The Moonstone
turn, Mr. Godfrey whispered to me—“Evidently a most competent person.
Betteredge, I have the greatest faith in him!” Many men, many opinions,
as one of the ancients said, before my time.
Mr. Superintendent’s next proceeding took him back to the “boudoir”
again, with my daughter and me at his heels. His object was to discover
whether any of the furniture had been moved, during the night, out of
its customary place—his previous investigation in the room having,
apparently, not gone quite far enough to satisfy his mind on this
point.
While we were still poking about among the chairs and tables, the door
of the bedroom was suddenly opened. After having denied herself to
everybody, Miss Rachel, to our astonishment, walked into the midst of
us of her own accord. She took up her garden hat from a chair, and then
went straight to Penelope with this question:—
“Mr. Franklin Blake sent you with a message to me this morning?”
“Yes, miss.”
“He wished to speak to me, didn’t he?”
“Yes, miss.”
“Where is he now?”
Hearing voices on the terrace below, I looked out of window, and saw
the two gentlemen walking up and down together. Answering for my
daughter, I said, “Mr. Franklin is on the terrace, miss.”
Without another word, without heeding Mr. Superintendent, who tried to
speak to her, pale as death, and wrapped up strangely in her own
thoughts, she left the room, and went down to her cousins on the
terrace.
It showed a want of due respect, it showed a breach of good manners, on
my part, but, for the life of me, I couldn’t help looking out of window
when Miss Rachel met the gentlemen outside. She went up to Mr. Franklin
without appearing to notice Mr. Godfrey, who thereupon drew back and
left them by themselves. What she said to Mr. Franklin appeared to be
spoken vehemently. It lasted but for a short time, and, judging by what
I saw of his face from the window, seemed to astonish him beyond all
power of expression. While they were still together, my lady appeared
on the terrace. Miss Rachel saw her—said a few last words to Mr.
Franklin—and suddenly went back into the house again, before her mother
came up with her. My lady, surprised herself, and noticing Mr.
Franklin’s surprise, spoke to him. Mr. Godfrey joined them, and spoke
also. Mr. Franklin walked away a little between the two, telling them
what had happened I suppose, for they both stopped short, after taking
a few steps, like persons struck with amazement. I had just seen as
much as this, when the door of the sitting-room was opened violently.
Miss Rachel walked swiftly through to her bedroom, wild and angry, with
fierce eyes and flaming cheeks. Mr. Superintendent once more attempted
to question her. She turned round on him at her bedroom door. “_I_ have
not sent for you!” she cried out vehemently. “_I_ don’t want you. My
Diamond is lost. Neither you nor anybody else will ever find it!” With
those words she went in, and locked the door in our faces. Penelope,
standing nearest to it, heard her burst out crying the moment she was
alone again.
In a rage, one moment; in tears, the next! What did it mean?
I told the Superintendent it meant that Miss Rachel’s temper was upset
by the loss of her jewel. Being anxious for the honour of the family,
it distressed me to see my young lady forget herself—even with a
police-officer—and I made the best excuse I could, accordingly. In my
own private mind I was more puzzled by Miss Rachel’s extraordinary
language and conduct than words can tell. Taking what she had said at
her bedroom door as a guide to guess by, I could only conclude that she
was mortally offended by our sending for the police, and that Mr.
Franklin’s astonishment on the terrace was caused by her having
expressed herself to him (as the person chiefly instrumental in
fetching the police) to that effect. If this guess was right,
why—having lost her Diamond—should she object to the presence in the
house of the very people whose business it was to recover it for her?
And how, in Heaven’s name, could _she_ know that the Moonstone would
never be found again?
As things stood, at present, no answer to those questions was to be
hoped for from anybody in the house. Mr. Franklin appeared to think it
a point of honour to forbear repeating to a servant—even to so old a
servant as I was—what Miss Rachel had said to him on the terrace. Mr.
Godfrey, who, as a gentleman and a relative, had been probably admitted
into Mr. Franklin’s confidence, respected that confidence as he was
bound to do. My lady, who was also in the secret no doubt, and who
alone had access to Miss Rachel, owned openly that she could make
nothing of her. “You madden me when you talk of the Diamond!” All her
mother’s influence failed to extract from her a word more than that.
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 bedrooms. 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 upstairs,” 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