The Moonstone
“To my leaving off smoking.”
“Had you been an habitual smoker?”
“Yes.”
“Did you leave off the habit suddenly?”
“Yes.”
“Betteredge was perfectly right, Mr. Blake. When smoking is a habit a
man must have no common constitution who can leave it off suddenly
without some temporary damage to his nervous system. Your sleepless
nights are accounted for, to my mind. My next question refers to Mr.
Candy. Do you remember having entered into anything like a dispute with
him—at the birthday dinner, or afterwards—on the subject of his
profession?”
The question instantly awakened one of my dormant remembrances in
connection with the birthday festival. The foolish wrangle which took
place, on that occasion, between Mr. Candy and myself, will be found
described at much greater length than it deserves in the tenth chapter
of Betteredge’s Narrative. The details there presented of the
dispute—so little had I thought of it afterwards—entirely failed to
recur to my memory. All that I could now recall, and all that I could
tell Ezra Jennings was, that I had attacked the art of medicine at the
dinner-table with sufficient rashness and sufficient pertinacity to put
even Mr. Candy out of temper for the moment. I also remembered that
Lady Verinder had interfered to stop the dispute, and that the little
doctor and I had “made it up again,” as the children say, and had
become as good friends as ever, before we shook hands that night.
“There is one thing more,” said Ezra Jennings, “which it is very
important I should know. Had you any reason for feeling any special
anxiety about the Diamond, at this time last year?”
“I had the strongest reasons for feeling anxiety about the Diamond. I
knew it to be the object of a conspiracy; and I was warned to take
measures for Miss Verinder’s protection, as the possessor of the
stone.”
“Was the safety of the Diamond the subject of conversation between you
and any other person, immediately before you retired to rest on the
birthday night?”
“It was the subject of a conversation between Lady Verinder and her
daughter——”
“Which took place in your hearing?”
“Yes.”
Ezra Jennings took up his notes from the table, and placed them in my
hands.
“Mr. Blake,” he said, “if you read those notes now, by the light which
my questions and your answers have thrown on them, you will make two
astounding discoveries concerning yourself. You will find:—First, that
you entered Miss Verinder’s sitting-room and took the Diamond, in a
state of trance, produced by opium. Secondly, that the opium was given
to you by Mr. Candy—without your own knowledge—as a practical
refutation of the opinions which you had expressed to him at the
birthday dinner.”
I sat with the papers in my hand completely stupefied.
“Try and forgive poor Mr. Candy,” said the assistant gently. “He has
done dreadful mischief, I own; but he has done it innocently. If you
will look at the notes, you will see that—but for his illness—he would
have returned to Lady Verinder’s the morning after the party, and would
have acknowledged the trick that he had played you. Miss Verinder would
have heard of it, and Miss Verinder would have questioned him—and the
truth which has laid hidden for a year would have been discovered in a
day.”
I began to regain my self-possession. “Mr. Candy is beyond the reach of
my resentment,” I said angrily. “But the trick that he played me is not
the less an act of treachery, for all that. I may forgive, but I shall
not forget it.”
“Every medical man commits that act of treachery, Mr. Blake, in the
course of his practice. The ignorant distrust of opium (in England) is
by no means confined to the lower and less cultivated classes. Every
doctor in large practice finds himself, every now and then, obliged to
deceive his patients, as Mr. Candy deceived you. I don’t defend the
folly of playing you a trick under the circumstances. I only plead with
you for a more accurate and more merciful construction of motives.”
“How was it done?” I asked. “Who gave me the laudanum, without my
knowing it myself?”
“I am not able to tell you. Nothing relating to that part of the matter
dropped from Mr. Candy’s lips, all through his illness. Perhaps your
own memory may point to the person to be suspected.”
“No.”
“It is useless, in that case, to pursue the inquiry. The laudanum was
secretly given to you in some way. Let us leave it there, and go on to
matters of more immediate importance. Read my notes, if you can.
Familiarise your mind with what has happened in the past. I have
something very bold and very startling to propose to you, which relates
to the future.”
Those last words roused me.
I looked at the papers, in the order in which Ezra Jennings had placed
them in my hands. The paper which contained the smaller quantity of
writing was the uppermost of the two. On this, the disconnected words,
and fragments of sentences, which had dropped from Mr. Candy in his
delirium, appeared as follows:
“... Mr. Franklin Blake ... and agreeable ... down a peg ... medicine
... confesses ... sleep at night ... tell him ... out of order ...
medicine ... he tells me ... and groping in the dark mean one and the
same thing ... all the company at the dinner-table ... I say ...
groping after sleep ... nothing but medicine ... he says ... leading
the blind ... know what it means ... witty ... a night’s rest in spite
of his teeth ... wants sleep ... Lady Verinder’s medicine chest ...
five-and-twenty minims ... without his knowing it ... tomorrow morning
... Well, Mr. Blake ... medicine today ... never ... without it ...
out, Mr. Candy ... excellent ... without it ... down on him ... truth
... something besides ... excellent ... dose of laudanum, sir ... bed
... what ... medicine now.”
There, the first of the two sheets of paper came to an end. I handed it
back to Ezra Jennings.
“That is what you heard at his bedside?” I said.
“Literally and exactly what I heard,” he answered—“except that the
repetitions are not transferred here from my short-hand notes. He
reiterated certain words and phrases a dozen times over, fifty times
over, just as he attached more or less importance to the idea which
they represented. The repetitions, in this sense, were of some
assistance to me in putting together those fragments. Don’t suppose,”
he added, pointing to the second sheet of paper, “that I claim to have
reproduced the expressions which Mr. Candy himself would have used if
he had been capable of speaking connectedly. I only say that I have
penetrated through the obstacle of the disconnected expression, to the
thought which was underlying it connectedly all the time. Judge for
yourself.”
I turned to the second sheet of paper, which I now knew to be the key
to the first.
Once more, Mr. Candy’s wanderings appeared, copied in black ink; the
intervals between the phrases being filled up by Ezra Jennings in red
ink. I reproduce the result here, in one plain form; the original
language and the interpretation of it coming close enough together in
these pages to be easily compared and verified.
“... Mr. Franklin Blake is clever and agreeable, but he wants taking
down a peg when he talks of medicine. He confesses that he has been
suffering from want of sleep at night. I tell him that his nerves are
out of order, and that he ought to take medicine. He tells me that
taking medicine and groping in the dark mean one and the same thing.
This before all the company at the dinner-table. I say to him, you are
groping after sleep, and nothing but medicine can help you to find it.
He says to me, I have heard of the blind leading the blind, and now I
know what it means. Witty—but I can give him a night’s rest in spite of
his teeth. He really wants sleep; and Lady Verinder’s medicine chest is
at my disposal. Give him five-and-twenty minims of laudanum tonight,
without his knowing it; and then call tomorrow morning. ‘Well, Mr.
Blake, will you try a little medicine today? You will never sleep
without it.’—‘There you are out, Mr. Candy: I have had an excellent
night’s rest without it.’ Then, come down on him with the truth! ‘You
have had something besides an excellent night’s rest; you had a dose of
laudanum, sir, before you went to bed. What do you say to the art of
medicine, now?’”
Admiration of the ingenuity which had woven this smooth and finished
texture out of the ravelled skein was naturally the first impression
that I felt, on handing the manuscript back to Ezra Jennings. He
modestly interrupted the first few words in which my sense of surprise
expressed itself, by asking me if the conclusion which he had drawn
from his notes was also the conclusion at which my own mind had
arrived.
“Do you believe as I believe,” he said, “that you were acting under the
influence of the laudanum in doing all that you did, on the night of
Miss Verinder’s birthday, in Lady Verinder’s house?”
“I am too ignorant of the influence of laudanum to have an opinion of
my own,” I answered. “I can only follow your opinion, and feel
convinced that you are right.”
“Very well. The next question is this. You are convinced; and I am
convinced—how are we to carry our conviction to the minds of other
people?”
I pointed to the two manuscripts, lying on the table between us. Ezra
Jennings shook his head.
“Useless, Mr. Blake! Quite useless, as they stand now for three
unanswerable reasons. In the first place, those notes have been taken
under circumstances entirely out of the experience of the mass of
mankind. Against them, to begin with! In the second place, those notes
represent a medical and metaphysical theory. Against them, once more!
In the third place, those notes are of _my_ making; there is nothing
but _my_ assertion to the contrary, to guarantee that they are not
fabrications. Remember what I told you on the moor—and ask yourself
what my assertion is worth. No! my notes have but one value, looking to
the verdict of the world outside. Your innocence is to be vindicated;
and they show how it can be done. We must put our conviction to the
proof—and You are the man to prove it!”
“How?” I asked.
He leaned eagerly nearer to me across the table that divided us.
“Are you willing to try a bold experiment?”
“I will do anything to clear myself of the suspicion that rests on me
now.”
“Will you submit to some personal inconvenience for a time?”
“To any inconvenience, no matter what it may be.”
“Will you be guided implicitly by my advice? It may expose you to the
ridicule of fools; it may subject you to the remonstrances of friends
whose opinions you are bound to respect.”
“Tell me what to do!” I broke out impatiently. “And, come what may,
I’ll do it.”
“You shall do this, Mr. Blake,” he answered. “You shall steal the
Diamond, unconsciously, for the second time, in the presence of
witnesses whose testimony is beyond dispute.”
I started to my feet. I tried to speak. I could only look at him.
“I believe it _can_ be done,” he went on. “And it _shall_ be done—if
you will only help me. Try to compose yourself—sit down, and hear what
I have to say to you. You have resumed the habit of smoking; I have
seen that for myself. How long have you resumed it.”
“For nearly a year.”
“Do you smoke more or less than you did?”
“More.”
“Will you give up the habit again? Suddenly, mind!—as you gave it up
before.”
I began dimly to see his drift. “I will give it up, from this moment,”
I answered.
“If the same consequences follow, which followed last June,” said Ezra
Jennings—“if you suffer once more as you suffered then, from sleepless
nights, we shall have gained our first step. We shall have put you back
again into something assimilating to your nervous condition on the