Chapter Chapter 33 · Chapter II

The next thing I have to do, is to present such additional information

as I possess on the subject of the Moonstone, or, to speak more

correctly, on the subject of the Indian plot to steal the Diamond. The

little that I have to tell is (as I think I have already said) of some

importance, nevertheless, in respect of its bearing very remarkably on

events which are still to come.

About a week or ten days after Miss Verinder had left us, one of my

clerks entered the private room at my office, with a card in his hand,

and informed me that a gentleman was below, who wanted to speak to me.

I looked at the card. There was a foreign name written on it, which has

escaped my memory. It was followed by a line written in English at the

bottom of the card, which I remember perfectly well:

“Recommended by Mr. Septimus Luker.”

The audacity of a person in Mr. Luker’s position presuming to recommend

anybody to _me_, took me so completely by surprise, that I sat silent

for the moment, wondering whether my own eyes had not deceived me. The

clerk, observing my bewilderment, favoured me with the result of his

own observation of the stranger who was waiting downstairs.

“He is rather a remarkable-looking man, sir. So dark in the complexion

that we all set him down in the office for an Indian, or something of

that sort.”

Associating the clerk’s idea with the line inscribed on the card in my

hand, I thought it possible that the Moonstone might be at the bottom

of Mr. Luker’s recommendation, and of the stranger’s visit at my

office. To the astonishment of my clerk, I at once decided on granting

an interview to the gentleman below.

In justification of the highly unprofessional sacrifice to mere

curiosity which I thus made, permit me to remind anybody who may read

these lines, that no living person (in England, at any rate) can claim

to have had such an intimate connexion with the romance of the Indian

Diamond as mine has been. I was trusted with the secret of Colonel

Herncastle’s plan for escaping assassination. I received the Colonel’s

letters, periodically reporting himself a living man. I drew his Will,

leaving the Moonstone to Miss Verinder. I persuaded his executor to

act, on the chance that the jewel might prove to be a valuable

acquisition to the family. And, lastly, I combated Mr. Franklin Blake’s

scruples, and induced him to be the means of transporting the Diamond

to Lady Verinder’s house. If anyone can claim a prescriptive right of

interest in the Moonstone, and in everything connected with it, I think

it is hardly to be denied that I am the man.

The moment my mysterious client was shown in, I felt an inner

conviction that I was in the presence of one of the three

Indians—probably of the chief. He was carefully dressed in European

costume. But his swarthy complexion, his long lithe figure, and his

grave and graceful politeness of manner were enough to betray his

Oriental origin to any intelligent eyes that looked at him.

I pointed to a chair, and begged to be informed of the nature of his

business with me.

After first apologising—in an excellent selection of English words—for

the liberty which he had taken in disturbing me, the Indian produced a

small parcel the outer covering of which was of cloth of gold. Removing

this and a second wrapping of some silken fabric, he placed a little

box, or casket, on my table, most beautifully and richly inlaid in

jewels, on an ebony ground.

“I have come, sir,” he said, “to ask you to lend me some money. And I

leave this as an assurance to you that my debt will be paid back.”

I pointed to his card. “And you apply to me,” I rejoined, “at Mr.

Luker’s recommendation?”

The Indian bowed.

“May I ask how it is that Mr. Luker himself did not advance the money

that you require?”

“Mr. Luker informed me, sir, that he had no money to lend.”

“And so he recommended you to come to me?”

The Indian, in his turn, pointed to the card. “It is written there,” he

said.

Briefly answered, and thoroughly to the purpose! If the Moonstone had

been in my possession, this Oriental gentleman would have murdered me,

I am well aware, without a moment’s hesitation. At the same time, and

barring that slight drawback, I am bound to testify that he was the

perfect model of a client. He might not have respected my life. But he

did what none of my own countrymen had ever done, in all my experience

of them—he respected my time.

“I am sorry,” I said, “that you should have had the trouble of coming

to me. Mr. Luker is quite mistaken in sending you here. I am trusted,

like other men in my profession, with money to lend. But I never lend

it to strangers, and I never lend it on such a security as you have

produced.”

Far from attempting, as other people would have done, to induce me to

relax my own rules, the Indian only made me another bow, and wrapped up

his box in its two coverings without a word of protest. He rose—this

admirable assassin rose to go, the moment I had answered him!

“Will your condescension towards a stranger, excuse my asking one

question,” he said, “before I take my leave?”

I bowed on my side. Only one question at parting! The average in my

experience was fifty.

“Supposing, sir, it had been possible (and customary) for _you_ to lend

me the money,” he said, “in what space of time would it have been

possible (and customary) for _me_ to pay it back?”

“According to the usual course pursued in this country,” I answered,

“you would have been entitled to pay the money back (if you liked) in

one year’s time from the date at which it was first advanced to you.”

The Indian made me a last bow, the lowest of all—and suddenly and

softly walked out of the room.

It was done in a moment, in a noiseless, supple, cat-like way, which a

little startled me, I own. As soon as I was composed enough to think, I

arrived at one distinct conclusion in reference to the otherwise

incomprehensible visitor who had favoured me with a call.

His face, voice, and manner—while I was in his company—were under such

perfect control that they set all scrutiny at defiance. But he had

given me one chance of looking under the smooth outer surface of him,

for all that. He had not shown the slightest sign of attempting to fix

anything that I had said to him in his mind, until I mentioned the time

at which it was customary to permit the earliest repayment, on the part

of a debtor, of money that had been advanced as a loan. When I gave him

that piece of information, he looked me straight in the face, while I

was speaking, for the first time. The inference I drew from this

was—that he had a special purpose in asking me his last question, and a

special interest in hearing my answer to it. The more carefully I

reflected on what had passed between us, the more shrewdly I suspected

the production of the casket, and the application for the loan, of

having been mere formalities, designed to pave the way for the parting

inquiry addressed to me.

I had satisfied myself of the correctness of this conclusion—and was

trying to get on a step further, and penetrate the Indian’s motives

next—when a letter was brought to me, which proved to be from no less a

person that Mr. Septimus Luker himself. He asked my pardon in terms of

sickening servility, and assured me that he could explain matters to my

satisfaction, if I would honour him by consenting to a personal

interview.

I made another unprofessional sacrifice to mere curiosity. I honoured

him by making an appointment at my office, for the next day.

Mr. Luker was, in every respect, such an inferior creature to the

Indian—he was so vulgar, so ugly, so cringing, and so prosy—that he is

quite unworthy of being reported, at any length, in these pages. The

substance of what he had to tell me may be fairly stated as follows:

The day before I had received the visit of the Indian, Mr. Luker had

been favoured with a call from that accomplished gentleman. In spite of

his European disguise, Mr. Luker had instantly identified his visitor

with the chief of the three Indians, who had formerly annoyed him by

loitering about his house, and who had left him no alternative but to

consult a magistrate. From this startling discovery he had rushed to

the conclusion (naturally enough I own) that he must certainly be in

the company of one of the three men, who had blindfolded him, gagged

him, and robbed him of his banker’s receipt. The result was that he

became quite paralysed with terror, and that he firmly believed his

last hour had come.

On his side, the Indian preserved the character of a perfect stranger.

He produced the little casket, and made exactly the same application

which he had afterwards made to me. As the speediest way of getting rid

of him, Mr. Luker had at once declared that he had no money. The Indian

had thereupon asked to be informed of the best and safest person to

apply to for the loan he wanted. Mr. Luker had answered that the best

and safest person, in such cases, was usually a respectable solicitor.

Asked to name some individual of that character and profession, Mr.

Luker had mentioned me—for the one simple reason that, in the extremity

of his terror, mine was the first name which occurred to him. “The

perspiration was pouring off me like rain, sir,” the wretched creature

concluded. “I didn’t know what I was talking about. And I hope you’ll

look over it, Mr. Bruff, sir, in consideration of my having been really

and truly frightened out of my wits.”

I excused the fellow graciously enough. It was the readiest way of

releasing myself from the sight of him. Before he left me, I detained

him to make one inquiry.

Had the Indian said anything noticeable, at the moment of quitting Mr.

Luker’s house?

Yes! The Indian had put precisely the same question to Mr. Luker, at

parting, which he had put to me; receiving of course, the same answer

as the answer which I had given him.

What did it mean? Mr. Luker’s explanation gave me no assistance towards

solving the problem. My own unaided ingenuity, consulted next, proved

quite unequal to grapple with the difficulty. I had a dinner engagement

that evening; and I went upstairs, in no very genial frame of mind,

little suspecting that the way to my dressing-room and the way to

discovery, meant, on this particular occasion, one and the same thing.