The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

‘Any news of Miss Verinder’s keys?’ asked the Sergeant.

‘My young lady refuses to have her wardrobe examined.’

‘Ah!’ said the Sergeant.

His voice was not quite in such a perfect state of discipline as his face. When he said ‘Ah!’ he said it in the tone of a man who had heard something which he expected to hear. He half angered and half frightened me—why I couldn’t tell, but he did it.

‘Must the search be given up?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ said the Sergeant, ‘the search must be given up, because your young lady refuses to submit to it like the rest. We must examine all the wardrobes in the house or none. Send Mr. Ablewhite’s portmanteau to London by the next train, and return the washing-book, with my compliments and thanks, to the young woman who brought it in.’

He laid the washing-book on the table, and, taking out his penknife, began to trim his nails.

‘You don’t seem to be much disappointed,’ I said.

‘No,’ said Sergeant Cuff; ‘I am not much disappointed.’

I tried to make him explain himself.

‘Why should Miss Rachel put an obstacle in your way?’ I inquired. ‘Isn’t it her interest to help you?’

‘Wait a little, Mr. Betteredge—wait a little.’

Cleverer heads than mine might have seen his drift. Or a person less fond of Miss Rachel than I was, might have seen his drift. My lady’s horror of him might (as I have since thought) have meant that she saw his drift (as the scripture says) ‘in a glass darkly.’ I didn’t see it yet—that’s all I know.

‘What’s to be done next?’ I asked.

Sergeant Cuff finished the nail on which he was then at work, looked at it for a moment with a melancholy interest, and put up his penknife.

‘Come out into the garden,’ he said, ‘and let’s have a look at the roses.’

Chapter XIV

THE nearest way to the garden, on going out of my lady’s sitting-room, was by the shrubbery path, which you already know of. For the sake of your better understanding of what is now to come, I may add to this, that the shrubbery path was Mr. Franklin’s favourite walk. When he was out in the grounds, and when we failed to find him anywhere else, we generally found him here.

I am afraid I must own that I am rather an obstinate old man. The more firmly Sergeant Cuff kept his thoughts shut up from me, the more firmly I persisted in trying to look in at them. As we turned into the shrubbery path, I attempted to circumvent him in another way.

‘As things are now,’ I said, ‘if I was in your place, I should be at my wits’ end.’

‘If you were in my place,’ answered the Sergeant, ‘you would have formed an opinion—and, as things are now, any doubt you might previously have felt about your own conclusions would be completely set at rest. Never mind for the present what those conclusions are, Mr. Betteredge. I haven’t brought you out here to draw me like a badger; I have brought you out here to ask for some information. You might have given it to me no doubt, in the house, instead of out of it. But doors and listeners have a knack of getting together; and, in my line of life, we cultivate a healthy taste for the open air.’

Who was to circumvent this man? I gave in—and waited as patiently as I could to hear what was coming next.

We won’t enter into your young lady’s motives,’ the Sergeant went on; ‘we will only say it’s a pity she declines to assist me, because, by so doing, she makes this investigation more difficult than it might otherwise have been. We must now try to solve the mystery of the smear on the door—which, you may take my word for it, means the mystery of the Diamond also—in some other way. I have decided to see the servants, and to search their thoughts and actions, Mr. Betteredge, instead of searching their wardrobes. Before I begin, however, I want to ask you a question or two. You are an observant man—did you notice anything strange in any of the servants (making due allowance, of course, for fright and fluster), after the loss of the Diamond was found out? Any particular quarrel among them? Any one of them not in his or her usual spirits? Unexpectedly out of temper, for instance? or unexpectedly taken ill?’

I had just time to think of Rosanna Spearman’s sudden illness at yesterday’s dinner—but not time to make any answer—when I saw Sergeant Cuff’s eyes suddenly turn aside towards the shrubbery; and I heard him say softly to himself, ‘Hullo!’

‘What’s the matter?’ I asked.

‘A touch of the rheumatics in my back,’ said the Sergeant, in a loud voice, as if he wanted some third person to hear us. ‘We shall have a change in the weather before long.’

A few steps further brought us to the corner of the house. Turning off sharp to the right, we entered on the terrace, and went down, by the steps in the middle, into the garden below. Sergeant Cuff stopped there, in the open space, where we could see round us on every side.

‘About that young person, Rosanna Spearman?’ he said. ‘It isn’t very likely, with her personal appearance, that she has got a lover. But, for the girl’s own sake, I must ask you at once whether she has provided herself with a sweetheart, poor wretch, like the rest of them?’

What on earth did he mean, under present circumstances, by putting such a question to me as that? I stared at him, instead of answering him.

‘I saw Rosanna Spearman hiding in the shrubbery as we went by,’ said the Sergeant.

‘When you said “Hullo”?’

‘Yes—when I said “Hullo!” If there’s a sweetheart in the case, the hiding doesn’t much matter. If there isn’t—as things are in this house—the hiding is a highly suspicious circumstance, and it will be my painful duty to act on it accordingly.’

What, in God’s name, was I to say to him? I knew the shrubbery was Mr. Franklin’s favourite walk; I knew he would most likely turn that way when he came back from the station; I knew that Penelope had over and over again caught her fellow-servant hanging about there, and had always declared to me that Rosanna’s object was to attract Mr. Franklin’s attention. If my daughter was right, she might well have been lying in wait for Mr. Franklin’s return when the Sergeant noticed her. I was put between the two difficulties of mentioning Penelope’s fanciful notion as if it was mine, or of leaving an unfortunate creature to suffer the consequences, the very serious consequences, of exciting the suspicion of Sergeant Cuff. Out of pure pity for the girl—on my soul and my character, out of pure pity for the girl—I gave the Sergeant the necessary explanations, and told him that Rosanna had been mad enough to set her heart on Mr. Franklin Blake.

Sergeant Cuff never laughed. On the few occasions when anything amused him, he curled up a little at the corners of the lips, nothing more. He curled up now.

‘Hadn’t you better say she’s mad enough to be an ugly girl and only a servant?’ he asked. ‘The falling in love with a gentleman of Mr. Franklin Blake’s manners and appearance doesn’t seem to me to be the maddest part of her conduct by any means. However, I’m glad the thing is cleared up: it relieves one’s mind to have things cleared up. Yes, I’ll keep it a secret, Mr. Betteredge. I like to be tender to human infirmity—though I don’t get many chances of exercising that virtue in my line of life. You think Mr. Franklin Blake hasn’t got a suspicion of the girl’s fancy for him? Ah! he would have found it out fast enough if she had been nice-looking. The ugly women have a bad time of it in this world; let’s hope it will be made up to them in another. You have got a nice garden here, and a well-kept lawn. See for yourself how much better the flowers look with grass about them instead of gravel. No, thank you. I won’t take a rose. It goes to my heart to break them off the stem. Just as it goes to your heart, you know, when there’s something wrong in the servants’ hall. Did you notice anything you couldn’t account for in any of the servants when the loss of the Diamond was first found out?’

I had got on very fairly well with Sergeant Cuff so far. But the slyness with which he slipped in that last question put me on my guard. In plain English, I didn’t at all relish the notion of helping his inquiries, when those inquiries took him (in the capacity of snake in the grass) among my fellow-servants.