The Moonstone - Page 187/404

He said those last words, looking so wonderfully wise in his own worldly

conceit, that I really (to my shame be it spoken) could not resist

leading him a little farther still, before I overwhelmed him with the

truth.

"I don't presume to argue with a clever lawyer like you," I said. "But

is it quite fair, sir, to Mr. Ablewhite to pass over the opinion of the

famous London police officer who investigated this case? Not the shadow

of a suspicion rested upon anybody but Miss Verinder, in the mind of

Sergeant Cuff."

"Do you mean to tell me, Miss Clack, that you agree with the Sergeant?"

"I judge nobody, sir, and I offer no opinion."

"And I commit both those enormities, ma'am. I judge the Sergeant to

have been utterly wrong; and I offer the opinion that, if he had known

Rachel's character as I know it, he would have suspected everybody in

the house but HER. I admit that she has her faults--she is secret, and

self-willed; odd and wild, and unlike other girls of her age. But true

as steel, and high-minded and generous to a fault. If the plainest

evidence in the world pointed one way, and if nothing but Rachel's word

of honour pointed the other, I would take her word before the evidence,

lawyer as I am! Strong language, Miss Clack; but I mean it."

"Would you object to illustrate your meaning, Mr. Bruff, so that I

may be sure I understand it? Suppose you found Miss Verinder quite

unaccountably interested in what has happened to Mr. Ablewhite and Mr.

Luker? Suppose she asked the strangest questions about this dreadful

scandal, and displayed the most ungovernable agitation when she found

out the turn it was taking?"

"Suppose anything you please, Miss Clack, it wouldn't shake my belief in

Rachel Verinder by a hair's-breadth."

"She is so absolutely to be relied on as that?"

"So absolutely to be relied on as that."

"Then permit me to inform you, Mr. Bruff, that Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite was

in this house not two hours since, and that his entire innocence of all

concern in the disappearance of the Moonstone was proclaimed by Miss

Verinder herself, in the strongest language I ever heard used by a young

lady in my life."

I enjoyed the triumph--the unholy triumph, I fear I must admit--of

seeing Mr. Bruff utterly confounded and overthrown by a few plain words

from Me. He started to his feet, and stared at me in silence. I kept my

seat, undisturbed, and related the whole scene as it had occurred.

"And what do you say about Mr. Ablewhite now?" I asked, with the utmost

possible gentleness, as soon as I had done.

"If Rachel has testified to his innocence, Miss Clack, I don't scruple

to say that I believe in his innocence as firmly as you do: I have been

misled by appearances, like the rest of the world; and I will make the

best atonement I can, by publicly contradicting the scandal which has

assailed your friend wherever I meet with it. In the meantime, allow me

to congratulate you on the masterly manner in which you have opened the

full fire of your batteries on me at the moment when I least expected

it. You would have done great things in my profession, ma'am, if you had

happened to be a man."