The Moonstone
“My father,” he said, “got the papers he wanted, and never saw his
brother-in-law again from that time. Year after year, on the
prearranged days, the prearranged letter came from the Colonel, and was
opened by Mr. Bruff. I have seen the letters, in a heap, all of them
written in the same brief, business-like form of words: ‘Sir,—This is
to certify that I am still a living man. Let the Diamond be. John
Herncastle.’ That was all he ever wrote, and that came regularly to the
day; until some six or eight months since, when the form of the letter
varied for the first time. It ran now: ‘Sir,—They tell me I am dying.
Come to me, and help me to make my will.’ Mr. Bruff went, and found
him, in the little suburban villa, surrounded by its own grounds, in
which he had lived alone, ever since he had left India. He had dogs,
cats, and birds to keep him company; but no human being near him,
except the person who came daily to do the house-work, and the doctor
at the bedside. The will was a very simple matter. The Colonel had
dissipated the greater part of his fortune in his chemical
investigations. His will began and ended in three clauses, which he
dictated from his bed, in perfect possession of his faculties. The
first clause provided for the safe keeping and support of his animals.
The second founded a professorship of experimental chemistry at a
northern university. The third bequeathed the Moonstone as a birthday
present to his niece, on condition that my father would act as
executor. My father at first refused to act. On second thoughts,
however, he gave way, partly because he was assured that the
executorship would involve him in no trouble; partly because Mr. Bruff
suggested, in Rachel’s interest, that the Diamond might be worth
something, after all.”
“Did the Colonel give any reason, sir,” I inquired, “why he left the
Diamond to Miss Rachel?”
“He not only gave the reason—he had the reason written in his will,”
said Mr. Franklin. “I have got an extract, which you shall see
presently. Don’t be slovenly-minded, Betteredge! One thing at a time.
You have heard about the Colonel’s Will; now you must hear what
happened after the Colonel’s death. It was formally necessary to have
the Diamond valued, before the Will could be proved. All the jewellers
consulted, at once confirmed the Colonel’s assertion that he possessed
one of the largest diamonds in the world. The question of accurately
valuing it presented some serious difficulties. Its size made it a
phenomenon in the diamond market; its colour placed it in a category by
itself; and, to add to these elements of uncertainty, there was a
defect, in the shape of a flaw, in the very heart of the stone. Even
with this last serious draw-back, however, the lowest of the various
estimates given was twenty thousand pounds. Conceive my father’s
astonishment! He had been within a hair’s-breadth of refusing to act as
executor, and of allowing this magnificent jewel to be lost to the
family. The interest he took in the matter now, induced him to open the
sealed instructions which had been deposited with the Diamond. Mr.
Bruff showed this document to me, with the other papers; and it
suggests (to my mind) a clue to the nature of the conspiracy which
threatened the Colonel’s life.”
“Then you do believe, sir,” I said, “that there was a conspiracy?”
“Not possessing my father’s excellent common sense,” answered Mr.
Franklin, “I believe the Colonel’s life was threatened, exactly as the
Colonel said. The sealed instructions, as I think, explain how it was
that he died, after all, quietly in his bed. In the event of his death
by violence (that is to say, in the absence of the regular letter from
him at the appointed date), my father was then directed to send the
Moonstone secretly to Amsterdam. It was to be deposited in that city
with a famous diamond-cutter, and it was to be cut up into from four to
six separate stones. The stones were then to be sold for what they
would fetch, and the proceeds were to be applied to the founding of
that professorship of experimental chemistry, which the Colonel has
since endowed by his Will. Now, Betteredge, exert those sharp wits of
yours, and observe the conclusion to which the Colonel’s instructions
point!”
I instantly exerted my wits. They were of the slovenly English sort;
and they consequently muddled it all, until Mr. Franklin took them in
hand, and pointed out what they ought to see.
“Remark,” says Mr. Franklin, “that the integrity of the Diamond, as a
whole stone, is here artfully made dependent on the preservation from
violence of the Colonel’s life. He is not satisfied with saying to the
enemies he dreads, ‘Kill me—and you will be no nearer to the Diamond
than you are now; it is where you can’t get at it—in the guarded
strongroom of a bank.’ He says instead, ‘Kill me—and the Diamond will
be the Diamond no longer; its identity will be destroyed.’ What does
that mean?”
Here I had (as I thought) a flash of the wonderful foreign brightness.
“I know,” I said. “It means lowering the value of the stone, and
cheating the rogues in that way!”
“Nothing of the sort,” says Mr. Franklin. “I have inquired about that.
The flawed Diamond, cut up, would actually fetch more than the Diamond
as it now is; for this plain reason—that from four to six perfect
brilliants might be cut from it, which would be, collectively, worth
more money than the large—but imperfect single stone. If robbery for
the purpose of gain was at the bottom of the conspiracy, the Colonel’s
instructions absolutely made the Diamond better worth stealing. More
money could have been got for it, and the disposal of it in the diamond
market would have been infinitely easier, if it had passed through the
hands of the workmen of Amsterdam.”
“Lord bless us, sir!” I burst out. “What was the plot, then?”
“A plot organised among the Indians who originally owned the jewel,”
says Mr. Franklin—“a plot with some old Hindoo superstition at the
bottom of it. That is my opinion, confirmed by a family paper which I
have about me at this moment.”
I saw, now, why the appearance of the three Indian jugglers at our
house had presented itself to Mr. Franklin in the light of a
circumstance worth noting.
“I don’t want to force my opinion on you,” Mr. Franklin went on. “The
idea of certain chosen servants of an old Hindoo superstition devoting
themselves, through all difficulties and dangers, to watching the
opportunity of recovering their sacred gem, appears to _me_ to be
perfectly consistent with everything that we know of the patience of
Oriental races, and the influence of Oriental religions. But then I am
an imaginative man; and the butcher, the baker, and the tax-gatherer,
are not the only credible realities in existence to _my_ mind. Let the
guess I have made at the truth in this matter go for what it is worth,
and let us get on to the only practical question that concerns us. Does
the conspiracy against the Moonstone survive the Colonel’s death? And
did the Colonel know it, when he left the birthday gift to his niece?”
I began to see my lady and Miss Rachel at the end of it all, now. Not a
word he said escaped me.
“I was not very willing, when I discovered the story of the Moonstone,”
said Mr. Franklin, “to be the means of bringing it here. But Mr. Bruff
reminded me that somebody must put my cousin’s legacy into my cousin’s
hands—and that I might as well do it as anybody else. After taking the
Diamond out of the bank, I fancied I was followed in the streets by a
shabby, dark-complexioned man. I went to my father’s house to pick up
my luggage, and found a letter there, which unexpectedly detained me in
London. I went back to the bank with the Diamond, and thought I saw the
shabby man again. Taking the Diamond once more out of the bank this
morning, I saw the man for the third time, gave him the slip, and
started (before he recovered the trace of me) by the morning instead of
the afternoon train. Here I am, with the Diamond safe and sound—and
what is the first news that meets me? I find that three strolling
Indians have been at the house, and that my arrival from London, and
something which I am expected to have about me, are two special objects
of investigation to them when they believe themselves to be alone. I
don’t waste time and words on their pouring the ink into the boy’s
hand, and telling him to look in it for a man at a distance, and for
something in that man’s pocket. The thing (which I have often seen done
in the East) is ‘hocus-pocus’ in my opinion, as it is in yours. The
present question for us to decide is, whether I am wrongly attaching a
meaning to a mere accident? or whether we really have evidence of the
Indians being on the track of the Moonstone, the moment it is removed
from the safe keeping of the bank?”
Neither he nor I seemed to fancy dealing with this part of the inquiry.
We looked at each other, and then we looked at the tide, oozing in
smoothly, higher and higher, over the Shivering Sand.
“What are you thinking of?” says Mr. Franklin, suddenly.
“I was thinking, sir,” I answered, “that I should like to shy the
Diamond into the quicksand, and settle the question in _that_ way.”
“If you have got the value of the stone in your pocket,” answered Mr.
Franklin, “say so, Betteredge, and in it goes!”
It’s curious to note, when your mind’s anxious, how very far in the way
of relief a very small joke will go. We found a fund of merriment, at
the time, in the notion of making away with Miss Rachel’s lawful
property, and getting Mr. Blake, as executor, into dreadful
trouble—though where the merriment was, I am quite at a loss to
discover now.
Mr. Franklin was the first to bring the talk back to the talk’s proper
purpose. He took an envelope out of his pocket, opened it, and handed
to me the paper inside.
“Betteredge,” he said, “we must face the question of the Colonel’s
motive in leaving this legacy to his niece, for my aunt’s sake. Bear in
mind how Lady Verinder treated her brother from the time when he
returned to England, to the time when he told you he should remember
his niece’s birthday. And read that.”
He gave me the extract from the Colonel’s Will. I have got it by me
while I write these words; and I copy it, as follows, for your benefit:
“Thirdly, and lastly, I give and bequeath to my niece, Rachel Verinder,
daughter and only child of my sister, Julia Verinder, widow—if her
mother, the said Julia Verinder, shall be living on the said Rachel
Verinder’s next Birthday after my death—the yellow Diamond belonging to
me, and known in the East by the name of The Moonstone: subject to this
condition, that her mother, the said Julia Verinder, shall be living at
the time. And I hereby desire my executor to give my Diamond, either by
his own hands or by the hands of some trustworthy representative whom
he shall appoint, into the personal possession of my said niece Rachel,
on her next birthday after my death, and in the presence, if possible,
of my sister, the said Julia Verinder. And I desire that my said sister
may be informed, by means of a true copy of this, the third and last
clause of my Will, that I give the Diamond to her daughter Rachel, in
token of my free forgiveness of the injury which her conduct towards me
has been the means of inflicting on my reputation in my lifetime; and
especially in proof that I pardon, as becomes a dying man, the insult
offered to me as an officer and a gentleman, when her servant, by her
orders, closed the door of her house against me, on the occasion of her
daughter’s birthday.”
More words followed these, providing if my lady was dead, or if Miss
Rachel was dead, at the time of the testator’s decease, for the Diamond
being sent to Holland, in accordance with the sealed instructions