The Moonstone - Page 271/404

"I examined everything narrowly, and at last, I found a few streaks

of the paint on the inside of your dressing-gown--not the linen

dressing-gown you usually wore in that summer season, but a flannel

dressing-gown which you had with you also. I suppose you felt chilly

after walking to and fro in nothing but your nightdress, and put on the

warmest thing you could find. At any rate, there were the stains, just

visible, on the inside of the dressing-gown. I easily got rid of these

by scraping away the stuff of the flannel. This done, the only proof

left against you was the proof locked up in my drawer.

"I had just finished your room when I was sent for to be questioned

by Mr. Seegrave, along with the rest of the servants. Next came the

examination of all our boxes. And then followed the most extraordinary

event of the day--to ME--since I had found the paint on your nightgown.

This event came out of the second questioning of Penelope Betteredge by

Superintendent Seegrave.

"Penelope returned to us quite beside herself with rage at the manner

in which Mr. Seegrave had treated her. He had hinted, beyond the

possibility of mistaking him, that he suspected her of being the thief.

We were all equally astonished at hearing this, and we all asked, Why?

"'Because the Diamond was in Miss Rachel's sitting-room," Penelope

answered. "And because I was the last person in the sitting-room at

night!"

"Almost before the words had left her lips, I remembered that another

person had been in the sitting-room later than Penelope. That person

was yourself. My head whirled round, and my thoughts were in dreadful

confusion. In the midst of it all, something in my mind whispered to me

that the smear on your nightgown might have a meaning entirely different

to the meaning which I had given to it up to that time. 'If the last

person who was in the room is the person to be suspected,' I thought to

myself, 'the thief is not Penelope, but Mr. Franklin Blake!' "In the case of any other gentleman, I believe I should have been

ashamed of suspecting him of theft, almost as soon as the suspicion had

passed through my mind.

"But the bare thought that YOU had let yourself down to my level, and

that I, in possessing myself of your nightgown, had also possessed

myself of the means of shielding you from being discovered, and

disgraced for life--I say, sir, the bare thought of this seemed to

open such a chance before me of winning your good will, that I passed

blindfold, as one may say, from suspecting to believing. I made up my

mind, on the spot, that you had shown yourself the busiest of anybody

in fetching the police, as a blind to deceive us all; and that the hand

which had taken Miss Rachel's jewel could by no possibility be any other

hand than yours.