The Moonstone

he 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 upstairs
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.

“The Sergeant wishes to see Miss Verinder’s sitting-room,” says Mr.
Seegrave, addressing me with great pomp and eagerness. “The Sergeant
may have some questions to ask. Attend the Sergeant, if you please!”

While I was being ordered about in this way, I looked at the great
Cuff. The great Cuff, on his side, looked at Superintendent Seegrave in
that quietly expecting way which I have already noticed. I can’t affirm
that he was on the watch for his brother officer’s speedy appearance in
the character of an Ass—I can only say that I strongly suspected it.

I led the way upstairs. The Sergeant went softly all over the Indian
cabinet and all round the “boudoir;” asking questions (occasionally
only of Mr. Superintendent, and continually of me), the drift of which
I believe to have been equally unintelligible to both of us. In due
time, his course brought him to the door, and put him face to face with
the decorative painting that you know of. He laid one lean inquiring
finger on the small smear, just under the lock, which Superintendent
Seegrave had already noticed, when he reproved the women-servants for
all crowding together into the room.

“That’s a pity,” says Sergeant Cuff. “How did it happen?”

He put the question to me. I answered that the women-servants had
crowded into the room on the previous morning, and that some of their
petticoats had done the mischief, “Superintendent Seegrave ordered them
out, sir,” I added, “before they did any more harm.”

“Right!” says Mr. Superintendent in his military way. “I ordered them
out. The petticoats did it, Sergeant—the petticoats did it.”

“Did you notice which petticoat did it?” asked Sergeant Cuff, still
addressing himself, not to his brother-officer, but to me.

“No, sir.”

He turned to Superintendent Seegrave upon that, and said, “You
noticed, I suppose?”

Mr. Superintendent looked a little taken aback; but he made the best of
it. “I can’t charge my memory, Sergeant,” he said, “a mere trifle—a
mere trifle.”

Sergeant Cuff looked at Mr. Seegrave, as he had looked at the gravel
walks in the rosery, and gave us, in his melancholy way, the first
taste of his quality which we had had yet.

“I made a private inquiry last week, Mr. Superintendent,” he said. “At
one end of the inquiry there was a murder, and at the other end there
was a spot of ink on a table cloth that nobody could account for. In
all my experience along the dirtiest ways of this dirty little world, I
have never met with such a thing as a trifle yet. Before we go a step
further in this business we must see the petticoat that made the smear,
and we must know for certain when that paint was wet.”

Mr. Superintendent—taking his set-down rather sulkily—asked if he
should summon the women. Sergeant Cuff, after considering a minute,
sighed, and shook his head.

“No,” he said, “we’ll take the matter of the paint first. It’s a
question of Yes or No with the paint—which is short. It’s a question of
petticoats with the women—which is long. What o’clock was it when the
servants were in this room yesterday morning? Eleven o’clock—eh? Is
there anybody in the house who knows whether that paint was wet or dry,
at eleven yesterday morning?”

“Her ladyship’s nephew, Mr. Franklin Blake, knows,” I said.

“Is the gentleman in the house?”

Mr. Franklin was as close at hand as could be—waiting for his first
chance of being introduced to the great Cuff. In half a minute he was
in the room, and was giving his evidence as follows:

“That door, Sergeant,” he said, “has been painted by Miss Verinder,
under my inspection, with my help, and in a vehicle of my own
composition. The vehicle dries whatever colours may be used with it, in
twelve hours.”

“Do you remember when the smeared bit was done, sir?” asked the
Sergeant.

“Perfectly,” answered Mr. Franklin. “That was the last morsel of the
door to be finished. We wanted to get it done, on Wednesday last—and I
myself completed it by three in the afternoon, or soon after.”

“Today is Friday,” said Sergeant Cuff, addressing himself to
Superintendent Seegrave. “Let us reckon back, sir. At three on the
Wednesday afternoon, that bit of the painting was completed. The
vehicle dried it in twelve hours—that is to say, dried it by three
o’clock on Thursday morning. At eleven on Thursday morning you held
your inquiry here. Take three from eleven, and eight remains. That
paint had been eight hours dry, Mr. Superintendent, when you supposed
that the women-servants’ petticoats smeared it.”

First knock-down blow for Mr. Seegrave! If he had not suspected poor
Penelope, I should have pitied him.

Having settled the question of the paint, Sergeant Cuff, from that
moment, gave his brother-officer up as a bad job—and addressed himself
to Mr. Franklin, as the more promising assistant of the two.

“It’s quite on the cards, sir,” he said, “that you have put the clue
into our hands.”

As the words passed his lips, the bedroom door opened, and Miss Rachel
came out among us suddenly.

She addressed herself to the Sergeant, without appearing to notice (or
to heed) that he was a perfect stranger to her.

“Did you say,” she asked, pointing to Mr. Franklin, “that he had put
the clue into your hands?”

(“This is Miss Verinder,” I whispered, behind the Sergeant.)

“That gentleman, miss,” says the Sergeant—with his steely-grey eyes
carefully studying my young lady’s face—“has possibly put the clue into
our hands.”

She turned for one moment, and tried to look at Mr. Franklin. I say,
tried, for she suddenly looked away again before their eyes met. There
seemed to be some strange disturbance in her mind. She coloured up, and
then she turned pale again. With the paleness, there came a new look
into her face—a look which it startled me to see.

“Having answered your question, miss,” says the Sergeant, “I beg leave
to make an inquiry in my turn. There is a smear on the painting of your
door, here. Do you happen to know when it was done? or who did it?”

Instead of making any reply, Miss Rachel went on with her questions, as
if he had not spoken, or as if she had not heard him.

“Are you another police-officer?” she asked.

“I am Sergeant Cuff, miss, of the Detective Police.”

“Do you think a young lady’s advice worth having?”

“I shall be glad to hear it, miss.”

“Do your duty by yourself—and don’t allow Mr Franklin Blake to help
you!”

She said those words so spitefully, so savagely, with such an
extraordinary outbreak of ill-will towards Mr. Franklin, in her voice
and in her look, that—though I had known her from a baby, though I
loved and honoured her next to my lady herself—I was ashamed of Miss
Rachel for the first time in my life.

Sergeant Cuff’s immovable eyes never stirred from off her face. “Thank
you, miss,” he said. “Do you happen to know anything about the smear?
Might you have done it by accident yourself?”

“I know nothing about the smear.”

With that answer, she turned away, and shut herself up again in her
bedroom. This time, I heard her—as Penelope had heard her before—burst
out crying as soon as she was alone again.

I couldn’t bring myself to look at the Sergeant—I looked at Mr.
Franklin, who stood nearest to me. He seemed to be even more sorely
distressed at what had passed than I was.

“I told you I was uneasy about her,” he said. “And now you see why.”

“Miss Verinder appears to be a little out of temper about the loss of
her Diamond,” remarked the Sergeant. “It’s a valuable jewel. Natural
enough! natural enough!”

Here was the excuse that I had made for her (when she forgot herself
before Superintendent Seegrave, on the previous day) being made for her
over again, by a man who couldn’t have had my interest in making
it—for he was a perfect stranger! A kind of cold shudder ran through
me, which I couldn’t account for at the time. I know, now, that I must
have got my first suspicion, at that moment, of a new light (and horrid
light) having suddenly fallen on the case, in the mind of Sergeant
Cuff—purely and entirely in consequence of what he had seen in Miss
Rachel, and heard from Miss Rachel, at that first interview between
them.

“A young lady’s tongue is a privileged member, sir,” says the Sergeant
to Mr. Franklin. “Let us forget what has passed, and go straight on
with this business. Thanks to you, we know when the paint was dry. The
next thing to discover is when the paint was last seen without that
smear. You have got a head on your shoulders—and you understand what
I mean.”

Mr. Franklin composed himself, and came back with an effort from Miss
Rachel to the matter in hand.

“I think I do understand,” he said. “The more we narrow the question of
time, the more we also narrow the field of inquiry.”

“That’s it, sir,” said the Sergeant. “Did you notice your work here, on
the Wednesday afternoon, after you had done it?”

Mr. Franklin shook his head, and answered, “I can’t say I did.”

“Did you?” inquired Sergeant Cuff, turning to me.

“I can’t say I did either, sir.”

“Who was the last person in the room, the last thing on Wednesday
night?”

“Miss Rachel, I suppose, sir.”

Mr. Franklin struck in there, “Or possibly your daughter, Betteredge.”
He turned to Sergeant Cuff, and explained that my daughter was Miss
Verinder’s maid.

“Mr. Betteredge, ask your daughter to step up. Stop!” says the
Sergeant, taking me away to the window, out of earshot, “Your
Superintendent here,” he went on, in a whisper, “has made a pretty full
report to me of the manner in which he has managed this case. Among
other things, he has, by his own confession, set the servants’ backs
up. It’s very important to smooth them down again. Tell your daughter,
and tell the rest of them, these two things, with my compliments:
First, that I have no evidence before me, yet, that the Diamond has
been stolen; I only know that the Diamond has been lost. Second, that
my business here with the servants is simply to ask them to lay their
heads together and help me to find it.”

My experience of the women-servants, when Superintendent Seegrave laid
his embargo on their rooms, came in handy here.

“May I make so bold, Sergeant, as to tell the women a third thing?” I
asked. “Are they free (with your compliments) to fidget up and
downstairs, and whisk in and out of their bedrooms, if the fit takes
them?”

“Perfectly free,” said the Sergeant.

“That will smooth them down, sir,” I remarked, “from the cook to the
scullion.”

“Go, and do it at once, Mr. Betteredge.”

I did it in less than five minutes. There was only one difficulty when
I came to the bit about the bedrooms. It took a pretty stiff exertion
of my authority, as chief, to prevent the whole of the female household
from following me and Penelope upstairs, in the character of volunteer
witnesses in a burning fever of anxiety to help Sergeant Cuff.

The Sergeant seemed to approve of Penelope. He became a trifle less
dreary; and he looked much as he had looked when he noticed the white
musk rose in the flower-garden. Here is my daughter’s evidence, as
drawn off from her by the Sergeant. She gave it, I think, very
prettily—but, there! she is my child all over: nothing of her mother in
her; Lord bless you, nothing of her mother in her!

Penelope examined: Took a lively interest in the painting on the door,
having helped to mix the colours. Noticed the bit of work under the
lock, because it was the last bit done. Had seen it, some hours
afterwards, without a smear. Had left it, as late as twelve at night,
without a smear. Had, at that hour, wished her young lady good-night in
the bedroom; had heard the clock strike in the “boudoir”; had her hand
at the time on the handle of the painted door; knew the paint was wet
(having helped to mix the colours, as aforesaid); took particular pains
not to touch it; could swear that she held up the skirts of her dress,
and that there was no smear on the paint then; could not swear that
her dress mightn’t have touched it accidentally in going out;
remembered the dress she had on, because it was new, a present from
Miss Rachel; her father remembered, and could speak to it, too; could,
and would, and did fetch it; dress recognised by her father as the
dress she wore that night; skirts examined, a long job from the size of
them; not the ghost of a paint-stain discovered anywhere. End of
Penelope’s evidence—and very pretty and convincing, too. Signed,
Gabriel Betteredge.

The Sergeant’s next proceeding was to question me about any large dogs
in the house who might have got into the room, and done the mischief
with a whisk of their tails. Hearing that this was impossible, he next
sent for a magnifying-glass, and tried how the smear looked, seen that
way. No skin-mark (as of a human hand) printed off on the paint. All
the signs visible—signs which told that the paint had been smeared by
some loose article of somebody’s dress touching it in going by. That
somebody (putting together Penelope’s evidence and Mr. Franklin’s
evidence) must have been in the room, and done the mischief, between
midnight and three o’clock on the Thursday morning.

Having brought his investigation to this point, Sergeant Cuff
discovered that such a person as Superintendent Seegrave was still left
in the room, upon which he summed up the proceedings for his
brother-officer’s benefit, as follows:

“This trifle of yours, Mr. Superintendent,” says the Sergeant, pointing
to the place on the door, “has grown a little in importance since you
noticed it last. At the present stage of the inquiry there are, as I
take it, three discoveries to make, starting from that smear. Find out
(first) whether there is any article of dress in this house with the
smear of the paint on it. Find out (second) who that dress belongs to.
Find out (third) how the person can account for having been in this
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 has got the Diamond. I’ll work this by myself, if you please, and
detain you no longer from your regular business in the town. You have
got one of your men here, I see. Leave him here at my disposal, in case
I want him—and allow me to wish you good morning.”

Superintendent Seegrave’s respect for the Sergeant was great; but his
respect for himself was greater still. Hit hard by the celebrated Cuff,
he hit back smartly, to the best of his ability, on leaving the room.

“I have abstained from expressing any opinion, so far,” says Mr.
Superintendent, with his military voice still in good working order. “I
have now only one remark to offer on leaving this case in your hands.
There is such a thing, Sergeant, as making a mountain out of a
molehill. Good morning.”

“There is also such a thing as making nothing out of a molehill, in
consequence of your head being too high to see it.” Having returned his
brother-officer’s compliments in those terms, Sergeant Cuff wheeled
about, and walked away to the window by himself.

Mr. Franklin and I waited to see what was coming next. The Sergeant
stood at the window with his hands in his pockets, looking out, and
whistling the tune of “The Last Rose of Summer” softly to himself.
Later in the proceedings, I discovered that he only forgot his manners
so far as to whistle, when his mind was hard at work, seeing its way
inch by inch to its own private ends, on which occasions “The Last Rose
of Summer” evidently helped and encouraged him. I suppose it fitted in
somehow with his character. It reminded him, you see, of his favourite
roses, and, as he whistled it, it was the most melancholy tune going.

Turning from the window, after a minute or two, the Sergeant walked
into the middle of the room, and stopped there, deep in thought, with
his eyes on Miss Rachel’s bedroom door. After a little he roused
himself, nodded his head, as much as to say, “That will do,” and,
addressing me, asked for ten minutes’ conversation with my mistress, at
her ladyship’s earliest convenience.

Leaving the room with this message, I heard Mr. Franklin ask the
Sergeant a question, and stopped to hear the answer also at the
threshold of the door.

“Can you guess yet,” inquired Mr. Franklin, “who has stolen the
Diamond?”

“Nobody has stolen the Diamond,” answered Sergeant Cuff.

We both started at that extraordinary view of the case, and both
earnestly begged him to tell us what he meant.

“Wait a little,” said the Sergeant. “The pieces of the puzzle are not
all put together yet.”