We found my lady with no light in the room but the reading-lamp. The
shade was screwed down so as to overshadow her face. Instead of looking
up at us in her usual straightforward way, she sat close at the table,
and kept her eyes fixed obstinately on an open book.
"Officer," she said, "is it important to the inquiry you are conducting,
to know beforehand if any person now in this house wishes to leave it?"
"Most important, my lady."
"I have to tell you, then, that Miss Verinder proposes going to stay
with her aunt, Mrs. Ablewhite, of Frizinghall. She has arranged to leave
us the first thing to-morrow morning."
Sergeant Cuff looked at me. I made a step forward to speak to my
mistress--and, feeling my heart fail me (if I must own it), took a step
back again, and said nothing.
"May I ask your ladyship WHEN Miss Verinder informed you that she was
going to her aunt's?" inquired the Sergeant.
"About an hour since," answered my mistress.
Sergeant Cuff looked at me once more. They say old people's hearts are
not very easily moved. My heart couldn't have thumped much harder than
it did now, if I had been five-and-twenty again!
"I have no claim, my lady," says the Sergeant, "to control Miss
Verinder's actions. All I can ask you to do is to put off her departure,
if possible, till later in the day. I must go to Frizinghall myself
to-morrow morning--and I shall be back by two o'clock, if not before. If
Miss Verinder can be kept here till that time, I should wish to say two
words to her--unexpectedly--before she goes."
My lady directed me to give the coachman her orders, that the carriage
was not to come for Miss Rachel until two o'clock. "Have you more to
say?" she asked of the Sergeant, when this had been done.
"Only one thing, your ladyship. If Miss Verinder is surprised at this
change in the arrangements, please not to mention Me as being the cause
of putting off her journey."
My mistress lifted her head suddenly from her book as if she was going
to say something--checked herself by a great effort--and, looking back
again at the open page, dismissed us with a sign of her hand.
"That's a wonderful woman," said Sergeant Cuff, when we were out in the
hall again. "But for her self-control, the mystery that puzzles you, Mr.
Betteredge, would have been at an end to-night."
At those words, the truth rushed at last into my stupid old head. For
the moment, I suppose I must have gone clean out of my senses. I seized
the Sergeant by the collar of his coat, and pinned him against the wall.
"Damn you!" I cried out, "there's something wrong about Miss Rachel--and
you have been hiding it from me all this time!"