The Moonstone
once more attempted to meet me in the shrubbery walk, and she had found
me there in company with Betteredge and Sergeant Cuff. In her hearing,
the Sergeant, with his own underhand object in view, had appealed to my
interest in Rosanna Spearman. Again for the poor creature’s own sake, I
had met the police-officer with a flat denial, and had declared—loudly
declared, so that she might hear _me_ too—that I felt “no interest
whatever in Rosanna Spearman.” At those words, solely designed to warn
her against attempting to gain my private ear, she had turned away and
left the place: cautioned of her danger, as I then believed;
self-doomed to destruction, as I know now. From that point, I have
already traced the succession of events which led me to the astounding
discovery at the quicksand. The retrospect is now complete. I may leave
the miserable story of Rosanna Spearman—to which, even at this distance
of time, I cannot revert without a pang of distress—to suggest for
itself all that is here purposely left unsaid. I may pass from the
suicide at the Shivering Sand, with its strange and terrible influence
on my present position and future prospects, to interests which concern
the living people of this narrative, and to events which were already
paving my way for the slow and toilsome journey from the darkness to
the light.
CHAPTER VI
I walked to the railway station accompanied, it is needless to say, by
Gabriel Betteredge. I had the letter in my pocket, and the nightgown
safely packed in a little bag—both to be submitted, before I slept that
night, to the investigation of Mr. Bruff.
We left the house in silence. For the first time in my experience of
him, I found old Betteredge in my company without a word to say to me.
Having something to say on my side, I opened the conversation as soon
as we were clear of the lodge gates.
“Before I go to London,” I began, “I have two questions to ask you.
They relate to myself, and I believe they will rather surprise you.”
“If they will put that poor creature’s letter out of my head, Mr.
Franklin, they may do anything else they like with me. Please to begin
surprising me, sir, as soon as you can.”
“My first question, Betteredge, is this. Was I drunk on the night of
Rachel’s Birthday?”
“_You_ drunk!” exclaimed the old man. “Why it’s the great defect of
your character, Mr. Franklin that you only drink with your dinner, and
never touch a drop of liquor afterwards!”
“But the birthday was a special occasion. I might have abandoned my
regular habits, on that night of all others.”
Betteredge considered for a moment.
“You did go out of your habits, sir,” he said. “And I’ll tell you how.
You looked wretchedly ill—and we persuaded you to have a drop of brandy
and water to cheer you up a little.”
“I am not used to brandy and water. It is quite possible——”
“Wait a bit, Mr. Franklin. I knew you were not used, too. I poured you
out half a wineglass-full of our fifty year old Cognac; and (more shame
for me!) I drowned that noble liquor in nigh on a tumbler-full of cold
water. A child couldn’t have got drunk on it—let alone a grown man!”
I knew I could depend on his memory, in a matter of this kind. It was
plainly impossible that I could have been intoxicated. I passed on to
the second question.
“Before I was sent abroad, Betteredge, you saw a great deal of me when
I was a boy? Now tell me plainly, do you remember anything strange of
me, after I had gone to bed at night? Did you ever discover me walking
in my sleep?”
Betteredge stopped, looked at me for a moment, nodded his head, and
walked on again.
“I see your drift now, Mr. Franklin!” he said “You’re trying to account
for how you got the paint on your nightgown, without knowing it
yourself. It won’t do, sir. You’re miles away still from getting at the
truth. Walk in your sleep? You never did such a thing in your life!”
Here again, I felt that Betteredge must be right. Neither at home nor
abroad had my life ever been of the solitary sort. If I had been a
sleep-walker, there were hundreds on hundreds of people who must have
discovered me, and who, in the interest of my own safety, would have
warned me of the habit, and have taken precautions to restrain it.
Still, admitting all this, I clung—with an obstinacy which was surely
natural and excusable, under the circumstances—to one or other of the
only two explanations that I could see which accounted for the
unendurable position in which I then stood. Observing that I was not
yet satisfied, Betteredge shrewdly adverted to certain later events in
the history of the Moonstone; and scattered both my theories to the
wind at once and for ever.
“Let’s try it another way, sir,” he said. “Keep your own opinion, and
see how far it will take you towards finding out the truth. If we are
to believe the nightgown—which I don’t for one—you not only smeared off
the paint from the door, without knowing it, but you also took the
Diamond without knowing it. Is that right, so far?”
“Quite right. Go on.”
“Very good, sir. We’ll say you were drunk, or walking in your sleep,
when you took the jewel. That accounts for the night and morning, after
the birthday. But how does it account for what has happened since that
time? The Diamond has been taken to London, since that time. The
Diamond has been pledged to Mr. Luker, since that time. Did you do
those two things, without knowing it, too? Were you drunk when I saw
you off in the pony-chaise on that Saturday evening? And did you walk
in your sleep to Mr. Luker’s, when the train had brought you to your
journey’s end? Excuse me for saying it, Mr. Franklin, but this business
has so upset you, that you’re not fit yet to judge for yourself. The
sooner you lay your head alongside Mr. Bruff’s head, the sooner you
will see your way out of the dead-lock that has got you now.”
We reached the station, with only a minute or two to spare.
I hurriedly gave Betteredge my address in London, so that he might
write to me, if necessary; promising, on my side, to inform him of any
news which I might have to communicate. This done, and just as I was
bidding him farewell, I happened to glance towards the
book-and-newspaper stall. There was Mr. Candy’s remarkable-looking
assistant again, speaking to the keeper of the stall! Our eyes met at
the same moment. Ezra Jennings took off his hat to me. I returned the
salute, and got into a carriage just as the train started. It was a
relief to my mind, I suppose, to dwell on any subject which appeared to
be, personally, of no sort of importance to me. At all events, I began
the momentous journey back which was to take me to Mr. Bruff,
wondering—absurdly enough, I admit—that I should have seen the man with
the piebald hair twice in one day!
The hour at which I arrived in London precluded all hope of my finding
Mr. Bruff at his place of business. I drove from the railway to his
private residence at Hampstead, and disturbed the old lawyer dozing
alone in his dining-room, with his favourite pug-dog on his lap, and
his bottle of wine at his elbow.
I shall best describe the effect which my story produced on the mind of
Mr. Bruff by relating his proceedings when he had heard it to the end.
He ordered lights, and strong tea, to be taken into his study; and he
sent a message to the ladies of his family, forbidding them to disturb
us on any pretence whatever. These preliminaries disposed of, he first
examined the nightgown, and then devoted himself to the reading of
Rosanna Spearman’s letter.
The reading completed, Mr. Bruff addressed me for the first time since
we had been shut up together in the seclusion of his own room.
“Franklin Blake,” said the old gentleman, “this is a very serious
matter, in more respects than one. In my opinion, it concerns Rachel
quite as nearly as it concerns you. Her extraordinary conduct is no
mystery _now_. She believes you have stolen the Diamond.”
I had shrunk from reasoning my own way fairly to that revolting
conclusion. But it had forced itself on me, nevertheless. My resolution
to obtain a personal interview with Rachel, rested really and truly on
the ground just stated by Mr. Bruff.
“The first step to take in this investigation,” the lawyer proceeded,
“is to appeal to Rachel. She has been silent all this time, from
motives which I (who know her character) can readily understand. It is
impossible, after what has happened, to submit to that silence any
longer. She must be persuaded to tell us, or she must be forced to tell
us, on what grounds she bases her belief that you took the Moonstone.
The chances are, that the whole of this case, serious as it seems now,
will tumble to pieces, if we can only break through Rachel’s inveterate
reserve, and prevail upon her to speak out.”
“That is a very comforting opinion for _me_,” I said. “I own I should
like to know——”
“You would like to know how I can justify it,” interposed Mr. Bruff. “I
can tell you in two minutes. Understand, in the first place, that I
look at this matter from a lawyer’s point of view. It’s a question of
evidence, with me. Very well. The evidence breaks down, at the outset,
on one important point.”
“On what point?”
“You shall hear. I admit that the mark of the name proves the nightgown
to be yours. I admit that the mark of the paint proves the nightgown to
have made the smear on Rachel’s door. But what evidence is there to
prove that you are the person who wore it, on the night when the
Diamond was lost?”
The objection struck me, all the more forcibly that it reflected an
objection which I had felt myself.
“As to this,” pursued the lawyer taking up Rosanna Spearman’s
confession, “I can understand that the letter is a distressing one to
_you_. I can understand that you may hesitate to analyse it from a
purely impartial point of view. But _I_ am not in your position. I can
bring my professional experience to bear on this document, just as I
should bring it to bear on any other. Without alluding to the woman’s
career as a thief, I will merely remark that her letter proves her to
have been an adept at deception, on her own showing; and I argue from
that, that I am justified in suspecting her of not having told the
whole truth. I won’t start any theory, at present, as to what she may
or may not have done. I will only say that, if Rachel has suspected you
_on the evidence of the nightgown only_, the chances are ninety-nine to
a hundred that Rosanna Spearman was the person who showed it to her. In
that case, there is the woman’s letter, confessing that she was jealous
of Rachel, confessing that she changed the roses, confessing that she
saw a glimpse of hope for herself, in the prospect of a quarrel between
Rachel and you. I don’t stop to ask who took the Moonstone (as a means
to her end, Rosanna Spearman would have taken fifty Moonstones)—I only
say that the disappearance of the jewel gave this reclaimed thief who
was in love with you, an opportunity of setting you and Rachel at
variance for the rest of your lives. She had not decided on destroying
herself, _then_, remember; and, having the opportunity, I distinctly
assert that it was in her character, and in her position at the time,
to take it. What do you say to that?”
“Some such suspicion,” I answered, “crossed my own mind, as soon as I
opened the letter.”
“Exactly! And when you had read the letter, you pitied the poor
creature, and couldn’t find it in your heart to suspect her. Does you
credit, my dear sir—does you credit!”
“But suppose it turns out that I did wear the nightgown? What then?”
“I don’t see how the fact can be proved,” said Mr. Bruff. “But assuming
the proof to be possible, the vindication of your innocence would be no
easy matter. We won’t go into that, now. Let us wait and see whether