The Moonstone
while I was able to venture back, and let her see me again.
I found her at the head of the sofa, when I returned. She was just
touching his forehead with her lips. I shook my head as soberly as I
could, and pointed to her chair. She looked back at me with a bright
smile, and a charming colour in her face. “You would have done it,” she
whispered, “in my place!”
It is just eight o’clock. He is beginning to move for the first time.
Miss Verinder is kneeling by the side of the sofa. She has so placed
herself that when his eyes first open, they must open on her face.
Shall I leave them together?
Yes!
Eleven o’clock.—The house is empty again. They have arranged it among
themselves; they have all gone to London by the ten o’clock train. My
brief dream of happiness is over. I have awakened again to the
realities of my friendless and lonely life.
I dare not trust myself to write down the kind words that have been
said to me—especially by Miss Verinder and Mr. Blake. Besides, it is
needless. Those words will come back to me in my solitary hours, and
will help me through what is left of the end of my life. Mr. Blake is
to write, and tell me what happens in London. Miss Verinder is to
return to Yorkshire in the autumn (for her marriage, no doubt); and I
am to take a holiday, and be a guest in the house. Oh me, how I felt,
as the grateful happiness looked at me out of her eyes, and the warm
pressure of her hand said, “This is your doing!”
My poor patients are waiting for me. Back again, this morning, to the
old routine! Back again, tonight, to the dreadful alternative between
the opium and the pain!
God be praised for His mercy! I have seen a little sunshine—I have had
a happy time.
FIFTH NARRATIVE.
_The Story resumed by Franklin Blake._
CHAPTER I
But few words are needed, on my part, to complete the narrative that
has been presented in the Journal of Ezra Jennings.
Of myself, I have only to say that I awoke on the morning of the
twenty-sixth, perfectly ignorant of all that I had said and done under
the influence of the opium—from the time when the drug first laid its
hold on me, to the time when I opened my eyes, in Rachel’s
sitting-room.
Of what happened after my waking, I do not feel called upon to render
an account in detail. Confining myself merely to results, I have to
report that Rachel and I thoroughly understood each other, before a
single word of explanation had passed on either side. I decline to
account, and Rachel declines to account, for the extraordinary rapidity
of our reconciliation. Sir and Madam, look back at the time when you
were passionately attached to each other—and you will know what
happened, after Ezra Jennings had shut the door of the sitting-room, as
well as I know it myself.
I have, however, no objection to add, that we should have been
certainly discovered by Mrs. Merridew, but for Rachel’s presence of
mind. She heard the sound of the old lady’s dress in the corridor, and
instantly ran out to meet her; I heard Mrs. Merridew say, “What is the
matter?” and I heard Rachel answer, “The explosion!” Mrs. Merridew
instantly permitted herself to be taken by the arm, and led into the
garden, out of the way of the impending shock. On her return to the
house, she met me in the hall, and expressed herself as greatly struck
by the vast improvement in Science, since the time when she was a girl
at school. “Explosions, Mr. Blake, are infinitely milder than they
were. I assure you, I barely heard Mr. Jennings’s explosion from the
garden. And no smell afterwards, that I can detect, now we have come
back to the house! I must really apologise to your medical friend. It
is only due to him to say that he has managed it beautifully!”
So, after vanquishing Betteredge and Mr. Bruff, Ezra Jennings
vanquished Mrs. Merridew herself. There is a great deal of undeveloped
liberal feeling in the world, after all!
At breakfast, Mr. Bruff made no secret of his reasons for wishing that
I should accompany him to London by the morning train. The watch kept
at the bank, and the result which might yet come of it, appealed so
irresistibly to Rachel’s curiosity, that she at once decided (if Mrs.
Merridew had no objection) on accompanying us back to town—so as to be
within reach of the earliest news of our proceedings.
Mrs. Merridew proved to be all pliability and indulgence, after the
truly considerate manner in which the explosion had conducted itself;
and Betteredge was accordingly informed that we were all four to travel
back together by the morning train. I fully expected that he would have
asked leave to accompany us. But Rachel had wisely provided her
faithful old servant with an occupation that interested him. He was
charged with completing the refurnishing of the house, and was too full
of his domestic responsibilities to feel the “detective-fever” as he
might have felt it under other circumstances.
Our one subject of regret, in going to London, was the necessity of
parting, more abruptly than we could have wished, with Ezra Jennings.
It was impossible to persuade him to accompany us. I could only promise
to write to him—and Rachel could only insist on his coming to see her
when she returned to Yorkshire. There was every prospect of our meeting
again in a few months—and yet there was something very sad in seeing
our best and dearest friend left standing alone on the platform, as the
train moved out of the station.
On our arrival in London, Mr. Bruff was accosted at the terminus by a
small boy, dressed in a jacket and trousers of threadbare black cloth,
and personally remarkable in virtue of the extraordinary prominence of
his eyes. They projected so far, and they rolled about so loosely, that
you wondered uneasily why they remained in their sockets. After
listening to the boy, Mr. Bruff asked the ladies whether they would
excuse our accompanying them back to Portland Place. I had barely time
to promise Rachel that I would return, and tell her everything that had
happened, before Mr. Bruff seized me by the arm, and hurried me into a
cab. The boy with the ill-secured eyes took his place on the box by the
driver, and the driver was directed to go to Lombard Street.
“News from the bank?” I asked, as we started.
“News of Mr. Luker,” said Mr. Bruff. “An hour ago, he was seen to leave
his house at Lambeth, in a cab, accompanied by two men, who were
recognised by _my_ men as police officers in plain clothes. If Mr.
Luker’s dread of the Indians is at the bottom of this precaution, the
inference is plain enough. He is going to take the Diamond out of the
bank.”
“And we are going to the bank to see what comes of it?”
“Yes—or to hear what has come of it, if it is all over by this time.
Did you notice my boy—on the box, there?”
“I noticed his eyes.”
Mr. Bruff laughed. “They call the poor little wretch ‘Gooseberry’ at
the office,” he said. “I employ him to go on errands—and I only wish my
clerks who have nicknamed him were as thoroughly to be depended on as
he is. Gooseberry is one of the sharpest boys in London, Mr. Blake, in
spite of his eyes.”
It was twenty minutes to five when we drew up before the bank in
Lombard Street. Gooseberry looked longingly at his master, as he opened
the cab door.
“Do you want to come in too?” asked Mr. Bruff kindly. “Come in then,
and keep at my heels till further orders. He’s as quick as lightning,”
pursued Mr. Bruff, addressing me in a whisper. “Two words will do with
Gooseberry, where twenty would be wanted with another boy.”
We entered the bank. The outer office—with the long counter, behind
which the cashiers sat—was crowded with people; all waiting their turn
to take money out, or to pay money in, before the bank closed at five
o’clock.
Two men among the crowd approached Mr. Bruff, as soon as he showed
himself.
“Well,” asked the lawyer. “Have you seen him?”
“He passed us here half an hour since, sir, and went on into the inner
office.”
“Has he not come out again yet?”
“No, sir.”
Mr. Bruff turned to me. “Let us wait,” he said.
I looked round among the people about me for the three Indians. Not a
sign of them was to be seen anywhere. The only person present with a
noticeably dark complexion was a tall man in a pilot coat, and a round
hat, who looked like a sailor. Could this be one of them in disguise?
Impossible! The man was taller than any of the Indians; and his face,
where it was not hidden by a bushy black beard, was twice the breadth
of any of their faces at least.
“They must have their spy somewhere,” said Mr. Bruff, looking at the
dark sailor in his turn. “And he may be the man.”
Before he could say more, his coat-tail was respectfully pulled by his
attendant sprite with the gooseberry eyes. Mr. Bruff looked where the
boy was looking. “Hush!” he said. “Here is Mr. Luker!”
The money-lender came out from the inner regions of the bank, followed
by his two guardian policemen in plain clothes.
“Keep your eye on him,” whispered Mr. Bruff. “If he passes the Diamond
to anybody, he will pass it here.”
Without noticing either of us, Mr. Luker slowly made his way to the
door—now in the thickest, now in the thinnest part of the crowd. I
distinctly saw his hand move, as he passed a short, stout man,
respectably dressed in a suit of sober grey. The man started a little,
and looked after him. Mr. Luker moved on slowly through the crowd. At
the door his guard placed themselves on either side of him. They were
all three followed by one of Mr. Bruff’s men—and I saw them no more.
I looked round at the lawyer, and then looked significantly towards the
man in the suit of sober grey. “Yes!” whispered Mr. Bruff, “I saw it
too!” He turned about, in search of his second man. The second man was
nowhere to be seen. He looked behind him for his attendant sprite.
Gooseberry had disappeared.
“What the devil does it mean?” said Mr. Bruff angrily. “They have both
left us at the very time when we want them most.”
It came to the turn of the man in the grey suit to transact his
business at the counter. He paid in a cheque—received a receipt for
it—and turned to go out.
“What is to be done?” asked Mr. Bruff. “_We_ can’t degrade ourselves by
following him.”
“_I_ can!” I said. “I wouldn’t lose sight of that man for ten thousand
pounds!”
“In that case,” rejoined Mr. Bruff, “I wouldn’t lose sight of _you_,
for twice the money. A nice occupation for a man in my position,” he
muttered to himself, as we followed the stranger out of the bank. “For
Heaven’s sake don’t mention it. I should be ruined if it was known.”
The man in the grey suit got into an omnibus, going westward. We got in
after him. There were latent reserves of youth still left in Mr. Bruff.
I assert it positively—when he took his seat in the omnibus, he
blushed!
The man in the grey suit stopped the omnibus, and got out in Oxford
Street. We followed him again. He went into a chemist’s shop.
Mr. Bruff started. “My chemist!” he exclaimed. “I am afraid we have
made a mistake.”
We entered the shop. Mr. Bruff and the proprietor exchanged a few words
in private. The lawyer joined me again, with a very crestfallen face.
“It’s greatly to our credit,” he said, as he took my arm, and led me
out—“that’s one comfort!”
“What is to our credit?” I asked.
“Mr. Blake! you and I are the two worst amateur detectives that ever
tried their hands at the trade. The man in the grey suit has been
thirty years in the chemist’s service. He was sent to the bank to pay
money to his master’s account—and he knows no more of the Moonstone
than the babe unborn.”
I asked what was to be done next.
“Come back to my office,” said Mr. Bruff. “Gooseberry, and my second
man, have evidently followed somebody else. Let us hope that _they_ had