Chương Chương 12 · Chapter XII

The Thursday night passed, and nothing happened. With the Friday

morning came two pieces of news.

Item the first: the baker’s man declared he had met Rosanna Spearman,

on the previous afternoon, with a thick veil on, walking towards

Frizinghall by the foot-path way over the moor. It seemed strange that

anybody should be mistaken about Rosanna, whose shoulder marked her out

pretty plainly, poor thing—but mistaken the man must have been; for

Rosanna, as you know, had been all the Thursday afternoon ill upstairs

in her room.

Item the second came through the postman. Worthy Mr. Candy had said one

more of his many unlucky things, when he drove off in the rain on the

birthday night, and told me that a doctor’s skin was waterproof. In

spite of his skin, the wet had got through him. He had caught a chill

that night, and was now down with a fever. The last accounts, brought

by the postman, represented him to be light-headed—talking nonsense as

glibly, poor man, in his delirium as he often talked it in his sober

senses. We were all sorry for the little doctor; but Mr. Franklin

appeared to regret his illness, chiefly on Miss Rachel’s account. From

what he said to my lady, while I was in the room at breakfast-time, he

appeared to think that Miss Rachel—if the suspense about the Moonstone

was not soon set at rest—might stand in urgent need of the best medical

advice at our disposal.

Breakfast had not been over long, when a telegram from Mr. Blake, the

elder, arrived, in answer to his son. It informed us that he had laid

hands (by help of his friend, the Commissioner) on the right man to

help us. The name of him was Sergeant Cuff; and the arrival of him from

London might be expected by the morning train.

At reading the name of the new police-officer, Mr. Franklin gave a

start. It seems that he had heard some curious anecdotes about Sergeant

Cuff, from his father’s lawyer, during his stay in London.

“I begin to hope we are seeing the end of our anxieties already,” he

said. “If half the stories I have heard are true, when it comes to

unravelling a mystery, there isn’t the equal in England of Sergeant

Cuff!”

We all got excited and impatient as the time drew near for the

appearance of this renowned and capable character. Superintendent

Seegrave, returning to us at his appointed time, and hearing that the

Sergeant was expected, instantly shut himself up in a room, with pen,

ink, and paper, to make notes of the Report which would be certainly

expected from him. I should have liked to have gone to the station

myself, to fetch the Sergeant. But my lady’s carriage and horses were

not to be thought of, even for the celebrated Cuff; and the pony-chaise

was required later for Mr. Godfrey. He deeply regretted being obliged

to leave his aunt at such an anxious time; and he kindly put off the

hour of his departure till as late as the last train, for the purpose

of hearing what the clever London police-officer thought of the case.

But on Friday night he must be in town, having a Ladies’ Charity, in

difficulties, waiting to consult him on Saturday morning.

When the time came for the Sergeant’s arrival, I went down to the gate

to look out for him.

A fly from the railway drove up as I reached the lodge; and out got a

grizzled, elderly man, so miserably lean that he looked as if he had

not got an ounce of flesh on his bones in any part of him. He was

dressed all in decent black, with a white cravat round his neck. His

face was as sharp as a hatchet, and the skin of it was as yellow and

dry and withered as an autumn leaf. His eyes, of a steely light grey,

had a very disconcerting trick, when they encountered your eyes, of

looking as if they expected something more from you than you were aware

of yourself. His walk was soft; his voice was melancholy; his long

lanky fingers were hooked like claws. He might have been a parson, or

an undertaker—or anything else you like, except what he really was. A

more complete opposite to Superintendent Seegrave than Sergeant Cuff,

and a less comforting officer to look at, for a family in distress, I

defy you to discover, search where you may.

“Is this Lady Verinder’s?” he asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“I am Sergeant Cuff.”

“This way, sir, if you please.”

On our road to the house, I mentioned my name and position in the

family, to satisfy him that he might speak to me about the business on

which my lady was to employ him. Not a word did he say about the

business, however, for all that. He admired the grounds, and remarked

that he felt the sea air very brisk and refreshing. I privately

wondered, on my side, how the celebrated Cuff had got his reputation.

We reached the house, in the temper of two strange dogs, coupled up

together for the first time in their lives by the same chain.

Asking for my lady, and hearing that she was in one of the

conservatories, we went round to the gardens at the back, and sent a

servant to seek her. While we were waiting, Sergeant Cuff looked

through the evergreen arch on our left, spied out our rosery, and

walked straight in, with the first appearance of anything like interest

that he had shown yet. To the gardener’s astonishment, and to my

disgust, this celebrated policeman proved to be quite a mine of

learning on the trumpery subject of rose-gardens.

“Ah, you’ve got the right exposure here to the south and sou’-west,”

says the Sergeant, with a wag of his grizzled head, and a streak of

pleasure in his melancholy voice. “This is the shape for a

rosery—nothing like a circle set in a square. Yes, yes; with walks

between all the beds. But they oughtn’t to be gravel walks like these.

Grass, Mr. Gardener—grass walks between your roses; gravel’s too hard

for them. That’s a sweet pretty bed of white roses and blush roses.

They always mix well together, don’t they? Here’s the white musk rose,

Mr. Betteredge—our old English rose holding up its head along with the

best and the newest of them. Pretty dear!” says the Sergeant, fondling

the Musk Rose with his lanky fingers, and speaking to it as if he was

speaking to a child.

This was a nice sort of man to recover Miss Rachel’s Diamond, and to

find out the thief who stole it!

“You seem to be fond of roses, Sergeant?” I remarked.

“I haven’t much time to be fond of anything,” says Sergeant Cuff. “But

when I _have_ a moment’s fondness to bestow, most times, Mr.

Betteredge, the roses get it. I began my life among them in my father’s

nursery garden, and I shall end my life among them, if I can. Yes. One

of these days (please God) I shall retire from catching thieves, and

try my hand at growing roses. There will be grass walks, Mr. Gardener,

between my beds,” says the Sergeant, on whose mind the gravel paths of

our rosery seemed to dwell unpleasantly.

“It seems an odd taste, sir,” I ventured to say, “for a man in your

line of life.”

“If you will look about you (which most people won’t do),” says

Sergeant Cuff, “you will see that the nature of a man’s tastes is, most

times, as opposite as possible to the nature of a man’s business. Show

me any two things more opposite one from the other than a rose and a

thief; and I’ll correct my tastes accordingly—if it isn’t too late at

my time of life. You find the damask rose a goodish stock for most of

the tender sorts, don’t you, Mr. Gardener? Ah! I thought so. Here’s a

lady coming. Is it Lady Verinder?”

He had seen her before either I or the gardener had seen her, though we

knew which way to look, and he didn’t. I began to think him rather a

quicker man than he appeared to be at first sight.

The Sergeant’s appearance, or the Sergeant’s errand—one or both—seemed

to cause my lady some little embarrassment. She was, for the first time

in all my experience of her, at a loss what to say at an interview with

a stranger. Sergeant Cuff put her at her ease directly. He asked if any

other person had been employed about the robbery before we sent for

him; and hearing that another person had been called in, and was now in

the house, begged leave to speak to him before anything else was done.

My lady led the way back. Before he followed her, the Sergeant relieved

his mind on the subject of the gravel walks by a parting word to the

gardener. “Get her ladyship to try grass,” he said, with a sour look at

the paths. “No gravel! no gravel!”

Why Superintendent Seegrave should have appeared to be several sizes

smaller than life, on being presented to Sergeant Cuff, I can’t

undertake to explain. I can only state the fact. They retired together;

and remained a weary long time shut up from all mortal intrusion. When

they came out, Mr. Superintendent was excited, and Mr. Sergeant was

yawning.

“The Sergeant wishes to see Miss Verinder’s sitting-room,” says Mr.

Seegrave, addressing me with great pomp and eagerness. “The Sergeant

may have some questions to ask. Attend the Sergeant, if you please!”

While I was being ordered about in this way, I looked at the great

Cuff. The great Cuff, on his side, looked at Superintendent Seegrave in

that quietly expecting way which I have already noticed. I can’t affirm

that he was on the watch for his brother officer’s speedy appearance in

the character of an Ass—I can only say that I strongly suspected it.

I led the way upstairs. The Sergeant went softly all over the Indian

cabinet and all round the “boudoir;” asking questions (occasionally

only of Mr. Superintendent, and continually of me), the drift of which

I believe to have been equally unintelligible to both of us. In due

time, his course brought him to the door, and put him face to face with

the decorative painting that you know of. He laid one lean inquiring

finger on the small smear, just under the lock, which Superintendent

Seegrave had already noticed, when he reproved the women-servants for

all crowding together into the room.

“That’s a pity,” says Sergeant Cuff. “How did it happen?”

He put the question to me. I answered that the women-servants had

crowded into the room on the previous morning, and that some of their

petticoats had done the mischief, “Superintendent Seegrave ordered them

out, sir,” I added, “before they did any more harm.”

“Right!” says Mr. Superintendent in his military way. “I ordered them

out. The petticoats did it, Sergeant—the petticoats did it.”

“Did you notice which petticoat did it?” asked Sergeant Cuff, still

addressing himself, not to his brother-officer, but to me.

“No, sir.”

He turned to Superintendent Seegrave upon that, and said, “_You_

noticed, I suppose?”

Mr. Superintendent looked a little taken aback; but he made the best of

it. “I can’t charge my memory, Sergeant,” he said, “a mere trifle—a

mere trifle.”

Sergeant Cuff looked at Mr. Seegrave, as he had looked at the gravel

walks in the rosery, and gave us, in his melancholy way, the first

taste of his quality which we had had yet.

“I made a private inquiry last week, Mr. Superintendent,” he said. “At

one end of the inquiry there was a murder, and at the other end there

was a spot of ink on a table cloth that nobody could account for. In

all my experience along the dirtiest ways of this dirty little world, I

have never met with such a thing as a trifle yet. Before we go a step

further in this business we must see the petticoat that made the smear,

and we must know for certain when that paint was wet.”

Mr. Superintendent—taking his set-down rather sulkily—asked if he

should summon the women. Sergeant Cuff, after considering a minute,

sighed, and shook his head.

“No,” he said, “we’ll take the matter of the paint first. It’s a

question of Yes or No with the paint—which is short. It’s a question of

petticoats with the women—which is long. What o’clock was it when the

servants were in this room yesterday morning? Eleven o’clock—eh? Is

there anybody in the house who knows whether that paint was wet or dry,

at eleven yesterday morning?”

“Her ladyship’s nephew, Mr. Franklin Blake, knows,” I said.

“Is the gentleman in the house?”

Mr. Franklin was as close at hand as could be—waiting for his first

chance of being introduced to the great Cuff. In half a minute he was

in the room, and was giving his evidence as follows:

“That door, Sergeant,” he said, “has been painted by Miss Verinder,

under my inspection, with my help, and in a vehicle of my own

composition. The vehicle dries whatever colours may be used with it, in

twelve hours.”

“Do you remember when the smeared bit was done, sir?” asked the

Sergeant.

“Perfectly,” answered Mr. Franklin. “That was the last morsel of the

door to be finished. We wanted to get it done, on Wednesday last—and I

myself completed it by three in the afternoon, or soon after.”

“Today is Friday,” said Sergeant Cuff, addressing himself to

Superintendent Seegrave. “Let us reckon back, sir. At three on the

Wednesday afternoon, that bit of the painting was completed. The

vehicle dried it in twelve hours—that is to say, dried it by three

o’clock on Thursday morning. At eleven on Thursday morning you held

your inquiry here. Take three from eleven, and eight remains. That

paint had been _eight hours dry_, Mr. Superintendent, when you supposed

that the women-servants’ petticoats smeared it.”

First knock-down blow for Mr. Seegrave! If he had not suspected poor

Penelope, I should have pitied him.

Having settled the question of the paint, Sergeant Cuff, from that

moment, gave his brother-officer up as a bad job—and addressed himself

to Mr. Franklin, as the more promising assistant of the two.

“It’s quite on the cards, sir,” he said, “that you have put the clue

into our hands.”

As the words passed his lips, the bedroom door opened, and Miss Rachel

came out among us suddenly.

She addressed herself to the Sergeant, without appearing to notice (or

to heed) that he was a perfect stranger to her.

“Did you say,” she asked, pointing to Mr. Franklin, “that _he_ had put

the clue into your hands?”

(“This is Miss Verinder,” I whispered, behind the Sergeant.)

“That gentleman, miss,” says the Sergeant—with his steely-grey eyes

carefully studying my young lady’s face—“has possibly put the clue into

our hands.”

She turned for one moment, and tried to look at Mr. Franklin. I say,

tried, for she suddenly looked away again before their eyes met. There

seemed to be some strange disturbance in her mind. She coloured up, and

then she turned pale again. With the paleness, there came a new look

into her face—a look which it startled me to see.

“Having answered your question, miss,” says the Sergeant, “I beg leave

to make an inquiry in my turn. There is a smear on the painting of your

door, here. Do you happen to know when it was done? or who did it?”

Instead of making any reply, Miss Rachel went on with her questions, as

if he had not spoken, or as if she had not heard him.

“Are you another police-officer?” she asked.

“I am Sergeant Cuff, miss, of the Detective Police.”

“Do you think a young lady’s advice worth having?”

“I shall be glad to hear it, miss.”

“Do your duty by yourself—and don’t allow Mr. Franklin Blake to help

you!”

She said those words so spitefully, so savagely, with such an

extraordinary outbreak of ill-will towards Mr. Franklin, in her voice

and in her look, that—though I had known her from a baby, though I

loved and honoured her next to my lady herself—I was ashamed of Miss

Rachel for the first time in my life.

Sergeant Cuff’s immovable eyes never stirred from off her face. “Thank

you, miss,” he said. “Do you happen to know anything about the smear?

Might you have done it by accident yourself?”

“I know nothing about the smear.”

With that answer, she turned away, and shut herself up again in her

bedroom. This time, I heard her—as Penelope had heard her before—burst

out crying as soon as she was alone again.

I couldn’t bring myself to look at the Sergeant—I looked at Mr.

Franklin, who stood nearest to me. He seemed to be even more sorely

distressed at what had passed than I was.

“I told you I was uneasy about her,” he said. “And now you see why.”

“Miss Verinder appears to be a little out of temper about the loss of

her Diamond,” remarked the Sergeant. “It’s a valuable jewel. Natural

enough! natural enough!”

Here was the excuse that I had made for her (when she forgot herself

before Superintendent Seegrave, on the previous day) being made for her

over again, by a man who couldn’t have had _my_ interest in making

it—for he was a perfect stranger! A kind of cold shudder ran through

me, which I couldn’t account for at the time. I know, now, that I must

have got my first suspicion, at that moment, of a new light (and horrid

light) having suddenly fallen on the case, in the mind of Sergeant

Cuff—purely and entirely in consequence of what he had seen in Miss

Rachel, and heard from Miss Rachel, at that first interview between

them.

“A young lady’s tongue is a privileged member, sir,” says the Sergeant

to Mr. Franklin. “Let us forget what has passed, and go straight on

with this business. Thanks to you, we know when the paint was dry. The

next thing to discover is when the paint was last seen without that

smear. _You_ have got a head on your shoulders—and you understand what

I mean.”

Mr. Franklin composed himself, and came back with an effort from Miss

Rachel to the matter in hand.

“I think I do understand,” he said. “The more we narrow the question of

time, the more we also narrow the field of inquiry.”

“That’s it, sir,” said the Sergeant. “Did you notice your work here, on

the Wednesday afternoon, after you had done it?”

Mr. Franklin shook his head, and answered, “I can’t say I did.”

“Did _you?_” inquired Sergeant Cuff, turning to me.

“I can’t say I did either, sir.”

“Who was the last person in the room, the last thing on Wednesday

night?”

“Miss Rachel, I suppose, sir.”

Mr. Franklin struck in there, “Or possibly your daughter, Betteredge.”

He turned to Sergeant Cuff, and explained that my daughter was Miss

Verinder’s maid.

“Mr. Betteredge, ask your daughter to step up. Stop!” says the

Sergeant, taking me away to the window, out of earshot. “Your

Superintendent here,” he went on, in a whisper, “has made a pretty full

report to me of the manner in which he has managed this case. Among

other things, he has, by his own confession, set the servants’ backs

up. It’s very important to smooth them down again. Tell your daughter,

and tell the rest of them, these two things, with my compliments:

First, that I have no evidence before me, yet, that the Diamond has

been stolen; I only know that the Diamond has been lost. Second, that

_my_ business here with the servants is simply to ask them to lay their

heads together and help me to find it.”

My experience of the women-servants, when Superintendent Seegrave laid

his embargo on their rooms, came in handy here.

“May I make so bold, Sergeant, as to tell the women a third thing?” I

asked. “Are they free (with your compliments) to fidget up and

downstairs, and whisk in and out of their bedrooms, if the fit takes

them?”

“Perfectly free,” said the Sergeant.

“_That_ will smooth them down, sir,” I remarked, “from the cook to the

scullion.”

“Go, and do it at once, Mr. Betteredge.”

I did it in less than five minutes. There was only one difficulty when

I came to the bit about the bedrooms. It took a pretty stiff exertion

of my authority, as chief, to prevent the whole of the female household

from following me and Penelope upstairs, in the character of volunteer

witnesses in a burning fever of anxiety to help Sergeant Cuff.

The Sergeant seemed to approve of Penelope. He became a trifle less

dreary; and he looked much as he had looked when he noticed the white

musk rose in the flower-garden. Here is my daughter’s evidence, as

drawn off from her by the Sergeant. She gave it, I think, very

prettily—but, there! she is my child all over: nothing of her mother in

her; Lord bless you, nothing of her mother in her!

Penelope examined: Took a lively interest in the painting on the door,

having helped to mix the colours. Noticed the bit of work under the

lock, because it was the last bit done. Had seen it, some hours

afterwards, without a smear. Had left it, as late as twelve at night,

without a smear. Had, at that hour, wished her young lady good-night in

the bedroom; had heard the clock strike in the “boudoir”; had her hand

at the time on the handle of the painted door; knew the paint was wet

(having helped to mix the colours, as aforesaid); took particular pains

not to touch it; could swear that she held up the skirts of her dress,

and that there was no smear on the paint then; could _not_ swear that

her dress mightn’t have touched it accidentally in going out;

remembered the dress she had on, because it was new, a present from

Miss Rachel; her father remembered, and could speak to it, too; could,

and would, and did fetch it; dress recognised by her father as the

dress she wore that night; skirts examined, a long job from the size of

them; not the ghost of a paint-stain discovered anywhere. End of

Penelope’s evidence—and very pretty and convincing, too. Signed,

Gabriel Betteredge.

The Sergeant’s next proceeding was to question me about any large dogs

in the house who might have got into the room, and done the mischief

with a whisk of their tails. Hearing that this was impossible, he next

sent for a magnifying-glass, and tried how the smear looked, seen that

way. No skin-mark (as of a human hand) printed off on the paint. All

the signs visible—signs which told that the paint had been smeared by

some loose article of somebody’s dress touching it in going by. That

somebody (putting together Penelope’s evidence and Mr. Franklin’s

evidence) must have been in the room, and done the mischief, between

midnight and three o’clock on the Thursday morning.

Having brought his investigation to this point, Sergeant Cuff

discovered that such a person as Superintendent Seegrave was still left

in the room, upon which he summed up the proceedings for his

brother-officer’s benefit, as follows:

“This trifle of yours, Mr. Superintendent,” says the Sergeant, pointing

to the place on the door, “has grown a little in importance since you

noticed it last. At the present stage of the inquiry there are, as I

take it, three discoveries to make, starting from that smear. Find out

(first) whether there is any article of dress in this house with the

smear of the paint on it. Find out (second) who that dress belongs to.

Find out (third) how the person can account for having been in this

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 has got the Diamond. I’ll work this by myself, if you please, and

detain you no longer from your regular business in the town. You have

got one of your men here, I see. Leave him here at my disposal, in case

I want him—and allow me to wish you good morning.”

Superintendent Seegrave’s respect for the Sergeant was great; but his

respect for himself was greater still. Hit hard by the celebrated Cuff,

he hit back smartly, to the best of his ability, on leaving the room.

“I have abstained from expressing any opinion, so far,” says Mr.

Superintendent, with his military voice still in good working order. “I

have now only one remark to offer on leaving this case in your hands.

There _is_ such a thing, Sergeant, as making a mountain out of a

molehill. Good morning.”

“There is also such a thing as making nothing out of a molehill, in

consequence of your head being too high to see it.” Having returned his

brother-officer’s compliments in those terms, Sergeant Cuff wheeled

about, and walked away to the window by himself.

Mr. Franklin and I waited to see what was coming next. The Sergeant

stood at the window with his hands in his pockets, looking out, and

whistling the tune of “The Last Rose of Summer” softly to himself.

Later in the proceedings, I discovered that he only forgot his manners

so far as to whistle, when his mind was hard at work, seeing its way

inch by inch to its own private ends, on which occasions “The Last Rose

of Summer” evidently helped and encouraged him. I suppose it fitted in

somehow with his character. It reminded him, you see, of his favourite

roses, and, as _he_ whistled it, it was the most melancholy tune going.

Turning from the window, after a minute or two, the Sergeant walked

into the middle of the room, and stopped there, deep in thought, with

his eyes on Miss Rachel’s bedroom door. After a little he roused

himself, nodded his head, as much as to say, “That will do,” and,

addressing me, asked for ten minutes’ conversation with my mistress, at

her ladyship’s earliest convenience.

Leaving the room with this message, I heard Mr. Franklin ask the

Sergeant a question, and stopped to hear the answer also at the

threshold of the door.

“Can you guess yet,” inquired Mr. Franklin, “who has stolen the

Diamond?”

“_Nobody has stolen the Diamond_,” answered Sergeant Cuff.

We both started at that extraordinary view of the case, and both

earnestly begged him to tell us what he meant.

“Wait a little,” said the Sergeant. “The pieces of the puzzle are not

all put together yet.”