Bab Bab 37 · Chapter III

I have only the most indistinct recollection of what happened at

Hotherstone’s Farm.

I remember a hearty welcome; a prodigious supper, which would have fed

a whole village in the East; a delightfully clean bedroom, with nothing

in it to regret but that detestable product of the folly of our

forefathers—a feather-bed; a restless night, with much kindling of

matches, and many lightings of one little candle; and an immense

sensation of relief when the sun rose, and there was a prospect of

getting up.

It had been arranged over-night with Betteredge, that I was to call for

him, on our way to Cobb’s Hole, as early as I liked—which, interpreted

by my impatience to get possession of the letter, meant as early as I

could. Without waiting for breakfast at the Farm, I took a crust of

bread in my hand, and set forth, in some doubt whether I should not

surprise the excellent Betteredge in his bed. To my great relief he

proved to be quite as excited about the coming event as I was. I found

him ready, and waiting for me, with his stick in his hand.

“How are you this morning, Betteredge?”

“Very poorly, sir.”

“Sorry to hear it. What do you complain of?”

“I complain of a new disease, Mr. Franklin, of my own inventing. I

don’t want to alarm you, but you’re certain to catch it before the

morning is out.”

“The devil I am!”

“Do you feel an uncomfortable heat at the pit of your stomach, sir? and

a nasty thumping at the top of your head? Ah! not yet? It will lay hold

of you at Cobb’s Hole, Mr. Franklin. I call it the detective-fever; and

_I_ first caught it in the company of Sergeant Cuff.”

“Aye! aye! and the cure in this instance is to open Rosanna Spearman’s

letter, I suppose? Come along, and let’s get it.”

Early as it was, we found the fisherman’s wife astir in her kitchen. On

my presentation by Betteredge, good Mrs. Yolland performed a social

ceremony, strictly reserved (as I afterwards learnt) for strangers of

distinction. She put a bottle of Dutch gin and a couple of clean pipes

on the table, and opened the conversation by saying, “What news from

London, sir?”

Before I could find an answer to this immensely comprehensive question,

an apparition advanced towards me, out of a dark corner of the kitchen.

A wan, wild, haggard girl, with remarkably beautiful hair, and with a

fierce keenness in her eyes, came limping up on a crutch to the table

at which I was sitting, and looked at me as if I was an object of

mingled interest and horror, which it quite fascinated her to see.

“Mr. Betteredge,” she said, without taking her eyes off me, “mention

his name again, if you please.”

“This gentleman’s name,” answered Betteredge (with a strong emphasis on

_gentleman_), “is Mr. Franklin Blake.”

The girl turned her back on me, and suddenly left the room. Good Mrs.

Yolland—as I believe—made some apologies for her daughter’s odd

behaviour, and Betteredge (probably) translated them into polite

English. I speak of this in complete uncertainty. My attention was

absorbed in following the sound of the girl’s crutch. Thump-thump, up

the wooden stairs; thump-thump across the room above our heads;

thump-thump down the stairs again—and there stood the apparition at the

open door, with a letter in its hand, beckoning me out!

I left more apologies in course of delivery behind me, and followed

this strange creature—limping on before me, faster and faster—down the

slope of the beach. She led me behind some boats, out of sight and

hearing of the few people in the fishing-village, and then stopped, and

faced me for the first time.

“Stand there,” she said, “I want to look at you.”

There was no mistaking the expression on her face. I inspired her with

the strongest emotions of abhorrence and disgust. Let me not be vain

enough to say that no woman had ever looked at me in this manner

before. I will only venture on the more modest assertion that no woman

had ever let me perceive it yet. There is a limit to the length of the

inspection which a man can endure, under certain circumstances. I

attempted to direct Limping Lucy’s attention to some less revolting

object than my face.

“I think you have got a letter to give me,” I began. “Is it the letter

there, in your hand?”

“Say that again,” was the only answer I received.

I repeated the words, like a good child learning its lesson.

“No,” said the girl, speaking to herself, but keeping her eyes still

mercilessly fixed on me. “I can’t find out what she saw in his face. I

can’t guess what she heard in his voice.” She suddenly looked away from

me, and rested her head wearily on the top of her crutch. “Oh, my poor

dear!” she said, in the first soft tones which had fallen from her, in

my hearing. “Oh, my lost darling! what could you see in this man?” She

lifted her head again fiercely, and looked at me once more. “Can you

eat and drink?” she asked.

I did my best to preserve my gravity, and answered, “Yes.”

“Can you sleep?”

“Yes.”

“When you see a poor girl in service, do you feel no remorse?”

“Certainly not. Why should I?”

She abruptly thrust the letter (as the phrase is) into my face.

“Take it!” she exclaimed furiously. “I never set eyes on you before.

God Almighty forbid I should ever set eyes on you again.”

With those parting words she limped away from me at the top of her

speed. The one interpretation that I could put on her conduct has, no

doubt, been anticipated by everybody. I could only suppose that she was

mad.

Having reached that inevitable conclusion, I turned to the more

interesting object of investigation which was presented to me by

Rosanna Spearman’s letter. The address was written as follows:—“For

Franklin Blake, Esq. To be given into his own hands (and not to be

trusted to anyone else), by Lucy Yolland.”

I broke the seal. The envelope contained a letter: and this, in its

turn, contained a slip of paper. I read the letter first:—

“Sir,—If you are curious to know the meaning of my behaviour to you,

whilst you were staying in the house of my mistress, Lady Verinder, do

what you are told to do in the memorandum enclosed with this—and do it

without any person being present to overlook you. Your humble servant,

“ROSANNA SPEARMAN.”

I turned to the slip of paper next. Here is the literal copy of it,

word for word:

“Memorandum:—To go to the Shivering Sand at the turn of the tide. To

walk out on the South Spit, until I get the South Spit Beacon, and the

flagstaff at the Coast-guard station above Cobb’s Hole in a line

together. To lay down on the rocks, a stick, or any straight thing to

guide my hand, exactly in the line of the beacon and the flagstaff. To

take care, in doing this, that one end of the stick shall be at the

edge of the rocks, on the side of them which overlooks the quicksand.

To feel along the stick, among the seaweed (beginning from the end of

the stick which points towards the beacon), for the Chain. To run my

hand along the Chain, when found, until I come to the part of it which

stretches over the edge of the rocks, down into the quicksand. _And

then, to pull the chain._”

Just as I had read the last words—underlined in the original—I heard

the voice of Betteredge behind me. The inventor of the detective-fever

had completely succumbed to that irresistible malady. “I can’t stand it

any longer, Mr. Franklin. What does her letter say? For mercy’s sake,

sir, tell us, what does her letter say?”

I handed him the letter, and the memorandum. He read the first without

appearing to be much interested in it. But the second—the

memorandum—produced a strong impression on him.

“The Sergeant said it!” cried Betteredge. “From first to last, sir, the

Sergeant said she had got a memorandum of the hiding-place. And here it

is! Lord save us, Mr. Franklin, here is the secret that puzzled

everybody, from the great Cuff downwards, ready and waiting, as one may

say, to show itself to _you!_ It’s the ebb now, sir, as anybody may see

for themselves. How long will it be till the turn of the tide?” He

looked up, and observed a lad at work, at some little distance from us,

mending a net. “Tammie Bright!” he shouted at the top of his voice.

“I hear you!” Tammie shouted back.

“When’s the turn of the tide?”

“In an hour’s time.”

We both looked at our watches.

“We can go round by the coast, Mr. Franklin,” said Betteredge; “and get

to the quicksand in that way with plenty of time to spare. What do you

say, sir?”

“Come along!”

On our way to the Shivering Sand, I applied to Betteredge to revive my

memory of events (as affecting Rosanna Spearman) at the period of

Sergeant Cuff’s inquiry. With my old friend’s help, I soon had the

succession of circumstances clearly registered in my mind. Rosanna’s

journey to Frizinghall, when the whole household believed her to be ill

in her own room—Rosanna’s mysterious employment of the night-time with

her door locked, and her candle burning till the morning—Rosanna’s

suspicious purchase of the japanned tin case, and the two dog’s chains

from Mrs. Yolland—the Sergeant’s positive conviction that Rosanna had

hidden something at the Shivering Sand, and the Sergeant’s absolute

ignorance as to what that something might be—all these strange results

of the abortive inquiry into the loss of the Moonstone were clearly

present to me again, when we reached the quicksand, and walked out

together on the low ledge of rocks called the South Spit.

With Betteredge’s help, I soon stood in the right position to see the

Beacon and the Coast-guard flagstaff in a line together. Following the

memorandum as our guide, we next laid my stick in the necessary

direction, as neatly as we could, on the uneven surface of the rocks.

And then we looked at our watches once more.

It wanted nearly twenty minutes yet of the turn of the tide. I

suggested waiting through this interval on the beach, instead of on the

wet and slippery surface of the rocks. Having reached the dry sand, I

prepared to sit down; and, greatly to my surprise, Betteredge prepared

to leave me.

“What are you going away for?” I asked.

“Look at the letter again, sir, and you will see.”

A glance at the letter reminded me that I was charged, when I made my

discovery, to make it alone.

“It’s hard enough for me to leave you, at such a time as this,” said

Betteredge. “But she died a dreadful death, poor soul—and I feel a kind

of call on me, Mr. Franklin, to humour that fancy of hers. Besides,” he

added, confidentially, “there’s nothing in the letter against your

letting out the secret afterwards. I’ll hang about in the

fir-plantation, and wait till you pick me up. Don’t be longer than you

can help, sir. The detective-fever isn’t an easy disease to deal with,

under _these_ circumstances.”

With that parting caution, he left me.

The interval of expectation, short as it was when reckoned by the

measure of time, assumed formidable proportions when reckoned by the

measure of suspense. This was one of the occasions on which the

invaluable habit of smoking becomes especially precious and

consolatory. I lit a cigar, and sat down on the slope of the beach.

The sunlight poured its unclouded beauty on every object that I could

see. The exquisite freshness of the air made the mere act of living and

breathing a luxury. Even the lonely little bay welcomed the morning

with a show of cheerfulness; and the bared wet surface of the quicksand

itself, glittering with a golden brightness, hid the horror of its

false brown face under a passing smile. It was the finest day I had

seen since my return to England.

The turn of the tide came, before my cigar was finished. I saw the

preliminary heaving of the Sand, and then the awful shiver that crept

over its surface—as if some spirit of terror lived and moved and

shuddered in the fathomless deeps beneath. I threw away my cigar, and

went back again to the rocks.

My directions in the memorandum instructed me to feel along the line

traced by the stick, beginning with the end which was nearest to the

beacon.

I advanced, in this manner, more than half way along the stick, without

encountering anything but the edges of the rocks. An inch or two

further on, however, my patience was rewarded. In a narrow little

fissure, just within reach of my forefinger, I felt the chain.

Attempting, next, to follow it, by touch, in the direction of the

quicksand, I found my progress stopped by a thick growth of

seaweed—which had fastened itself into the fissure, no doubt, in the

time that had elapsed since Rosanna Spearman had chosen her

hiding-place.

It was equally impossible to pull up the seaweed, or to force my hand

through it. After marking the spot indicated by the end of the stick

which was placed nearest to the quicksand, I determined to pursue the

search for the chain on a plan of my own. My idea was to “sound”

immediately under the rocks, on the chance of recovering the lost trace

of the chain at the point at which it entered the sand. I took up the

stick, and knelt down on the brink of the South Spit.

In this position, my face was within a few feet of the surface of the

quicksand. The sight of it so near me, still disturbed at intervals by

its hideous shivering fit, shook my nerves for the moment. A horrible

fancy that the dead woman might appear on the scene of her suicide, to

assist my search—an unutterable dread of seeing her rise through the

heaving surface of the sand, and point to the place—forced itself into

my mind, and turned me cold in the warm sunlight. I own I closed my

eyes at the moment when the point of the stick first entered the

quicksand.

The instant afterwards, before the stick could have been submerged more

than a few inches, I was free from the hold of my own superstitious

terror, and was throbbing with excitement from head to foot. Sounding

blindfold, at my first attempt—at that first attempt I had sounded

right! The stick struck the chain.

Taking a firm hold of the roots of the seaweed with my left hand, I

laid myself down over the brink, and felt with my right hand under the

overhanging edges of the rock. My right hand found the chain.

I drew it up without the slightest difficulty. And there was the

japanned tin case fastened to the end of it.

The action of the water had so rusted the chain, that it was impossible

for me to unfasten it from the hasp which attached it to the case.

Putting the case between my knees and exerting my utmost strength, I

contrived to draw off the cover. Some white substance filled the whole

interior when I looked in. I put in my hand, and found it to be linen.

In drawing out the linen, I also drew out a letter crumpled up with it.

After looking at the direction, and discovering that it bore my name, I

put the letter in my pocket, and completely removed the linen. It came

out in a thick roll, moulded, of course, to the shape of the case in

which it had been so long confined, and perfectly preserved from any

injury by the sea.

I carried the linen to the dry sand of the beach, and there unrolled

and smoothed it out. There was no mistaking it as an article of dress.

It was a nightgown.

The uppermost side, when I spread it out, presented to view innumerable

folds and creases, and nothing more. I tried the undermost side,

next—and instantly discovered the smear of the paint from the door of

Rachel’s boudoir!

My eyes remained riveted on the stain, and my mind took me back at a

leap from present to past. The very words of Sergeant Cuff recurred to

me, as if the man himself was at my side again, pointing to the

unanswerable inference which he drew from the smear on the door.

“Find out whether there is any article of dress in this house with the

stain of paint on it. Find out who that dress belongs to. Find out how

the person can account for having been in the room, and smeared the

paint between midnight and three in the morning. If the person can’t

satisfy you, you haven’t far to look for the hand that took the

Diamond.”

One after another those words travelled over my memory, repeating

themselves again and again with a wearisome, mechanical reiteration. I

was roused from what felt like a trance of many hours—from what was

really, no doubt, the pause of a few moments only—by a voice calling to

me. I looked up, and saw that Betteredge’s patience had failed him at

last. He was just visible between the sandhills, returning to the

beach.

The old man’s appearance recalled me, the moment I perceived it, to my

sense of present things, and reminded me that the inquiry which I had

pursued thus far still remained incomplete. I had discovered the smear

on the nightgown. To whom did the nightgown belong?

My first impulse was to consult the letter in my pocket—the letter

which I had found in the case.

As I raised my hand to take it out, I remembered that there was a

shorter way to discovery than this. The nightgown itself would reveal

the truth, for, in all probability, the nightgown was marked with its

owner’s name.

I took it up from the sand, and looked for the mark.

I found the mark, and read—MY OWN NAME.

There were the familiar letters which told me that the nightgown was

mine. I looked up from them. There was the sun; there were the

glittering waters of the bay; there was old Betteredge, advancing

nearer and nearer to me. I looked back again at the letters. My own

name. Plainly confronting me—my own name.

“If time, pains, and money can do it, I will lay my hand on the thief

who took the Moonstone.”—I had left London, with those words on my

lips. I had penetrated the secret which the quicksand had kept from

every other living creature. And, on the unanswerable evidence of the

paint-stain, I had discovered Myself as the Thief.