulted about her young lady and had earned a guinea by remarking that she had better be amused flower shows, operas, balls there was a whole round of gayities a prospect a Miss Rachel to her mother's astonishment eagerly took to it all Mr. Godfrey had called evidently as sweet as ever on his cousin in spite of the reception he had met with when he had tried his luck on the occasion of the birthday to Penelope's great regret he had been most graciously received and had added Miss Rachel's name to one of his ladies' charities on the spot my mistress was reported to be out of spirits and to have held two long interviews with her lawyer certain speculations followed referring to a poor relation of the family one Miss Clack whom I have mentioned in my account of the birthday dinner as sitting next to Mr. Godfrey and having a pretty taste in champagne Penelope was astonished to find that Miss Clack had not called yet she would surely not be long before she fastened herself on my lady and so forth and so forth in the way that women have of girding at each other on and off paper this would not have been worth mentioning I admit but for one reason I hear that you are likely to be turned over to Miss Clack after parting with me in that case do me the favor of not believing a word she says if she speaks of your humble servant on Friday nothing happened except that one of the dogs showed signs of her breaking out behind the ears I gave him a dose of syrup of buckhorn and put him on a diet of pot liquor and vegetables until further orders excuse by mentioning this it has slipped in somehow pass over it please I am fast coming to the end of my offenses against your cultivated modern taste besides the dog was a good creature and deserved a good physical so he did indeed Saturday the last day of the week is also the last day in my narrative the morning's post brought me a surprise in the shape of a London newspaper the handwriting in the direction puzzled me I compared it with the moneylender's name and address as recorded in my pocketbook and identified it as once as being the writing of Sergeant Cuff looking through the paper eagerly enough after this discovery I found an ink mark drawn round one of the police reports here it is at your service read it as I read it and you will set the right value on the sergeant's polite attention in sending me the news of the day Lamberth shortly before the closing of the court Mr. Septimus Luker the well-known dealer in ancient gems carvings, intagli etc etc applied to the sitting magistrate for advice the applicant stated that he had been annoyed at intervals throughout the day by the proceedings of some of those strolling Indians who infest the streets the persons complained of were three in number after having been sent away by the police they had returned again and again and had attempted to enter the house on pretence of asking for charity warned off in the front they had been discovered again at the back of the premises besides the annoyance complained of Mr. Luker expressed himself as under some apprehension that robbery was contemplated his collection contained many unique gems both classical and oriental of the highest value he had only the day before been compelled to dismiss a workman in ivory from his employment a native of India as we understood on suspicion of attempted theft and he felt by no means sure that this man and the street jugglers of whom he complained might not be acting in concert it might be their object of disturbance in the street and in the confusion thus caused to obtain access to the house in reply to the magistrate Mr. Luker admitted that he had no evidence to produce of any attempt at robbery being in contemplation he could speak positively to the annoyance and interruption caused by the Indians but not to anything else the magistrate remarked that if the annoyance were repeated the applicant could summon the Indians where they might easily be dealt with under the act as to the valuable to Mr. Luker's possession Mr. Luker himself must take best measures for their safe custody he would do well perhaps to communicate with the police and to adopt such additional precautions as their experience might suggest the applicant thanked his worship and withdrew one of the wise ancients is reported I forget on what occasion as having recommended his fellow creatures to look to the end looking to the end of these pages of mine and wondering for some days past how I should manage to write it I find my plain statement of facts coming to a conclusion most appropriately of its own self we have gone on in this manner of the moonstone from one marvel to another and here we end with the greatest marvel of all namely the accomplishment of Sergeant Cuff's three predictions in less than a week from the time when he had made them after hearing from the Yolands on the Monday I had now heard of the Indians and heard of the moneylender in the news from London Miss Rachel herself remember being also in London at the time you see I put things at their worst even when they tell dead against my own view if you desert me and side with the sergeant on the evidence before you if the only rational explanation you can see is that Miss Rachel and Mr. Luca must have got together and that the moonstone must now be in pledge in the moneylender's house I own, I can't blame you for arriving at that conclusion in the dark I have brought you thus far in the dark I am compelled to leave you with my best respects why compelled it may be asked why not take the persons who have gone along with me so far up into those regions of superior enlightenment in which I sit myself in answer to this I can only state that I am acting under orders and that those orders have been given to me as I understand in the interests of truth I am forbidden to tell more in this narrative than I knew myself at the time or to put it plainer I am to keep strictly within the limits of my own experience and am not to inform you what the moonstones told me for the very sufficient reason that you are to have the information from those other persons themselves at first hand in this matter of the moonstone the plan is not to present reports but to produce witnesses I picture to myself a member of the family reading these pages fifty years hence Lord, what a compliment he will feel it to be asked to take nothing on hearsay and to be treated in all respects as a judge on the bench at this place then we part, for the present at least after long journeying together with companionable feeling I hope on both sides the devil's dance of the Indian diamond has threaded its way to London and to London you must go after it leaving me at the country house pleased to excuse the faults of this composition my talking so much of myself and being too familiar I am afraid with you I mean no harm and I drink most respectfully having just done dinner to your health and prosperity in a tankard of her ladyship's ale may you find in these leaves of my writing what Robinson Crusoe found in his experience on the desert island namely something to comfort yourself from and to set in the description of good and evil on the credit side of the account as well end of chapter 23 end of the first period The Moonstone part 24 this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to find out how you can volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins by Christina Becquiere second period The Discovery of the Truth 1848 till 1849 the events related and several narratives first narrative contributed by Miss Clark niece of the late Sir John Verinder chapter 1 I am indebted to my parents both now in heaven for having had habits of order and regularity and stilled into me at a very early age in that happy bargain time I was taught to keep my hair tidy at all hours of the day and night and to fold up every article of my clothing carefully in the same order on the same chair in the same place at the foot of the bed before retiring to rest an entry of the day's events in my little diary invariably preceded the folding up the evening hymn repeated in bed invariably followed the folding up and the sweet sleep of childhood invariably followed the evening hymn in later life alas the hymn has been seated by sad and bitter meditations and the sweet sleep has been but ill exchanged the broken slumbers which haunt the uneasy pillow of care on the other hand I have continued to fold my clothes and to keep my little diary the former habit links me to my happy childhood before papa was ruined the latter habit is so mainly useful in helping me to discipline the fallen nature which we all inherit from Adam has unexpectedly proved important to my humble interest in quite another way it has enabled poor me to serve the caprice of the wealthy member of the family into which my late uncle married I am fortunate enough to be useful to Mr Franklin Black I have been cut off from all news of my relatives by marriage for some time past when we are isolated and poor we are not infrequently forgotten I am now living for economy's sake in a little town in Brittany inhabited by a select circle of serious English friends and possessed of the inestimatable advantages of a protestant clergyman and a cheap market in this retirement a part most among the wholeing ocean of Poppery that thrones us a letter from England has reached me at last I find my insignificant existence suddenly remembered by Mr Franklin Black my wealthy relative would that I could add my spiritually wealthy relative writes without even an attempt at disguising that he wants something of me the whim has saved him to stir up the deplorable scandal of the moonstone and I am to help him by writing the account of what I myself witnessed while visiting at peculiarly renumeration is offered to me with a want of feeling peculiar to the rich I am to reopen that time has barely closed I am to recall the most intensely painful remembrances and this time I am to feel myself compensated by a new laceration in the shape of Mr Black's check my nature is weak it cost me a hard struggle before Christian humility conquered sinful pride and self-denial accepted the check without my diary I don't pray let me express it in the grossest terms if I could have honestly earned my money with my diary the poor laborer who forgives Mr. Black for insulting her is worthy of her hire nothing that escaped me at the time I was visiting dear Aunt Verinda everything was entered thanks to my early training day by day as it happened and everything down to the smallest particular shall be told here my sacred regard for truth is thank God far above my respect for persons it will be easy for Mr. Black to suppress what may not prove to be sufficiently flattering to the person chiefly concerned in them he has purchased my time but not even his wealth can purchase my conscience too note added by Franklin Black Ms. Clark may make her mind quite easy on this point nothing will be add altered or removed in her manuscript or in any of the other manuscripts which pass through my hands whatever opinions any of the writers may express whatever peculiarities of treatment may mark and perhaps in a literary sense disfigures the narratives which I am now collecting not a line will be tampered with anywhere from first to last as genuine documents they are sent to me and as genuine documents I shall preserve them endorsed by the attestations of witnesses who can speak to the facts it only remains to be added that the person chiefly concerned in Mrs. Clark's narrative is happy enough at the present moment not only to brave the smartest exercise of Ms. Clark's plan but even to recognize its unquestionable value and as an instrument for the exhibition of Ms. Clark's character end of the note my diary informs me that I was accidentally passing Owen Twerinder's house in Montagu Square on Monday 3rd of July 1848 seeing the shutters opened and the blinds drawn up I felt that it would be an act of polite attention to Knoch and make inquiries the person who answered the door informed me that my aunt and her daughter I really cannot call her my cousin had arrived from the country a week since and meditated making some stay in London I sent up a message at once declining to disturb them and only begging to know whether I could be of any use the person who answered the door took my message in insolent silence and left me standing in the hall she is the daughter of a heathen old man named Petterge long too long tolerated in my aunt's family I sat down in the hall to wait for my answer there was always a few tracts in my bag I selected one which proved to be quite providentially applicable to the person who answered the door the hall was dirty and the chair was hard but the blessed consciousness of returning good for evil raised me quite above any trifling considerations of that kind the tract was one of a theory addressed to young woman on the sinfulness of dress in style it was divotely familiar its title was a word with you on your cap ribbons my lady is much obliged and begs you will come and lunch tomorrow at 2 I passed over the manner in which she gave her message and the dreadful boldness of her look I thanked this young castaway and I said in a tone of Christian interest will you favor me by accepting a tract she looked at the title is it written by a man or a woman miss if it's written by a woman I had rather not read it on that account if it's written by a man I beg to inform him that he knows nothing about it she handed me back the tract and opened the door we must saw the good seed somehow I waited till the door was shut on me and slipped the tract into the letterbox when I had dropped another tract through the area railings I felt relieved in some small degree of a heavy responsibility towards others we had a meeting that evening of the select committee of the mother's small clothes conversion society the object of this excellent charity is as all serious people know to rescue unredeemed father's trousers from the pound broker to prevent their assumption on the part of the irreclaimable parent by abridging them immediately to suit the proportions of the innocent son I was a member at that time of the select committee and I mentioned the society here because my precious and admirable friend Mr. Godfrey Ablevite was associated with her work of moral and natural usefulness I had expected to see him in the boardroom on the Monday evening of which I am now writing and had proposed to tell him where we met of dear aunt's verandah's arrival in London to my greatest appointment he never appeared on my expressing a feeling of surprise at his absence my sisters of the committee all looked up together from their trousers we had a great pressure of business that night and asked an amazement I acknowledged my ignorance and was then told for the first time of an event which forms, so to speak the starting point of this narrative on the previous Friday two gentlemen occupying widely different positions in society had been the victims of an outrage which had startled all London one of the gentlemen was Mr. Septimus Luca of Lambeth the other Mr. Godfrey Ablevite living in my present isolation I have no means of introducing the newspaper account of the outrage into my narrative I was also deprived at the time of the inestimable advantage of hearing the events related by the forward eloquence of Mr. Godfrey Ablevite all I can do is to state the facts as they were stated on that Monday evening to me proceeding on the plan which I have been taught from infancy to adopt in folding of my clauses everything shall be put neatly and everything shall be put in its place these lines are written by a poor weak woman from a poor weak woman who will be cruel enough to expect more the date thanks to my dear parents no dictionary that ever was written can be more particular that I am about dates was Friday, June the 13th 1848 early on that memorable day our gifted Mr. Godfrey happened to be cashing a check at a banking house in Lombard Street the name of the firm is accidentally blotted in my diary and my sacred regard for truth forbids me to hazard a guess in a matter of this kind fortunately is the name of the firm doesn't matter what does matter is a circumstance that I cured when Mr. Godfrey had transacted his business on gaining the door he encountered a gentleman a perfect stranger to him who was accidentally leaving the office exactly at the same time as himself a momentary contest of politeness ensued between them as to who should be the first to pass through the door of the bank the stranger insists on making Mr. Godfrey's precede him Mr. Godfrey said a few civil words they bowed and poured it in the street thoughtless and superficial people may say here is surely a very trumpery little incident related in an absurdly circumstantional manner oh my young friends and fellow sinners we were of presuming to exercise your poor kind of reason oh be morally tidy let your face be as your stockings and your stockings both ever spotless and both ready to put on at a moment's notice I beg a thousand pardons I have fallen insensibly into my Sunday school style most inappropriate in such a record as this let me try to be worldly let me say that trifles in this case as many others led to terrible results merely promising that the polite stranger was Mr. Luca of Lambeth followed Mr. Godfrey home to his residence at Kilburn he found waiting for him in the hall a poorly glad but delicate and interesting looking little boy the boy handed him a letter merely mentioning that he had been entrusted with it by an old lady whom he did not know and who had given him no instructions to wait for an answer such incidents as these were not uncommon in Mr. Godfrey's larger experience as a promoted of public charities he let the boy go and opened the letter the handwriting was entirely unfamiliar to him it requested his attendance within an hour's time at a house in Northumberland Street strand which he had never had occasion to enter before the object's thought was to obtain from the worthy manager certain details on the subject other small closest convention society and the information was wanted by an elderly lady who proposed adding largely to the resources of the charity if her questions were met by satisfactory replies she mentioned her name and she added that the shortness of her stay in London prevented her from giving any longer notice to the eminent philanthropist whom she addressed ordinary people might have hesitated before setting aside their own engagements to suit the convenience of a stranger the Christian hero never hesitates where good is to be done Mr. Godfrey instantly turned back and proceeded to the house in Northumberland Street a most respectable though somewhat corpulent man answered the door and on hearing Mr. Godfrey's name immediately conducted him into an empty apartment at the back of the driving room floor he noticed two unusual things on entering the room one of them was a faint a door of musk and campo the other was an ancient a rental manuscript richly illuminated with Indian figures and devices that lay open to inspection on a table he was looking at the book the position of which caused him to stand with his back turned towards the closed loading doors communicating with the front room when, without the sliced previous noise to warn him he felt himself suddenly seized round the neck from behind he had just time to notice that the arm round his neck was naked and of a towny brown color before his eyes were bandaged his mouth was gouged and he was thrown helpless on the floor by as he judged two men a third rifled his pockets and if, as a lady I may venture to use such an expression search him without ceremony throw and throw to his skin here I should greatly enjoy saying a few cheering boards on the devout confidence which could alone have sustained Mr. Godfrey in an emergency so terrible as this perhaps, however the position and appearance of my admirable friend at the culminating period of the outrage as above described are hardly within the proper limits of female discussion let me pass over the next few moments and return to Mr. Godfrey at the time when the audio search of his person had been completed the outrage had been perpetrated throughout in dead silence at the end of it some words were exchanged amongst the invisible virtues in a language he did not understand but in tones which were plainly expressive to his cultivated ear of disappointment and rage he was suddenly lifted from the ground placed in a chair and bound their hand and foot the next moment he felt the air flowing in from the open door listened and concluded that he was alone again in the room an interval elapsed and he heard a sound below the rustling sound of a woman's dress it advanced up the stairs and stopped a female scream rents the atmosphere of guilt a man's voice below exclaimed hello a man's feet ascended the stairs Mr. Godfrey felt Christian fingers unfastening his bandage and extracting his gag he looked in amazement at two respectable strangers and faintly articulated what does it mean the two respectable strangers looked back and said exactly the question we were going to ask you the inevitable explanation followed no, let me be scrupulously particular salvolatil and water followed to compose dear Mr. Godfrey's nerves the explanation came next it appeared from the statement of the landlord and landlady of the house persons of good repute in the neighborhood that their first and second floor apartments had been engaged on the previous day for a week certain by a most respectable looking gentleman the same who has been already described as answering the door to Mr. Godfrey's knock the gentleman had paid the week's rent and all the week's extras in advance stating that the apartments were wanted for three or until noblemen friends of his who were visiting England for the first time early in the morning of the outrage two of the oriental strangers accompanied by their respectable English friend took possession of the apartments the third was expected to join them shortly and the luggage reported as very bulky was announced to follow when it had passed through the custom house late in the afternoon not more than 10 minutes previous to Mr. Godfrey's visit the third foreigner had arrived nothing after the common had happened to the knowledge of the landlord and landlady downstairs until within the last 5 minutes when they had seen the three foreigners accompanied by their respectable English friend all leave the house together walking quietly in the direction of the stand remembering that a visitor had called at not having seen the visitor also leave the house the landlady had thought it rather strange that the gentleman should be left by himself upstairs after a short discussion with her husband she had considered it advisable to ascertain whether anything was wrong the result had followed as I have already attempted to describe it and there the explanation of the landlord and the landlady came to an end an investigation was next made in the room where Mr. Godfrey's property was found scattered in all directions when the articles were collected however nothing was missing his watch, chain, purse, keys pocket handkerchief notebook and all his loose papers had been closely examined and had then been left unharmed to be resumed by the owner in the same way not the smallest morsel of property belonging to the proprietors of the house had been obstructed the oriental noblemen had removed their own illuminated manuscript and had removed nothing else what did it mean? taking the worldly point of view it appeared to mean that Mr. Godfrey had been the victim of some incomprehensible error committed by certain unknown men a dark conspiracy was on foot in the midst of us and our beloved and innocent friend had been entangled in its meshes when the Christian hero of a hundred charitable victories plunges into a pitfall that has been dug for him by mistake oh what a warning it is to the rest of us to be unceasingly on our guard how soon may our own evil passions proved to be oriental noblemen who pounce on us unawares I could write pages of affectionate warning on this one theme but alas I am not permitted to improve I am condemned to narrate my wealthy relatives check henceforth the incubus of my existence warns me that I have not done with this record of violence yet we must leave Mr. Godfrey to recover in Northumberland street and must follow the proceedings of Mr. Luca at a later period of the day after leaving the bank Mr. Luca had visited various parts of London on business errands returning to his own residence he found a letter waiting for him which was described as having been left a short time previously by a boy in this case, as in Mr. Godfrey's case the handwriting was strange but the name mentioned was the name of one of Mr. Luca's customers his correspondent announced writing in the third person apparently by the hand of a deputy that he had been unexpectedly someone to London he had just established himself in lodgings in Alfred Place Tottenham Court Road and he desired to see Mr. Luca immediately on the subject of a purchase which he contemplated making the gentleman was an enthusiastic collector of Oriental antiquities and had been for many years a liberal patron of the establishment in Lombeth oh, once shall we wean ourselves from the worship of Mammon Mr. Luca called a cub and drove off instantly to his liberal patron exactly what had happened to Mr. Godfrey in Northumberland Street now happened to Mr. Luca in Alfred Place once more the respectable man answered the door and showed the visitor upstairs in a charming room there again lies the illuminated manuscript on a table Mr. Luca's attention was absorbed as Mr. Godfrey's attention had been absorbed by this beautiful work of Indian art he too was aroused from his studies by a tony naked arm rung his throat by a bandage over his eyes and by a gag in his mouth he too was thrown straight and searched the skin a longer interval had then elapsed then had passed in the experience of Mr. Godfrey but it had ended as before in the persons of the house suspecting something wrong and going upstairs to see what had happened precisely the same explanation which the landlord in Northumberland Street had given to Mr. Godfrey the landlord in Alfred Place now gave to Mr. Luca both had been imposed on in the same way by the plausible address and well-filled purse of the respectable stranger who introduced himself as acting for his fork in France the one point of difference between the two cases occurred when the scattered contents of Mr. Luca's pockets were being collected from the floor his watch and purse were safe but less fortunate than Mr. Godfrey's one of the loose papers that he carried about him was taken away the paper in question acknowledged the receipt of a valuable of great price which Mr. Luca had that day left in the care of his bankers this document would be unless for purposes of fraud and as much as it provided that the valuable should only be given up on the personal application of the owner as soon as he recovered himself Mr. Luca hurried to the bank on the chance that the thieves who had robbed him might ignorantly present themselves with the receipt nothing had been seen of them when he arrived at the establishment and nothing was seen of them afterwards the respectable English friend had in the opinion of the bankers looked at the receipt over before they attempted to make use of it and had given them the necessary warning in good time information of both outrages was communicated to the police and the needful investigations were pursued I believe with great energy the authorities held that a robbery had been planned on insufficient information received by the thieves they had been plainly not sure whether Mr. Luca had or had not trusted the transmission of his precious gem to another person and poor polite Mr. Godfrey had paid the penalty of having been seen accidentally speaking to him add to this that Mr. Godfrey's absence from our Monday evening meeting had been occasioned by a consultation of the authorities at which he was requested to assist and all the explanations required being no given I may proceed with the simpler story of my own little personal experiences in Montagu Square I was punctual to the lunch an hour on Tuesday referenced my diary shows this to have been a checkered day much in it to be devoutly regretted much in it to be devoutly thankful for Dear Aunt Verinder received me with her usual grace and kindness but I noticed after a little while that something was wrong certain anxious looks escaped my aunt all of which took the direction of her daughter I never see Russia myself without wondering how it can be that so insignificant looking a person would be the child of such distinguished parents as Sir John and Lady Verinder on this occasion however she not only disappointed she really shocked me there was an absence of all ladylike restrained in her language and manner most painful to see she was possessed by some feverish sightman which made her distressingly lowed when she laughed and sinfully wasteful and capricious in what she ate and drank at lunch I felt deeply for her poor mother even before the true state of the case had been confidentially made known to me lunch and over my aunt said remember what the doctor told you Rachel about quieting yourself with a book after taking your meals I'll go into the library mama she answered but if God recalls mind I am told of it I am dying for more news of him after his adventure in Northumberland street she kissed her mother on the forehead and looked my way good boy Clark she said carelessly her insolence roused no angry feeling in me I only made a private memorandum to pray for her when we were left by ourselves my aunt told me the whole horrible story of the Indian Diamond which I am happy to know it is not necessary to repeat here she did not conceal from me that she would have preferred keeping silence on the subject but when her own servants all knew of the loss of the moonstone and when some of the circumstances had actually found their way into the newspapers when strangers were speculating whether there was any connection between what had happened at Lady Verinder's country house and what had happened in Northumberland street and Alfred Place concealment was not to be thought of and perfect frankness became a necessity as well as a virtue some persons hearing what I now heard would have been probably overwhelmed with astonishment for my aunt part knowing racial spirit to have been essentially un-regenerate from her childhood upwards I was prepared for whatever my aunt could tell me on the subject of her daughter it might have gone on from bad to worse till it ended in murder and I should still have said to myself the natural result oh dear, dear, the natural result the one thing that did shock me was the course my aunt had taken under the circumstances here surely was a case for a clergyman if ever there was one yet Lady Verinder had thought it a case for a physican all my poor aunt's early life had been passed in her father's godless household the natural result again oh dear, dear, the natural result again the doctors recommended plenty of exercise and amusement for racial and strongly urged me to keep her mind as much as possible from dwelling on the past said Lady Verinder he's an advice, I thought to myself in this Christian country what he's an advice my aunt went on I do my best to carry out my instructions but the strange adventure of Godfrey happens at a most unfortunate time Rachel has been incessantly restless and excited since she first heard of it she left me no peace till I had written and asked my nephew she even feels an interest in the other person who was roughly used, Mr. Luca or some such name so the man is of course a total stranger to her your knowledge of the world, dear aunt is superior to mine, I suggested differently but there must be a reason surely for this extraordinary conduct of Rachel's part she is keeping a sinful secret from you and from everybody I must waste something in these recent events which threatens her secret with discovery discovery, repeated my aunt what can you possibly mean discovery through Mr. Luca discovery through my nephew as the word passed her lips a special providence occurred the servant opened the door and announced Mr. Cop 3 Abelwhite End of part 24