The Moonstone - Page 111/404

I thought to myself, "The Moonstone!" But I only said to Sergeant Cuff,

"Can't you guess?"

"It's not the Diamond," says the Sergeant. "The whole experience of my

life is at fault, if Rosanna Spearman has got the Diamond."

On hearing those words, the infernal detective-fever began, I suppose,

to burn in me again. At any rate, I forgot myself in the interest of

guessing this new riddle. I said rashly, "The stained dress!"

Sergeant Cuff stopped short in the dark, and laid his hand on my arm.

"Is anything thrown into that quicksand of yours, ever thrown up on the

surface again?" he asked.

"Never," I answered. "Light or heavy whatever goes into the Shivering

Sand is sucked down, and seen no more."

"Does Rosanna Spearman know that?"

"She knows it as well as I do."

"Then," says the Sergeant, "what on earth has she got to do but to tie

up a bit of stone in the stained dress and throw it into the quicksand?

There isn't the shadow of a reason why she should have hidden it--and

yet she must have hidden it. Query," says the Sergeant, walking on

again, "is the paint-stained dress a petticoat or a night-gown? or is it

something else which there is a reason for preserving at any risk? Mr.

Betteredge, if nothing occurs to prevent it, I must go to Frizinghall

to-morrow, and discover what she bought in the town, when she privately

got the materials for making the substitute dress. It's a risk to

leave the house, as things are now--but it's a worse risk still to stir

another step in this matter in the dark. Excuse my being a little out of

temper; I'm degraded in my own estimation--I have let Rosanna Spearman

puzzle me."

When we got back, the servants were at supper. The first person we saw

in the outer yard was the policeman whom Superintendent Seegrave had

left at the Sergeant's disposal. The Sergeant asked if Rosanna Spearman

had returned. Yes. When? Nearly an hour since. What had she done? She

had gone up-stairs to take off her bonnet and cloak--and she was now at

supper quietly with the rest.

Without making any remark, Sergeant Cuff walked on, sinking lower and

lower in his own estimation, to the back of the house. Missing the

entrance in the dark, he went on (in spite of my calling to him) till

he was stopped by a wicket-gate which led into the garden. When I joined

him to bring him back by the right way, I found that he was looking up

attentively at one particular window, on the bed-room floor, at the back

of the house.

Looking up, in my turn, I discovered that the object of his

contemplation was the window of Miss Rachel's room, and that lights were

passing backwards and forwards there as if something unusual was going

on.