I have only the most indistinct recollection of what happened at
Hotherstone's Farm.
I remember a hearty welcome; a prodigious supper, which would have fed a
whole village in the East; a delightfully clean bedroom, with nothing
in it to regret but that detestable product of the folly of our
fore-fathers--a feather-bed; a restless night, with much kindling
of matches, and many lightings of one little candle; and an immense
sensation of relief when the sun rose, and there was a prospect of
getting up.
It had been arranged over-night with Betteredge, that I was to call for
him, on our way to Cobb's Hole, as early as I liked--which, interpreted
by my impatience to get possession of the letter, meant as early as
I could. Without waiting for breakfast at the Farm, I took a crust of
bread in my hand, and set forth, in some doubt whether I should not
surprise the excellent Betteredge in his bed. To my great relief he
proved to be quite as excited about the coming event as I was. I found
him ready, and waiting for me, with his stick in his hand.
"How are you this morning, Betteredge?"
"Very poorly, sir."
"Sorry to hear it. What do you complain of?"
"I complain of a new disease, Mr. Franklin, of my own inventing. I don't
want to alarm you, but you're certain to catch it before the morning is
out."
"The devil I am!"
"Do you feel an uncomfortable heat at the pit of your stomach, sir? and
a nasty thumping at the top of your head? Ah! not yet? It will lay hold
of you at Cobb's Hole, Mr. Franklin. I call it the detective-fever; and
I first caught it in the company of Sergeant Cuff."
"Aye! aye! and the cure in this instance is to open Rosanna Spearman's
letter, I suppose? Come along, and let's get it."
Early as it was, we found the fisherman's wife astir in her kitchen.
On my presentation by Betteredge, good Mrs. Yolland performed a social
ceremony, strictly reserved (as I afterwards learnt) for strangers of
distinction. She put a bottle of Dutch gin and a couple of clean pipes
on the table, and opened the conversation by saying, "What news from
London, sir?"
Before I could find an answer to this immensely comprehensive question,
an apparition advanced towards me, out of a dark corner of the kitchen.
A wan, wild, haggard girl, with remarkably beautiful hair, and with a
fierce keenness in her eyes, came limping up on a crutch to the table at
which I was sitting, and looked at me as if I was an object of mingled
interest and horror, which it quite fascinated her to see.
"Mr. Betteredge," she said, without taking her eyes off me, "mention his
name again, if you please."
"This gentleman's name," answered Betteredge (with a strong emphasis on
GENTLEMAN), "is Mr. Franklin Blake."
The girl turned her back on me, and suddenly left the room. Good Mrs.
Yolland--as I believe--made some apologies for her daughter's odd
behaviour, and Betteredge (probably) translated them into polite
English. I speak of this in complete uncertainty. My attention was
absorbed in following the sound of the girl's crutch. Thump-thump,
up the wooden stairs; thump-thump across the room above our heads;
thump-thump down the stairs again--and there stood the apparition at the
open door, with a letter in its hand, beckoning me out!
I left more apologies in course of delivery behind me, and followed
this strange creature--limping on before me, faster and faster--down
the slope of the beach. She led me behind some boats, out of sight and
hearing of the few people in the fishing-village, and then stopped, and
faced me for the first time.
"Stand there," she said, "I want to look at you."
There was no mistaking the expression on her face. I inspired her with
the strongest emotions of abhorrence and disgust. Let me not be vain
enough to say that no woman had ever looked at me in this manner before.
I will only venture on the more modest assertion that no woman had ever
let me perceive it yet. There is a limit to the length of the inspection
which a man can endure, under certain circumstances. I attempted to
direct Limping Lucy's attention to some less revolting object than my
face.
"I think you have got a letter to give me," I began. "Is it the letter
there, in your hand?"
"Say that again," was the only answer I received.
I repeated the words, like a good child learning its lesson.
"No," said the girl, speaking to herself, but keeping her eyes still
mercilessly fixed on me. "I can't find out what she saw in his face. I
can't guess what she heard in his voice." She suddenly looked away from
me, and rested her head wearily on the top of her crutch. "Oh, my poor
dear!" she said, in the first soft tones which had fallen from her, in
my hearing. "Oh, my lost darling! what could you see in this man?" She
lifted her head again fiercely, and looked at me once more. "Can you eat
and drink?" she asked.
I did my best to preserve my gravity, and answered, "Yes."
"Can you sleep?"
"Yes."
"When you see a poor girl in service, do you feel no remorse?"
"Certainly not. Why should I?"
She abruptly thrust the letter (as the phrase is) into my face.
"Take it!" she exclaimed furiously. "I never set eyes on you before. God
Almighty forbid I should ever set eyes on you again."
With those parting words she limped away from me at the top of her
speed. The one interpretation that I could put on her conduct has, no
doubt, been anticipated by everybody. I could only suppose that she was
mad.
Having reached that inevitable conclusion, I turned to the more
interesting object of investigation which was presented to me by Rosanna
Spearman's letter. The address was written as follows:--"For Franklin
Blake, Esq. To be given into his own hands (and not to be trusted to any
one else), by Lucy Yolland."
I broke the seal. The envelope contained a letter: and this, in its
turn, contained a slip of paper. I read the letter first:--
"Sir,--If you are curious to know the meaning of my behaviour to you,
whilst you were staying in the house of my mistress, Lady Verinder, do
what you are told to do in the memorandum enclosed with this--and do it
without any person being present to overlook you. Your humble servant,
"ROSANNA SPEARMAN."
I turned to the slip of paper next. Here is the literal copy of it, word
for word:
"Memorandum:--To go to the Shivering Sand at the turn of the tide. To
walk out on the South Spit, until I get the South Spit Beacon, and
the flagstaff at the Coast-guard station above Cobb's Hole in a line
together. To lay down on the rocks, a stick, or any straight thing to
guide my hand, exactly in the line of the beacon and the flagstaff. To
take care, in doing this, that one end of the stick shall be at the edge
of the rocks, on the side of them which overlooks the quicksand. To feel
along the stick, among the sea-weed (beginning from the end of the stick
which points towards the beacon), for the Chain. To run my hand along
the Chain, when found, until I come to the part of it which stretches
over the edge of the rocks, down into the quicksand. AND THEN TO PULL
THE CHAIN."
Just as I had read the last words--underlined in the original--I heard
the voice of Betteredge behind me. The inventor of the detective-fever
had completely succumbed to that irresistible malady. "I can't stand it
any longer, Mr. Franklin. What does her letter say? For mercy's sake,
sir, tell us, what does her letter say?"
I handed him the letter, and the memorandum. He read the first
without appearing to be much interested in it. But the second--the
memorandum--produced a strong impression on him.
"The Sergeant said it!" cried Betteredge. "From first to last, sir, the
Sergeant said she had got a memorandum of the hiding-place. And here
it is! Lord save us, Mr. Franklin, here is the secret that puzzled
everybody, from the great Cuff downwards, ready and waiting, as one may
say, to show itself to YOU! It's the ebb now, sir, as anybody may see
for themselves. How long will it be till the turn of the tide?" He
looked up, and observed a lad at work, at some little distance from us,
mending a net. "Tammie Bright!" he shouted at the top of his voice.
"I hear you!" Tammie shouted back.
"When's the turn of the tide?"
"In an hour's time."
We both looked at our watches.
"We can go round by the coast, Mr. Franklin," said Betteredge; "and get
to the quicksand in that way with plenty of time to spare. What do you
say, sir?"
"Come along!"
On our way to the Shivering Sand, I applied to Betteredge to revive
my memory of events (as affecting Rosanna Spearman) at the period of
Sergeant Cuff's inquiry. With my old friend's help, I soon had the
succession of circumstances clearly registered in my mind. Rosanna's
journey to Frizinghall, when the whole household believed her to be ill
in her own room--Rosanna's mysterious employment of the night-time with
her door locked, and her candle burning till the morning--Rosanna's
suspicious purchase of the japanned tin case, and the two dog's chains
from Mrs. Yolland--the Sergeant's positive conviction that Rosanna had
hidden something at the Shivering Sand, and the Sergeant's absolute
ignorance as to what that something might be--all these strange results
of the abortive inquiry into the loss of the Moonstone were clearly
present to me again, when we reached the quicksand, and walked out
together on the low ledge of rocks called the South Spit.
With Betteredge's help, I soon stood in the right position to see the
Beacon and the Coast-guard flagstaff in a line together. Following
the memorandum as our guide, we next laid my stick in the necessary
direction, as neatly as we could, on the uneven surface of the rocks.
And then we looked at our watches once more.
It wanted nearly twenty minutes yet of the turn of the tide. I suggested
waiting through this interval on the beach, instead of on the wet and
slippery surface of the rocks. Having reached the dry sand, I prepared
to sit down; and, greatly to my surprise, Betteredge prepared to leave
me.
"What are you going away for?" I asked.
"Look at the letter again, sir, and you will see."
A glance at the letter reminded me that I was charged, when I made my
discovery, to make it alone.
"It's hard enough for me to leave you, at such a time as this," said
Betteredge. "But she died a dreadful death, poor soul--and I feel a kind
of call on me, Mr. Franklin, to humour that fancy of hers. Besides,"
he added, confidentially, "there's nothing in the letter against
your letting out the secret afterwards. I'll hang about in the fir
plantation, and wait till you pick me up. Don't be longer than you can
help, sir. The detective-fever isn't an easy disease to deal with, under
THESE circumstances."
With that parting caution, he left me.
The interval of expectation, short as it was when reckoned by the
measure of time, assumed formidable proportions when reckoned by
the measure of suspense. This was one of the occasions on which the
invaluable habit of smoking becomes especially precious and consolatory.
I lit a cigar, and sat down on the slope of the beach.
The sunlight poured its unclouded beauty on every object that I could
see. The exquisite freshness of the air made the mere act of living and
breathing a luxury. Even the lonely little bay welcomed the morning
with a show of cheerfulness; and the bared wet surface of the quicksand
itself, glittering with a golden brightness, hid the horror of its false
brown face under a passing smile. It was the finest day I had seen since
my return to England.
The turn of the tide came, before my cigar was finished. I saw the
preliminary heaving of the Sand, and then the awful shiver that crept
over its surface--as if some spirit of terror lived and moved and
shuddered in the fathomless deeps beneath. I threw away my cigar, and
went back again to the rocks.
My directions in the memorandum instructed me to feel along the line
traced by the stick, beginning with the end which was nearest to the
beacon.
I advanced, in this manner, more than half way along the stick, without
encountering anything but the edges of the rocks. An inch or two further
on, however, my patience was rewarded. In a narrow little fissure, just
within reach of my forefinger, I felt the chain. Attempting, next,
to follow it, by touch, in the direction of the quicksand, I found my
progress stopped by a thick growth of seaweed--which had fastened itself
into the fissure, no doubt, in the time that had elapsed since Rosanna
Spearman had chosen her hiding-place.
It was equally impossible to pull up the seaweed, or to force my hand
through it. After marking the spot indicated by the end of the stick
which was placed nearest to the quicksand, I determined to pursue
the search for the chain on a plan of my own. My idea was to "sound"
immediately under the rocks, on the chance of recovering the lost trace
of the chain at the point at which it entered the sand. I took up the
stick, and knelt down on the brink of the South Spit.
In this position, my face was within a few feet of the surface of the
quicksand. The sight of it so near me, still disturbed at intervals by
its hideous shivering fit, shook my nerves for the moment. A horrible
fancy that the dead woman might appear on the scene of her suicide, to
assist my search--an unutterable dread of seeing her rise through the
heaving surface of the sand, and point to the place--forced itself into
my mind, and turned me cold in the warm sunlight. I own I closed my eyes
at the moment when the point of the stick first entered the quicksand.
The instant afterwards, before the stick could have been submerged more
than a few inches, I was free from the hold of my own superstitious
terror, and was throbbing with excitement from head to foot. Sounding
blindfold, at my first attempt--at that first attempt I had sounded
right! The stick struck the chain.
Taking a firm hold of the roots of the seaweed with my left hand, I
laid myself down over the brink, and felt with my right hand under the
overhanging edges of the rock. My right hand found the chain.
I drew it up without the slightest difficulty. And there was the
japanned tin case fastened to the end of it.
The action of the water had so rusted the chain, that it was impossible
for me to unfasten it from the hasp which attached it to the case.
Putting the case between my knees and exerting my utmost strength, I
contrived to draw off the cover. Some white substance filled the whole
interior when I looked in. I put in my hand, and found it to be linen.
In drawing out the linen, I also drew out a letter crumpled up with it.
After looking at the direction, and discovering that it bore my name, I
put the letter in my pocket, and completely removed the linen. It came
out in a thick roll, moulded, of course, to the shape of the case in
which it had been so long confined, and perfectly preserved from any
injury by the sea.
I carried the linen to the dry sand of the beach, and there unrolled and
smoothed it out. There was no mistaking it as an article of dress. It
was a nightgown.
The uppermost side, when I spread it out, presented to view innumerable
folds and creases, and nothing more. I tried the undermost side,
next--and instantly discovered the smear of the paint from the door of
Rachel's boudoir!
My eyes remained riveted on the stain, and my mind took me back at a
leap from present to past. The very words of Sergeant Cuff recurred
to me, as if the man himself was at my side again, pointing to the
unanswerable inference which he drew from the smear on the door.
"Find out whether there is any article of dress in this house with the
stain of paint on it. Find out who that dress belongs to. Find out how
the person can account for having been in the 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 took the
Diamond."
One after another those words travelled over my memory, repeating
themselves again and again with a wearisome, mechanical reiteration.
I was roused from what felt like a trance of many hours--from what was
really, no doubt, the pause of a few moments only--by a voice calling
to me. I looked up, and saw that Betteredge's patience had failed him at
last. He was just visible between the sandhills, returning to the beach.
The old man's appearance recalled me, the moment I perceived it, to my
sense of present things, and reminded me that the inquiry which I had
pursued thus far still remained incomplete. I had discovered the smear
on the nightgown. To whom did the nightgown belong?
My first impulse was to consult the letter in my pocket--the letter
which I had found in the case.
As I raised my hand to take it out, I remembered that there was a
shorter way to discovery than this. The nightgown itself would reveal
the truth, for, in all probability, the nightgown was marked with its
owner's name.
I took it up from the sand, and looked for the mark.
I found the mark, and read--MY OWN NAME.
There were the familiar letters which told me that the nightgown
was mine. I looked up from them. There was the sun; there were the
glittering waters of the bay; there was old Betteredge, advancing nearer
and nearer to me. I looked back again at the letters. My own name.
Plainly confronting me--my own name.
"If time, pains, and money can do it, I will lay my hand on the thief
who took the Moonstone."--I had left London, with those words on my
lips. I had penetrated the secret which the quicksand had kept from
every other living creature. And, on the unanswerable evidence of the
paint-stain, I had discovered Myself as the Thief.