The Moonstone

he nearest way to the garden, on going out of my lady’s sitting-room,
was by the shrubbery path, which you already know of. For the sake of
your better understanding of what is now to come, I may add to this,
that the shrubbery path was Mr. Franklin’s favourite walk. When he was
out in the grounds, and when we failed to find him anywhere else, we
generally found him here.

I am afraid I must own that I am rather an obstinate old man. The more
firmly Sergeant Cuff kept his thoughts shut up from me, the more firmly
I persisted in trying to look in at them. As we turned into the
shrubbery path, I attempted to circumvent him in another way.

“As things are now,” I said, “if I was in your place, I should be at my
wits’ end.”

“If you were in my place,” answered the Sergeant, “you would have
formed an opinion—and, as things are now, any doubt you might
previously have felt about your own conclusions would be completely set
at rest. Never mind for the present what those conclusions are, Mr.
Betteredge. I haven’t brought you out here to draw me like a badger; I
have brought you out here to ask for some information. You might have
given it to me no doubt, in the house, instead of out of it. But doors
and listeners have a knack of getting together; and, in my line of
life, we cultivate a healthy taste for the open air.”

Who was to circumvent this man? I gave in—and waited as patiently as
I could to hear what was coming next.

“We won’t enter into your young lady’s motives,” the Sergeant went on;
“we will only say it’s a pity she declines to assist me, because, by so
doing, she makes this investigation more difficult than it might
otherwise have been. We must now try to solve the mystery of the smear
on the door—which, you may take my word for it, means the mystery of
the Diamond also—in some other way. I have decided to see the servants,
and to search their thoughts and actions, Mr. Betteredge, instead of
searching their wardrobes. Before I begin, however, I want to ask you a
question or two. You are an observant man—did you notice anything
strange in any of the servants (making due allowance, of course, for
fright and fluster), after the loss of the Diamond was found out? Any
particular quarrel among them? Anyone of them not in his or her usual
spirits? Unexpectedly out of temper, for instance? or unexpectedly
taken ill?”

I had just time to think of Rosanna Spearman’s sudden illness at
yesterday’s dinner—but not time to make any answer—when I saw Sergeant
Cuff’s eyes suddenly turn aside towards the shrubbery; and I heard him
say softly to himself, “Hullo!”

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

“A touch of the rheumatics in my back,” said the Sergeant, in a loud
voice, as if he wanted some third person to hear us. “We shall have a
change in the weather before long.”

A few steps further brought us to the corner of the house. Turning off
sharp to the right, we entered on the terrace, and went down, by the
steps in the middle, into the garden below. Sergeant Cuff stopped
there, in the open space, where we could see round us on every side.

“About that young person, Rosanna Spearman?” he said. “It isn’t very
likely, with her personal appearance, that she has got a lover. But,
for the girl’s own sake, I must ask you at once whether she has
provided herself with a sweetheart, poor wretch, like the rest of
them?”

What on earth did he mean, under present circumstances, by putting such
a question to me as that? I stared at him, instead of answering him.

“I saw Rosanna Spearman hiding in the shrubbery as we went by,” said
the Sergeant.

“When you said ‘Hullo’?”

“Yes—when I said ‘Hullo!’ If there’s a sweetheart in the case, the
hiding doesn’t much matter. If there isn’t—as things are in this
house—the hiding is a highly suspicious circumstance, and it will be my
painful duty to act on it accordingly.”

What, in God’s name, was I to say to him? I knew the shrubbery was Mr.
Franklin’s favourite walk; I knew he would most likely turn that way
when he came back from the station; I knew that Penelope had over and
over again caught her fellow-servant hanging about there, and had
always declared to me that Rosanna’s object was to attract Mr.
Franklin’s attention. If my daughter was right, she might well have
been lying in wait for Mr. Franklin’s return when the Sergeant noticed
her. I was put between the two difficulties of mentioning Penelope’s
fanciful notion as if it was mine, or of leaving an unfortunate
creature to suffer the consequences, the very serious consequences, of
exciting the suspicion of Sergeant Cuff. Out of pure pity for the
girl—on my soul and my character, out of pure pity for the girl—I gave
the Sergeant the necessary explanations, and told him that Rosanna had
been mad enough to set her heart on Mr. Franklin Blake.

Sergeant Cuff never laughed. On the few occasions when anything amused
him, he curled up a little at the corners of the lips, nothing more. He
curled up now.

“Hadn’t you better say she’s mad enough to be an ugly girl and only a
servant?” he asked. “The falling in love with a gentleman of Mr.
Franklin Blake’s manners and appearance doesn’t seem to me to be the
maddest part of her conduct by any means. However, I’m glad the thing
is cleared up: it relieves one’s mind to have things cleared up. Yes,
I’ll keep it a secret, Mr. Betteredge. I like to be tender to human
infirmity—though I don’t get many chances of exercising that virtue in
my line of life. You think Mr. Franklin Blake hasn’t got a suspicion of
the girl’s fancy for him? Ah! he would have found it out fast enough if
she had been nice-looking. The ugly women have a bad time of it in this
world; let’s hope it will be made up to them in another. You have got a
nice garden here, and a well-kept lawn. See for yourself how much
better the flowers look with grass about them instead of gravel. No,
thank you. I won’t take a rose. It goes to my heart to break them off
the stem. Just as it goes to your heart, you know, when there’s
something wrong in the servants’ hall. Did you notice anything you
couldn’t account for in any of the servants when the loss of the
Diamond was first found out?”

I had got on very fairly well with Sergeant Cuff so far. But the
slyness with which he slipped in that last question put me on my guard.
In plain English, I didn’t at all relish the notion of helping his
inquiries, when those inquiries took him (in the capacity of snake in
the grass) among my fellow-servants.

“I noticed nothing,” I said, “except that we all lost our heads
together, myself included.”

“Oh,” says the Sergeant, “that’s all you have to tell me, is it?”

I answered, with (as I flattered myself) an unmoved countenance, “That
is all.”

Sergeant Cuff’s dismal eyes looked me hard in the face.

“Mr. Betteredge,” he said, “have you any objection to oblige me by
shaking hands? I have taken an extraordinary liking to you.”

(Why he should have chosen the exact moment when I was deceiving him to
give me that proof of his good opinion, is beyond all comprehension! I
felt a little proud—I really did feel a little proud of having been one
too many at last for the celebrated Cuff!)

We went back to the house; the Sergeant requesting that I would give
him a room to himself, and then send in the servants (the indoor
servants only), one after another, in the order of their rank, from
first to last.

I showed Sergeant Cuff into my own room, and then called the servants
together in the hall. Rosanna Spearman appeared among them, much as
usual. She was as quick in her way as the Sergeant in his, and I
suspect she had heard what he said to me about the servants in general,
just before he discovered her. There she was, at any rate, looking as
if she had never heard of such a place as the shrubbery in her life.

I sent them in, one by one, as desired. The cook was the first to enter
the Court of Justice, otherwise my room. She remained but a short time.
Report, on coming out: “Sergeant Cuff is depressed in his spirits; but
Sergeant Cuff is a perfect gentleman.” My lady’s own maid followed.
Remained much longer. Report, on coming out: “If Sergeant Cuff doesn’t
believe a respectable woman, he might keep his opinion to himself, at
any rate!” Penelope went next. Remained only a moment or two. Report,
on coming out: “Sergeant Cuff is much to be pitied. He must have been
crossed in love, father, when he was a young man.” The first housemaid
followed Penelope. Remained, like my lady’s maid, a long time. Report,
on coming out: “I didn’t enter her ladyship’s service, Mr. Betteredge,
to be doubted to my face by a low police-officer!” Rosanna Spearman
went next. Remained longer than any of them. No report on coming
out—dead silence, and lips as pale as ashes. Samuel, the footman,
followed Rosanna. Remained a minute or two. Report, on coming out:
“Whoever blacks Sergeant Cuff’s boots ought to be ashamed of himself.”
Nancy, the kitchen-maid, went last. Remained a minute or two. Report,
on coming out: “Sergeant Cuff has a heart; he doesn’t cut jokes, Mr.
Betteredge, with a poor hard-working girl.”

Going into the Court of Justice, when it was all over, to hear if there
were any further commands for me, I found the Sergeant at his old
trick—looking out of window, and whistling “The Last Rose of Summer” to
himself.

“Any discoveries, sir?” I inquired.

“If Rosanna Spearman asks leave to go out,” said the Sergeant, “let the
poor thing go; but let me know first.”

I might as well have held my tongue about Rosanna and Mr. Franklin! It
was plain enough; the unfortunate girl had fallen under Sergeant Cuff’s
suspicions, in spite of all I could do to prevent it.

“I hope you don’t think Rosanna is concerned in the loss of the
Diamond?” I ventured to say.

The corners of the Sergeant’s melancholy mouth curled up, and he looked
hard in my face, just as he had looked in the garden.

“I think I had better not tell you, Mr. Betteredge,” he said. “You
might lose your head, you know, for the second time.”

I began to doubt whether I had been one too many for the celebrated
Cuff, after all! It was rather a relief to me that we were interrupted
here by a knock at the door, and a message from the cook. Rosanna
Spearman had asked to go out, for the usual reason, that her head was
bad, and she wanted a breath of fresh air. At a sign from the Sergeant,
I said, Yes. “Which is the servants’ way out?” he asked, when the
messenger had gone. I showed him the servants’ way out. “Lock the door
of your room,” says the Sergeant; “and if anybody asks for me, say I’m
in there, composing my mind.” He curled up again at the corners of the
lips, and disappeared.

Left alone, under those circumstances, a devouring curiosity pushed me
on to make some discoveries for myself.

It was plain that Sergeant Cuff’s suspicions of Rosanna had been roused
by something that he had found out at his examination of the servants
in my room. Now, the only two servants (excepting Rosanna herself) who
had remained under examination for any length of time, were my lady’s
own maid and the first housemaid, those two being also the women who
had taken the lead in persecuting their unfortunate fellow-servant from
the first. Reaching these conclusions, I looked in on them, casually as
it might be, in the servants’ hall, and, finding tea going forward,
instantly invited myself to that meal. (For, nota bene, a drop of tea
is to a woman’s tongue what a drop of oil is to a wasting lamp.)

My reliance on the tea-pot, as an ally, did not go unrewarded. In less
than half an hour I knew as much as the Sergeant himself.

My lady’s maid and the housemaid, had, it appeared, neither of them
believed in Rosanna’s illness of the previous day. These two devils—I
ask your pardon; but how else can you describe a couple of spiteful
women?—had stolen upstairs, at intervals during the Thursday afternoon;
had tried Rosanna’s door, and found it locked; had knocked, and not
been answered; had listened, and not heard a sound inside. When the
girl had come down to tea, and had been sent up, still out of sorts, to
bed again, the two devils aforesaid had tried her door once more, and
found it locked; had looked at the keyhole, and found it stopped up;
had seen a light under the door at midnight, and had heard the
crackling of a fire (a fire in a servant’s bedroom in the month of
June!) at four in the morning. All this they had told Sergeant Cuff,
who, in return for their anxiety to enlighten him, had eyed them with
sour and suspicious looks, and had shown them plainly that he didn’t
believe either one or the other. Hence, the unfavourable reports of him
which these two women had brought out with them from the examination.
Hence, also (without reckoning the influence of the tea-pot), their
readiness to let their tongues run to any length on the subject of the
Sergeant’s ungracious behaviour to them.

Having had some experience of the great Cuff’s roundabout ways, and
having last seen him evidently bent on following Rosanna privately when
she went out for her walk, it seemed clear to me that he had thought it
unadvisable to let the lady’s maid and the housemaid know how
materially they had helped him. They were just the sort of women, if he
had treated their evidence as trustworthy, to have been puffed up by
it, and to have said or done something which would have put Rosanna
Spearman on her guard.

I walked out in the fine summer afternoon, very sorry for the poor
girl, and very uneasy in my mind at the turn things had taken. Drifting
towards the shrubbery, some time later, there I met Mr. Franklin. After
returning from seeing his cousin off at the station, he had been with
my lady, holding a long conversation with her. She had told him of Miss
Rachel’s unaccountable refusal to let her wardrobe be examined; and had
put him in such low spirits about my young lady that he seemed to
shrink from speaking on the subject. The family temper appeared in his
face that evening, for the first time in my experience of him.

“Well, Betteredge,” he said, “how does the atmosphere of mystery and
suspicion in which we are all living now, agree with you? Do you
remember that morning when I first came here with the Moonstone? I wish
to God we had thrown it into the quicksand!”

After breaking out in that way, he abstained from speaking again until
he had composed himself. We walked silently, side by side, for a minute
or two, and then he asked me what had become of Sergeant Cuff. It was
impossible to put Mr. Franklin off with the excuse of the Sergeant
being in my room, composing his mind. I told him exactly what had
happened, mentioning particularly what my lady’s maid and the
house-maid had said about Rosanna Spearman.

Mr. Franklin’s clear head saw the turn the Sergeant’s suspicions had
taken, in the twinkling of an eye.

“Didn’t you tell me this morning,” he said, “that one of the
tradespeople declared he had met Rosanna yesterday, on the footway to
Frizinghall, when we supposed her to be ill in her room?”

“Yes, sir.”

“If my aunt’s maid and the other woman have spoken the truth, you may
depend upon it the tradesman did meet her. The girl’s attack of
illness was a blind to deceive us. She had some guilty reason for going
to the town secretly. The paint-stained dress is a dress of hers; and
the fire heard crackling in her room at four in the morning was a fire
lit to destroy it. Rosanna Spearman has stolen the Diamond. I’ll go in
directly, and tell my aunt the turn things have taken.”

“Not just yet, if you please, sir,” said a melancholy voice behind us.

We both turned about, and found ourselves face to face with Sergeant
Cuff.

“Why not just yet?” asked Mr. Franklin.

“Because, sir, if you tell her ladyship, her ladyship will tell Miss
Verinder.”

“Suppose she does. What then?” Mr. Franklin said those words with a
sudden heat and vehemence, as if the Sergeant had mortally offended
him.

“Do you think it’s wise, sir,” said Sergeant Cuff, quietly, “to put
such a question as that to me—at such a time as this?”

There was a moment’s silence between them: Mr. Franklin walked close up
to the Sergeant. The two looked each other straight in the face. Mr.
Franklin spoke first, dropping his voice as suddenly as he had raised
it.

“I suppose you know, Mr. Cuff,” he said, “that you are treading on
delicate ground?”

“It isn’t the first time, by a good many hundreds, that I find myself
treading on delicate ground,” answered the other, as immovable as ever.

“I am to understand that you forbid me to tell my aunt what has
happened?”

“You are to understand, if you please, sir, that I throw up the case,
if you tell Lady Verinder, or tell anybody, what has happened, until I
give you leave.”

That settled it. Mr. Franklin had no choice but to submit. He turned
away in anger—and left us.

I had stood there listening to them, all in a tremble; not knowing whom
to suspect, or what to think next. In the midst of my confusion, two
things, however, were plain to me. First, that my young lady was, in
some unaccountable manner, at the bottom of the sharp speeches that had
passed between them. Second, that they thoroughly understood each
other, without having previously exchanged a word of explanation on
either side.

“Mr. Betteredge,” says the Sergeant, “you have done a very foolish
thing in my absence. You have done a little detective business on your
own account. For the future, perhaps you will be so obliging as to do
your detective business along with me.”

He took me by the arm, and walked me away with him along the road by
which he had come. I dare say I had deserved his reproof—but I was not
going to help him to set traps for Rosanna Spearman, for all that.
Thief or no thief, legal or not legal, I don’t care—I pitied her.

“What do you want of me?” I asked, shaking him off, and stopping short.

“Only a little information about the country round here,” said the
Sergeant.

I couldn’t well object to improve Sergeant Cuff in his geography.

“Is there any path, in that direction, leading to the sea-beach from
this house?” asked the Sergeant. He pointed, as he spoke, to the
fir-plantation which led to the Shivering Sand.

“Yes,” I said, “there is a path.”

“Show it to me.”

Side by side, in the grey of the summer evening, Sergeant Cuff and I
set forth for the Shivering Sand.