The Moonstone
After a moment, he took the candle in his hand.
I blew out the second candle, burning behind the closed curtains. I
drew back, with Mr. Bruff and Betteredge, into the farthest corner by
the bed. I signed to them to be silent, as if their lives had depended
on it.
We waited—seeing and hearing nothing. We waited, hidden from him by the
curtains.
The light which he was holding on the other side of us moved suddenly.
The next moment he passed us, swift and noiseless, with the candle in
his hand.
He opened the bedroom door, and went out.
We followed him along the corridor. We followed him down the stairs. We
followed him along the second corridor. He never looked back; he never
hesitated.
He opened the sitting-room door, and went in, leaving it open behind
him.
The door was hung (like all the other doors in the house) on large
old-fashioned hinges. When it was opened, a crevice was opened between
the door and the post. I signed to my two companions to look through
this, so as to keep them from showing themselves. I placed
myself—outside the door also—on the opposite side. A recess in the wall
was at my left hand, in which I could instantly hide myself, if he
showed any signs of looking back into the corridor.
He advanced to the middle of the room, with the candle still in his
hand: he looked about him—but he never looked back.
I saw the door of Miss Verinder’s bedroom, standing ajar. She had put
out her light. She controlled herself nobly. The dim white outline of
her summer dress was all that I could see. Nobody who had not known it
beforehand would have suspected that there was a living creature in the
room. She kept back, in the dark: not a word, not a movement escaped
her.
It was now ten minutes past one. I heard, through the dead silence, the
soft drip of the rain and the tremulous passage of the night air
through the trees.
After waiting irresolute, for a minute or more, in the middle of the
room, he moved to the corner near the window, where the Indian cabinet
stood.
He put his candle on the top of the cabinet. He opened, and shut, one
drawer after another, until he came to the drawer in which the mock
Diamond was put. He looked into the drawer for a moment. Then he took
the mock Diamond out with his right hand. With the other hand, he took
the candle from the top of the cabinet.
He walked back a few steps towards the middle of the room, and stood
still again.
Thus far, he had exactly repeated what he had done on the birthday
night. Would his next proceeding be the same as the proceeding of last
year? Would he leave the room? Would he go back now, as I believed he
had gone back then, to his bedchamber? Would he show us what he had
done with the Diamond, when he had returned to his own room?
His first action, when he moved once more, proved to be an action which
he had _not_ performed, when he was under the influence of the opium
for the first time. He put the candle down on a table, and wandered on
a little towards the farther end of the room. There was a sofa there.
He leaned heavily on the back of it, with his left hand—then roused
himself, and returned to the middle of the room. I could now see his
eyes. They were getting dull and heavy; the glitter in them was fast
dying out.
The suspense of the moment proved too much for Miss Verinder’s
self-control. She advanced a few steps—then stopped again. Mr. Bruff
and Betteredge looked across the open doorway at me for the first time.
The prevision of a coming disappointment was impressing itself on their
minds as well as on mine.
Still, so long as he stood where he was, there was hope. We waited, in
unutterable expectation, to see what would happen next.
The next event was decisive. He let the mock Diamond drop out of his
hand.
It fell on the floor, before the doorway—plainly visible to him, and to
every one. He made no effort to pick it up: he looked down at it
vacantly, and, as he looked, his head sank on his breast. He
staggered—roused himself for an instant—walked back unsteadily to the
sofa—and sat down on it. He made a last effort; he tried to rise, and
sank back. His head fell on the sofa cushions. It was then twenty-five
minutes past one o’clock. Before I had put my watch back in my pocket,
he was asleep.
It was all over now. The sedative influence had got him; the experiment
was at an end.
I entered the room, telling Mr. Bruff and Betteredge that they might
follow me. There was no fear of disturbing him. We were free to move
and speak.
“The first thing to settle,” I said, “is the question of what we are to
do with him. He will probably sleep for the next six or seven hours, at
least. It is some distance to carry him back to his own room. When I
was younger, I could have done it alone. But my health and strength are
not what they were—I am afraid I must ask you to help me.”
Before they could answer, Miss Verinder called to me softly. She met me
at the door of her room, with a light shawl, and with the counterpane
from her own bed.
“Do you mean to watch him while he sleeps?” she asked.
“Yes, I am not sure enough of the action of the opium in his case to be
willing to leave him alone.”
She handed me the shawl and the counterpane.
“Why should you disturb him?” she whispered. “Make his bed on the sofa.
I can shut my door, and keep in my room.”
It was infinitely the simplest and the safest way of disposing of him
for the night. I mentioned the suggestion to Mr. Bruff and
Betteredge—who both approved of my adopting it. In five minutes I had
laid him comfortably on the sofa, and had covered him lightly with the
counterpane and the shawl. Miss Verinder wished us good-night, and
closed the door. At my request, we three then drew round the table in
the middle of the room, on which the candle was still burning, and on
which writing materials were placed.
“Before we separate,” I began, “I have a word to say about the
experiment which has been tried tonight. Two distinct objects were to
be gained by it. The first of these objects was to prove, that Mr.
Blake entered this room, and took the Diamond, last year, acting
unconsciously and irresponsibly, under the influence of opium. After
what you have both seen, are you both satisfied, so far?”
They answered me in the affirmative, without a moment’s hesitation.
“The second object,” I went on, “was to discover what he did with the
Diamond, after he was seen by Miss Verinder to leave her sitting-room
with the jewel in his hand, on the birthday night. The gaining of this
object depended, of course, on his still continuing exactly to repeat
his proceedings of last year. He has failed to do that; and the purpose
of the experiment is defeated accordingly. I can’t assert that I am not
disappointed at the result—but I can honestly say that I am not
surprised by it. I told Mr. Blake from the first, that our complete
success in this matter depended on our completely reproducing in him
the physical and moral conditions of last year—and I warned him that
this was the next thing to a downright impossibility. We have only
partially reproduced the conditions, and the experiment has been only
partially successful in consequence. It is also possible that I may
have administered too large a dose of laudanum. But I myself look upon
the first reason that I have given, as the true reason why we have to
lament a failure, as well as to rejoice over a success.”
After saying those words, I put the writing materials before Mr. Bruff,
and asked him if he had any objection—before we separated for the
night—to draw out, and sign, a plain statement of what he had seen. He
at once took the pen, and produced the statement with the fluent
readiness of a practised hand.
“I owe you this,” he said, signing the paper, “as some atonement for
what passed between us earlier in the evening. I beg your pardon, Mr.
Jennings, for having doubted you. You have done Franklin Blake an
inestimable service. In our legal phrase, you have proved your case.”
Betteredge’s apology was characteristic of the man.
“Mr. Jennings,” he said, “when you read _Robinson Crusoe_ again (which
I strongly recommend you to do), you will find that he never scruples
to acknowledge it, when he turns out to have been in the wrong. Please
to consider me, sir, as doing what Robinson Crusoe did, on the present
occasion.” With those words he signed the paper in his turn.
Mr. Bruff took me aside, as we rose from the table.
“One word about the Diamond,” he said. “Your theory is that Franklin
Blake hid the Moonstone in his room. My theory is, that the Moonstone
is in the possession of Mr. Luker’s bankers in London. We won’t dispute
which of us is right. We will only ask, which of us is in a position to
put his theory to the test?”
“The test, in my case,” I answered, “has been tried tonight, and has
failed.”
“The test, in my case,” rejoined Mr. Bruff, “is still in process of
trial. For the last two days I have had a watch set for Mr. Luker at
the bank; and I shall cause that watch to be continued until the last
day of the month. I know that he must take the Diamond himself out of
his bankers’ hands—and I am acting on the chance that the person who
has pledged the Diamond may force him to do this by redeeming the
pledge. In that case I may be able to lay my hand on the person. If I
succeed, I clear up the mystery, exactly at the point where the mystery
baffles us now! Do you admit that, so far?”
I admitted it readily.
“I am going back to town by the morning train,” pursued the lawyer. “I
may hear, when I return, that a discovery has been made—and it may be
of the greatest importance that I should have Franklin Blake at hand to
appeal to, if necessary. I intend to tell him, as soon as he wakes,
that he must return with me to London. After all that has happened, may
I trust to your influence to back me?”
“Certainly!” I said.
Mr. Bruff shook hands with me, and left the room. Betteredge followed
him out.
I went to the sofa to look at Mr. Blake. He had not moved since I had
laid him down and made his bed—he lay locked in a deep and quiet sleep.
While I was still looking at him, I heard the bedroom door softly
opened. Once more, Miss Verinder appeared on the threshold, in her
pretty summer dress.
“Do me a last favour?” she whispered. “Let me watch him with you.”
I hesitated—not in the interests of propriety; only in the interest of
her night’s rest. She came close to me, and took my hand.
“I can’t sleep; I can’t even sit still, in my own room,” she said. “Oh,
Mr. Jennings, if you were me, only think how you would long to sit and
look at him. Say, yes! Do!”
Is it necessary to mention that I gave way? Surely not!
She drew a chair to the foot of the sofa. She looked at him in a silent
ecstasy of happiness, till the tears rose in her eyes. She dried her
eyes, and said she would fetch her work. She fetched her work, and
never did a single stitch of it. It lay in her lap—she was not even
able to look away from him long enough to thread her needle. I thought
of my own youth; I thought of the gentle eyes which had once looked
love at _me_. In the heaviness of my heart I turned to my Journal for
relief, and wrote in it what is written here.
So we kept our watch together in silence. One of us absorbed in his
writing; the other absorbed in her love.
Hour after hour he lay in his deep sleep. The light of the new day grew
and grew in the room, and still he never moved.
Towards six o’clock, I felt the warning which told me that my pains
were coming back. I was obliged to leave her alone with him for a
little while. I said I would go upstairs, and fetch another pillow for
him out of his room. It was not a long attack, this time. In a little