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."