THE MOONSTONE A Romance by Wilkie Collins

confederate would have rendered them in getting into the house.
By the prompt transport of the Moonstone to his banker's,
he took the conspirators by surprise before they were
prepared with a new plan for robbing him. How the Indians,
in this latter case, suspected what he had done, and how they
contrived to possess themselves of his banker's receipt,
are events too recent to need dwelling on. Let it be enough
to say that they know the Moonstone to be once more out of
their reach; deposited (under the general description of "a valuable
of great price") in a banker's strong room. Now, Mr. Bruff,
what is their third chance of seizing the Diamond? and when will
it come?"
As the question passed his lips, I penetrated the motive of the Indian's
visit to my office at last!
"I see it!" I exclaimed. "The Indians take it for granted, as we do,
that the Moonstone has been pledged; and they want to be certainly
informed of the earliest period at which the pledge can be redeemed--
because that will be the earliest period at which the Diamond can be removed
from the safe keeping of the bank!"
"I told you you would find it out for yourself, Mr. Bruff,
if I only gave you a fair chance. In a year from the time
when the Moonstone was pledged, the Indians will be on the watch
for their third chance. Mr. Luker's own lips have told them
how long they will have to wait, and your respectable authority
has satisfied them that Mr. Luker has spoken the truth.
When do we suppose, at a rough guess, that the Diamond found
its way into the money-lender's hands?"
"Towards the end of last June," I answered, "as well as I can reckon it."
"And we are now in the year 'forty-eight. Very good.
If the unknown person who has pledged the Moonstone can redeem
it in a year, the jewel will be in that person's possession
again at the end of June, 'forty-nine. I shall be thousands
of miles from England and English news at that date.
But it may be worth YOUR while to take a note of it, and to arrange
to be in London at the time."
"You think something serious will happen?" I said.
"I think I shall be safer," he answered, "among the fiercest
fanatics of Central Asia than I should be if I crossed
the door of the bank with the Moonstone in my pocket.
The Indians have been defeated twice running, Mr. Bruff.
It's my firm belief that they won't be defeated a third time."
Those were the last words he said on the subject. The coffee came in;
the guests rose, and dispersed themselves about the room; and we joined
the ladies of the dinner-party upstairs.
I made a note of the date, and it may not be amiss if I close my narrative
by repeating that note here:
JUNE, 'FORTY-NINE. EXPECT NEWS OF THE INDIANS, TOWARDS THE END OF
THE MONTH.
And that done, I hand the pen, which I have now no further claim to use,
to the writer who follows me next.
THIRD NARRATIVE
Contributed by FRANKLIN BLAKE
CHAPTER I
In the spring of the year eighteen hundred and forty-nine
I was wandering in the East, and had then recently altered
the travelling plans which I had laid out some months before,
and which I had communicated to my lawyer and my banker
in London.
This change made it necessary for me to send one of my servants to obtain my
letters and remittances from the English consul in a certain city, which was
no longer included as one of my resting-places in my new travelling scheme.
The man was to join me again at an appointed place and time. An accident,
for which he was not responsible, delayed him on his errand. For a week I
and my people waited, encamped on the borders of a desert. At the end of that
time the missing man made his appearance, with the money and the letters,
at the entrance of my tent.
"I am afraid I bring you bad news, sir," he said, and pointed
to one of the letters, which had a mourning border round it,
and the address on which was in the handwriting of Mr. Bruff.
I know nothing, in a case of this kind, so unendurable as suspense.
The letter with the mourning border was the letter that I opened first.
It informed me that my father was dead, and that I was heir
to his great fortune. The wealth which had thus fallen into
my hands brought its responsibilities with it, and Mr. Bruff
entreated me to lose no time in returning to England.
By daybreak the next morning, I was on my way back to my own country.
The picture presented of me, by my old friend Betteredge, at the time
of my departure from England, is (as I think) a little overdrawn.
He has, in his own quaint way, interpreted seriously one of his
young mistress's many satirical references to my foreign education;
and has persuaded himself that he actually saw those French, German,
and Italian sides to my character, which my lively cousin only
professed to discover in jest, and which never had any real existence,
except in our good Betteredge's own brain. But, barring this drawback,
I am bound to own that he has stated no more than the truth
in representing me as wounded to the heart by Rachel's treatment,
and as leaving England in the first keenness of suffering caused by
the bitterest disappointment of my life.
I went abroad, resolved--if change and absence could help me--to forget her.
It is, I am persuaded, no true view of human nature which denies that change
and absence DO help a man under these circumstances; they force his attention
away from the exclusive contemplation of his own sorrow. I never forgot her;
but the pang of remembrance lost its worst bitterness, little by little,
as time, distance, and novelty interposed themselves more and more effectually
between Rachel and me.
On the other hand, it is no less certain that, with the act
of turning homeward, the remedy which had gained its ground
so steadily, began now, just as steadily, to drop back.
The nearer I drew to the country which she inhabited,
and to the prospect of seeing her again, the more irresistibly
her influence began to recover its hold on me. On leaving
England she was the last person in the world whose name I
would have suffered to pass my lips. On returning to England,
she was the first person I inquired after, when Mr. Bruff and I
met again.
I was informed, of course, of all that had happened in my absence;
in other words, of all that has been related here in continuation
of Betteredge's narrative--one circumstance only being excepted.
Mr. Bruff did not, at that time, feel himself at liberty to inform
me of the motives which had privately influenced Rachel and Godfrey
Ablewhite in recalling the marriage promise, on either side.
I troubled him with no embarrassing questions on this delicate subject.
It was relief enough to me, after the jealous disappointment caused
by hearing that she had ever contemplated being Godfrey's wife, to know
that reflection had convinced her of acting rashly, and that she had
effected her own release from her marriage engagement.
Having heard the story of the past, my next inquiries (still inquiries
after Rachel!) advanced naturally to the present time. Under whose care
had she been placed after leaving Mr. Bruff's house? and where was she
living now?
She was living under the care of a widowed sister of the late Sir
John Verinder--one Mrs. Merridew--whom her mother's executors had
requested to act as guardian, and who had accepted the proposal.
They were reported to me as getting on together admirably well,
and as being now established, for the season, in Mrs. Merridew's house
in Portland Place.
Half an hour after receiving this information, I was on my way
to Portland Place--without having had the courage to own it to Mr. Bruff!
The man who answered the door was not sure whether Miss Verinder was at home
or not. I sent him upstairs with my card, as the speediest way of setting
the question at rest. The man came down again with an impenetrable face,
and informed me that Miss Verinder was out.
I might have suspected other people of purposely denying themselves to me.
But it was impossible to suspect Rachel. I left word that I would call again
at six o'clock that evening.
At six o'clock I was informed for the second time that Miss
Verinder was not at home. Had any message been left for me.
No message had been left for me. Had Miss Verinder not received
my card? The servant begged my pardon--Miss Verinder HAD
received it.
The inference was too plain to be resisted. Rachel declined to see me.
On my side, I declined to be treated in this way, without making an attempt,
at least, to discover a reason for it. I sent up my name to Mrs. Merridew,
and requested her to favour me with a personal interview at any hour which it
might be most convenient to her to name.
Mrs. Merridew made no difficulty about receiving me at once.
I was shown into a comfortable little sitting-room, and found
myself in the presence of a comfortable little elderly lady.
She was so good as to feel great regret and much surprise,
entirely on my account. She was at the same time, however,
not in a position to offer me any explanation, or to press
Rachel on a matter which appeared to relate to a question
of private feeling alone. This was said over and over again,
with a polite patience that nothing could tire; and this was
all I gained by applying to Mrs. Merridew.
My last chance was to write to Rachel. My servant took a letter
to her the next day, with strict instructions to wait for an answer.
The answer came back, literally in one sentence.
"Miss Verinder begs to decline entering into any correspondence
with Mr. Franklin Blake."
Fond as I was of her, I felt indignantly the insult offered to me
in that reply. Mr. Bruff came in to speak to me on business,
before I had recovered possession of myself. I dismissed
the business on the spot, and laid the whole case before him.
He proved to be as incapable of enlightening me as Mrs. Merridew herself.
I asked him if any slander had been spoken of me in Rachel's hearing.
Mr. Bruff was not aware of any slander of which I was the object.
Had she referred to me in any way while she was staying
under Mr. Bruff's roof? Never. Had she not so much as asked,
during all my long absence, whether I was living or dead?
No such question had ever passed her lips. I took out of my
pocket-book the letter which poor Lady Verinder had written to me
from Frizinghall, on the day when I left her house in Yorkshire.
And I pointed Mr. Bruff's attention to these two sentences
in it:
"The valuable assistance which you rendered to the inquiry after
the lost jewel is still an unpardoned offence, in the present
dreadful state of Rachel's mind. Moving blindfold in this matter,
you have added to the burden of anxiety which she has had to bear,
by innocently threatening her secret with discovery through
your exertions."
"Is it possible," I asked, "that the feeling towards me which is
there described, is as bitter as ever against me now?"
Mr. Bruff looked unaffectedly distressed.
"If you insist on an answer," he said, "I own I can place
no other interpretation on her conduct than that."
I rang the bell, and directed my servant to pack my portmanteau,
and to send out for a railway guide. Mr. Bruff asked, in astonishment,
what I was going to do.
"I am going to Yorkshire," I answered, "by the next train."
"May I ask for what purpose?"
"Mr. Bruff, the assistance I innocently rendered to the inquiry
after the Diamond was an unpardoned offence, in Rachel's mind,
nearly a year since; and it remains an unpardoned offence still.
I won't accept that position! I am determined to find out the secret
of her silence towards her mother, and her enmity towards me.
If time, pains, and money can do it, I will lay my hand on the thief who
took the Moonstone!"
The worthy old gentleman attempted to remonstrate--to induce
me to listen to reason--to do his duty towards me, in short.
I was deaf to everything that he could urge. No earthly
consideration would, at that moment, have shaken the resolution
that was in me.
"I shall take up the inquiry again," I went on, "at the point
where I dropped it; and I shall follow it onwards, step by step,
till I come to the present time. There are missing links in
the evidence, as I left it, which Gabriel Betteredge can supply,
and to Gabriel Betteredge I go!"
Towards sunset that evening I stood again on the well-remembered terrace,
and looked once more at the peaceful old country house. The gardener was
the first person whom I saw in the deserted grounds. He had left Betteredge,
an hour since, sunning himself in the customary corner of the back yard.
I knew it well; and I said I would go and seek him myself.
I walked round by the familiar paths and passages, and looked
in at the open gate of the yard.
There he was--the dear old friend of the happy days that were never
to come again--there he was in the old corner, on the old beehive chair,
with his pipe in his mouth, and his ROBINSON CRUSOE on his lap,
and his two friends, the dogs, dozing on either side of him!
In the position in which I stood, my shadow was projected in front
of me by the last slanting rays of the sun. Either the dogs saw it,
or their keen scent informed them of my approach; they started
up with a growl. Starting in his turn, the old man quieted
them by a word, and then shaded his failing eyes with his hand,
and looked inquiringly at the figure at the gate.
My own eyes were full of tears. I was obliged to wait a moment
before I could trust myself to speak to him.
CHAPTER II
"Betteredge!" I said, pointing to the well-remembered book on his knee,
"has ROBINSON CRUSOE informed you, this evening, that you might expect
to see Franklin Blake?"
"By the lord Harry, Mr. Franklin!" cried the old man, "that's exactly
what ROBINSON CRUSOE has done!"
He struggled to his feet with my assistance, and stood for a moment,
looking backwards and forwards between ROBINSON CRUSOE and me,
apparently at a loss to discover which of us had surprised him most.
The verdict ended in favour of the book. Holding it open before
him in both hands, he surveyed the wonderful volume with a stare
of unutterable anticipation--as if he expected to see Robinson
Crusoe himself walk out of the pages, and favour us with a
personal interview.
"Here's the bit, Mr. Franklin!" he said, as soon as he had
recovered the use of his speech. "As I live by bread, sir,
here's the bit I was reading, the moment before you came in!
Page one hundred and fifty-six as follows:--'I stood like
one Thunderstruck, or as if I had seen an Apparition.'
If that isn't as much as to say: 'Expect the sudden appearance
of Mr. Franklin Blake'--there's no meaning in the English language!"
said Betteredge, closing the book with a bang, and getting
one of his hands free at last to take the hand which I
offered him.
I had expected him, naturally enough under the circumstances,
to overwhelm me with questions. But no--the hospitable
impulse was the uppermost impulse in the old servant's mind,
when a member of the family appeared (no matter how!)
as a visitor at the house.
"Walk in, Mr. Franklin," he said, opening the door behind him,
with his quaint old-fashioned bow. "I'll ask what brings
you here afterwards--I must make you comfortable first.
There have been sad changes, since you went away. The house
is shut up, and the servants are gone. Never mind that!
I'll cook your dinner; and the gardener's wife will make your bed--
and if there's a bottle of our famous Latour claret left in
the cellar, down your throat, Mr. Franklin, that bottle shall go.
I bid you welcome, sir! I bid you heartily welcome!"
said the poor old fellow, fighting manfully against the gloom
of the deserted house, and receiving me with the sociable and
courteous attention of the bygone time.
It vexed me to disappoint him. But the house was Rachel's house, now.
Could I eat in it, or sleep in it, after what had happened in London?
The commonest sense of self-respect forbade me--properly forbade me--
to cross the threshold.
I took Betteredge by the arm, and led him out into the garden.
There was no help for it. I was obliged to tell him the truth.
Between his attachment to Rachel, and his attachment to me,
he was sorely puzzled and distressed at the turn things had taken.
His opinion, when he expressed it, was given in his usual downright manner,
and was agreeably redolent of the most positive philosophy I know--
the philosophy of the Betteredge school.
"Miss Rachel has her faults--I've never denied it," he began.
"And riding the high horse, now and then, is one of them.
She has been trying to ride over you--and you have put up
with it. Lord, Mr. Franklin, don't you know women by this
time better than that? You have heard me talk of the late
Mrs. Betteredge?"
I had heard him talk of the late Mrs. Betteredge pretty often--
invariably producing her as his one undeniable example
of the inbred frailty and perversity of the other sex.
In that capacity he exhibited her now.
"Very well, Mr. Franklin. Now listen to me. Different women have
different ways of riding the high horse. The late Mrs. Betteredge
took her exercise on that favourite female animal whenever I
happened to deny her anything that she had set her heart on.
So sure as I came home form my work on these occasions,
so sure was my wife to call to me up the kitchen stairs,
and to say that, after my brutal treatment of her, she hadn't
the heart to cook me my dinner. I put up with it for some time--
just as you are putting up with it now from Miss Rachel.
At last my patience wore out. I went downstairs, and I
took Mrs. Betteredge--affectionately, you understand--
up in my arms, and carried her, holus-bolus, into the best
parlour where she received her company. I said "That's the right
place for you, my dear," and so went back to the kitchen.
I locked myself in, and took off my coat, and turned up my
shirt-sleeves, and cooked my own dinner. When it was done,
I served it up in my best manner, and enjoyed it most heartily.
I had my pipe and my drop of grog afterwards; and then I cleared
the table, and washed the crockery, and cleaned the knives
and forks, and put the things away, and swept up the hearth.
When things were as bright and clean again, as bright and clean
could be, I opened the door and let Mrs. Betteredge in.
"I've had my dinner, my dear," I said; "and I hope you will find that
I have left the kitchen all that your fondest wishes can desire."
For the rest of that woman's life, Mr. Franklin, I never had to
cook my dinner again! Moral: You have put up with Miss Rachel
in London; don't put up with her in Yorkshire. Come back to
the house!"
Quite unanswerable! I could only assure my good friend that even HIS
powers of persuasion were, in this case, thrown away on me.
"It's a lovely evening," I said. "I shall walk to Frizinghall, and stay
at the hotel, and you must come to-morrow morning and breakfast with me.
I have something to say to you."
Betteredge shook his head gravely.
"I am heartily sorry for this," he said. "I had hoped, Mr. Franklin,
to hear that things were all smooth and pleasant again between you
and Miss Rachel. If you must have your own way, sir," he continued,
after a moment's reflection, "there is no need to go to Frizinghall
to-night for a bed. It's to be had nearer than that.
There's Hotherstone's Farm, barely two miles from here. You can hardly
object to THAT on Miss Rachel's account," the old man added slily.
"Hotherstone lives, Mr. Franklin, on his own freehold."
I remembered the place the moment Betteredge mentioned it.
The farm-house stood in a sheltered inland valley,
on the banks of the prettiest stream in that part of Yorkshire:
and the farmer had a spare bedroom and parlour, which he was
accustomed to let to artists, anglers, and tourists in general.
A more agreeable place of abode, during my stay in the neighbourhood,
I could not have wished to find.
"Are the rooms to let?" I inquired.
"Mrs. Hotherstone herself, sir, asked for my good word to recommend
the rooms, yesterday."
"I'll take them, Betteredge, with the greatest pleasure."
We went back to the yard, in which I had left my travelling-bag. After
putting a stick through the handle, and swinging the bag over his shoulder,
Betteredge appeared to relapse into the bewilderment which my sudden
appearance had caused, when I surprised him in the beehive chair.
He looked incredulously at the house, and then he wheeled about, and looked
more incredulously still at me.
"I've lived a goodish long time in the world," said this best and dearest
of all old servants--"but the like of this, I never did expect to see.
There stands the house, and here stands Mr. Franklin Blake--and, Damme,
if one of them isn't turning his back on the other, and going to sleep
in a lodging!"
He led the way out, wagging his head and growling ominously.
"There's only one more miracle that CAN happen," he said to me,
over his shoulder. "The next thing you'll do, Mr. Franklin,
will be to pay me back that seven-and-sixpence you borrowed of me
when you were a boy."
This stroke of sarcasm put him in a better humour with himself and with me.
We left the house, and passed through the lodge gates. Once clear of
the grounds, the duties of hospitality (in Betteredge's code of morals)
ceased, and the privileges of curiosity began.
He dropped back, so as to let me get on a level with him.
"Fine evening for a walk, Mr. Franklin," he said, as if we
had just accidentally encountered each other at that moment.
"Supposing you had gone to the hotel at Frizinghall, sir?"
"Yes?"
"I should have had the honour of breakfasting with you,
to-morrow morning."
"Come and breakfast with me at Hotherstone's Farm, instead."
"Much obliged to you for your kindness, Mr. Franklin.
But it wasn't exactly breakfast that I was driving at.
I think you mentioned that you had something to say to me?
If it's no secret, sir," said Betteredge, suddenly abandoning
the crooked way, and taking the straight one, "I'm burning
to know what's brought you down here, if you please, in this
sudden way."
"What brought me here before?" I asked.
"The Moonstone, Mr. Franklin. But what brings you now, sir?"
"The Moonstone again, Betteredge."
The old man suddenly stood still, and looked at me in the grey twilight
as if he suspected his own ears of deceiving him.
"If that's a joke, sir," he said, "I'm afraid I'm getting a little
dull in my old age. I don't take it."
"It's no joke," I answered. "I have come here to take up the inquiry
which was dropped when I left England. I have come here to do what nobody
has done yet--to find out who took the Diamond."
"Let the Diamond be, Mr. Franklin! Take my advice, and let the Diamond be!
That cursed Indian jewel has misguided everybody who has come near it.
Don't waste your money and your temper--in the fine spring time of
your life, sir--by meddling with the Moonstone. How can YOU hope to succeed
(saving your presence), when Sergeant Cuff himself made a mess of it?
Sergeant Cuff!" repeated Betteredge, shaking his forefinger at me sternly.
"The greatest policeman in England!"
"My mind is made up, my old friend. Even Sergeant Cuff doesn't daunt me.
By-the-bye, I may want to speak to him, sooner or later. Have you heard
anything of him lately?"
"The Sergeant won't help you, Mr. Franklin."
"Why not?"
"There has been an event, sir, in the police-circles, since you went away.
The great Cuff has retired from business. He has got a little
cottage at Dorking; and he's up to his eyes in the growing of roses.
I have it in his own handwriting, Mr. Franklin. He has grown the white
moss rose, without budding it on the dog-rose first. And Mr. Begbie
the gardener is to go to Dorking, and own that the Sergeant has beaten him
at last."
"It doesn't much matter," I said. "I must do without Sergeant Cuff's help.
And I must trust to you, at starting."
It is likely enough that I spoke rather carelessly.
At any rate, Betteredge seemed to be piqued by something in the reply which I
had just made to him. "You might trust to worse than me, Mr. Franklin--
I can tell you that," he said a little sharply.
The tone in which he retorted, and a certain disturbance, after he had spoken,
which I detected in his manner, suggested to me that he was possessed of some
information which he hesitated to communicate.
"I expect you to help me," I said, "in picking up the fragments of evidence
which Sergeant Cuff has left behind him. I know you can do that.
Can you do no more?"
"What more can you expect from me, sir?" asked Betteredge,
with an appearance of the utmost humility.
"I expect more--from what you said just now."
"Mere boasting, Mr. Franklin," returned the old man obstinately.
"Some people are born boasters, and they never get over it to their
dying day. I'm one of them."
There was only one way to take with him. I appealed to his interest
in Rachel, and his interest in me.
"Betteredge, would you be glad to hear that Rachel and I
were good friends again?"
"I have served your family, sir, to mighty little purpose,
if you doubt it!"
"Do you remember how Rachel treated me, before I left England?"
"As well as if it was yesterday! My lady herself wrote you a letter
about it; and you were so good as to show the letter to me.
It said that Miss Rachel was mortally offended with you,
for the part you had taken in trying to recover her jewel.
And neither my lady, nor you, nor anybody else could
guess why.
"Quite true, Betteredge! And I come back from my travels,
and find her mortally offended with me still.
I knew that the Diamond was at the bottom of it, last year,
and I know that the Diamond is at the bottom of it now.
I have tried to speak to her, and she won't see me.
I have tried to write to her, and she won't answer me.
How, in Heaven's name, am I to clear the matter up?
The chance of searching into the loss of the Moonstone,
is the one chance of inquiry that Rachel herself has
left me."
Those words evidently put the case before him, as he had not seen it yet.
He asked a question which satisfied me that I had shaken him.
"There is no ill-feeling in this, Mr. Franklin, on your side--
is there?"
"There was some anger," I answered, "when I left London.
But that is all worn out now. I want to make Rachel come to an
understanding with me--and I want nothing more."
"You don't feel any fear, sir--supposing you make any discoveries--
in regard to what you may find out about Miss Rachel?"
I understood the jealous belief in his young mistress which prompted
those words.
"I am as certain of her as you are," I answered. "The fullest disclosure
of her secret will reveal nothing that can alter her place in your estimation,
or in mine."
Betteredge's last-left scruples vanished at that.
"If I am doing wrong to help you, Mr. Franklin," he exclaimed,
"all I can say is--I am as innocent of seeing it as the babe unborn!
I can put you on the road to discovery, if you can only go on by yourself.
You remember that poor girl of ours--Rosanna Spearman?"
"Of course!"
"You always thought she had some sort of confession in regard to this
matter of the Moonstone, which she wanted to make to you?"
"I certainly couldn't account for her strange conduct in any other way."
"You may set that doubt at rest, Mr. Franklin, whenever you please."
It was my turn to come to a standstill now. I tried vainly,
in the gathering darkness, to see his face. In the surprise
of the moment, I asked a little impatiently what he meant.
"Steady, sir!" proceeded Betteredge. "I mean what I say.
Rosanna Spearman left a sealed letter behind her--a letter
addressed to YOU."
"Where is it?"
"In the possession of a friend of hers, at Cobb's Hole. You must
have heard tell, when you were here last, sir, of Limping Lucy--
a lame girl with a crutch."
"The fisherman's daughter?"
"The same, Mr. Franklin."
"Why wasn't the letter forwarded to me?"
"Limping Lucy has a will of her own, sir. She wouldn't give it
into any hands but yours. And you had left England before I could
write to you."
"Let's go back, Betteredge, and get it at once!"
"Too late, sir, to-night. They're great savers of candles along our coast;
and they go to bed early at Cobb's Hole."
"Nonsense! We might get there in half an hour."
"You might, sir. And when you did get there, you would find the door locked.
He pointed to a light, glimmering below us; and, at the same moment,
I heard through the stillness of the evening the bubbling of a stream.
"There's the Farm, Mr. Franklin! Make yourself comfortable for to-night, and
come to me to-morrow morning if you'll be so kind?"
"You will go with me to the fisherman's cottage?"
"Yes, sir."
"Early?"
"As early, Mr. Franklin, as you like."
We descended the path that led to the Farm.
CHAPTER III
I have only the most indistinct recollection of what happened
at Hotherstone's Farm.
I remember a hearty welcome; a prodigious supper, which would
have fed a whole village in the East; a delightfully clean bedroom,
with nothing in it to regret but that detestable product of the folly
of our fore-fathers--a feather-bed; a restless night, with much
kindling of matches, and many lightings of one little candle;
and an immense sensation of relief when the sun rose, and there was
a prospect of getting up.
It had been arranged over-night with Betteredge, that I was to call for him,
on our way to Cobb's Hole, as early as I liked--which, interpreted by my
impatience to get possession of the letter, meant as early as I could.
Without waiting for breakfast at the Farm, I took a crust of bread in my hand,
and set forth, in some doubt whether I should not surprise the excellent
Betteredge in his bed. To my great relief he proved to be quite as excited
about the coming event as I was. I found him ready, and waiting for me,
with his stick in his hand.
"How are you this morning, Betteredge?"
"Very poorly, sir."
"Sorry to hear it. What do you complain of?"
"I complain of a new disease, Mr. Franklin, of my own inventing.
I don't want to alarm you, but you're certain to catch it before
the morning is out."
"The devil I am!"
"Do you feel an uncomfortable heat at the pit of your stomach,
sir? and a nasty thumping at the top of your head? Ah! not yet?
It will lay hold of you at Cobb's Hole, Mr. Franklin. I call
it the detective-fever; and I first caught it in the company of
Sergeant Cuff."
"Aye! aye! and the cure in this instance is to open Rosanna Spearman's letter,
I suppose? Come along, and let's get it."
Early as it was, we found the fisherman's wife astir in her kitchen.
On my presentation by Betteredge, good Mrs. Yolland performed
a social ceremony, strictly reserved (as I afterwards learnt)
for strangers of distinction. She put a bottle of Dutch gin and a couple
of clean pipes on the table, and opened the conversation by saying,
"What news from London, sir?"
Before I could find an answer to this immensely comprehensive question,
an apparition advanced towards me, out of a dark corner of the kitchen.
A wan, wild, haggard girl, with remarkably beautiful hair, and with a fierce
keenness in her eyes, came limping up on a crutch to the table at which I
was sitting, and looked at me as if I was an object of mingled interest
and horror, which it quite fascinated her to see.
"Mr. Betteredge," she said, without taking her eyes off me,
"mention his name again, if you please."
"This gentleman's name," answered Betteredge (with a strong
emphasis on GENTLEMAN), "is Mr. Franklin Blake."
The girl turned her back on me, and suddenly left the room.
Good Mrs. Yolland--as I believe--made some apologies for her
daughter's odd behaviour, and Betteredge (probably) translated them
into polite English. I speak of this in complete uncertainty.
My attention was absorbed in following the sound of the girl's crutch.
Thump-thump, up the wooden stairs; thump-thump across the room
above our heads; thump-thump down the stairs again--and there
stood the apparition at the open door, with a letter in its hand,
beckoning me out!
I left more apologies in course of delivery behind me, and followed
this strange creature--limping on before me, faster and faster--
down the slope of the beach. She led me behind some boats,
out of sight and hearing of the few people in the fishing-village,
and then stopped, and faced me for the first time.
"Stand there," she said, "I want to look at you."
There was no mistaking the expression on her face. I inspired
her with the strongest emotions of abhorrence and disgust.
Let me not be vain enough to say that no woman had ever looked
at me in this manner before. I will only venture on the more
modest assertion that no woman had ever let me perceive it yet.
There is a limit to the length of the inspection which a man
can endure, under certain circumstances. I attempted to direct
Limping Lucy's attention to some less revolting object than
my face.
"I think you have got a letter to give me," I began. "Is it the letter there,
in your hand?"
"Say that again," was the only answer I received.
I repeated the words, like a good child learning its lesson.
"No," said the girl, speaking to herself, but keeping her eyes
still mercilessly fixed on me. "I can't find out what she saw
in his face. I can't guess what she heard in his voice."
She suddenly looked away from me, and rested her head wearily
on the top of her crutch. "Oh, my poor dear!" she said,
in the first soft tones which had fallen from her, in my hearing.
"Oh, my lost darling! what could you see in this man?"
She lifted her head again fiercely, and looked at me once more.
"Can you eat and drink?" she asked.
I did my best to preserve my gravity, and answered, "Yes."
"Can you sleep?"
"Yes."
"When you see a poor girl in service, do you feel no remorse?"
"Certainly not. Why should I?"
She abruptly thrust the letter (as the phrase is) into my face.
"Take it!" she exclaimed furiously. "I never set eyes on you before.
God Almighty forbid I should ever set eyes on you again."
With those parting words she limped away from me at the top of her speed.
The one interpretation that I could put on her conduct has, no doubt,
been anticipated by everybody. I could only suppose that she was mad.
Having reached that inevitable conclusion, I turned to the more
interesting object of investigation which was presented to me
by Rosanna Spearman's letter. The address was written as
follows:--'For Franklin Blake, Esq. To be given into his own hands
(and not to be trusted to any one else), by Lucy Yolland."
I broke the seal. The envelope contained a letter: and this, in its turn,
contained a slip of paper. I read the letter first:--
"Sir,--If you are curious to know the meaning of my behaviour to you,
whilst you were staying in the house of my mistress, Lady Verinder,
do what you are told to do in the memorandum enclosed with this--
and do it without any person being present to overlook you.
Your humble servant,
"ROSANNA SPEARMAN."
I turned to the slip of paper next. Here is the literal copy of it,
word for word:
"Memorandum:--To go to the Shivering Sand at the turn of the tide.
To walk out on the South Spit, until I get the South Spit Beacon,
and the flagstaff at the Coast-guard station above Cobb's Hole in a
line together. To lay down on the rocks, a stick, or any straight thing
to guide my hand, exactly in the line of the beacon and the flagstaff.
To take care, in doing this, that one end of the stick shall be at
the edge of the rocks, on the side of them which overlooks the quicksand.
To feel along the stick, among the sea-weed (beginning from the end
of the stick which points towards the beacon), for the Chain.
To run my hand along the Chain, when found, until I come to the part of it
which stretches over the edge of the rocks, down into the quicksand.
AND THEN TO PULL THE CHAIN."
Just as I had read the last words--underlined in the original--
I heard the voice of Betteredge behind me. The inventor of the
detective-fever had completely succumbed to that irresistible malady.
"I can't stand it any longer, Mr. Franklin. What does her letter say?
For mercy's sake, sir, tell us, what does her letter say?"
I handed him the letter, and the memorandum. He read the first without
appearing to be much interested in it. But the second--the memorandum--
produced a strong impression on him.
"The Sergeant said it!" cried Betteredge. "From first to last, sir,
the Sergeant said she had got a memorandum of the hiding-place.
And here it is! Lord save us, Mr. Franklin, here is the secret
that puzzled everybody, from the great Cuff downwards,
ready and waiting, as one may say, to show itself to YOU!
It's the ebb now, sir, as anybody may see for themselves.
How long will it be till the turn of the tide?" He looked up,
and observed a lad at work, at some little distance from us,
mending a net. "Tammie Bright!" he shouted at the top of
his voice.
"I hear you!" Tammie shouted back.
"When's the turn of the tide?"
"In an hour's time."
We both looked at our watches.
"We can go round by the coast, Mr. Franklin," said Betteredge;
"and get to the quicksand in that way with plenty of time to spare.
What do you say, sir?"
"Come along!"
On our way to the Shivering Sand, I applied to Betteredge to revive
my memory of events (as affecting Rosanna Spearman) at the period
of Sergeant Cuff's inquiry. With my old friend's help, I soon
had the succession of circumstances clearly registered in my mind.
Rosanna's journey to Frizinghall, when the whole household believed
her to be ill in her own room--Rosanna's mysterious employment
of the night-time with her door locked, and her candle burning till
the morning--Rosanna's suspicious purchase of the japanned tin case,
and the two dog's chains from Mrs. Yolland--the Sergeant's positive
conviction that Rosanna had hidden something at the Shivering Sand,
and the Sergeant's absolute ignorance as to what that something might be--
all these strange results of the abortive inquiry into the loss
of the Moonstone were clearly present to me again, when we reached
the quicksand, and walked out together on the low ledge of rocks called
the South Spit.
With Betteredge's help, I soon stood in the right position to see
the Beacon and the Coast-guard flagstaff in a line together.
Following the memorandum as our guide, we next laid my stick
in the necessary direction, as neatly as we could, on the uneven
surface of the rocks. And then we looked at our watches
once more.
It wanted nearly twenty minutes yet of the turn of the tide.
I suggested waiting through this interval on the beach,
instead of on the wet and slippery surface of the rocks.
Having reached the dry sand, I prepared to sit down; and, greatly to
my surprise, Betteredge prepared to leave me.
"What are you going away for?" I asked.
"Look at the letter again, sir, and you will see."
A glance at the letter reminded me that I was charged, when I made
my discovery, to make it alone.
"It's hard enough for me to leave you, at such a time as this,"
said Betteredge. "But she died a dreadful death, poor soul--
and I feel a kind of call on me, Mr. Franklin, to humour that fancy
of hers. Besides," he added, confidentially, "there's nothing
in the letter against your letting out the secret afterwards.
I'll hang about in the fir plantation, and wait till you pick me up.
Don't be longer than you can help, sir. The detective-fever isn't an easy
disease to deal with, under THESE circumstances."
With that parting caution, he left me.
The interval of expectation, short as it was when reckoned by the measure
of time, assumed formidable proportions when reckoned by the measure
of suspense. This was one of the occasions on which the invaluable habit
of smoking becomes especially precious and consolatory. I lit a cigar,
and sat down on the slope of the beach.
The sunlight poured its unclouded beauty on every object that I could see.
The exquisite freshness of the air made the mere act of living and breathing
a luxury. Even the lonely little bay welcomed the morning with a show
of cheerfulness; and the bared wet surface of the quicksand itself,
glittering with a golden brightness, hid the horror of its false brown face
under a passing smile. It was the finest day I had seen since my return
to England.
The turn of the tide came, before my cigar was finished.
I saw the preliminary heaving of the Sand, and then the awful
shiver that crept over its surface--as if some spirit of terror
lived and moved and shuddered in the fathomless deeps beneath.
I threw away my cigar, and went back again to the rocks.
My directions in the memorandum instructed me to feel along the line traced
by the stick, beginning with the end which was nearest to the beacon.
I advanced, in this manner, more than half way along the stick,
without encountering anything but the edges of the rocks.
An inch or two further on, however, my patience was rewarded.
In a narrow little fissure, just within reach of my forefinger,
I felt the chain. Attempting, next, to follow it, by touch,
in the direction of the quicksand, I found my progress stopped by a
thick growth of seaweed--which had fastened itself into the fissure,
no doubt, in the time that had elapsed since Rosanna Spearman had
chosen her hiding-place.
It was equally impossible to pull up the seaweed, or to force
my hand through it. After marking the spot indicated by the end
of the stick which was placed nearest to the quicksand,
I determined to pursue the search for the chain on a plan
of my own. My idea was to "sound" immediately under the rocks,
on the chance of recovering the lost trace of the chain at
the point at which it entered the sand. I took up the stick,
and knelt down on the brink of the South Spit.
In this position, my face was within a few feet of the surface
of the quicksand. The sight of it so near me, still disturbed
at intervals by its hideous shivering fit, shook my nerves
for the moment. A horrible fancy that the dead woman might
appear on the scene of her suicide, to assist my search--
an unutterable dread of seeing her rise through the heaving
surface of the sand, and point to the place--forced itself
into my mind, and turned me cold in the warm sunlight.
I own I closed my eyes at the moment when the point of the stick
first entered the quicksand.
The instant afterwards, before the stick could have been submerged more
than a few inches, I was free from the hold of my own superstitious terror,
and was throbbing with excitement from head to foot. Sounding blindfold,
at my first attempt--at that first attempt I had sounded right! The stick
struck the chain.
Taking a firm hold of the roots of the seaweed with my left hand,
I laid myself down over the brink, and felt with my right hand
under the overhanging edges of the rock. My right hand found
the chain.
I drew it up without the slightest difficulty. And there was the japanned
tin case fastened to the end of it.
The action of the water had so rusted the chain, that it was impossible
for me to unfasten it from the hasp which attached it to the case.
Putting the case between my knees and exerting my utmost strength,
I contrived to draw off the cover. Some white substance filled the whole
interior when I looked in. I put in my hand, and found it to be linen.
In drawing out the linen, I also drew out a letter crumpled up with it.
After looking at the direction, and discovering that it bore my name,
I put the letter in my pocket, and completely removed the linen.
It came out in a thick roll, moulded, of course, to the shape of the case
in which it had been so long confined, and perfectly preserved from any injury
by the sea.
I carried the linen to the dry sand of the beach, and there unrolled
and smoothed it out. There was no mistaking it as an article of dress.
It was a nightgown.
The uppermost side, when I spread it out, presented to
view innumerable folds and creases, and nothing more.
I tried the undermost side, next--and instantly discovered
the smear of the paint from the door of Rachel's boudoir!
My eyes remained riveted on the stain, and my mind took me back at a leap
from present to past. The very words of Sergeant Cuff recurred to me,
as if the man himself was at my side again, pointing to the unanswerable
inference which he drew from the smear on the door.
"Find out whether there is any article of dress in this house
with the stain of paint on it. Find out who that dress belongs to.
Find out how the person can account for having been in the room,
and smeared the paint between midnight and three in the morning.
If the person can't satisfy you, you haven't far to look for the hand that
took the Diamond."
One after another those words travelled over my memory,
repeating themselves again and again with a wearisome,
mechanical reiteration. I was roused from what felt like a
trance of many hours--from what was really, no doubt, the pause
of a few moments only--by a voice calling to me. I looked up,
and saw that Betteredge's patience had failed him at last.
He was just visible between the sandhills, returning to
the beach.
The old man's appearance recalled me, the moment I perceived it,
to my sense of present things, and reminded me that the inquiry
which I had pursued thus far still remained incomplete.
I had discovered the smear on the nightgown. To whom did
the nightgown belong?
My first impulse was to consult the letter in my pocket--
the letter which I had found in the case.
As I raised my hand to take it out, I remembered that there
was a shorter way to discovery than this. The nightgown
itself would reveal the truth, for, in all probability,
the nightgown was marked with its owner's name.
I took it up from the sand, and looked for the mark.
I found the mark, and read--
MY OWN NAME.
There were the familiar letters which told me that the nightgown was mine.
I looked up from them. There was the sun; there were the glittering waters
of the bay; there was old Betteredge, advancing nearer and nearer to me.
I looked back again at the letters. My own name. Plainly confronting me--
my own name.
"If time, pains, and money can do it, I will lay my hand on the thief
who took the Moonstone."--I had left London, with those words on my lips.
I had penetrated the secret which the quicksand had kept from every other
living creature. And, on the unanswerable evidence of the paint-stain, I
had discovered Myself as the Thief.
CHAPTER IV
I have not a word to say about my own sensations.
My impression is that the shock inflicted on me completely
suspended my thinking and feeling power. I certainly could
not have known what I was about when Betteredge joined me--
for I have it on his authority that I laughed, when he asked
what was the matter, and putting the nightgown into his hands,
told him to read the riddle for himself.
Of what was said between us on the beach, I have not
the faintest recollection. The first place in which I can
now see myself again plainly is the plantation of firs.
Betteredge and I are walking back together to the house;
and Betteredge is telling me that I shall be able to face it,
and he will be able to face it, when we have had a glass
of grog.
The scene shifts from the plantation, to Betteredge's little
sitting-room. My resolution not to enter Rachel's house is forgotten.
I feel gratefully the coolness and shadiness and quiet of the room.
I drink the grog (a perfectly new luxury to me, at that time of day),
which my good old friend mixes with icy-cold water from the well.
Under any other circumstances, the drink would simply stupefy me.
As things are, it strings up my nerves. I begin to "face it,"
as Betteredge has predicted. And Betteredge, on his side, begins to
"face it," too.
The picture which I am now presenting of myself, will, I suspect,
be thought a very strange one, to say the least of it.
Placed in a situation which may, I think, be described as entirely
without parallel, what is the first proceeding to which I resort?
Do I seclude myself from all human society? Do I set my mind
to analyse the abominable impossibility which, nevertheless,
confronts me as an undeniable fact? Do I hurry back to London
by the first train to consult the highest authorities,
and to set a searching inquiry on foot immediately?
No. I accept the shelter of a house which I had resolved
never to degrade myself by entering again; and I sit,
tippling spirits and water in the company of an old servant,
at ten o'clock in the morning. Is this the conduct that might
have been expected from a man placed in my horrible position?
I can only answer that the sight of old Betteredge's familiar
face was an inexpressible comfort to me, and that the drinking
of old Betteredge's grog helped me, as I believe nothing else
would have helped me, in the state of complete bodily and mental
prostration into which I had fallen. I can only offer this
excuse for myself; and I can only admire that invariable
preservation of dignity, and that strictly logical consistency
of conduct which distinguish every man and woman who may read
these lines, in every emergency of their lives from the cradle to
the grave.
"Now, Mr. Franklin, there's one thing certain, at any rate,"
said Betteredge, throwing the nightgown down on the table between us,
and pointing to it as if it was a living creature that could hear him.
"HE'S a liar, to begin with."
This comforting view of the matter was not the view that presented
itself to my mind.
"I am as innocent of all knowledge of having taken the Diamond as you are,"
I said. "But there is the witness against me! The paint on the nightgown,
and the name on the nightgown are facts."
Betteredge lifted my glass, and put it persuasively into my hand.
"Facts?" he repeated. "Take a drop more grog, Mr. Franklin,
and you'll get over the weakness of believing in facts!
Foul play, sir!" he continued, dropping his voice confidentially.
"That is how I read the riddle. Foul play somewhere--and you
and I must find it out. Was there nothing else in the tin case,
when you put your hand into it?"
The question instantly reminded me of the letter in my pocket.
I took it out, and opened it. It was a letter of many pages,
closely written. I looked impatiently for the signature at the end.
"Rosanna Spearman."
As I read the name, a sudden remembrance illuminated my mind,
and a sudden suspicion rose out of the new light.
"Stop!" I exclaimed. "Rosanna Spearman came to my aunt out
of a reformatory? Rosanna Spearman had once been a thief?"
"There's no denying that, Mr. Franklin. What of it now,
if you please?"
"What of it now? How do we know she may not have stolen the Diamond
after all? How do we know she may not have smeared my nightgown
purposely with the paint?"
Betteredge laid his hand on my arm, and stopped me before I could
say any more.
"You will be cleared of this, Mr. Franklin, beyond all doubt.
But I hope you won't be cleared in THAT way. See what
the letter says, sir. In justice to the girl's memory,
see what it says."
I felt the earnestness with which he spoke--felt it as a friendly rebuke
to me. "You shall form your own judgment on her letter," I said.
"I will read it out."
I began--and read these lines:
"Sir--I have something to own to you. A confession which means much misery,
may sometimes be made in very few words. This confession can be made in
three words. I love you.
The letter dropped from my hand. I looked at Betteredge.
"In the name of Heaven," I said, "what does it mean?"
He seemed to shrink from answering the question.
"You and Limping Lucy were alone together this morning, sir, he said.
"Did she say nothing about Rosanna Spearman?"
"She never even mentioned Rosanna Spearman's name."
"Please to go back to the letter, Mr. Franklin. I tell you plainly,
I can't find it in my heart to distress you, after what you have had to
bear already. Let her speak for herself, sir. And get on with your grog.
For your own sake, get on with your grog."
I resumed the reading of the letter.
"It would be very disgraceful to me to tell you this, if I was a living woman
when you read it. I shall be dead and gone, sir, when you find my letter.
It is that which makes me bold. Not even my grave will be left to tell
of me. I may own the truth--with the quicksand waiting to hide me when the
words are written.
"Besides, you will find your nightgown in my hiding-place,
with the smear of the paint on it; and you will want to know
how it came to be hidden by me? and why I said nothing to you
about it in my life-time? I have only one reason to give.
I did these strange things, because I loved you.
"I won't trouble you with much about myself, or my life,
before you came to my lady's house. Lady Verinder took me
out of a reformatory. I had gone to the reformatory from
the prison. I was put in the prison, because I was a thief.
I was a thief, because my mother went on the streets when I
was quite a little girl. My mother went on the streets,
because the gentleman who was my father deserted her.
There is no need to tell such a common story as this, at any length.
It is told quite often enough in the newspapers.
"Lady Verinder was very kind to me, and Mr. Betteredge was very kind to me.
Those two, and the matron at the reformatory, are the only good people
I have ever met with in all my life. I might have got on in my place--
not happily--but I might have got on, if you had not come visiting.
I don't blame you, sir. It's my fault--all my fault.
"Do you remember when you came out on us from among the sand hills,
that morning, looking for Mr. Betteredge? You were like a
prince in a fairy-story. You were like a lover in a dream.
You were the most adorable human creature I had ever seen.
Something that felt like the happy life I had never led yet,
leapt up in me at the instant I set eyes on you. Don't laugh
at this if you can help it. Oh, if I could only make you feel how
serious it is to ME!
"I went back to the house, and wrote your name and mine in my work-box,
and drew a true lovers' knot under them. Then, some devil--no, I ought
to say some good angel--whispered to me, "Go and look in the glass."
The glass told me--never mind what. I was too foolish to take the warning.
I went on getting fonder and fonder of you, just as if I was a lady in your
own rank of life, and the most beautiful creature your eyes ever rested on.
I tried--oh, dear, how I tried--to get you to look at me. If you had
known how I used to cry at night with the misery and the mortification
of your never taking any notice of me, you would have pitied me perhaps,
and have given me a look now and then to live on.
"It would have been no very kind look, perhaps, if you had known how I hated
Miss Rachel. I believe I found out you were in love with her, before you knew
it yourself. She used to give you roses to wear in your button-hole. Ah,
Mr. Franklin, you wore my roses oftener than either you or she thought!
The only comfort I had at that time, was putting my rose secretly in your
glass of water, in place of hers--and then throwing her rose away.
"If she had been really as pretty as you thought her,
I might have borne it better. No; I believe I should have
been more spiteful against her still. Suppose you put Miss
Rachel into a servant's dress, and took her ornaments off?
I don't know what is the use of my writing in this way.
It can't be denied that she had a bad figure; she was too thin.
But who can tell what the men like? And young ladies may
behave in a manner which would cost a servant her place.
It's no business of mine. I can't expect you to read
my letter, if I write it in this way. But it does stir
one up to hear Miss Rachel called pretty, when one knows
all the time that it's her dress does it, and her confidence
in herself.
"Try not to lose patience with me, sir. I will get on as fast as I can
to the time which is sure to interest you--the time when the Diamond
was lost.
"But there is one thing which I have got it on my mind to tell you first.
"My life was not a very hard life to bear, while I was a thief.
It was only when they had taught me at the reformatory to feel
my own degradation, and to try for better things, that the days
grew long and weary. Thoughts of the future forced themselves
on me now. I felt the dreadful reproach that honest people--
even the kindest of honest people--were to me in themselves.
A heart-breaking sensation of loneliness kept with me, go where
I might, and do what I might, and see what persons I might.
It was my duty, I know, to try and get on with my fellow-servants
in my new place. Somehow, I couldn't make friends with them.
They looked (or I thought they looked) as if they suspected
what I had been. I don't regret, far from it, having been
roused to make the effort to be a reformed woman--but, indeed,
indeed it was a weary life. You had come across it like a beam
of sunshine at first--and then you too failed me. I was mad
enough to love you; and I couldn't even attract your notice.
There was great misery--there really was great misery
in that.
"Now I am coming to what I wanted to tell you. In those days
of bitterness, I went two or three times, when it was my turn to
go out, to my favourite place--the beach above the Shivering Sand.
And I said to myself, "I think it will end here. When I can bear
it no longer, I think it will end here." You will understand, sir,
that the place had laid a kind of spell on me before you came.
I had always had a notion that something would happen to me at
the quicksand. But I had never looked at it, with the thought
of its being the means of my making away with myself, till the time
came of which I am now writing. Then I did think that here was
a place which would end all my troubles for me in a moment or two--
and hide me for ever afterwards.
"This is all I have to say about myself, reckoning from the morning
when I first saw you, to the morning when the alarm was raised
in the house that the Diamond was lost.
"I was so aggravated by the foolish talk among the women servants,
all wondering who was to be suspected first; and I was so angry with you
(knowing no better at that time) for the pains you took in hunting for
the jewel, and sending for the police, that I kept as much as possible away
by myself, until later in the day, when the officer from Frizinghall came
to the house.
"Mr. Seegrave began, as you may remember, by setting a guard
on the women's bedrooms; and the women all followed him up-stairs
in a rage, to know what he meant by the insult he had put on them.
I went with the rest, because if I had done anything different
from the rest, Mr. Seegrave was the sort of man who would have
suspected me directly. We found him in Miss Rachel's room.
He told us he wouldn't have a lot of women there;
and he pointed to the smear on the painted door, and said
some of our petticoats had done the mischief, and sent us all
down-stairs again.
"After leaving Miss Rachel's room, I stopped a moment on one of the landings,
by myself, to see if I had got the paint-stain by any chance on MY gown.
Penelope Betteredge (the only one of the women with whom I was on
friendly terms) passed, and noticed what I was about.
"'You needn't trouble yourself, Rosanna,' she said.
'The paint on Miss Rachel's door has been dry for hours.
If Mr. Seegrave hadn't set a watch on our bedrooms,
I might have told him as much. I don't know what you think--
I was never so insulted before in my life!'
"Penelope was a hot-tempered girl. I quieted her, and brought her back
to what she had said about the paint on the door having been dry for hours.
"'How do you know that?' I asked.
"'I was with Miss Rachel, and Mr. Franklin, all yesterday morning,'
Penelope said, 'mixing the colours, while they finished the door.
I heard Miss Rachel ask whether the door would be dry that evening,
in time for the birthday company to see it. And Mr. Franklin shook
his head, and said it wouldn't be dry in less than twelve hours.
It was long past luncheon-time--it was three o'clock before they had done.
What does your arithmetic say, Rosanna? Mine says the door was dry by
three this morning.'
"'Did some of the ladies go up-stairs yesterday evening to see it?'
I asked. 'I thought I heard Miss Rachel warning them to keep clear
of the door.'
"'None of the ladies made the smear,' Penelope answered.
'I left Miss Rachel in bed at twelve last night. And I noticed
the door, and there was nothing wrong with it then.'
"'Oughtn't you to mention this to Mr. Seegrave, Penelope?'
"'I wouldn't say a word to help Mr. Seegrave for anything that could
be offered to me!'
"She went to her work, and I went to mine."
"My work, sir, was to make your bed, and to put your room tidy.
It was the happiest hour I had in the whole day. I used
to kiss the pillow on which your head had rested all night.
No matter who has done it since, you have never had your
clothes folded as nicely as I folded them for you.
Of all the little knick-knacks in your dressing-case,
there wasn't one that had so much as a speck on it.
You never noticed it, any more than you noticed me. I beg
your pardon; I am forgetting myself. I will make haste, and go
on again.
"Well, I went in that morning to do my work in your room.
There was your nightgown tossed across the bed, just as you
had thrown it off. I took it up to fold it--and I saw the stain
of the paint from Miss Rachel's door!
"I was so startled by the discovery that I ran out with the nightgown in
my hand, and made for the back stairs, and locked myself into my own room,
to look at it in a place where nobody could intrude and interrupt me.
"As soon as I got my breath again, I called to mind my talk with Penelope,
and I said to myself, "Here's the proof that he was in Miss Rachel's
sitting-room between twelve last night, and three this morning!"
"I shall not tell you in plain words what was the first
suspicion that crossed my mind, when I had made that discovery.
You would only be angry--and, if you were angry, you might tear
my letter up and read no more of it.
"Let it be enough, if you please, to say only this.
After thinking it over to the best of my ability, I made it out
that the thing wasn't likely, for a reason that I will tell you.
If you had been in Miss Rachel's sitting-room, at that time
of night, with Miss Rachel's knowledge (and if you had been
foolish enough to forget to take care of the wet door) SHE would
have reminded you--SHE would never have let you carry away such
a witness against her, as the witness I was looking at now!
At the same time, I own I was not completely certain in my
own mind that I had proved my own suspicion to be wrong.
You will not have forgotten that I have owned to hating Miss Rachel.
Try to think, if you can, that there was a little of that hatred
in all this. It ended in my determining to keep the nightgown,
and to wait, and watch, and see what use I might make of it.
At that time, please to remember, not the ghost of an idea
entered my head that you had stolen the Diamond."
There, I broke off in the reading of the letter for the second time.
I had read those portions of the miserable woman's confession
which related to myself, with unaffected surprise, and, I can
honestly add, with sincere distress. I had regretted,
truly regretted, the aspersion which I had thoughtlessly
cast on her memory, before I had seen a line of her letter.
But when I had advanced as far as the passage which is quoted above,
I own I felt my mind growing bitterer and bitterer against
Rosanna Spearman as I went on. "Read the rest for yourself,"
I said, handing the letter to Betteredge across the table.
"If there is anything in it that I must look at, you can tell me
as you go on."
"I understand you, Mr. Franklin," he answered. "It's natural, sir, in YOU.
And, God help us all!" he added, in a lower tone, "it's no less natural
in HER."
I proceed to copy the continuation of the letter from the original,
in my own possession:--
"Having determined to keep the nightgown, and to see what use my love,
or my revenge (I hardly know which) could turn it to in the future,
the next thing to discover was how to keep it without the risk of being
found out.
"There was only one way--to make another nightgown exactly like it,
before Saturday came, and brought the laundry-woman and her inventory
to the house
"I was afraid to put it off till next day (the Friday);
being in doubt lest some accident might happen in the interval.
I determined to make the new nightgown on that same day
(the Thursday), while I could count, if I played my cards properly,
on having my time to myself. The first thing to do
(after locking up your nightgown in my drawer) was to go
back to your bed-room--not so much to put it to rights
(Penelope would have done that for me, if I had asked her)
as to find out whether you had smeared off any of the paint-stain
from your nightgown, on the bed, or on any piece of furniture in
the room.
"I examined everything narrowly, and at last, I found a few
streaks of the paint on the inside of your dressing-gown--
not the linen dressing-gown you usually wore in that summer season,
but a flannel dressing-gown which you had with you also.
I suppose you felt chilly after walking to and fro in nothing
but your nightdress, and put on the warmest thing you could find.
At any rate, there were the stains, just visible, on the inside
of the dressing-gown. I easily got rid of these by scraping
away the stuff of the flannel. This done, the only proof left
against you was the proof locked up in my drawer.
"I had just finished your room when I was sent for to be questioned
by Mr. Seegrave, along with the rest of the servants. Next came
the examination of all our boxes. And then followed the most extraordinary
event of the day--to ME--since I had found the paint on your nightgown.
This event came out of the second questioning of Penelope Betteredge
by Superintendent Seegrave.
"Penelope returned to us quite beside herself with rage
at the manner in which Mr. Seegrave had treated her.
He had hinted, beyond the possibility of mistaking him,
that he suspected her of being the thief. We were all equally
astonished at hearing this, and we all asked, Why?
"'Because the Diamond was in Miss Rachel's sitting-room," Penelope answered.
"And because I was the last person in the sitting-room at night!"
"Almost before the words had left her lips, I remembered that another person
had been in the sitting-room later than Penelope. That person was yourself.
My head whirled round, and my thoughts were in dreadful confusion.
In the midst of it all, something in my mind whispered to me that the smear on
your nightgown might have a meaning entirely different to the meaning which I
had given to it up to that time. "If the last person who was in the room is
the person to be suspected," I thought to myself, "the thief is not Penelope,
but Mr. Franklin Blake!"
"In the case of any other gentleman, I believe I should have been
ashamed of suspecting him of theft, almost as soon as the suspicion
had passed through my mind.
"But the bare thought that YOU had let yourself down to my level,
and that I, in possessing myself of your nightgown, had also possessed
myself of the means of shielding you from being discovered,
and disgraced for life--I say, sir, the bare thought of this seemed
to open such a chance before me of winning your good will, that I
passed blindfold, as one may say, from suspecting to believing.
I made up my mind, on the spot, that you had shown yourself the busiest
of anybody in fetching the police, as a blind to deceive us all;
and that the hand which had taken Miss Rachel's jewel could by no
possibility be any other hand than yours.
"The excitement of this new discovery of mine must, I think,
have turned my head for a while. I felt such a devouring eagerness
to see you--to try you with a word or two about the Diamond,
and to MAKE you look at me, and speak to me, in that way--
that I put my hair tidy, and made myself as nice as I could,
and went to you boldly in the library where I knew you
were writing.
"You had left one of your rings up-stairs, which made
as good an excuse for my intrusion as I could have desired.
But, oh, sir! if you have ever loved, you will understand how it
was that all my courage cooled, when I walked into the room,
and found myself in your presence. And then, you looked up
at me so coldly, and you thanked me for finding your ring
in such an indifferent manner, that my knees trembled under me,
and I felt as if I should drop on the floor at your feet.
When you had thanked me, you looked back, if you remember,
at your writing. I was so mortified at being treated
in this way, that I plucked up spirit enough to speak.
I said, 'This is a strange thing about the Diamond, sir.'
And you looked up again, and said, 'Yes, it is!'
You spoke civilly (I can't deny that); but still you kept
a distance--a cruel distance between us. Believing, as I did,
that you had got the lost Diamond hidden about you, while you
were speaking, your coolness so provoked me that I got
bold enough, in the heat of the moment, to give you a hint.
I said, 'They will never find the Diamond, sir, will they?
No! nor the person who took it--I'll answer for that.'
I nodded, and smiled at you, as much as to say, 'I know!'
THIS time, you looked up at me with something like interest
in your eyes; and I felt that a few more words on your side
and mine might bring out the truth. Just at that moment,
Mr. Betteredge spoilt it all by coming to the door.
I knew his footstep, and I also knew that it was against
his rules for me to be in the library at that time of day--
let alone being there along with you. I had only just time to get
out of my own accord, before he could come in and tell me to go.
I was angry and disappointed; but I was not entirely without
hope for all that. The ice, you see, was broken between us--
and I thought I would take care, on the next occasion,
that Mr. Betteredge was out of the way.
"When I got back to the servants' hall, the bell was going for our dinner.
Afternoon already! and the materials for making the new nightgown were
still to be got! There was but one chance of getting them. I shammed ill
at dinner; and so secured the whole of the interval from then till tea-time
to my own use.
"What I was about, while the household believed me to be lying down
in my own room; and how I spent the night, after shamming ill again at
tea-time, and having been sent up to bed, there is no need to tell you.
Sergeant Cuff discovered that much, if he discovered nothing more.
And I can guess how. I was detected (though I kept my veil down)
in the draper's shop at Frizinghall. There was a glass in front of me,
at the counter where I was buying the longcloth; and--in that glass--
I saw one of the shopmen point to my shoulder and whisper to another.
At night again, when I was secretly at work, locked into my room,
I heard the breathing of the women servants who suspected me, outside my
door.
"It didn't matter then; it doesn't matter now. On the Friday morning,
hours before Sergeant Cuff entered the house, there was the new nightgown--
to make up your number in place of the nightgown that I had got--
made, wrung out, dried, ironed, marked, and folded as the laundry woman
folded all the others, safe in your drawer. There was no fear (if the linen
in the house was examined) of the newness of the nightgown betraying me.
All your underclothing had been renewed, when you came to our house--
I suppose on your return home from foreign parts.
"The next thing was the arrival of Sergeant Cuff; and the next great surprise
was the announcement of what HE thought about the smear on the door.
"I had believed you to be guilty (as I have owned), more
because I wanted you to be guilty than for any other reason.
And now, the Sergeant had come round by a totally different way
to the same conclusion (respecting the nightgown) as mine!
And I had got the dress that was the only proof against you!
And not a living creature knew it--yourself included! I am afraid
to tell you how I felt when I called these things to mind--you would
hate my memory for ever afterwards."
At that place, Betteredge looked up from the letter.
"Not a glimmer of light so far, Mr. Franklin," said the old man,
taking off his heavy tortoiseshell spectacles, and pushing
Rosanna Spearman's confession a little away from him.
"Have you come to any conclusion, sir, in your own mind, while I
have been reading?"
"Finish the letter first, Betteredge; there may be something to enlighten us
at the end of it. I shall have a word or two to say to you after that."
"Very good, sir. I'll just rest my eyes, and then I'll go on again.
In the meantime, Mr. Franklin--I don't want to hurry you--but would you
mind telling me, in one word, whether you see your way out of this dreadful
mess yet?"
"I see my way back to London," I said, "to consult Mr. Bruff.
If he can't help me----"
"Yes, sir?"
"And if the Sergeant won't leave his retirement at Dorking----"
"He won't, Mr. Franklin!"
"Then, Betteredge--as far as I can see now--I am at the end of my resources.
After Mr. Bruff and the Sergeant, I don't know of a living creature who can be
of the slightest use to me."
As the words passed my lips, some person outside knocked at the door
of the room.
Betteredge looked surprised as well as annoyed by the interruption.
"Come in," he called out, irritably, "whoever you are!"
The door opened, and there entered to us, quietly, the most
remarkable-looking man that I had ever seen. Judging him
by his figure and his movements, he was still young.
Judging him by his face, and comparing him with Betteredge,
he looked the elder of the two. His complexion was of a
gipsy darkness; his fleshless cheeks had fallen into deep hollows,
over which the bone projected like a pent-house. His nose
presented the fine shape and modelling so often found among
the ancient people of the East, so seldom visible among the newer
races of the West. His forehead rose high and straight
from the brow. His marks and wrinkles were innumerable.
From this strange face, eyes, stranger still, of the softest brown--
eyes dreamy and mournful, and deeply sunk in their orbits--
looked out at you, and (in my case, at least) took your attention
captive at their will. Add to this a quantity of thick
closely-curling hair, which, by some freak of Nature, had lost
its colour in the most startlingly partial and capricious manner.
Over the top of his head it was still of the deep black
which was its natural colour. Round the sides of his head--
without the slightest gradation of grey to break the force
of the extraordinary contrast--it had turned completely white.
The line between the two colours preserved no sort of regularity.
At one place, the white hair ran up into the black;
at another, the black hair ran down into the white.
I looked at the man with a curiosity which, I am ashamed to say,
I found it quite impossible to control. His soft brown eyes
looked back at me gently; and he met my involuntary rudeness
in staring at him, with an apology which I was conscious that I had
not deserved.
"I beg your pardon," he said. "I had no idea that Mr. Betteredge
was engaged." He took a slip of paper from his pocket,
and handed it to Betteredge. "The list for next week," he said.
His eyes just rested on me again--and he left the room as quietly
as he had entered it.
"Who is that?" I asked.
"Mr. Candy's assistant," said Betteredge. "By-the-bye, Mr. Franklin,
you will be sorry to hear that the little doctor has never recovered
that illness he caught, going home from the birthday dinner.
He's pretty well in health; but he lost his memory in the fever,
and he has never recovered more than the wreck of it since.
The work all falls on his assistant. Not much of it now, except among
the poor. THEY can't help themselves, you know. THEY must put
up with the man with the piebald hair, and the gipsy complexion--
or they would get no doctoring at all."
"You don't seem to like him, Betteredge?"
"Nobody likes him, sir."
"Why is he so unpopular?"
"Well, Mr. Franklin, his appearance is against him, to begin with. And then
there's a story that Mr. Candy took him with a very doubtful character.
Nobody knows who he is--and he hasn't a friend in the place. How can you
expect one to like him, after that?"
"Quite impossible, of course! May I ask what he wanted with you,
when he gave you that bit of paper?"
"Only to bring me the weekly list of the sick people
about here, sir, who stand in need of a little wine.
My lady always had a regular distribution of good sound port
and sherry among the infirm poor; and Miss Rachel wishes the custom
to be kept up. Times have changed! times have changed!
I remember when Mr. Candy himself brought the list to my mistress.
Now it's Mr. Candy's assistant who brings the list to me.
I'll go on with the letter, if you will allow me, sir,"
said Betteredge, drawing Rosanna Spearman's confession back to him.
"It isn't lively reading, I grant you. But, there! it
keeps me from getting sour with thinking of the past."
He put on his spectacles, and wagged his head gloomily.
"There's a bottom of good sense, Mr. Franklin, in our conduct
to our mothers, when they first start us on the journey of life.
We are all of us more or less unwilling to be brought into the world.
And we are all of us right."
Mr. Candy's assistant had produced too strong an impression
on me to be immediately dismissed from my thoughts. I passed
over the last unanswerable utterance of the Betteredge philosophy;
and returned to the subject of the man with the piebald hair.
"What is his name?" I asked.
"As ugly a name as need be," Betteredge answered gruffly.
"Ezra Jennings."
CHAPTER V
Having told me the name of Mr. Candy's assistant, Betteredge appeared
to think that we had wasted enough of our time on an insignificant subject.
He resumed the perusal of Rosanna Spearman's letter.
On my side, I sat at the window, waiting until he had done.
Little by little, the impression produced on me by Ezra Jennings--
it seemed perfectly unaccountable, in such a situation as mine,
that any human being should have produced an impression on me at all!--
faded from my mind. My thoughts flowed back into their former channel.
Once more, I forced myself to look my own incredible position resolutely
in the face. Once more, I reviewed in my own mind the course
which I had at last summoned composure enough to plan out for
the future.
To go back to London that day; to put the whole case before Mr. Bruff;
and, last and most important, to obtain (no matter by what means
or at what sacrifice) a personal interview with Rachel--this was my
plan of action, so far as I was capable of forming it at the time.
There was more than an hour still to spare before the train started.
And there was the bare chance that Betteredge might discover
something in the unread portion of Rosanna Spearman's letter,
which it might be useful for me to know before I left the house
in which the Diamond had been lost. For that chance I was
now waiting.
The letter ended in these terms:
"You have no need to be angry, Mr. Franklin, even if I did feel
some little triumph at knowing that I held all your prospects
in life in my own hands. Anxieties and fears soon came back to me.
With the view Sergeant Cuff took of the loss of the Diamond,
he would be sure to end in examining our linen and our dresses.
There was no place in my room--there was no place in the house--
which I could feel satisfied would be safe from him.
How to hide the nightgown so that not even the Sergeant
could find it? and how to do that without losing one moment
of precious time?--these were not easy questions to answer.
My uncertainties ended in my taking a way that may make you laugh.
I undressed, and put the nightgown on me. You had worn it--
and I had another little moment of pleasure in wearing it after
you.
"The next news that reached us in the servants' hall showed
that I had not made sure of the nightgown a moment too soon.
Sergeant Cuff wanted to see the washing-book.
"I found it, and took it to him in my lady's sitting-room.
The Sergeant and I had come across each other more than once
in former days. I was certain he would know me again--and I
was NOT certain of what he might do when he found me employed
as servant in a house in which a valuable jewel had been lost.
In this suspense, I felt it would be a relief to me to get
the meeting between us over, and to know the worst of it
at once.
"He looked at me as if I was a stranger, when I handed him
the washing-book; and he was very specially polite in thanking
me for bringing it. I thought those were both bad signs.
There was no knowing what he might say of me behind my back;
there was no knowing how soon I might not find myself taken
in custody on suspicion, and searched. It was then time for your
return from seeing Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite off by the railway;
and I went to your favourite walk in the shrubbery, to try
for another chance of speaking to you--the last chance, for all I
knew to the contrary, that I might have.
"You never appeared; and, what was worse still, Mr. Betteredge
and Sergeant Cuff passed by the place where I was hiding--
and the Sergeant saw me.
"I had no choice, after that, but to return to my proper place
and my proper work, before more disasters happened to me.
Just as I was going to step across the path, you came back
from the railway. You were making straight for the shrubbery,
when you saw me--I am certain, sir, you saw me--and you turned away
as if I had got the plague, and went into the house.*
* NOTE: by Franklin Blake.--The writer is entirely mistaken, poor creature.
I never noticed her. My intention was certainly to have taken a turn in
the shrubbery. But, remembering at the same moment that my aunt might wish
to see me, after my return from the railway, I altered my mind, and went into
the house.
"I made the best of my way indoors again, returning by
the servants' entrance. There was nobody in the laundry-room
at that time; and I sat down there alone. I have told you already
of the thoughts which the Shivering Sand put into my head.
Those thoughts came back to me now. I wondered in myself
which it would be harder to do, if things went on in this manner--
to bear Mr. Franklin Blake's indifference to me, or to jump
into the quicksand and end it for ever in that way?
"It's useless to ask me to account for my own conduct, at this time.
I try--and I can't understand it myself.
"Why didn't I stop you, when you avoided me in that cruel manner?
Why didn't I call out, 'Mr. Franklin, I have got something to say
to you; it concerns yourself, and you must, and shall, hear it?'
You were at my mercy--I had got the whip-hand of you, as they say.
And better than that, I had the means (if I could only make you trust me)
of being useful to you in the future. Of course, I never supposed that you--
a gentleman--had stolen the Diamond for the mere pleasure of stealing it.
No. Penelope had heard Miss Rachel, and I had heard Mr. Betteredge,
talk about your extravagance and your debts. It was plain enough to me
that you had taken the Diamond to sell it, or pledge it, and so to get
the money of which you stood in need. Well! I could have told you
of a man in London who would have advanced a good large sum on the jewel,
and who would have asked no awkward questions about it either.
"Why didn't I speak to you! why didn't I speak to you!
"I wonder whether the risks and difficulties of keeping
the nightgown were as much as I could manage, without having
other risks and difficulties added to them? This might have been
the case with some women--but how could it be the case with me?
In the days when I was a thief, I had run fifty times greater risks,
and found my way out of difficulties to which THIS difficulty
was mere child's play. I had been apprenticed, as you may say,
to frauds and deceptions--some of them on such a grand scale,
and managed so cleverly, that they became famous,
and appeared in the newspapers. Was such a little thing
as the keeping of the nightgown likely to weigh on my spirits,
and to set my heart sinking within me, at the time when I ought
to have spoken to you? What nonsense to ask the question!
The thing couldn't be.
"Where is the use of my dwelling in this way on my own folly?
The plain truth is plain enough, surely? Behind your back,
I loved you with all my heart and soul. Before your face--
there's no denying it--I was frightened of you;
frightened of making you angry with me; frightened of what
you might say to me (though you HAD taken the Diamond)
if I presumed to tell you that I had found it out.
I had gone as near to it as I dared when I spoke to you
in the library. You had not turned your back on me then.
You had not started away from me as if I had got the plague.
I tried to provoke myself into feeling angry with you,
and to rouse up my courage in that way. No! I couldn't
feel anything but the misery and the mortification of it.
"You're a plain girl; you have got a crooked shoulder; you're only
a housemaid--what do you mean by attempting to speak to Me?"
You never uttered a word of that, Mr. Franklin; but you said it all
to me, nevertheless! Is such madness as this to be accounted for?
No. There is nothing to be done but to confess it, and let it
be.
"I ask your pardon, once more, for this wandering of my pen.
There is no fear of its happening again. I am close at the
end now.
"The first person who disturbed me by coming into the empty
room was Penelope. She had found out my secret long since,
and she had done her best to bring me to my senses--and done it
kindly too.
"'Ah!' she said, 'I know why you're sitting here, and fretting,
all by yourself. The best thing that can happen for your advantage,
Rosanna, will be for Mr. Franklin's visit here to come to an end.
It's my belief that he won't be long now before he leaves the house."
"In all my thoughts of you I had never thought of your going away.
I couldn't speak to Penelope. I could only look at her.
"'I've just left Miss Rachel,' Penelope went on.
'And a hard matter I have had of it to put up with her temper.
She says the house is unbearable to her with the police in it;
and she's determined to speak to my lady this evening,
and to go to her Aunt Ablewhite to-morrow. If she does that,
Mr. Franklin will be the next to find a reason for going away,
you may depend on it!'
"I recovered the use of my tongue at that. 'Do you mean to say
Mr. Franklin will go with her?' I asked.
"'Only too gladly, if she would let him; but she won't. HE has
been made to feel her temper; HE is in her black books too--
and that after having done all he can to help her, poor fellow!
No! no! If they don't make it up before to-morrow, you
will see Miss Rachel go one way, and Mr. Franklin another.
Where he may betake himself to I can't say. But he will never
stay here, Rosanna, after Miss Rachel has left us.'
"I managed to master the despair I felt at the prospect of your going away.
To own the truth, I saw a little glimpse of hope for myself if there was
really a serious disagreement between Miss Rachel and you. 'Do you know,'
I asked, 'what the quarrel is between them?'
"'It is all on Miss Rachel's side,' Penelope said. 'And, for anything I
know to the contrary, it's all Miss Rachel's temper, and nothing else.
I am loth to distress you, Rosanna; but don't run away with the notion
that Mr. Franklin is ever likely to quarrel with HER. He's a great deal too
fond of her for that!'
"She had only just spoken those cruel words when there came a call to us
from Mr. Betteredge. All the indoor servants were to assemble in the hall.
And then we were to go in, one by one, and be questioned in Mr. Betteredge's
room by Sergeant Cuff.
"It came to my turn to go in, after her ladyship's maid and the upper
housemaid had been questioned first. Sergeant Cuff's inquiries--
though he wrapped them up very cunningly--soon showed me
that those two women (the bitterest enemies I had in the house)
had made their discoveries outside my door, on the Tuesday
afternoon, and again on the Thursday night. They had told
the Sergeant enough to open his eyes to some part of the truth.
He rightly believed me to have made a new nightgown secretly,
but he wrongly believed the paint-stained nightgown to be mine.
I felt satisfied of another thing, from what he said,
which it puzzled me to understand. He suspected me, of course,
of being concerned in the disappearance of the Diamond.
But, at the same time, he let me see--purposely, as I thought--
that he did not consider me as the person chiefly answerable
for the loss of the jewel. He appeared to think that I
had been acting under the direction of somebody else.
Who that person might be, I couldn't guess then, and can't
guess now.
"In this uncertainty, one thing was plain--that Sergeant Cuff
was miles away from knowing the whole truth. You were safe
as long as the nightgown was safe--and not a moment longer.
"I quite despair of making you understand the distress and terror
which pressed upon me now. It was impossible for me to risk
wearing your nightgown any longer. I might find myself taken off,
at a moment's notice, to the police court at Frizinghall,
to be charged on suspicion, and searched accordingly.
While Sergeant Cuff still left me free, I had to choose--and at once--
between destroying the nightgown, or hiding it in some safe place,
at some safe distance from the house.
"If I had only been a little less fond of you, I think I
should have destroyed it. But oh! how could destroy the only
thing I had which proved that I had saved you from discovery?
If we did come to an explanation together, and if you suspected
me of having some bad motive, and denied it all, how could I win
upon you to trust me, unless I had the nightgown to produce?
Was it wronging you to believe, as I did and do still,
that you might hesitate to let a poor girl like me be
the sharer of your secret, and your accomplice in the theft
which your money-troubles had tempted you to commit?
Think of your cold behaviour to me, sir, and you will hardly
wonder at my unwillingness to destroy the only claim on
your confidence and your gratitude which it was my fortune
to possess.
"I determined to hide it; and the place I fixed on was the place I knew best--
the Shivering Sand.
"As soon as the questioning was over, I made the first excuse that came
into my head, and got leave to go out for a breath of fresh air.
I went straight to Cobb's Hole, to Mr. Yolland's cottage.
His wife and daughter were the best friends I had. Don't suppose
I trusted them with your secret--I have trusted nobody.
All I wanted was to write this letter to you, and to have a safe
opportunity of taking the nightgown off me. Suspected as I was,
I could do neither of those things with any sort of security,
at the house.
"And now I have nearly got through my long letter, writing it
alone in Lucy Yolland's bedroom. When it is done, I shall go
downstairs with the nightgown rolled up, and hidden under my cloak.
I shall find the means I want for keeping it safe and dry in its
hiding-place, among the litter of old things in Mrs. Yolland's kitchen.
And then I shall go to the Shivering Sand--don't be afraid of my letting
my footmarks betray me!--and hide the nightgown down in the sand,
where no living creature can find it without being first let into
the secret by myself.
"And, when that's done, what then?
"Then, Mr. Franklin, I shall have two reasons for making another
attempt to say the words to you which I have not said yet.
If you leave the house, as Penelope believes you will leave it,
and if I haven't spoken to you before that, I shall lose my
opportunity forever. That is one reason. Then, again, there is
the comforting knowledge--if my speaking does make you angry--
that I have got the nightgown ready to plead my cause for me
as nothing else can. That is my other reason. If these two
together don't harden my heart against the coldness which has
hitherto frozen it up (I mean the coldness of your treatment
of me), there will be the end of my efforts--and the end of
my life.
"Yes. If I miss my next opportunity--if you are as cruel
as ever, and if I feel it again as I have felt it already--
good-bye to the world which has grudged me the happiness that it
gives to others. Good-bye to life, which nothing but a little
kindness from you can ever make pleasurable to me again.
Don't blame yourself, sir, if it ends in this way. But try--
do try--to feel some forgiving sorrow for me! I shall take
care that you find out what I have done for you, when I am past
telling you of it myself. Will you say something kind of me then--
in the same gentle way that you have when you speak to Miss Rachel?
If you do that, and if there are such things as ghosts,
I believe my ghost will hear it, and tremble with the pleasure
of it.
"It's time I left off. I am making myself cry. How am I to see my way
to the hiding-place if I let these useless tears come and blind me?
"Besides, why should I look at the gloomy side? Why not believe,
while I can, that it will end well after all? I may find you in a good
humour to-night--or, if not, I may succeed better to-morrow morning.
I sha'n't improve my plain face by fretting--shall I? Who knows but I
may have filled all these weary long pages of paper for nothing?
They will go, for safety's sake (never mind now for what other reason)
into the hiding-place along with the nightgown. It has been hard,
hard work writing my letter. Oh! if we only end in understanding each other,
how I shall enjoy tearing it up!
"I beg to remain, sir, your true lover and humble servant,
"ROSANNA SPEARMAN."
The reading of the letter was completed by Betteredge in silence.
After carefully putting it back in the envelope, he sat thinking,
with his head bowed down, and his eyes on the ground.
"Betteredge," I said, "is there any hint to guide me at the end
of the letter?"
He looked up slowly, with a heavy sigh.
"There is nothing to guide you, Mr. Franklin," he answered.
"If you take my advice you will keep the letter in the cover
till these present anxieties of yours have come to an end.
It will sorely distress you, whenever you read it. Don't read
it now."
I put the letter away in my pocket-book.
A glance back at the sixteenth and seventeenth chapters
of Betteredge's Narrative will show that there really
was a reason for my thus sparing myself, at a time when my
fortitude had been already cruelly tried. Twice over,
the unhappy woman had made her last attempt to speak to me.
And twice over, it had been my misfortune (God knows
how innocently!) to repel the advances she had made to me.
On the Friday night, as Betteredge truly describes it,
she had found me alone at the billiard-table. Her manner and
language suggested to me and would have suggested to any man,
under the circumstances--that she was about to confess a guilty
knowledge of the disappearance of the Diamond. For her own sake,
I had purposely shown no special interest in what was coming;
for her own sake, I had purposely looked at the billiard-balls,
instead of looking at HER--and what had been the result?
I had sent her away from me, wounded to the heart!
On the Saturday again--on the day when she must have foreseen,
after what Penelope had told her, that my departure was close
at hand--the same fatality still pursued us. She had once
more attempted to meet me in the shrubbery walk, and she had
found me there in company with Betteredge and Sergeant Cuff.
In her hearing, the Sergeant, with his own underhand object
in view, had appealed to my interest in Rosanna Spearman.
Again for the poor creature's own sake, I had met
the police-officer with a flat denial, and had declared--
loudly declared, so that she might hear me too--that I felt
"no interest whatever in Rosanna Spearman." At those words,
solely designed to warn her against attempting to gain my private ear,
she had turned away and left the place: cautioned of her danger,
as I then believed; self-doomed to destruction, as I know now.
From that point, I have already traced the succession of events
which led me to the astounding discovery at the quicksand.
The retrospect is now complete. I may leave the miserable
story of Rosanna Spearman--to which, even at this distance
of time, I cannot revert without a pang of distress--
to suggest for itself all that is here purposely left unsaid.
I may pass from the suicide at the Shivering Sand, with its
strange and terrible influence on my present position and
future prospects, to interests which concern the living people
of this narrative, and to events which were already paving my
way for the slow and toilsome journey from the darkness to the
light.
CHAPTER VI
I walked to the railway station accompanied, it is needless to say,
by Gabriel Betteredge. I had the letter in my pocket, and the nightgown
safely packed in a little bag--both to be submitted, before I slept
that night, to the investigation of Mr. Bruff.
We left the house in silence. For the first time in my experience of him,
I found old Betteredge in my company without a word to say to me.
Having something to say on my side, I opened the conversation as soon as we
were clear of the lodge gates.
"Before I go to London," I began, "I have two questions to ask you.
They relate to myself, and I believe they will rather surprise you."
"If they will put that poor creature's letter out of my head,
Mr. Franklin, they may do anything else they like with me.
Please to begin surprising me, sir, as soon as you can."
"My first question, Betteredge, is this. Was I drunk on the night
of Rachel's Birthday?"
"YOU drunk!" exclaimed the old man. "Why it's the great defect
of your character, Mr. Franklin that you only drink with your dinner,
and never touch a drop of liquor afterwards!"
"But the birthday was a special occasion. I might have abandoned
my regular habits, on that night of all others."
Betteredge considered for a moment.
"You did go out of your habits, sir," he said. "And I'll tell you how.
You looked wretchedly ill--and we persuaded you to have a drop of brandy
and water to cheer you up a little."
"I am not used to brandy and water. It is quite possible----"
"Wait a bit, Mr. Franklin. I knew you were not used, too. I poured you out
half a wineglass-full of our fifty year old Cognac; and (more shame for me!)
I drowned that noble liquor in nigh on a tumbler-full of cold water.
A child couldn't have got drunk on it--let alone a grown man!"
I knew I could depend on his memory, in a matter of this kind.
It was plainly impossible that I could have been intoxicated.
I passed on to the second question.
"Before I was sent abroad, Betteredge, you saw a great deal
of me when I was a boy? Now tell me plainly, do you remember
anything strange of me, after I had gone to bed at night?
Did you ever discover me walking in my sleep?"
Betteredge stopped, looked at me for a moment, nodded his head,
and walked on again.
"I see your drift now, Mr. Franklin!" he said "You're trying to account
for how you got the paint on your nightgown, without knowing it yourself.
It won't do, sir. You're miles away still from getting at the truth.
Walk in your sleep? You never did such a thing in your life!"
Here again, I felt that Betteredge must be right. Neither at
home nor abroad had my life ever been of the solitary sort.
If I had been a sleep-walker, there were hundreds on hundreds
of people who must have discovered me, and who, in the interest
of my own safety, would have warned me of the habit, and have
taken precautions to restrain it.
Still, admitting all this, I clung--with an obstinacy which
was surely natural and excusable, under the circumstances--
to one or other of the only two explanations that I could see
which accounted for the unendurable position in which I then stood.
Observing that I was not yet satisfied, Betteredge shrewdly
adverted to certain later events in the history of the Moonstone;
and scattered both my theories to the wind at once and
for ever.
"Let's try it another way, sir," he said. "Keep your own opinion,
and see how far it will take you towards finding out the truth.
If we are to believe the nightgown--which I don't for one--
you not only smeared off the paint from the door, without knowing it,
but you also took the Diamond without knowing it. Is that right,
so far?"
"Quite right. Go on."
"Very good, sir. We'll say you were drunk, or walking in your sleep,
when you took the jewel. That accounts for the night and morning,
after the birthday. But how does it account for what has happened
since that time? The Diamond has been taken to London, since that time.
The Diamond has been pledged to Mr. Luker, since that time.
Did you do those two things, without knowing it, too? Were you drunk
when I saw you off in the pony-chaise on that Saturday evening?
And did you walk in your sleep to Mr. Luker's, when the train had brought
you to your journey's end? Excuse me for saying it, Mr. Franklin,
but this business has so upset you, that you're not fit yet to judge
for yourself. The sooner you lay your head alongside Mr. Bruff's head,
the sooner you will see your way out of the dead-lock that has got
you now."
We reached the station, with only a minute or two to spare.
I hurriedly gave Betteredge my address in London, so that
he might write to me, if necessary; promising, on my side,
to inform him of any news which I might have to communicate.
This done, and just as I was bidding him farewell, I happened
to glance towards the book-and-newspaper stall. There was
Mr. Candy's remarkable-looking assistant again, speaking to
the keeper of the stall! Our eyes met at the same moment.
Ezra Jennings took off his hat to me. I returned the salute,
and got into a carriage just as the train started.
It was a relief to my mind, I suppose, to dwell on any subject
which appeared to be, personally, of no sort of importance to me.
At all events, I began the momentous journey back which was
to take me to Mr. Bruff, wondering--absurdly enough, I admit--
that I should have seen the man with the piebald hair twice in
one day!
The hour at which I arrived in London precluded all hope
of my finding Mr. Bruff at his place of business.
I drove from the railway to his private residence at Hampstead,
and disturbed the old lawyer dozing alone in his dining-room,
with his favourite pug-dog on his lap, and his bottle of wine
at his elbow.
I shall best describe the effect which my story produced on the mind
of Mr. Bruff by relating his proceedings when he had heard it to the end.
He ordered lights, and strong tea, to be taken into his study;
and he sent a message to the ladies of his family, forbidding them
to disturb us on any pretence whatever. These preliminaries disposed of,
he first examined the nightgown, and then devoted himself to the reading of
Rosanna Spearman's letter.
The reading completed, Mr. Bruff addressed me for the first time
since we had been shut up together in the seclusion of his own room.
"Franklin Blake," said the old gentleman, "this is a very serious matter,
in more respects than one. In my opinion, it concerns Rachel quite as
nearly as it concerns you. Her extraordinary conduct is no mystery NOW.
She believes you have stolen the Diamond."
I had shrunk from reasoning my own way fairly to that revolting conclusion.
But it had forced itself on me, nevertheless. My resolution to obtain
a personal interview with Rachel, rested really and truly on the ground just
stated by Mr. Bruff.
"The first step to take in this investigation," the lawyer proceeded,
"is to appeal to Rachel. She has been silent all this time, from motives
which I (who know her character) can readily understand. It is impossible,
after what has happened, to submit to that silence any longer.
She must be persuaded to tell us, or she must be forced to tell us,
on what grounds she bases her belief that you took the Moonstone.
The chances are, that the whole of this case, serious as it seems now,
will tumble to pieces, if we can only break through Rachel's inveterate
reserve, and prevail upon her to speak out."
"That is a very comforting opinion for ME," I said. "I own I should
like to know
"You would like to know how I can justify it," inter-posed Mr. Bruff.
"I can tell you in two minutes. Understand, in the first place,
that I look at this matter from a lawyer's point of view. It's a
question of evidence, with me. Very well. The evidence breaks down,
at the outset, on one important point."
"On what point?"
"You shall hear. I admit that the mark of the name proves
the nightgown to be yours. I admit that the mark of the paint
proves the nightgown to have made the smear on Rachel's door.
But what evidence is there to prove that you are the person who
wore it, on the night when the Diamond was lost?"
The objection struck me, all the more forcibly that it reflected
an objection which I had felt myself.
"As to this," pursued the lawyer taking up Rosanna Spearman's confession,
"I can understand that the letter is a distressing one to YOU.
I can understand that you may hesitate to analyse it from a purely
impartial point of view. But I am not in your position.
I can bring my professional experience to bear on this document,
just as I should bring it to bear on any other. Without alluding
to the woman's career as a thief, I will merely remark that her letter
proves her to have been an adept at deception, on her own showing;
and I argue from that, that I am justified in suspecting her of not
having told the whole truth. I won't start any theory, at present,
as to what she may or may not have done. I will only say that,
if Rachel has suspected you ON THE EVIDENCE OF THE NIGHTGOWN ONLY,
the chances are ninety-nine to a hundred that Rosanna Spearman
was the person who showed it to her. In that case, there is
the woman's letter, confessing that she was jealous of Rachel,
confessing that she changed the roses, confessing that she saw
a glimpse of hope for herself, in the prospect of a quarrel
between Rachel and you. I don't stop to ask who took the Moonstone
(as a means to her end, Rosanna Spearman would have taken
fifty Moonstones)--I only say that the disappearance of the jewel
gave this reclaimed thief who was in love with you, an opportunity
of setting you and Rachel at variance for the rest of your lives.
She had not decided on destroying herself, THEN, remember; and, having
the opportunity, I distinctly assert that it was in her character,
and in her position at the time, to take it. What do you say
to that?"
"Some such suspicion," I answered, "crossed my own mind,
as soon as I opened the letter."
"Exactly! And when you had read the letter, you pitied the poor creature,
and couldn't find it in your heart to suspect her. Does you credit,
my dear sir--does you credit!"
"But suppose it turns out that I did wear the nightgown?
What then?"
"I don't see how the fact can be proved," said Mr. Bruff.
"But assuming the proof to be possible, the vindication of your
innocence would be no easy matter. We won't go into that, now.
Let us wait and see whether Rachel hasn't suspected you on
the evidence of the nightgown only."
"Good God, how coolly you talk of Rachel suspecting me!"
I broke out. "What right has she to suspect Me, on any evidence,
of being a thief?"
"A very sensible question, my dear sir. Rather hotly put--
but well worth considering for all that. What puzzles you,
puzzles me too. Search your memory, and tell me this. Did anything
happen while you were staying at the house--not, of course,
to shake Rachel's belief in your honour--but, let us say,
to shake her belief (no matter with how little reason) in your
principles generally?"
I started, in ungovernable agitation, to my feet. The lawyer's
question reminded me, for the first time since I had left England,
that something HAD happened.
In the eighth chapter of Betteredge's Narrative, an allusion will be
found to the arrival of a foreigner and a stranger at my aunt's house,
who came to see me on business. The nature of his business was this.
I had been foolish enough (being, as usual, straitened for money
at the time) to accept a loan from the keeper of a small
restaurant in Paris, to whom I was well known as a customer.
A time was settled between us for paying the money back;
and when the time came, I found it (as thousands of other
honest men have found it) impossible to keep my engagement.
I sent the man a bill. My name was unfortunately too well known
on such documents: he failed to negotiate it. His affairs had
fallen into disorder, in the interval since I had borrowed of him;
bankruptcy stared him in the face; and a relative of his,
a French lawyer, came to England to find me, and to insist
upon the payment of my debt. He was a man of violent temper;
and he took the wrong way with me. High words passed on both sides;
and my aunt and Rachel were unfortunately in the next room,
and heard us. Lady Verinder came in, and insisted on knowing
what was the matter. The Frenchman produced his credentials,
and declared me to be responsible for the ruin of a poor man,
who had trusted in my honour. My aunt instantly paid him
the money, and sent him off. She knew me better of course
than to take the Frenchman's view of the transaction.
But she was shocked at my carelessness, and justly angry with me
for placing myself in a position, which, but for her interference,
might have become a very disgraceful one. Either her mother
told her, or Rachel heard what passed--I can't say which.
She took her own romantic, high-flown view of the matter.
I was "heartless"; I was "dishonourable"; I had "no principle";
there was "no knowing what I might do next"--in short,
she said some of the severest things to me which I had ever
heard from a young lady's lips. The breach between us
lasted for the whole of the next day. The day after,
I succeeded in making my peace, and thought no more of it.
Had Rachel reverted to this unlucky accident, at the critical
moment when my place in her estimation was again, and far
more seriously, assailed? Mr. Bruff, when I had mentioned
the circumstances to him, answered the question at once in the
affirmative.
"It would have its effect on her mind," he said gravely.
"And I wish, for your sake, the thing had not happened.
However, we have discovered that there WAS a predisposing
influence against you--and there is one uncertainty cleared out
of our way, at any rate. I see nothing more that we can do now.
Our next step in this inquiry must be the step that takes us
to Rachel."
He rose, and began walking thoughtfully up and down the room. Twice, I was on
the point of telling him that I had determined on seeing Rachel personally;
and twice, having regard to his age and his character, I hesitated to take him
by surprise at an unfavourable moment.
"The grand difficulty is," he resumed, "how to make her show her whole
mind in this matter, without reserve. Have you any suggestions to offer?"
"I have made up my mind, Mr. Bruff, to speak to Rachel myself."
"You!" He suddenly stopped in his walk, and looked at me as if he thought
I had taken leave of my senses. "You, of all the people in the world!"
He abruptly checked himself, and took another turn in the room.
"Wait a little," he said. "In cases of this extraordinary kind, the rash
way is sometimes the best way." He considered the question for a moment
or two, under that new light, and ended boldly by a decision in my favour.
"Nothing venture, nothing have," the old gentleman resumed. "You have a
chance in your favour which I don't possess--and you shall be the first to try
the experiment."
"A chance in my favour?" I repeated, in the greatest surprise.
Mr. Bruff's face softened, for the first time, into a smile.
"This is how it stands," he said. "I tell you fairly,
I don't trust your discretion, and I don't trust your temper.
But I do trust in Rachel's still preserving, in some remote
little corner of her heart, a certain perverse weakness for YOU.
Touch that--and trust to the consequences for the fullest
disclosures that can flow from a woman's lips! The question is--
how are you to see her?"
"She has been a guest of yours at this house," I answered.
"May I venture to suggest--if nothing was said about me beforehand--
that I might see her here?"
"Cool!" said Mr. Bruff. With that one word of comment on the reply that I
had made to him, he took another turn up and down the room.
"In plain English," he said, "my house is to be turned
into a trap to catch Rachel; with a bait to tempt her,
in the shape of an invitation from my wife and daughters.
If you were anybody else but Franklin Blake, and if this matter
was one atom less serious than it really is, I should refuse
point-blank. As things are, I firmly believe Rachel will live
to thank me for turning traitor to her in my old age. Consider me
your accomplice. Rachel shall be asked to spend the day here;
and you shall receive due notice of it."
"When? To-morrow?"
"To-morrow won't give us time enough to get her answer.
Say the day after."
"How shall I hear from you?"
"Stay at home all the morning and expect me to call on you."
I thanked him for the inestimable assistance which he was rendering to me,
with the gratitude that I really felt; and, declining a hospitable invitation
to sleep that night at Hampstead, returned to my lodgings in London.
Of the day that followed, I have only to say that it was the longest
day of my life. Innocent as I knew myself to be, certain as I was
that the abominable imputation which rested on me must sooner or later
be cleared off, there was nevertheless a sense of self-abasement in my
mind which instinctively disinclined me to see any of my friends.
We often hear (almost invariably, however, from superficial observers)
that guilt can look like innocence. I believe it to be infinitely
the truer axiom of the two that innocence can look like guilt.
I caused myself to be denied all day, to every visitor who called; and I
only ventured out under cover of the night.
The next morning, Mr. Bruff surprised me at the breakfast-table. He
handed me a large key, and announced that he felt ashamed of himself
for the first time in his life.
"Is she coming?"
"She is coming to-day, to lunch and spend the afternoon with my wife
and my girls."
"Are Mrs. Bruff, and your daughters, in the secret?"
"Inevitably. But women, as you may have observed, have no principles.
My family don't feel my pangs of conscience. The end being to bring you
and Rachel together again, my wife and daughters pass over the means employed
to gain it, as composedly as if they were Jesuits."
"I am infinitely obliged to them. What is this key?"
"The key of the gate in my back-garden wall. Be there at three
this afternoon. Let yourself into the garden, and make your way
in by the conservatory door. Cross the small drawing-room, and open
the door in front of you which leads into the music-room. There,
you will find Rachel--and find her, alone."
"How can I thank you!"
"I will tell you how. Don't blame me for what happens afterwards."
With those words, he went out.
I had many weary hours still to wait through. To while away the time,
I looked at my letters. Among them was a letter from Betteredge.
I opened it eagerly. To my surprise and disappointment, it began
with an apology warning me to expect no news of any importance.
In the next sentence the everlasting Ezra Jennings appeared again!
He had stopped Betteredge on the way out of the station,
and had asked who I was. Informed on this point,
he had mentioned having seen me to his master Mr. Candy.
Mr. Candy hearing of this, had himself driven over to Betteredge,
to express his regret at our having missed each other.
He had a reason for wishing particularly to speak to me;
and when I was next in the neighbourhood of Frizinghall, he begged
I would let him know. Apart from a few characteristic utterances
of the Betteredge philosophy, this was the sum and substance
of my correspondent's letter. The warm-hearted, faithful old man
acknowledged that he had written "mainly for the pleasure of writing
to me."
I crumpled up the letter in my pocket, and forgot it the moment after,
in the all-absorbing interest of my coming interview with Rachel.
As the clock of Hampstead church struck three, I put Mr. Bruff's key into
the lock of the door in the wall. When I first stepped into the garden,
and while I was securing the door again on the inner side, I own to having
felt a certain guilty doubtfulness about what might happen next.
I looked furtively on either side of me; suspicious of the presence
of some unexpected witness in some unknown corner of the garden.
Nothing appeared, to justify my apprehensions. The walks were,
one and all, solitudes; and the birds and the bees were the only witnesses.
I passed through the garden; entered the conservatory; and crossed
the small drawing-room. As I laid my hand on the door opposite,
I heard a few plaintive chords struck on the piano in the room within.
She had often idled over the instrument in this way, when I was staying
at her mother's house. I was obliged to wait a little, to steady myself.
The past and present rose side by side, at that supreme moment--and the
contrast shook me.
After the lapse of a minute, I roused my manhood, and opened the door.
CHAPTER VII
At the moment when I showed myself in the doorway, Rachel rose from the piano.
I closed the door behind me. We confronted each other in silence,
with the full length of the room between us. The movement she had made
in rising appeared to be the one exertion of which she was capable.
All use of every other faculty, bodily or mental, seemed to be merged in
the mere act of looking at me.
A fear crossed my mind that I had shown myself too suddenly.
I advanced a few steps towards her. I said gently, "Rachel!"
The sound of my voice brought the life back to her limbs,
and the colour to her face. She advanced, on her side,
still without speaking. Slowly, as if acting under some influence
independent of her own will, she came nearer and nearer to me;
the warm dusky colour flushing her cheeks, the light of
reviving intelligence brightening every instant in her eyes.
I forgot the object that had brought me into her presence;
I forgot the vile suspicion that rested on my good name;
I forgot every consideration, past, present, and future, which I
was bound to remember. I saw nothing but the woman I loved coming
nearer and nearer to me. She trembled; she stood irresolute.
I could resist it no longer--I caught her in my arms, and covered her
face with kisses.
There was a moment when I thought the kisses were returned;
a moment when it seemed as if she, too might have forgotten.
Almost before the idea could shape itself in my mind,
her first voluntary action made me feel that she remembered.
With a cry which was like a cry of horror--with a strength
which I doubt if I could have resisted if I had tried--
she thrust me back from her. I saw merciless anger in her eyes;
I saw merciless contempt on her lips. She looked me over,
from head to foot, as she might have looked at a stranger who had
insulted her.
"You coward!" she said. "You mean, miserable, heartless coward!"
Those were her first words! The most unendurable reproach that a woman can
address to a man, was the reproach that she picked out to address to Me.
"I remember the time, Rachel," I said, "when you could have
told me that I had offended you, in a worthier way than that.
I beg your pardon."
Something of the bitterness that I felt may have communicated
itself to my voice. At the first words of my reply, her eyes,
which had been turned away the moment before, looked back
at me unwillingly. She answered in a low tone, with a sullen
submission of manner which was quite new in my experience
of her.
"Perhaps there is some excuse for me," she said. "After what you have done,
is it a manly action, on your part, to find your way to me as you have found
it to-day? It seems a cowardly experiment, to try an experiment on my
weakness for you. It seems a cowardly surprise, to surprise me into letting
you kiss me. But that is only a woman's view. I ought to have known it
couldn't be your view. I should have done better if I had controlled myself,
and said nothing."
The apology was more unendurable than the insult. The most degraded
man living would have felt humiliated by it.
"If my honour was not in your hands," I said, "I would leave you this instant,
and never see you again. You have spoken of what I have done. What have
I done?"
"What have you done! YOU ask that question of ME?"
"I ask it."
"I have kept your infamy a secret," she answered.
"And I have suffered the consequences of concealing it.
Have I no claim to be spared the insult of your asking me
what you have done? Is ALL sense of gratitude dead in you?
You were once a gentleman. You were once dear to my mother,
and dearer still to me----"
Her voice failed her. She dropped into a chair, and turned her back on me,
and covered her face with her hands.
I waited a little before I trusted myself to say any more.
In that moment of silence, I hardly know which I felt
most keenly--the sting which her contempt had planted in me,
or the proud resolution which shut me out from all community
with her distress.
"If you will not speak first," I said, "I must. I have come here
with something serious to say to you. Will you do me the common
justice of listening while I say it?"
She neither moved, nor answered. I made no second appeal to her;
I never advanced an inch nearer to her chair. With a pride
which was as obstinate as her pride, I told her of my discovery
at the Shivering Sand, and of all that had led to it.
The narrative, of necessity, occupied some little time.
From beginning to end, she never looked round at me, and she never
uttered a word.
I kept my temper. My whole future depended, in all probability,
on my not losing possession of myself at that moment.
The time had come to put Mr. Bruff's theory to the test.
In the breathless interest of trying that experiment, I moved round
so as to place myself in front of her.
"I have a question to ask you," I said. "It obliges me to refer again
to a painful subject. Did Rosanna Spearman show you the nightgown.
Yes, or No?"
She started to her feet; and walked close up to me of her own accord.
Her eyes looked me searchingly in the face, as if to read something there
which they had never read yet.
"Are you mad?" she asked.
I still restrained myself. I said quietly, "Rachel, will you answer
my question?"
She went on, without heeding me.
"Have you some object to gain which I don't understand?
Some mean fear about the future, in which I am concerned?
They say your father's death has made you a rich man.
Have you come here to compensate me for the loss of my Diamond?
And have you heart enough left to feel ashamed of your errand?
Is THAT the secret of your pretence of innocence,
and your story about Rosanna Spearman? Is there
a motive of shame at the bottom of all the falsehood,
this time?"
I stopped her there. I could control myself no longer.
"You have done me an infamous wrong!" I broke out hotly.
"You suspect me of stealing your Diamond. I have a right to know,
and I WILL know, the reason why!"
"Suspect you!" she exclaimed, her anger rising with mine.
"YOU VILLAIN, I SAW YOU TAKE THE DIAMOND WITH MY OWN EYES!"
The revelation which burst upon me in those words, the overthrow
which they instantly accomplished of the whole view of the case on
which Mr. Bruff had relied, struck me helpless. Innocent as I was,
I stood before her in silence. To her eyes, to any eyes, I must
have looked like a man overwhelmed by the discovery of his own guilt.
She drew back from the spectacle of my humiliation and of her triumph.
The sudden silence that had fallen upon me seemed to frighten her.
"I spared you, at the time," she said. "I would have spared you now,
if you had not forced me to speak." She moved away as if to leave the room--
and hesitated before she got to the door. "Why did you come here to
humiliate yourself?" she asked. "Why did you come here to humiliate me?"
She went on a few steps, and paused once more. "For God's sake,
say something!" she exclaimed, passionately. "If you have any mercy left,
don't let me degrade myself in this way! Say something--and drive me out of
the room!"
I advanced towards her, hardly conscious of what I was doing.
I had possibly some confused idea of detaining her until she
had told me more. From the moment when I knew that the evidence
on which I stood condemned in Rachel's mind, was the evidence of
her own eyes, nothing--not even my conviction of my own innocence--
was clear to my mind. I took her by the hand; I tried to speak
firmly and to the purpose. All I could say was, "Rachel, you once
loved me."
She shuddered, and looked away from me. Her hand lay powerless
and trembling in mine. Let go of it," she said faintly.
My touch seemed to have the same effect on her which the sound
of my voice had produced when I first entered the room.
After she had said the word which called me a coward,
after she had made the avowal which branded me as a thief--
while her hand lay in mine I was her master still!
I drew her gently back into the middle of the room.
I seated her by the side of me. "Rachel," I said, "I can't
explain the contradiction in what I am going to tell you.
I can only speak the truth as you have spoken it. You saw me--
with your own eyes, you saw me take the Diamond. Before God who
hears us, I declare that I now know I took it for the first time!
Do you doubt me still?"
She had neither heeded nor heard me. "Let go of my hand,"
she repeated faintly. That was her only answer. Her head sank
on my shoulder; and her hand unconsciously closed on mine,
at the moment when she asked me to release it.
I refrained from pressing the question. But there my forbearance stopped.
My chance of ever holding up my head again among honest men depended on my
chance of inducing her to make her disclosure complete. The one hope left
for me was the hope that she might have overlooked something in the chain
of evidence some mere trifle, perhaps, which might nevertheless, under careful
investigation, be made the means of vindicating my innocence in the end.
I own I kept possession of her hand. I own I spoke to her with all that I
could summon back of the sympathy and confidence of the bygone time.
"I want to ask you something," I said. "I want you to tell me everything
that happened, from the time when we wished each other good night,
to the time when you saw me take the Diamond."
She lifted her head from my shoulder, and made an effort to release her hand.
"Oh, why go back to it!" she said. "Why go back to it!"
"I will tell you why, Rachel. You are the victim, and I am the victim,
of some monstrous delusion which has worn the mask of truth.
If we look at what happened on the night of your birthday together,
we may end in understanding each other yet."
Her head dropped back on my shoulder. The tears gathered
in her eyes, and fell slowly over her cheeks. "Oh!" she said,
"have I never had that hope? Have I not tried to see it,
as you are trying now?"
"You have tried by yourself," I answered. "You have not tried with me
to help you."
Those words seemed to awaken in her something of the hope which I felt myself
when I uttered them. She replied to my questions with more than docility--
she exerted her intelligence; she willingly opened her whole mind to me.
"Let us begin," I said, "with what happened after we had wished
each other good night. Did you go to bed? or did you sit up?"
"I went to bed."
"Did you notice the time? Was it late?"
"Not very. About twelve o'clock, I think."
"Did you fall asleep?"
"No. I couldn't sleep that night."
"You were restless?"
"I was thinking of you."
The answer almost unmanned me. Something in the tone,
even more than in the words, went straight to my heart.
It was only after pausing a little first that I was able to
go on.
"Had you any light in your room?" I asked.
"None--until I got up again, and lit my candle."
"How long was that, after you had gone to bed?"
"About an hour after, I think. About one o'clock."
"Did you leave your bedroom?"
"I was going to leave it. I had put on my dressing-gown;
and I was going into my sitting-room to get a book----"
"Had you opened your bedroom door?"
"I had just opened it."
"But you had not gone into the sitting-room?"
"No--I was stopped from going into it."
"What stopped you?
"I saw a light, under the door; and I heard footsteps approaching it."
"Were you frightened?"
"Not then. I knew my poor mother was a bad sleeper;
and I remembered that she had tried hard, that evening,
to persuade me to let her take charge of my Diamond.
She was unreasonably anxious about it, as I thought;
and I fancied she was coming to me to see if I was in bed,
and to speak to me about the Diamond again, if she found that I
was up."
"What did you do?"
"I blew out my candle, so that she might think I was in bed.
I was unreasonable, on my side--I was determined to keep my Diamond
in the place of my own choosing."
"After blowing out the candle, did you go back to bed?"
"I had no time to go back. At the moment when I blew the candle out,
the sitting-room door opened, and I saw----"
"You saw?"
"You."
"Dressed as usual?"
"No."
"In my nightgown?"
"In your nightgown--with your bedroom candle in your hand."
"Alone?"
"Alone."
"Could you see my face?"
"Yes."
"Plainly?"
"Quite plainly. The candle in your hand showed it to me."
"Were my eyes open?"
"Yes."
"Did you notice anything strange in them? Anything like a fixed,
vacant expression?"
"Nothing of the sort. Your eyes were bright--brighter than usual.
You looked about in the room, as if you knew you were where you ought
not to be, and as if you were afraid of being found out."
"Did you observe one thing when I came into the room--
did you observe how I walked?"
"You walked as you always do. You came in as far as the middle of the room--
and then you stopped and looked about you."
"What did you do, on first seeing me?"
"I could do nothing. I was petrified. I couldn't speak,
I couldn't call out, I couldn't even move to shut my door."
"Could I see you, where you stood?"
"You might certainly have seen me. But you never looked towards me.
It's useless to ask the question. I am sure you never saw me."
"How are you sure?"
"Would you have taken the Diamond? would you have acted as you
did afterwards? would you be here now--if you had seen that I was
awake and looking at you? Don't make me talk of that part of it!
I want to answer you quietly. Help me to keep as calm as I can.
Go on to something else."
She was right--in every way, right. I went on to other things.
"What did I do, after I had got to the middle of the room,
and had stopped there?"
"You turned away, and went straight to the corner near the window--
where my Indian cabinet stands."
"When I was at the cabinet, my back must have been turned towards you.
How did you see what I was doing?"
"When you moved, I moved."
"So as to see what I was about with my hands?"
"There are three glasses in my sitting-room. As you stood there,
I saw all that you did, reflected in one of them."
"What did you see?"
"You put your candle on the top of the cabinet. You opened, and shut,
one drawer after another, until you came to the drawer in which I
had put my Diamond. You looked at the open drawer for a moment.
And then you put your hand in, and took the Diamond out."
"How do you know I took the Diamond out?"
"I saw your hand go into the drawer. And I saw the gleam of the stone
between your finger and thumb, when you took your hand out."
"Did my hand approach the drawer again--to close it, for instance?"
"No. You had the Diamond in your right hand; and you took the candle
from the top of the cabinet with your left hand."
"Did I look about me again, after that?"
"No."
"Did I leave the room immediately?"
"No. You stood quite still, for what seemed a long time.
I saw your face sideways in the glass. You looked like a
man thinking, and dissatisfied with his own thoughts."
"What happened next?"
"You roused yourself on a sudden, and you went straight out of the room."
"Did I close the door after me?"
"No. You passed out quickly into the passage, and left the door open."
"And then?"
"Then, your light disappeared, and the sound of your steps died away,
and I was left alone in the dark."
"Did nothing happen--from that time, to the time when the whole house
knew that the Diamond was lost?"
"Nothing."
"Are you sure of that? Might you not have been asleep a part of the time?"
"I never slept. I never went back to my bed. Nothing happened until
Penelope came in, at the usual time in the morning."
I dropped her hand, and rose, and took a turn in the room.
Every question that I could put had been answered.
Every detail that I could desire to know had been placed before me.
I had even reverted to the idea of sleep-walking, and the idea
of intoxication; and, again, the worthlessness of the one theory
and the other had been proved--on the authority, this time,
of the witness who had seen me. What was to be said next? what
was to be done next? There rose the horrible fact of the Theft--
the one visible, tangible object that confronted me, in the midst
of the impenetrable darkness which enveloped all besides!
Not a glimpse of light to guide me, when I had possessed
myself of Rosanna Spearman's secret at the Shivering Sand.
And not a glimpse of light now, when I had appealed to Rachel
herself, and had heard the hateful story of the night from her
own lips.
She was the first, this time, to break the silence.
"Well?" she said, "you have asked, and I have answered.
You have made me hope something from all this, because you hoped
something from it. What have you to say now?"
The tone in which she spoke warned me that my influence over her was a lost
influence once more.
"We were to look at what happened on my birthday night, together,"
she went an; "and we were then to understand each other. Have we done that?"
She waited pitilessly for my reply. In answering her I committed
a fatal error--I let the exasperating helplessness of my situation get
the better of my self-control. Rashly and uselessly, I reproached her
for the silence which had kept me until that moment in ignorance of the truth.
"If you had spoken when you ought to have spoken," I began;
"if you had done me the common justice to explain yourself----"
She broke in on me with a cry of fury. The few words I had said
seemed to have lashed her on the instant into a frenzy of rage.
"Explain myself!" she repeated. "Oh! is there another man
like this in the world? I spare him, when my heart is breaking;
I screen him when my own character is at stake; and HE--
of all human beings, HE--turns on me now, and tells me
that I ought to have explained myself! After believing
in him as I did, after loving him as I did, after thinking
of him by day, and dreaming of him by night--he wonders I
didn't charge him with his disgrace the first time we met:
"My heart's darling, you are a Thief! My hero whom I love
and honour, you have crept into my room under cover of the night,
and stolen my Diamond!" That is what I ought to have said.
You villain, you mean, mean, mean villain, I would have lost
fifty diamonds, rather than see your face lying to me, as I see it
lying now!"
I took up my hat. In mercy to HER--yes! I can honestly say it--
in mercy to HER, I turned away without a word, and opened the door
by which I had entered the room.
She followed, and snatched the door out of my hand; she closed it,
and pointed back to the place that I had left.
"No!" she said. "Not yet! It seems that I owe a justification
of my conduct to you. You shall stay and hear it. Or you shall
stoop to the lowest infamy of all, and force your way out."
It wrung my heart to see her; it wrung my heart to hear her.
I answered by a sign--it was all I could do--that I submitted
myself to her will.
The crimson flush of anger began to fade out of her face, as I went back,
and took my chair in silence. She waited a little, and steadied herself.
When she went on, but one sign of feeling was discernible in her.
She spoke without looking at me. Her hands were fast clasped in her lap,
and her eyes were fixed on the ground.
"I ought to have done you the common justice to explain myself," she said,
repeating my own words. "You shall see whether I did try to do you justice,
or not. I told you just now that I never slept, and never returned to my bed,
after you had left my sitting-room. It's useless to trouble you by dwelling
on what I thought--you would not understand my thoughts--I will only tell
you what I did, when time enough had passed to help me to recover myself.
I refrained from alarming the house, and telling everybody what had happened--
as I ought to have done. In spite of what I had seen, I was fond enough
of you to believe--no matter what!--any impossibility, rather than admit it to
my own mind that you were deliberately a thief. I thought and thought--and I
ended in writing to you."
"I never received the letter."
"I know you never received it. Wait a little, and you shall
hear why. My letter would have told you nothing openly.
It would not have ruined you for life, if it had fallen
into some other person's hands. It would only have said--
in a manner which you yourself could not possibly have mistaken--
that I had reason to know you were in debt, and that it
was in my experience and in my mother's experience of you,
that you were not very discreet, or very scrupulous about how
you got money when you wanted it. You would have remembered
the visit of the French lawyer, and you would have known what I
referred to. If you had read on with some interest after that,
you would have come to an offer I had to make to you--
the offer, privately (not a word, mind, to be said openly
about it between us!), of the loan of as large a sum of money
as I could get.--And I would have got it!" she exclaimed,
her colour beginning to rise again, and her eyes looking up
at me once more. "I would have pledged the Diamond myself,
if I could have got the money in no other way!
In those words I wrote to you. Wait! I did more than that.
I arranged with Penelope to give you the letter when nobody
was near. I planned to shut myself into my bedroom, and to
have the sitting-room left open and empty all the morning.
And I hoped--with all my heart and soul I hoped!--that you would
take the opportunity, and put the Diamond back secretly in
the drawer."
I attempted to speak. She lifted her hand impatiently, and stopped me.
In the rapid alternations of her temper, her anger was beginning to
rise again. She got up from her chair, and approached me.
"I know what you are going to say," she went on. "You are
going to remind me again that you never received my letter.
I can tell you why. I tore it up.
"For what reason?" I asked.
"For the best of reasons. I preferred tearing it up to throwing it
away upon such a man as you! What was the first news that reached me
in the morning? Just as my little plan was complete, what did I hear?
I heard that you--you!!!--were the foremost person in the house
in fetching the police. You were the active man; you were the leader;
you were working harder than any of them to recover the jewel!
You even carried your audacity far enough to ask to speak to ME
about the loss of the Diamond--the Diamond which you yourself
had stolen; the Diamond which was all the time in your own hands!
After that proof of your horrible falseness and cunning, I tore up
my letter. But even then--even when I was maddened by the searching
and questioning of the policeman, whom you had sent in--even then,
there was some infatuation in my mind which wouldn't let me give you up.
I said to myself, "He has played his vile farce before everybody
else in the house. Let me try if he can play it before me."
Somebody told me you were on the terrace. I went down to the terrace.
I forced myself to look at you; I forced myself to speak to you. Have you
forgotten what I said?"
I might have answered that I remembered every word of it.
But what purpose, at that moment, would the answer have served?
How could I tell her that what she had said had astonished me,
had distressed me, had suggested to me that she was in a state
of dangerous nervous excitement, had even roused a moment's
doubt in my mind whether the loss of the jewel was as much
a mystery to her as to the rest of us--but had never once given
me so much as a glimpse at the truth? Without the shadow
of a proof to produce in vindication of my innocence, how could
I persuade her that I knew no more than the veriest stranger
could have known of what was really in her thoughts when she
spoke to me on the terrace?
"It may suit your convenience to forget; it suits my convenience to remember,"
she went on. "I know what I said--for I considered it with myself, before I
said it. I gave you one opportunity after another of owning the truth.
I left nothing unsaid that I COULD say--short of actually telling you that I
knew you had committed the theft. And all the return you made, was to look at
me with your vile pretence of astonishment, and your false face of innocence--
just as you have looked at me to-day; just as you are looking at me now!
I left you, that morning, knowing you at last for what you were--for what you
are--as base a wretch as ever walked the earth!"
"If you had spoken out at the time, you might have left me,
Rachel, knowing that you had cruelly wronged an innocent man."
"If I had spoken out before other people," she retorted, with another
burst of indignation, "you would have been disgraced for life!
If I had spoken out to no ears but yours, you would have denied it,
as you are denying it now! Do you think I should have believed you?
Would a man hesitate at a lie, who had done what I saw YOU do--
who had behaved about it afterwards, as I saw YOU behave?
I tell you again, I shrank from the horror of hearing you lie,
after the horror of seeing you thieve. You talk as if this
was a misunderstanding which a few words might have set right!
Well! the misunderstanding is at an end. Is the thing set right?
No! the thing is just where it was. I don't believe you NOW!
I don't believe you found the nightgown, I don't believe in
Rosanna Spearman's letter, I don't believe a word you have said.
You stole it--I saw you! You affected to help the police--I saw you!
You pledged the Diamond to the money-lender in London--I am sure of it!
You cast the suspicion of your disgrace (thanks to my base silence!)
on an innocent man! You fled to the Continent with your plunder
the next morning! After all that vileness, there was but one thing
more you COULD do. You could come here with a last falsehood
on your lips--you could come here, and tell me that I have wronged
you!"
If I had stayed a moment more, I know not what words might have escaped
me which I should have remembered with vain repentance and regret.
I passed by her, and opened the door for the second time.
For the second time--with the frantic perversity of a roused woman--
she caught me by the arm, and barred my way out.
"Let me go, Rachel" I said. "It will be better for both of us.
Let me go."
The hysterical passion swelled in her bosom--her quickened convulsive
breathing almost beat on my face, as she held me back at the door.
"Why did you come here?" she persisted, desperately. "I ask you again--
why did you come here? Are you afraid I shall expose you?
Now you are a rich man, now you have got a place in the world,
now you may marry the best lady in the land--are you afraid I shall
say the words which I have never said yet to anybody but you?
I can't say the words! I can't expose you! I am worse, if worse
can be, than you are yourself." Sobs and tears burst from her.
She struggled with them fiercely; she held me more and more firmly.
"I can't tear you out of my heart," she said, "even now!
You may trust in the shameful, shameful weakness which can only
struggle against you in this way!" She suddenly let go of me--
she threw up her hands, and wrung them frantically in the air.
"Any other woman living would shrink from the disgrace of touching him!"
she exclaimed. "Oh, God! I despise myself even more heartily than I
despise HIM!"
The tears were forcing their way into my eyes in spite of me--
the horror of it was to be endured no longer.
"You shall know that you have wronged me, yet," I said.
"Or you shall never see me again!"
With those words, I left her. She started up from the chair
on which she had dropped the moment before: she started up--
the noble creature!--and followed me across the outer room,
with a last merciful word at parting.
"Franklin!" she said, "I forgive you! Oh, Franklin, Franklin! we
shall never meet again. Say you forgive ME!"
I turned, so as to let my face show her that I was past speaking--
I turned, and waved my hand, and saw her dimly, as in a vision,
through the tears that had conquered me at last.
The next moment, the worst bitterness of it was over.
I was out in the garden again. I saw her, and heard her,
no more.
CHAPTER VIII
Late that evening, I was surprised at my lodgings by a visit from Mr. Bruff.
There was a noticeable change in the lawyer's manner.
It had lost its usual confidence and spirit. He shook hands
with me, for the first time in his life, in silence.
"Are you going back to Hampstead?" I asked, by way of saying something.
"I have just left Hampstead," he answered. "I know, Mr. Franklin,
that you have got at the truth at last. But, I tell you plainly,
if I could have foreseen the price that was to be paid for it,
I should have preferred leaving you in the dark."
"You have seen Rachel?"
"I have come here after taking her back to Portland Place;
it was impossible to let her return in the carriage by herself.
I can hardly hold you responsible--considering that you
saw her in my house and by my permission--for the shock
that this unlucky interview has inflicted on her. All I
can do is to provide against a repetition of the mischief.
She is young--she has a resolute spirit--she will get over this,
with time and rest to help her. I want to be assured that you
will do nothing to hinder her recovery. May I depend on your
making no second attempt to see her--except with my sanction
and approval?"
"After what she has suffered, and after what I have suffered,"
I said, "you may rely on me."
"I have your promise?"
"You have my promise."
Mr. Bruff looked relieved. He put down his hat, and drew his chair nearer
to mine.
"That's settled!" he said. "Now, about the future--your future, I mean.
To my mind, the result of the extraordinary turn which the matter has
now taken is briefly this. In the first place, we are sure that Rachel
has told you the whole truth, as plainly as words can tell it.
In the second place--though we know that there must be some dreadful
mistake somewhere--we can hardly blame her for believing you to be guilty,
on the evidence of her own senses; backed, as that evidence has been,
by circumstances which appear, on the face of them, to tell dead
against you."
There I interposed. "I don't blame Rachel," I said.
"I only regret that she could not prevail on herself to speak
more plainly to me at the time."
"You might as well regret that Rachel is not somebody else,"
rejoined Mr. Bruff. "And even then, I doubt if a girl
of any delicacy, whose heart had been set on marrying you,
could have brought herself to charge you to your face with being
a thief. Anyhow, it was not in Rachel's nature to do it.
In a very different matter to this matter of yours--
which placed her, however, in a position not altogether
unlike her position towards you--I happen to know that she
was influenced by a similar motive to the motive which actuated
her conduct in your case. Besides, as she told me herself,
on our way to town this evening, if she had spoken plainly,
she would no more have believed your denial then than she
believes it now. What answer can you make to that?
There is no answer to be made to it. Come, come, Mr. Franklin!
my view of the case has been proved to be all wrong,
I admit--but, as things are now, my advice may be worth having
for all that. I tell you plainly, we shall be wasting our time,
and cudgelling our brains to no purpose, if we attempt to try back,
and unravel this frightful complication from the beginning.
Let us close our minds resolutely to all that happened last year
at Lady Verinder's country house; and let us look to what we CAN
discover in the future, instead of to what we can NOT discover in
the past."
"Surely you forget," I said, "that the whole thing is essentially
a matter of the past--so far as I am concerned?"
"Answer me this," retorted Mr. Bruff. "Is the Moonstone at the bottom
of all the mischief--or is it not?"
"It is--of course."
"Very good. What do we believe was done with the Moonstone,
when it was taken to London?"
"It was pledged to Mr. Luker."
"We know that you are not the person who pledged it.
Do we know who did?"
"No."
"Where do we believe the Moonstone to be now?"
"Deposited in the keeping of Mr. Luker's bankers."
"Exactly. Now observe. We are already in the month of June.
Towards the end of the month (I can't be particular to a day)
a year will have elapsed from the time when we believe the jewel
to have been pledged. There is a chance--to say the least--
that the person who pawned it, may be prepared to redeem
it when the year's time has expired. If he redeems it,
Mr. Luker must himself--according to the terms of his
own arrangement--take the Diamond out of his banker's hands.
Under these circumstances, I propose setting a watch at the bank,
as the present month draws to an end, and discovering who the
person is to whom Mr. Luker restores the Moonstone. Do you see
it now?"
I admitted (a little unwillingly) that the idea was a new one,
at any rate.
"It's Mr. Murthwaite's idea quite as much as mine,"
said Mr. Bruff. "It might have never entered my head,
but for a conversation we had together some time since.
If Mr. Murthwaite is right, the Indians are likely to be on
the lookout at the bank, towards the end of the month too--
and something serious may come of it. What comes of it
doesn't matter to you and me except as it may help us to lay
our hands on the mysterious Somebody who pawned the Diamond.
That person, you may rely on it, is responsible (I don't
pretend to know how) for the position in which you stand
at this moment; and that person alone can set you right in
Rachel's estimation."
"I can't deny," I said, "that the plan you propose meets the difficulty
in a way that is very daring, and very ingenious, and very new. But----"
"But you have an objection to make?"
"Yes. My objection is, that your proposal obliges us to wait."
"Granted. As I reckon the time, it requires you to wait about a fortnight--
more or less. Is that so very long?"
"It's a life-time, Mr. Bruff, in such a situation as mine.
My existence will be simply unendurable to me, unless I do
something towards clearing my character at once."
"Well, well, I understand that. Have you thought yet of what you can do?"
"I have thought of consulting Sergeant Cuff."
"He has retired from the police. It's useless to expect the Sergeant
to help you."
"I know where to find him; and I can but try."
"Try," said Mr. Bruff, after a moment's consideration.
"The case has assumed such an extraordinary aspect since Sergeant
Cuff's time, that you may revive his interest in the inquiry.
Try, and let me hear the result. In the meanwhile,"
he continued, rising, "if you make no discoveries between this,
and the end of the month, am I free to try, on my side,
what can be done by keeping a lookout at the bank?"
"Certainly," I answered--"unless I relieve you of all necessity for trying
the experiment in the interval."
Mr. Bruff smiled, and took up his hat.
"Tell Sergeant Cuff," he rejoined, "that I say the discovery of the truth
depends on the discovery of the person who pawned the Diamond. And let me
hear what the Sergeant's experience says to that."
So we parted.
Early the next morning, I set forth for the little town of Dorking--
the place of Sergeant Cuff's retirement, as indicated to me
by Betteredge.
Inquiring at the hotel, I received the necessary directions
for finding the Sergeant's cottage. It was approached
by a quiet bye-road, a little way out of the town, and it
stood snugly in the middle of its own plot of garden ground,
protected by a good brick wall at the back and the sides,
and by a high quickset hedge in front. The gate, ornamented at
the upper part by smartly-painted trellis-work, was locked.
After ringing at the bell, I peered through the trellis-work,
and saw the great Cuff's favourite flower everywhere; blooming in
his garden, clustering over his door, looking in at his windows.
Far from the crimes and the mysteries of the great city,
the illustrious thief-taker was placidly living out the last Sybarite
years of his life, smothered in roses!
A decent elderly woman opened the gate to me, and at once annihilated
all the hopes I had built on securing the assistance of Sergeant Cuff.
He had started, only the day before, on a journey to Ireland.
"Has he gone there on business?" I asked.
The woman smiled. "He has only one business now, sir," she said;
"and that's roses. Some great man's gardener in Ireland has found
out something new in the growing of roses--and Mr. Cuff's away to
inquire into it."
"Do you know when he will be back?"
"It's quite uncertain, sir. Mr. Cuff said he should come back directly,
or be away some time, just according as he found the new discovery
worth nothing, or worth looking into. If you have any message to leave
for him, I'll take care, sir, that he gets it."
I gave her my card, having first written on it in pencil:
"I have something to say about the Moonstone. Let me hear
from you as soon as you get back." That done, there was
nothing left but to submit to circumstances, and return
to London.
In the irritable condition of my mind, at the time of which I am now writing,
the abortive result of my journey to the Sergeant's cottage simply aggravated
the restless impulse in me to be doing something. On the day of my return
from Dorking, I determined that the next morning should find me bent on
a new effort at forcing my way, through all obstacles, from the darkness
to the light.
What form was my next experiment to take?
If the excellent Betteredge had been present while I was considering
that question, and if he had been let into the secret of my thoughts,
he would, no doubt, have declared that the German side of me was,
on this occasion, my uppermost side. To speak seriously, it is perhaps
possible that my German training was in some degree responsible for
the labyrinth of useless speculations in which I now involved myself.
For the greater part of the night, I sat smoking, and building up theories,
one more profoundly improbable than another. When I did get to sleep,
my waking fancies pursued me in dreams. I rose the next morning,
with Objective-Subjective and Subjective-Objective inextricably entangled
together in my mind; and I began the day which was to witness my next effort
at practical action of some kind, by doubting whether I had any sort
of right (on purely philosophical grounds) to consider any sort of thing
(the Diamond included) as existing at all.
How long I might have remained lost in the mist of my own metaphysics,
if I had been left to extricate myself, it is impossible for me to say.
As the event proved, accident came to my rescue, and happily delivered me.
I happened to wear, that morning, the same coat which I had worn on the day
of my interview with Rachel. Searching for something else in one of
the pockets, I came upon a crumpled piece of paper, and, taking it out,
found Betteredge's forgotten letter in my hand.
It seemed hard on my good old friend to leave him without a reply.
I went to my writing-table, and read his letter again.
A letter which has nothing of the slightest importance in it,
is not always an easy letter to answer. Betteredge's present
effort at corresponding with me came within this category.
Mr. Candy's assistant, otherwise Ezra Jennings, had told
his master that he had seen me; and Mr. Candy, in his turn,
wanted to see me and say something to me, when I was next in
the neighbourhood of Frizinghall. What was to be said in answer
to that, which would be worth the paper it was written on?
I sat idly drawing likenesses from memory of Mr. Candy's
remarkable-looking assistant, on the sheet of paper which I
had vowed to dedicate to Betteredge--until it suddenly
occurred to me that here was the irrepressible Ezra Jennings
getting in my way again! I threw a dozen portraits, at least,
of the man with the piebald hair (the hair in every case,
remarkably like), into the waste-paper basket--and then
and there, wrote my answer to Betteredge. It was a perfectly
commonplace letter--but it had one excellent effect on me.
The effort of writing a few sentences, in plain English,
completely cleared my mind of the cloudy nonsense which had filled it
since the previous day.
Devoting myself once more to the elucidation of the impenetrable
puzzle which my own position presented to me, I now tried to meet
the difficulty by investigating it from a plainly practical point of view.
The events of the memorable night being still unintelligible to me,
I looked a little farther back, and searched my memory of the earlier
hours of the birthday for any incident which might prove of some
assistance to me in finding the clue.
Had anything happened while Rachel and I were finishing the painted
door? or, later, when I rode over to Frizinghall? or afterwards,
when I went back with Godfrey Ablewhite and his sisters? or,
later again, when I put the Moonstone into Rachel's hands? or,
later still, when the company came, and we all assembled round
the dinner-table? My memory disposed of that string of questions
readily enough, until I came to the last. Looking back at the social
event of the birthday dinner, I found myself brought to a standstill
at the outset of the inquiry. I was not even capable of accurately
remembering the number of the guests who had sat at the same table
with me.
To feel myself completely at fault here, and to conclude, thereupon,
that the incidents of the dinner might especially repay the trouble of
investigating them, formed parts of the same mental process, in my case.
I believe other people, in a similar situation, would have reasoned as I did.
When the pursuit of our own interests causes us to become objects of
inquiry to ourselves, we are naturally suspicious of what we don't know.
Once in possession of the names of the persons who had been present at
the dinner, I resolved--as a means of enriching the deficient resources
of my own memory--to appeal to the memory of the rest of the guests;
to write down all that they could recollect of the social events of
the birthday; and to test the result, thus obtained, by the light of what
had happened afterwards, when the company had left the house.
This last and newest of my many contemplated experiments in the art
of inquiry--which Betteredge would probably have attributed to the
clear-headed, or French, side of me being uppermost for the moment--
may fairly claim record here, on its own merits. Unlikely as it may seem,
I had now actually groped my way to the root of the matter at last.
All I wanted was a hint to guide me in the right direction at starting.
Before another day had passed over my head, that hint was given me by one of
the company who had been present at the birthday feast!
With the plan of proceeding which I now had in view, it was
first necessary to possess the complete list of the guests.
This I could easily obtain from Gabriel Betteredge.
I determined to go back to Yorkshire on that day, and to begin my
contemplated investigation the next morning.
It was just too late to start by the train which left London before noon.
There was no alternative but to wait, nearly three hours, for the departure of
the next train. Was there anything I could do in London, which might usefully
occupy this interval of time?
My thoughts went back again obstinately to the birthday dinner.
Though I had forgotten the numbers, and, in many cases,
the names of the guests, I remembered readily enough that by far
the larger proportion of them came from Frizinghall, or from
its neighbourhood. But the larger proportion was not all.
Some few of us were not regular residents in the country.
I myself was one of the few. Mr. Murthwaite was another.
Godfrey Ablewhite was a third. Mr. Bruff--no: I called to mind
that business had prevented Mr. Bruff from making one of the party.
Had any ladies been present, whose usual residence was in London?
I could only remember Miss Clack as coming within this
latter category. However, here were three of the guests,
at any rate, whom it was clearly advisable for me to see
before I left town. I drove off at once to Mr. Bruff's office;
not knowing the addresses of the persons of whom I was in search,
and thinking it probable that he might put me in the way of
finding them.
Mr. Bruff proved to be too busy to give me more than a minute of his
valuable time. In that minute, however, he contrived to dispose--
in the most discouraging manner--of all the questions I had to put
to him.
In the first place, he considered my newly-discovered method of finding a clue
to the mystery as something too purely fanciful to be seriously discussed.
In the second, third, and fourth places, Mr. Murthwaite was now on his way
back to the scene of his past adventures; Miss Clack had suffered losses,
and had settled, from motives of economy, in France; Mr. Godfrey
Ablewhite might, or might not, be discoverable somewhere in London.
Suppose I inquired at his club? And suppose I excused Mr. Bruff, if he went
back to his business and wished me good morning?
The field of inquiry in London, being now so narrowed as only to include
the one necessity of discovering Godfrey's address, I took the lawyer's hint,
and drove to his club.
In the hall, I met with one of the members, who was an old friend
of my cousin's, and who was also an acquaintance of my own.
This gentleman, after enlightening me on the subject of
Godfrey's address, told me of two recent events in his life,
which were of some importance in themselves, and which had not
previously reached my ears.
It appeared that Godfrey, far from being discouraged by Rachel's
withdrawal from her engagement to him had made matrimonial advances
soon afterwards to another young lady, reputed to be a great heiress.
His suit had prospered, and his marriage had been considered
as a settled and certain thing. But, here again, the engagement
had been suddenly and unexpectedly broken off--owing, it was said,
on this occasion, to a serious difference of opinion between the
bridegroom and the lady's father, on the question of settlements.
As some compensation for this second matrimonial disaster,
Godfrey had soon afterwards found himself the object of fond
pecuniary remembrance, on the part of one of his many admirers.
A rich old lady--highly respected at the Mothers'
Small-Clothes-Conversion-Society, and a great friend of
Miss Clack's (to whom she left nothing but a mourning ring)--
had bequeathed to the admirable and meritorious Godfrey
a legacy of five thousand pounds. After receiving this
handsome addition to his own modest pecuniary resources,
he had been heard to say that he felt the necessity
of getting a little respite from his charitable labours,
and that his doctor prescribed "a run on the Continent,
as likely to be productive of much future benefit to his health."
If I wanted to see him, it would be advisable to lose no time in
paying my contemplated visit.
I went, then and there, to pay my visit.
The same fatality which had made me just one day too late in calling
on Sergeant Cuff, made me again one day too late in calling on Godfrey.
He had left London, on the previous morning, by the tidal train,
for Dover. He was to cross to Ostend; and his servant believed he was
going on to Brussels. The time of his return was rather uncertain;
but I might be sure he would be away at least three months.
I went back to my lodgings a little depressed in spirits.
Three of the guests at the birthday dinner--and those three
all exceptionally intelligent people--were out of my reach,
at the very time when it was most important to be able to
communicate with them. My last hopes now rested on Betteredge,
and on the friends of the late Lady Verinder whom I might still
find living in the neighbourhood of Rachel's country house.
On this occasion, I travelled straight to Frizinghall--
the town being now the central point in my field of inquiry.
I arrived too late in the evening to be able to communicate
with Betteredge. The next morning, I sent a messenger
with a letter, requesting him to join me at the hotel, at his
earliest convenience.
Having taken the precaution--partly to save time, partly to
accommodate Betteredge--of sending my messenger in a fly,
I had a reasonable prospect, if no delays occurred,
of seeing the old man within less than two hours from
the time when I had sent for him. During this interval,
I arranged to employ myself in opening my contemplated inquiry,
among the guests present at the birthday dinner who were
personally known to me, and who were easily within my reach.
These were my relatives, the Ablewhites, and Mr. Candy.
The doctor had expressed a special wish to see me,
and the doctor lived in the next street. So to Mr. Candy I
went first.
After what Betteredge had told me, I naturally anticipated finding traces
in the doctor's face of the severe illness from which he had suffered.
But I was utterly unprepared for such a change as I saw in him when
he entered the room and shook hands with me. His eyes were dim; his hair
had turned completely grey; his face was wizen; his figure had shrunk.
I looked at the once lively, rattlepated, humorous little doctor--
associated in my remembrance with the perpetration of incorrigible
social indiscretions and innumerable boyish jokes--and I saw nothing
left of his former self, but the old tendency to vulgar smartness
in his dress. The man was a wreck; but his clothes and his jewellery--
in cruel mockery of the change in him--were as gay and as gaudy
as ever.
"I have often thought of you, Mr. Blake," he said; "and I am heartily
glad to see you again at last. If there is anything I can do for you,
pray command my services, sir--pray command my services!"
He said those few commonplace words with needless hurry and eagerness,
and with a curiosity to know what had brought me to Yorkshire,
which he was perfectly--I might say childishly--incapable of concealing
from notice.
With the object that I had in view, I had of course foreseen
the necessity of entering into some sort of personal explanation,
before I could hope to interest people, mostly strangers to me,
in doing their best to assist my inquiry. On the journey
to Frizinghall I had arranged what my explanation was to be--
and I seized the opportunity now offered to me of trying the effect
of it on Mr. Candy.
"I was in Yorkshire, the other day, and I am in Yorkshire again now,
on rather a romantic errand," I said. "It is a matter, Mr. Candy,
in which the late Lady Verinder's friends all took some interest.
You remember the mysterious loss of the Indian Diamond, now nearly
a year since? Circumstances have lately happened which lead
to the hope that it may yet be found--and I am interesting myself,
as one of the family, in recovering it. Among the obstacles
in my way, there is the necessity of collecting again all the
evidence which was discovered at the time, and more if possible.
There are peculiarities in this case which make it desirable
to revive my recollection of everything that happened in the house,
on the evening of Miss Verinder's birthday. And I venture to appeal
to her late mother's friends who were present on that occasion, to lend
me the assistance of their memories----"
I had got as far as that in rehearsing my explanatory phrases,
when I was suddenly checked by seeing plainly in Mr. Candy's
face that my experiment on him was a total failure.
The little doctor sat restlessly picking at the points of his fingers
all the time I was speaking. His dim watery eyes were fixed on my face
with an expression of vacant and wistful inquiry very painful to see.
What he was thinking of, it was impossible to divine. The one thing
clearly visible was that I had failed, after the first two or three words,
in fixing his attention. The only chance of recalling him to himself appeared
to lie in changing the subject. I tried a new topic immediately.
"So much," I said, gaily, "for what brings me to Frizinghall! Now, Mr. Candy,
it's your turn. You sent me a message by Gabriel Betteredge----"
He left off picking at his fingers, and suddenly brightened up.
"Yes! yes! yes!" he exclaimed eagerly. "That's it! I sent you a message!"
"And Betteredge duly communicated it by letter," I went on.
You had something to say to me, the next time I was in
your neighbourhood. Well, Mr. Candy, here I am!"
"Here you are!" echoed the doctor. "And Betteredge was quite right.
I had something to say to you. That was my message. Betteredge is a
wonderful man. What a memory! At his age, what a memory!"
He dropped back into silence, and began picking at his fingers again.
Recollecting what I had heard from Betteredge about the effect of the fever
on his memory, I went on with the conversation, in the hope that I
might help him at starting.
"It's a long time since we met, I said. "We last saw each other
at the last birthday dinner my poor aunt was ever to give."
"That's it!" cried Mr. Candy. "The birthday dinner!"
He started impulsively to his feet, and looked at me.
A deep flush suddenly overspread his faded face, and he
abruptly sat down again, as if conscious of having betrayed
a weakness which he would fain have concealed. It was plain,
pitiably plain, that he was aware of his own defect of memory,
and that he was bent on hiding it from the observation of
his friends.
Thus far he had appealed to my compassion only. But the words
he had just said--few as they were--roused my curiosity
instantly to the highest pitch. The birthday dinner had
already become the one event in the past, at which I looked
back with strangely-mixed feelings of hope and distrust.
And here was the birthday dinner unmistakably proclaiming itself
as the subject on which Mr. Candy had something important
to say to me!
I attempted to help him out once more. But, this time,
my own interests were at the bottom of my compassionate motive,
and they hurried me on a little too abruptly, to the end I had
in view.
"It's nearly a year now," I said, "since we sat at that pleasant table.
Have you made any memorandum--in your diary, or otherwise--of what you wanted
to say to me?"
Mr. Candy understood the suggestion, and showed me that he understood it,
as an insult.
"I require no memorandum, Mr. Blake," he said, stiffly enough.
"I am not such a very old man, yet--and my memory (thank God)
is to be thoroughly depended on!"
It is needless to say that I declined to understand that he was offended
with me.
"I wish I could say the same of my memory," I answered.
"When I try to think of matters that are a year old, I seldom
find my remembrance as vivid as I could wish it to be.
Take the dinner at Lady Verinder's, for instance----"
Mr. Candy brightened up again, the moment the allusion passed my lips.
"Ah! the dinner, the dinner at Lady Verinder's!" he exclaimed,
more eagerly than ever. "I have got something to say to you
about that."
His eyes looked at me again with the painful expression of inquiry,
so wistful, so vacant, so miserably helpless to see. He was evidently
trying hard, and trying in vain, to recover the lost recollection.
"It was a very pleasant dinner," he burst out suddenly, with an air
of saying exactly what he wanted to say. "A very pleasant dinner,
Mr. Blake, wasn't it?" He nodded and smiled, and appeared to think,
poor fellow, that he had succeeded in concealing the total failure
of his memory, by a well-timed exertion of his own presence
of mind.
It was so distressing that I at once shifted the talk--
deeply as I was interested in his recovering the lost remembrance--
to topics of local interest.
Here, he got on glibly enough. Trumpery little scandals
and quarrels in the town, some of them as much as a month old,
appeared to recur to his memory readily. He chattered on,
with something of the smooth gossiping fluency of former times.
But there were moments, even in the full flow of his talkativeness,
when he suddenly hesitated--looked at me for a moment with the vacant
inquiry once more in his eyes--controlled himself--and went on again.
I submitted patiently to my martyrdom (it is surely nothing
less than martyrdom to a man of cosmopolitan sympathies,
to absorb in silent resignation the news of a country town?)
until the clock on the chimney-piece told me that my visit
had been prolonged beyond half an hour. Having now some right
to consider the sacrifice as complete, I rose to take leave.
As we shook hands, Mr. Candy reverted to the birthday festival of his
own accord.
"I am so glad we have met again," he said. "I had it on my mind--
I really had it on my mind, Mr. Blake, to speak to you.
About the dinner at Lady Verinder's, you know? A pleasant dinner--
really a pleasant dinner now, wasn't it?"
On repeating the phrase, he seemed to feel hardly as certain
of having prevented me from suspecting his lapse of memory,
as he had felt on the first occasion. The wistful look clouded
his face again: and, after apparently designing to accompany me
to the street door, he suddenly changed his mind, rang the bell
for the servant, and remained in the drawing-room.
I went slowly down the doctor's stairs, feeling the disheartening
conviction that he really had something to say which it was vitally
important to me to hear, and that he was morally incapable of saying it.
The effort of remembering that he wanted to speak to me was,
but too evidently, the only effort that his enfeebled memory was now
able to achieve.
Just as I reached the bottom of the stairs, and had turned a corner on
my way to the outer hall, a door opened softly somewhere on the ground
floor of the house, and a gentle voice said behind me:--
"I am afraid, sir, you find Mr. Candy sadly changed?"
I turned round, and found myself face to face with Ezra Jennings.
CHAPTER IX
The doctor's pretty housemaid stood waiting for me, with the street
door open in her hand. Pouring brightly into the hall, the morning
light fell full on the face of Mr. Candy's assistant when I turned,
and looked at him.
It was impossible to dispute Betteredge's assertion that the appearance
of Ezra Jennings, speaking from a popular point of view, was against him.
His gipsy-complexion, his fleshless cheeks, his gaunt facial bones,
his dreamy eyes, his extraordinary parti-coloured hair, the puzzling
contradiction between his face and figure which made him look old
and young both together--were all more or less calculated to produce
an unfavourable impression of him on a stranger's mind. And yet--
feeling this as I certainly did--it is not to be denied that Ezra
Jennings made some inscrutable appeal to my sympathies, which I found it
impossible to resist. While my knowledge of the world warned me to answer
the question which he had put, acknowledging that I did indeed find
Mr. Candy sadly changed, and then to proceed on my way out of the house--
my interest in Ezra Jennings held me rooted to the place, and gave
him the opportunity of speaking to me in private about his employer,
for which he had been evidently on the watch.
"Are you walking my way, Mr. Jennings?" I said, observing that he held
his hat in his hand. "I am going to call on my aunt, Mrs. Ablewhite."
Ezra Jennings replied that he had a patient to see, and that he was walking
my way.
We left the house together. I observed that the pretty servant girl--
who was all smiles and amiability, when I wished her good morning
on my way out--received a modest little message from Ezra Jennings,
relating to the time at which he might be expected to return,
with pursed-up lips, and with eyes which ostentatiously looked
anywhere rather than look in his face. The poor wretch was evidently
no favourite in the house. Out of the house, I had Betteredge's
word for it that he was unpopular everywhere. "What a life!"
I thought to myself, as we descended the doctor's doorsteps.
Having already referred to Mr. Candy's illness on his side, Ezra Jennings
now appeared determined to leave it to me to resume the subject.
His silence said significantly, "It's your turn now." I, too, had my
reasons for referring to the doctor's illness: and I readily accepted
the responsibility of speaking first.
"Judging by the change I see in him," I began, "Mr. Candy's
illness must have been far more serious that I had supposed?"
"It is almost a miracle," said Ezra Jennings, "that he lived through it."
"Is his memory never any better than I have found it to-day?
He has been trying to speak to me----"
"Of something which happened before he was taken ill?" asked the assistant,
observing that I hesitated.
"Yes."
"His memory of events, at that past time, is hopelessly enfeebled,"
said Ezra Jennings. "It is almost to be deplored, poor fellow,
that even the wreck of it remains. While he remembers dimly
plans that he formed--things, here and there, that he had to say
or do before his illness--he is perfectly incapable of recalling
what the plans were, or what the thing was that he had to say or do.
He is painfully conscious of his own deficiency, and painfully anxious,
as you must have seen, to hide it from observation. If he could
only have recovered in a complete state of oblivion as to the past,
he would have been a happier man. Perhaps we should all be happier,"
he added, with a sad smile, "if we could but completely forget!"
"There are some events surely in all men's lives," I replied,
"the memory of which they would be unwilling entirely to lose?"
"That is, I hope, to be said of most men, Mr. Blake. I am afraid
it cannot truly be said of ALL. Have you any reason to suppose
that the lost remembrance which Mr. Candy tried to recover--
while you were speaking to him just now--was a remembrance which it
was important to YOU that he should recall?"
In saying those words, he had touched, of his own accord,
on the very point upon which I was anxious to consult him.
The interest I felt in this strange man had impelled me,
in the first instance, to give him the opportunity of speaking
to me; reserving what I might have to say, on my side,
in relation to his employer, until I was first satisfied that
he was a person in whose delicacy and discretion I could trust.
The little that he had said, thus far, had been sufficient
to convince me that I was speaking to a gentleman.
He had what I may venture to describe as the UNSOUGHT
SELF-POSSESSION, which is a sure sign of good breeding,
not in England only, but everywhere else in the civilised world.
Whatever the object which he had in view, in putting
the question that he had just addressed to me, I felt
no doubt that I was justified--so far--in answering him
without reserve.
"I believe I have a strong interest," I said, "in tracing
the lost remembrance which Mr. Candy was unable to recall.
May I ask whether you can suggest to me any method by which I
might assist his memory?"
Ezra Jennings looked at me, with a sudden flash of interest
in his dreamy brown eyes.
"Mr. Candy's memory is beyond the reach of assistance," he said.
"I have tried to help it often enough since his recovery, to be able
to speak positively on that point."
This disappointed me; and I owned it.
"I confess you led me to hope for a less discouraging answer than that,"
I said.
Ezra Jennings smiled. "It may not, perhaps, be a final answer, Mr. Blake.
It may be possible to trace Mr. Candy's lost recollection, without the
necessity of appealing to Mr. Candy himself."
"Indeed? Is it an indiscretion, on my part, to ask how?"
"By no means. My only difficulty in answering your question,
is the difficulty of explaining myself. May I trust to
your patience, if I refer once more to Mr. Candy's illness:
and if I speak of it this time without sparing you certain
professional details?"
"Pray go on! You have interested me already in hearing the details."
My eagerness seemed to amuse--perhaps, I might rather say, to please him.
He smiled again. We had by this time left the last houses in the town
behind us. Ezra Jennings stopped for a moment, and picked some wild
flowers from the hedge by the roadside. "How beautiful they are!"
he said, simply, showing his little nosegay to me. "And how few people in
England seem to admire them as they deserve!"
"You have not always been in England?" I said.
"No. I was born, and partly brought up, in one of our colonies.
My father was an Englishman; but my mother----
We are straying away from our subject, Mr. Blake; and
it is my fault. The truth is, I have associations with these modest little
hedgeside flowers----" It doesn't matter; we were speaking of Mr. Candy.
To Mr. Candy let us return."
Connecting the few words about himself which thus reluctantly
escaped him, with the melancholy view of life which led him to place
the conditions of human happiness in complete oblivion of the past,
I felt satisfied that the story which I had read in his face was,
in two particulars at least, the story that it really told.
He had suffered as few men suffer; and there was the mixture of some
foreign race in his English blood.
"You have heard, I dare say, of the original cause of Mr. Candy's illness?"
he resumed. "The night of Lady Verinder's dinner-party was a night
of heavy rain. My employer drove home through it in his gig,
and reached the house wetted to the skin. He found an urgent message
from a patient, waiting for him; and he most unfortunately went at once
to visit the sick person, without stopping to change his clothes.
I was myself professionally detained, that night, by a case at some
distance from Frizinghall. When I got back the next morning, I found
Mr. Candy's groom waiting in great alarm to take me to his master's room.
By that time the mischief was done; the illness had set in."
"The illness has only been described to me, in general terms, as a fever,"
I said.
"I can add nothing which will make the description more accurate,"
answered Ezra Jennings. "From first to last the fever assumed
no specific form. I sent at once to two of Mr. Candy's medical
friends in the town, both physicians, to come and give me their
opinion of the case. They agreed with me that it looked serious;
but they both strongly dissented from the view I took of the treatment.
We differed entirely in the conclusions which we drew from
the patient's pulse. The two doctors, arguing from the rapidity
of the beat, declared that a lowering treatment was the only treatment
to be adopted. On my side, I admitted the rapidity of the pulse,
but I also pointed to its alarming feebleness as indicating
an exhausted condition of the system, and as showing a plain
necessity for the administration of stimulants. The two doctors
were for keeping him on gruel, lemonade, barley-water, and so on.
I was for giving him champagne, or brandy, ammonia, and quinine.
A serious difference of opinion, as you see! a difference between
two physicians of established local repute, and a stranger
who was only an assistant in the house. For the first few days,
I had no choice but to give way to my elders and betters;
the patient steadily sinking all the time. I made a second attempt
to appeal to the plain, undeniably plain, evidence of the pulse.
Its rapidity was unchecked, and its feebleness had increased.
The two doctors took offence at my obstinacy. They said,
"Mr. Jennings, either we manage this case, or you manage it.
Which is it to be?" I said, "Gentlemen, give me five minutes
to consider, and that plain question shall have a plain reply."
When the time expired, I was ready with my answer. I said,
"You positively refuse to try the stimulant treatment?"
They refused in so many words. "I mean to try it at once,
gentlemen."--"Try it, Mr. Jennings, and we withdraw from the case."
I sent down to the cellar for a bottle of champagne; and I administered
half a tumbler-full of it to the patient with my own hand.
The two physicians took up their hats in silence, and left the
house."
"You had assumed a serious responsibility," I said. In your place,
I am afraid I should have shrunk from it."
"In my place, Mr. Blake, you would have remembered that Mr. Candy
had taken you into his employment, under circumstances which made you
his debtor for life. In my place, you would have seen him sinking,
hour by hour; and you would have risked anything, rather than let
the one man on earth who had befriended you, die before your eyes.
Don't suppose that I had no sense of the terrible position in which I
had placed myself! There were moments when I felt all the misery
of my friendlessness, all the peril of my dreadful responsibility.
If I had been a happy man, if I had led a prosperous life,
I believe I should have sunk under the task I had imposed on myself.
But I had no happy time to look back at, no past peace of mind
to force itself into contrast with my present anxiety and suspense--
and I held firm to my resolution through it all. I took an interval
in the middle of the day, when my patient's condition was at its best,
for the repose I needed. For the rest of the four-and-twenty hours,
as long as his life was in danger, I never left his bedside.
Towards sunset, as usual in such cases, the delirium incidental
to the fever came on. It lasted more or less through the night;
and then intermitted, at that terrible time in the early morning--
from two o'clock to five--when the vital energies even of the healthiest
of us are at their lowest. It is then that Death gathers in his
human harvest most abundantly. It was then that Death and I fought
our fight over the bed, which should have the man who lay on it.
I never hesitated in pursuing the treatment on which I
had staked everything. When wine failed, I tried brandy.
When the other stimulants lost their influence, I doubled the dose.
After an interval of suspense--the like of which I hope to God
I shall never feel again--there came a day when the rapidity of
the pulse slightly, but appreciably, diminished; and, better still,
there came also a change in the beat--an unmistakable change
to steadiness and strength. THEN, I knew that I had saved him;
and then I own I broke down. I laid the poor fellow's wasted hand
back on the bed, and burst out crying. An hysterical relief,
Mr. Blake--nothing more! Physiology says, and says truly,
that some men are born with female constitutions--and I am one of
them!"
He made that bitterly professional apology for his tears,
speaking quietly and unaffectedly, as he had spoken throughout.
His tone and manner, from beginning to end, showed him to
be especially, almost morbidly, anxious not to set himself up
as an object of interest to me.
"You may well ask, why I have wearied you with all these details?"
he went on. "It is the only way I can see, Mr. Blake,
of properly introducing to you what I have to say next.
Now you know exactly what my position was, at the time
of Mr. Candy's illness, you will the more readily understand
the sore need I had of lightening the burden on my mind
by giving it, at intervals, some sort of relief. I have had
the presumption to occupy my leisure, for some years past,
in writing a book, addressed to the members of my profession--
a book on the intricate and delicate subject of the brain and
the nervous system. My work will probably never be finished;
and it will certainly never be published. It has none the less
been the friend of many lonely hours; and it helped me to while
away the anxious time--the time of waiting, and nothing else--
at Mr. Candy's bedside. I told you he was delirious,
I think? And I mentioned the time at which his delirium
came on?"
"Yes."
"Well, I had reached a section of my book, at that time,
which touched on this same question of delirium. I won't trouble
you at any length with my theory on the subject--I will confine
myself to telling you only what it is your present interest to know.
It has often occurred to me in the course of my medical practice,
to doubt whether we can justifiably infer--in cases of delirium--
that the loss of the faculty of speaking connectedly, implies of
necessity the loss of the faculty of thinking connectedly as well.
Poor Mr. Candy's illness gave me an opportunity of putting this
doubt to the test. I understand the art of writing in shorthand;
and I was able to take down the patient's "wanderings", exactly as they
fell from his lips.--Do you see, Mr. Blake, what I am coming to
at last?"
I saw it clearly, and waited with breathless interest to hear more.
"At odds and ends of time," Ezra Jennings went on, "I reproduced
my shorthand notes, in the ordinary form of writing--leaving large
spaces between the broken phrases, and even the single words,
as they had fallen disconnectedly from Mr. Candy's lips.
I then treated the result thus obtained, on something like the
principle which one adopts in putting together a child's 'puzzle.'
It is all confusion to begin with; but it may be all brought
into order and shape, if you can only find the right way.
Acting on this plan, I filled in each blank space on the paper,
with what the words or phrases on either side of it suggested
to me as the speaker's meaning; altering over and over again,
until my additions followed naturally on the spoken words
which came before them, and fitted naturally into the spoken
words which came after them. The result was, that I not
only occupied in this way many vacant and anxious hours,
but that I arrived at something which was (as it seemed to me)
a confirmation of the theory that I held. In plainer words,
after putting the broken sentences together I found the superior
faculty of thinking going on, more or less connectedly,
in my patient's mind, while the inferior faculty of
expression was in a state of almost complete incapacity
and confusion."
"One word!" I interposed eagerly. "Did my name occur in any
of his wanderings?"
"You shall hear, Mr. Blake. Among my written proofs of
the assertion which I have just advanced--or, I ought to say,
among the written experiments, tending to put my assertion
to the proof--there IS one, in which your name occurs.
For nearly the whole of one night, Mr. Candy's mind
was occupied with SOMETHING between himself and you.
I have got the broken words, as they dropped from his lips,
on one sheet of paper. And I have got the links of my own
discovering which connect those words together, on another
sheet of paper. The product (as the arithmeticians would say)
is an intelligible statement--first, of something actually done
in the past; secondly, of something which Mr. Candy contemplated
doing in the future, if his illness had not got in the way,
and stopped him. The question is whether this does, or does not,
represent the lost recollection which he vainly attempted to find
when you called on him this morning?"
"Not a doubt of it!" I answered. "Let us go back directly,
and look at the papers!"
"Quite impossible, Mr. Blake."
"Why?"
"Put yourself in my position for a moment," said Ezra Jennings.
"Would you disclose to another person what had dropped unconsciously
from the lips of your suffering patient and your helpless friend,
without first knowing that there was a necessity to justify you
in opening your lips?"
I felt that he was unanswerable, here; but I tried to argue
the question, nevertheless.
"My conduct in such a delicate matter as you describe," I replied,
"would depend greatly on whether the disclosure was of a nature
to compromise my friend or not."
"I have disposed of all necessity for considering that side of the question,
long since," said Ezra Jennings. "Wherever my notes included anything which
Mr. Candy might have wished to keep secret, those notes have been destroyed.
My manuscript experiments at my friend's bedside, include nothing, now,
which he would have hesitated to communicate to others, if he had recovered
the use of his memory. In your case, I have every reason to suppose that my
notes contain something which he actually wished to say to you
"And yet, you hesitate?"
"And yet, I hesitate. Remember the circumstances under which I
obtained the information which I possess! Harmless as it is,
I cannot prevail upon myself to give it up to you, unless you
first satisfy me that there is a reason for doing so.
He was so miserably ill, Mr. Blake! and he was so helplessly
dependent upon Me! Is it too much to ask, if I request you only
to hint to me what your interest is in the lost recollection--
or what you believe that lost recollection to be?"
To have answered him with the frankness which his language and his
manner both claimed from me, would have been to commit myself to openly
acknowledging that I was suspected of the theft of the Diamond.
Strongly as Ezra Jennings had intensified the first impulsive interest
which I had felt in him, he had not overcome my unconquerable
reluctance to disclose the degrading position in which I stood.
I took refuge once more in the explanatory phrases with which I had
prepared myself to meet the curiosity of strangers
This time I had no reason to complain of a want of attention
on the part of the person to whom I addressed myself.
Ezra Jennings listened patiently, even anxiously, until I
had done.
"I am sorry to have raised your expectations, Mr. Blake,
only to disappoint them," he said. "Throughout the whole
period of Mr. Candy's illness, from first to last, not one
word about the Diamond escaped his lips. The matter with
which I heard him connect your name has, I can assure you,
no discoverable relation whatever with the loss or the recovery
of Miss Verinder's jewel."
We arrived, as he said those words, at a place where the highway
along which we had been walking branched off into two roads.
One led to Mr. Ablewhite's house, and the other to a moorland
village some two or three miles off. Ezra Jennings stopped at
the road which led to the village.
"My way lies in this direction," he said. "I am really and truly sorry,
Mr. Blake, that I can be of no use to you."
His voice told me that he spoke sincerely. His soft brown eyes
rested on me for a moment with a look of melancholy interest.
He bowed, and went, without another word, on his way to
the village.
For a minute or more I stood and watched him, walking farther
and farther away from me; carrying farther and farther away with him
what I now firmly believed to be the clue of which I was in search.
He turned, after walking on a little way, and looked back.
Seeing me still standing at the place where we had parted, he stopped,
as if doubting whether I might not wish to speak to him again.
There was no time for me to reason out my own situation--
to remind myself that I was losing my opportunity, at what might
be the turning point of my life, and all to flatter nothing
more important than my own self-esteem! There was only time
to call him back first, and to think afterwards. I suspect I am
one of the rashest of existing men. I called him back--and then
I said to myself, "Now there is no help for it. I must tell him
the truth!"
He retraced his steps directly. I advanced along the road to meet him.
"Mr. Jennings," I said. "I have not treated you quite fairly.
My interest in tracing Mr. Candy's lost recollection is not
the interest of recovering the Moonstone. A serious personal
matter is at the bottom of my visit to Yorkshire. I have but one
excuse for not having dealt frankly with you in this matter.
It is more painful to me than I can say, to mention to anybody
what my position really is."
Ezra Jennings looked at me with the first appearance of embarrassment
which I had seen in him yet.
"I have no right, Mr. Blake, and no wish," he said, "to intrude myself into
your private affairs. Allow me to ask your pardon, on my side, for having
(most innocently) put you to a painful test."
"You have a perfect right," I rejoined, "to fix the terms on which you
feel justified in revealing what you heard at Mr. Candy's bedside.
I understand and respect the delicacy which influences you in this matter.
How can I expect to be taken into your confidence if I decline
to admit you into mine? You ought to know, and you shall know,
why I am interested in discovering what Mr. Candy wanted to say to me.
If I turn out to be mistaken in my anticipations, and if you prove unable
to help me when you are really aware of what I want, I shall trust to your
honour to keep my secret--and something tells me that I shall not trust
in vain."
"Stop, Mr. Blake. I have a word to say, which must be said
before you go any farther." I looked at him in astonishment.
The grip of some terrible emotion seemed to have seized him,
and shaken him to the soul. His gipsy complexion had altered
to a livid greyish paleness; his eyes had suddenly become
wild and glittering; his voice had dropped to a tone--
low, stern, and resolute--which I now heard for the first time.
The latent resources in the man, for good or for evil--
it was hard, at that moment, to say which--leapt up in him
and showed themselves to me, with the suddenness of a flash
of light.
"Before you place any confidence in me," he went on, "you ought to know,
and you MUST know, under what circumstances I have been received into
Mr. Candy's house. It won't take long. I don't profess, sir, to tell
my story (as the phrase is) to any man. My story will die with me.
All I ask, is to be permitted to tell you, what I have told Mr. Candy.
If you are still in the mind, when you have heard that, to say what you
have proposed to say, you will command my attention and command my services.
Shall we walk on?"
The suppressed misery in his face silenced me. I answered his question
by a sign. We walked on.
After advancing a few hundred yards, Ezra Jennings stopped at a gap
in the rough stone wall which shut off the moor from the road,
at this part of it.
"Do you mind resting a little, Mr. Blake?" he asked. "I am not what I was--
and some things shake me."
I agreed of course. He led the way through the gap to a patch of turf on
the heathy ground, screened by bushes and dwarf trees on the side nearest
to the road, and commanding in the opposite direction a grandly desolate
view over the broad brown wilderness of the moor. The clouds had gathered,
within the last half hour. The light was dull; the distance was dim.
The lovely face of Nature met us, soft and still colourless--met us without
a smile.
We sat down in silence. Ezra Jennings laid aside his hat,
and passed his hand wearily over his forehead, wearily through
his startling white and black hair. He tossed his little
nosegay of wild flowers away from him, as if the remembrances
which it recalled were remembrances which hurt him now.
"Mr. Blake!" he said, suddenly. "You are in bad company.
The cloud of a horrible accusation has rested on me for years.
I tell you the worst at once. I am a man whose life is a wreck,
and whose character is gone."
I attempted to speak. He stopped me.
"No," he said. "Pardon me; not yet. Don't commit yourself to
expressions of sympathy which you may afterwards wish to recall.
I have mentioned an accusation which has rested on me for years.
There are circumstances in connexion with it that tell against me.
I cannot bring myself to acknowledge what the accusation is.
And I am incapable, perfectly incapable, of proving my innocence.
I can only assert my innocence. I assert it, sir, on my oath,
as a Christian. It is useless to appeal to my honour as a man."
He paused again. I looked round at him. He never looked at me in return.
His whole being seemed to be absorbed in the agony of recollecting, and in
the effort to speak.
"There is much that I might say," he went on,
"about the merciless treatment of me by my own family,
and the merciless enmity to which I have fallen a victim.
But the harm is done; the wrong is beyond all remedy.
I decline to weary or distress you, sir, if I can help it.
At the outset of my career in this country, the vile slander
to which I have referred struck me down at once and for ever.
I resigned my aspirations in my profession--obscurity was
the only hope left for me. I parted with the woman I loved--
how could I condemn her to share my disgrace? A medical
assistant's place offered itself, in a remote corner of England.
I got the place. It promised me peace; it promised me obscurity,
as I thought. I was wrong. Evil report, with time and
chance to help it, travels patiently, and travels far.
The accusation from which I had fled followed me.
I got warning of its approach. I was able to leave my
situation voluntarily, with the testimonials that I had earned.
They got me another situation in another remote district.
Time passed again; and again the slander that was death to my
character found me out. On this occasion I had no warning.
My employer said, "Mr. Jennings, I have no complaint to make
against you; but you must set yourself right, or leave me."
I had but one choice--I left him. It's useless to dwell on
what I suffered after that. I am only forty years old now.
Look at my face, and let it tell for me the story of some
miserable years. It ended in my drifting to this place,
and meeting with Mr. Candy. He wanted an assistant.
I referred him, on the question of capacity, to my last employer.
The question of character remained. I told him what I have told you--
and more. I warned him that there were difficulties in the way,
even if he believed me. "Here, as elsewhere," I said "I
scorn the guilty evasion of living under an assumed name:
I am no safer at Frizinghall than at other places from
the cloud that follows me, go where I may." He answered,
"I don't do things by halves--I believe you, and I pity you.
If you will risk what may happen, I will risk it too."
God Almighty bless him! He has given me shelter,
he has given me employment, he has given me rest of mind--
and I have the certain conviction (I have had it for some
months past) that nothing will happen now to make him regret
it."
"The slander has died out?" I said.
"The slander is as active as ever. But when it follows me here,
it will come too late."
"You will have left the place?"
"No, Mr. Blake--I shall be dead. For ten years past I
have suffered from an incurable internal complaint. I don't
disguise from you that I should have let the agony of it kill
me long since, but for one last interest in life, which makes
my existence of some importance to me still. I want to provide
for a person--very dear to me--whom I shall never see again.
My own little patrimony is hardly sufficient to make her independent
of the world. The hope, if I could only live long enough,
of increasing it to a certain sum, has impelled me to resist
the disease by such palliative means as I could devise.
The one effectual palliative in my case, is--opium. To that
all-potent and all-merciful drug I am indebted for a respite
of many years from my sentence of death. But even the virtues
of opium have their limit. The progress of the disease has
gradually forced me from the use of opium to the abuse of it.
I am feeling the penalty at last. My nervous system is shattered;
my nights are nights of horror. The end is not far off now.
Let it come--I have not lived and worked in vain. The little
sum is nearly made up; and I have the means of completing it,
if my last reserves of life fail me sooner than I expect.
I hardly know how I have wandered into telling you this.
I don't think I am mean enough to appeal to your pity.
Perhaps, I fancy you may be all the readier to believe me,
if you know that what I have said to you, I have said
with the certain knowledge in me that I am a dying man.
There is no disguising, Mr. Blake, that you interest me.
I have attempted to make my poor friend's loss of memory
the means of bettering my acquaintance with you. I have
speculated on the chance of your feeling a passing curiosity
about what he wanted to say, and of my being able to satisfy it.
Is there no excuse for my intruding myself on you?
Perhaps there is some excuse. A man who has lived as I have lived
has his bitter moments when he ponders over human destiny.
You have youth, health, riches, a place in the world, a prospect
before you. You, and such as you, show me the sunny side of
human life, and reconcile me with the world that I am leaving,
before I go. However this talk between us may end, I shall not
forget that you have done me a kindness in doing that. It rests
with you, sir, to say what you proposed saying, or to wish me good
morning."
I had but one answer to make to that appeal. Without a moment's hesitation
I told him the truth, as unreservedly as I have told it in these pages.
He started to his feet, and looked at me with breathless eagerness
as I approached the leading incident of my story.
"It is certain that I went into the room," I said; "it is certain that I
took the Diamond. I can only meet those two plain facts by declaring that,
do what I might, I did it without my own knowledge----"
Ezra Jennings caught me excitedly by the arm.
"Stop!" he said. "You have suggested more to me than you suppose.
Have you ever been accustomed to the use of opium?"
"I never tasted it in my life."
"Were your nerves out of order, at this time last year?
Were you unusually restless and irritable?"
"Yes."
"Did you sleep badly?"
"Wretchedly. Many nights I never slept at all."
"Was the birthday night an exception? Try, and remember.
Did you sleep well on that one occasion?"
"I do remember! I slept soundly."
He dropped my arm as suddenly as he had taken it--and looked at me
with the air of a man whose mind was relieved of the last doubt
that rested on it.
"This is a marked day in your life, and in mine," he said, gravely. "I am
absolutely certain, Mr. Blake, of one thing--I have got what Mr. Candy wanted
to say to you this morning, in the notes that I took at my patient's bedside.
Wait! that is not all. I am firmly persuaded that I can prove you to have
been unconscious of what you were about, when you entered the room and took
the Diamond. Give me time to think, and time to question you. I believe
the vindication of your innocence is in my hands!"
"Explain yourself, for God's sake! What do you mean?"
In the excitement of our colloquy, we had walked on a few steps,
beyond the clump of dwarf trees which had hitherto screened us from view.
Before Ezra Jennings could answer me, he was hailed from the high road
by a man, in great agitation, who had been evidently on the look-out
for him.
"I am coming," he called back; "I am coming as fast as I can!"
He turned to me. "There is an urgent case waiting for me at
the village yonder; I ought to have been there half an hour since--
I must attend to it at once. Give me two hours from this time,
and call at Mr. Candy's again--and I will engage to be ready
for you."
"How am I to wait!" I exclaimed, impatiently. "Can't you quiet
my mind by a word of explanation before we part?"
"This is far too serious a matter to be explained in a hurry, Mr. Blake.
I am not wilfully trying your patience--I should only be adding
to your suspense, if I attempted to relieve it as things are now.
At Frizinghall, sir, in two hours' time!"
The man on the high road hailed him again. He hurried away,
and left me.
CHAPTER X
How the interval of suspense in which I was now condemned might
have affected other men in my position, I cannot pretend to say.
The influence of the two hours' probation upon my temperament was
simply this. I felt physically incapable of remaining still in any
one place, and morally incapable of speaking to any one human being,
until I had first heard all that Ezra Jennings had to say to me.
In this frame of mind, I not only abandoned my contemplated
visit to Mrs. Ablewhite--I even shrank from encountering
Gabriel Betteredge himself.
Returning to Frizinghall, I left a note for Betteredge,
telling him that I had been unexpectedly called away for a
few hours, but that he might certainly expect me to return
towards three o'clock in the afternoon. I requested him,
in the interval, to order his dinner at the usual hour,
and to amuse himself as he pleased. He had, as I well knew,
hosts of friends in Frizinghall; and he would be at no loss
how to fill up his time until I returned to the hotel.
This done, I made the best of my way out of the town again,
and roamed the lonely moorland country which surrounds Frizinghall,
until my watch told me that it was time, at last, to return
to Mr. Candy's house.
I found Ezra Jennings ready and waiting for me.
He was sitting alone in a bare little room, which communicated by a
glazed door with a surgery. Hideous coloured diagrams of the ravages
of hideous diseases decorated the barren buff-coloured walls.
A book-case filled with dingy medical works, and ornamented at the top
with a skull, in place of the customary bust; a large deal table
copiously splashed with ink; wooden chairs of the sort that are seen
in kitchens and cottages; a threadbare drugget in the middle of the floor;
a sink of water, with a basin and waste-pipe roughly let into the wall,
horribly suggestive of its connection with surgical operations--
comprised the entire furniture of the room. The bees were humming among
a few flowers placed in pots outside the window; the birds were singing
in the garden, and the faint intermittent jingle of a tuneless piano
in some neighbouring house forced itself now and again on the ear.
In any other place, these everyday sounds might have spoken pleasantly
of the everyday world outside. Here, they came in as intruders on a
silence which nothing but human suffering had the privilege to disturb.
I looked at the mahogany instrument case, and at the huge roll of lint,
occupying places of their own on the book-shelves, and shuddered inwardly
as I thought of the sounds, familiar and appropriate to the everyday use of
Ezra Jennings' room.
"I make no apology, Mr. Blake, for the place in which I am
receiving you," he said. "It is the only room in the house,
at this hour of the day, in which we can feel quite sure
of being left undisturbed. Here are my papers ready for you;
and here are two books to which we may have occasion to refer,
before we have done. Bring your chair to the table, and we
shall be able to consult them together."
I drew up to the table; and Ezra Jennings handed me his manuscript notes.
They consisted of two large folio leaves of paper. One leaf contained writing
which only covered the surface at intervals. The other presented writing,
in red and black ink, which completely filled the page from top to bottom.
In the irritated state of my curiosity, at that moment, I laid aside the
second sheet of paper in despair.
"Have some mercy on me!" I said. "Tell me what I am to expect,
before I attempt to read this."
"Willingly, Mr. Blake! Do you mind my asking you one or two more questions?"
"Ask me anything you like!"
He looked at me with the sad smile on his lips, and the kindly interest
in his soft brown eyes.
"You have already told me," he said, "that you have never--
to your knowledge--tasted opium in your life."
"To my knowledge," I repeated.
"You will understand directly why I speak with that reservation.
Let us go on. You are not aware of ever having taken opium.
At this time, last year, you were suffering from nervous irritation,
and you slept wretchedly at night. On the night of the birthday, however,
there was an exception to the rule--you slept soundly. Am I right,
so far?"
"Quite right!"
"Can you assign any cause for the nervous suffering, and your want of sleep?"
"I can assign no cause. Old Betteredge made a guess at the cause,
I remember. But that is hardly worth mentioning."
"Pardon me. Anything is worth mentioning in such a case as this.
Betteredge attributed your sleeplessness to something.
To what?"
"To my leaving off smoking."
"Had you been an habitual smoker?"
"Yes."
"Did you leave off the habit suddenly?"
"Yes."
"Betteredge was perfectly right, Mr. Blake. When smoking is
a habit a man must have no common constitution who can leave it
off suddenly without some temporary damage to his nervous system.
Your sleepless nights are accounted for, to my mind.
My next question refers to Mr. Candy. Do you remember
having entered into anything like a dispute with him--
at the birthday dinner, or afterwards--on the subject of
his profession?"
The question instantly awakened one of my dormant remembrances
in connection with the birthday festival. The foolish wrangle
which took place, on that occasion, between Mr. Candy and myself,
will be found described at much greater length than it
deserves in the tenth chapter of Betteredge's Narrative.
The details there presented of the dispute--so little had I
thought of it afterwards--entirely failed to recur to my memory.
All that I could now recall, and all that I could tell
Ezra Jennings was, that I had attacked the art of medicine
at the dinner-table with sufficient rashness and sufficient
pertinacity to put even Mr. Candy out of temper for the moment.
I also remembered that Lady Verinder had interfered to stop
the dispute, and that the little doctor and I had "made it up again,"
as the children say, and had become as good friends as ever,
before we shook hands that night.
"There is one thing more," said Ezra Jennings, "which it is very important
I should know. Had you any reason for feeling any special anxiety about
the Diamond, at this time last year?"
"I had the strongest reasons for feeling anxiety about the Diamond.
I knew it to be the object of a conspiracy; and I was warned
to take measures for Miss Verinder's protection, as the possessor
of the stone."
"Was the safety of the Diamond the subject of conversation
between you and any other person, immediately before you
retired to rest on the birthday night?"
"It was the subject of a conversation between Lady Verinder
and her daughter----"
"Which took place in your hearing?"
"Yes."
Ezra Jennings took up his notes from the table, and placed them in my hands.
"Mr. Blake," he said, "if you read those notes now, by the light
which my questions and your answers have thrown on them,
you will make two astounding discoveries concerning yourself.
You will find--First, that you entered Miss Verinder's
sitting-room and took the Diamond, in a state of trance,
produced by opium. Secondly, that the opium was given to you
by Mr. Candy--without your own knowledge--as a practical
refutation of the opinions which you had expressed to him at
the birthday dinner."
I sat with the papers in my hand completely stupefied.
"Try and forgive poor Mr. Candy," said the assistant gently.
"He has done dreadful mischief, I own; but he has done it innocently.
If you will look at the notes, you will see that--but for his illness--
he would have returned to Lady Verinder's the morning after the party,
and would have acknowledged the trick that he had played you.
Miss Verinder would have heard of it, and Miss Verinder would have
questioned him--and the truth which has laid hidden for a year would have
been discovered in a day."
I began to regain my self-possession. "Mr. Candy is beyond the reach
of my resentment," I said angrily. "But the trick that he played me
is not the less an act of treachery, for all that. I may forgive,
but I shall not forget it."
"Every medical man commits that act of treachery, Mr. Blake, in the
course of his practice. The ignorant distrust of opium (in England)
is by no means confined to the lower and less cultivated classes.
Every doctor in large practice finds himself, every now and then,
obliged to deceive his patients, as Mr. Candy deceived you.
I don't defend the folly of playing you a trick under the circumstances.
I only plead with you for a more accurate and more merciful construction
of motives."
"How was it done?" I asked. "Who gave me the laudanum,
without my knowing it myself?"
"I am not able to tell you. Nothing relating to that part of
the matter dropped from Mr. Candy's lips, all through his illness.
Perhaps your own memory may point to the person to be suspected."
"No."
"It is useless, in that case, to pursue the inquiry. The laudanum
was secretly given to you in some way. Let us leave it there,
and go on to matters of more immediate importance. Read my notes,
if you can. Familiarise your mind with what has happened in the past.
I have something very bold and very startling to propose to you,
which relates to the future."
Those last words roused me.
I looked at the papers, in the order in which Ezra Jennings
had placed them in my hands. The paper which contained
the smaller quantity of writing was the uppermost of the two.
On this, the disconnected words, and fragments of sentences,
which had dropped from Mr. Candy in his delirium, appeared
as follows:
"... Mr. Franklin Blake ... and agreeable ... down a peg ... medicine ...
confesses ... sleep at night ... tell him ... out of order ... medicine ...
he tells me ... and groping in the dark mean one and the same thing ...
all the company at the dinner-table ... I say ... groping after sleep ...
nothing but medicine ... he says ... leading the blind ... know what it means
... witty ... a night's rest in spite of his teeth ... wants sleep ... Lady
Verinder's medicine chest ... five-and-twenty minims ... without his knowing
it ... to-morrow morning ... Well, Mr. Blake ... medicine to-day ... never
... without it ... out, Mr. Candy ... excellent ... without it ... down on
him ... truth ... something besides ... excellent ... dose of laudanum,
sir ... bed ... what ... medicine now."
There, the first of the two sheets of paper came to an end.
I handed it back to Ezra Jennings.
"That is what you heard at his bedside?" I said.
"Literally and exactly what I heard," he answered--"except that
the repetitions are not transferred here from my short-hand notes.
He reiterated certain words and phrases a dozen times over,
fifty times over, just as he attached more or less importance
to the idea which they represented. The repetitions, in this sense,
were of some assistance to me in putting together those fragments.
Don't suppose," he added, pointing to the second sheet of paper, "that I
claim to have reproduced the expressions which Mr. Candy himself would
have used if he had been capable of speaking connectedly. I only say
that I have penetrated through the obstacle of the disconnected expression,
to the thought which was underlying it connectedly all the time.
Judge for yourself."
I turned to the second sheet of paper, which I now knew to be the key
to the first.
Once more, Mr. Candy's wanderings appeared, copied in black ink;
the intervals between the phrases being filled up by Ezra Jennings
in red ink. I reproduce the result here, in one plain form;
the original language and the interpretation of it coming close enough
together in these pages to be easily compared and verified.
"... Mr. Franklin Blake is clever and agreeable, but he wants
taking down a peg when he talks of medicine. He confesses
that he has been suffering from want of sleep at night.
I tell him that his nerves are out of order, and that he ought
to take medicine. He tells me that taking medicine and groping
in the dark mean one and the same thing. This before all
the company at the dinner-table. I say to him, you are groping
after sleep, and nothing but medicine can help you to find it.
He says to me, I have heard of the blind leading the blind,
and now I know what it means. Witty--but I can give him
a night's rest in spite of his teeth. He really wants sleep;
and Lady Verinder's medicine chest is at my disposal.
Give him five-and-twenty minims of laudanum to-night, without his
knowing it; and then call to-morrow morning. 'Well, Mr. Blake,
will you try a little medicine to-day? You will never sleep without
it.'--'There you are out, Mr. Candy: I have had an excellent
night's rest without it.' Then, come down on him with the truth!
'You have had something besides an excellent night's rest;
you had a dose of laudanum, sir, before you went to bed. What do you
say to the art of medicine, now?'"
Admiration of the ingenuity which had woven this smooth and finished
texture out of the ravelled skein was naturally the first impression
that I felt, on handing the manuscript back to Ezra Jennings.
He modestly interrupted the first few words in which my sense
of surprise expressed itself, by asking me if the conclusion which
he had drawn from his notes was also the conclusion at which my own
mind had arrived.
"Do you believe as I believe," he said, "that you were acting
under the influence of the laudanum in doing all that you did,
on the night of Miss Verinder's birthday, in Lady Verinder's house?"
"I am too ignorant of the influence of laudanum to have an opinion of my own,"
I answered. "I can only follow your opinion, and feel convinced that you
are right."
"Very well. The next question is this. You are convinced;
and I am convinced--how are we to carry our conviction to the minds
of other people?"
I pointed to the two manuscripts, lying on the table between us.
Ezra Jennings shook his head.
"Useless, Mr. Blake! Quite useless, as they stand now for three
unanswerable reasons. In the first place, those notes have been
taken under circumstances entirely out of the experience of the mass
of mankind. Against them, to begin with! In the second place,
those notes represent a medical and metaphysical theory. Against them,
once more! In the third place, those notes are of my making;
there is nothing but my assertion to the contrary, to guarantee
that they are not fabrications. Remember what I told you on the moor--
and ask yourself what my assertion is worth. No! my notes have
but one value, looking to the verdict of the world outside.
Your innocence is to be vindicated; and they show how it can be done.
We must put our conviction to the proof--and You are the man to
prove it!"
"How?" I asked.
He leaned eagerly nearer to me across the table that divided us.
"Are you willing to try a bold experiment?"
"I will do anything to clear myself of the suspicion that rests on me now."
"Will you submit to some personal inconvenience for a time?"
"To any inconvenience, no matter what it may be."
"Will you be guided implicitly by my advice? It may expose you
to the ridicule of fools; it may subject you to the remonstrances
of friends whose opinions you are bound to respect
"Tell me what to do!" I broke out impatiently. "And, come what may,
I'll do it."
"You shall do this, Mr. Blake," he answered. "You shall steal
the Diamond, unconsciously, for the second time, in the presence
of witnesses whose testimony is beyond dispute."
I started to my feet. I tried to speak. I could only look at him.
"I believe it CAN be done," he went on. "And it shall be done--
if you will only help me. Try to compose yourself--sit down,
and hear what I have to say to you. You have resumed the habit
of smoking; I have seen that for myself. How long have you
resumed it."
"For nearly a year."
"Do you smoke more or less than you did?"
"More."
"Will you give up the habit again? Suddenly, mind!--as you gave
it up before."
I began dimly to see his drift. "I will give it up, from this moment,"
I answered.
"If the same consequences follow, which followed last June,"
said Ezra Jennings--"if you suffer once more as you suffered then,
from sleepless nights, we shall have gained our first step.
We shall have put you back again into something assimilating to your
nervous condition on the birthday night. If we can next revive,
or nearly revive, the domestic circumstances which surrounded you;
and if we can occupy your mind again with the various questions
concerning the Diamond which formerly agitated it, we shall
have replaced you, as nearly as possible in the same position,
physically and morally, in which the opium found you last year.
In that case we may fairly hope that a repetition of the dose will lead,
in a greater or lesser degree, to a repetition of the result.
There is my proposal, expressed in a few hasty words. You shall
now see what reasons I have to justify me in making it."
He turned to one of the books at his side, and opened it at a place marked
by a small slip of paper.
"Don't suppose that I am going to weary you with a lecture
on physiology," he said. "I think myself bound to prove,
in justice to both of us, that I am not asking you to try this
experiment in deference to any theory of my own devising.
Admitted principles, and recognised authorities, justify me
in the view that I take. Give me five minutes of your attention;
and I will undertake to show you that Science sanctions
my proposal, fanciful as it may seem. Here, in the first place,
is the physiological principle on which I am acting,
stated by no less a person than Dr. Carpenter. Read it
for yourself."
He handed me the slip of paper which had marked the place in the book.
It contained a few lines of writing, as follows:--
"There seems much ground for the belief, that every sensory impression
which has once been recognised by the perceptive consciousness, is registered
(so to speak) in the brain, and may be reproduced at some subsequent time,
although there may be no consciousness of its existence in the mind during
the whole intermediate period." "Is that plain, so far?" asked Ezra Jennings.
"Perfectly plain."
He pushed the open book across the table to me, and pointed to a passage,
marked by pencil lines.
"Now," he said, "read that account of a case, which has--as I believe--
a direct bearing on your own position, and on the experiment which I
am tempting you to try. Observe, Mr. Blake, before you begin, that I
am now referring you to one of the greatest of English physiologists.
The book in your hand is Doctor Elliotson's HUMAN PHYSIOLOGY;
and the case which the doctor cites rests on the well-known authority of
Mr. Combe."
The passage pointed out to me was expressed in these terms :--
"Dr. Abel informed me," says Mr. Combe, "of an Irish porter to a warehouse,
who forgot, when sober, what he had done when drunk; but, being drunk,
again recollected the transactions of his former state of intoxication.
On one occasion, being drunk, he had lost a parcel of some value, and in his
sober moments could give no account of it. Next time he was intoxicated,
he recollected that he had left the parcel at a certain house, and there being
no address on it, it had remained there safely, and was got on his calling
for it."
"Plain again?" asked Ezra Jennings.
"As plain as need be."
He put back the slip of paper in its place, and closed the book.
"Are you satisfied that I have not spoken without good authority to
support me?" he asked. "If not, I have only to go to those bookshelves,
and you have only to read the passages which I can point out to you."
"I am quite satisfied," I said, "without reading a word more."
"In that case, we may return to your own personal interest
in this matter. I am bound to tell you that there is something
to be said against the experiment as well as for it.
If we could, this year, exactly reproduce, in your case,
the conditions as they existed last year, it is physiologically
certain that we should arrive at exactly the same result.
But this--there is no denying it--is simply impossible.
We can only hope to approximate to the conditions;
and if we don't succeed in getting you nearly enough
back to what you were, this venture of ours will fail.
If we do succeed--and I am myself hopeful of success--you may
at least so far repeat your proceedings on the birthday night,
as to satisfy any reasonable person that you are guiltless,
morally speaking, of the theft of the Diamond. I believe,
Mr. Blake, I have now stated the question, on both sides of it,
as fairly as I can, within the limits that I have imposed
on myself. If there is anything that I have not made clear
to you, tell me what it is--and if I can enlighten you,
I will."
"All that you have explained to me," I said, "I understand perfectly.
But I own I am puzzled on one point, which you have not made clear to
me yet."
"What is the point?"
"I don't understand the effect of the laudanum on me.
I don't understand my walking down-stairs, and along corridors,
and my opening and shutting the drawers of a cabinet, and my going
back again to my own room. All these are active proceedings.
I thought the influence of opium was first to stupefy you, and then
to send you to sleep."
"The common error about opium, Mr. Blake! I am, at this moment,
exerting my intelligence (such as it is) in your service, under the
influence of a dose of laudanum, some ten times larger than the dose
Mr. Candy administered to you. But don't trust to my authority--
even on a question which comes within my own personal experience.
I anticipated the objection you have just made: and I have again
provided myself with independent testimony which will carry its due
weight with it in your own mind, and in the minds of your friends."
He handed me the second of the two books which he had by him on the table.
"There," he said, "are the far-famed CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH
OPIUM EATER! Take the book away with you, and read it.
At the passage which I have marked, you will find that when De
Quincey had committed what he calls "a debauch of opium,"
he either went to the gallery at the Opera to enjoy the music,
or he wandered about the London markets on Saturday night,
and interested himself in observing all the little shifts
and bargainings of the poor in providing their Sunday's dinner.
So much for the capacity of a man to occupy himself actively,
and to move about from place to place under the influence
of opium."
"I am answered so far," I said; "but I am not answered yet as to the effect
produced by the opium on myself."
"I will try to answer you in a few words," said Ezra Jennings.
"The action of opium is comprised, in the majority of cases,
in two influences--a stimulating influence first, and a sedative
influence afterwards. Under the stimulating influence,
the latest and most vivid impressions left on your mind--
namely, the impressions relating to the Diamond--
would be likely, in your morbidly sensitive nervous condition,
to become intensified in your brain, and would subordinate
to themselves your judgment and your will exactly as an ordinary
dream subordinates to itself your judgment and your will.
Little by little, under this action, any apprehensions about
the safety of the Diamond which you might have felt during
the day would be liable to develop themselves from the state
of doubt to the state of certainty--would impel you into
practical action to preserve the jewel--would direct your steps,
with that motive in view, into the room which you entered--
and would guide your hand to the drawers of the cabinet,
until you had found the drawer which held the stone.
In the spiritualised intoxication of opium, you would
do all that. Later, as the sedative action began to gain
on the stimulant action, you would slowly become inert
and stupefied. Later still you would fall into a deep sleep.
When the morning came, and the effect of the opium had
been all slept off, you would wake as absolutely ignorant
of what you had done in the night as if you had been living
at the Antipodes. Have I made it tolerably clear to you
so far?"
"You have made it so clear," I said, "that I want you to go farther.
You have shown me how I entered the room, and how I came to take the Diamond.
But Miss Verinder saw me leave the room again, with the jewel in my hand.
Can you trace my proceedings from that moment? Can you guess what I
did next?"
"That is the very point I was coming to," he rejoined.
"It is a question with me whether the experiment which I
propose as a means of vindicating your innocence, may not
also be made a means of recovering the lost Diamond as well.
When you left Miss Verinder's sitting-room, with the jewel
in your hand, you went back in all probability to your
own room----"
"Yes? and what then?"
"It is possible, Mr. Blake--I dare not say more--that your
idea of preserving the Diamond led, by a natural sequence,
to the idea of hiding the Diamond, and that the place
in which you hid it was somewhere in your bedroom.
In that event, the case of the Irish porter may be your case.
You may remember, under the influence of the second dose of opium,
the place in which you hid the Diamond under the influence of
the first."
It was my turn, now, to enlighten Ezra Jennings. I stopped him,
before he could say any more.
"You are speculating," I said, "on a result which cannot possibly take place.
The Diamond is, at this moment, in London."
He started, and looked at me in great surprise.
"In London?" he repeated. "How did it get to London from Lady
Verinder's house?"
"Nobody knows."
"You removed it with your own hand from Miss Verinder's room.
How was it taken out of your keeping?"
"I have no idea how it was taken out of my keeping."
"Did you see it, when you woke in the morning?"
"No."
"Has Miss Verinder recovered possession of it?"
"No."
"Mr. Blake! there seems to be something here which wants clearing up.
May I ask how you know that the Diamond is, at this moment,
in London?"
I had put precisely the same question to Mr. Bruff when I made
my first inquiries about the Moonstone, on my return to England.
In answering Ezra Jennings, I accordingly repeated what I had myself
heard from the lawyer's own lips--and what is already familiar to
the readers of these pages.
He showed plainly that he was not satisfied with my reply.
"With all deference to you," he said, "and with all deference to your
legal adviser, I maintain the opinion which I expressed just now.
It rests, I am well aware, on a mere assumption. Pardon me for
reminding you, that your opinion also rests on a mere assumption
as well."
The view he took of the matter was entirely new to me.
I waited anxiously to hear how he would defend it.
"I assume," pursued Ezra Jennings, "that the influence of the opium--
after impelling you to possess yourself of the Diamond,
with the purpose of securing its safety--might also impel you,
acting under the same influence and the same motive, to hide
it somewhere in your own room. YOU assume that the Hindoo
conspirators could by no possibility commit a mistake.
The Indians went to Mr. Luker's house after the Diamond--
and, therefore, in Mr. Luker's possession the Diamond must be!
Have you any evidence to prove that the Moonstone
was taken to London at all? You can't even guess how,
or by whom, it was removed from Lady Verinder's house!
Have you any evidence that the jewel was pledged to Mr. Luker?
He declares that he never heard of the Moonstone; and his bankers'
receipt acknowledges nothing but the deposit of a valuable
of great price. The Indians assume that Mr. Luker is lying--
and you assume again that the Indians are right. All I say,
in differing with you, is--that my view is possible.
What more, Mr. Blake, either logically, or legally, can be said
for yours?"
It was put strongly; but there was no denying that it was put truly as well.
"I confess you stagger me," I replied. "Do you object to my writing
to Mr. Bruff, and telling him what you have said?"
"On the contrary, I shall be glad if you will write to Mr. Bruff.
If we consult his experience, we may see the matter under a new light.
For the present, let us return to our experiment with the opium.
We have decided that you leave off the habit of smoking from
this moment."
"From this moment?"
"That is the first step. The next step is to reproduce, as nearly as we can,
the domestic circumstances which surrounded you last year."
How was this to be done? Lady Verinder was dead. Rachel and I,
so long as the suspicion of theft rested on me, were parted irrevocably.
Godfrey Ablewhite was away travelling on the Continent. It was simply
impossible to reassemble the people who had inhabited the house, when I
had slept in it last. The statement of this objection did not appear
to embarrass Ezra Jennings. He attached very little importance, he said,
to reassembling the same people--seeing that it would be vain to expect
them to reassume the various positions which they had occupied towards
me in the past times. On the other hand, he considered it essential to
the success of the experiment, that I should see the same objects about me
which had surrounded me when I was last in the house.
"Above all things," he said, "you must sleep in the room which you
slept in, on the birthday night, and it must be furnished in the same way.
The stairs, the corridors, and Miss Verinder's sitting-room,
must also be restored to what they were when you saw them last.
It is absolutely necessary, Mr. Blake, to replace every article
of furniture in that part of the house which may now be put away.
The sacrifice of your cigars will be useless, unless we can get Miss
Verinder's permission to do that."
"Who is to apply to her for permission?" I asked.
"Is it not possible for you to apply?"
"Quite out of the question. After what has passed between us
on the subject of the lost Diamond, I can neither see her,
nor write to her, as things are now."
Ezra Jennings paused, and considered for a moment.
"May I ask you a delicate question?" he said.
I signed to him to go on.
"Am I right, Mr. Blake, in fancying (from one or two things which have
dropped from you) that you felt no common interest in Miss Verinder,
in former times?"
"Quite right."
"Was the feeling returned?"
"It was."
"Do you think Miss Verinder would be likely to feel a strong interest
in the attempt to prove your innocence?"
"I am certain of it."
"In that case, I will write to Miss Verinder--if you will give me leave."
"Telling her of the proposal that you have made to me?"
"Telling her of everything that has passed between us to-day."
It is needless to say that I eagerly accepted the service
which he had offered to me.
"I shall have time to write by to-day's post," he said, looking at his watch.
"Don't forget to lock up your cigars, when you get back to the hotel!
I will call to-morrow morning and hear how you have passed the night."
I rose to take leave of him; and attempted to express the grateful
sense of his kindness which I really felt.
He pressed my hand gently. "Remember what I told you on the moor,"
he answered. "If I can do you this little service, Mr. Blake,
I shall feel it like a last gleam of sunshine, falling on the evening
of a long and clouded day."
We parted. It was then the fifteenth of June. The events
of the next ten days--every one of them more or less directly
connected with the experiment of which I was the passive object--
are all placed on record, exactly as they happened, in the Journal
habitually kept by Mr. Candy's assistant. In the pages of Ezra
Jennings nothing is concealed, and nothing is forgotten.
Let Ezra Jennings tell how the venture with the opium was tried,
and how it ended.
FOURTH NARRATIVE
Extracted from the Journal of EZRA JENNINGS
1849.--June 15.... With some interruption from patients, and some interruption
from pain, I finished my letter to Miss Verinder in time for to-day's post.
I failed to make it as short a letter as I could have wished. But I think I
have made it plain. It leaves her entirely mistress of her own decision.
If she consents to assist the experiment, she consents of her own free will,
and not as a favour to Mr. Franklin Blake or to me.
June 16th.--Rose late, after a dreadful night; the vengeance
of yesterday's opium, pursuing me through a series of
frightful dreams. At one time I was whirling through empty space
with the phantoms of the dead, friends and enemies together.
At another, the one beloved face which I shall never see again,
rose at my bedside, hideously phosphorescent in the black darkness,
and glared and grinned at me. A slight return of the old pain,
at the usual time in the early morning, was welcome as a change.
It dispelled the visions--and it was bearable because it
did that.
My bad night made it late in the morning, before I could get
to Mr. Franklin Blake. I found him stretched on the sofa,
breakfasting on brandy and soda-water, and a dry biscuit.
"I am beginning, as well as you could possibly wish," he said.
"A miserable, restless night; and a total failure of appetite
this morning. Exactly what happened last year, when I gave up
my cigars. The sooner I am ready for my second dose of laudanum,
the better I shall be pleased."
"You shall have it on the earliest possible day," I answered.
"In the meantime, we must be as careful of your health as we can.
If we allow you to become exhausted, we shall fail in that way.
You must get an appetite for your dinner. In other words, you must get
a ride or a walk this morning, in the fresh air."
"I will ride, if they can find me a horse here. By-the-by, I
wrote to Mr. Bruff, yesterday. Have you written to Miss Verinder?"
"Yes--by last night's post."
"Very good. We shall have some news worth hearing, to tell each
other to-morrow. Don't go yet! I have a word to say to you.
You appeared to think, yesterday, that our experiment with the opium
was not likely to be viewed very favourably by some of my friends.
You were quite right. I call old Gabriel Betteredge one of my friends;
and you will be amused to hear that he protested strongly when I saw
him yesterday. "You have done a wonderful number of foolish things
in the course of your life, Mr. Franklin, but this tops them all!"
There is Betteredge's opinion! You will make allowance for his prejudices,
I am sure, if you and he happen to meet?"
I left Mr. Blake, to go my rounds among my patients; feeling the better
and the happier even for the short interview that I had had with him.
What is the secret of the attraction that there is for me in this man?
Does it only mean that I feel the contrast between the frankly kind
manner in which he has allowed me to become acquainted with him,
and the merciless dislike and distrust with which I am met by other people?
Or is there really something in him which answers to the yearning that I have
for a little human sympathy--the yearning, which has survived the solitude
and persecution of many years; which seems to grow keener and keener,
as the time comes nearer and nearer when I shall endure and feel no more?
How useless to ask these questions! Mr. Blake has given me a new interest
in life. Let that be enough, without seeking to know what the new
interest is.
June 17th.--Before breakfast, this morning, Mr. Candy informed me that he was
going away for a fortnight, on a visit to a friend in the south of England.
He gave me as many special directions, poor fellow, about the patients, as if
he still had the large practice which he possessed before he was taken ill.
The practice is worth little enough now! Other doctors have superseded HIM;
and nobody who can help it will employ me.
It is perhaps fortunate that he is to be away just at this time.
He would have been mortified if I had not informed him
of the experiment which I am going to try with Mr. Blake.
And I hardly know what undesirable results might not have happened,
if I had taken him into my confidence. Better as it is.
Unquestionably, better as it is.
The post brought me Miss Verinder's answer, after Mr. Candy
had left the house.
A charming letter! It gives me the highest opinion of her.
There is no attempt to conceal the interest that she feels
in our proceedings. She tells me, in the prettiest manner,
that my letter has satisfied her of Mr. Blake's innocence,
without the slightest need (so far as she is concerned)
of putting my assertion to the proof. She even upbraids herself--
most undeservedly, poor thing!--for not having divined at
the time what the true solution of the mystery might really be.
The motive underlying all this proceeds evidently from something
more than a generous eagerness to make atonement for a wrong
which she has innocently inflicted on another person.
It is plain that she has loved him, throughout the estrangement
between them. In more than one place the rapture of discovering
that he has deserved to be loved, breaks its way innocently
through the stoutest formalities of pen and ink, and even
defies the stronger restraint still of writing to a stranger.
Is it possible (I ask myself, in reading this delightful letter)
that I, of all men in the world, am chosen to be the means of
bringing these two young people together again? My own happiness
has been trampled under foot; my own love has been torn from me.
Shall I live to see a happiness of others, which is of my making--
a love renewed, which is of my bringing back? Oh merciful Death,
let me see it before your arms enfold me, before your voice whispers
to me, "Rest at last!"
There are two requests contained in the letter.
One of them prevents me from showing it to Mr. Franklin Blake.
I am authorised to tell him that Miss Verinder willingly
consents to place her house at our disposal; and, that said,
I am desired to add no more.
So far, it is easy to comply with her wishes. But the second request
embarrasses me seriously.
Not content with having written to Mr. Betteredge, instructing him
to carry out whatever directions I may have to give, Miss Verinder
asks leave to assist me, by personally superintending the restoration
of her own sitting-room. She only waits a word of reply from me
to make the journey to Yorkshire, and to be present as one of
the witnesses on the night when the opium is tried for the second time.
Here, again, there is a motive under the surface; and, here again,
I fancy that I can find it out.
What she has forbidden me to tell Mr. Franklin Blake, she is
(as I interpret it) eager to tell him with her own lips, BEFORE he is
put to the test which is to vindicate his character in the eyes
of other people. I understand and admire this generous anxiety
to acquit him, without waiting until his innocence may, or may not,
be proved. It is the atonement that she is longing to make,
poor girl, after having innocently and inevitably wronged him.
But the thing cannot be done. I have no sort of doubt that
the agitation which a meeting between them would produce on
both sides--reviving dormant feelings, appealing to old memories,
awakening new hopes--would, in their effect on the mind of Mr. Blake,
be almost certainly fatal to the success of our experiment.
It is hard enough, as things are, to reproduce in him the conditions
as they existed, or nearly as they existed, last year. With new
interests and new emotions to agitate him, the attempt would be
simply useless.
And yet, knowing this, I cannot find it in my heart to disappoint her.
I must try if I can discover some new arrangement, before post-time, which
will allow me to say Yes to Miss Verinder, without damage to the service
which I have bound myself to render to Mr. Franklin Blake.
Two o'clock.--I have just returned from my round of medical visits;
having begun, of course, by calling at the hotel.
Mr. Blake's report of the night is the same as before.
He has had some intervals of broken sleep, and no more.
But he feels it less to-day, having slept after yesterday's dinner.
This after-dinner sleep is the result, no doubt, of the ride
which I advised him to take. I fear I shall have to curtail his
restorative exercise in the fresh air. He must not be too well;
he must not be too ill. It is a case (as a sailor would say)
of very fine steering.
He has not heard yet from Mr. Bruff. I found him eager to know
if I had received any answer from Miss Verinder.
I told him exactly what I was permitted to tell, and no more.
It was quite needless to invent excuses for not showing him the letter.
He told me bitterly enough, poor fellow, that he understood the delicacy
which disinclined me to produce it. "She consents, of course,
as a matter of common courtesy and common justice," he said.
"But she keeps her own opinion of me, and waits to see the result."
I was sorely tempted to hint that he was now wronging her as she had
wronged him. On reflection, I shrank from forestalling her in the double
luxury of surprising and forgiving him.
My visit was a very short one. After the experience of the other night,
I have been compelled once more to give up my dose of opium.
As a necessary result, the agony of the disease that is in me has got
the upper hand again. I felt the attack coming on, and left abruptly,
so as not to alarm or distress him. It only lasted a quarter of an hour
this time, and it left me strength enough to go on with my work.
Five o'clock.--I have written my reply to Miss Verinder.
The arrangement I have proposed reconciles the interests on both sides,
if she will only consent to it. After first stating the objections that
there are to a meeting between Mr. Blake and herself, before the experiment
is tried, I have suggested that she should so time her journey as to
arrive at the house privately, on the evening when we make the attempt.
Travelling by the afternoon train from London, she would delay her arrival
until nine o'clock. At that hour, I have undertaken to see Mr. Blake
safely into his bedchamber; and so to leave Miss Verinder free to occupy
her own rooms until the time comes for administering the laudanum.
When that has been done, there can be no objection to her watching the result,
with the rest of us. On the next morning, she shall show Mr. Blake
(if she likes) her correspondence with me, and shall satisfy him in that way
that he was acquitted in her estimation, before the question of his innocence
was put to the proof.
In that sense, I have written to her. This is all that I can do to-day.
To-morrow I must see Mr. Betteredge, and give the necessary directions
for reopening the house.
June 18th.--Late again, in calling on Mr. Franklin Blake.
More of that horrible pain in the early morning;
followed, this time, by complete prostration, for some hours.
I foresee, in spite of the penalties which it exacts from me,
that I shall have to return to the opium for the hundredth time.
If I had only myself to think of, I should prefer the sharp pains
to the frightful dreams. But the physical suffering exhausts me.
If I let myself sink, it may end in my becoming useless to Mr. Blake
at the time when he wants me most.
It was nearly one o'clock before I could get to the hotel to-day. The visit,
even in my shattered condition, proved to be a most amusing one--
thanks entirely to the presence on the scene of Gabriel Betteredge.
I found him in the room, when I went in. He withdrew to the window
and looked out, while I put my first customary question to my patient.
Mr. Blake had slept badly again, and he felt the loss of rest this morning
more than he had felt it yet.
I asked next if he had heard from Mr. Bruff.
A letter had reached him that morning. Mr. Bruff expressed
the strongest disapproval of the course which his friend
and client was taking under my advice. It was mischievous--
for it excited hopes that might never be realised.
It was quite unintelligible to HIS mind, except that it looked
like a piece of trickery, akin to the trickery of mesmerism,
clairvoyance, and the like. It unsettled Miss Verinder's house,
and it would end in unsettling Miss Verinder herself. He had put
the case (without mentioning names) to an eminent physician;
and the eminent physician had smiled, had shaken his head,
and had said--nothing. On these grounds, Mr. Bruff entered
his protest, and left it there.
My next inquiry related to the subject of the Diamond.
Had the lawyer produced any evidence to prove that the jewel was
in London?
No, the lawyer had simply declined to discuss the question.
He was himself satisfied that the Moonstone had been pledged
to Mr. Luker. His eminent absent friend, Mr. Murthwaite
(whose consummate knowledge of the Indian character no one
could deny), was satisfied also. Under these circumstances,
and with the many demands already made on him, he must decline
entering into any disputes on the subject of evidence.
Time would show; and Mr. Bruff was willing to wait
for time.
It was quite plain--even if Mr. Blake had not made it plainer still
by reporting the substance of the letter, instead of reading what was
actually written--that distrust of me was at the bottom of all this.
Having myself foreseen that result, I was neither mortified nor surprised.
I asked Mr. Blake if his friend's protest had shaken him. He answered
emphatically, that it had not produced the slightest effect on his mind.
I was free after that to dismiss Mr. Bruff from consideration--and I did
dismiss him accordingly.
A pause in the talk between us, followed--and Gabriel Betteredge
came out from his retirement at the window.
"Can you favour me with your attention, sir?" he inquired,
addressing himself to me.
"I am quite at your service," I answered.
Betteredge took a chair and seated himself at the table.
He produced a huge old-fashioned leather pocket-book, with a
pencil of dimensions to match. Having put on his spectacles,
he opened the pocket-book, at a blank page, and addressed himself
to me once more.
"I have lived," said Betteredge, looking at me sternly,
"nigh on fifty years in the service of my late lady.
I was page-boy before that, in the service of the old lord,
her father. I am now somewhere between seventy and eighty years
of age--never mind exactly where! I am reckoned to have got
as pretty a knowledge and experience of the world as most men.
And what does it all end in? It ends, Mr. Ezra Jennings,
in a conjuring trick being performed on Mr. Franklin Blake,
by a doctor's assistant with a bottle of laudanum--
and by the living jingo, I'm appointed, in my old age, to be
conjurer's boy!"
Mr. Blake burst out laughing. I attempted to speak.
Betteredge held up his hand, in token that he had not done yet.
"Not a word, Mr. Jennings!" he said, "It don't want a word, sir, from you.
I have got my principles, thank God. If an order comes to me, which is
own brother to an order come from Bedlam, it don't matter. So long
as I get it from my master or mistress, as the case may be, I obey it.
I may have my own opinion, which is also, you will please to remember,
the opinion of Mr. Bruff--the Great Mr. Bruff!" said Betteredge,
raising his voice, and shaking his head at me solemnly. "It don't matter;
I withdraw my opinion, for all that. My young lady says, "Do it."
And I say, "Miss, it shall be done." Here I am, with my book and my pencil--
the latter not pointed so well as I could wish, but when Christians take
leave of their senses, who is to expect that pencils will keep their points?
Give me your orders, Mr. Jennings. I'll have them in writing, sir.
I'm determined not to be behind 'em, or before 'em, by so much as a
hair's breadth. I'm a blind agent--that's what I am. A blind agent!"
repeated Betteredge, with infinite relish of his own description of
himself.
"I am very sorry," I began, "that you and I don't agree----"
"Don't bring ME, into it!" interposed Betteredge.
"This is not a matter of agreement, it's a matter of obedience.
Issue your directions, sir--issue your directions!"
Mr. Blake made me a sign to take him at his word. I "issued my directions"
as plainly and as gravely as I could.
"I wish certain parts of the house to be reopened," I said,
"and to be furnished, exactly as they were furnished at this
time last year."
Betteredge gave his imperfectly-pointed pencil a preliminary
lick with his tongue. "Name the parts, Mr. Jennings!"
he said loftily.
"First, the inner hall, leading to the chief staircase."
"'First, the inner hall,'" Betteredge wrote. "Impossible to
furnish that, sir, as it was furnished last year--to begin with."
"Why?"
"Because there was a stuffed buzzard, Mr. Jennings, in the hall last year.
When the family left, the buzzard was put away with the other things.
When the buzzard was put away--he burst."
"We will except the buzzard then."
Betteredge took a note of the exception. "'The inner hall
to be furnished again, as furnished last year. A burst buzzard
alone excepted.' Please to go on, Mr. Jennings."
"The carpet to be laid down on the stairs, as before."
"'The carpet to be laid down on the stairs, as before.'
Sorry to disappoint you, sir. But that can't be done either."
"Why not?"
"Because the man who laid that carpet down is dead, Mr. Jennings--
and the like of him for reconciling together a carpet and a corner,
is not to be found in all England, look where you may."
"Very well. We must try the next best man in England."
Betteredge took another note; and I went on issuing my directions.
"Miss Verinder's sitting-room to be restored exactly to what it
was last year. Also, the corridor leading from the sitting-room
to the first landing. Also, the second corridor, leading from
the second landing to the best bedrooms. Also, the bedroom
occupied last June by Mr. Franklin Blake."
Betteredge's blunt pencil followed me conscientiously, word by word.
"Go on, sir," he said, with sardonic gravity. "There's a deal of writing
left in the point of this pencil yet."
I told him that I had no more directions to give. "Sir," said Betteredge,
"in that case, I have a point or two to put on my own behalf." He opened
the pocket-book at a new page, and gave the inexhaustible pencil another
preliminary lick.
"I wish to know," he began, "whether I may, or may not,
wash my hands----"
"You may decidedly," said Mr. Blake. "I'll ring for the waiter."
"----of certain responsibilities," pursued Betteredge,
impenetrably declining to see anybody in the room but himself
and me. "As to Miss Verinder's sitting-room, to begin with.
When we took up the carpet last year, Mr. Jennings, we found
a surprising quantity of pins. Am I responsible for putting back
the pins?"
"Certainly not."
Betteredge made a note of that concession, on the spot.
"As to the first corridor next," he resumed. "When we moved
the ornaments in that part, we moved a statue of a fat naked child--
profanely described in the catalogue of the house as "Cupid, god of Love."
He had two wings last year, in the fleshy part of his shoulders.
My eye being off him, for the moment, he lost one of them. Am I
responsible for Cupid's wing?"
I made another concession, and Betteredge made another note.
"As to the second corridor," he went on. "There having been nothing in it,
last year, but the doors of the rooms (to every one of which I can swear,
if necessary), my mind is easy, I admit, respecting that part of the
house only. But, as to Mr. Franklin's bedroom (if THAT is to be put back
to what it was before), I want to know who is responsible for keeping it
in a perpetual state of litter, no matter how often it may be set right--
his trousers here, his towels there, and his French novels everywhere.
I say, who is responsible for untidying the tidiness of Mr. Franklin's room,
him or me?"
Mr. Blake declared that he would assume the whole responsibility
with the greatest pleasure. Betteredge obstinately declined to
listen to any solution of the difficulty, without first referring
it to my sanction and approval. I accepted Mr. Blake's proposal;
and Betteredge made a last entry in the pocket-book to that effect.
"Look in when you like, Mr. Jennings, beginning from to-morrow,"
he said, getting on his legs. "You will find me at work,
with the necessary persons to assist me. I respectfully beg
to thank you, sir, for overlooking the case of the stuffed buzzard,
and the other case of the Cupid's wing--as also for permitting
me to wash my hands of all responsibility in respect of the pins
on the carpet, and the litter in Mr. Franklin's room.
Speaking as a servant, I am deeply indebted to you.
Speaking as a man, I consider you to be a person whose
head is full of maggots, and I take up my testimony
against your experiment as a delusion and a snare.
Don't be afraid, on that account, of my feelings as a man getting
in the way of my duty as a servant! You shall be obeyed.
The maggots notwithstanding, sir, you shall be obeyed.
If it ends in your setting the house on fire, Damme if I
send for the engines, unless you ring the bell and order
them first!"
With that farewell assurance, he made me a bow, and walked out of the room.
"Do you think we can depend on him?" I asked.
"Implicitly," answered Mr. Blake. "When we go to the house,
we shall find nothing neglected, and nothing forgotten."
June 19th.--Another protest against our contemplated proceedings!
From a lady this time.
The morning's post brought me two letters. One from Miss Verinder,
consenting, in the kindest manner, to the arrangement that I have proposed.
The other from the lady under whose care she is living--one Mrs. Merridew.
Mrs. Merridew presents her compliments, and does not pretend
to understand the subject on which I have been corresponding
with Miss Verinder, in its scientific bearings. Viewed in its
social bearings, however, she feels free to pronounce an opinion.
I am probably, Mrs. Merridew thinks, not aware that Miss Verinder
is barely nineteen years of age. To allow a young lady, at her
time of life, to be present (without a "chaperone") in a house
full of men among whom a medical experiment is being carried on,
is an outrage on propriety which Mrs. Merridew cannot possibly permit.
If the matter is allowed to proceed, she will feel it to be her duty--
at a serious sacrifice of her own personal convenience--
to accompany Miss Verinder to Yorkshire. Under these circumstances,
she ventures to request that I will kindly reconsider the subject;
seeing that Miss Verinder declines to be guided by any opinion but mine.
Her presence cannot possibly be necessary; and a word from me,
to that effect, would relieve both Mrs. Merridew and myself of a very
unpleasant responsibility.
Translated from polite commonplace into plain English, the meaning of this is,
as I take it, that Mrs. Merridew stands in mortal fear of the opinion
of the world. She has unfortunately appealed to the very last man
in existence who has any reason to regard that opinion with respect.
I won't disappoint Miss Verinder; and I won't delay a reconciliation
between two young people who love each other, and who have been parted
too long already. Translated from plain English into polite commonplace,
this means that Mr. Jennings presents his compliments to Mrs. Merridew,
and regrets that he cannot feel justified in interfering any farther in
the matter.
Mr. Blake's report of himself, this morning, was the same as before.
We determined not to disturb Betteredge by overlooking him at the house
to-day. To-morrow will be time enough for our first visit of inspection.
June 20th.--Mr. Blake is beginning to feel his continued restlessness
at night. The sooner the rooms are refurnished, now, the better.
On our way to the house, this morning, he consulted me,
with some nervous impatience and irresolution, about a letter
(forwarded to him from London) which he had received from
Sergeant Cuff.
The Sergeant writes from Ireland. He acknowledges the receipt
(through his housekeeper) of a card and message which Mr. Blake
left at his residence near Dorking, and announces his return
to England as likely to take place in a week or less.
In the meantime, he requests to be favoured with Mr. Blake's
reasons for wishing to speak to him (as stated in the message)
on the subject of the Moonstone. If Mr. Blake can convict him
of having made any serious mistake, in the course of his last
year's inquiry concerning the Diamond, he will consider it a duty
(after the liberal manner in which he was treated by the late
Lady Verinder) to place himself at that gentleman's disposal.
If not, he begs permission to remain in his retirement,
surrounded by the peaceful horticultural attractions of a
country life.
After reading the letter, I had no hesitation in advising
Mr. Blake to inform Sergeant Cuff, in reply, of all that
had happened since the inquiry was suspended last year,
and to leave him to draw his own conclusions from the plain facts.
On second thoughts I also suggested inviting the Sergeant to be present at
the experiment, in the event of his returning to England in time to join us.
He would be a valuable witness to have, in any case; and, if I proved
to be wrong in believing the Diamond to be hidden in Mr. Blake's room,
his advice might be of great importance, at a future stage of the proceedings
over which I could exercise no control. This last consideration appeared
to decide Mr. Blake. He promised to follow my advice.
The sound of the hammer informed us that the work of re-furnishing
was in full progress, as we entered the drive that led to the house.
Betteredge, attired for the occasion in a fisherman's red cap,
and an apron of green baize, met us in the outer hall.
The moment he saw me, he pulled out the pocket-book and pencil,
and obstinately insisted on taking notes of everything that I
said to him. Look where we might, we found, as Mr. Blake
had foretold that the work was advancing as rapidly and as
intelligently as it was possible to desire. But there was still
much to be done in the inner hall, and in Miss Verinder's room.
It seemed doubtful whether the house would be ready for us before
the end of the week.
Having congratulated Betteredge on the progress that he had made
(he persisted in taking notes every time I opened my lips;
declining, at the same time, to pay the slightest attention
to anything said by Mr. Blake); and having promised to
return for a second visit of inspection in a day or two,
we prepared to leave the house, going out by the back way.
Before we were clear of the passages downstairs, I was stopped
by Betteredge, just as I was passing the door which led into his
own room.
"Could I say two words to you in private?" he asked, in a mysterious whisper.
I consented of course. Mr. Blake walked on to wait for me
in the garden, while I accompanied Betteredge into his room.
I fully anticipated a demand for certain new concessions,
following the precedent already established in the cases of
the stuffed buzzard, and the Cupid's wing. To my great surprise,
Betteredge laid his hand confidentially on my arm, and put this
extraordinary question to me:
"Mr. Jennings, do you happen to be acquainted with ROBINSON CRUSOE?"
I answered that I had read ROBINSON CRUSOE when I was a child.
"Not since then?" inquired Betteredge.
"Not since then."
He fell back a few steps, and looked at me with an expression
of compassionate curiosity, tempered by superstitious awe.
"He has not read ROBINSON CRUSOE since he was a child,"
said Betteredge, speaking to himself--not to me. "Let's try
how ROBINSON CRUSOE strikes him now!"
He unlocked a cupboard in a corner, and produced a dirty and dog's-eared book,
which exhaled a strong odour of stale tobacco as he turned over the leaves.
Having found a passage of which he was apparently in search, he requested me
to join him in the corner; still mysteriously confidential, and still speaking
under his breath.
"In respect to this hocus-pocus of yours, sir, with the laudanum and
Mr. Franklin Blake," he began. "While the workpeople are in the house,
my duty as a servant gets the better of my feelings as a man.
When the workpeople are gone, my feelings as a man get the better
of my duty as a servant. Very good. Last night, Mr. Jennings,
it was borne in powerfully on my mind that this new medical enterprise
of yours would end badly. If I had yielded to that secret Dictate,
I should have put all the furniture away again with my own hand,
and have warned the workmen off the premises when they came the
next morning."
"I am glad to find, from what I have seen up-stairs," I said,
"that you resisted the secret Dictate."
"Resisted isn't the word," answered Betteredge. "Wrostled is the word.
I wrostled, sir, between the silent orders in my bosom pulling me one way,
and the written orders in my pocket-book pushing me the other, until
(saving your presence) I was in a cold sweat. In that dreadful perturbation
of mind and laxity of body, to what remedy did I apply? To the remedy,
sir, which has never failed me yet for the last thirty years and more--
to This Book!"
He hit the book a sounding blow with his open hand, and struck
out of it a stronger smell of stale tobacco than ever.
"What did I find here," pursued Betteredge, "at the first page I opened?
This awful bit, sir, page one hundred and seventy-eight, as follows.--'Upon
these, and many like Reflections, I afterwards made it a certain rule with me,
That whenever I found those secret Hints or Pressings of my Mind, to doing,
or not doing any Thing that presented; or to going this Way, or that Way,
I never failed to obey the secret Dictate." As I live by bread, Mr. Jennings,
those were the first words that met my eye, exactly at the time when I myself
was setting the secret Dictate at defiance! You don't see anything at all out
of the common in that, do you, sir?"
"I see a coincidence--nothing more."
"You don't feel at all shaken, Mr. Jennings, in respect to this
medical enterprise of yours?
"Not the least in the world."
Betteredge stared hard at me, in dead silence. He closed the book
with great deliberation; he locked it up again in the cupboard with
extraordinary care; he wheeled round, and stared hard at me once more.
Then he spoke.
"Sir," he said gravely, "there are great allowances to be made
for a man who has not read ROBINSON CRUSOE since he was a child.
I wish you good morning."
He opened his door with a low bow, and left me at liberty to find
my own way into the garden. I met Mr. Blake returning to the house.
"You needn't tell me what has happened," he said. "Betteredge has played
his last card: he has made another prophetic discovery in ROBINSON CRUSOE.
Have you humoured his favourite delusion? No? You have let him see
that you don't believe in ROBINSON CRUSOE? Mr. Jennings! you have fallen
to the lowest possible place in Betteredge's estimation. Say what you like,
and do what you like, for the future. You will find that he won't waste
another word on you now."
June 21st.--A short entry must suffice in my journal to-day.
Mr. Blake has had the worst night that he has passed yet.
I have been obliged, greatly against my will, to prescribe for him.
Men of his sensitive organisation are fortunately quick in feeling
the effect of remedial measures. Otherwise, I should be inclined to fear
that he will be totally unfit for the experiment when the time comes
to try it.
As for myself, after some little remission of my pains for the last two days
I had an attack this morning, of which I shall say nothing but that it
has decided me to return to the opium. I shall close this book, and take
my full dose--five hundred drops.
June 22nd.--Our prospects look better to-day. Mr. Blake's nervous
suffering is greatly allayed. He slept a little last night.
MY night, thanks to the opium, was the night of a man who is stunned.
I can't say that I woke this morning; the fitter expression would be,
that I recovered my senses.
We drove to the house to see if the refurnishing was done.
It will be completed to-morrow--Saturday. As Mr. Blake foretold,
Betteredge raised no further obstacles. From first to last,
he was ominously polite, and ominously silent.
My medical enterprise (as Betteredge calls it) must now, inevitably,
be delayed until Monday next. Tomorrow evening the workmen will
be late in the house. On the next day, the established Sunday
tyranny which is one of the institutions of this free country,
so times the trains as to make it impossible to ask anybody to travel
to us from London. Until Monday comes, there is nothing to be done
but to watch Mr. Blake carefully, and to keep him, if possible,
in the same state in which I find him to-day.
In the meanwhile, I have prevailed on him to write to Mr. Bruff,
making a point of it that he shall be present as one of the witnesses.
I especially choose the lawyer, because he is strongly prejudiced
against us. If we convince HIM, we place our victory beyond the
possibility of dispute.
Mr. Blake has also written to Sergeant Cuff; and I have sent
a line to Miss Verinder. With these, and with old Betteredge
(who is really a person of importance in the family)
we shall have witnesses enough for the purpose--without including
Mrs. Merridew, if Mrs. Merridew persists in sacrificing herself
to the opinion of the world.
June 23rd.--The vengeance of the opium overtook me again last night.
No matter; I must go on with it now till Monday is past and gone.
Mr. Blake is not so well again to-day. At two this morning,
he confesses that he opened the drawer in which his cigars are put away.
He only succeeded in locking it up again by a violent effort.
His next proceeding, in case of temptation, was to throw the key
out of window. The waiter brought it in this morning, discovered at
the bottom of an empty cistern--such is Fate! I have taken possession
of the key until Tuesday next.
June 24th.--Mr. Blake and I took a long drive in an open carriage.
We both felt beneficially the blessed influence of the soft summer air.
I dined with him at the hotel. To my great relief--for I found him
in an over-wrought, over-excited state this morning--he had two hours'
sound sleep on the sofa after dinner. If he has another bad night, now--I am
not afraid of the consequence.
June 25th, Monday.--The day of the experiment! It is five o'clock
in the afternoon. We have just arrived at the house.
The first and foremost question, is the question of Mr. Blake's health.
So far as it is possible for me to judge, he promises
(physically speaking) to be quite as susceptible to the action
of the opium to-night as he was at this time last year.
He is, this afternoon, in a state of nervous sensitiveness
which just stops short of nervous irritation. He changes
colour readily; his hand is not quite steady; and he starts
at chance noises, and at unexpected appearances of persons
and things.
These results have all been produced by deprivation of sleep,
which is in its turn the nervous consequence of a sudden cessation in
the habit of smoking, after that habit has been carried to an extreme.
Here are the same causes at work again, which operated last year;
and here are, apparently, the same effects. Will the parallel still
hold good, when the final test has been tried? The events of the night
must decide.
While I write these lines, Mr. Blake is amusing himself at the billiard
table in the inner hall, practising different strokes in the game, as he was
accustomed to practise them when he was a guest in this house in June last.
I have brought my journal here, partly with a view to occupying the idle
hours which I am sure to have on my hands between this and to-morrow morning;
partly in the hope that something may happen which it may be worth my while to
place on record at the time.
Have I omitted anything, thus far? A glance at yesterday's entry shows
me that I have forgotten to note the arrival of the morning's post.
Let me set this right before I close these leaves for the present, and join
Mr. Blake.
I received a few lines then, yesterday, from Miss Verinder.
She has arranged to travel by the afternoon train, as I recommended.
Mrs. Merridew has insisted on accompanying her. The note hints
that the old lady's generally excellent temper is a little ruffled,
and requests all due indulgence for her, in consideration of her age
and her habits. I will endeavour, in my relations with Mrs. Merridew,
to emulate the moderation which Betteredge displays in his relations
with me. He received us to-day, portentously arrayed in his best
black suit, and his stiffest white cravat. Whenever he looks my way,
he remembers that I have not read ROBINSON CRUSOE since I was a child,
and he respectfully pities me.
Yesterday, also, Mr. Blake had the lawyer's answer.
Mr. Bruff accepts the invitation--under protest. It is,
he thinks, clearly necessary that a gentleman possessed
of the average allowance of common sense, should accompany
Miss Verinder to the scene of, what we will venture to call,
the proposed exhibition. For want of a better escort,
Mr. Bruff himself will be that gentleman.--So here is poor
Miss Verinder provided with two "chaperones." It is a relief
to think that the opinion of the world must surely be satisfied
with this!
Nothing has been heard of Sergeant Cuff. He is no doubt still in Ireland.
We must not expect to see him to-night.
Betteredge has just come in, to say that Mr. Blake has asked for me.
I must lay down my pen for the present.
* * * * * * * * * *
Seven o'clock.--We have been all over the refurnished rooms and
staircases again; and we have had a pleasant stroll in the shrubbery,
which was Mr. Blake's favourite walk when he was here last.
In this way, I hope to revive the old impressions of places and things
as vividly as possible in his mind.
We are now going to dine, exactly at the hour at which the birthday dinner was
given last year. My object, of course, is a purely medical one in this case.
The laudanum must find the process of digestion, as nearly as may be,
where the laudanum found it last year.
At a reasonable time after dinner I propose to lead the conversation
back again--as inartificially as I can--to the subject of the Diamond,
and of the Indian conspiracy to steal it. When I have filled his mind
with these topics, I shall have done all that it is in my power to do,
before the time comes for giving him the second dose.
* * * * * * * * * *
Half-past eight.--I have only this moment found an opportunity
of attending to the most important duty of all; the duty of looking
in the family medicine chest, for the laudanum which Mr. Candy
used last year.
Ten minutes since, I caught Betteredge at an unoccupied moment,
and told him what I wanted. Without a word of objection,
without so much as an attempt to produce his pocket-book,
he led the way (making allowances for me at every step)
to the store-room in which the medicine chest is kept.
I discovered the bottle, carefully guarded by a glass stopper
tied over with leather. The preparation which it contained was,
as I had anticipated, the common Tincture of Opium.
Finding the bottle still well filled, I have resolved to use it,
in preference to employing either of the two preparations
with which I had taken care to provide myself, in case
of emergency.
The question of the quantity which I am to administer presents
certain difficulties. I have thought it over, and have decided
on increasing the dose.
My notes inform me that Mr. Candy only administered twenty-five minims.
This is a small dose to have produced the results which followed--
even in the case of a person so sensitive as Mr. Blake. I think it highly
probable that Mr. Candy gave more than he supposed himself to have given--
knowing, as I do, that he has a keen relish of the pleasures of the table,
and that he measured out the laudanum on the birthday, after dinner.
In any case, I shall run the risk of enlarging the dose to forty minims.
On this occasion, Mr. Blake knows beforehand that he is going to take
the laudanum--which is equivalent, physiologically speaking, to his having
(unconsciously to himself) a certain capacity in him to resist the effects.
If my view is right, a larger quantity is therefore imperatively required,
this time, to repeat the results which the smaller quantity produced,
last year.
* * * * * * * * * *
Ten o'clock.--The witnesses, or the company (which shall I call them?)
reached the house an hour since.
A little before nine o'clock, I prevailed on Mr. Blake to accompany
me to his bedroom; stating, as a reason, that I wished him
to look round it, for the last time, in order to make quite sure
that nothing had been forgotten in the refurnishing of the room.
I had previously arranged with Betteredge, that the bedchamber prepared
for Mr. Bruff should be the next room to Mr. Blake's, and that I
should be informed of the lawyer's arrival by a knock at the door.
Five minutes after the clock in the hall had struck nine,
I heard the knock; and, going out immediately, met Mr. Bruff in
the corridor.
My personal appearance (as usual) told against me. Mr. Bruff's
distrust looked at me plainly enough out of Mr. Bruff's eyes.
Being well used to producing this effect on strangers,
I did not hesitate a moment in saying what I wanted to say,
before the lawyer found his way into Mr. Blake's room.
"You have travelled here, I believe, in company with Mrs. Merridew
and Miss Verinder?" I said.
"Yes," answered Mr. Bruff, as drily as might be.
"Miss Verinder has probably told you, that I wish her presence in the house
(and Mrs. Merridew's presence of course) to be kept a secret from Mr. Blake,
until my experiment on him has been tried first?"
"I know that I am to hold my tongue, sir!" said Mr. Bruff, impatiently.
"Being habitually silent on the subject of human folly, I am all the readier
to keep my lips closed on this occasion. Does that satisfy you?"
I bowed, and left Betteredge to show him to his room.
Betteredge gave me one look at parting, which said, as if
in so many words, "You have caught a Tartar, Mr. Jennings--
and the name of him is Bruff."
It was next necessary to get the meeting over with the two ladies.
I descended the stairs--a little nervously, I confess--on my way to Miss
Verinder's sitting-room.
The gardener's wife (charged with looking after the accommodation
of the ladies) met me in the first-floor corridor.
This excellent woman treats me with an excessive civility
which is plainly the offspring of down-right terror.
She stares, trembles, and curtseys, whenever I speak to her.
On my asking for Miss Verinder, she stared, trembled, and would
no doubt have curtseyed next, if Miss Verinder herself
had not cut that ceremony short, by suddenly opening her
sitting-room door.
"Is that Mr. Jennings?" she asked.
Before I could answer, she came out eagerly to speak to me in the corridor.
We met under the light of a lamp on a bracket. At the first sight of me,
Miss Verinder stopped, and hesitated. She recovered herself instantly,
coloured for a moment--and then, with a charming frankness, offered me
her hand.
"I can't treat you like a stranger, Mr. Jennings," she said.
"Oh, if you only knew how happy your letters have made me!"
She looked at my ugly wrinkled face, with a bright gratitude so new to me in
my experience of my fellow-creatures, that I was at a loss how to answer her.
Nothing had prepared me for her kindness and her beauty. The misery of many
years has not hardened my heart, thank God. I was as awkward and as shy
with her, as if I had been a lad in my teens.
"Where is he now?" she asked, giving free expression
to her one dominant interest--the interest in Mr. Blake.
"What is he doing? Has he spoken of me? Is he in good spirits?
How does he bear the sight of the house, after what happened
in it last year? When are you going to give him the laudanum?
May I see you pour it out? I am so interested; I am so excited--
I have ten thousand things to say to you, and they all crowd
together so that I don't know what to say first. Do you wonder at
the interest I take in this?"
"No," I said. "I venture to think that I thoroughly understand it."
She was far above the paltry affectation of being confused.
She answered me as she might have answered a brother or
a father.
"You have relieved me of indescribable wretchedness; you have given me
a new life. How can I be ungrateful enough to have any concealment from you?
I love him," she said simply, "I have loved him from first to last--
even when I was wronging him in my own thoughts; even when I was saying
the hardest and the cruellest words to him. Is there any excuse for me,
in that? I hope there is--I am afraid it is the only excuse I have.
When to-morrow comes, and he knows that I am in the house, do you think----"
She stopped again, and looked at me very earnestly.
"When to-morrow comes," I said, "I think you have only to tell him what you
have just told me."
Her face brightened; she came a step nearer to me. Her fingers
trifled nervously with a flower which I had picked in the garden,
and which I had put into the button-hole of my coat.
"You have seen a great deal of him lately," she said. "Have you,
really and truly, seen THAT?"
"Really and truly," I answered. "I am quite certain of what will happen
to-morrow. I wish I could feel as certain of what will happen to-night."
At that point in the conversation, we were interrupted by the appearance of
Betteredge with the tea-tray. He gave me another significant look as he passed
on into the sitting-room. "Aye! aye! make your hay while the sun shines.
The Tartar's upstairs, Mr. Jennings--the Tartar's upstairs!"
We followed him into the room. A little old lady, in a corner,
very nicely dressed, and very deeply absorbed over a smart piece
of embroidery, dropped her work in her lap, and uttered a faint
little scream at the first sight of my gipsy complexion and my
piebald hair.
"Mrs. Merridew," said Miss Verinder, "this is Mr. Jennings."
"I beg Mr. Jennings's pardon," said the old lady, looking at Miss Verinder,
and speaking at me. "Railway travelling always makes me nervous.
I am endeavouring to quiet my mind by occupying myself as usual. I don't
know whether my embroidery is out of place, on this extraordinary occasion.
If it interferes with Mr. Jennings's medical views, I shall be happy to put it
away of course."
I hastened to sanction the presence of the embroidery, exactly as I
had sanctioned the absence of the burst buzzard and the Cupid's wing.
Mrs. Merridew made an effort--a grateful effort--to look at my hair.
No! it was not to be done. Mrs. Merridew looked back again at
Miss Verinder.
"If Mr. Jennings will permit me," pursued the old lady,
"I should like to ask a favour. Mr. Jennings is about to try
a scientific experiment to-night. I used to attend scientific
experiments when I was a girl at school. They invariably
ended in an explosion. If Mr. Jennings will be so very kind,
I should like to be warned of the explosion this time.
With a view to getting it over, if possible, before I go
to bed."
I attempted to assure Mrs. Merridew that an explosion was not included
in the programme on this occasion.
"No," said the old lady. "I am much obliged to Mr. Jennings--
I am aware that he is only deceiving me for my own good.
I prefer plain dealing. I am quite resigned to the explosion--
but I DO want to get it over, if possible, before I go
to bed."
Here the door opened, and Mrs. Merridew uttered another little scream.
The advent of the explosion? No: only the advent of Betteredge.
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Jennings," said Betteredge, in his
most elaborately confidential manner. "Mr. Franklin wishes
to know where you are. Being under your orders to deceive him,
in respect to the presence of my young lady in the house, I have
said I don't know. That you will please to observe, was a lie.
Having one foot already in the grave, sir, the fewer lies
you expect me to tell, the more I shall be indebted to you,
when my conscience pricks me and my time comes."
There was not a moment to be wasted on the purely speculative question
of Betteredge's conscience. Mr. Blake might make his appearance
in search of me, unless I went to him at once in his own room.
Miss Verinder followed me out into the corridor.
"They seem to be in a conspiracy to persecute you," she said.
"What does it mean?"
"Only the protest of the world, Miss Verinder--on a very small scale--
against anything that is new."
"What are we to do with Mrs. Merridew?"
"Tell her the explosion will take place at nine to-morrow morning."
"So as to send her to bed?"
"Yes--so as to send her to bed."
Miss Verinder went back to the sitting-room, and I went upstairs to Mr. Blake.
To my surprise I found him alone; restlessly pacing his room,
and a little irritated at being left by himself.
"Where is Mr. Bruff?" I asked.
He pointed to the closed door of communication between the two rooms.
Mr. Bruff had looked in on him, for a moment; had attempted to renew
his protest against our proceedings; and had once more failed
to produce the smallest impression on Mr. Blake. Upon this,
the lawyer had taken refuge in a black leather bag, filled to
bursting with professional papers. "The serious business of life,"
he admitted, "was sadly out of place on such an occasion as the present.
But the serious business of life must be carried on, for all that.
Mr. Blake would perhaps kindly make allowance for the old-fashioned
habits of a practical man. Time was money--and, as for Mr. Jennings,
he might depend on it that Mr. Bruff would be forthcoming
when called upon." With that apology, the lawyer had gone back
to his own room, and had immersed himself obstinately in his
black bag.
I thought of Mrs. Merridew and her embroidery, and of Betteredge
and his conscience. There is a wonderful sameness in the solid side
of the English character--just as there is a wonderful sameness
in the solid expression of the English face.
"When are you going to give me the laudanum?" asked Mr. Blake impatiently.
"You must wait a little longer," I said. "I will stay and keep you company
till the time comes."
It was then not ten o'clock. Inquiries which I had made,
at various times, of Betteredge and Mr. Blake, had led me
to the conclusion that the dose of laudanum given by Mr. Candy
could not possibly have been administered before eleven.
I had accordingly determined not to try the second dose until
that time.
We talked a little; but both our minds were preoccupied by the coming ordeal.
The conversation soon flagged--then dropped altogether. Mr. Blake idly
turned over the books on his bedroom table. I had taken the precaution
of looking at them, when we first entered the room. THE GUARDIAN; THE TATLER;
Richardson's PAMELA; Mackenzie's MAN OF FEELING; Roscoe's LORENZO DE
MEDICI;
and Robertson's CHARLES THE FIFTH--all classical works; all (of course)
immeasurably superior to anything produced in later times; and all (from my
present point of view) possessing the one great merit of enchaining nobody's
interest, and exciting nobody's brain. I left Mr. Blake to the composing
influence of Standard Literature, and occupied myself in making this entry in
my journal.
My watch informs me that it is close on eleven o'clock. I must shut up
these leaves once more.
* * * * * * * * * *
Two o'clock A.M.--The experiment has been tried. With what result,
I am now to describe.
At eleven o'clock, I rang the bell for Betteredge, and told Mr. Blake
that he might at last prepare himself for bed.
I looked out of the window at the night. It was mild
and rainy, resembling, in this respect, the night of the birthday--
the twenty-first of June, last year. Without professing
to believe in omens, it was at least encouraging to find no
direct nervous influences--no stormy or electric perturbations--
in the atmosphere. Betteredge joined me at the window,
and mysteriously put a little slip of paper into my hand.
It contained these lines:
"Mrs. Merridew has gone to bed, on the distinct understanding that the
explosion is to take place at nine to-morrow morning, and that I am not
to stir out of this part of the house until she comes and sets me free.
She has no idea that the chief scene of the experiment is my sitting-room--
or she would have remained in it for the whole night! I am alone,
and very anxious. Pray let me see you measure out the laudanum; I want
to have something to do with it, even in the unimportant character of a
mere looker-on.--R.V."
I followed Betteredge out of the room, and told him to remove
the medicine-chest into Miss Verinder's sitting-room.
The order appeared to take him completely by surprise.
He looked as if he suspected me of some occult medical
design on Miss Verinder! "Might I presume to ask," he said,
"what my young lady and the medicine-chest have got to do with
each other?"
"Stay in the sitting-room, and you will see."
Betteredge appeared to doubt his own unaided capacity to superintend
me effectually, on an occasion when a medicine-chest was included
in the proceedings.
"Is there any objection, sir" he asked, "to taking Mr. Bruff into this
part of the business?"
"Quite the contrary! I am now going to ask Mr. Bruff to accompany
me down-stairs."
Betteredge withdrew to fetch the medicine-chest, without another word.
I went back into Mr. Blake's room, and knocked at the door of communication.
Mr. Bruff opened it, with his papers in his hand--immersed in Law;
impenetrable to Medicine.
"I am sorry to disturb you," I said. "But I am going to prepare
the laudanum for Mr. Blake; and I must request you to be present,
and to see what I do."
"Yes?" said Mr. Bruff, with nine-tenths of his attention riveted
on his papers, and with one-tenth unwillingly accorded to me.
"Anything else?"
"I must trouble you to return here with me, and to see me administer
the dose."
"Anything else?"
"One thing more. I must put you to the inconvenience of remaining
in Mr. Blake's room, and of waiting to see what happens."
"Oh, very good!" said Mr. Bruff. "My room, or Mr. Blake's room--
it doesn't matter which; I can go on with my papers anywhere.
Unless you object, Mr. Jennings, to my importing THAT amount of common
sense into the proceedings?"
Before I could answer, Mr. Blake addressed himself to the lawyer,
speaking from his bed.
"Do you really mean to say that you don't feel any interest in what we
are going to do?" he asked. "Mr. Bruff, you have no more imagination
than a cow!"
"A cow is a very useful animal, Mr. Blake," said the lawyer.
With that reply he followed me out of the room, still keeping his
papers in his hand.
We found Miss Verinder, pale and agitated, restlessly pacing her
sitting-room from end to end. At a table in a corner stood Betteredge,
on guard over the medicine-chest. Mr. Bruff sat down on the first
chair that he could find, and (emulating the usefulness of the cow)
plunged back again into his papers on the spot.
Miss Verinder drew me aside, and reverted instantly to her
one all-absorbing interest--her interest in Mr. Blake.
"How is he now?" she asked. "Is he nervous? is he out of temper?
Do you think it will succeed? Are you sure it will do no harm?"
"Quite sure. Come, and see me measure it out."
"One moment! It is past eleven now. How long will it be before
anything happens?"
"It is not easy to say. An hour perhaps."
"I suppose the room must be dark, as it was last year?"
"Certainly."
"I shall wait in my bedroom--just as I did before. I shall keep
the door a little way open. It was a little way open last year.
I will watch the sitting-room door; and the moment it moves,
I will blow out my light. It all happened in that way, on my
birthday night. And it must all happen again in the same way,
musn't it?"
"Are you sure you can control yourself, Miss Verinder?"
"In HIS interests, I can do anything!" she answered fervently.
One look at her face told me that I could trust her.
I addressed myself again to Mr. Bruff.
"I must trouble you to put your papers aside for a moment,"
I said.
"Oh, certainly!" He got up with a start--as if I had disturbed
him at a particularly interesting place--and followed me
to the medicine-chest. There, deprived of the breathless
excitement incidental to the practice of his profession,
he looked at Betteredge--and yawned wearily.
Miss Verinder joined me with a glass jug of cold water, which she had
taken from a side-table. "Let me pour out the water," she whispered.
"I must have a hand in it!"
I measured out the forty minims from the bottle, and poured
the laudanum into a medicine glass. "Fill it till it is three
parts full," I said, and handed the glass to Miss Verinder.
I then directed Betteredge to lock up the medicine chest;
informing him that I had done with it now. A look of
unutterable relief overspread the old servant's countenance.
He had evidently suspected me of a medical design on his
young lady!
After adding the water as I had directed, Miss Verinder seized a moment--
while Betteredge was locking the chest, and while Mr. Bruff was looking
back to his papers--and slyly kissed the rim of the medicine glass.
"When you give it to him," said the charming girl, "give it to him on
that side!"
I took the piece of crystal which was to represent the Diamond from my pocket,
and gave it to her.
"You must have a hand in this, too," I said. "You must put
it where you put the Moonstone last year."
She led the way to the Indian cabinet, and put the mock Diamond into
the drawer which the real Diamond had occupied on the birthday night.
Mr. Bruff witnessed this proceeding, under protest, as he had
witnessed everything else. But the strong dramatic interest which
the experiment was now assuming, proved (to my great amusement)
to be too much for Betteredge's capacity of self restraint.
His hand trembled as he held the candle, and he whispered anxiously,
"Are you sure, miss, it's the right drawer?"
I led the way out again, with the laudanum and water in my hand.
At the door, I stopped to address a last word to Miss Verinder.
"Don't be long in putting out the lights," I said.
I will put them out at once," she answered. "And I will wait in my bedroom,
with only one candle alight."
She closed the sitting-room door behind us. Followed by Mr. Bruff
and Betteredge, I went back to Mr. Blake's room.
We found him moving restlessly from side to side of the bed,
and wondering irritably whether he was to have the laudanum
that night. In the presence of the two witnesses, I gave him
the dose, and shook up his pillows, and told him to lie down
again quietly and wait.
His bed, provided with light chintz curtains, was placed,
with the head against the wall of the room, so as to leave
a good open space on either side of it. On one side, I drew
the curtains completely--and in the part of the room thus
screened from his view, I placed Mr. Bruff and Betteredge,
to wait for the result. At the bottom of the bed I half drew
the curtains--and placed my own chair at a little distance,
so that I might let him see me or not see me, speak to me
or not speak to me, just as the circumstances might direct.
Having already been informed that he always slept with
a light in the room, I placed one of the two lighted
candles on a little table at the head of the bed,
where the glare of the light would not strike on his eyes.
The other candle I gave to Mr. Bruff; the light, in this instance,
being subdued by the screen of the chintz curtains.
The window was open at the top, so as to ventilate the room.
The rain fell softly, the house was quiet. It was twenty minutes
past eleven, by my watch, when the preparations were completed,
and I took my place on the chair set apart at the bottom of
the bed.
Mr. Bruff resumed his papers, with every appearance of being as deeply
interested in them as ever. But looking towards him now, I saw certain
signs and tokens which told me that the Law was beginning to lose its hold
on him at last. The suspended interest of the situation in which we were now
placed was slowly asserting its influence even on HIS unimaginative mind.
As for Betteredge, consistency of principle and dignity of conduct had become,
in his case, mere empty words. He forgot that I was performing a conjuring
trick on Mr. Franklin Blake; he forgot that I had upset the house from top
to bottom; he forgot that I had not read ROBINSON CRUSOE since I was a child.
"For the Lord's sake, sir," he whispered to me, "tell us when it will begin
to work."
"Not before midnight," I whispered back. "Say nothing,
and sit still."
Betteredge dropped to the lowest depth of familiarity with me,
without a struggle to save himself. He answered by a wink!
Looking next towards Mr. Blake, I found him as restless as ever in his bed;
fretfully wondering why the influence of the laudanum had not begun to assert
itself yet. To tell him, in his present humour, that the more he fidgeted
and wondered, the longer he would delay the result for which we were
now waiting, would have been simply useless. The wiser course to take was
to dismiss the idea of the opium from his mind, by leading him insensibly
to think of something else.
With this view, I encouraged him to talk to me; contriving so to direct
the conversation, on my side, as to lead it back again to the subject
which had engaged us earlier in the evening--the subject of the Diamond.
I took care to revert to those portions of the story of the Moonstone,
which related to the transport of it from London to Yorkshire; to the risk
which Mr. Blake had run in removing it from the bank at Frizinghall:
and to the unexpected appearance of the Indians at the house, on the evening
of the birthday. And I purposely assumed, in referring to these events,
to have misunderstood much of what Mr. Blake himself had told me a few
hours since. In this way, I set him talking on the subject with which it
was now vitally important to fill his mind--without allowing him to suspect
that I was making him talk for a purpose. Little by little, he became
so interested in putting me right that he forgot to fidget in the bed.
His mind was far away from the question of the opium, at the all-important
time when his eyes first told me that the opium was beginning to lay its hold
on his brain.
I looked at my watch. It wanted five minutes to twelve,
when the premonitory symptoms of the working of the laudanum
first showed themselves to me.
At this time, no unpractised eyes would have detected any change
in him. But, as the minutes of the new morning wore away,
the swiftly-subtle progress of the influence began to show itself
more plainly. The sublime intoxication of opium gleamed in his eyes;
the dew of a stealthy perspiration began to glisten on his face.
In five minutes more, the talk which he still kept up with me,
failed in coherence. He held steadily to the subject of the Diamond;
but he ceased to complete his sentences. A little later,
the sentences dropped to single words. Then, there was an interval
of silence. Then, he sat up in bed. Then, still busy with the subject
of the Diamond, he began to talk again--not to me, but to himself.
That change told me that the first stage in the experiment was reached.
The stimulant influence of the opium had got him.
The time, now, was twenty-three minutes past twelve. The next half hour,
at most, would decide the question of whether he would, or would not,
get up from his bed, and leave the room.
In the breathless interest of watching him--in the unutterable
triumph of seeing the first result of the experiment declare itself
in the manner, and nearly at the time, which I had anticipated--
I had utterly forgotten the two companions of my night vigil.
Looking towards them now, I saw the Law (as represented
by Mr. Bruff's papers) lying unheeded on the floor.
Mr. Bruff himself was looking eagerly through a crevice left
in the imperfectly-drawn curtains of the bed. And Betteredge,
oblivious of all respect for social distinctions, was peeping over
Mr. Bruff's shoulder.
They both started back, on finding that I was looking at them,
like two boys caught out by their schoolmaster in a fault.
I signed to them to take off their boots quietly, as I was taking
off mine. If Mr. Blake gave us the chance of following him,
it was vitally necessary to follow him without noise.
Ten minutes passed--and nothing happened. Then, he suddenly
threw the bed-clothes off him. He put one leg out of bed.
He waited.
"I wish I had never taken it out of the bank," he said to himself.
"It was safe in the bank."
My heart throbbed fast; the pulses at my temples beat furiously.
The doubt about the safety of the Diamond was, once more,
the dominant impression in his brain! On that one pivot,
the whole success of the experiment turned. The prospect thus
suddenly opened before me was too much for my shattered nerves.
I was obliged to look away from him--or I should have lost my
self-control.
There was another interval of silence.
When I could trust myself to look back at him he was out of his bed,
standing erect at the side of it. The pupils of his eyes were now contracted;
his eyeballs gleamed in the light of the candle as he moved his head slowly
to and fro. He was thinking; he was doubting--he spoke again.
"How do I know?" he said. "The Indians may be hidden in the house."
He stopped, and walked slowly to the other end of the room.
He turned--waited--came back to the bed.
"It's not even locked up," he went on. "It's in the drawer of her cabinet.
And the drawer doesn't lock."
He sat down on the side of the bed. "Anybody might take it,"
he said.
He rose again restlessly, and reiterated his first words.
"How do I know? The Indians may be hidden in the house."
He waited again. I drew back behind the half curtain of the bed.
He looked about the room, with a vacant glitter in his eyes.
It was a breathless moment. There was a pause of some sort.
A pause in the action of the opium? a pause in the action of
the brain? Who could tell? Everything depended, now, on what he
did next.
He laid himself down again on the bed!
A horrible doubt crossed my mind. Was it possible that the
sedative action of the opium was making itself felt already?
It was not in my experience that it should do this.
But what is experience, where opium is concerned?
There are probably no two men in existence on whom the drug
acts in exactly the same manner. Was some constitutional
peculiarity in him, feeling the influence in some new way?
Were we to fail on the very brink of success?
No! He got up again abruptly. "How the devil am I to sleep,"
he said, "with THIS on my mind?"
He looked at the light, burning on the table at the head of his bed.
After a moment, he took the candle in his hand.
I blew out the second candle, burning behind the closed curtains.
I drew back, with Mr. Bruff and Betteredge, into the farthest corner
by the bed. I signed to them to be silent, as if their lives had
depended on it.
We waited--seeing and hearing nothing. We waited, hidden from him
by the curtains.
The light which he was holding on the other side of us moved suddenly.
The next moment he passed us, swift and noiseless, with the candle in
his hand.
He opened the bedroom door, and went out.
We followed him along the corridor. We followed him down the stairs.
We followed him along the second corridor. He never looked back;
he never hesitated.
He opened the sitting-room door, and went in, leaving it open behind him.
The door was hung (like all the other doors in the house)
on large old-fashioned hinges. When it was opened, a crevice was
opened between the door and the post. I signed to my two companions
to look through this, so as to keep them from showing themselves.
I placed myself--outside the door also--on the opposite side.
A recess in the wall was at my left hand, in which I could
instantly hide myself, if he showed any signs of looking back into
the corridor.
He advanced to the middle of the room, with the candle still in his hand:
he looked about him--but he never looked back.
I saw the door of Miss Verinder's bedroom, standing ajar.
She had put out her light. She controlled herself nobly.
The dim white outline of her summer dress was all that I
could see. Nobody who had not known it beforehand would
have suspected that there was a living creature in the room.
She kept back, in the dark: not a word, not a movement
escaped her.
It was now ten minutes past one. I heard, through the dead silence,
the soft drip of the rain and the tremulous passage of the night air
through the trees.
After waiting irresolute, for a minute or more, in the middle of the room,
he moved to the corner near the window, where the Indian cabinet stood.
He put his candle on the top of the cabinet. He opened, and shut, one drawer
after another, until he came to the drawer in which the mock Diamond was put.
He looked into the drawer for a moment. Then he took the mock Diamond out
with his right hand. With the other hand, he took the candle from the top of
the cabinet.
He walked back a few steps towards the middle of the room,
and stood still again.
Thus far, he had exactly repeated what he had done on the birthday night.
Would his next proceeding be the same as the proceeding of last year?
Would he leave the room? Would he go back now, as I believed he had gone
back then, to his bed-chamber? Would he show us what he had done with
the Diamond, when he had returned to his own room?
His first action, when he moved once more, proved to be an action
which he had not performed, when he was under the influence of
the opium for the first time. He put the candle down on a table,
and wandered on a little towards the farther end of the room.
There was a sofa there. He leaned heavily on the back of it, with his
left hand--then roused himself, and returned to the middle of the room.
I could now see his eyes. They were getting dull and heavy;
the glitter in them was fast dying out.
The suspense of the moment proved too much for Miss Verinder's
self-control. She advanced a few steps--then stopped again.
Mr. Bruff and Betteredge looked across the open doorway at me
for the first time. The prevision of a coming disappointment was
impressing itself on their minds as well as on mine.
Still, so long as he stood where he was, there was hope.
We waited, in unutterable expectation, to see what would
happen next.
The next event was decisive. He let the mock Diamond drop out of his hand.
It fell on the floor, before the doorway--plainly visible
to him, and to everyone. He made no effort to pick it up:
he looked down at it vacantly, and, as he looked, his head sank
on his breast. He staggered--roused himself for an instant--
walked back unsteadily to the sofa--and sat down on it.
He made a last effort; he tried to rise, and sank back.
His head fell on the sofa cushions. It was then twenty-five minutes
past one o'clock. Before I had put my watch back in my pocket,
he was asleep.
It was all over now. The sedative influence had got him;
the experiment was at an end.
I entered the room, telling Mr. Bruff and Betteredge that they
might follow me. There was no fear of disturbing him.
We were free to move and speak.
"The first thing to settle," I said, "is the question of what we are
to do with him. He will probably sleep for the next six or seven hours,
at least. It is some distance to carry him back to his own room.
When I was younger, I could have done it alone. But my health and strength
are not what they were--I am afraid I must ask you to help me."
Before they could answer, Miss Verinder called to me softly.
She met me at the door of her room, with a light shawl,
and with the counterpane from her own bed.
"Do you mean to watch him while he sleeps?" she asked.
"Yes, I am not sure enough of the action of the opium in his case
to be willing to leave him alone."
She handed me the shawl and the counterpane.
"Why should you disturb him?" she whispered. "Make his bed on the sofa.
I can shut my door, and keep in my room."
It was infinitely the simplest and the safest way of disposing
of him for the night. I mentioned the suggestion to Mr. Bruff
and Betteredge--who both approved of my adopting it.
In five minutes I had laid him comfortably on the sofa,
and had covered him lightly with the counterpane and the shawl.
Miss Verinder wished us good night, and closed the door.
At my request, we three then drew round the table in the middle
of the room, on which the candle was still burning, and on
which writing materials were placed.
"Before we separate," I began, "I have a word to say about the experiment
which has been tried to-night. Two distinct objects were to be gained by it.
The first of these objects was to prove, that Mr. Blake entered this room,
and took the Diamond, last year, acting unconsciously and irresponsibly,
under the influence of opium. After what you have both seen, are you both
satisfied, so far?"
They answered me in the affirmative, without a moment's hesitation.
"The second object," I went on, "was to discover what he did
with the Diamond, after he was seen by Miss Verinder
to leave her sitting-room with the jewel in his hand,
on the birthday night. The gaining of this object depended,
of course, on his still continuing exactly to repeat
his proceedings of last year. He has failed to do that;
and the purpose of the experiment is defeated accordingly.
I can't assert that I am not disappointed at the result--
but I can honestly say that I am not surprised by it.
I told Mr. Blake from the first, that our complete success
in this matter depended on our completely reproducing in him
the physical and moral conditions of last year--and I warned
him that this was the next thing to a downright impossibility.
We have only partially reproduced the conditions, and the experiment
has been only partially successful in consequence. It is also
possible that I may have administered too large a dose of laudanum.
But I myself look upon the first reason that I have given,
as the true reason why we have to lament a failure, as well as to
rejoice over a success."
After saying those words, I put the writing materials before Mr. Bruff,
and asked him if he had any objection--before we separated for the night--
to draw out, and sign, a plain statement of what he had seen.
He at once took the pen, and produced the statement with the fluent
readiness of a practised hand.
"I owe you this," he said, signing the paper, "as some
atonement for what passed between us earlier in the evening.
I beg your pardon, Mr. Jennings, for having doubted you.
You have done Franklin Blake an inestimable service. In our
legal phrase, you have proved your case."
Betteredge's apology was characteristic of the man.
"Mr. Jennings," he said, "when you read ROBINSON CRUSOE again
(which I strongly recommend you to do), you will find that he never
scruples to acknowledge it, when he turns out to have been in the wrong.
Please to consider me, sir, as doing what Robinson Crusoe did,
on the present occasion." With those words he signed the paper in
his turn.
Mr. Bruff took me aside, as we rose from the table.
"One word about the Diamond," he said. "Your theory is that
Franklin Blake hid the Moonstone in his room. My theory is,
that the Moonstone is in the possession of Mr. Luker's
bankers in London. We won't dispute which of us is right.
We will only ask, which of us is in a position to put his theory
to the test?"
"The test, in my case, I answered, "has been tried to-night, and has failed."
"The test, in my case," rejoined Mr. Bruff, "is still in process of trial.
For the last two days I have had a watch set for Mr. Luker at the bank;
and I shall cause that watch to be continued until the last day of the month.
I know that he must take the Diamond himself out of his bankers" hands--and I
am acting on the chance that the person who has pledged the Diamond may
force him to do this by redeeming the pledge. In that case I may be able
to lay my hand on the person. If I succeed, I clear up the mystery,
exactly at the point where the mystery baffles us now! Do you admit that,
so far?"
I admitted it readily.
"I am going back to town by the morning train," pursued the lawyer.
"I may hear, when I return, that a discovery has been made--
and it may be of the greatest importance that I should have Franklin
Blake at hand to appeal to, if necessary. I intend to tell him,
as soon as he wakes, that he must return with me to London.
After all that has happened, may I trust to your influence to
back me?"
"Certainly!" I said.
Mr. Bruff shook hands with me, and left the room. Betteredge followed
him out; I went to the sofa to look at Mr. Blake. He had not moved
since I had laid him down and made his bed--he lay locked in a deep
and quiet sleep.
While I was still looking at him, I heard the bedroom door softly opened.
Once more, Miss Verinder appeared on the threshold, in her pretty
summer dress.
"Do me a last favour?" she whispered. "Let me watch him with you."
I hesitated--not in the interests of propriety; only in the interest
of her night's rest. She came close to me, and took my hand.
"I can't sleep; I can't even sit still, in my own room," she said.
"Oh, Mr. Jennings, if you were me, only think how you would long to sit
and look at him. Say, yes! Do!"
Is it necessary to mention that I gave way? Surely not!
She drew a chair to the foot of the sofa. She looked at him
in a silent ecstasy of happiness, till the tears rose in her eyes.
She dried her eyes, and said she would fetch her work.
She fetched her work, and never did a single stitch of it.
It lay in her lap--she was not even able to look away from him
long enough to thread her needle. I thought of my own youth;
I thought of the gentle eyes which had once looked love at me.
In the heaviness of my heart I turned to my Journal for relief, and
wrote in it what is written here.
So we kept our watch together in silence. One of us absorbed in his writing;
the other absorbed in her love.
Hour after hour he lay in his deep sleep. The light of the new day
grew and grew in the room, and still he never moved.
Towards six o'clock, I felt the warning which told me that my pains were
coming back. I was obliged to leave her alone with him for a little while.
I said I would go up-stairs, and fetch another pillow for him out of
his room. It was not a long attack, this time. In a little while I
was able to venture back, and let her see me again.
I found her at the head of the sofa, when I returned.
She was just touching his forehead with her lips. I shook
my head as soberly as I could, and pointed to her chair.
She looked back at me with a bright smile, and a charming
colour in her face. "You would have done it," she whispered,"
in my place!"
* * * * * * * * * *
It is just eight o'clock. He is beginning to move for the first time.
Miss Verinder is kneeling by the side of the sofa. She has so placed
herself that when his eyes first open, they must open on her face.
Shall I leave them together?
Yes!
* * * * * * * * * *
Eleven o'clock.--The house is empty again. They have arranged it
among themselves; they have all gone to London by the ten o'clock train.
My brief dream of happiness is over. I have awakened again to the realities
of my friendless and lonely life.
I dare not trust myself to write down, the kind words that have been said
to me especially by Miss Verinder and Mr. Blake. Besides, it is needless.
Those words will come back to me in my solitary hours, and will help
me through what is left of the end of my life. Mr. Blake is to write,
and tell me what happens in London. Miss Verinder is to return to Yorkshire
in the autumn (for her marriage, no doubt); and I am to take a holiday,
and be a guest in the house. Oh me, how I felt, as the grateful happiness
looked at me out of her eyes, and the warm pressure of her hand said,
"This is your doing!"
My poor patients are waiting for me. Back again, this morning,
to the old routine! Back again, to-night, to the dreadful
alternative between the opium and the pain!
God be praised for His mercy! I have seen a little sunshine--
I have had a happy time.
FIFTH NARRATIVE
The Story Resumed by FRANKLIN BLAKE
CHAPTER I
But few words are needed, on my part, to complete the narrative
that has been presented in the Journal of Ezra Jennings.
Of myself, I have only to say that I awoke on the morning of the twenty-sixth,
perfectly ignorant of all that I had said and done under the influence
of the opium--from the time when the drug first laid its hold on me,
to the time when I opened my eyes, in Rachel's sitting-room.
Of what happened after my waking, I do not feel called upon to
render an account in detail. Confining myself merely to results,
I have to report that Rachel and I thoroughly understood each other,
before a single word of explanation had passed on either side.
I decline to account, and Rachel declines to account, for the
extraordinary rapidity of our reconciliation. Sir and Madam,
look back at the time when you were passionately attached to each other--
and you will know what happened, after Ezra Jennings had shut the door
of the sitting-room, as well as I know it myself.
I have, however, no objection to add, that we should have been certainly
discovered by Mrs. Merridew, but for Rachel's presence of mind.
She heard the sound of the old lady's dress in the corridor,
and instantly ran out to meet her; I heard Mrs. Merridew say,
"What is the matter?" and I heard Rachel answer, "The explosion!"
Mrs. Merridew instantly permitted herself to be taken by the arm,
and led into the garden, out of the way of the impending shock.
On her return to the house, she met me in the hall,
and expressed herself as greatly struck by the vast improvement
in Science, since the time when she was a girl at school.
"Explosions, Mr. Blake, are infinitely milder than they were.
I assure you, I barely heard Mr. Jennings's explosion from the garden.
And no smell afterwards, that I can detect, now we have come back
to the house! I must really apologise to your medical friend.
It is only due to him to say that he has managed it beautifully!"
So, after vanquishing Betteredge and Mr. Bruff, Ezra Jennings vanquished
Mrs. Merridew herself. There is a great deal of undeveloped liberal
feeling in the world, after all!
At breakfast, Mr. Bruff made no secret of his reasons for wishing
that I should accompany him to London by the morning train.
The watch kept at the bank, and the result which might yet
come of it, appealed so irresistibly to Rachel's curiosity,
that she at once decided (if Mrs. Merridew had no objection)
on accompanying us back to town--so as to be within reach of the
earliest news of our proceedings.
Mrs. Merridew proved to be all pliability and indulgence,
after the truly considerate manner in which the explosion had
conducted itself; and Betteredge was accordingly informed that we
were all four to travel back together by the morning train.
I fully expected that he would have asked leave to accompany us.
But Rachel had wisely provided her faithful old servant with an
occupation that interested him. He was charged with completing
the refurnishing of the house, and was too full of his domestic
responsibilities to feel the "detective-fever" as he might have felt
it under other circumstances.
Our one subject of regret, in going to London, was the necessity
of parting, more abruptly than we could have wished, with Ezra Jennings.
It was impossible to persuade him to accompany us. I could only promise
to write to him--and Rachel could only insist on his coming to see her
when she returned to Yorkshire. There was every prospect of our meeting
again in a few months--and yet there was something very sad in seeing
our best and dearest friend left standing alone on the platform,
as the train moved out of the station.
On our arrival in London, Mr. Bruff was accosted at the terminus by a
small boy, dressed in a jacket and trousers of threadbare black cloth,
and personally remarkable in virtue of the extraordinary prominence
of his eyes. They projected so far, and they rolled about so loosely,
that you wondered uneasily why they remained in their sockets.
After listening to the boy, Mr. Bruff asked the ladies whether
they would excuse our accompanying them back to Portland Place.
I had barely time to promise Rachel that I would return, and tell her
everything that had happened, before Mr. Bruff seized me by the arm,
and hurried me into a cab. The boy with the ill-secured eyes took his
place on the box by the driver, and the driver was directed to go to
Lombard Street.
"News from the bank?" I asked, as we started.
"News of Mr. Luker," said Mr. Bruff. "An hour ago, he was seen
to leave his house at Lambeth, in a cab, accompanied by two men,
who were recognised by my men as police officers in plain clothes.
If Mr. Luker's dread of the Indians is at the bottom of this precaution,
the inference is plain enough. He is going to take the Diamond out of
the bank."
"And we are going to the bank to see what comes of it?"
"Yes--or to hear what has come of it, if it is all over by this time.
Did you notice my boy--on the box, there?"
"I noticed his eyes."
Mr. Bruff laughed. "They call the poor little wretch " Gooseberry"
at the office," he said. "I employ him to go on errands--and I only wish my
clerks who have nick-named him were as thoroughly to be depended on as he is.
Gooseberry is one of the sharpest boys in London, Mr. Blake, in spite of
his eyes."
It was twenty minutes to five when we drew up before the bank
in Lombard Street. Gooseberry looked longingly at his master,
as he opened the cab door.
"Do you want to come in too?" asked Mr. Bruff kindly.
"Come in then, and keep at my heels till further orders.
He's as quick as lightning," pursued Mr. Bruff, addressing me in
a whisper. "Two words will do with Gooseberry, where twenty would
be wanted with another boy."
We entered the bank. The outer office--with the long counter,
behind which the cashiers sat--was crowded with people;
all waiting their turn to take money out, or to pay money in,
before the bank closed at five o'clock.
Two men among the crowd approached Mr. Bruff, as soon as he showed himself.
"Well," asked the lawyer. "Have you seen him?"
"He passed us here half an hour since, sir, and went on into
the inner office."
"Has he not come out again yet?"
"No, sir."
Mr. Bruff turned to me. "Let us wait," he said.
I looked round among the people about me for the three Indians.
Not a sign of them was to be seen anywhere. The only person
present with a noticeably dark complexion was a tall man
in a pilot coat, and a round hat, who looked like a sailor.
Could this be one of them in disguise? Impossible! The man
was taller than any of the Indians; and his face, where it was
not hidden by a bushy black beard, was twice the breadth of any
of their faces at least.
"They must have their spy somewhere," said Mr. Bruff, looking at the dark
sailor in his turn. "And he may be the man."
Before he could say more, his coat-tail was respectfully
pulled by his attendant sprite with the gooseberry eyes.
Mr. Bruff looked where the boy was looking. "Hush!" he said.
"Here is Mr. Luker!"
The money-lender came out from the inner regions of the bank,
followed by his two guardian policemen in plain clothes.
"Keep your eye on him," whispered Mr. Bruff. "If he passes
the Diamond to anybody, he will pass it here."
Without noticing either of us, Mr. Luker slowly made his way to the door--
now in the thickest, now in the thinnest part of the crowd.
I distinctly saw his hand move, as he passed a short, stout man,
respectably dressed in a suit of sober grey. The man started a little,
and looked after him. Mr. Luker moved on slowly through the crowd.
At the door his guard placed themselves on either side of him.
They were all three followed by one of Mr. Bruff's men--and I saw them
no more.
I looked round at the lawyer, and then looked significantly towards
the man in the suit of sober grey. "Yes!" whispered Mr. Bruff,
"I saw it too!" He turned about, in search of his second man.
The second man was nowhere to be seen. He looked behind him for his
attendant sprite. Gooseberry had disappeared.
"What the devil does it mean?" said Mr. Bruff angrily.
"They have both left us at the very time when we want
them most."
It came to the turn of the man in the grey suit to transact his business
at the counter. He paid in a cheque--received a receipt for it--
and turned to go out.
"What is to be done?" asked Mr. Bruff. "We can't degrade ourselves
by following him."
"I can!" I said. "I wouldn't lose sight of that man for ten
thousand pounds!"
"In that case," rejoined Mr. Bruff, "I wouldn't lose sight of you,
for twice the money. A nice occupation for a man in my position,"
he muttered to himself, as we followed the stranger out of the bank.
"For Heaven's sake don't mention it. I should be ruined if it
was known."
The man in the grey suit got into an omnibus, going westward.
We got in after him. There were latent reserves of youth still left
in Mr. Bruff. I assert it positively--when he took his seat in
the omnibus, he blushed!
The man in the grey suit stopped the omnibus, and got out in Oxford Street.
We followed him again. He went into a chemist's shop.
Mr. Bruff started. "My chemist!" he exclaimed. "I am afraid we
have made a mistake."
We entered the shop. Mr. Bruff and the proprietor exchanged a few words
in private. The lawyer joined me again, with a very crestfallen face.
"It's greatly to our credit," he said, as he took my arm,
and led me out--"that's one comfort!"
"What is to our credit?" I asked.
"Mr. Blake! you and I are the two worst amateur detectives
that ever tried their hands at the trade. The man in the grey
suit has been thirty years in the chemist's service.
He was sent to the bank to pay money to his master's account--
and he knows no more of the Moonstone than the babe unborn."
I asked what was to be done next.
"Come back to my office," said Mr. Bruff. "Gooseberry, and my second man,
have evidently followed somebody else. Let us hope that THEY had their eyes
about them at any rate!"
When we reached Gray's Inn Square, the second man had arrived
there before us. He had been waiting for more than a quarter
of an hour.
"Well!" asked Mr. Bruff. "What's your news?"
"I am sorry to say, sir," replied the man, "that I have made a mistake.
I could have taken my oath that I saw Mr. Luker pass something to an
elderly gentleman, in a light-coloured paletot. The elderly gentleman
turns out, sir, to be a most respectable master iron-monger in Eastcheap."
"Where is Gooseberry?" asked Mr. Bruff resignedly.
The man stared. "I don't know, sir. I have seen nothing of him
since I left the bank."
Mr. Bruff dismissed the man. "One of two things," he said to me.
"Either Gooseberry has run away, or he is hunting on his own account.
What do you say to dining here, on the chance that the boy may come
back in an hour or two? I have got some good wine in the cellar,
and we can get a chop from the coffee-house."
We dined at Mr. Bruff's chambers. Before the cloth was removed,
"a person" was announced as wanting to speak to the lawyer.
Was the person Gooseberry? No: only the man who had been employed to
follow Mr. Luker when he left the bank.
The report, in this case, presented no feature of the slightest interest.
Mr. Luker had gone back to his own house, and had there dismissed
his guard. He had not gone out again afterwards. Towards dusk,
the shutters had been put up, and the doors had been bolted.
The street before the house, and the alley behind the house,
had been carefully watched. No signs of the Indians had been visible.
No person whatever had been seen loitering about the premises.
Having stated these facts, the man waited to know whether
there were any further orders. Mr. Bruff dismissed him for
the night.
"Do you think Mr. Luker has taken the Moonstone home with him?"
I asked.
"Not he," said Mr. Bruff. "He would never have dismissed his two policemen,
if he had run the risk of keeping the Diamond in his own house again."
We waited another half-hour for the boy, and waited in vain.
It was then time for Mr. Bruff to go to Hampstead, and for me
to return to Rachel in Portland Place. I left my card,
in charge of the porter at the chambers, with a line written
on it to say that I should be at my lodgings at half past ten,
that night. The card was to be given to the boy, if the boy
came back.
Some men have a knack of keeping appointments; and other men
have a knack of missing them. I am one of the other men.
Add to this, that I passed the evening at Portland Place,
on the same seat with Rachel, in a room forty feet long,
with Mrs. Merridew at the further end of it. Does anybody wonder
that I got home at half past twelve instead of half past ten?
How thoroughly heartless that person must be! And how earnestly I
hope I may never make that person's acquaintance!
My servant handed me a morsel of paper when he let me in.
I read, in a neat legal handwriting, these words--"If you please, sir, I am
getting sleepy. I will come back to-morrow morning, between nine and ten."
Inquiry proved that a boy, with very extraordinary-looking eyes, had called,
and presented my card and message, had waited an hour, had done nothing but
fall asleep and wake up again, had written a line for me, and had gone home--
after gravely informing the servant that "he was fit for nothing unless he got
his night's rest."
At nine, the next morning, I was ready for my visitor. At half past nine,
I heard steps outside my door. "Come in, Gooseberry!" I called out.
"Thank you, sir," answered a grave and melancholy voice. The door opened.
I started to my feet, and confronted--Sergeant Cuff.
"I thought I would look in here, Mr. Blake, on the chance of your being
in town, before I wrote to Yorkshire," said the Sergeant.
He was as dreary and as lean as ever. His eyes had not lost
their old trick (so subtly noticed in Betteredge's NARRATIVE)
of "looking as if they expected something more from you than
you were aware of yourself." But, so far as dress can alter
a man, the great Cuff was changed beyond all recognition.
He wore a broad-brimmed white hat, a light shooting jacket,
white trousers, and drab gaiters. He carried a stout oak stick.
His whole aim and object seemed to be to look as if he had
lived in the country all his life. When I complimented him
on his Metamorphosis, he declined to take it as a joke.
He complained, quite gravely, of the noises and the smells
of London. I declare I am far from sure that he did not speak
with a slightly rustic accent! I offered him breakfast.
The innocent countryman was quite shocked. HIS breakfast
hour was half-past six--and HE went to bed with the cocks
and hens!
"I only got back from Ireland last night," said the Sergeant,
coming round to the practical object of his visit, in his own
impenetrable manner. "Before I went to bed, I read your letter,
telling me what has happened since my inquiry after the Diamond
was suspended last year. There's only one thing to be said
about the matter on my side. I completely mistook my case.
How any man living was to have seen things in their true light,
in such a situation as mine was at the time, I don't profess
to know. But that doesn't alter the facts as they stand.
I own that I made a mess of it. Not the first mess, Mr. Blake,
which has distinguished my professional career! It's only
in books that the officers of the detective force are superior
to the weakness of making a mistake."
"You have come in the nick of time to recover your reputation,"
I said.
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Blake," rejoined the Sergeant.
"Now I have retired from business, I don't care a straw about
my reputation. I have done with my reputation, thank God!
I am here, sir, in grateful remembrance of the late Lady
Verinder's liberality to me. I will go back to my old work--
if you want me, and if you will trust me--on that consideration,
and on no other. Not a farthing of money is to pass,
if you please, from you to me. This is on honour.
Now tell me, Mr. Blake, how the case stands since you wrote to
me last."
I told him of the experiment with the opium, and of what had occurred
afterwards at the bank in Lombard Street. He was greatly struck
by the experiment--it was something entirely new in his experience.
And he was particularly interested in the theory of Ezra Jennings,
relating to what I had done with the Diamond, after I had left Rachel's
sitting-room, on the birthday night.
"I don't hold with Mr. Jennings that you hid the Moonstone,"
said Sergeant Cuff. "But I agree with him, that you must
certainly have taken it back to your own room."
"Well?" I asked. "And what happened then?"
"Have you no suspicion yourself of what happened, sir?"
"None whatever."
"Has Mr. Bruff no suspicion?"
"No more than I have."
Sergeant Cuff rose, and went to my writing-table. He came back with
a sealed envelope. It was marked "Private;" it was addressed to me;
and it had the Sergeant's signature in the corner.
"I suspected the wrong person, last year," he said:
"and I may be suspecting the wrong person now. Wait to open
the envelope, Mr. Blake, till you have got at the truth.
And then compare the name of the guilty person, with the name that I
have written in that sealed letter."
I put the letter into my pocket--and then asked for the Sergeant's opinion
of the measures which we had taken at the bank.
"Very well intended, sir," he answered, "and quite the right thing to do.
But there was another person who ought to have been looked after besides
Mr. Luker."
"The person named in the letter you have just given to me?"
"Yes, Mr. Blake, the person named in the letter. It can't be helped now.
I shall have something to propose to you and Mr. Bruff, sir, when the
time comes. Let's wait, first, and see if the boy has anything to tell
us that is worth hearing."
It was close on ten o'clock, and the boy had not made his appearance.
Sergeant Cuff talked of other matters. He asked after his old
friend Betteredge, and his old enemy the gardener. In a minute more,
he would no doubt have got from this, to the subject of his
favourite roses, if my servant had not interrupted us by announcing
that the boy was below.
On being brought into the room, Gooseberry stopped at the threshold of
the door, and looked distrustfully at the stranger who was in my company.
I told the boy to come to me.
"You may speak before this gentleman," I said. "He is here to assist me;
and he knows all that has happened. Sergeant Cuff," I added, "this is the boy
from Mr. Bruff's office."
In our modern system of civilisation, celebrity (no matter of what kind)
is the lever that will move anything. The fame of the great Cuff had even
reached the ears of the small Gooseberry. The boy's ill-fixed eyes rolled,
when I mentioned the illustrious name, till I thought they really must have
dropped on the carpet.
"Come here, my lad," said the Sergeant, and let's hear what you
have got to tell us."
The notice of the great man--the hero of many a famous story
in every lawyer's office in London--appeared to fascinate the boy.
He placed himself in front of Sergeant Cuff, and put his hands
behind him, after the approved fashion of a neophyte who is examined
in his catechism.
"What is your name?" said the Sergeant, beginning with the first question
in the catechism.
"Octavius Guy," answered the boy. "They call me Gooseberry
at the office because of my eyes."
"Octavius Guy, otherwise Gooseberry," pursued the Sergeant,
with the utmost gravity, "you were missed at the bank yesterday.
What were you about?"
"If you please, sir, I was following a man."
"Who was he?"
"A tall man, sir, with a big black beard, dressed like a sailor."
"I remember the man!" I broke in. "Mr. Bruff and I thought
he was a spy employed by the Indians."
Sergeant Cuff did not appear to be much impressed by what Mr. Bruff and I
had thought. He went on catechising Gooseberry.
"Well?" he said--"and why did you follow the sailor?"
"If you please, sir, Mr. Bruff wanted to know whether Mr. Luker
passed anything to anybody on his way out of the bank.
I saw Mr. Luker pass something to the sailor with the black beard."
"Why didn't you tell Mr. Bruff what you saw?"
"I hadn't time to tell anybody, sir, the sailor went out in such a hurry."
"And you ran out after him--eh?"
"Yes, sir."
"Gooseberry," said the Sergeant, patting his head, "you have got
something in that small skull of yours--and it isn't cotton-wool.
I am greatly pleased with you, so far."
The boy blushed with pleasure. Sergeant Cuff went on.
"Well? and what did the sailor do, when he got into the street?"
"He called a cab, sir."
"And what did you do?"
"Held on behind, and run after it.
Before the Sergeant could put his next question, another visitor
was announced--the head clerk from Mr. Bruff's office.
Feeling the importance of not interrupting Sergeant Cuff's
examination of the boy, I received the clerk in another room.
He came with bad news of his employer. The agitation and excitement
of the last two days had proved too much for Mr. Bruff.
He had awoke that morning with an attack of gout; he was confined
to his room at Hampstead; and, in the present critical condition
of our affairs, he was very uneasy at being compelled to leave
me without the advice and assistance of an experienced person.
The chief clerk had received orders to hold himself at
my disposal, and was willing to do his best to replace
Mr. Bruff.
I wrote at once to quiet the old gentleman's mind, by telling him of Sergeant
Cuff's visit: adding that Gooseberry was at that moment under examination;
and promising to inform Mr. Bruff, either personally, or by letter,
of whatever might occur later in the day. Having despatched the clerk
to Hampstead with my note, I returned to the room which I had left, and found
Sergeant Cuff at the fireplace, in the act of ringing the bell.
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Blake," said the Sergeant. "I was just
going to send word by your servant that I wanted to speak to you.
There isn't a doubt on my mind that this boy--this most meritorious boy,"
added the Sergeant, patting Gooseberry on the head, "has followed
the right man. Precious time has been lost, sir, through your
unfortunately not being at home at half past ten last night.
The only thing to do, now, is to send for a cab immediately."
In five minutes more, Sergeant Cuff and I (with Gooseberry
on the box to guide the driver) were on our way eastward,
towards the City.
"One of these days," said the Sergeant, pointing through the front window
of the cab, "that boy will do great things in my late profession.
He is the brightest and cleverest little chap I have met with,
for many a long year past. You shall hear the substance, Mr. Blake,
of what he told me while you were out of the room. You were present,
I think, when he mentioned that he held on behind the cab, and ran
after it?"
"Yes."
"Well, sir, the cab went from Lombard Street to the Tower Wharf.
The sailor with the black beard got out, and spoke to the steward
of the Rotterdam steamboat, which was to start next morning.
He asked if he could be allowed to go on board at once, and sleep
in his berth over-night. The steward said, No. The cabins, and berths,
and bedding were all to have a thorough cleaning that evening,
and no passenger could be allowed to come on board, before the morning.
The sailor turned round, and left the wharf. When he got into
the street again, the boy noticed for the first time, a man dressed
like a respectable mechanic, walking on the opposite side of the road,
and apparently keeping the sailor in view. The sailor stopped
at an eating-house in the neighbourhood, and went in. The boy--
not being able to make up his mind, at the moment--hung about among
some other boys, staring at the good things in the eating-house window.
He noticed the mechanic waiting, as he himself was waiting--
but still on the opposite side of the street. After a minute,
a cab came by slowly, and stopped where the mechanic was standing.
The boy could only see plainly one person in the cab, who leaned forward at
the window to speak to the mechanic. He described that person, Mr. Blake,
without any prompting from me, as having a dark face, like the face of
an Indian."
It was plain, by this time, that Mr. Bruff and I had made another mistake.
The sailor with the black beard was clearly not a spy in the service
of the Indian conspiracy. Was he, by any possibility, the man who had got
the Diamond?
"After a little," pursued the Sergeant, "the cab moved on slowly
down the street. The mechanic crossed the road, and went into
the eating-house. The boy waited outside till he was hungry
and tired--and then went into the eating-house, in his turn.
He had a shilling in his pocket; and he dined sumptuously,
he tells me, on a black-pudding, an eel-pie, and a bottle
of ginger-beer. What can a boy not digest? The substance
in question has never been found yet."
"What did he see in the eating-house?" I asked.
"Well, Mr. Blake, he saw the sailor reading the newspaper at
one table, and the mechanic reading the newspaper at another.
It was dusk before the sailor got up, and left the place.
He looked about him suspiciously when he got out into the street.
The boy--BEING a boy--passed unnoticed. The mechanic had
not come out yet. The sailor walked on, looking about him,
and apparently not very certain of where he was going next.
The mechanic appeared once more, on the opposite side of the road.
The sailor went on, till he got to Shore Lane, leading into
Lower Thames Street. There he stopped before a public-house,
under the sign of "The Wheel of Fortune," and, after examining
the place outside, went in. Gooseberry went in too. There were
a great many people, mostly of the decent sort, at the bar.
"The Wheel of Fortune" is a very respectable house, Mr. Blake;
famous for its porter and pork-pies."
The Sergeant's digressions irritated me. He saw it; and confined
himself more strictly to Gooseberry's evidence when he went on.
"The sailor," he resumed, "asked if he could have a bed.
The landlord said "No; they were full." The barmaid
corrected him, and said "Number Ten was empty." A waiter was
sent for to show the sailor to Number Ten. Just before that,
Gooseberry had noticed the mechanic among the people at the bar.
Before the waiter had answered the call, the mechanic had vanished.
The sailor was taken off to his room. Not knowing what to do next,
Gooseberry had the wisdom to wait and see if anything happened.
Something did happen. The landlord was called for.
Angry voices were heard up-stairs. The mechanic suddenly made
his appearance again, collared by the landlord, and exhibiting,
to Gooseberry's great surprise, all the signs and tokens
of being drunk. The landlord thrust him out at the door,
and threatened him with the police if he came back.
From the altercation between them, while this was going on,
it appeared that the man had been discovered in Number Ten,
and had declared with drunken obstinacy that he had taken the room.
Gooseberry was so struck by this sudden intoxication of a
previously sober person, that he couldn't resist running
out after the mechanic into the street. As long as he was
in sight of the public-house, the man reeled about in the most
disgraceful manner. The moment he turned the corner of the street,
he recovered his balance instantly, and became as sober a member
of society as you could wish to see. Gooseberry went back
to "The Wheel of Fortune" in a very bewildered state of mind.
He waited about again, on the chance of something happening.
Nothing happened; and nothing more was to be heard, or seen,
of the sailor. Gooseberry decided on going back to the office.
Just as he came to this conclusion, who should appear, on the
opposite side of the street as usual, but the mechanic again!
He looked up at one particular window at the top of the
public-house, which was the only one that had a light in it.
The light seemed to relieve his mind. He left the place directly.
The boy made his way back to Gray's Inn--got your card
and message--called--and failed to find you. There you have
the state of the case, Mr. Blake, as it stands at the present
time."
"What is your own opinion of the case, Sergeant?"
"I think it's serious, sir. Judging by what the boy saw,
the Indians are in it, to begin with."
"Yes. And the sailor is evidently the person to whom Mr. Luker
passed the Diamond. It seems odd that Mr. Bruff, and I,
and the man in Mr. Bruff's employment, should all have been
mistaken about who the person was."
"Not at all, Mr. Blake. Considering the risk that person ran,
it's likely enough that Mr. Luker purposely misled you,
by previous arrangement between them."
"Do you understand the proceedings at the public-house?" I asked.
"The man dressed like a mechanic was acting of course in the employment
of the Indians. But I am as much puzzled to account for his sudden
assumption of drunkenness as Gooseberry himself."
"I think I can give a guess at what it means, sir," said the Sergeant.
"If you will reflect, you will see that the man must have had some pretty
strict instructions from the Indians. They were far too noticeable
themselves to risk being seen at the bank, or in the public-house--
they were obliged to trust everything to their deputy. Very good.
Their deputy hears a certain number named in the public-house,
as the number of the room which the sailor is to have for the night--
that being also the room (unless our notion is all wrong) which the Diamond
is to have for the night, too. Under those circumstances, the Indians,
you may rely on it, would insist on having a description of the room--
of its position in the house, of its capability of being approached from
the outside, and so on. What was the man to do, with such orders as these?
Just what he did! He ran up-stairs to get a look at the room, before the
sailor was taken into it. He was found there, making his observations--
and he shammed drunk, as the easiest way of getting out of the difficulty.
That's how I read the riddle. After he was turned out of the public-house,
he probably went with his report to the place where his employers
were waiting for him. And his employers, no doubt, sent him back
to make sure that the sailor was really settled at the public-house
till the next morning. As for what happened at "The Wheel of Fortune,"
after the boy left--we ought to have discovered that last night.
It's eleven in the morning, now. We must hope for the best, and find out what
we can."
In a quarter of an hour more, the cab stopped in Shore Lane,
and Gooseberry opened the door for us to get out.
"All right?" asked the Sergeant.
"All right," answered the boy.
The moment we entered "The Wheel of Fortune" it was plain even to my
inexperienced eyes that there was something wrong in the house.
The only person behind the counter at which the liquors were served,
was a bewildered servant girl, perfectly ignorant of the business.
One or two customers, waiting for their morning drink, were tapping
impatiently on the counter with their money. The bar-maid appeared
from the inner regions of the parlour, excited and preoccupied.
She answered Sergeant Cuff's inquiry for the landlord, by telling him
sharply that her master was up-stairs, and was not to be bothered
by anybody.
"Come along with me, sir," said Sergeant Cuff, coolly leading the way
up-stairs, and beckoning to the boy to follow him.
The barmaid called to her master, and warned him that strangers
were intruding themselves into the house. On the first floor
we were encountered by the Landlord, hurrying down, in a highly
irritated state, to see what was the matter.
"Who the devil are you? and what do you want here?" he asked.
"Keep your temper," said the Sergeant, quietly. "I'll tell you who I
am to begin with. I am Sergeant Cuff."
The illustrious name instantly produced its effect.
The angry landlord threw open the door of a sitting-room,
and asked the Sergeant's pardon.
"I am annoyed and out of sorts, sir--that's the truth," he said.
"Something unpleasant has happened in the house this morning.
A man in my way of business has a deal to upset his temper,
Sergeant Cuff."
"Not a doubt of it," said the Sergeant. "I'll come at once,
if you will allow me, to what brings us here. This gentleman
and I want to trouble you with a few inquiries, on a matter
of some interest to both of us."
"Relating to what, sir?" asked the landlord.
"Relating to a dark man, dressed like a sailor, who slept here last night."
"Good God! that's the man who is upsetting the whole house at this moment!"
exclaimed the landlord. "Do you, or does this gentleman know anything
about him?"
"We can't be certain till we see him," answered the Sergeant.
"See him?" echoed the landlord. "That's the one thing that
nobody has been able to do since seven o'clock this morning.
That was the time when he left word, last night, that he was
to be called. He WAS called--and there was no getting an answer
from him, and no opening his door to see what was the matter.
They tried again at eight, and they tried again at nine.
No use! There was the door still locked--and not a sound
to be heard in the room! I have been out this morning--
and I only got back a quarter of an hour ago.
I have hammered at the door myself--and all to no purpose.
The potboy has gone to fetch a carpenter. If you can wait a
few minutes, gentlemen, we will have the door opened, and see what
it means."
"Was the man drunk last night?" asked Sergeant Cuff.
"Perfectly sober, sir--or I would never have let him sleep in my house."
"Did he pay for his bed beforehand?"
"No."
"Could he leave the room in any way, without going out by the door?"
"The room is a garret," said the landlord. "But there's a
trap-door in the ceiling, leading out on to the roof--and a little
lower down the street, there's an empty house under repair.
Do you think, Sergeant, the blackguard has got off in that way,
without paying?"
"A sailor," said Sergeant Cuff, "might have done it--early in the morning,
before the street was astir. He would be used to climbing, and his head
wouldn't fail him on the roofs of the houses."
As he spoke, the arrival of the carpenter was announced.
We all went up-stairs, at once, to the top story.
I noticed that the Sergeant was unusually grave, even for him.
It also struck me as odd that he told the boy (after having
previously encouraged him to follow us), to wait in the room
below till we came down again.
The carpenter's hammer and chisel disposed of the resistance of
the door in a few minutes. But some article of furniture had been
placed against it inside, as a barricade. By pushing at the door,
we thrust this obstacle aside, and so got admission to the room.
The landlord entered first; the Sergeant second; and I third.
The other persons present followed us.
We all looked towards the bed, and all started.
The man had not left the room. He lay, dressed, on the bed--
with a white pillow over his face, which completely hid it
from view.
"What does that mean?" said the landlord, pointing to the pillow.
Sergeant Cuff led the way to the bed, without answering,
and removed the pillow.
The man's swarthy face was placid and still; his black
hair and beard were slightly, very slightly, discomposed.
His eyes stared wide-open, glassy and vacant, at the ceiling.
The filmy look and the fixed expression of them horrified me.
I turned away, and went to the open window. The rest of
them remained, where Sergeant Cuff remained, at the bed.
"He's in a fit!" I heard the landlord say.
"He's dead," the Sergeant answered. "Send for the nearest doctor,
and send for the police."
The waiter was despatched on both errands. Some strange
fascination seemed to hold Sergeant Cuff to the bed.
Some strange curiosity seemed to keep the rest of them waiting,
to see what the Sergeant would do next.
I turned again to the window. The moment afterwards, I felt
a soft pull at my coat-tails, and a small voice whispered,
"Look here, sir!"
Gooseberry had followed us into the room. His loose eyes
rolled frightfully--not in terror, but in exultation.
He had made a detective-discovery on his own account.
"Look here, sir," he repeated--and led me to a table in the corner
of the room.
On the table stood a little wooden box, open, and empty.
On one side of the box lay some jewellers' cotton. On the
other side, was a torn sheet of white paper, with a seal on it,
partly destroyed, and with an inscription in writing,
which was still perfectly legible. The inscription was in
these words:
"Deposited with Messrs. Bushe, Lysaught, and Bushe, by Mr. Septimus Luker,
of Middlesex Place, Lambeth, a small wooden box, sealed up in this envelope,
and containing a valuable of great price. The box, when claimed,
to be only given up by Messrs. Bushe and Co. on the personal application
of Mr. Luker."
Those lines removed all further doubt, on one point at least.
The sailor had been in possession of the Moonstone, when he had left
the bank on the previous day.
I felt another pull at my coat-tails. Gooseberry had not done with me yet.
"Robbery!" whispered the boy, pointing, in high delight,
to the empty box.
"You were told to wait down-stairs," I said. "Go away!"
"And Murder!" added Gooseberry, pointing, with a keener relish still,
to the man on the bed.
There was something so hideous in the boy's enjoyment of the horror
of the scene, that I took him by the two shoulders and put him
out of the room.
At the moment when I crossed the threshold of the door,
I heard Sergeant Cuff's voice, asking where I was. He met me,
as I returned into the room, and forced me to go back with him
to the bedside.
"Mr. Blake!" he said. "Look at the man's face. It is a face disguised--
and here's a proof of it!"
He traced with his finger a thin line of livid white, running backward
from the dead man's forehead, between the swarthy complexion,
and the slightly-disturbed black hair. "Let's see what is under this,"
said the Sergeant, suddenly seizing the black hair, with a firm grip
of his hand.
My nerves were not strong enough to bear it. I turned away again
from the bed.
The first sight that met my eyes, at the other end of the room,
was the irrepressible Gooseberry, perched on a chair, and looking
with breathless interest, over the heads of his elders,
at the Sergeant's proceedings.
"He's pulling off his wig!" whispered Gooseberry, compassionating my position,
as the only person in the room who could see nothing.
There was a pause--and then a cry of astonishment among the people
round the bed.
"He's pulled off his beard!" cried Gooseberry.
There was another pause--Sergeant Cuff asked for something.
The landlord went to the wash-hand-stand, and returned to the bed
with a basin of water and a towel.
Gooseberry danced with excitement on the chair. "Come up here,
along with me, sir! He's washing off his complexion now!"
The Sergeant suddenly burst his way through the people about him,
and came, with horror in his face, straight to the place where I
was standing.
"Come back to the bed, sir!" he began. He looked at me closer,
and checked himself "No!" he resumed. "Open the sealed letter first--
the letter I gave you this morning."
I opened the letter.
"Read the name, Mr. Blake, that I have written inside."
I read the name that he had written. It was GODFREY ABLEWHITE.
"Now," said the Sergeant, "come with me, and look at the man on the bed."
I went with him, and looked at the man on the bed.
GODFREY ABLEWHITE!
SIXTH NARRATIVE
Contributed by SERGEANT CUFF
I
Dorking, Surrey, July 30th, 1849. To Franklin Blake, Esq. Sir,--
I beg to apologise for the delay that has occurred in the production
of the Report, with which I engaged to furnish you. I have waited
to make it a complete Report; and I have been met, here and there,
by obstacles which it was only possible to remove by some little
expenditure of patience and time.
The object which I proposed to myself has now, I hope, been attained.
You will find, in these pages, answers to the greater part--if not all--
of the questions, concerning the late Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite, which occurred to
your mind when I last had the honour of seeing you.
I propose to tell you--in the first place--what is known of the manner
in which your cousin met his death; appending to the statement such
inferences and conclusions as we are justified (according to my opinion)
in drawing from the facts.
I shall then endeavour--in the second place--to put you in possession
of such discoveries as I have made, respecting the proceedings
of Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite, before, during, and after the time,
when you and he met as guests at the late Lady Verinder's country-house.
II
As to your cousin's death, then, first.
It appears to be established, beyond any reasonable doubt,
that he was killed (while he was asleep, or immediately on
his waking) by being smothered with a pillow from his bed--
that the persons guilty of murdering him are the three Indians--
and that the object contemplated (and achieved) by the crime,
was to obtain possession of the diamond, called the Moonstone.
The facts from which this conclusion is drawn, are derived
partly from an examination of the room at the tavern;
and partly from the evidence obtained at the Coroner's Inquest.
On forcing the door of the room, the deceased gentleman was discovered, dead,
with the pillow of the bed over his face. The medical man who examined him,
being informed of this circumstance, considered the post-mortem appearances
as being perfectly compatible with murder by smothering--that is to say,
with murder committed by some person, or persons, pressing the pillow over
the nose and mouth of the deceased, until death resulted from congestion
of the lungs.
Next, as to the motive for the crime.
A small box, with a sealed paper torn off from it (the paper containing
an inscription) was found open, and empty, on a table in the room.
Mr. Luker has himself personally identified the box, the seal,
and the inscription. He has declared that the box did actually contain
the diamond, called the Moonstone; and he has admitted having given
the box (thus sealed up) to Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite (then concealed
under a disguise), on the afternoon of the twenty-sixth of June last.
The fair inference from all this is, that the stealing of the Moonstone
was the motive of the crime.
Next, as to the manner in which the crime was committed.
On examination of the room (which is only seven feet high), a trap-door
in the ceiling, leading out on to the roof of the house, was discovered open.
The short ladder, used for obtaining access to the trap-door
(and kept under the bed), was found placed at the opening, so as to
enable any person or persons, in the room, to leave it again easily.
In the trap-door itself was found a square aperture cut in the wood,
apparently with some exceedingly sharp instrument, just behind the bolt
which fastened the door on the inner side. In this way, any person
from the outside could have drawn back the bolt, and opened the door,
and have dropped (or have been noiselessly lowered by an accomplice)
into the room--its height, as already observed, being only seven feet.
That some person, or persons, must have got admission in this way,
appears evident from the fact of the aperture being there.
As to the manner in which he (or they) obtained access to the roof
of the tavern, it is to be remarked that the third house, lower down
in the street, was empty, and under repair--that a long ladder was left
by the workmen, leading from the pavement to the top of the house--
and that, on returning to their work, on the morning of the 27th,
the men found the plank which they had tied to the ladder, to prevent
anyone from using it in their absence, removed, and lying on the ground.
As to the possibility of ascending by this ladder, passing over
the roofs of the houses, passing back, and descending again, unobserved--
it is discovered, on the evidence of the night policeman, that he only
passes through Shore Lane twice in an hour, when out on his beat.
The testimony of the inhabitants also declares, that Shore Lane,
after midnight, is one of the quietest and loneliest streets in London.
Here again, therefore, it seems fair to infer that--with ordinary caution,
and presence of mind--any man, or men, might have ascended by the ladder,
and might have descended again, unobserved. Once on the roof of the tavern,
it has been proved, by experiment, that a man might cut through the trap-door,
while lying down on it, and that in such a position, the parapet in front
of the house would conceal him from the view of anyone passing in the
street.
Lastly, as to the person, or persons, by whom the crime was committed.
It is known (1) that the Indians had an interest in possessing
themselves of the Diamond. (2) It is at least probable
that the man looking like an Indian, whom Octavius Guy
saw at the window of the cab, speaking to the man dressed
like a mechanic, was one of the three Hindoo conspirators.
(3) It is certain that this same man dressed like a mechanic,
was seen keeping Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite in view, all through
the evening of the 26th, and was found in the bedroom
(before Mr. Ablewhite was shown into it) under circumstances
which lead to the suspicion that he was examining the room.
(4) A morsel of torn gold thread was picked up in the bedroom,
which persons expert in such matters, declare to be of
Indian manufacture, and to be a species of gold thread not
known in England. 5) On the morning of the 27th, three men,
answering to the description of the three Indians, were observed
in Lower Thames Street, were traced to the Tower Wharf,
and were seen to leave London by the steamer bound
for Rotterdam.
There is here, moral, if not legal, evidence, that the murder was committed
by the Indians.
Whether the man personating a mechanic was, or was not,
an accomplice in the crime, it is impossible to say.
That he could have committed the murder alone, seems beyond
the limits of probability. Acting by himself, he could hardly
have smothered Mr. Ablewhite--who was the taller and stronger man
of the two--without a struggle taking place, or a cry being heard.
A servant girl, sleeping in the next room, heard nothing.
The landlord, sleeping in the room below, heard nothing.
The whole evidence points to the inference that more than
one man was concerned in this crime--and the circumstances,
I repeat, morally justify the conclusion that the Indians
committed it.
I have only to add, that the verdict at the Coroner's Inquest
was Wilful Murder against some person, or persons, unknown.
Mr. Ablewhite's family have offered a reward, and no effort
has been left untried to discover the guilty persons.
The man dressed like a mechanic has eluded all inquiries.
The Indians have been traced. As to the prospect of ultimately
capturing these last, I shall have a word to say to you on that head,
when I reach the end of the present Report.
In the meanwhile, having now written all that is needful on the subject
of Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite's death, I may pass next to the narrative
of his proceedings before, during, and after the time, when you
and he met at the late Lady Verinder's house.
III
With regard to the subject now in hand, I may state, at the outset,
that Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite's life had two sides to it.
The side turned up to the public view, presented the spectacle of a gentleman,
possessed of considerable reputation as a speaker at charitable meetings,
and endowed with administrative abilities, which he placed at the disposal
of various Benevolent Societies, mostly of the female sort. The side kept
hidden from the general notice, exhibited this same gentleman in the totally
different character of a man of pleasure, with a villa in the suburbs which
was not taken in his own name, and with a lady in the villa, who was not taken
in his own name, either.
My investigations in the villa have shown me several fine
pictures and statues; furniture tastefully selected,
and admirably made; and a conservatory of the rarest flowers,
the match of which it would not be easy to find in all London.
My investigation of the lady has resulted in the discovery
of jewels which are worthy to take rank with the flowers,
and of carriages and horses which have (deservedly) produced
a sensation in the Park, among persons well qualified to judge
of the build of the one, and the breed of the others.
All this is, so far, common enough. The villa and the lady are such familiar
objects in London life, that I ought to apologise for introducing them
to notice. But what is not common and not familiar (in my experience),
is that all these fine things were not only ordered, but paid for.
The pictures, the statues, the flowers, the jewels, the carriages,
and the horses--inquiry proved, to my indescribable astonishment,
that not a sixpence of debt was owing on any of them. As to the villa,
it had been bought, out and out, and settled on the lady.
I might have tried to find the right reading of this riddle,
and tried in vain--but for Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite's death,
which caused an inquiry to be made into the state of his affairs.
The inquiry elicited these facts:--
That Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite was entrusted with the care of a sum of
twenty thousand pounds--as one of two Trustees for a young gentleman,
who was still a minor in the year eighteen hundred and forty-eight. That
the Trust was to lapse, and that the young gentleman was to receive
the twenty thousand pounds on the day when he came of age, in the month
of February, eighteen hundred and fifty. That, pending the arrival
of this period, an income of six hundred pounds was to be paid to him
by his two Trustees, half-yearly--at Christmas and Midsummer Day. That this
income was regularly paid by the active Trustee, Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite.
That the twenty thousand pounds (from which the income was supposed
to be derived) had every farthing of it been sold out of the Funds,
at different periods, ending with the end of the year eighteen hundred
and forty-seven. That the power of attorney, authorising the bankers
to sell out the stock, and the various written orders telling them
what amounts to sell out, were formally signed by both the Trustees.
That the signature of the second Trustee (a retired army officer, living in
the country) was a signature forged, in every case, by the active Trustee--
otherwise Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite.
In these facts lies the explanation of Mr. Godfrey's honourable conduct,
in paying the debts incurred for the lady and the villa--and (as you
will presently see) of more besides.
We may now advance to the date of Miss Verinder's birthday
(in the year eighteen hundred and forty-eight)--the twenty-first
of June.
On the day before, Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite arrived at his father's house,
and asked (as I know from Mr. Ablewhite, senior, himself) for a loan
of three hundred pounds. Mark the sum; and remember at the same time,
that the half-yearly payment to the young gentleman was due on the
twenty-fourth of the month. Also, that the whole of the young gentleman's
fortune had been spent by his Trustee, by the end of the year 'forty-seven.
Mr. Ablewhite, senior, refused to lend his son a farthing.
The next day Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite rode over, with you,
to Lady Verinder's house. A few hours afterwards, Mr. Godfrey
(as you yourself have told me) made a proposal of marriage
to Miss Verinder. Here, he saw his way no doubt--if accepted--
to the end of all his money anxieties, present and future.
But, as events actually turned out, what happened? Miss Verinder
refused him.
On the night of the birthday, therefore, Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite's pecuniary
position was this. He had three hundred pounds to find on the twenty-fourth
of the month, and twenty thousand pounds to find in February eighteen hundred
and fifty. Failing to raise these sums, at these times, he was a ruined man.
Under those circumstances, what takes place next?
You exasperate Mr. Candy, the doctor, on the sore subject of his profession;
and he plays you a practical joke, in return, with a dose of laudanum.
He trusts the administration of the dose, prepared in a little phial,
to Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite--who has himself confessed the share he had in
the matter, under circumstances which shall presently be related to you.
Mr. Godfrey is all the readier to enter into the conspiracy, having himself
suffered from your sharp tongue in the course of the evening. He joins
Betteredge in persuading you to drink a little brandy and water before you
go to bed. He privately drops the dose of laudanum into your cold grog.
And you drink the mixture.
Let us now shift the scene, if you please to Mr. Luker's house at Lambeth.
And allow me to remark, by way of preface, that Mr. Bruff and I, together,
have found a means of forcing the money-lender to make a clean breast of it.
We have carefully sifted the statement he has addressed to us; and here it is
at your service.
IV
Late on the evening of Friday, the twenty-third of June
('forty-eight), Mr. Luker was surprised by a visit
from Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite. He was more than surprised,
when Mr. Godfrey produced the Moonstone. No such Diamond
(according to Mr. Luker's experience) was in the possession
of any private person in Europe.
Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite had two modest proposals to make,
in relation to this magnificent gem. First, Would Mr. Luker
be so good as to buy it? Secondly, Would Mr. Luker (in default
of seeing his way to the purchase) undertake to sell it
on commission, and to pay a sum down, on the anticipated result?
Mr. Luker tested the Diamond, weighed the Diamond and estimated
the value of the Diamond, before he answered a word. HIS estimate
(allowing for the flaw in the stone) was thirty thousand pounds.
Having reached that result, Mr. Luker opened his lips, and put a question:
"How did you come by this?" Only six words! But what volumes of meaning
in them!
Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite began a story. Mr. Luker opened his lips again,
and only said three words, this time. "That won't do!"
Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite began another story. Mr. Luker wasted no
more words on him. He got up, and rang the bell for the servant
to show the gentleman out.
Upon this compulsion, Mr. Godfrey made an effort, and came out with a new
and amended version of the affair, to the following effect.
After privately slipping the laudanum into your brandy and water,
he wished you good night, and went into his own room. It was the next
room to yours; and the two had a door of communication between them.
On entering his own room Mr. Godfrey (as he supposed) closed his door.
His money troubles kept him awake. He sat, in his dressing-gown and slippers,
for nearly an hour, thinking over his position. Just as he was preparing
to get into bed, he heard you, talking to yourself, in your own room,
and going to the door of communication, found that he had not shut it as
he supposed.
He looked into your room to see what was the matter.
He discovered you with the candle in your hand, just leaving
your bed-chamber. He heard you say to yourself, in a voice
quite unlike your own voice, "How do I know? The Indians may
be hidden in the house."
Up to that time, he had simply supposed himself (in giving you the laudanum)
to be helping to make you the victim of a harmless practical joke.
It now occurred to him, that the laudanum had taken some effect on you,
which had not been foreseen by the doctor, any more than by himself.
In the fear of an accident happening he followed you softly to see what you
would do.
He followed you to Miss Verinder's sitting-room, and saw you go in.
You left the door open. He looked through the crevice thus produced,
between the door and the post, before he ventured into the room himself.
In that position, he not only detected you in taking
the Diamond out of the drawer--he also detected Miss Verinder,
silently watching you from her bedroom, through her open door.
His own eyes satisfied him that SHE saw you take the Diamond, too.
Before you left the sitting-room again, you hesitated a little.
Mr. Godfrey took advantage of this hesitation to get back
again to his bedroom before you came out, and discovered him.
He had barely got back, before you got back too. You saw him
(as he supposes) just as he was passing through the door
of communication. At any rate, you called to him in a strange,
drowsy voice.
He came back to you. You looked at him in a dull sleepy way.
You put the Diamond into his hand. You said to him,
"Take it back, Godfrey, to your father's bank. It's safe there--
it's not safe here." You turned away unsteadily, and put
on your dressing-gown. You sat down in the large arm-chair
in your room. You said, "I can't take it back to the bank.
My head's like lead--and I can't feel my feet under me."
Your head sank on the back of the chair--you heaved a heavy sigh--
and you fell asleep.
Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite went back, with the Diamond, into his own room.
His statement is, that he came to no conclusion, at that time--
except that he would wait, and see what happened in the morning.
When the morning came, your language and conduct showed that you
were absolutely ignorant of what you had said and done overnight.
At the same time, Miss Verinder's language and conduct showed
that she was resolved to say nothing (in mercy to you) on her side.
If Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite chose to keep the Diamond, he might do so
with perfect impunity. The Moonstone stood between him and ruin.
He put the Moonstone into his pocket.
V
This was the story told by your cousin (under pressure of necessity)
to Mr. Luker.
Mr. Luker believed the story to be, as to all main essentials, true--on this
ground, that Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite was too great a fool to have invented it.
Mr. Bruff and I agree with Mr. Luker, in considering this test of the truth
of the story to be a perfectly reliable one.
The next question, was the question of what Mr. Luker would do
in the matter of the Moonstone. He proposed the following terms,
as the only terms on which he would consent to mix himself
up with, what was (even in HIS line of business) a doubtful
and dangerous transaction.
Mr. Luker would consent to lend Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite the sum
of two thousand pounds, on condition that the Moonstone was
to be deposited with him as a pledge. If, at the expiration
of one year from that date, Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite paid three
thousand pounds to Mr. Luker, he was to receive back the Diamond,
as a pledge redeemed. If he failed to produce the money at
the expiration of the year, the pledge (otherwise the Moonstone)
was to be considered as forfeited to Mr. Luker--who would,
in this latter case, generously make Mr. Godfrey a present
of certain promissory notes of his (relating to former dealings)
which were then in the money-lender's possession.
It is needless to say, that Mr. Godfrey indignantly refused
to listen to these monstrous terms. Mr. Luker thereupon,
handed him back the Diamond, and wished him good night.
Your cousin went to the door, and came back again. How was he to be sure
that the conversation of that evening would be kept strictly secret between
his friend and himself?
Mr. Luker didn't profess to know how. If Mr. Godfrey had accepted
his terms, Mr. Godfrey would have made him an accomplice,
and might have counted on his silence as on a certainty.
As things were, Mr. Luker must be guided by his own interests.
If awkward inquiries were made, how could be he expected to
compromise himself, for the sake of a man who had declined to deal
with him?
Receiving this reply, Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite did, what all animals
(human and otherwise) do, when they find themselves caught in a trap.
He looked about him in a state of helpless despair. The day of the month,
recorded on a neat little card in a box on the money-lender's chimney-piece,
happened to attract his eye. It was the twenty-third of June.
On the twenty-fourth he had three hundred pounds to pay to the young
gentleman for whom he was trustee, and no chance of raising the money,
except the chance that Mr. Luker had offered to him. But for this
miserable obstacle, he might have taken the Diamond to Amsterdam, and have
made a marketable commodity of it, by having it cut up into separate stones.
As matters stood, he had no choice but to accept Mr. Luker's terms.
After all, he had a year at his disposal, in which to raise the three
thousand pounds--and a year is a long time.
Mr. Luker drew out the necessary documents on the spot.
When they were signed, he gave Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite
two cheques. One, dated June 23rd, for three hundred pounds.
Another, dated a week on, for the remaining balance seventeen
hundred pounds.
How the Moonstone was trusted to the keeping of Mr Luker's bankers,
and how the Indians treated Mr. Luker and Mr. Godfrey (after that had
been done) you know already.
The next event in your cousin's life refers again to Miss Verinder.
He proposed marriage to her for the second time--and (after having
being accepted) he consented, at her request, to consider the marriage
as broken off. One of his reasons for making this concession has been
penetrated by Mr. Bruff. Miss Verinder had only a life interest in her
mother's property--and there was no raising the twenty thousand pounds
on THAT.
But you will say, he might have saved the three thousand pounds,
to redeem the pledged Diamond, if he had married.
He might have done so certainly--supposing neither his wife,
nor her guardians and trustees, objected to his anticipating
more than half of the income at his disposal, for some
unknown purpose, in the first year of his marriage.
But even if he got over this obstacle, there was another
waiting for him in the background. The lady at the Villa,
had heard of his contemplated marriage. A superb woman,
Mr. Blake, of the sort that are not to be triffled with--
the sort with the light complexion and the Roman nose.
She felt the utmost contempt for Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite.
It would be silent contempt, if he made a handsome provision
for her. Otherwise, it would be contempt with a tongue to it.
Miss Verinder's life interest allowed him no more hope of raising
the "provision" than of raising the twenty thousand pounds.
He couldn't marry--he really couldn't marry, under all the
circumstances.
How he tried his luck again with another lady, and how THAT marriage
also broke down on the question of money, you know already.
You also know of the legacy of five thousand pounds, left to him
shortly afterwards, by one of those many admirers among the soft
sex whose good graces this fascinating man had contrived to win.
That legacy (as the event has proved) led him to his death.
I have ascertained that when he went abroad, on getting his five
thousand pounds, he went to Amsterdam. There he made all the necessary
arrangements for having the Diamond cut into separate stones. He came back
(in disguise), and redeemed the Moonstone, on the appointed day.
A few days were allowed to elapse (as a precaution agreed to by
both parties) before the jewel was actually taken out of the bank.
If he had got safe with it to Amsterdam, there would have been just time
between July 'forty-nine, and February 'fifty (when the young gentleman
came of age) to cut the Diamond, and to make a marketable commodity
(polished or unpolished) of the separate stones. Judge from this,
what motives he had to run the risk which he actually ran.
It was "neck or nothing" with him--if ever it was "neck or nothing" with a
man yet.
I have only to remind you, before closing this Report, that there is a chance
of laying hands on the Indians, and of recovering the Moonstone yet.
They are now (there is every reason to believe) on their passage to Bombay,
in an East Indiaman. The ship (barring accidents) will touch at no other
port on her way out; and the authorities at Bombay (already communicated
with by letter, overland) will be prepared to board the vessel, the moment she
enters the harbour.
I have the honour to remain, dear sir, your obedient servant,
RICHARD CUFF (late sergeant in the Detective Force, Scotland Yard,
London).*
* NOTE.--Wherever the Report touches on the events of the birthday,
or of the three days that followed it, compare with Betteredge's Narrative,
chapters viii. to xiii.
SEVENTH NARRATIVE
In a Letter from MR. CANDY
Frizinghall, Wednesday, September 26th, 1849.--Dear Mr. Franklin Blake,
you will anticipate the sad news I have to tell you, on finding your
letter to Ezra Jennings returned to you, unopened, in this enclosure.
He died in my arms, at sunrise, on Wednesday last.
I am not to blame for having failed to warn you that his end
was at hand. He expressly forbade me to write to you.
"I am indebted to Mr. Franklin Blake," he said, "for having
seen some happy days. Don't distress him, Mr. Candy--
don't distress him."
His sufferings, up to the last six hours of his life, were terrible
to see. In the intervals of remission, when his mind was clear,
I entreated him to tell me of any relatives of his to whom I
might write. He asked to be forgiven for refusing anything to me.
And then he said--not bitterly--that he would die as he had lived,
forgotten and unknown. He maintained that resolution to the last.
There is no hope now of making any discoveries concerning him. His story
is a blank.
The day before he died, he told me where to find all his papers.
I brought them to him on his bed. There was a little
bundle of old letters which he put aside. There was his
unfinished book. There was his Diary--in many locked volumes.
He opened the volume for this year, and tore out, one by one,
the pages relating to the time when you and he were together.
"Give those," he said, "to Mr. Franklin Blake. In years to come,
he may feel an interest in looking back at what is written there."
Then he clasped his hands, and prayed God fervently to bless you,
and those dear to you. He said he should like to see you again.
But the next moment he altered his mind. "No," he answered
when I offered to write. "I won't distress him! I won't
distress him!"
At his request I next collected the other papers--that is to say,
the bundle of letters, the unfinished book and the volumes of the Diary--
and enclosed them all in one wrapper, sealed with my own seal.
"Promise," he said, "that you will put this into my coffin with
your own hand; and that you will see that no other hand touches
it afterwards."
I gave him my promise. And the promise has been performed.
He asked me to do one other thing for him--which it cost me a hard
struggle to comply with. He said, "Let my grave be forgotten.
Give me your word of honour that you will allow no monument of any sort--
not even the commonest tombstone--to mark the place of my burial.
Let me sleep, nameless. Let me rest, unknown." When I tried to plead
with him to alter his resolution, he became for the first, and only time,
violently agitated. I could not bear to see it; and I gave way.
Nothing but a little grass mound marks the place of his rest.
In time, the tombstones will rise round it. And the people who come
after us will look and wonder at the nameless grave.
As I have told you, for six hours before his death his
sufferings ceased. He dozed a little. I think he dreamed.
Once or twice he smiled. A woman's name, as I suppose--
the name of "Ella"--was often on his lips at this time.
A few minutes before the end he asked me to lift him on his pillow,
to see the sun rise through the window. He was very weak.
His head fell on my shoulder. He whispered, "It's coming!"
Then he said, "Kiss me!" I kissed his forehead.
On a sudden he lifted his head. The sunlight touched his face.
A beautiful expression, an angelic expression, came over it.
He cried out three times, "Peace! peace! peace!" His head sank
back again on my shoulder, and the long trouble of his life was at
an end.
So he has gone from us. This was, as I think, a great man--
though the world never knew him. He had the sweetest temper I
have ever met with. The loss of him makes me feel very lonely.
Perhaps I have never been quite myself since my illness.
Sometimes, I think of giving up my practice, and going away,
and trying what some of the foreign baths and waters will do
for me.
It is reported here, that you and Miss Verinder are to be married next month.
Please to accept my best congratulations.
The pages of my poor friend's Journal are waiting for you at my house--
sealed up, with your name on the wrapper. I was afraid to trust them to
the post.
My best respects and good wishes attend Miss Verinder.
I remain, dear Mr. Franklin Blake, truly yours,
THOMAS CANDY.
EIGHTH NARRATIVE
Contributed by GABRIEL BETTEREDGE
I am the person (as you remember no doubt) who led the way in these pages,
and opened the story. I am also the person who is left behind, as it were,
to close the story up.
Let nobody suppose that I have any last words to say here
concerning the Indian Diamond. I hold that unlucky jewel
in abhorrence--and I refer you to other authority than mine,
for such news of the Moonstone as you may, at the present time,
be expected to receive. My purpose, in this place, is to state
a fact in the history of the family, which has been passed
over by everybody, and which I won't allow to be disrespectfully
smothered up in that way. The fact to which I allude is--
the marriage of Miss Rachel and Mr. Franklin Blake.
This interesting event took place at our house in Yorkshire,
on Tuesday, October ninth, eighteen hundred and forty-nine. I
had a new suit of clothes on the occasion. And the married
couple went to spend the honeymoon in Scotland.
Family festivals having been rare enough at our house, since my poor
mistress's death, I own--on this occasion of the wedding--to having
(towards the latter part of the day) taken a drop too much on the strength
of it.
If you have ever done the same sort of thing yourself you will understand
and feel for me. If you have not, you will very likely say, "Disgusting old
man! why does he tell us this?" The reason why is now to come.
Having, then, taken my drop (bless you! you have got your favourite vice, too;
only your vice isn't mine, and mine isn't yours), I next applied the one
infallible remedy--that remedy being, as you know, ROBINSON CRUSOE.
Where I opened that unrivalled book, I can't say. Where the lines of print
at last left off running into each other, I know, however, perfectly well.
It was at page three hundred and eighteen--a domestic bit concerning Robinson
Crusoe's marriage, as follows:
"With those Thoughts, I considered my new Engagement, that I
had a Wife "--(Observe! so had Mr. Franklin!)--"one Child
born"--(Observe again! that might yet be Mr. Franklin's case,
too!)--"and my Wife then"--What Robinson Crusoe's wife did,
or did not do, "then," I felt no desire to discover.
I scored the bit about the Child with my pencil, and put a morsel
of paper for a mark to keep the place; "Lie you there," I said,
"till the marriage of Mr. Franklin and Miss Rachel is some
months older--and then we'll see!"
The months passed (more than I had bargained for), and no
occasion presented itself for disturbing that mark in the book.
It was not till this present month of November, eighteen hundred
and fifty, that Mr. Franklin came into my room, in high good spirits,
and said, "Betteredge! I have got some news for you!
Something is going to happen in the house, before we are many
months older."
"Does it concern the family, sir?" I asked.
"It decidedly concerns the family," says Mr. Franklin.
"Has your good lady anything to do with it, if you please, sir?"
"She has a great deal to do with it," says Mr. Franklin,
beginning to look a little surprised.
"You needn't say a word more, sir," I answered. "God bless you both!
I'm heartily glad to hear it."
Mr. Franklin stared like a person thunderstruck.
"May I venture to inquire where you got your information?"
he asked. "I only got mine (imparted in the strictest secrecy)
five minutes since."
Here was an opportunity of producing ROBINSON CRUSOE!
Here was a chance of reading that domestic bit about the child
which I had marked on the day of Mr. Franklin's marriage!
I read those miraculous words with an emphasis which did them justice,
and then I looked him severely in the face. "NOW, sir,
do you believe in ROBINSON CRUSOE?" I asked, with a solemnity,
suitable to the occasion.
"Betteredge!" says Mr. Franklin, with equal solemnity, "I'm convinced
at last." He shook hands with me--and I felt that I had converted him.
With the relation of this extraordinary circumstance,
my reappearance in these pages comes to an end. Let nobody
laugh at the unique anecdote here related. You are welcome
to be as merry as you please over everything else I have written.
But when I write of ROBINSON CRUSOE, by the Lord it's serious--
and I request you to take it accordingly!
When this is said, all is said. Ladies and gentlemen, I make my bow,
and shut up the story.
EPILOGUE
THE FINDING OF THE DIAMOND
I
The Statement of SERGEANT CLIFF'S MAN (1849)
On the twenty-seventh of June last, I received instructions from Sergeant
Cuff to follow three men; suspected of murder, and described as Indians.
They had been seen on the Tower Wharf that morning, embarking on board
the steamer bound for Rotterdam.
I left London by a steamer belonging to another company, which sailed
on the morning of Thursday the twenty-eighth. Arriving at Rotterdam,
I succeeded in finding the commander of the Wednesday's steamer.
He informed me that the Indians had certainly been passengers on
board his vessel--but as far as Gravesend only. Off that place,
one of the three had inquired at what time they would reach Calais.
On being informed that the steamer was bound to Rotterdam,
the spokesman of the party expressed the greatest surprise and
distress at the mistake which he and his two friends had made.
They were all willing (he said) to sacrifice their passage money,
if the commander of the steamer would only put them ashore.
Commiserating their position, as foreigners in a strange land, and knowing
no reason for detaining them, the commander signalled for a shore boat,
and the three men left the vessel.
This proceeding of the Indians having been plainly resolved on beforehand,
as a means of preventing their being traced, I lost no time in returning
to England. I left the steamer at Gravesend, and discovered that the Indians
had gone from that place to London. Thence, I again traced them as having
left for Plymouth. Inquiries made at Plymouth proved that they had sailed,
forty-eight hours previously, in the BEWLEY CASTLE, East Indiaman,
bound direct to Bombay.
On receiving this intelligence, Sergeant Cuff caused the authorities
at Bombay to be communicated with, overland--so that the vessel
might be boarded by the police immediately on her entering the port.
This step having been taken, my connection with the matter came to an end.
I have heard nothing more of it since that time.
II
The Statement of THE CAPTAIN (1849)
I am requested by Sergeant Cuff to set in writing certain facts,
concerning three men (believed to be Hindoos) who were passengers,
last summer, in the ship BEWLEY CATSLE, bound for Bombay direct,
under my command.
The Hindoos joined us at Plymouth. On the passage out I heard no complaint
of their conduct. They were berthed in the forward part of the vessel.
I had but few occasions myself of personally noticing them.
In the latter part of the voyage, we had the misfortune
to be becalmed for three days and nights, off the coast
of India. I have not got the ship's journal to refer to,
and I cannot now call to mind the latitude and longitude.
As to our position, therefore, I am only able to state
generally that the currents drifted us in towards the land,
and that when the wind found us again, we reached our port in
twenty-four hours afterwards.
The discipline of a ship (as all seafaring persons know)
becomes relaxed in a long calm. The discipline of my ship
became relaxed. Certain gentlemen among the passengers got some
of the smaller boats lowered, and amused themselves by rowing about,
and swimming, when the sun at evening time was cool enough
to let them divert themselves in that way. The boats when done
with ought to have been slung up again in their places.
Instead of this they were left moored to the ship's side.
What with the heat, and what with the vexation of the weather,
neither officers nor men seemed to be in heart for their duty while
the calm lasted.
On the third night, nothing unusual was heard or seen by the watch on deck.
When the morning came, the smallest of the boats was missing--and the three
Hindoos were next reported to be missing, too.
If these men had stolen the boat shortly after dark (which I have
no doubt they did), we were near enough to the land to make it vain
to send in pursuit of them, when the discovery was made in the morning.
I have no doubt they got ashore, in that calm weather (making all due
allowance for fatigue and clumsy rowing), before day-break.
On reaching our port I there learnt, for the first time,
the reason these passengers had for seizing their opportunity
of escaping from the ship. I could only make the same statement
to the authorities which I have made here. They considered me
to blame for allowing the discipline of the vessel to be relaxed.
I have expressed my regret on this score to them, and to
my owners.
Since that time, nothing has been heard to my knowledge of the three Hindoos.
I have no more to add to what is here written.
III
The Statement of MR. MURTHWAITE (1850)
(In a letter to MR. BRUFF)
Have you any recollection, my dear sir, of a semi-savage person whom
you met out at dinner, in London, in the autumn of 'forty-eight?
Permit me to remind you that the person's name was Murthwaite,
and that you and he had a long conversation together after dinner.
The talk related to an Indian Diamond, called the Moonstone,
and to a conspiracy then in existence to get possession of the gem.
Since that time, I have been wandering in Central Asia.
Thence I have drifted back to the scene of some of my past
adventures in the north and north-west of India. About a
fortnight since, I found myself in a certain district or province
(but little known to Europeans) called Kattiawar.
Here an adventure befel me, in which (incredible as it may appear)
you are personally interested.
In the wild regions of Kattiawar (and how wild they are, you will understand,
when I tell you that even the husbandmen plough the land, armed to the
teeth), the population is fanatically devoted to the old Hindoo religion--
to the ancient worship of Bramah and Vishnu. The few Mahometan families,
thinly scattered about the villages in the interior, are afraid to taste
meat of any kind. A Mahometan even suspected of killing that sacred animal,
the cow, is, as a matter of course, put to death without mercy in these parts
by the pious Hindoo neighbours who surround him. To strengthen the religious
enthusiasm of the people, two of the most famous shrines of Hindoo pilgrimage
are contained within the boundaries of Kattiawar. One of them is Dwarka,
the birthplace of the god Krishna. The other is the sacred city
of Somnauth--sacked, and destroyed as long since as the eleventh century,
by the Mahometan conqueror, Mahmoud of Ghizni.
Finding myself, for the second time, in these romantic regions,
I resolved not to leave Kattiawar, without looking once more on
the magnificent desolation of Somnauth. At the place where I
planned to do this, I was (as nearly as I could calculate it)
some three days distant, journeying on foot, from the sacred city.
I had not been long on the road, before I noticed that other people--
by twos and threes--appeared to be travelling in the same direction
as myself.
To such of these as spoke to me, I gave myself out as a Hindoo-Boodhist,
from a distant province, bound on a pilgrimage. It is needless to say
that my dress was of the sort to carry out this description. Add, that I
know the language as well as I know my own, and that I am lean enough
and brown enough to make it no easy matter to detect my European origin--
and you will understand that I passed muster with the people readily:
not as one of themselves, but as a stranger from a distant part of their
own country.
On the second day, the number of Hindoos travelling in my direction
had increased to fifties and hundreds. On the third day, the throng
had swollen to thousands; all slowly converging to one point--
the city of Somnauth.
A trifling service which I was able to render to one of my
fellow-pilgrims, during the third day's journey, proved the means
of introducing me to certain Hindoos of the higher caste.
From these men I learnt that the multitude was on its way
to a great religious ceremony, which was to take place on a hill
at a little distance from Somnauth. The ceremony was in honour
of the god of the Moon; and it was to be held at night.
The crowd detained us as we drew near to the place of celebration.
By the time we reached the hill the moon was high in the heaven.
My Hindoo friends possessed some special privileges which enabled them
to gain access to the shrine. They kindly allowed me to accompany them.
When we arrived at the place, we found the shrine hidden from our view
by a curtain hung between two magnificent trees. Beneath the trees a flat
projection of rock jutted out, and formed a species of natural platform.
Below this, I stood, in company with my Hindoo friends.
Looking back down the hill, the view presented the grandest
spectacle of Nature and Man, in combination, that I have ever seen.
The lower slopes of the eminence melted imperceptibly into
a grassy plain, the place of the meeting of three rivers.
On one side, the graceful winding of the waters stretched away,
now visible, now hidden by trees, as far as the eye could see.
On the other, the waveless ocean slept in the calm of the night.
People this lovely scene with tens of thousands of human creatures,
all dressed in white, stretching down the sides of the hill,
overflowing into the plain, and fringing the nearer banks
of the winding rivers. Light this halt of the pilgrims
by the wild red flames of cressets and torches, streaming up
at intervals from every part of the innumerable throng.
Imagine the moonlight of the East, pouring in unclouded
glory over all--and you will form some idea of the view
that met me when I looked forth from the summit of
the hill.
A strain of plaintive music, played on stringed instruments,
and flutes, recalled my attention to the hidden shrine.
I turned, and saw on the rocky platform the figures of three men.
In the central figure of the three I recognised the man to whom I
had spoken in England, when the Indians appeared on the terrace at
Lady Verinder's house. The other two who had been his companions on
that occasion were no doubt his companions also on this.
One of the spectators, near whom I was standing, saw me start.
In a whisper, he explained to me the apparition of the three
figures on the platform of rock.
They were Brahmins (he said) who had forfeited their caste
in the service of the god. The god had commanded that their
purification should be the purification by pilgrimage. On that night,
the three men were to part. In three separate directions,
they were to set forth as pilgrims to the shrines of India.
Never more were they to look on each other's faces.
Never more were they to rest on their wanderings, from the day
which witnessed their separation, to the day which witnessed
their death.
As those words were whispered to me, the plaintive music ceased.
The three men prostrated themselves on the rock, before the curtain
which hid the shrine. They rose--they looked on one another--
they embraced. Then they descended separately among the people.
The people made way for them in dead silence. In three different
directions I saw the crowd part, at one and the same moment.
Slowly the grand white mass of the people closed together again.
The track of the doomed men through the ranks of their fellow mortals
was obliterated. We saw them no more.
A new strain of music, loud and jubilant, rose from the hidden shrine.
The crowd around me shuddered, and pressed together.
The curtain between the trees was drawn aside, and the shrine was disclosed
to view.
There, raised high on a throne--seated on his typical antelope,
with his four arms stretching towards the four corners of the earth--
there, soared above us, dark and awful in the mystic light of heaven,
the god of the Moon. And there, in the forehead of the deity,
gleamed the yellow Diamond, whose splendour had last shone on me
in England, from the bosom of a woman's dress!
Yes! after the lapse of eight centuries, the Moonstone looks forth once more,
over the walls of the sacred city in which its story first began.
How it has found its way back to its wild native land--by what accident,
or by what crime, the Indians regained possession of their sacred gem,
may be in your knowledge, but is not in mine. You have lost sight of it
in England, and (if I know anything of this people) you have lost sight of it
for ever.
So the years pass, and repeat each other; so the same events revolve
in the cycles of time. What will be the next adventures of the Moonstone?
Who can tell?