The Moonstone Page 25

  CHAPTER XXII

  My mistress having left us, I had leisure to think of Sergeant Cuff.I found him sitting in a snug corner of the hall, consulting hismemorandum book, and curling up viciously at the corners of the lips.

  "Making notes of the case?" I asked.

  "No," said the Sergeant. "Looking to see what my next professionalengagement is."

  "Oh!" I said. "You think it's all over then, here?"

  "I think," answered Sergeant Cuff, "that Lady Verinder is one of thecleverest women in England. I also think a rose much better worthlooking at than a diamond. Where is the gardener, Mr. Betteredge?"

  There was no getting a word more out of him on the matter of theMoonstone. He had lost all interest in his own inquiry; and he wouldpersist in looking for the gardener. An hour afterwards, I heard themat high words in the conservatory, with the dog-rose once more at thebottom of the dispute.

  In the meantime, it was my business to find out whether Mr. Franklinpersisted in his resolution to leave us by the afternoon train. Afterhaving been informed of the conference in my lady's room, and of howit had ended, he immediately decided on waiting to hear the news fromFrizinghall. This very natural alteration in his plans--which, withordinary people, would have led to nothing in particular--proved, inMr. Franklin's case, to have one objectionable result. It left himunsettled, with a legacy of idle time on his hands, and, in so doing,it let out all the foreign sides of his character, one on the top ofanother, like rats out of a bag.

  Now as an Italian-Englishman, now as a German-Englishman, and now as aFrench-Englishman, he drifted in and out of all the sitting-rooms in thehouse, with nothing to talk of but Miss Rachel's treatment of him; andwith nobody to address himself to but me. I found him (for example) inthe library, sitting under the map of Modern Italy, and quite unaware ofany other method of meeting his troubles, except the method of talkingabout them. "I have several worthy aspirations, Betteredge; but what amI to do with them now? I am full of dormant good qualities, if Rachelwould only have helped me to bring them out!" He was so eloquent indrawing the picture of his own neglected merits, and so pathetic inlamenting over it when it was done, that I felt quite at my wits' endhow to console him, when it suddenly occurred to me that here was a casefor the wholesome application of a bit of ROBINSON CRUSOE. I hobbled outto my own room, and hobbled back with that immortal book. Nobody in thelibrary! The map of Modern Italy stared at ME; and I stared at the mapof Modern Italy.

  I tried the drawing-room. There was his handkerchief on the floor, toprove that he had drifted in. And there was the empty room to prove thathe had drifted out again.

  I tried the dining-room, and discovered Samuel with a biscuit and aglass of sherry, silently investigating the empty air. A minute since,Mr. Franklin had rung furiously for a little light refreshment. On itsproduction, in a violent hurry, by Samuel, Mr. Franklin had vanishedbefore the bell downstairs had quite done ringing with the pull he hadgiven to it.

  I tried the morning-room, and found him at last. There he was at thewindow, drawing hieroglyphics with his finger in the damp on the glass.

  "Your sherry is waiting for you, sir," I said to him. I might as wellhave addressed myself to one of the four walls of the room; he was downin the bottomless deep of his own meditations, past all pulling up."How do YOU explain Rachel's conduct, Betteredge?" was the only answerI received. Not being ready with the needful reply, I produced ROBINSONCRUSOE, in which I am firmly persuaded some explanation might have beenfound, if we had only searched long enough for it. Mr. Franklin shut upROBINSON CRUSOE, and floundered into his German-English gibberish on thespot. "Why not look into it?" he said, as if I had personally objectedto looking into it. "Why the devil lose your patience, Betteredge, whenpatience is all that's wanted to arrive at the truth? Don't interruptme. Rachel's conduct is perfectly intelligible, if you will only do herthe common justice to take the Objective view first, and the Subjectiveview next, and the Objective-Subjective view to wind up with. What do weknow? We know that the loss of the Moonstone, on Thursday morning last,threw her into a state of nervous excitement, from which she has notrecovered yet. Do you mean to deny the Objective view, so far? Verywell, then--don't interrupt me. Now, being in a state of nervousexcitement, how are we to expect that she should behave as she mightotherwise have behaved to any of the people about her? Arguing in thisway, from within-outwards, what do we reach? We reach the Subjectiveview. I defy you to controvert the Subjective view. Very well then--whatfollows? Good Heavens! the Objective-Subjective explanation follows, ofcourse! Rachel, properly speaking, is not Rachel, but Somebody Else.Do I mind being cruelly treated by Somebody Else? You are unreasonableenough, Betteredge; but you can hardly accuse me of that. Then how doesit end? It ends, in spite of your confounded English narrowness andprejudice, in my being perfectly happy and comfortable. Where's thesherry?"

  My head was by this time in such a condition, that I was not quite surewhether it was my own head, or Mr. Franklin's. In this deplorable state,I contrived to do, what I take to have been, three Objective things.I got Mr. Franklin his sherry; I retired to my own room; and I solacedmyself with the most composing pipe of tobacco I ever remember to havesmoked in my life.

  Don't suppose, however, that I was quit of Mr. Franklin on such easyterms as these. Drifting again, out of the morning-room into the hall,he found his way to the offices next, smelt my pipe, and was instantlyreminded that he had been simple enough to give up smoking for MissRachel's sake. In the twinkling of an eye, he burst in on me with hiscigar-case, and came out strong on the one everlasting subject, in hisneat, witty, unbelieving, French way. "Give me a light, Betteredge.Is it conceivable that a man can have smoked as long as I have withoutdiscovering that there is a complete system for the treatment of womenat the bottom of his cigar-case? Follow me carefully, and I will proveit in two words. You choose a cigar, you try it, and it disappoints you.What do you do upon that? You throw it away and try another. Now observethe application! You choose a woman, you try her, and she breaks yourheart. Fool! take a lesson from your cigar-case. Throw her away, and tryanother!"

  I shook my head at that. Wonderfully clever, I dare say, but myown experience was dead against it. "In the time of the late Mrs.Betteredge," I said, "I felt pretty often inclined to try yourphilosophy, Mr. Franklin. But the law insists on your smoking yourcigar, sir, when you have once chosen it." I pointed that observationwith a wink. Mr. Franklin burst out laughing--and we were as merry ascrickets, until the next new side of his character turned up in duecourse. So things went on with my young master and me; and so (while theSergeant and the gardener were wrangling over the roses) we two spentthe interval before the news came back from Frizinghall.

  The pony-chaise returned a good half hour before I had ventured toexpect it. My lady had decided to remain for the present, at hersister's house. The groom brought two letters from his mistress; oneaddressed to Mr. Franklin, and the other to me.

  Mr. Franklin's letter I sent to him in the library--into which refugehis driftings had now taken him for the second time. My own letter,I read in my own room. A cheque, which dropped out when I opened it,informed me (before I had mastered the contents) that Sergeant Cuff'sdismissal from the inquiry after the Moonstone was now a settled thing.

  I sent to the conservatory to say that I wished to speak to the Sergeantdirectly. He appeared, with his mind full of the gardener and thedog-rose, declaring that the equal of Mr. Begbie for obstinacy neverhad existed yet, and never would exist again. I requested him to dismisssuch wretched trifling as this from our conversation, and to give hisbest attention to a really serious matter. Upon that he exerted himselfsufficiently to notice the letter in my hand. "Ah!" he said in a wearyway, "you have heard from her ladyship. Have I anything to do with it,Mr. Betteredge?"

  "You shall judge for yourself, Sergeant." I thereupon read him theletter (with my best emphasis and discretion), in the following words:

  "MY GOOD GABRIEL,--I request that you will inform Sergeant Cuff, tha
tI have performed the promise I made to him; with this result, so far asRosanna Spearman is concerned. Miss Verinder solemnly declares, that shehas never spoken a word in private to Rosanna, since that unhappy womanfirst entered my house. They never met, even accidentally, on the nightwhen the Diamond was lost; and no communication of any sort whatevertook place between them, from the Thursday morning when the alarm wasfirst raised in the house, to this present Saturday afternoon, when MissVerinder left us. After telling my daughter suddenly, and in so manywords, of Rosanna Spearman's suicide--this is what has come of it."

  Having reached that point, I looked up, and asked Sergeant Cuff what hethought of the letter, so far?

  "I should only offend you if I expressed MY opinion," answered theSergeant. "Go on, Mr. Betteredge," he said, with the most exasperatingresignation, "go on."

  When I remembered that this man had had the audacity to complain of ourgardener's obstinacy, my tongue itched to "go on" in other words than mymistress's. This time, however, my Christianity held firm. I proceededsteadily with her ladyship's letter:

  "Having appealed to Miss Verinder in the manner which the officerthought most desirable, I spoke to her next in the manner which I myselfthought most likely to impress her. On two different occasions, beforemy daughter left my roof, I privately warned her that she was exposingherself to suspicion of the most unendurable and most degrading kind.I have now told her, in the plainest terms, that my apprehensions havebeen realised.

  "Her answer to this, on her own solemn affirmation, is as plain as wordscan be. In the first place, she owes no money privately to any livingcreature. In the second place, the Diamond is not now, and never hasbeen, in her possession, since she put it into her cabinet on Wednesdaynight.

  "The confidence which my daughter has placed in me goes no further thanthis. She maintains an obstinate silence, when I ask her if she canexplain the disappearance of the Diamond. She refuses, with tears, whenI appeal to her to speak out for my sake. 'The day will come when youwill know why I am careless about being suspected, and why I am silenteven to you. I have done much to make my mother pity me--nothing to makemy mother blush for me.' Those are my daughter's own words.

  "After what has passed between the officer and me, I think--strangeras he is--that he should be made acquainted with what Miss Verinder hassaid, as well as you. Read my letter to him, and then place in hishands the cheque which I enclose. In resigning all further claim on hisservices, I have only to say that I am convinced of his honesty andhis intelligence; but I am more firmly persuaded than ever, that thecircumstances, in this case, have fatally misled him."

  There the letter ended. Before presenting the cheque, I asked SergeantCuff if he had any remark to make.

  "It's no part of my duty, Mr. Betteredge," he answered, "to make remarkson a case, when I have done with it."

  I tossed the cheque across the table to him. "Do you believe in THATpart of her ladyship's letter?" I said, indignantly.

  The Sergeant looked at the cheque, and lifted up his dismal eyebrows inacknowledgment of her ladyship's liberality.

  "This is such a generous estimate of the value of my time," he said,"that I feel bound to make some return for it. I'll bear in mind theamount in this cheque, Mr. Betteredge, when the occasion comes round forremembering it."

  "What do you mean?" I asked.

  "Her ladyship has smoothed matters over for the present very cleverly,"said the Sergeant. "But THIS family scandal is of the sort that burstsup again when you least expect it. We shall have more detective-businesson our hands, sir, before the Moonstone is many months older."

  If those words meant anything, and if the manner in which he spoke themmeant anything--it came to this. My mistress's letter had proved, tohis mind, that Miss Rachel was hardened enough to resist the strongestappeal that could be addressed to her, and that she had deceived her ownmother (good God, under what circumstances!) by a series of abominablelies. How other people, in my place, might have replied to the Sergeant,I don't know. I answered what he said in these plain terms:

  "Sergeant Cuff, I consider your last observation as an insult to my ladyand her daughter!"

  "Mr. Betteredge, consider it as a warning to yourself, and you will benearer the mark."

  Hot and angry as I was, the infernal confidence with which he gave methat answer closed my lips.

  I walked to the window to compose myself. The rain had given over;and, who should I see in the court-yard, but Mr. Begbie, the gardener,waiting outside to continue the dog-rose controversy with Sergeant Cuff.

  "My compliments to the Sairgent," said Mr. Begbie, the moment he seteyes on me. "If he's minded to walk to the station, I'm agreeable to gowith him."

  "What!" cries the Sergeant, behind me, "are you not convinced yet?"

  "The de'il a bit I'm convinced!" answered Mr. Begbie.

  "Then I'll walk to the station!" says the Sergeant.

  "Then I'll meet you at the gate!" says Mr. Begbie.

  I was angry enough, as you know--but how was any man's anger to hold outagainst such an interruption as this? Sergeant Cuff noticed the changein me, and encouraged it by a word in season. "Come! come!" he said,"why not treat my view of the case as her ladyship treats it? Why notsay, the circumstances have fatally misled me?"

  To take anything as her ladyship took it was a privilege worthenjoying--even with the disadvantage of its having been offered to meby Sergeant Cuff. I cooled slowly down to my customary level. I regardedany other opinion of Miss Rachel, than my lady's opinion or mine, witha lofty contempt. The only thing I could not do, was to keep off thesubject of the Moonstone! My own good sense ought to have warned me, Iknow, to let the matter rest--but, there! the virtues which distinguishthe present generation were not invented in my time. Sergeant Cuff hadhit me on the raw, and, though I did look down upon him with contempt,the tender place still tingled for all that. The end of it was that Iperversely led him back to the subject of her ladyship's letter. "I amquite satisfied myself," I said. "But never mind that! Go on, as ifI was still open to conviction. You think Miss Rachel is not to bebelieved on her word; and you say we shall hear of the Moonstone again.Back your opinion, Sergeant," I concluded, in an airy way. "Back youropinion."

  Instead of taking offence, Sergeant Cuff seized my hand, and shook ittill my fingers ached again.

  "I declare to heaven," says this strange officer solemnly, "I wouldtake to domestic service to-morrow, Mr. Betteredge, if I had a chance ofbeing employed along with You! To say you are as transparent as a child,sir, is to pay the children a compliment which nine out of ten of themdon't deserve. There! there! we won't begin to dispute again. You shallhave it out of me on easier terms than that. I won't say a word moreabout her ladyship, or about Miss Verinder--I'll only turn prophet, foronce in a way, and for your sake. I have warned you already that youhaven't done with the Moonstone yet. Very well. Now I'll tell you, atparting, of three things which will happen in the future, and which, Ibelieve, will force themselves on your attention, whether you like it ornot."

  "Go on!" I said, quite unabashed, and just as airy as ever.

  "First," said the Sergeant, "you will hear something from theYollands--when the postman delivers Rosanna's letter at Cobb's Hole, onMonday next."

  If he had thrown a bucket of cold water over me, I doubt if I could havefelt it much more unpleasantly than I felt those words. Miss Rachel'sassertion of her innocence had left Rosanna's conduct--the making thenew nightgown, the hiding the smeared nightgown, and all the rest ofit--entirely without explanation. And this had never occurred to me,till Sergeant Cuff forced it on my mind all in a moment!

  "In the second place," proceeded the Sergeant, "you will hear of thethree Indians again. You will hear of them in the neighbourhood, if MissRachel remains in the neighbourhood. You will hear of them in London, ifMiss Rachel goes to London."

  Having lost all interest in the three jugglers, and having thoroughlyconvinced myself of my young lady's innocence, I took this secondprophecy easil
y enough. "So much for two of the three things that aregoing to happen," I said. "Now for the third!"

  "Third, and last," said Sergeant Cuff, "you will, sooner or later, hearsomething of that money-lender in London, whom I have twice taken theliberty of mentioning already. Give me your pocket-book, and I'll makea note for you of his name and address--so that there may be no mistakeabout it if the thing really happens."

  He wrote accordingly on a blank leaf--"Mr. Septimus Luker,Middlesex-place, Lambeth, London."

  "There," he said, pointing to the address, "are the last words, onthe subject of the Moonstone, which I shall trouble you with for thepresent. Time will show whether I am right or wrong. In the meanwhile,sir, I carry away with me a sincere personal liking for you, whichI think does honour to both of us. If we don't meet again before myprofessional retirement takes place, I hope you will come and see me ina little house near London, which I have got my eye on. There will begrass walks, Mr. Betteredge, I promise you, in my garden. And as for thewhite moss rose----"

  "The de'il a bit ye'll get the white moss rose to grow, unless you budhim on the dogue-rose first," cried a voice at the window.

  We both turned round. There was the everlasting Mr. Begbie, too eagerfor the controversy to wait any longer at the gate. The Sergeant wrungmy hand, and darted out into the court-yard, hotter still on his side."Ask him about the moss rose, when he comes back, and see if I have lefthim a leg to stand on!" cried the great Cuff, hailing me through thewindow in his turn. "Gentlemen, both!" I answered, moderating them againas I had moderated them once already.

  "In the matter of the moss rose there is a great deal to be said onboth sides!" I might as well (as the Irish say) have whistled jigs toa milestone. Away they went together, fighting the battle of the roseswithout asking or giving quarter on either side. The last I saw of them,Mr. Begbie was shaking his obstinate head, and Sergeant Cuff had got himby the arm like a prisoner in charge. Ah, well! well! I own I couldn'thelp liking the Sergeant--though I hated him all the time.

  Explain that state of mind, if you can. You will soon be rid, now, ofme and my contradictions. When I have reported Mr. Franklin's departure,the history of the Saturday's events will be finished at last. And whenI have next described certain strange things that happened in the courseof the new week, I shall have done my part of the Story, and shall handover the pen to the person who is appointed to follow my lead. If youare as tired of reading this narrative as I am of writing it--Lord, howwe shall enjoy ourselves on both sides a few pages further on!