The Moonstone - Page 105/404

I saw the Sergeant start as the shiver of the sand caught his eye. After

looking at it for a minute or so, he turned and came back to me.

"A treacherous place, Mr. Betteredge," he said; "and no signs of Rosanna

Spearman anywhere on the beach, look where you may."

He took me down lower on the shore, and I saw for myself that his

footsteps and mine were the only footsteps printed off on the sand.

"How does the fishing village bear, standing where we are now?" asked

Sergeant Cuff.

"Cobb's Hole," I answered (that being the name of the place), "bears as

near as may be, due south."

"I saw the girl this evening, walking northward along the shore, from

Cobb's Hole," said the Sergeant. "Consequently, she must have been

walking towards this place. Is Cobb's Hole on the other side of that

point of land there? And can we get to it--now it's low water--by the

beach?"

I answered, "Yes," to both those questions.

"If you'll excuse my suggesting it, we'll step out briskly," said the

Sergeant. "I want to find the place where she left the shore, before it

gets dark."

We had walked, I should say, a couple of hundred yards towards Cobb's

Hole, when Sergeant Cuff suddenly went down on his knees on the beach,

to all appearance seized with a sudden frenzy for saying his prayers.

"There's something to be said for your marine landscape here, after

all," remarked the Sergeant. "Here are a woman's footsteps, Mr.

Betteredge! Let us call them Rosanna's footsteps, until we find evidence

to the contrary that we can't resist. Very confused footsteps, you will

please to observe--purposely confused, I should say. Ah, poor soul, she

understands the detective virtues of sand as well as I do! But hasn't

she been in rather too great a hurry to tread out the marks thoroughly?

I think she has. Here's one footstep going FROM Cobb's Hole; and here

is another going back to it. Isn't that the toe of her shoe pointing

straight to the water's edge? And don't I see two heel-marks further

down the beach, close at the water's edge also? I don't want to hurt

your feelings, but I'm afraid Rosanna is sly. It looks as if she had

determined to get to that place you and I have just come from, without

leaving any marks on the sand to trace her by. Shall we say that she

walked through the water from this point till she got to that ledge of

rocks behind us, and came back the same way, and then took to the beach

again where those two heel marks are still left? Yes, we'll say that. It

seems to fit in with my notion that she had something under her cloak,

when she left the cottage. No! not something to destroy--for, in that

case, where would have been the need of all these precautions to prevent

my tracing the place at which her walk ended? Something to hide is, I

think, the better guess of the two. Perhaps, if we go on to the cottage,

we may find out what that something is?"