第 十八 章 · Chapter XVIII

Going down to the front door, I met the Sergeant on the steps.

It went against the grain with me, after what had passed between us, to

show him that I felt any sort of interest in his proceedings. In spite

of myself, however, I felt an interest that there was no resisting. My

sense of dignity sank from under me, and out came the words: “What news

from Frizinghall?”

“I have seen the Indians,” answered Sergeant Cuff. “And I have found

out what Rosanna bought privately in the town, on Thursday last. The

Indians will be set free on Wednesday in next week. There isn’t a doubt

on my mind, and there isn’t a doubt on Mr. Murthwaite’s mind, that they

came to this place to steal the Moonstone. Their calculations were all

thrown out, of course, by what happened in the house on Wednesday

night; and they have no more to do with the actual loss of the jewel

than you have. But I can tell you one thing, Mr. Betteredge—if _we_

don’t find the Moonstone, _they_ will. You have not heard the last of

the three jugglers yet.”

Mr. Franklin came back from his walk as the Sergeant said those

startling words. Governing his curiosity better than I had governed

mine, he passed us without a word, and went on into the house.

As for me, having already dropped my dignity, I determined to have the

whole benefit of the sacrifice. “So much for the Indians,” I said.

“What about Rosanna next?”

Sergeant Cuff shook his head.

“The mystery in that quarter is thicker than ever,” he said. “I have

traced her to a shop at Frizinghall, kept by a linen draper named

Maltby. She bought nothing whatever at any of the other drapers’ shops,

or at any milliners’ or tailors’ shops; and she bought nothing at

Maltby’s but a piece of long cloth. She was very particular in choosing

a certain quality. As to quantity, she bought enough to make a

nightgown.”

“Whose nightgown?” I asked.

“Her own, to be sure. Between twelve and three, on the Thursday

morning, she must have slipped down to your young lady’s room, to

settle the hiding of the Moonstone while all the rest of you were in

bed. In going back to her own room, her nightgown must have brushed the

wet paint on the door. She couldn’t wash out the stain; and she

couldn’t safely destroy the night-gown without first providing another

like it, to make the inventory of her linen complete.”

“What proves that it was Rosanna’s nightgown?” I objected.

“The material she bought for making the substitute dress,” answered the

Sergeant. “If it had been Miss Verinder’s nightgown, she would have had

to buy lace, and frilling, and Lord knows what besides; and she

wouldn’t have had time to make it in one night. Plain long cloth means

a plain servant’s nightgown. No, no, Mr. Betteredge—all that is clear

enough. The pinch of the question is—why, after having provided the

substitute dress, does she hide the smeared nightgown, instead of

destroying it? If the girl won’t speak out, there is only one way of

settling the difficulty. The hiding-place at the Shivering Sand must be

searched—and the true state of the case will be discovered there.”

“How are you to find the place?” I inquired.

“I am sorry to disappoint you,” said the Sergeant—“but that’s a secret

which I mean to keep to myself.”

(Not to irritate your curiosity, as he irritated mine, I may here

inform you that he had come back from Frizinghall provided with a

search-warrant. His experience in such matters told him that Rosanna

was in all probability carrying about her a memorandum of the

hiding-place, to guide her, in case she returned to it, under changed

circumstances and after a lapse of time. Possessed of this memorandum,

the Sergeant would be furnished with all that he could desire.)

“Now, Mr. Betteredge,” he went on, “suppose we drop speculation, and

get to business. I told Joyce to have an eye on Rosanna. Where is

Joyce?”

Joyce was the Frizinghall policeman, who had been left by

Superintendent Seegrave at Sergeant Cuff’s disposal. The clock struck

two, as he put the question; and, punctual to the moment, the carriage

came round to take Miss Rachel to her aunt’s.

“One thing at a time,” said the Sergeant, stopping me as I was about to

send in search of Joyce. “I must attend to Miss Verinder first.”

As the rain was still threatening, it was the close carriage that had

been appointed to take Miss Rachel to Frizinghall. Sergeant Cuff

beckoned Samuel to come down to him from the rumble behind.

“You will see a friend of mine waiting among the trees, on this side of

the lodge gate,” he said. “My friend, without stopping the carriage,

will get up into the rumble with you. You have nothing to do but to

hold your tongue, and shut your eyes. Otherwise, you will get into

trouble.”

With that advice, he sent the footman back to his place. What Samuel

thought I don’t know. It was plain, to my mind, that Miss Rachel was to

be privately kept in view from the time when she left our house—if she

did leave it. A watch set on my young lady! A spy behind her in the

rumble of her mother’s carriage! I could have cut my own tongue out for

having forgotten myself so far as to speak to Sergeant Cuff.

The first person to come out of the house was my lady. She stood aside,

on the top step, posting herself there to see what happened. Not a word

did she say, either to the Sergeant or to me. With her lips closed, and

her arms folded in the light garden cloak which she had wrapped round

her on coming into the air, there she stood, as still as a statue,

waiting for her daughter to appear.

In a minute more, Miss Rachel came downstairs—very nicely dressed in

some soft yellow stuff, that set off her dark complexion, and clipped

her tight (in the form of a jacket) round the waist. She had a smart

little straw hat on her head, with a white veil twisted round it. She

had primrose-coloured gloves that fitted her hands like a second skin.

Her beautiful black hair looked as smooth as satin under her hat. Her

little ears were like rosy shells—they had a pearl dangling from each

of them. She came swiftly out to us, as straight as a lily on its stem,

and as lithe and supple in every movement she made as a young cat.

Nothing that I could discover was altered in her pretty face, but her

eyes and her lips. Her eyes were brighter and fiercer than I liked to

see; and her lips had so completely lost their colour and their smile

that I hardly knew them again. She kissed her mother in a hasty and

sudden manner on the cheek. She said, “Try to forgive me, mamma”—and

then pulled down her veil over her face so vehemently that she tore it.

In another moment she had run down the steps, and had rushed into the

carriage as if it was a hiding-place.

Sergeant Cuff was just as quick on his side. He put Samuel back, and

stood before Miss Rachel, with the open carriage-door in his hand, at

the instant when she settled herself in her place.

“What do you want?” says Miss Rachel, from behind her veil.

“I want to say one word to you, miss,” answered the Sergeant, “before

you go. I can’t presume to stop your paying a visit to your aunt. I can

only venture to say that your leaving us, as things are now, puts an

obstacle in the way of my recovering your Diamond. Please to understand

that; and now decide for yourself whether you go or stay.”

Miss Rachel never even answered him. “Drive on, James!” she called out

to the coachman.

Without another word, the Sergeant shut the carriage-door. Just as he

closed it, Mr. Franklin came running down the steps. “Good-bye,

Rachel,” he said, holding out his hand.

“Drive on!” cried Miss Rachel, louder than ever, and taking no more

notice of Mr. Franklin than she had taken of Sergeant Cuff.

Mr. Franklin stepped back thunderstruck, as well he might be. The

coachman, not knowing what to do, looked towards my lady, still

standing immovable on the top step. My lady, with anger and sorrow and

shame all struggling together in her face, made him a sign to start the

horses, and then turned back hastily into the house. Mr. Franklin,

recovering the use of his speech, called after her, as the carriage

drove off, “Aunt! you were quite right. Accept my thanks for all your

kindness—and let me go.”

My lady turned as though to speak to him. Then, as if distrusting

herself, waved her hand kindly. “Let me see you, before you leave us,

Franklin,” she said, in a broken voice—and went on to her own room.

“Do me a last favour, Betteredge,” says Mr. Franklin, turning to me,

with the tears in his eyes. “Get me away to the train as soon as you

can!”

He too went his way into the house. For the moment, Miss Rachel had

completely unmanned him. Judge from that, how fond he must have been of

her!

Sergeant Cuff and I were left face to face, at the bottom of the steps.

The Sergeant stood with his face set towards a gap in the trees,

commanding a view of one of the windings of the drive which led from

the house. He had his hands in his pockets, and he was softly whistling

“The Last Rose of Summer” to himself.

“There’s a time for everything,” I said savagely enough. “This isn’t a

time for whistling.”

At that moment, the carriage appeared in the distance, through the gap,

on its way to the lodge-gate. There was another man, besides Samuel,

plainly visible in the rumble behind.

“All right!” said the Sergeant to himself. He turned round to me. “It’s

no time for whistling, Mr. Betteredge, as you say. It’s time to take

this business in hand, now, without sparing anybody. We’ll begin with

Rosanna Spearman. Where is Joyce?”

We both called for Joyce, and received no answer. I sent one of the

stable-boys to look for him.

“You heard what I said to Miss Verinder?” remarked the Sergeant, while

we were waiting. “And you saw how she received it? I tell her plainly

that her leaving us will be an obstacle in the way of my recovering her

Diamond—and she leaves, in the face of that statement! Your young lady

has got a travelling companion in her mother’s carriage, Mr.

Betteredge—and the name of it is, the Moonstone.”

I said nothing. I only held on like death to my belief in Miss Rachel.

The stable-boy came back, followed—very unwillingly, as it appeared to

me—by Joyce.

“Where is Rosanna Spearman?” asked Sergeant Cuff.

“I can’t account for it, sir,” Joyce began; “and I am very sorry. But

somehow or other——”

“Before I went to Frizinghall,” said the Sergeant, cutting him short,

“I told you to keep your eyes on Rosanna Spearman, without allowing her

to discover that she was being watched. Do you mean to tell me that you

have let her give you the slip?”

“I am afraid, sir,” says Joyce, beginning to tremble, “that I was

perhaps a little _too_ careful not to let her discover me. There are

such a many passages in the lower parts of this house——”

“How long is it since you missed her?”

“Nigh on an hour since, sir.”

“You can go back to your regular business at Frizinghall,” said the

Sergeant, speaking just as composedly as ever, in his usual quiet and

dreary way. “I don’t think your talents are at all in our line, Mr.

Joyce. Your present form of employment is a trifle beyond you. Good

morning.”

The man slunk off. I find it very difficult to describe how I was

affected by the discovery that Rosanna Spearman was missing. I seemed

to be in fifty different minds about it, all at the same time. In that

state, I stood staring at Sergeant Cuff—and my powers of language quite

failed me.

“No, Mr. Betteredge,” said the Sergeant, as if he had discovered the

uppermost thought in me, and was picking it out to be answered, before

all the rest. “Your young friend, Rosanna, won’t slip through my

fingers so easy as you think. As long as I know where Miss Verinder is,

I have the means at my disposal of tracing Miss Verinder’s accomplice.

I prevented them from communicating last night. Very good. They will

get together at Frizinghall, instead of getting together here. The

present inquiry must be simply shifted (rather sooner than I had

anticipated) from this house, to the house at which Miss Verinder is

visiting. In the meantime, I’m afraid I must trouble you to call the

servants together again.”

I went round with him to the servants’ hall. It is very disgraceful,

but it is not the less true, that I had another attack of the

detective-fever, when he said those last words. I forgot that I hated

Sergeant Cuff. I seized him confidentially by the arm. I said, “For

goodness’ sake, tell us what you are going to do with the servants

now?”

The great Cuff stood stock-still, and addressed himself in a kind of

melancholy rapture to the empty air.

“If this man,” said the Sergeant (apparently meaning me), “only

understood the growing of roses he would be the most completely perfect

character on the face of creation!” After that strong expression of

feeling, he sighed, and put his arm through mine. “This is how it

stands,” he said, dropping down again to business. “Rosanna has done

one of two things. She has either gone direct to Frizinghall (before I

can get there), or she has gone first to visit her hiding-place at the

Shivering Sand. The first thing to find out is, which of the servants

saw the last of her before she left the house.”

On instituting this inquiry, it turned out that the last person who had

set eyes on Rosanna was Nancy, the kitchenmaid.

Nancy had seen her slip out with a letter in her hand, and stop the

butcher’s man who had just been delivering some meat at the back door.

Nancy had heard her ask the man to post the letter when he got back to

Frizinghall. The man had looked at the address, and had said it was a

roundabout way of delivering a letter directed to Cobb’s Hole, to post

it at Frizinghall—and that, moreover, on a Saturday, which would

prevent the letter from getting to its destination until Monday

morning. Rosanna had answered that the delivery of the letter being

delayed till Monday was of no importance. The only thing she wished to

be sure of was that the man would do what she told him. The man had

promised to do it, and had driven away. Nancy had been called back to

her work in the kitchen. And no other person had seen anything

afterwards of Rosanna Spearman.

“Well?” I asked, when we were alone again.

“Well,” says the Sergeant. “I must go to Frizinghall.”

“About the letter, sir?”

“Yes. The memorandum of the hiding-place is in that letter. I must see

the address at the post-office. If it is the address I suspect, I shall

pay our friend, Mrs. Yolland, another visit on Monday next.”

I went with the Sergeant to order the pony-chaise. In the stable-yard

we got a new light thrown on the missing girl.