The Moonstone Page 9

  CHAPTER VI

  Keeping my private sentiments to myself, I respectfully requested Mr.Franklin to go on. Mr. Franklin replied, "Don't fidget, Betteredge," andwent on.

  Our young gentleman's first words informed me that his discoveries,concerning the wicked Colonel and the Diamond, had begun with a visitwhich he had paid (before he came to us) to the family lawyer, atHampstead. A chance word dropped by Mr. Franklin, when the two werealone, one day, after dinner, revealed that he had been charged by hisfather with a birthday present to be taken to Miss Rachel. One thingled to another; and it ended in the lawyer mentioning what the presentreally was, and how the friendly connexion between the late Coloneland Mr. Blake, senior, had taken its rise. The facts here are really soextraordinary, that I doubt if I can trust my own language to do justiceto them. I prefer trying to report Mr. Franklin's discoveries, as nearlyas may be, in Mr. Franklin's own words.

  "You remember the time, Betteredge," he said, "when my father was tryingto prove his title to that unlucky Dukedom? Well! that was also the timewhen my uncle Herncastle returned from India. My father discovered thathis brother-in-law was in possession of certain papers which were likelyto be of service to him in his lawsuit. He called on the Colonel, onpretence of welcoming him back to England. The Colonel was not to bedeluded in that way. 'You want something,' he said, 'or you would neverhave compromised your reputation by calling on ME.' My father saw thatthe one chance for him was to show his hand; he admitted, at once,that he wanted the papers. The Colonel asked for a day to consider hisanswer. His answer came in the shape of a most extraordinary letter,which my friend the lawyer showed me. The Colonel began by saying thathe wanted something of my father, and that he begged to propose anexchange of friendly services between them. The fortune of war (thatwas the expression he used) had placed him in possession of one of thelargest Diamonds in the world; and he had reason to believe that neitherhe nor his precious jewel was safe in any house, in any quarter of theglobe, which they occupied together. Under these alarming circumstances,he had determined to place his Diamond in the keeping of another person.That person was not expected to run any risk. He might deposit theprecious stone in any place especially guarded and set apart--like abanker's or jeweller's strong-room--for the safe custody of valuables ofhigh price. His main personal responsibility in the matter was to beof the passive kind. He was to undertake either by himself, or by atrustworthy representative--to receive at a prearranged address, oncertain prearranged days in every year, a note from the Colonel, simplystating the fact that he was a living man at that date. In the eventof the date passing over without the note being received, the Colonel'ssilence might be taken as a sure token of the Colonel's death by murder.In that case, and in no other, certain sealed instructions relating tothe disposal of the Diamond, and deposited with it, were to be opened,and followed implicitly. If my father chose to accept this strangecharge, the Colonel's papers were at his disposal in return. That wasthe letter."

  "What did your father do, sir?" I asked.

  "Do?" says Mr. Franklin. "I'll tell you what he did. He brought theinvaluable faculty, called common sense, to bear on the Colonel'sletter. The whole thing, he declared, was simply absurd. Somewhere inhis Indian wanderings, the Colonel had picked up with some wretchedcrystal which he took for a diamond. As for the danger of his beingmurdered, and the precautions devised to preserve his life and his pieceof crystal, this was the nineteenth century, and any man in his senseshad only to apply to the police. The Colonel had been a notoriousopium-eater for years past; and, if the only way of getting at thevaluable papers he possessed was by accepting a matter of opium asa matter of fact, my father was quite willing to take the ridiculousresponsibility imposed on him--all the more readily that it involved notrouble to himself. The Diamond and the sealed instructions went intohis banker's strong-room, and the Colonel's letters, periodicallyreporting him a living man, were received and opened by our familylawyer, Mr. Bruff, as my father's representative. No sensible person,in a similar position, could have viewed the matter in any other way.Nothing in this world, Betteredge, is probable unless it appeals to ourown trumpery experience; and we only believe in a romance when we see itin a newspaper."

  It was plain to me from this, that Mr. Franklin thought his father'snotion about the Colonel hasty and wrong.

  "What is your own private opinion about the matter, sir?" I asked.

  "Let's finish the story of the Colonel first," says Mr. Franklin. "Thereis a curious want of system, Betteredge, in the English mind; and yourquestion, my old friend, is an instance of it. When we are not occupiedin making machinery, we are (mentally speaking) the most slovenly peoplein the universe."

  "So much," I thought to myself, "for a foreign education! He has learnedthat way of girding at us in France, I suppose."

  Mr. Franklin took up the lost thread, and went on.

  "My father," he said, "got the papers he wanted, and never saw hisbrother-in-law again from that time. Year after year, on the prearrangeddays, the prearranged letter came from the Colonel, and was opened byMr. Bruff. I have seen the letters, in a heap, all of them written inthe same brief, business-like form of words: 'Sir,--This is to certifythat I am still a living man. Let the Diamond be. John Herncastle.' Thatwas all he ever wrote, and that came regularly to the day; until somesix or eight months since, when the form of the letter varied for thefirst time. It ran now: 'Sir,--They tell me I am dying. Come to me, andhelp me to make my will.' Mr. Bruff went, and found him, in the littlesuburban villa, surrounded by its own grounds, in which he had livedalone, ever since he had left India. He had dogs, cats, and birds tokeep him company; but no human being near him, except the person whocame daily to do the house-work, and the doctor at the bedside. The willwas a very simple matter. The Colonel had dissipated the greater part ofhis fortune in his chemical investigations. His will began and ended inthree clauses, which he dictated from his bed, in perfect possessionof his faculties. The first clause provided for the safe keepingand support of his animals. The second founded a professorship ofexperimental chemistry at a northern university. The third bequeathedthe Moonstone as a birthday present to his niece, on condition thatmy father would act as executor. My father at first refused to act. Onsecond thoughts, however, he gave way, partly because he was assuredthat the executorship would involve him in no trouble; partly becauseMr. Bruff suggested, in Rachel's interest, that the Diamond might beworth something, after all."

  "Did the Colonel give any reason, sir," I inquired, "why he left theDiamond to Miss Rachel?"

  "He not only gave the reason--he had the reason written in hiswill," said Mr. Franklin. "I have got an extract, which you shall seepresently. Don't be slovenly-minded, Betteredge! One thing at a time.You have heard about the Colonel's Will; now you must hear what happenedafter the Colonel's death. It was formally necessary to have the Diamondvalued, before the Will could be proved. All the jewellers consulted,at once confirmed the Colonel's assertion that he possessed one of thelargest diamonds in the world. The question of accurately valuing itpresented some serious difficulties. Its size made it a phenomenon inthe diamond market; its colour placed it in a category by itself; and,to add to these elements of uncertainty, there was a defect, in theshape of a flaw, in the very heart of the stone. Even with this lastserious draw-back, however, the lowest of the various estimates givenwas twenty thousand pounds. Conceive my father's astonishment! He hadbeen within a hair's-breadth of refusing to act as executor, and ofallowing this magnificent jewel to be lost to the family. The interesthe took in the matter now, induced him to open the sealed instructionswhich had been deposited with the Diamond. Mr. Bruff showed thisdocument to me, with the other papers; and it suggests (to my mind)a clue to the nature of the conspiracy which threatened the Colonel'slife."

  "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 theC
olonel said. The sealed instructions, as I think, explain how it wasthat he died, after all, quietly in his bed. In the event of his deathby violence (that is to say, in the absence of the regular letter fromhim at the appointed date), my father was then directed to send theMoonstone secretly to Amsterdam. It was to be deposited in that citywith a famous diamond-cutter, and it was to be cut up into from four tosix separate stones. The stones were then to be sold for what theywould fetch, and the proceeds were to be applied to the founding of thatprofessorship of experimental chemistry, which the Colonel has sinceendowed 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; andthey 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 awhole stone, is here artfully made dependent on the preservation fromviolence of the Colonel's life. He is not satisfied with saying to theenemies he dreads, 'Kill me--and you will be no nearer to the Diamondthan you are now; it is where you can't get at it--in the guardedstrong-room of a bank.' He says instead, 'Kill me--and the Diamond willbe the Diamond no longer; its identity will be destroyed.' What doesthat 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, andcheating 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 Diamondas it now is; for this plain reason--that from four to six perfectbrilliants might be cut from it, which would be, collectively, worthmore money than the large--but imperfect single stone. If robbery forthe purpose of gain was at the bottom of the conspiracy, the Colonel'sinstructions absolutely made the Diamond better worth stealing. Moremoney could have been got for it, and the disposal of it in the diamondmarket would have been infinitely easier, if it had passed through thehands 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 thebottom of it. That is my opinion, confirmed by a family paper which Ihave about me at this moment."

  I saw, now, why the appearance of the three Indian jugglers at our househad presented itself to Mr. Franklin in the light of a circumstanceworth noting.

  "I don't want to force my opinion on you," Mr. Franklin went on. "Theidea of certain chosen servants of an old Hindoo superstition devotingthemselves, through all difficulties and dangers, to watching theopportunity of recovering their sacred gem, appears to me to beperfectly consistent with everything that we know of the patience ofOriental races, and the influence of Oriental religions. But then I aman imaginative man; and the butcher, the baker, and the tax-gatherer,are not the only credible realities in existence to my mind. Let theguess 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. Doesthe conspiracy against the Moonstone survive the Colonel's death? Anddid 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 aword 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. Bruffreminded me that somebody must put my cousin's legacy into my cousin'shands--and that I might as well do it as anybody else. After taking theDiamond out of the bank, I fancied I was followed in the streets by ashabby, dark-complexioned man. I went to my father's house to pick upmy luggage, and found a letter there, which unexpectedly detained me inLondon. I went back to the bank with the Diamond, and thought I sawthe shabby man again. Taking the Diamond once more out of the bankthis morning, I saw the man for the third time, gave him the slip, andstarted (before he recovered the trace of me) by the morning insteadof the afternoon train. Here I am, with the Diamond safe and sound--andwhat is the first news that meets me? I find that three strollingIndians have been at the house, and that my arrival from London, andsomething which I am expected to have about me, are two special objectsof investigation to them when they believe themselves to be alone. Idon'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 somethingin that man's pocket. The thing (which I have often seen done in theEast) is 'hocus-pocus' in my opinion, as it is in yours. The presentquestion for us to decide is, whether I am wrongly attaching a meaningto a mere accident? or whether we really have evidence of the Indiansbeing on the track of the Moonstone, the moment it is removed from thesafe 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 insmoothly, 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 theDiamond 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 wayof 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'slawful property, and getting Mr. Blake, as executor, into dreadfultrouble--though where the merriment was, I am quite at a loss todiscover now.

  Mr. Franklin was the first to bring the talk back to the talk's properpurpose. He took an envelope out of his pocket, opened it, and handed tome the paper inside.

  "Betteredge," he said, "we must face the question of the Colonel'smotive in leaving this legacy to his niece, for my aunt's sake. Bearin mind how Lady Verinder treated her brother from the time when hereturned to England, to the time when he told you he should remember hisniece's birthday. And read that."

  He gave me the extract from the Colonel's Will. I have got it by mewhile 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 hermother, the said Julia Verinder, shall be living on the said RachelVerinder's next Birthday after my death--the yellow Diamond belonging tome, and known in the East by the name of The Moonstone: subject to thiscondition, that her mother, the said Julia Verinder, shall be living atthe time. And I hereby desire my executor to give my Diamond, either byhis own hands or by the hands of some trustworthy representative whom heshall appoint, into the personal possession of my said niece Rachel, onher next birthday after my death, and in the presence, if possible, ofmy sister, the said Julia Verinder. And I desire that my said sister maybe informed, by means of a true copy of this, the third and last clauseof my Will, that I give the Diamond to her daughter Rachel, in token ofmy free forgiveness of the injury which her conduct towards me has beenthe means of inflicting on my reputation in my lifetime; and especiallyin proof that I pardon, as becomes a dying man, the insult offered to meas an officer and a gentleman, when her servant, by her orders, closedthe door of her house against me, on the occasion of her daughter'sbirthday."

  More words followed these, providing if my lady was dead, or if MissRachel was dead, at the time of the testator's decease, for the Diamondbeing sent to Holland, in accordance with the sealed instructionsoriginally deposited with it. The proceeds of the sale were, inthat case, to be added to the money already left by the Will for theprofessorship of chemistry at the university in the north.

  I handed the paper back to Mr. Franklin, sorely troubled what to say tohim. Up to that moment, my own opinion had been (as you know) that theColonel had died as wickedly as he had lived. I don't say the copyfr
om his Will actually converted me from that opinion: I only say itstaggered me.

  "Well," says Mr. Franklin, "now you have read the Colonel's ownstatement, what do you say? In bringing the Moonstone to my aunt'shouse, am I serving his vengeance blindfold, or am I vindicating him inthe character of a penitent and Christian man?"

  "It seems hard to say, sir," I answered, "that he died with a horridrevenge in his heart, and a horrid lie on his lips. God alone knows thetruth. Don't ask me."

  Mr. Franklin sat twisting and turning the extract from the Will inhis fingers, as if he expected to squeeze the truth out of it in thatmanner. He altered quite remarkably, at the same time. From being briskand bright, he now became, most unaccountably, a slow, solemn, andpondering young man.

  "This question has two sides," he said. "An Objective side, and aSubjective side. Which are we to take?"

  He had had a German education as well as a French. One of the two hadbeen in undisturbed possession of him (as I supposed) up to this time.And now (as well as I could make out) the other was taking its place. Itis one of my rules in life, never to notice what I don't understand. Isteered a middle course between the Objective side and the Subjectiveside. In plain English I stared hard, and said nothing.

  "Let's extract the inner meaning of this," says Mr. Franklin. "Whydid my uncle leave the Diamond to Rachel? Why didn't he leave it to myaunt?"

  "That's not beyond guessing, sir, at any rate," I said. "ColonelHerncastle knew my lady well enough to know that she would have refusedto accept any legacy that came to her from HIM."

  "How did he know that Rachel might not refuse to accept it, too?"

  "Is there any young lady in existence, sir, who could resist thetemptation of accepting such a birthday present as The Moonstone?"

  "That's the Subjective view," says Mr. Franklin. "It does you greatcredit, Betteredge, to be able to take the Subjective view. But there'sanother mystery about the Colonel's legacy which is not accounted foryet. How are we to explain his only giving Rachel her birthday presentconditionally on her mother being alive?"

  "I don't want to slander a dead man, sir," I answered. "But if he HASpurposely left a legacy of trouble and danger to his sister, by themeans of her child, it must be a legacy made conditional on his sister'sbeing alive to feel the vexation of it."

  "Oh! That's your interpretation of his motive, is it? The Subjectiveinterpretation again! Have you ever been in Germany, Betteredge?"

  "No, sir. What's your interpretation, if you please?"

  "I can see," says Mr. Franklin, "that the Colonel's object may, quitepossibly, have been--not to benefit his niece, whom he had never evenseen--but to prove to his sister that he had died forgiving her, and toprove it very prettily by means of a present made to her child. There isa totally different explanation from yours, Betteredge, taking itsrise in a Subjective-Objective point of view. From all I can see, oneinterpretation is just as likely to be right as the other."

  Having brought matters to this pleasant and comforting issue, Mr.Franklin appeared to think that he had completed all that was requiredof him. He laid down flat on his back on the sand, and asked what was tobe done next.

  He had been so clever, and clear-headed (before he began to talk theforeign gibberish), and had so completely taken the lead in the businessup to the present time, that I was quite unprepared for such a suddenchange as he now exhibited in this helpless leaning upon me. It was nottill later that I learned--by assistance of Miss Rachel, who wasthe first to make the discovery--that these puzzling shifts andtransformations in Mr. Franklin were due to the effect on him of hisforeign training. At the age when we are all of us most apt to takeour colouring, in the form of a reflection from the colouring of otherpeople, he had been sent abroad, and had been passed on from one nationto another, before there was time for any one colouring more thananother to settle itself on him firmly. As a consequence of this, hehad come back with so many different sides to his character, all more orless jarring with each other, that he seemed to pass his life in a stateof perpetual contradiction with himself. He could be a busy man, anda lazy man; cloudy in the head, and clear in the head; a model ofdetermination, and a spectacle of helplessness, all together. He hadhis French side, and his German side, and his Italian side--the originalEnglish foundation showing through, every now and then, as much asto say, "Here I am, sorely transmogrified, as you see, but there'ssomething of me left at the bottom of him still." Miss Rachel used toremark that the Italian side of him was uppermost, on those occasionswhen he unexpectedly gave in, and asked you in his nice sweet-temperedway to take his own responsibilities on your shoulders. You will do himno injustice, I think, if you conclude that the Italian side of him wasuppermost now.

  "Isn't it your business, sir," I asked, "to know what to do next? Surelyit can't be mine?"

  Mr. Franklin didn't appear to see the force of my question--not being ina position, at the time, to see anything but the sky over his head.

  "I don't want to alarm my aunt without reason," he said. "And I don'twant to leave her without what may be a needful warning. If you were inmy place, Betteredge, tell me, in one word, what would you do?"

  In one word, I told him: "Wait."

  "With all my heart," says Mr. Franklin. "How long?"

  I proceeded to explain myself.

  "As I understand it, sir," I said, "somebody is bound to put this plaguyDiamond into Miss Rachel's hands on her birthday--and you may as welldo it as another. Very good. This is the twenty-fifth of May, and thebirthday is on the twenty-first of June. We have got close on four weeksbefore us. Let's wait and see what happens in that time; and let's warnmy lady, or not, as the circumstances direct us."

  "Perfect, Betteredge, as far as it goes!" says Mr. Franklin. "Butbetween this and the birthday, what's to be done with the Diamond?"

  "What your father did with it, to be sure, sir!" I answered. "Yourfather put it in the safe keeping of a bank in London. You put in thesafe keeping of the bank at Frizinghall." (Frizinghall was our nearesttown, and the Bank of England wasn't safer than the bank there.) "IfI were you, sir," I added, "I would ride straight away with it toFrizinghall before the ladies come back."

  The prospect of doing something--and, what is more, of doing thatsomething on a horse--brought Mr. Franklin up like lightning from theflat of his back. He sprang to his feet, and pulled me up, withoutceremony, on to mine. "Betteredge, you are worth your weight ingold," he said. "Come along, and saddle the best horse in the stablesdirectly."

  Here (God bless it!) was the original English foundation of him showingthrough all the foreign varnish at last! Here was the Master FranklinI remembered, coming out again in the good old way at the prospect of aride, and reminding me of the good old times! Saddle a horse for him?I would have saddled a dozen horses, if he could only have ridden themall!

  We went back to the house in a hurry; we had the fleetest horse in thestables saddled in a hurry; and Mr. Franklin rattled off in a hurry, tolodge the cursed Diamond once more in the strong-room of a bank. WhenI heard the last of his horse's hoofs on the drive, and when I turnedabout in the yard and found I was alone again, I felt half inclined toask myself if I hadn't woke up from a dream.