The Moonstone

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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.