Bab Bab 42 · Chapter VIII

Late that evening, I was surprised at my lodgings by a visit from Mr.

Bruff.

There was a noticeable change in the lawyer’s manner. It had lost its

usual confidence and spirit. He shook hands with me, for the first time

in his life, in silence.

“Are you going back to Hampstead?” I asked, by way of saying something.

“I have just left Hampstead,” he answered. “I know, Mr. Franklin, that

you have got at the truth at last. But, I tell you plainly, if I could

have foreseen the price that was to be paid for it, I should have

preferred leaving you in the dark.”

“You have seen Rachel?”

“I have come here after taking her back to Portland Place; it was

impossible to let her return in the carriage by herself. I can hardly

hold you responsible—considering that you saw her in my house and by my

permission—for the shock that this unlucky interview has inflicted on

her. All I can do is to provide against a repetition of the mischief.

She is young—she has a resolute spirit—she will get over this, with

time and rest to help her. I want to be assured that you will do

nothing to hinder her recovery. May I depend on your making no second

attempt to see her—except with my sanction and approval?”

“After what she has suffered, and after what I have suffered,” I said,

“you may rely on me.”

“I have your promise?”

“You have my promise.”

Mr. Bruff looked relieved. He put down his hat, and drew his chair

nearer to mine.

“That’s settled!” he said. “Now, about the future—_your_ future, I

mean. To my mind, the result of the extraordinary turn which the matter

has now taken is briefly this. In the first place, we are sure that

Rachel has told you the whole truth, as plainly as words can tell it.

In the second place—though we know that there must be some dreadful

mistake somewhere—we can hardly blame her for believing you to be

guilty, on the evidence of her own senses; backed, as that evidence has

been, by circumstances which appear, on the face of them, to tell dead

against you.”

There I interposed. “I don’t blame Rachel,” I said. “I only regret that

she could not prevail on herself to speak more plainly to me at the

time.”

“You might as well regret that Rachel is not somebody else,” rejoined

Mr. Bruff. “And even then, I doubt if a girl of any delicacy, whose

heart had been set on marrying you, could have brought herself to

charge you to your face with being a thief. Anyhow, it was not in

Rachel’s nature to do it. In a very different matter to this matter of

yours—which placed her, however, in a position not altogether unlike

her position towards you—I happen to know that she was influenced by a

similar motive to the motive which actuated her conduct in your case.

Besides, as she told me herself, on our way to town this evening, if

she _had_ spoken plainly, she would no more have believed your denial

then than she believes it now. What answer can you make to that? There

is no answer to be made to it. Come, come, Mr. Franklin! my view of the

case has been proved to be all wrong, I admit—but, as things are now,

my advice may be worth having for all that. I tell you plainly, we

shall be wasting our time, and cudgelling our brains to no purpose, if

we attempt to try back, and unravel this frightful complication from

the beginning. Let us close our minds resolutely to all that happened

last year at Lady Verinder’s country house; and let us look to what we

_can_ discover in the future, instead of to what we can _not_ discover

in the past.”

“Surely you forget,” I said, “that the whole thing is essentially a

matter of the past—so far as I am concerned?”

“Answer me this,” retorted Mr. Bruff. “Is the Moonstone at the bottom

of all the mischief—or is it not?”

“It is—of course.”

“Very good. What do we believe was done with the Moonstone, when it was

taken to London?”

“It was pledged to Mr. Luker.”

“We know that you are not the person who pledged it. Do we know who

did?”

“No.”

“Where do we believe the Moonstone to be now?”

“Deposited in the keeping of Mr. Luker’s bankers.”

“Exactly. Now observe. We are already in the month of June. Towards the

end of the month (I can’t be particular to a day) a year will have

elapsed from the time when we believe the jewel to have been pledged.

There is a chance—to say the least—that the person who pawned it, may

be prepared to redeem it when the year’s time has expired. If he

redeems it, Mr. Luker must himself—according to the terms of his own

arrangement—take the Diamond out of his banker’s hands. Under these

circumstances, I propose setting a watch at the bank, as the present

month draws to an end, and discovering who the person is to whom Mr.

Luker restores the Moonstone. Do you see it now?”

I admitted (a little unwillingly) that the idea was a new one, at any

rate.

“It’s Mr. Murthwaite’s idea quite as much as mine,” said Mr. Bruff. “It

might have never entered my head, but for a conversation we had

together some time since. If Mr. Murthwaite is right, the Indians are

likely to be on the lookout at the bank, towards the end of the month

too—and something serious may come of it. What comes of it doesn’t

matter to you and me except as it may help us to lay our hands on the

mysterious Somebody who pawned the Diamond. That person, you may rely

on it, is responsible (I don’t pretend to know how) for the position in

which you stand at this moment; and that person alone can set you right

in Rachel’s estimation.”

“I can’t deny,” I said, “that the plan you propose meets the difficulty

in a way that is very daring, and very ingenious, and very new. But——”

“But you have an objection to make?”

“Yes. My objection is, that your proposal obliges us to wait.”

“Granted. As I reckon the time, it requires you to wait about a

fortnight—more or less. Is that so very long?”

“It’s a life-time, Mr. Bruff, in such a situation as mine. My existence

will be simply unendurable to me, unless I do something towards

clearing my character at once.”

“Well, well, I understand that. Have you thought yet of what you can

do?”

“I have thought of consulting Sergeant Cuff.”

“He has retired from the police. It’s useless to expect the Sergeant to

help you.”

“I know where to find him; and I can but try.”

“Try,” said Mr. Bruff, after a moment’s consideration. “The case has

assumed such an extraordinary aspect since Sergeant Cuff’s time, that

you _may_ revive his interest in the inquiry. Try, and let me hear the

result. In the meanwhile,” he continued, rising, “if you make no

discoveries between this, and the end of the month, am I free to try,

on my side, what can be done by keeping a lookout at the bank?”

“Certainly,” I answered—“unless I relieve you of all necessity for

trying the experiment in the interval.”

Mr. Bruff smiled, and took up his hat.

“Tell Sergeant Cuff,” he rejoined, “that _I_ say the discovery of the

truth depends on the discovery of the person who pawned the Diamond.

And let me hear what the Sergeant’s experience says to that.”

So we parted.

Early the next morning, I set forth for the little town of Dorking—the

place of Sergeant Cuff’s retirement, as indicated to me by Betteredge.

Inquiring at the hotel, I received the necessary directions for finding

the Sergeant’s cottage. It was approached by a quiet by-road, a little

way out of the town, and it stood snugly in the middle of its own plot

of garden ground, protected by a good brick wall at the back and the

sides, and by a high quickset hedge in front. The gate, ornamented at

the upper part by smartly-painted trellis-work, was locked. After

ringing at the bell, I peered through the trellis-work, and saw the

great Cuff’s favourite flower everywhere; blooming in his garden,

clustering over his door, looking in at his windows. Far from the

crimes and the mysteries of the great city, the illustrious thief-taker

was placidly living out the last Sybarite years of his life, smothered

in roses!

A decent elderly woman opened the gate to me, and at once annihilated

all the hopes I had built on securing the assistance of Sergeant Cuff.

He had started, only the day before, on a journey to Ireland.

“Has he gone there on business?” I asked.

The woman smiled. “He has only one business now, sir,” she said; “and

that’s roses. Some great man’s gardener in Ireland has found out

something new in the growing of roses—and Mr. Cuff’s away to inquire

into it.”

“Do you know when he will be back?”

“It’s quite uncertain, sir. Mr. Cuff said he should come back directly,

or be away some time, just according as he found the new discovery

worth nothing, or worth looking into. If you have any message to leave

for him, I’ll take care, sir, that he gets it.”

I gave her my card, having first written on it in pencil: “I have

something to say about the Moonstone. Let me hear from you as soon as

you get back.” That done, there was nothing left but to submit to

circumstances, and return to London.

In the irritable condition of my mind, at the time of which I am now

writing, the abortive result of my journey to the Sergeant’s cottage

simply aggravated the restless impulse in me to be doing something. On

the day of my return from Dorking, I determined that the next morning

should find me bent on a new effort at forcing my way, through all

obstacles, from the darkness to the light.

What form was my next experiment to take?

If the excellent Betteredge had been present while I was considering

that question, and if he had been let into the secret of my thoughts,

he would, no doubt, have declared that the German side of me was, on

this occasion, my uppermost side. To speak seriously, it is perhaps

possible that my German training was in some degree responsible for the

labyrinth of useless speculations in which I now involved myself. For

the greater part of the night, I sat smoking, and building up theories,

one more profoundly improbable than another. When I did get to sleep,

my waking fancies pursued me in dreams. I rose the next morning, with

Objective-Subjective and Subjective-Objective inextricably entangled

together in my mind; and I began the day which was to witness my next

effort at practical action of some kind, by doubting whether I had any

sort of right (on purely philosophical grounds) to consider any sort of

thing (the Diamond included) as existing at all.

How long I might have remained lost in the mist of my own metaphysics,

if I had been left to extricate myself, it is impossible for me to say.

As the event proved, accident came to my rescue, and happily delivered

me. I happened to wear, that morning, the same coat which I had worn on

the day of my interview with Rachel. Searching for something else in

one of the pockets, I came upon a crumpled piece of paper, and, taking

it out, found Betteredge’s forgotten letter in my hand.

It seemed hard on my good old friend to leave him without a reply. I

went to my writing-table, and read his letter again.

A letter which has nothing of the slightest importance in it, is not

always an easy letter to answer. Betteredge’s present effort at

corresponding with me came within this category. Mr. Candy’s assistant,

otherwise Ezra Jennings, had told his master that he had seen me; and

Mr. Candy, in his turn, wanted to see me and say something to me, when

I was next in the neighbourhood of Frizinghall. What was to be said in

answer to that, which would be worth the paper it was written on? I sat

idly drawing likenesses from memory of Mr. Candy’s remarkable-looking

assistant, on the sheet of paper which I had vowed to dedicate to

Betteredge—until it suddenly occurred to me that here was the

irrepressible Ezra Jennings getting in my way again! I threw a dozen

portraits, at least, of the man with the piebald hair (the hair in

every case, remarkably like), into the waste-paper basket—and then and

there, wrote my answer to Betteredge. It was a perfectly commonplace

letter—but it had one excellent effect on me. The effort of writing a

few sentences, in plain English, completely cleared my mind of the

cloudy nonsense which had filled it since the previous day.

Devoting myself once more to the elucidation of the impenetrable puzzle

which my own position presented to me, I now tried to meet the

difficulty by investigating it from a plainly practical point of view.

The events of the memorable night being still unintelligible to me, I

looked a little farther back, and searched my memory of the earlier

hours of the birthday for any incident which might prove of some

assistance to me in finding the clue.

Had anything happened while Rachel and I were finishing the painted

door? or, later, when I rode over to Frizinghall? or afterwards, when I

went back with Godfrey Ablewhite and his sisters? or, later again, when

I put the Moonstone into Rachel’s hands? or, later still, when the

company came, and we all assembled round the dinner-table? My memory

disposed of that string of questions readily enough, until I came to

the last. Looking back at the social event of the birthday dinner, I

found myself brought to a standstill at the outset of the inquiry. I

was not even capable of accurately remembering the number of the guests

who had sat at the same table with me.

To feel myself completely at fault here, and to conclude, thereupon,

that the incidents of the dinner might especially repay the trouble of

investigating them, formed parts of the same mental process, in my

case. I believe other people, in a similar situation, would have

reasoned as I did. When the pursuit of our own interests causes us to

become objects of inquiry to ourselves, we are naturally suspicious of

what we don’t know. Once in possession of the names of the persons who

had been present at the dinner, I resolved—as a means of enriching the

deficient resources of my own memory—to appeal to the memory of the

rest of the guests; to write down all that they could recollect of the

social events of the birthday; and to test the result, thus obtained,

by the light of what had happened afterwards, when the company had left

the house.

This last and newest of my many contemplated experiments in the art of

inquiry—which Betteredge would probably have attributed to the

clear-headed, or French, side of me being uppermost for the moment—may

fairly claim record here, on its own merits. Unlikely as it may seem, I

had now actually groped my way to the root of the matter at last. All I

wanted was a hint to guide me in the right direction at starting.

Before another day had passed over my head, that hint was given me by

one of the company who had been present at the birthday feast!

With the plan of proceeding which I now had in view, it was first

necessary to possess the complete list of the guests. This I could

easily obtain from Gabriel Betteredge. I determined to go back to

Yorkshire on that day, and to begin my contemplated investigation the

next morning.

It was just too late to start by the train which left London before

noon. There was no alternative but to wait, nearly three hours, for the

departure of the next train. Was there anything I could do in London,

which might usefully occupy this interval of time?

My thoughts went back again obstinately to the birthday dinner.

Though I had forgotten the numbers, and, in many cases, the names of

the guests, I remembered readily enough that by far the larger

proportion of them came from Frizinghall, or from its neighbourhood.

But the larger proportion was not all. Some few of us were not regular

residents in the country. I myself was one of the few. Mr. Murthwaite

was another. Godfrey Ablewhite was a third. Mr. Bruff—no: I called to

mind that business had prevented Mr. Bruff from making one of the

party. Had any ladies been present, whose usual residence was in

London? I could only remember Miss Clack as coming within this latter

category. However, here were three of the guests, at any rate, whom it

was clearly advisable for me to see before I left town. I drove off at

once to Mr. Bruff’s office; not knowing the addresses of the persons of

whom I was in search, and thinking it probable that he might put me in

the way of finding them.

Mr. Bruff proved to be too busy to give me more than a minute of his

valuable time. In that minute, however, he contrived to dispose—in the

most discouraging manner—of all the questions I had to put to him.

In the first place, he considered my newly-discovered method of finding

a clue to the mystery as something too purely fanciful to be seriously

discussed. In the second, third, and fourth places, Mr. Murthwaite was

now on his way back to the scene of his past adventures; Miss Clack had

suffered losses, and had settled, from motives of economy, in France;

Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite might, or might not, be discoverable somewhere in

London. Suppose I inquired at his club? And suppose I excused Mr.

Bruff, if he went back to his business and wished me good morning?

The field of inquiry in London, being now so narrowed as only to

include the one necessity of discovering Godfrey’s address, I took the

lawyer’s hint, and drove to his club.

In the hall, I met with one of the members, who was an old friend of my

cousin’s, and who was also an acquaintance of my own. This gentleman,

after enlightening me on the subject of Godfrey’s address, told me of

two recent events in his life, which were of some importance in

themselves, and which had not previously reached my ears.

It appeared that Godfrey, far from being discouraged by Rachel’s

withdrawal from her engagement to him had made matrimonial advances

soon afterwards to another young lady, reputed to be a great heiress.

His suit had prospered, and his marriage had been considered as a

settled and certain thing. But, here again, the engagement had been

suddenly and unexpectedly broken off—owing, it was said, on this

occasion, to a serious difference of opinion between the bridegroom and

the lady’s father, on the question of settlements.

As some compensation for this second matrimonial disaster, Godfrey had

soon afterwards found himself the object of fond pecuniary remembrance,

on the part of one of his many admirers. A rich old lady—highly

respected at the Mothers’ Small-Clothes-Conversion-Society, and a great

friend of Miss Clack’s (to whom she left nothing but a mourning

ring)—had bequeathed to the admirable and meritorious Godfrey a legacy

of five thousand pounds. After receiving this handsome addition to his

own modest pecuniary resources, he had been heard to say that he felt

the necessity of getting a little respite from his charitable labours,

and that his doctor prescribed “a run on the Continent, as likely to be

productive of much future benefit to his health.” If I wanted to see

him, it would be advisable to lose no time in paying my contemplated

visit.

I went, then and there, to pay my visit.

The same fatality which had made me just one day too late in calling on

Sergeant Cuff, made me again one day too late in calling on Godfrey. He

had left London, on the previous morning, by the tidal train, for

Dover. He was to cross to Ostend; and his servant believed he was going

on to Brussels. The time of his return was rather uncertain; but I

might be sure he would be away at least three months.

I went back to my lodgings a little depressed in spirits. Three of the

guests at the birthday dinner—and those three all exceptionally

intelligent people—were out of my reach, at the very time when it was

most important to be able to communicate with them. My last hopes now

rested on Betteredge, and on the friends of the late Lady Verinder whom

I might still find living in the neighbourhood of Rachel’s country

house.

On this occasion, I travelled straight to Frizinghall—the town being

now the central point in my field of inquiry. I arrived too late in the

evening to be able to communicate with Betteredge. The next morning, I

sent a messenger with a letter, requesting him to join me at the hotel,

at his earliest convenience.

Having taken the precaution—partly to save time, partly to accommodate

Betteredge—of sending my messenger in a fly, I had a reasonable

prospect, if no delays occurred, of seeing the old man within less than

two hours from the time when I had sent for him. During this interval,

I arranged to employ myself in opening my contemplated inquiry, among

the guests present at the birthday dinner who were personally known to

me, and who were easily within my reach. These were my relatives, the

Ablewhites, and Mr. Candy. The doctor had expressed a special wish to

see me, and the doctor lived in the next street. So to Mr. Candy I went

first.

After what Betteredge had told me, I naturally anticipated finding

traces in the doctor’s face of the severe illness from which he had

suffered. But I was utterly unprepared for such a change as I saw in

him when he entered the room and shook hands with me. His eyes were

dim; his hair had turned completely grey; his face was wizen; his

figure had shrunk. I looked at the once lively, rattlepated, humorous

little doctor—associated in my remembrance with the perpetration of

incorrigible social indiscretions and innumerable boyish jokes—and I

saw nothing left of his former self, but the old tendency to vulgar

smartness in his dress. The man was a wreck; but his clothes and his

jewellery—in cruel mockery of the change in him—were as gay and as

gaudy as ever.

“I have often thought of you, Mr. Blake,” he said; “and I am heartily

glad to see you again at last. If there is anything I can do for you,

pray command my services, sir—pray command my services!”

He said those few commonplace words with needless hurry and eagerness,

and with a curiosity to know what had brought me to Yorkshire, which he

was perfectly—I might say childishly—incapable of concealing from

notice.

With the object that I had in view, I had of course foreseen the

necessity of entering into some sort of personal explanation, before I

could hope to interest people, mostly strangers to me, in doing their

best to assist my inquiry. On the journey to Frizinghall I had arranged

what my explanation was to be—and I seized the opportunity now offered

to me of trying the effect of it on Mr. Candy.

“I was in Yorkshire, the other day, and I am in Yorkshire again now, on

rather a romantic errand,” I said. “It is a matter, Mr. Candy, in which

the late Lady Verinder’s friends all took some interest. You remember

the mysterious loss of the Indian Diamond, now nearly a year since?

Circumstances have lately happened which lead to the hope that it may

yet be found—and I am interesting myself, as one of the family, in

recovering it. Among the obstacles in my way, there is the necessity of

collecting again all the evidence which was discovered at the time, and

more if possible. There are peculiarities in this case which make it

desirable to revive my recollection of everything that happened in the

house, on the evening of Miss Verinder’s birthday. And I venture to

appeal to her late mother’s friends who were present on that occasion,

to lend me the assistance of their memories——”

I had got as far as that in rehearsing my explanatory phrases, when I

was suddenly checked by seeing plainly in Mr. Candy’s face that my

experiment on him was a total failure.

The little doctor sat restlessly picking at the points of his fingers

all the time I was speaking. His dim watery eyes were fixed on my face

with an expression of vacant and wistful inquiry very painful to see.

What he was thinking of, it was impossible to divine. The one thing

clearly visible was that I had failed, after the first two or three

words, in fixing his attention. The only chance of recalling him to

himself appeared to lie in changing the subject. I tried a new topic

immediately.

“So much,” I said, gaily, “for what brings me to Frizinghall! Now, Mr.

Candy, it’s your turn. You sent me a message by Gabriel Betteredge——”

He left off picking at his fingers, and suddenly brightened up.

“Yes! yes! yes!” he exclaimed eagerly. “That’s it! I sent you a

message!”

“And Betteredge duly communicated it by letter,” I went on. “You had

something to say to me, the next time I was in your neighbourhood.

Well, Mr. Candy, here I am!”

“Here you are!” echoed the doctor. “And Betteredge was quite right. I

had something to say to you. That was my message. Betteredge is a

wonderful man. What a memory! At his age, what a memory!”

He dropped back into silence, and began picking at his fingers again.

Recollecting what I had heard from Betteredge about the effect of the

fever on his memory, I went on with the conversation, in the hope that

I might help him at starting.

“It’s a long time since we met,” I said. “We last saw each other at the

last birthday dinner my poor aunt was ever to give.”

“That’s it!” cried Mr. Candy. “The birthday dinner!” He started

impulsively to his feet, and looked at me. A deep flush suddenly

overspread his faded face, and he abruptly sat down again, as if

conscious of having betrayed a weakness which he would fain have

concealed. It was plain, pitiably plain, that he was aware of his own

defect of memory, and that he was bent on hiding it from the

observation of his friends.

Thus far he had appealed to my compassion only. But the words he had

just said—few as they were—roused my curiosity instantly to the highest

pitch. The birthday dinner had already become the one event in the

past, at which I looked back with strangely-mixed feelings of hope and

distrust. And here was the birthday dinner unmistakably proclaiming

itself as the subject on which Mr. Candy had something important to say

to me!

I attempted to help him out once more. But, this time, my own interests

were at the bottom of my compassionate motive, and they hurried me on a

little too abruptly, to the end I had in view.

“It’s nearly a year now,” I said, “since we sat at that pleasant table.

Have you made any memorandum—in your diary, or otherwise—of what you

wanted to say to me?”

Mr. Candy understood the suggestion, and showed me that he understood

it, as an insult.

“I require no memorandum, Mr. Blake,” he said, stiffly enough. “I am

not such a very old man, yet—and my memory (thank God) is to be

thoroughly depended on!”

It is needless to say that I declined to understand that he was

offended with me.

“I wish I could say the same of _my_ memory,” I answered. “When _I_ try

to think of matters that are a year old, I seldom find my remembrance

as vivid as I could wish it to be. Take the dinner at Lady Verinder’s,

for instance——”

Mr. Candy brightened up again, the moment the allusion passed my lips.

“Ah! the dinner, the dinner at Lady Verinder’s!” he exclaimed, more

eagerly than ever. “I have got something to say to you about that.”

His eyes looked at me again with the painful expression of inquiry, so

wistful, so vacant, so miserably helpless to see. He was evidently

trying hard, and trying in vain, to recover the lost recollection. “It

was a very pleasant dinner,” he burst out suddenly, with an air of

saying exactly what he wanted to say. “A very pleasant dinner, Mr.

Blake, wasn’t it?” He nodded and smiled, and appeared to think, poor

fellow, that he had succeeded in concealing the total failure of his

memory, by a well-timed exertion of his own presence of mind.

It was so distressing that I at once shifted the talk—deeply as I was

interested in his recovering the lost remembrance—to topics of local

interest.

Here, he got on glibly enough. Trumpery little scandals and quarrels in

the town, some of them as much as a month old, appeared to recur to his

memory readily. He chattered on, with something of the smooth gossiping

fluency of former times. But there were moments, even in the full flow

of his talkativeness, when he suddenly hesitated—looked at me for a

moment with the vacant inquiry once more in his eyes—controlled

himself—and went on again. I submitted patiently to my martyrdom (it is

surely nothing less than martyrdom to a man of cosmopolitan sympathies,

to absorb in silent resignation the news of a country town?) until the

clock on the chimney-piece told me that my visit had been prolonged

beyond half an hour. Having now some right to consider the sacrifice as

complete, I rose to take leave. As we shook hands, Mr. Candy reverted

to the birthday festival of his own accord.

“I am so glad we have met again,” he said. “I had it on my mind—I

really had it on my mind, Mr. Blake, to speak to you. About the dinner

at Lady Verinder’s, you know? A pleasant dinner—really a pleasant

dinner now, wasn’t it?”

On repeating the phrase, he seemed to feel hardly as certain of having

prevented me from suspecting his lapse of memory, as he had felt on the

first occasion. The wistful look clouded his face again; and, after

apparently designing to accompany me to the street door, he suddenly

changed his mind, rang the bell for the servant, and remained in the

drawing-room.

I went slowly down the doctor’s stairs, feeling the disheartening

conviction that he really had something to say which it was vitally

important to me to hear, and that he was morally incapable of saying

it. The effort of remembering that he wanted to speak to me was, but

too evidently, the only effort that his enfeebled memory was now able

to achieve.

Just as I reached the bottom of the stairs, and had turned a corner on

my way to the outer hall, a door opened softly somewhere on the ground

floor of the house, and a gentle voice said behind me:—

“I am afraid, sir, you find Mr. Candy sadly changed?”

I turned round, and found myself face to face with Ezra Jennings.