The Moonstone
“No more than that?”
“No more.”
“Have you thought of what he may say, on his side?”
“He may say what he pleases.”
It was impossible not to admire her delicacy and her resolution, and it
was equally impossible not to feel that she was putting herself in the
wrong. I entreated her to consider her own position. I reminded her
that she would be exposing herself to the most odious misconstruction
of her motives. “You can’t brave public opinion,” I said, “at the
command of private feeling.”
“I can,” she answered. “I have done it already.”
“What do you mean?”
“You have forgotten the Moonstone, Mr. Bruff. Have I not braved public
opinion, _there_, with my own private reasons for it?”
Her answer silenced me for the moment. It set me trying to trace the
explanation of her conduct, at the time of the loss of the Moonstone,
out of the strange avowal which had just escaped her. I might perhaps
have done it when I was younger. I certainly couldn’t do it now.
I tried a last remonstrance before we returned to the house. She was
just as immovable as ever. My mind was in a strange conflict of
feelings about her when I left her that day. She was obstinate; she was
wrong. She was interesting; she was admirable; she was deeply to be
pitied. I made her promise to write to me the moment she had any news
to send. And I went back to my business in London, with a mind
exceedingly ill at ease.
On the evening of my return, before it was possible for me to receive
my promised letter, I was surprised by a visit from Mr. Ablewhite the
elder, and was informed that Mr. Godfrey had got his dismissal—_and had
accepted it_—that very day.
With the view I already took of the case, the bare fact stated in the
words that I have underlined, revealed Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite’s motive
for submission as plainly as if he had acknowledged it himself. He
needed a large sum of money; and he needed it by a given time. Rachel’s
income, which would have helped him to anything else, would not help
him here; and Rachel had accordingly released herself, without
encountering a moment’s serious opposition on his part. If I am told
that this is a mere speculation, I ask, in my turn, what other theory
will account for his giving up a marriage which would have maintained
him in splendour for the rest of his life?
Any exultation I might otherwise have felt at the lucky turn which
things had now taken, was effectually checked by what passed at my
interview with old Mr. Ablewhite.
He came, of course, to know whether I could give him any explanation of
Miss Verinder’s extraordinary conduct. It is needless to say that I was
quite unable to afford him the information he wanted. The annoyance
which I thus inflicted, following on the irritation produced by a
recent interview with his son, threw Mr. Ablewhite off his guard. Both
his looks and his language convinced me that Miss Verinder would find
him a merciless man to deal with, when he joined the ladies at Brighton
the next day.
I had a restless night, considering what I ought to do next. How my
reflections ended, and how thoroughly well founded my distrust of Mr.
Ablewhite proved to be, are items of information which (as I am told)
have already been put tidily in their proper places, by that exemplary
person, Miss Clack. I have only to add—in completion of her
narrative—that Miss Verinder found the quiet and repose which she sadly
needed, poor thing, in my house at Hampstead. She honoured us by making
a long stay. My wife and daughters were charmed with her; and, when the
executors decided on the appointment of a new guardian, I feel sincere
pride and pleasure in recording that my guest and my family parted like
old friends, on either side.
CHAPTER II
The next thing I have to do, is to present such additional information
as I possess on the subject of the Moonstone, or, to speak more
correctly, on the subject of the Indian plot to steal the Diamond. The
little that I have to tell is (as I think I have already said) of some
importance, nevertheless, in respect of its bearing very remarkably on
events which are still to come.
About a week or ten days after Miss Verinder had left us, one of my
clerks entered the private room at my office, with a card in his hand,
and informed me that a gentleman was below, who wanted to speak to me.
I looked at the card. There was a foreign name written on it, which has
escaped my memory. It was followed by a line written in English at the
bottom of the card, which I remember perfectly well:
“Recommended by Mr. Septimus Luker.”
The audacity of a person in Mr. Luker’s position presuming to recommend
anybody to _me_, took me so completely by surprise, that I sat silent
for the moment, wondering whether my own eyes had not deceived me. The
clerk, observing my bewilderment, favoured me with the result of his
own observation of the stranger who was waiting downstairs.
“He is rather a remarkable-looking man, sir. So dark in the complexion
that we all set him down in the office for an Indian, or something of
that sort.”
Associating the clerk’s idea with the line inscribed on the card in my
hand, I thought it possible that the Moonstone might be at the bottom
of Mr. Luker’s recommendation, and of the stranger’s visit at my
office. To the astonishment of my clerk, I at once decided on granting
an interview to the gentleman below.
In justification of the highly unprofessional sacrifice to mere
curiosity which I thus made, permit me to remind anybody who may read
these lines, that no living person (in England, at any rate) can claim
to have had such an intimate connexion with the romance of the Indian
Diamond as mine has been. I was trusted with the secret of Colonel
Herncastle’s plan for escaping assassination. I received the Colonel’s
letters, periodically reporting himself a living man. I drew his Will,
leaving the Moonstone to Miss Verinder. I persuaded his executor to
act, on the chance that the jewel might prove to be a valuable
acquisition to the family. And, lastly, I combated Mr. Franklin Blake’s
scruples, and induced him to be the means of transporting the Diamond
to Lady Verinder’s house. If anyone can claim a prescriptive right of
interest in the Moonstone, and in everything connected with it, I think
it is hardly to be denied that I am the man.
The moment my mysterious client was shown in, I felt an inner
conviction that I was in the presence of one of the three
Indians—probably of the chief. He was carefully dressed in European
costume. But his swarthy complexion, his long lithe figure, and his
grave and graceful politeness of manner were enough to betray his
Oriental origin to any intelligent eyes that looked at him.
I pointed to a chair, and begged to be informed of the nature of his
business with me.
After first apologising—in an excellent selection of English words—for
the liberty which he had taken in disturbing me, the Indian produced a
small parcel the outer covering of which was of cloth of gold. Removing
this and a second wrapping of some silken fabric, he placed a little
box, or casket, on my table, most beautifully and richly inlaid in
jewels, on an ebony ground.
“I have come, sir,” he said, “to ask you to lend me some money. And I
leave this as an assurance to you that my debt will be paid back.”
I pointed to his card. “And you apply to me,” I rejoined, “at Mr.
Luker’s recommendation?”
The Indian bowed.
“May I ask how it is that Mr. Luker himself did not advance the money
that you require?”
“Mr. Luker informed me, sir, that he had no money to lend.”
“And so he recommended you to come to me?”
The Indian, in his turn, pointed to the card. “It is written there,” he
said.
Briefly answered, and thoroughly to the purpose! If the Moonstone had
been in my possession, this Oriental gentleman would have murdered me,
I am well aware, without a moment’s hesitation. At the same time, and
barring that slight drawback, I am bound to testify that he was the
perfect model of a client. He might not have respected my life. But he
did what none of my own countrymen had ever done, in all my experience
of them—he respected my time.
“I am sorry,” I said, “that you should have had the trouble of coming
to me. Mr. Luker is quite mistaken in sending you here. I am trusted,
like other men in my profession, with money to lend. But I never lend
it to strangers, and I never lend it on such a security as you have
produced.”
Far from attempting, as other people would have done, to induce me to
relax my own rules, the Indian only made me another bow, and wrapped up
his box in its two coverings without a word of protest. He rose—this
admirable assassin rose to go, the moment I had answered him!
“Will your condescension towards a stranger, excuse my asking one
question,” he said, “before I take my leave?”
I bowed on my side. Only one question at parting! The average in my
experience was fifty.
“Supposing, sir, it had been possible (and customary) for _you_ to lend
me the money,” he said, “in what space of time would it have been
possible (and customary) for _me_ to pay it back?”
“According to the usual course pursued in this country,” I answered,
“you would have been entitled to pay the money back (if you liked) in
one year’s time from the date at which it was first advanced to you.”
The Indian made me a last bow, the lowest of all—and suddenly and
softly walked out of the room.
It was done in a moment, in a noiseless, supple, cat-like way, which a
little startled me, I own. As soon as I was composed enough to think, I
arrived at one distinct conclusion in reference to the otherwise
incomprehensible visitor who had favoured me with a call.
His face, voice, and manner—while I was in his company—were under such
perfect control that they set all scrutiny at defiance. But he had
given me one chance of looking under the smooth outer surface of him,
for all that. He had not shown the slightest sign of attempting to fix
anything that I had said to him in his mind, until I mentioned the time
at which it was customary to permit the earliest repayment, on the part
of a debtor, of money that had been advanced as a loan. When I gave him
that piece of information, he looked me straight in the face, while I
was speaking, for the first time. The inference I drew from this
was—that he had a special purpose in asking me his last question, and a
special interest in hearing my answer to it. The more carefully I
reflected on what had passed between us, the more shrewdly I suspected
the production of the casket, and the application for the loan, of
having been mere formalities, designed to pave the way for the parting
inquiry addressed to me.
I had satisfied myself of the correctness of this conclusion—and was
trying to get on a step further, and penetrate the Indian’s motives
next—when a letter was brought to me, which proved to be from no less a
person that Mr. Septimus Luker himself. He asked my pardon in terms of
sickening servility, and assured me that he could explain matters to my
satisfaction, if I would honour him by consenting to a personal
interview.
I made another unprofessional sacrifice to mere curiosity. I honoured
him by making an appointment at my office, for the next day.
Mr. Luker was, in every respect, such an inferior creature to the
Indian—he was so vulgar, so ugly, so cringing, and so prosy—that he is
quite unworthy of being reported, at any length, in these pages. The
substance of what he had to tell me may be fairly stated as follows:
The day before I had received the visit of the Indian, Mr. Luker had
been favoured with a call from that accomplished gentleman. In spite of
his European disguise, Mr. Luker had instantly identified his visitor