At the end of the half-hour, my mistress's bell rang.
On my way to answer it, I met Mr. Franklin coming out of his aunt's
sitting-room. He mentioned that her ladyship was ready to see Sergeant
Cuff--in my presence as before--and he added that he himself wanted
to say two words to the Sergeant first. On our way back to my room, he
stopped, and looked at the railway time-table in the hall.
"Are you really going to leave us, sir?" I asked. "Miss Rachel will
surely come right again, if you only give her time?"
"She will come right again," answered Mr. Franklin, "when she hears that
I have gone away, and that she will see me no more."
I thought he spoke in resentment of my young lady's treatment of him.
But it was not so. My mistress had noticed, from the time when the
police first came into the house, that the bare mention of him was
enough to set Miss Rachel's temper in a flame. He had been too fond of
his cousin to like to confess this to himself, until the truth had been
forced on him, when she drove off to her aunt's. His eyes once opened
in that cruel way which you know of, Mr. Franklin had taken his
resolution--the one resolution which a man of any spirit COULD take--to
leave the house.
What he had to say to the Sergeant was spoken in my presence. He
described her ladyship as willing to acknowledge that she had spoken
over-hastily. And he asked if Sergeant Cuff would consent--in that
case--to accept his fee, and to leave the matter of the Diamond where
the matter stood now. The Sergeant answered, "No, sir. My fee is paid me
for doing my duty. I decline to take it, until my duty is done."
"I don't understand you," says Mr. Franklin.
"I'll explain myself, sir," says the Sergeant. "When I came here, I
undertook to throw the necessary light on the matter of the missing
Diamond. I am now ready, and waiting to redeem my pledge. When I have
stated the case to Lady Verinder as the case now stands, and when I have
told her plainly what course of action to take for the recovery of the
Moonstone, the responsibility will be off my shoulders. Let her ladyship
decide, after that, whether she does, or does not, allow me to go on. I
shall then have done what I undertook to do--and I'll take my fee."
In those words Sergeant Cuff reminded us that, even in the Detective
Police, a man may have a reputation to lose.
The view he took was so plainly the right one, that there was no more
to be said. As I rose to conduct him to my lady's room, he asked if Mr.
Franklin wished to be present. Mr. Franklin answered, "Not unless Lady
Verinder desires it." He added, in a whisper to me, as I was following
the Sergeant out, "I know what that man is going to say about Rachel;
and I am too fond of her to hear it, and keep my temper. Leave me by
myself."