The Moonstone
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.”
CHAPTER XIII
I found my lady in her own sitting room. She started and looked annoyed
when I mentioned that Sergeant Cuff wished to speak to her.
“_Must_ I see him?” she asked. “Can’t you represent me, Gabriel?”
I felt at a loss to understand this, and showed it plainly, I suppose,
in my face. My lady was so good as to explain herself.
“I am afraid my nerves are a little shaken,” she said. “There is