The Moonstone - Page 69/404

The worries of the day had been a little too much for me, I suppose.

At any rate, I had a touch of Mr. Franklin's malady that night. It was

sunrise before I fell off at last into a sleep. All the time I lay awake

the house was as quiet as the grave. Not a sound stirred but the splash

of the rain, and the sighing of the wind among the trees as a breeze

sprang up with the morning.

About half-past seven I woke, and opened my window on a fine sunshiny

day. The clock had struck eight, and I was just going out to chain up

the dogs again, when I heard a sudden whisking of petticoats on the

stairs behind me.

I turned about, and there was Penelope flying down after me like mad.

"Father!" she screamed, "come up-stairs, for God's sake! THE DIAMOND IS

GONE!" "Are you out of your mind?" I asked her.

"Gone!" says Penelope. "Gone, nobody knows how! Come up and see."

She dragged me after her into our young lady's sitting-room, which

opened into her bedroom. There, on the threshold of her bedroom door,

stood Miss Rachel, almost as white in the face as the white dressing-gown

that clothed her. There also stood the two doors of the Indian cabinet,

wide open. One, of the drawers inside was pulled out as far as it would

go.

"Look!" says Penelope. "I myself saw Miss Rachel put the Diamond into

that drawer last night." I went to the cabinet. The drawer was empty.

"Is this true, miss?" I asked.

With a look that was not like herself, with a voice that was not like

her own, Miss Rachel answered as my daughter had answered: "The Diamond

is gone!" Having said those words, she withdrew into her bedroom, and

shut and locked the door.

Before we knew which way to turn next, my lady came in, hearing my voice

in her daughter's sitting-room, and wondering what had happened. The news

of the loss of the Diamond seemed to petrify her. She went straight to

Miss Rachel's bedroom, and insisted on being admitted. Miss Rachel let

here in.

The alarm, running through the house like fire, caught the two gentlemen

next.

Mr. Godfrey was the first to come out of his room. All he did when

he heard what had happened was to hold up his hands in a state of

bewilderment, which didn't say much for his natural strength of mind.

Mr. Franklin, whose clear head I had confidently counted on to advise

us, seemed to be as helpless as his cousin when he heard the news in

his turn. For a wonder, he had had a good night's rest at last; and

the unaccustomed luxury of sleep had, as he said himself, apparently

stupefied him. However, when he had swallowed his cup of coffee--which

he always took, on the foreign plan, some hours before he ate any

breakfast--his brains brightened; the clear-headed side of him turned

up, and he took the matter in hand, resolutely and cleverly, much as

follows: He first sent for the servants, and told them to leave all the lower

doors and windows (with the exception of the front door, which I had

opened) exactly as they had been left when we locked up over night. He

next proposed to his cousin and to me to make quite sure, before we

took any further steps, that the Diamond had not accidentally dropped

somewhere out of sight--say at the back of the cabinet, or down behind

the table on which the cabinet stood. Having searched in both places,

and found nothing--having also questioned Penelope, and discovered

from her no more than the little she had already told me--Mr. Franklin

suggested next extending our inquiries to Miss Rachel, and sent Penelope

to knock at her bed-room door.