The Moonstone

he first words, when we had taken our seats, were spoken by my lady.

“Sergeant Cuff,” she said, “there was perhaps some excuse for the
inconsiderate manner in which I spoke to you half an hour since. I have
no wish, however, to claim that excuse. I say, with perfect sincerity,
that I regret it, if I wronged you.”

The grace of voice and manner with which she made him that atonement
had its due effect on the Sergeant. He requested permission to justify
himself—putting his justification as an act of respect to my mistress.
It was impossible, he said, that he could be in any way responsible for
the calamity, which had shocked us all, for this sufficient reason,
that his success in bringing his inquiry to its proper end depended on
his neither saying nor doing anything that could alarm Rosanna
Spearman. He appealed to me to testify whether he had, or had not,
carried that object out. I could, and did, bear witness that he had.
And there, as I thought, the matter might have been judiciously left to
come to an end.

Sergeant Cuff, however, took it a step further, evidently (as you shall
now judge) with the purpose of forcing the most painful of all possible
explanations to take place between her ladyship and himself.

“I have heard a motive assigned for the young woman’s suicide,” said
the Sergeant, “which may possibly be the right one. It is a motive
quite unconnected with the case which I am conducting here. I am bound
to add, however, that my own opinion points the other way. Some
unbearable anxiety in connexion with the missing Diamond, has, I
believe, driven the poor creature to her own destruction. I don’t
pretend to know what that unbearable anxiety may have been. But I think
(with your ladyship’s permission) I can lay my hand on a person who is
capable of deciding whether I am right or wrong.”

“Is the person now in the house?” my mistress asked, after waiting a
little.

“The person has left the house, my lady.”

That answer pointed as straight to Miss Rachel as straight could be. A
silence dropped on us which I thought would never come to an end. Lord!
how the wind howled, and how the rain drove at the window, as I sat
there waiting for one or other of them to speak again!

“Be so good as to express yourself plainly,” said my lady. “Do you
refer to my daughter?”

“I do,” said Sergeant Cuff, in so many words.

My mistress had her cheque-book on the table when we entered the
room—no doubt to pay the Sergeant his fee. She now put it back in the
drawer. It went to my heart to see how her poor hand trembled—the hand
that had loaded her old servant with benefits; the hand that, I pray
God, may take mine, when my time comes, and I leave my place for ever!

“I had hoped,” said my lady, very slowly and quietly, “to have
recompensed your services, and to have parted with you without Miss
Verinder’s name having been openly mentioned between us as it has been
mentioned now. My nephew has probably said something of this, before
you came into my room?”

“Mr. Blake gave his message, my lady. And I gave Mr. Blake a reason——”

“It is needless to tell me your reason. After what you have just said,
you know as well as I do that you have gone too far to go back. I owe
it to myself, and I owe it to my child, to insist on your remaining
here, and to insist on your speaking out.”

The Sergeant looked at his watch.

“If there had been time, my lady,” he answered, “I should have
preferred writing my report, instead of communicating it by word of
mouth. But, if this inquiry is to go on, time is of too much importance
to be wasted in writing. I am ready to go into the matter at once. It
is a very painful matter for me to speak of, and for you to hear.”

There my mistress stopped him once more.

“I may possibly make it less painful to you, and to my good servant and
friend here,” she said, “if I set the example of speaking boldly, on my
side. You suspect Miss Verinder of deceiving us all, by secreting the
Diamond for some purpose of her own? Is that true?”

“Quite true, my lady.”

“Very well. Now, before you begin, I have to tell you, as Miss
Verinder’s mother, that she is absolutely incapable of doing what you
suppose her to have done. Your knowledge of her character dates from a
day or two since. My knowledge of her character dates from the
beginning of her life. State your suspicion of her as strongly as you
please—it is impossible that you can offend me by doing so. I am sure,
beforehand, that (with all your experience) the circumstances have
fatally misled you in this case. Mind! I am in possession of no private
information. I am as absolutely shut out of my daughter’s confidence as
you are. My one reason for speaking positively, is the reason you have
heard already. I know my child.”

She turned to me, and gave me her hand. I kissed it in silence. “You
may go on,” she said, facing the Sergeant again as steadily as ever.

Sergeant Cuff bowed. My mistress had produced but one effect on him.
His hatchet-face softened for a moment, as if he was sorry for her. As
to shaking him in his own conviction, it was plain to see that she had
not moved him by a single inch. He settled himself in his chair; and he
began his vile attack on Miss Rachel’s character in these words:

“I must ask your ladyship,” he said, “to look this matter in the face,
from my point of view as well as from yours. Will you please to suppose
yourself coming down here, in my place, and with my experience? and
will you allow me to mention very briefly what that experience has
been?”

My mistress signed to him that she would do this. The Sergeant went on:

“For the last twenty years,” he said, “I have been largely employed in
cases of family scandal, acting in the capacity of confidential man.
The one result of my domestic practice which has any bearing on the
matter now in hand, is a result which I may state in two words. It is
well within my experience, that young ladies of rank and position do
occasionally have private debts which they dare not acknowledge to
their nearest relatives and friends. Sometimes, the milliner and the
jeweller are at the bottom of it. Sometimes, the money is wanted for
purposes which I don’t suspect in this case, and which I won’t shock
you by mentioning. Bear in mind what I have said, my lady—and now let
us see how events in this house have forced me back on my own
experience, whether I liked it or not!”

He considered with himself for a moment, and went on—with a horrid
clearness that obliged you to understand him; with an abominable
justice that favoured nobody.

“My first information relating to the loss of the Moonstone,” said the
Sergeant, “came to me from Superintendent Seegrave. He proved to my
complete satisfaction that he was perfectly incapable of managing the
case. The one thing he said which struck me as worth listening to, was
this—that Miss Verinder had declined to be questioned by him, and had
spoken to him with a perfectly incomprehensible rudeness and contempt.
I thought this curious—but I attributed it mainly to some clumsiness on
the Superintendent’s part which might have offended the young lady.
After that, I put it by in my mind, and applied myself, single-handed,
to the case. It ended, as you are aware, in the discovery of the smear
on the door, and in Mr. Franklin Blake’s evidence satisfying me, that
this same smear, and the loss of the Diamond, were pieces of the same
puzzle. So far, if I suspected anything, I suspected that the Moonstone
had been stolen, and that one of the servants might prove to be the
thief. Very good. In this state of things, what happens? Miss Verinder
suddenly comes out of her room, and speaks to me. I observe three
suspicious appearances in that young lady. She is still violently
agitated, though more than four-and-twenty hours have passed since the
Diamond was lost. She treats me as she has already treated
Superintendent Seegrave. And she is mortally offended with Mr. Franklin
Blake. Very good again. Here (I say to myself) is a young lady who has
lost a valuable jewel—a young lady, also, as my own eyes and ears
inform me, who is of an impetuous temperament. Under these
circumstances, and with that character, what does she do? She betrays
an incomprehensible resentment against Mr. Blake, Mr. Superintendent,
and myself—otherwise, the very three people who have all, in their
different ways, been trying to help her to recover her lost jewel.
Having brought my inquiry to that point—then, my lady, and not till
then, I begin to look back into my own mind for my own experience. My
own experience explains Miss Verinder’s otherwise incomprehensible
conduct. It associates her with those other young ladies that I know
of. It tells me she has debts she daren’t acknowledge, that must be
paid. And it sets me asking myself, whether the loss of the Diamond may
not mean—that the Diamond must be secretly pledged to pay them. That is
the conclusion which my experience draws from plain facts. What does
your ladyship’s experience say against it?”

“What I have said already,” answered my mistress. “The circumstances
have misled you.”

I said nothing on my side. Robinson Crusoe—God knows how—had got into
my muddled old head. If Sergeant Cuff had found himself, at that
moment, transported to a desert island, without a man Friday to keep
him company, or a ship to take him off—he would have found himself
exactly where I wished him to be! (Nota bene:—I am an average good
Christian, when you don’t push my Christianity too far. And all the
rest of you—which is a great comfort—are, in this respect, much the
same as I am.)

Sergeant Cuff went on:

“Right or wrong, my lady,” he said, “having drawn my conclusion, the
next thing to do was to put it to the test. I suggested to your
ladyship the examination of all the wardrobes in the house. It was a
means of finding the article of dress which had, in all probability,
made the smear; and it was a means of putting my conclusion to the
test. How did it turn out? Your ladyship consented; Mr. Blake
consented; Mr. Ablewhite consented. Miss Verinder alone stopped the
whole proceeding by refusing point-blank. That result satisfied me that
my view was the right one. If your ladyship and Mr. Betteredge persist
in not agreeing with me, you must be blind to what happened before you
this very day. In your hearing, I told the young lady that her leaving
the house (as things were then) would put an obstacle in the way of my
recovering her jewel. You saw yourselves that she drove off in the face
of that statement. You saw yourself that, so far from forgiving Mr.
Blake for having done more than all the rest of you to put the clue
into my hands, she publicly insulted Mr. Blake, on the steps of her
mother’s house. What do these things mean? If Miss Verinder is not
privy to the suppression of the Diamond, what do these things mean?”

This time he looked my way. It was downright frightful to hear him
piling up proof after proof against Miss Rachel, and to know, while one
was longing to defend her, that there was no disputing the truth of
what he said. I am (thank God!) constitutionally superior to reason.
This enabled me to hold firm to my lady’s view, which was my view also.
This roused my spirit, and made me put a bold face on it before
Sergeant Cuff. Profit, good friends, I beseech you, by my example. It
will save you from many troubles of the vexing sort. Cultivate a
superiority to reason, and see how you pare the claws of all the
sensible people when they try to scratch you for your own good!

Finding that I made no remark, and that my mistress made no remark,
Sergeant Cuff proceeded. Lord! how it did enrage me to notice that he
was not in the least put out by our silence!

“There is the case, my lady, as it stands against Miss Verinder alone,”
he said. “The next thing is to put the case as it stands against Miss
Verinder and the deceased Rosanna Spearman taken together. We will go
back for a moment, if you please, to your daughter’s refusal to let her
wardrobe be examined. My mind being made up, after that circumstance, I
had two questions to consider next. First, as to the right method of
conducting my inquiry. Second, as to whether Miss Verinder had an
accomplice among the female servants in the house. After carefully
thinking it over, I determined to conduct the inquiry in, what we
should call at our office, a highly irregular manner. For this reason:
I had a family scandal to deal with, which it was my business to keep
within the family limits. The less noise made, and the fewer strangers
employed to help me, the better. As to the usual course of taking
people in custody on suspicion, going before the magistrate, and all
the rest of it—nothing of the sort was to be thought of, when your
ladyship’s daughter was (as I believed) at the bottom of the whole
business. In this case, I felt that a person of Mr. Betteredge’s
character and position in the house—knowing the servants as he did, and
having the honour of the family at heart—would be safer to take as an
assistant than any other person whom I could lay my hand on. I should
have tried Mr. Blake as well—but for one obstacle in the way. He saw
the drift of my proceedings at a very early date; and, with his
interest in Miss Verinder, any mutual understanding was impossible
between him and me. I trouble your ladyship with these particulars to
show you that I have kept the family secret within the family circle. I
am the only outsider who knows it—and my professional existence depends
on holding my tongue.”

Here I felt that my professional existence depended on not holding
my tongue. To be held up before my mistress, in my old age, as a sort
of deputy-policeman, was, once again, more than my Christianity was
strong enough to bear.

“I beg to inform your ladyship,” I said, “that I never, to my
knowledge, helped this abominable detective business, in any way, from
first to last; and I summon Sergeant Cuff to contradict me, if he
dares!”

Having given vent in those words, I felt greatly relieved. Her ladyship
honoured me by a little friendly pat on the shoulder. I looked with
righteous indignation at the Sergeant, to see what he thought of such a
testimony as that! The Sergeant looked back like a lamb, and seemed
to like me better than ever.

My lady informed him that he might continue his statement. “I
understand,” she said, “that you have honestly done your best, in what
you believe to be my interest. I am ready to hear what you have to say
next.”

“What I have to say next,” answered Sergeant Cuff, “relates to Rosanna
Spearman. I recognised the young woman, as your ladyship may remember,
when she brought the washing-book into this room. Up to that time I was
inclined to doubt whether Miss Verinder had trusted her secret to
anyone. When I saw Rosanna, I altered my mind. I suspected her at once
of being privy to the suppression of the Diamond. The poor creature has
met her death by a dreadful end, and I don’t want your ladyship to
think, now she’s gone, that I was unduly hard on her. If this had been
a common case of thieving, I should have given Rosanna the benefit of
the doubt just as freely as I should have given it to any of the other
servants in the house. Our experience of the Reformatory woman is, that
when tried in service—and when kindly and judiciously treated—they
prove themselves in the majority of cases to be honestly penitent, and
honestly worthy of the pains taken with them. But this was not a common
case of thieving. It was a case—in my mind—of a deeply planned fraud,
with the owner of the Diamond at the bottom of it. Holding this view,
the first consideration which naturally presented itself to me, in
connection with Rosanna, was this: Would Miss Verinder be satisfied
(begging your ladyship’s pardon) with leading us all to think that the
Moonstone was merely lost? Or would she go a step further, and delude
us into believing that the Moonstone was stolen? In the latter event
there was Rosanna Spearman—with the character of a thief—ready to her
hand; the person of all others to lead your ladyship off, and to lead
me off, on a false scent.”

Was it possible (I asked myself) that he could put his case against
Miss Rachel and Rosanna in a more horrid point of view than this? It
was possible, as you shall now see.

“I had another reason for suspecting the deceased woman,” he said,
“which appears to me to have been stronger still. Who would be the very
person to help Miss Verinder in raising money privately on the Diamond?
Rosanna Spearman. No young lady in Miss Verinder’s position could
manage such a risky matter as that by herself. A go-between she must
have, and who so fit, I ask again, as Rosanna Spearman? Your ladyship’s
deceased housemaid was at the top of her profession when she was a
thief. She had relations, to my certain knowledge, with one of the few
men in London (in the money-lending line) who would advance a large sum
on such a notable jewel as the Moonstone, without asking awkward
questions, or insisting on awkward conditions. Bear this in mind, my
lady; and now let me show you how my suspicions have been justified by
Rosanna’s own acts, and by the plain inferences to be drawn from them.”

He thereupon passed the whole of Rosanna’s proceedings under review.
You are already as well acquainted with those proceedings as I am; and
you will understand how unanswerably this part of his report fixed the
guilt of being concerned in the disappearance of the Moonstone on the
memory of the poor dead girl. Even my mistress was daunted by what he
said now. She made him no answer when he had done. It didn’t seem to
matter to the Sergeant whether he was answered or not. On he went
(devil take him!), just as steady as ever.

“Having stated the whole case as I understand it,” he said, “I have
only to tell your ladyship, now, what I propose to do next. I see two
ways of bringing this inquiry successfully to an end. One of those ways
I look upon as a certainty. The other, I admit, is a bold experiment,
and nothing more. Your ladyship shall decide. Shall we take the
certainty first?”

My mistress made him a sign to take his own way, and choose for
himself.

“Thank you,” said the Sergeant. “We’ll begin with the certainty, as
your ladyship is so good as to leave it to me. Whether Miss Verinder
remains at Frizinghall, or whether she returns here, I propose, in
either case, to keep a careful watch on all her proceedings—on the
people she sees, on the rides and walks she may take, and on the
letters she may write and receive.”

“What next?” asked my mistress.

“I shall next,” answered the Sergeant, “request your ladyship’s leave
to introduce into the house, as a servant in the place of Rosanna
Spearman, a woman accustomed to private inquiries of this sort, for
whose discretion I can answer.”

“What next?” repeated my mistress.

“Next,” proceeded the Sergeant, “and last, I propose to send one of my
brother-officers to make an arrangement with that money-lender in
London, whom I mentioned just now as formerly acquainted with Rosanna
Spearman—and whose name and address, your ladyship may rely on it, have
been communicated by Rosanna to Miss Verinder. I don’t deny that the
course of action I am now suggesting will cost money, and consume time.
But the result is certain. We run a line round the Moonstone, and we
draw that line closer and closer till we find it in Miss Verinder’s
possession, supposing she decides to keep it. If her debts press, and
she decides on sending it away, then we have our man ready, and we meet
the Moonstone on its arrival in London.”

To hear her own daughter made the subject of such a proposal as this,
stung my mistress into speaking angrily for the first time.

“Consider your proposal declined, in every particular,” she said. “And
go on to your other way of bringing the inquiry to an end.”

“My other way,” said the Sergeant, going on as easy as ever, “is to try
that bold experiment to which I have alluded. I think I have formed a
pretty correct estimate of Miss Verinder’s temperament. She is quite
capable (according to my belief) of committing a daring fraud. But she
is too hot and impetuous in temper, and too little accustomed to deceit
as a habit, to act the hypocrite in small things, and to restrain
herself under all provocations. Her feelings, in this case, have
repeatedly got beyond her control, at the very time when it was plainly
her interest to conceal them. It is on this peculiarity in her
character that I now propose to act. I want to give her a great shock
suddenly, under circumstances that will touch her to the quick. In
plain English, I want to tell Miss Verinder, without a word of warning,
of Rosanna’s death—on the chance that her own better feelings will
hurry her into making a clean breast of it. Does your ladyship accept
that alternative?”

My mistress astonished me beyond all power of expression. She answered
him on the instant:

“Yes; I do.”

“The pony-chaise is ready,” said the Sergeant. “I wish your ladyship
good morning.”

My lady held up her hand, and stopped him at the door.

“My daughter’s better feelings shall be appealed to, as you propose,”
she said. “But I claim the right, as her mother, of putting her to the
test myself. You will remain here, if you please; and I will go to
Frizinghall.”

For once in his life, the great Cuff stood speechless with amazement,
like an ordinary man.

My mistress rang the bell, and ordered her waterproof things. It was
still pouring with rain; and the close carriage had gone, as you know,
with Miss Rachel to Frizinghall. I tried to dissuade her ladyship from
facing the severity of the weather. Quite useless! I asked leave to go
with her, and hold the umbrella. She wouldn’t hear of it. The
pony-chaise came round, with the groom in charge. “You may rely on two
things,” she said to Sergeant Cuff, in the hall. “I will try the
experiment on Miss Verinder as boldly as you could try it yourself. And
I will inform you of the result, either personally or by letter, before
the last train leaves for London tonight.”

With that, she stepped into the chaise, and, taking the reins herself,
drove off to Frizinghall.