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After astonishing us by announcing this totally new turn in the matter of the Moonstone, our young gentleman, at his aunt’s request, took a seat, and explained himself.
It appeared that the resolute side of him had held out as far as Frizinghall. He had put the whole case plainly before the magistrate, and the magistrate had at once sent for the police. The first inquiries instituted about the Indians showed that they had not so much as attempted to leave the town. Further questions addressed to the police, proved that all three had been seen returning to Frizinghall with their boy, on the previous night between ten and eleven – which (regard being had to hours and distances) also proved that they had walked straight back after performing on our terrace. Later still, at midnight, the police, having occasion to search the common lodging-house where they lived, had seen them all three again, and their little boy with them, as usual. Soon after midnight I myself had safely shut up the house. Plainer evidence than this, in favour of the Indians, there could not well be. The magistrate said there was not even a case of suspicion against them so far. But, as it was just possible, when the police came to investigate the matter, that discoveries affecting the jugglers might be made, he would contrive, by committing them as rogues and vagabonds, to keep them at our disposal, under lock and key, for a week. They had ignorantly done something (I forget what) in the town, which barely brought them within the operation of the law. Every human institution (justice included) will stretch a little, if you only pull it the right way. The worthy magistrate was an old friend of my lady’s, and the Indians were “committed” for a week, as soon as the court opened that morning.
Such was Mr. Franklin’s narrative of events at Frizinghall. The Indian clue to the mystery of the lost jewel was now, to all appearance, a clue that had broken in our hands. If the jugglers were innocent, who, in the name of wonder, had taken the Moonstone out of Miss Rachel’s drawer?
Ten minutes later, to our infinite relief; Superintendent Seegrave arrived at the house. He reported passing Mr. Franklin on the terrace, sitting in the sun (I suppose with the Italian side of him uppermost), and warning the police, as they went by, that the investigation was hopeless, before the investigation had begun.
For a family in our situation, the Superintendent of the Frizinghall police was the most comforting officer you could wish to see. Mr. Seegrave was tall and portly, and military in his manners. He had a fine commanding voice, and a mighty resolute eye, and a grand frock-coat which buttoned beautifully up to his leather stock. “I’m the man you want!” was written all over his face; and he ordered his two inferior police men about with a severity which convinced us all that there was no trifling with him.
He began by going round the premises, outside and in; the result of that investigation proving to him that no thieves had broken in upon us from outside, and that the robbery, consequently, must have been committed by some person in the house. I leave you to imagine the state the servants were in when this official announcement first reached their ears. The Superintendent decided to begin by examining the boudoir, and, that done, to examine the servants next. At the same time, he posted one of his men on the staircase which led to the servants’ bedrooms, with instructions to let nobody in the house pass him, till further orders.
At this latter proceeding, the weaker half of the human family went distracted on the spot. They bounced out of their corners, whisked upstairs in a body to Miss Rachel’s room (Rosanna Spearman being carried away among them this time), burst in on Superintendent Seegrave, and, all looking equally guilty, summoned him to say which of them he suspected, at once.
Mr. Superintendent proved equal to the occasion; he looked at them with his resolute eye, and he cowed them with his military voice.
“Now, then, you women, go downstairs again, everyone of you; I won’t have you here. Look!” says Mr. Superintendent, suddenly pointing to a little smear of the decorative painting on Miss Rachel’s door, at the outer edge, just under the lock. “Look what mischief the petticoats of some of you have done already. Clear out! clear out!” Rosanna Spearman, who was nearest to him, and nearest to the little smear on the door, set the example of obedience, and slipped off instantly to her work. The rest followed her out. The Superintendent finished his examination of the room, and, making nothing of it, asked me who had first discovered the robbery. My daughter had first discovered it. My daughter was sent for.
Mr. Superintendent proved to be a little too sharp with Penelope at starting. “Now, young woman, attend to me, and mind you speak the truth.” Penelope fired up instantly. “I’ve never been taught to tell lies Mr. Policeman! – and if father can stand there and hear me accused of falsehood and thieving, and my own bedroom shut against me, and my character taken away, which is all a poor girl has left, he’s not the good father I take him for!” A timely word from me put Justice and Penelope on a pleasanter footing together. The questions and answers went swimmingly, and ended in nothing worth mentioning. My daughter had seen Miss Rachel put the Diamond in the drawer of the cabinet the last thing at night. She had gone in with Miss Rachel’s cup of tea at eight the next morning, and had found the drawer open and empty. Upon that, she had alarmed the house – and there was an end of Penelope’s evidence.
Mr. Superintendent next asked to see Miss Rachel herself. Penelope mentioned his request through the door. The answer reached us by the same road: “I have nothing to tell the policeman – I can’t see anybody.” Our experienced officer looked equally surprised and offended when he heard that reply. I told him my young lady was ill, and begged him to wait a little and see her later. We thereupon went downstairs again, and were met by Mr. Godfrey and Mr. Franklin crossing the hall.
The two gentlemen, being inmates of the house, were summoned to say if they could throw any light on the matter. Neither of them knew anything about it. Had they heard any suspicious noises during the previous night? They had heard nothing but the pattering of the rain. Had I, lying awake longer than either of them, heard nothing either? Nothing! Released from examination, Mr. Franklin, still sticking to the helpless view of our difficulty, whispered to me: “That man will be of no earthly use to us. Superintendent Seegrave is an ass.” Released in his turn, Mr. Godfrey whispered to me – “Evidently a most competent person. Betteredge, I have the greatest faith in him!” Many men, many opinions, as one of the ancients said, before my time.
Mr. Superintendent’s next proceeding took him back to the “boudoir” again, with my daughter and me at his heels. His object was to discover whether any of the furniture had been moved, during the night, out of its customary place – his previous investigation in the room having, apparently, not gone quite far enough to satisfy his mind on this point.
While we were still poking about among the chairs and tables, the door of the bedroom was suddenly opened. After having denied herself to everybody, Miss Rachel, to our astonishment, walked into the midst of us of her own accord. She took up her garden hat from a chair, and then went straight to Penelope with this question: —
“Mr. Franklin Blake sent you with a message to me this morning?”
“Yes, miss.”
“He wished to speak to me, didn’t he?”
“Yes, miss.”
“Where is he now?”
Hearing voices on the terrace below, I looked out of window, and saw the two gentlemen walking up and down together. Answering for my daughter, I said, “Mr. Franklin is on the terrace, miss.”
Without another word, without heeding Mr. Superintendent, who tried to speak to her, pale as death, and wrapped up strangely in her own thoughts, she left the room, and went down to her cousins on the terrace.
It showed a want of due respect, it showed a breach of good manners, on my part, but, for the life of me, I couldn’t help looking out of window when Miss Rachel met the gentlemen outside. She went up to Mr. Franklin without appearing to notice Mr. Godfrey, who thereupon drew back and left them by themselves. What she said to Mr. Franklin appeared to be spoken vehemently. It lasted but for a short time, and, judging by what I saw of his face from the window, seemed to astonish him beyond all power of expression. While they were still together, my lady appeared on the terrace. Miss Rachel saw her – said a few last words to Mr. Franklin – and suddenly went back into the house again, before her mother came up with her. My lady surprised herself, and noticing Mr. Franklin’s surprise, spoke to him. Mr. Godfrey joined them, and spoke also. Mr. Franklin walked away a little between the two, telling them what had happened I suppose, for they both stopped short, after taking a few steps, like persons struck with amazement. I had just seen as much as this, when the door of the sitting-room was opened violently. Miss Rachel walked swiftly through to her bedroom, wild and angry, with fierce eyes and flaming cheeks. Mr. Superintendent once more attempted to question her. She turned round on him at her bedroom door. “I have not sent for you!” she cried out vehemently. “I don’t want you. My Diamond is lost. Neither you nor anybody else will ever find it!” With those words she went in, and locked the door in our faces. Penelope, standing nearest to it, heard her burst out crying the moment she was alone again.
In a rage, one moment; in tears, the next! What did it mean?
I told the Superintendent it meant that Miss Rachel’s temper was upset by the loss of her jewel. Being anxious for the honour of the family, it distressed me to see my young lady forget herself – even with a police-officer – and I made the best excuse I could, accordingly. In my own private mind I was more puzzled by Miss Rachel’s extraordinary language and conduct than words can tell. Taking what she had said at her bedroom door as a guide to guess by, I could only conclude that she was mortally offended by our sending for the police, and that Mr. Franklin’s astonishment on the terrace was caused by her having expressed herself to him (as the person chiefly instrumental in fetching the police) to that effect. If this guess was right, why – having lost her Diamond – should she object to the presence in the house of the very people whose business it was to recover it for her? And how, in Heaven’s name, could she know that the Moonstone would never be found again?
As things stood, at present, no answer to those questions was to be hoped for from anybody in the house. Mr. Franklin appeared to think it a point of honour to forbear repeating to a servant – even to so old a servant as I was – what Miss Rachel had said to him on the terrace. Mr. Godfrey, who, as a gentleman and a relative, had been probably admitted into Mr. Franklin’s confidence, respected that confidence as he was bound to do. My lady, who was also in the secret no doubt, and who alone had access to Miss Rachel, owned openly that she could make nothing of her. “You madden me when you talk of the Diamond!” All her mother’s influence failed to extract from her a word more than that.
Here we were, then, at a dead-lock about Miss Rachel – and at a dead-lock about the Moonstone. In the first case, my lady was powerless to help us. In the second (as you shall presently judge), Mr. Seegrave was fast approaching the condition of a superintendent at his wits’ end.
Having ferreted about all over the “boudoir,” without making any discoveries among the furniture, our experienced officer applied to me to know, whether the servants in general were or were not acquainted with the place in which the Diamond had been put for the night.
“I knew where it was put, sir,” I said, “to begin with. Samuel, the footman, knew also – for he was present in the hall, when they were talking about where the Diamond was to be kept that night. My daughter knew, as she has already told you. She or Samuel may have mentioned the thing to the other servants – or the other servants may have heard the talk for themselves, through the side-door of the hall, which might have been open to the back staircase. For all I can tell, everybody in the house may have known where the jewel was, last night.”
My answer presenting rather a wide field for Mr. Superintendent’s suspicions to range over, he tried to narrow it by asking about the servants’ characters next.
I thought directly of Rosanna Spearman. But it was neither my place nor my wish to direct suspicion against a poor girl, whose honesty had been above all doubt as long as I had known her. The matron at the Reformatory had reported her to my lady as a sincerely penitent and thoroughly trustworthy girl. It was the Superintendent’s business to discover reason for suspecting her first – and then, and not till then, it would be my duty to tell him how she came into my lady’s service. “All our people have excellent characters,” I said. “And all have deserved the trust their mistress has placed in them.” After that, there was but one thing left for Mr. Seegrave to do – namely, to set to work, and tackle the servants’ characters himself.
One after another, they were examined. One after another, they proved to have nothing to say – and said it (so far as the women were concerned) at great length, and with a very angry sense of the embargo laid on their bedrooms. The rest of them being sent back to their places downstairs, Penelope was then summoned, and examined separately a second time.
My daughter’s little outbreak of temper in the “boudoir,” and her readiness to think herself suspected, appeared to have produced an unfavourable impression on Superintendent Seegrave. It seemed also to dwell a little on his mind, that she had been the last person who saw the Diamond at night. When the second questioning was over, my girl came back to me in a frenzy. There was no doubt of it any longer – the police-officer had almost as good as told her she was the thief! I could scarcely believe him (taking Mr. Franklin’s view) to be quite such an ass as that. But, though he said nothing, the eye with which he looked at my daughter was not a very pleasant eye to see. I laughed it off with poor Penelope, as something too ridiculous to be treated seriously – which it certainly was. Secretly, I am afraid I was foolish enough to be angry too. It was a little trying – it was, indeed. My girl sat down in a corner, with her apron over her head, quite broken-hearted. Foolish of her, you will say. She might have waited till he openly accused her. Well, being a man of just an equal temper, I admit that. Still Mr. Superintendent might have remembered – never mind what he might have remembered. The devil take him!
The next and last step in the investigation brought matters, as they say, to a crisis. The officer had an interview (at which I was present) with my lady. After informing her that the Diamond must have been taken by somebody in the house, he requested permission for himself and his men to search the servants’ rooms and boxes on the spot. My good mistress, like the generous high-bred woman she was, refused to let us be treated like thieves. “I will never consent to make such a return as that,” she said, “for all I owe to the faithful servants who are employed in my house.”
Mr. Superintendent made his bow, with a look in my direction, which said plainly, “Why employ me, if you are to tie my hands in this way?” As head of the servants, I felt directly that we were bound, in justice to all parties, not to profit by our mistress’s generosity. “We gratefully thank your ladyship,” I said; “but we ask your permission to do what is right in this matter by giving up our keys. When Gabriel Betteredge sets the example,” says I, stopping Superintendent Seegrave at the door, “the rest of the servants will follow, I promise you. There are my keys, to begin with!” My lady took me by the hand, and thanked me with the tears in her eyes. Lord! what would I not have given, at that moment, for the privilege of knocking Superintendent Seegrave down!
As I had promised for them, the other servants followed my lead, sorely against the grain, of course, but all taking the view that I took. The women were a sight to see, while the police-officers were rummaging among their things. The cook looked as if she could grill Mr. Superintendent alive on a furnace, and the other women looked as if they could eat him when he was done.
The search over, and no Diamond or sign of a Diamond being found, of course, anywhere, Superintendent Seegrave retired to my little room to consider with himself what he was to do next. He and his men had now been hours in the house, and had not advanced us one inch towards a discovery of how the Moonstone had been taken, or of whom we were to suspect as the thief.
While the police-officer was still pondering in solitude, I was sent for to see Mr. Franklin in the library. To my unutterable astonishment, just as my hand was on the door, it was suddenly opened from the inside, and out walked Rosanna Spearman!
After the library had been swept and cleaned in the morning, neither first nor second housemaid had any business in that room at any later period of the day. I stopped Rosanna Spearman, and charged her with a breach of domestic discipline on the spot.
“What might you want in the library at this time of day?” I inquired.
“Mr. Franklin Blake dropped one of his rings upstairs,” says Rosanna; “and I have been into the library to give it to him.” The girl’s face was all in a flush as she made me that answer; and she walked away with a toss of her head and a look of self-importance which I was quite at a loss to account for. The proceedings in the house had doubtless upset all the women-servants more or less; but none of them had gone clean out of their natural characters, as Rosanna, to all appearance, had now gone out of hers.
I found Mr. Franklin writing at the library-table. He asked for a conveyance to the railway station the moment I entered the room. The first sound of his voice informed me that we now had the resolute side of him uppermost once more. The man made of cotton had disappeared; and the man made of iron sat before me again.
“Going to London, sir?” I asked.
“Going to telegraph to London,” says Mr. Franklin. “I have convinced my aunt that we must have a cleverer head than Superintendent Seegrave’s to help us; and I have got her permission to despatch a telegram to my father. He knows the Chief Commissioner of Police, and the Commissioner can lay his hand on the right man to solve the mystery of the Diamond. Talking of mysteries, by-the-bye,” says Mr. Franklin, dropping his voice, “I have another word to say to you before you go to the stables. Don’t breathe a word of it to anybody as yet; but either Rosanna Spearman’s head is not quite right, or I am afraid she knows more about the Moonstone than she ought to know.”
I can hardly tell whether I was more startled or distressed at hearing him say that. If I had been younger, I might have confessed as much to Mr. Franklin. But when you are old, you acquire one excellent habit. In cases where you don’t see your way clearly, you hold your tongue.
“She came in here with a ring I dropped in my bedroom,” Mr. Franklin went on. “When I had thanked her, of course I expected her to go. Instead of that, she stood opposite to me at the table, looking at me in the oddest manner – half frightened, and half familiar – I couldn’t make it out. ’This is a strange thing about the Diamond, sir,’ she said, in a curiously sudden, headlong way. I said, ’Yes, it was,’ and wondered what was coming next. Upon my honour, Betteredge, I think she must be wrong in the head! She said, ’They will never find the Diamond, sir, will they? No! nor the person who took it – I’ll answer for that.’ She actually nodded and smiled at me! Before I could ask her what she meant, we heard your step outside. I suppose she was afraid of your catching her here. At any rate, she changed colour, and left the room. What on earth does it mean?”
I could not bring myself to tell him the girl’s story, even then. It would have been almost as good as telling him that she was the thief. Besides, even if I had made a clean breast of it, and even supposing she was the thief, the reason why she should let out her secret to Mr. Franklin, of all the people in the world, would have been still as far to seek as ever.
“I can’t bear the idea of getting the poor girl into a scrape, merely because she has a flighty way with her, and talks very strangely,” Mr. Franklin went on. “And yet if she had said to the Superintendent what she said to me, fool as he is, I’m afraid – ” He stopped there, and left the rest unspoken.
“The best way, sir,” I said, “will be for me to say two words privately to my mistress about it at the first opportunity. My lady has a very friendly interest in Rosanna; and the girl may only have been forward and foolish, after all. When there’s a mess of any kind in a house, sir, the women-servants like to look at the gloomy side – it gives the poor wretches a kind of importance in their own eyes. If there’s anybody ill, trust the women for prophesying that the person will die. If it’s a jewel lost, trust them for prophesying that it will never be found again.”
This view (which I am bound to say, I thought a probable view myself, on reflection) seemed to relieve Mr. Franklin mightily: he folded up his telegram, and dismissed the subject. On my way to the stables, to order the pony-chaise, I looked in at the servants’ hall, where they were at dinner. Rosanna Spearman was not among them. On inquiry, I found that she had been suddenly taken ill, and had gone upstairs to her own room to lie down.
“Curious! She looked well enough when I saw her last,” I remarked.
Penelope followed me out. “Don’t talk in that way before the rest of them, father,” she said. “You only make them harder on Rosanna than ever. The poor thing is breaking her heart about Mr. Franklin Blake.”
Here was another view of the girl’s conduct. If it was possible for Penelope to be right, the explanation of Rosanna’s strange language and behaviour might have been all in this – that she didn’t care what she said, so long as she could surprise Mr. Franklin into speaking to her. Granting that to be the right reading of the riddle, it accounted, perhaps, for her flighty, self-conceited manner when she passed me in the hall. Though he had only said three words, still she had carried her point, and Mr. Franklin had spoken to her.
I saw the pony harnessed myself. In the infernal network of mysteries and uncertainties that now surrounded us, I declare it was a relief to observe how well the buckles and straps understood each other! When you had seen the pony backed into the shafts of the chaise, you had seen something there was no doubt about. And that, let me tell you, was becoming a treat of the rarest kind in our household.
Going round with the chaise to the front door, I found not only Mr. Franklin, but Mr. Godfrey and Superintendent Seegrave also waiting for me on the steps.
Mr. Superintendent’s reflections (after failing to find the Diamond in the servants’ rooms or boxes) had led him, it appeared, to an entirely new conclusion. Still sticking to his first text, namely, that somebody in the house had stolen the jewel, our experienced officer was now of the opinion that the thief (he was wise enough not to name poor Penelope, whatever he might privately think of her!) had been acting in concert with the Indians; and he accordingly proposed shifting his inquiries to the jugglers in the prison at Frizinghall. Hearing of this new move, Mr. Franklin had volunteered to take the Superintendent back to the town, from which he could telegraph to London as easily as from our station. Mr. Godfrey, still devoutly believing in Mr. Seegrave, and greatly interested in witnessing the examination of the Indians, had begged leave to accompany the officer to Frizinghall. One of the two inferior policemen was to be left at the house, in case anything happened. The other was to go back with the Superintendent to the town. So the four places in the pony-chaise were just filled.
Before he took the reins to drive off, Mr. Franklin walked me away a few steps out of hearing of the others.
“I will wait to telegraph to London,” he said, “till I see what comes of our examination of the Indians. My own conviction is, that this muddle-headed local police-officer is as much in the dark as ever, and is simply trying to gain time. The idea of any of the servants being in league with the Indians is a preposterous absurdity, in my opinion. Keep about the house, Betteredge, till I come back, and try what you can make of Rosanna Spearman. I don’t ask you to do anything degrading to your own self-respect, or anything cruel towards the girl. I only ask you to exercise your observation more carefully than usual. We will make as light of it as we can before my aunt – but this is a more important matter than you may suppose.”
“It is a matter of twenty thousand pounds, sir,” I said, thinking of the value of the Diamond.
“It’s a matter of quieting Rachel’s mind,” answered Mr. Franklin gravely. “I am very uneasy about her.”
He left me suddenly; as if he desired to cut short any further talk between us. I thought I understood why. Further talk might have let me into the secret of what Miss Rachel had said to him on the terrace.
So they drove away to Frizinghall. I was ready enough, in the girl’s own interest, to have a little talk with Rosanna in private. But the needful opportunity failed to present itself. She only came downstairs again at tea-time. When she did appear, she was flighty and excited, had what they call an hysterical attack, took a dose of sal-volatile by my lady’s order, and was sent back to her bed.
The day wore on to its end drearily and miserably enough, I can tell you. Miss Rachel still kept her room, declaring that she was too ill to come down to dinner that day. My lady was in such low spirits about her daughter, that I could not bring myself to make her additionally anxious, by reporting what Rosanna Spearman had said to Mr. Franklin. Penelope persisted in believing that she was to be forthwith tried, sentenced, and transported for theft. The other women took to their Bibles and hymn-books, and looked as sour as verjuice over their reading – a result, which I have observed, in my sphere of life, to follow generally on the performance of acts of piety at unaccustomed periods of the day. As for me, I hadn’t even heart enough to open my Robinson Crusoe. I went out into the yard, and, being hard up for a little cheerful society, set my chair by the kennels, and talked to the dogs.
Half an hour before dinner-time, the two gentlemen came back from Frizinghall, having arranged with Superintendent Seegrave that he was to return to us the next day. They had called on Mr. Murthwaite, the Indian traveller, at his present residence, near the town. At Mr. Franklin’s request, he had kindly given them the benefit of his knowledge of the language, in dealing with those two, out of the three Indians, who knew nothing of English. The examination, conducted carefully, and at great length, had ended in nothing; not the shadow of a reason being discovered for suspecting the jugglers of having tampered with any of our servants. On reaching that conclusion, Mr. Franklin had sent his telegraphic message to London, and there the matter now rested till tomorrow came.
So much for the history of the day that followed the birthday. Not a glimmer of light had broken in on us, so far. A day or two after, however, the darkness lifted a little. How, and with what result, you shall presently see.
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.”
