The Moonstone

e found my lady with no light in the room but the reading-lamp. The
shade was screwed down so as to overshadow her face. Instead of looking
up at us in her usual straightforward way, she sat close at the table,
and kept her eyes fixed obstinately on an open book.

“Officer,” she said, “is it important to the inquiry you are
conducting, to know beforehand if any person now in this house wishes
to leave it?”

“Most important, my lady.”

“I have to tell you, then, that Miss Verinder proposes going to stay
with her aunt, Mrs. Ablewhite, of Frizinghall. She has arranged to
leave us the first thing tomorrow morning.”

Sergeant Cuff looked at me. I made a step forward to speak to my
mistress—and, feeling my heart fail me (if I must own it), took a step
back again, and said nothing.

“May I ask your ladyship when Miss Verinder informed you that she was
going to her aunt’s?” inquired the Sergeant.

“About an hour since,” answered my mistress.

Sergeant Cuff looked at me once more. They say old people’s hearts are
not very easily moved. My heart couldn’t have thumped much harder
than it did now, if I had been five-and-twenty again!

“I have no claim, my lady,” says the Sergeant, “to control Miss
Verinder’s actions. All I can ask you to do is to put off her
departure, if possible, till later in the day. I must go to Frizinghall
myself tomorrow morning—and I shall be back by two o’clock, if not
before. If Miss Verinder can be kept here till that time, I should wish
to say two words to her—unexpectedly—before she goes.”

My lady directed me to give the coachman her orders, that the carriage
was not to come for Miss Rachel until two o’clock. “Have you more to
say?” she asked of the Sergeant, when this had been done.

“Only one thing, your ladyship. If Miss Verinder is surprised at this
change in the arrangements, please not to mention Me as being the cause
of putting off her journey.”

My mistress lifted her head suddenly from her book as if she was going
to say something—checked herself by a great effort—and, looking back
again at the open page, dismissed us with a sign of her hand.

“That’s a wonderful woman,” said Sergeant Cuff, when we were out in the
hall again. “But for her self-control, the mystery that puzzles you,
Mr. Betteredge, would have been at an end tonight.”

At those words, the truth rushed at last into my stupid old head. For
the moment, I suppose I must have gone clean out of my senses. I seized
the Sergeant by the collar of his coat, and pinned him against the
wall.

“Damn you!” I cried out, “there’s something wrong about Miss Rachel—and
you have been hiding it from me all this time!”

Sergeant Cuff looked up at me—flat against the wall—without stirring a
hand, or moving a muscle of his melancholy face.

“Ah,” he said, “you’ve guessed it at last.”

My hand dropped from his collar, and my head sunk on my breast. Please
to remember, as some excuse for my breaking out as I did, that I had
served the family for fifty years. Miss Rachel had climbed upon my
knees, and pulled my whiskers, many and many a time when she was a
child. Miss Rachel, with all her faults, had been, to my mind, the
dearest and prettiest and best young mistress that ever an old servant
waited on, and loved. I begged Sergeant’s Cuff’s pardon, but I am
afraid I did it with watery eyes, and not in a very becoming way.

“Don’t distress yourself, Mr. Betteredge,” says the Sergeant, with more
kindness than I had any right to expect from him. “In my line of life
if we were quick at taking offence, we shouldn’t be worth salt to our
porridge. If it’s any comfort to you, collar me again. You don’t in the
least know how to do it; but I’ll overlook your awkwardness in
consideration of your feelings.”

He curled up at the corners of his lips, and, in his own dreary way,
seemed to think he had delivered himself of a very good joke.

I led him into my own little sitting-room, and closed the door.

“Tell me the truth, Sergeant,” I said. “What do you suspect? It’s no
kindness to hide it from me now.”

“I don’t suspect,” said Sergeant Cuff. “I know.”

My unlucky temper began to get the better of me again.

“Do you mean to tell me, in plain English,” I said, “that Miss Rachel
has stolen her own Diamond?”

“Yes,” says the Sergeant; “that is what I mean to tell you, in so many
words. Miss Verinder has been in secret possession of the Moonstone
from first to last; and she has taken Rosanna Spearman into her
confidence, because she has calculated on our suspecting Rosanna
Spearman of the theft. There is the whole case in a nutshell. Collar me
again, Mr. Betteredge. If it’s any vent to your feelings, collar me
again.”

God help me! my feelings were not to be relieved in that way. “Give me
your reasons!” That was all I could say to him.

“You shall hear my reasons tomorrow,” said the Sergeant. “If Miss
Verinder refuses to put off her visit to her aunt (which you will find
Miss Verinder will do), I shall be obliged to lay the whole case before
your mistress tomorrow. And, as I don’t know what may come of it, I
shall request you to be present, and to hear what passes on both sides.
Let the matter rest for tonight. No, Mr. Betteredge, you don’t get a
word more on the subject of the Moonstone out of me. There is your
table spread for supper. That’s one of the many human infirmities which
I always treat tenderly. If you will ring the bell, I’ll say grace.
‘For what we are going to receive——’”

“I wish you a good appetite to it, Sergeant,” I said. “My appetite is
gone. I’ll wait and see you served, and then I’ll ask you to excuse me,
if I go away, and try to get the better of this by myself.”

I saw him served with the best of everything—and I shouldn’t have been
sorry if the best of everything had choked him. The head gardener (Mr.
Begbie) came in at the same time, with his weekly account. The Sergeant
got on the subject of roses and the merits of grass walks and gravel
walks immediately. I left the two together, and went out with a heavy
heart. This was the first trouble I remember for many a long year which
wasn’t to be blown off by a whiff of tobacco, and which was even beyond
the reach of Robinson Crusoe.

Being restless and miserable, and having no particular room to go to, I
took a turn on the terrace, and thought it over in peace and quietness
by myself. It doesn’t much matter what my thoughts were. I felt
wretchedly old, and worn out, and unfit for my place—and began to
wonder, for the first time in my life, when it would please God to take
me. With all this, I held firm, notwithstanding, to my belief in Miss
Rachel. If Sergeant Cuff had been Solomon in all his glory, and had
told me that my young lady had mixed herself up in a mean and guilty
plot, I should have had but one answer for Solomon, wise as he was,
“You don’t know her; and I do.”

My meditations were interrupted by Samuel. He brought me a written
message from my mistress.

Going into the house to get a light to read it by, Samuel remarked that
there seemed a change coming in the weather. My troubled mind had
prevented me from noticing it before. But, now my attention was roused,
I heard the dogs uneasy, and the wind moaning low. Looking up at the
sky, I saw the rack of clouds getting blacker and blacker, and hurrying
faster and faster over a watery moon. Wild weather coming—Samuel was
right, wild weather coming.

The message from my lady informed me, that the magistrate at
Frizinghall had written to remind her about the three Indians. Early in
the coming week, the rogues must needs be released, and left free to
follow their own devices. If we had any more questions to ask them,
there was no time to lose. Having forgotten to mention this, when she
had last seen Sergeant Cuff, my mistress now desired me to supply the
omission. The Indians had gone clean out of my head (as they have, no
doubt, gone clean out of yours). I didn’t see much use in stirring that
subject again. However, I obeyed my orders on the spot, as a matter of
course.

I found Sergeant Cuff and the gardener, with a bottle of Scotch whisky
between them, head over ears in an argument on the growing of roses.
The Sergeant was so deeply interested that he held up his hand, and
signed to me not to interrupt the discussion, when I came in. As far as
I could understand it, the question between them was, whether the white
moss rose did, or did not, require to be budded on the dog-rose to make
it grow well. Mr. Begbie said, Yes; and Sergeant Cuff said, No. They
appealed to me, as hotly as a couple of boys. Knowing nothing whatever
about the growing of roses, I steered a middle course—just as her
Majesty’s judges do, when the scales of justice bother them by hanging
even to a hair. “Gentlemen,” I remarked, “there is much to be said on
both sides.” In the temporary lull produced by that impartial sentence,
I laid my lady’s written message on the table, under the eyes of
Sergeant Cuff.

I had got by this time, as nearly as might be, to hate the Sergeant.
But truth compels me to acknowledge that, in respect of readiness of
mind, he was a wonderful man.

In half a minute after he had read the message, he had looked back into
his memory for Superintendent Seegrave’s report; had picked out that
part of it in which the Indians were concerned; and was ready with his
answer. A certain great traveller, who understood the Indians and their
language, had figured in Mr. Seegrave’s report, hadn’t he? Very well.
Did I know the gentleman’s name and address? Very well again. Would I
write them on the back of my lady’s message? Much obliged to me.
Sergeant Cuff would look that gentleman up, when he went to Frizinghall
in the morning.

“Do you expect anything to come of it?” I asked. “Superintendent
Seegrave found the Indians as innocent as the babe unborn.”

“Superintendent Seegrave has been proved wrong, up to this time, in all
his conclusions,” answered the Sergeant. “It may be worth while to find
out tomorrow whether Superintendent Seegrave was wrong about the
Indians as well.” With that he turned to Mr. Begbie, and took up the
argument again exactly at the place where it had left off. “This
question between us is a question of soils and seasons, and patience
and pains, Mr. Gardener. Now let me put it to you from another point of
view. You take your white moss rose——”

By that time, I had closed the door on them, and was out of hearing of
the rest of the dispute.

In the passage, I met Penelope hanging about, and asked what she was
waiting for.

She was waiting for her young lady’s bell, when her young lady chose to
call her back to go on with the packing for the next day’s journey.
Further inquiry revealed to me, that Miss Rachel had given it as a
reason for wanting to go to her aunt at Frizinghall, that the house was
unendurable to her, and that she could bear the odious presence of a
policeman under the same roof with herself no longer. On being
informed, half an hour since, that her departure would be delayed till
two in the afternoon, she had flown into a violent passion. My lady,
present at the time, had severely rebuked her, and then (having
apparently something to say, which was reserved for her daughter’s
private ear) had sent Penelope out of the room. My girl was in
wretchedly low spirits about the changed state of things in the house.
“Nothing goes right, father; nothing is like what it used to be. I feel
as if some dreadful misfortune was hanging over us all.”

That was my feeling too. But I put a good face on it, before my
daughter. Miss Rachel’s bell rang while we were talking. Penelope ran
up the back stairs to go on with the packing. I went by the other way
to the hall, to see what the glass said about the change in the
weather.

Just as I approached the swing-door leading into the hall from the
servants’ offices, it was violently opened from the other side, and
Rosanna Spearman ran by me, with a miserable look of pain in her face,
and one of her hands pressed hard over her heart, as if the pang was in
that quarter. “What’s the matter, my girl?” I asked, stopping her. “Are
you ill?” “For God’s sake, don’t speak to me,” she answered, and
twisted herself out of my hands, and ran on towards the servants’
staircase. I called to the cook (who was within hearing) to look after
the poor girl. Two other persons proved to be within hearing, as well
as the cook. Sergeant Cuff darted softly out of my room, and asked what
was the matter. I answered, “Nothing.” Mr. Franklin, on the other side,
pulled open the swing-door, and beckoning me into the hall, inquired if
I had seen anything of Rosanna Spearman.

“She has just passed me, sir, with a very disturbed face, and in a very
odd manner.”

“I am afraid I am innocently the cause of that disturbance,
Betteredge.”

“You, sir!”

“I can’t explain it,” says Mr. Franklin; “but, if the girl is
concerned in the loss of the Diamond, I do really believe she was on
the point of confessing everything—to me, of all the people in the
world—not two minutes since.”

Looking towards the swing-door, as he said those last words, I fancied
I saw it opened a little way from the inner side.

Was there anybody listening? The door fell to, before I could get to
it. Looking through, the moment after, I thought I saw the tails of
Sergeant Cuff’s respectable black coat disappearing round the corner of
the passage. He knew, as well as I did, that he could expect no more
help from me, now that I had discovered the turn which his
investigations were really taking. Under those circumstances, it was
quite in his character to help himself, and to do it by the underground
way.

Not feeling sure that I had really seen the Sergeant—and not desiring
to make needless mischief, where, Heaven knows, there was mischief
enough going on already—I told Mr. Franklin that I thought one of the
dogs had got into the house—and then begged him to describe what had
happened between Rosanna and himself.

“Were you passing through the hall, sir?” I asked. “Did you meet her
accidentally, when she spoke to you?”

Mr. Franklin pointed to the billiard-table.

“I was knocking the balls about,” he said, “and trying to get this
miserable business of the Diamond out of my mind. I happened to look
up—and there stood Rosanna Spearman at the side of me, like a ghost!
Her stealing on me in that way was so strange, that I hardly knew what
to do at first. Seeing a very anxious expression in her face, I asked
her if she wished to speak to me. She answered, ‘Yes, if I dare.’
Knowing what suspicion attached to her, I could only put one
construction on such language as that. I confess it made me
uncomfortable. I had no wish to invite the girl’s confidence. At the
same time, in the difficulties that now beset us, I could hardly feel
justified in refusing to listen to her, if she was really bent on
speaking to me. It was an awkward position; and I dare say I got out of
it awkwardly enough. I said to her, ‘I don’t quite understand you. Is
there anything you want me to do?’ Mind, Betteredge, I didn’t speak
unkindly! The poor girl can’t help being ugly—I felt that, at the time.
The cue was still in my hand, and I went on knocking the balls about,
to take off the awkwardness of the thing. As it turned out, I only made
matters worse still. I’m afraid I mortified her without meaning it! She
suddenly turned away. ‘He looks at the billiard balls,’ I heard her
say. ‘Anything rather than look at me!’ Before I could stop her, she
had left the hall. I am not quite easy about it, Betteredge. Would you
mind telling Rosanna that I meant no unkindness? I have been a little
hard on her, perhaps, in my own thoughts—I have almost hoped that the
loss of the Diamond might be traced to her. Not from any ill-will to
the poor girl: but——” He stopped there, and going back to the
billiard-table, began to knock the balls about once more.

After what had passed between the Sergeant and me, I knew what it was
that he had left unspoken as well as he knew it himself.

Nothing but the tracing of the Moonstone to our second housemaid could
now raise Miss Rachel above the infamous suspicion that rested on her
in the mind of Sergeant Cuff. It was no longer a question of quieting
my young lady’s nervous excitement; it was a question of proving her
innocence. If Rosanna had done nothing to compromise herself, the hope
which Mr. Franklin confessed to having felt would have been hard enough
on her in all conscience. But this was not the case. She had pretended
to be ill, and had gone secretly to Frizinghall. She had been up all
night, making something or destroying something, in private. And she
had been at the Shivering Sand, that evening, under circumstances which
were highly suspicious, to say the least of them. For all these reasons
(sorry as I was for Rosanna) I could not but think that Mr. Franklin’s
way of looking at the matter was neither unnatural nor unreasonable, in
Mr. Franklin’s position. I said a word to him to that effect.

“Yes, yes!” he said in return. “But there is just a chance—a very poor
one, certainly—that Rosanna’s conduct may admit of some explanation
which we don’t see at present. I hate hurting a woman’s feelings,
Betteredge! Tell the poor creature what I told you to tell her. And if
she wants to speak to me—I don’t care whether I get into a scrape or
not—send her to me in the library.” With those kind words he laid down
the cue and left me.

Inquiry at the servants’ offices informed me that Rosanna had retired
to her own room. She had declined all offers of assistance with thanks,
and had only asked to be left to rest in quiet. Here, therefore, was an
end of any confession on her part (supposing she really had a
confession to make) for that night. I reported the result to Mr.
Franklin, who, thereupon, left the library, and went up to bed.

I was putting the lights out, and making the windows fast, when Samuel
came in with news of the two guests whom I had left in my room.

The argument about the white moss rose had apparently come to an end at
last. The gardener had gone home, and Sergeant Cuff was nowhere to be
found in the lower regions of the house.

I looked into my room. Quite true—nothing was to be discovered there
but a couple of empty tumblers and a strong smell of hot grog. Had the
Sergeant gone of his own accord to the bedchamber that was prepared for
him? I went upstairs to see.

After reaching the second landing, I thought I heard a sound of quiet
and regular breathing on my left-hand side. My left-hand side led to
the corridor which communicated with Miss Rachel’s room. I looked in,
and there, coiled up on three chairs placed right across the
passage—there, with a red handkerchief tied round his grizzled head,
and his respectable black coat rolled up for a pillow, lay and slept
Sergeant Cuff!

He woke, instantly and quietly, like a dog, the moment I approached
him.

“Good-night, Mr. Betteredge,” he said. “And mind, if you ever take to
growing roses, the white moss rose is all the better for not being
budded on the dog-rose, whatever the gardener may say to the contrary!”

“What are you doing here?” I asked. “Why are you not in your proper
bed?”

“I am not in my proper bed,” answered the Sergeant, “because I am one
of the many people in this miserable world who can’t earn their money
honestly and easily at the same time. There was a coincidence, this
evening, between the period of Rosanna Spearman’s return from the Sands
and the period when Miss Verinder stated her resolution to leave the
house. Whatever Rosanna may have hidden, it’s clear to my mind that
your young lady couldn’t go away until she knew that it was hidden.
The two must have communicated privately once already tonight. If they
try to communicate again, when the house is quiet, I want to be in the
way, and stop it. Don’t blame me for upsetting your sleeping
arrangements, Mr. Betteredge—blame the Diamond.”

“I wish to God the Diamond had never found its way into this house!” I
broke out.

Sergeant Cuff looked with a rueful face at the three chairs on which he
had condemned himself to pass the night.

“So do I,” he said, gravely.