My first impulse was to consult the letter in my pocket--the letter
which I had found in the case.
As I raised my hand to take it out, I remembered that there was a
shorter way to discovery than this. The nightgown itself would reveal
the truth, for, in all probability, the nightgown was marked with its
owner's name.
I took it up from the sand, and looked for the mark.
I found the mark, and read--MY OWN NAME.
There were the familiar letters which told me that the nightgown
was mine. I looked up from them. There was the sun; there were the
glittering waters of the bay; there was old Betteredge, advancing nearer
and nearer to me. I looked back again at the letters. My own name.
Plainly confronting me--my own name.
"If time, pains, and money can do it, I will lay my hand on the thief
who took the Moonstone."--I had left London, with those words on my
lips. I had penetrated the secret which the quicksand had kept from
every other living creature. And, on the unanswerable evidence of the
paint-stain, I had discovered Myself as the Thief.