The Moonstone

W >> Wilkie Collins >> The Moonstone


Here we were, then, at a dead-lock about Miss Rachel--and at a dead-lock
about the Moonstone. In the first case, my lady was powerless to help
us. In the second (as you shall presently judge), Mr. Seegrave was fast
approaching the condition of a superintendent at his wits' end.

Having ferreted about all over the "boudoir," without making any
discoveries among the furniture, our experienced officer applied to me
to know, whether the servants in general were or were not acquainted
with the place in which the Diamond had been put for the night.

"I knew where it was put, sir," I said, "to begin with. Samuel, the
footman, knew also--for he was present in the hall, when they were
talking about where the Diamond was to be kept that night. My daughter
knew, as she has already told you. She or Samuel may have mentioned the
thing to the other servants--or the other servants may have heard the
talk for themselves, through the side-door of the hall, which might have
been open to the back staircase. For all I can tell, everybody in the
house may have known where the jewel was, last night."

My answer presenting rather a wide field for Mr. Superintendent's
suspicions to range over, he tried to narrow it by asking about the
servants' characters next.

I thought directly of Rosanna Spearman. But it was neither my place nor
my wish to direct suspicion against a poor girl, whose honesty had
been above all doubt as long as I had known her. The matron at the
Reformatory had reported her to my lady as a sincerely penitent and
thoroughly trustworthy girl. It was the Superintendent's business to
discover reason for suspecting her first--and then, and not till then,
it would be my duty to tell him how she came into my lady's service.
"All our people have excellent characters," I said. "And all have
deserved the trust their mistress has placed in them." After that, there
was but one thing left for Mr. Seegrave to do--namely, to set to work,
and tackle the servants' characters himself.

One after another, they were examined. One after another, they proved to
have nothing to say--and said it (so far as the women were concerned) at
great length, and with a very angry sense of the embargo laid on their
bed-rooms. The rest of them being sent back to their places downstairs,
Penelope was then summoned, and examined separately a second time.

My daughter's little outbreak of temper in the "boudoir," and her
readiness to think herself suspected, appeared to have produced an
unfavourable impression on Superintendent Seegrave. It seemed also to
dwell a little on his mind, that she had been the last person who saw
the Diamond at night. When the second questioning was over, my girl
came back to me in a frenzy. There was no doubt of it any longer--the
police-officer had almost as good as told her she was the thief! I could
scarcely believe him (taking Mr. Franklin's view) to be quite such an
ass as that. But, though he said nothing, the eye with which he looked
at my daughter was not a very pleasant eye to see. I laughed it off
with poor Penelope, as something too ridiculous to be treated
seriously--which it certainly was. Secretly, I am afraid I was foolish
enough to be angry too. It was a little trying--it was, indeed. My
girl sat down in a corner, with her apron over her head, quite
broken-hearted. Foolish of her, you will say. She might have waited
till he openly accused her. Well, being a man of just an equal temper,
I admit that. Still Mr. Superintendent might have remembered--never mind
what he might have remembered. The devil take him!

The next and last step in the investigation brought matters, as they
say, to a crisis. The officer had an interview (at which I was present)
with my lady. After informing her that the Diamond must have been taken
by somebody in the house, he requested permission for himself and
his men to search the servants' rooms and boxes on the spot. My good
mistress, like the generous high-bred woman she was, refused to let us
be treated like thieves. "I will never consent to make such a return
as that," she said, "for all I owe to the faithful servants who are
employed in my house."

Mr. Superintendent made his bow, with a look in my direction, which said
plainly, "Why employ me, if you are to tie my hands in this way?" As
head of the servants, I felt directly that we were bound, in justice to
all parties, not to profit by our mistress's generosity. "We gratefully
thank your ladyship," I said; "but we ask your permission to do what is
right in this matter by giving up our keys. When Gabriel Betteredge sets
the example," says I, stopping Superintendent Seegrave at the door, "the
rest of the servants will follow, I promise you. There are my keys, to
begin with!" My lady took me by the hand, and thanked me with the tears
in her eyes. Lord! what would I not have given, at that moment, for the
privilege of knocking Superintendent Seegrave down!

As I had promised for them, the other servants followed my lead, sorely
against the grain, of course, but all taking the view that I took. The
women were a sight to see, while the police-officers were rummaging
among their things. The cook looked as if she could grill Mr.
Superintendent alive on a furnace, and the other women looked as if they
could eat him when he was done.

The search over, and no Diamond or sign of a Diamond being found, of
course, anywhere, Superintendent Seegrave retired to my little room to
consider with himself what he was to do next. He and his men had now
been hours in the house, and had not advanced us one inch towards a
discovery of how the Moonstone had been taken, or of whom we were to
suspect as the thief.

While the police-officer was still pondering in solitude, I was sent for
to see Mr. Franklin in the library. To my unutterable astonishment, just
as my hand was on the door, it was suddenly opened from the inside, and
out walked Rosanna Spearman!

After the library had been swept and cleaned in the morning, neither
first nor second housemaid had any business in that room at any later
period of the day. I stopped Rosanna Spearman, and charged her with a
breach of domestic discipline on the spot.

"What might you want in the library at this time of day?" I inquired.

"Mr. Franklin Blake dropped one of his rings up-stairs," says Rosanna;
"and I have been into the library to give it to him." The girl's face
was all in a flush as she made me that answer; and she walked away with
a toss of her head and a look of self-importance which I was quite at
a loss to account for. The proceedings in the house had doubtless upset
all the women-servants more or less; but none of them had gone clean out
of their natural characters, as Rosanna, to all appearance, had now gone
out of hers.

I found Mr. Franklin writing at the library-table. He asked for a
conveyance to the railway station the moment I entered the room. The
first sound of his voice informed me that we now had the resolute side
of him uppermost once more. The man made of cotton had disappeared; and
the man made of iron sat before me again.

"Going to London, sir?" I asked.

"Going to telegraph to London," says Mr. Franklin. "I have convinced my
aunt that we must have a cleverer head than Superintendent Seegrave's
to help us; and I have got her permission to despatch a telegram to my
father. He knows the Chief Commissioner of Police, and the Commissioner
can lay his hand on the right man to solve the mystery of the Diamond.
Talking of mysteries, by-the-bye," says Mr. Franklin, dropping his
voice, "I have another word to say to you before you go to the stables.
Don't breathe a word of it to anybody as yet; but either Rosanna
Spearman's head is not quite right, or I am afraid she knows more about
the Moonstone than she ought to know."

I can hardly tell whether I was more startled or distressed at hearing
him say that. If I had been younger, I might have confessed as much to
Mr. Franklin. But when you are old, you acquire one excellent habit. In
cases where you don't see your way clearly, you hold your tongue.

"She came in here with a ring I dropped in my bed-room," Mr. Franklin
went on. "When I had thanked her, of course I expected her to go.
Instead of that, she stood opposite to me at the table, looking at me in
the oddest manner--half frightened, and half familiar--I couldn't make
it out. 'This is a strange thing about the Diamond, sir,' she said, in a
curiously sudden, headlong way. I said, 'Yes, it was,' and wondered what
was coming next. Upon my honour, Betteredge, I think she must be wrong
in the head! She said, 'They will never find the Diamond, sir, will
they? No! nor the person who took it--I'll answer for that.' She
actually nodded and smiled at me! Before I could ask her what she meant,
we heard your step outside. I suppose she was afraid of your catching
her here. At any rate, she changed colour, and left the room. What on
earth does it mean?"

I could not bring myself to tell him the girl's story, even then. It
would have been almost as good as telling him that she was the thief.
Besides, even if I had made a clean breast of it, and even supposing
she was the thief, the reason why she should let out her secret to Mr.
Franklin, of all the people in the world, would have been still as far
to seek as ever.

"I can't bear the idea of getting the poor girl into a scrape, merely
because she has a flighty way with her, and talks very strangely," Mr.
Franklin went on. "And yet if she had said to, the Superintendent what
she said to me, fool as he is, I'm afraid----" He stopped there, and
left the rest unspoken.

"The best way, sir," I said, "will be for me to say two words privately
to my mistress about it at the first opportunity. My lady has a very
friendly interest in Rosanna; and the girl may only have been forward
and foolish, after all. When there's a mess of any kind in a house, sir,
the women-servants like to look at the gloomy side--it gives the poor
wretches a kind of importance in their own eyes. If there's anybody
ill, trust the women for prophesying that the person will die. If it's
a jewel lost, trust them for prophesying that it will never be found
again."

This view (which I am bound to say, I thought a probable view myself,
on reflection) seemed to relieve Mr. Franklin mightily: he folded up his
telegram, and dismissed the subject. On my way to the stables, to order
the pony-chaise, I looked in at the servants' hall, where they were at
dinner. Rosanna Spearman was not among them. On inquiry, I found that
she had been suddenly taken ill, and had gone up-stairs to her own room
to lie down.

"Curious! She looked well enough when I saw her last," I remarked.

Penelope followed me out. "Don't talk in that way before the rest of
them, father," she said. "You only make them harder on Rosanna than
ever. The poor thing is breaking her heart about Mr. Franklin Blake."

Here was another view of the girl's conduct. If it was possible for
Penelope to be right, the explanation of Rosanna's strange language and
behaviour might have been all in this--that she didn't care what she
said, so long as she could surprise Mr. Franklin into speaking to her.
Granting that to be the right reading of the riddle, it accounted,
perhaps, for her flighty, self-conceited manner when she passed me in
the hall. Though he had only said three words, still she had carried her
point, and Mr. Franklin had spoken to her.

I saw the pony harnessed myself. In the infernal network of mysteries
and uncertainties that now surrounded us, I declare it was a relief to
observe how well the buckles and straps understood each other! When you
had seen the pony backed into the shafts of the chaise, you had seen
something there was no doubt about. And that, let me tell you, was
becoming a treat of the rarest kind in our household.

Going round with the chaise to the front door, I found not only Mr.
Franklin, but Mr. Godfrey and Superintendent Seegrave also waiting for
me on the steps.

Mr. Superintendent's reflections (after failing to find the Diamond in
the servants' rooms or boxes) had led him, it appeared, to an entirely
new conclusion. Still sticking to his first text, namely, that somebody
in the house had stolen the jewel, our experienced officer was now of the
opinion that the thief (he was wise enough not to name poor Penelope,
whatever he might privately think of her!) had been acting in concert
with the Indians; and he accordingly proposed shifting his inquiries to
the jugglers in the prison at Frizinghall. Hearing of this new move, Mr.
Franklin had volunteered to take the Superintendent back to the town,
from which he could telegraph to London as easily as from our station.
Mr. Godfrey, still devoutly believing in Mr. Seegrave, and greatly
interested in witnessing the examination of the Indians, had begged
leave to accompany the officer to Frizinghall. One of the two inferior
policemen was to be left at the house, in case anything happened. The
other was to go back with the Superintendent to the town. So the four
places in the pony-chaise were just filled.

Before he took the reins to drive off, Mr. Franklin walked me away a few
steps out of hearing of the others.

"I will wait to telegraph to London," he said, "till I see what comes
of our examination of the Indians. My own conviction is, that this
muddle-headed local police-officer is as much in the dark as ever, and
is simply trying to gain time. The idea of any of the servants being in
league with the Indians is a preposterous absurdity, in my opinion. Keep
about the house, Betteredge, till I come back, and try what you can make
of Rosanna Spearman. I don't ask you to do anything degrading to your
own self-respect, or anything cruel towards the girl. I only ask you
to exercise your observation more carefully than usual. We will make
as light of it as we can before my aunt--but this is a more important
matter than you may suppose."

"It is a matter of twenty thousand pounds, sir," I said, thinking of the
value of the Diamond.

"It's a matter of quieting Rachel's mind," answered Mr. Franklin
gravely. "I am very uneasy about her."

He left me suddenly; as if he desired to cut short any further talk
between us. I thought I understood why. Further talk might have let me
into the secret of what Miss Rachel had said to him on the terrace.

So they drove away to Frizinghall. I was ready enough, in the girl's own
interest, to have a little talk with Rosanna in private. But the needful
opportunity failed to present itself. She only came downstairs again
at tea-time. When she did appear, she was flighty and excited, had what
they call an hysterical attack, took a dose of sal-volatile by my lady's
order, and was sent back to her bed.

The day wore on to its end drearily and miserably enough, I can tell
you. Miss Rachel still kept her room, declaring that she was too ill to
come down to dinner that day. My lady was in such low spirits about
her daughter, that I could not bring myself to make her additionally
anxious, by reporting what Rosanna Spearman had said to Mr. Franklin.
Penelope persisted in believing that she was to be forthwith tried,
sentenced, and transported for theft. The other women took to their
Bibles and hymn-books, and looked as sour as verjuice over their
reading--a result, which I have observed, in my sphere of life, to
follow generally on the performance of acts of piety at unaccustomed
periods of the day. As for me, I hadn't even heart enough to open my
ROBINSON CRUSOE. I went out into the yard, and, being hard up for a
little cheerful society, set my chair by the kennels, and talked to the
dogs.

Half an hour before dinner-time, the two gentlemen came back from
Frizinghall, having arranged with Superintendent Seegrave that he was to
return to us the next day. They had called on Mr. Murthwaite, the Indian
traveller, at his present residence, near the town. At Mr. Franklin's
request, he had kindly given them the benefit of his knowledge of the
language, in dealing with those two, out of the three Indians, who knew
nothing of English. The examination, conducted carefully, and at
great length, had ended in nothing; not the shadow of a reason being
discovered for suspecting the jugglers of having tampered with any of
our servants. On reaching that conclusion, Mr. Franklin had sent his
telegraphic message to London, and there the matter now rested till
to-morrow came.

So much for the history of the day that followed the birthday. Not
a glimmer of light had broken in on us, so far. A day or two after,
however, the darkness lifted a little. How, and with what result, you
shall presently see.



CHAPTER XII


The Thursday night passed, and nothing happened. With the Friday morning
came two pieces of news.

Item the first: the baker's man declared he had met Rosanna Spearman,
on the previous afternoon, with a thick veil on, walking towards
Frizinghall by the foot-path way over the moor. It seemed strange that
anybody should be mistaken about Rosanna, whose shoulder marked her out
pretty plainly, poor thing--but mistaken the man must have been; for
Rosanna, as you know, had been all the Thursday afternoon ill up-stairs
in her room.

Item the second came through the postman. Worthy Mr. Candy had said one
more of his many unlucky things, when he drove off in the rain on the
birthday night, and told me that a doctor's skin was waterproof. In
spite of his skin, the wet had got through him. He had caught a chill
that night, and was now down with a fever. The last accounts, brought
by the postman, represented him to be light-headed--talking nonsense
as glibly, poor man, in his delirium as he often talked it in his
sober senses. We were all sorry for the little doctor; but Mr. Franklin
appeared to regret his illness, chiefly on Miss Rachel's account. From
what he said to my lady, while I was in the room at breakfast-time, he
appeared to think that Miss Rachel--if the suspense about the Moonstone
was not soon set at rest--might stand in urgent need of the best medical
advice at our disposal.

Breakfast had not been over long, when a telegram from Mr. Blake, the
elder, arrived, in answer to his son. It informed us that he had laid
hands (by help of his friend, the Commissioner) on the right man to
help us. The name of him was Sergeant Cuff; and the arrival of him from
London might be expected by the morning train.

At reading the name of the new police-officer, Mr. Franklin gave a
start. It seems that he had heard some curious anecdotes about Sergeant
Cuff, from his father's lawyer, during his stay in London.

"I begin to hope we are seeing the end of our anxieties already," he
said. "If half the stories I have heard are true, when it comes to
unravelling a mystery, there isn't the equal in England of Sergeant
Cuff!"

We all got excited and impatient as the time drew near for the
appearance of this renowned and capable character. Superintendent
Seegrave, returning to us at his appointed time, and hearing that the
Sergeant was expected, instantly shut himself up in a room, with pen,
ink, and paper, to make notes of the Report which would be certainly
expected from him. I should have liked to have gone to the station
myself, to fetch the Sergeant. But my lady's carriage and horses were
not to be thought of, even for the celebrated Cuff; and the pony-chaise
was required later for Mr. Godfrey. He deeply regretted being obliged to
leave his aunt at such an anxious time; and he kindly put off the hour
of his departure till as late as the last train, for the purpose of
hearing what the clever London police-officer thought of the case.
But on Friday night he must be in town, having a Ladies' Charity, in
difficulties, waiting to consult him on Saturday morning.

When the time came for the Sergeant's arrival, I went down to the gate
to look out for him.

A fly from the railway drove up as I reached the lodge; and out got a
grizzled, elderly man, so miserably lean that he looked as if he had not
got an ounce of flesh on his bones in any part of him. He was dressed
all in decent black, with a white cravat round his neck. His face was
as sharp as a hatchet, and the skin of it was as yellow and dry and
withered as an autumn leaf. His eyes, of a steely light grey, had a very
disconcerting trick, when they encountered your eyes, of looking as if
they expected something more from you than you were aware of yourself.
His walk was soft; his voice was melancholy; his long lanky fingers were
hooked like claws. He might have been a parson, or an undertaker--or
anything else you like, except what he really was. A more complete
opposite to Superintendent Seegrave than Sergeant Cuff, and a less
comforting officer to look at, for a family in distress, I defy you to
discover, search where you may.

"Is this Lady Verinder's?" he asked.

"Yes, sir."

"I am Sergeant Cuff."

"This way, sir, if you please."

On our road to the house, I mentioned my name and position in the
family, to satisfy him that he might speak to me about the business
on which my lady was to employ him. Not a word did he say about the
business, however, for all that. He admired the grounds, and remarked
that he felt the sea air very brisk and refreshing. I privately
wondered, on my side, how the celebrated Cuff had got his reputation.
We reached the house, in the temper of two strange dogs, coupled up
together for the first time in their lives by the same chain.

Asking for my lady, and hearing that she was in one of the
conservatories, we went round to the gardens at the back, and sent a
servant to seek her. While we were waiting, Sergeant Cuff looked
through the evergreen arch on our left, spied out our rosery, and walked
straight in, with the first appearance of anything like interest that he
had shown yet. To the gardener's astonishment, and to my disgust,
this celebrated policeman proved to be quite a mine of learning on the
trumpery subject of rose-gardens.

"Ah, you've got the right exposure here to the south and sou'-west,"
says the Sergeant, with a wag of his grizzled head, and a streak
of pleasure in his melancholy voice. "This is the shape for a
rosery--nothing like a circle set in a square. Yes, yes; with walks
between all the beds. But they oughtn't to be gravel walks like these.
Grass, Mr. Gardener--grass walks between your roses; gravel's too hard
for them. That's a sweet pretty bed of white roses and blush roses. They
always mix well together, don't they? Here's the white musk rose, Mr.
Betteredge--our old English rose holding up its head along with the best
and the newest of them. Pretty dear!" says the Sergeant, fondling
the Musk Rose with his lanky fingers, and speaking to it as if he was
speaking to a child.

This was a nice sort of man to recover Miss Rachel's Diamond, and to
find out the thief who stole it!

"You seem to be fond of roses, Sergeant?" I remarked.

"I haven't much time to be fond of anything," says Sergeant Cuff. "But
when I _have_ a moment's fondness to bestow, most times, Mr. Betteredge,
the roses get it. I began my life among them in my father's nursery
garden, and I shall end my life among them, if I can. Yes. One of these
days (please God) I shall retire from catching thieves, and try my hand
at growing roses. There will be grass walks, Mr. Gardener, between my
beds," says the Sergeant, on whose mind the gravel paths of our rosery
seemed to dwell unpleasantly.

"It seems an odd taste, sir," I ventured to say, "for a man in your line
of life."

"If you will look about you (which most people won't do)," says Sergeant
Cuff, "you will see that the nature of a man's tastes is, most times, as
opposite as possible to the nature of a man's business. Show me any two
things more opposite one from the other than a rose and a thief; and
I'll correct my tastes accordingly--if it isn't too late at my time of
life. You find the damask rose a goodish stock for most of the tender
sorts, don't you, Mr. Gardener? Ah! I thought so. Here's a lady coming.
Is it Lady Verinder?"

He had seen her before either I or the gardener had seen her, though
we knew which way to look, and he didn't. I began to think him rather a
quicker man than he appeared to be at first sight.

The Sergeant's appearance, or the Sergeant's errand--one or both--seemed
to cause my lady some little embarrassment. She was, for the first time
in all my experience of her, at a loss what to say at an interview with
a stranger. Sergeant Cuff put her at her ease directly. He asked if any
other person had been employed about the robbery before we sent for him;
and hearing that another person had been called in, and was now in the
house, begged leave to speak to him before anything else was done.

My lady led the way back. Before he followed her, the Sergeant relieved
his mind on the subject of the gravel walks by a parting word to the
gardener. "Get her ladyship to try grass," he said, with a sour look at
the paths. "No gravel! no gravel!"

Why Superintendent Seegrave should have appeared to be several sizes
smaller than life, on being presented to Sergeant Cuff, I can't
undertake to explain. I can only state the fact. They retired together;
and remained a weary long time shut up from all mortal intrusion. When
they came out, Mr. Superintendent was excited, and Mr. Sergeant was
yawning.