When the time came for the Sergeant's arrival, I went down to the gate
to look out for him.
A fly from the railway drove up as I reached the lodge; and out got a
grizzled, elderly man, so miserably lean that he looked as if he had not
got an ounce of flesh on his bones in any part of him. He was dressed
all in decent black, with a white cravat round his neck. His face was
as sharp as a hatchet, and the skin of it was as yellow and dry and
withered as an autumn leaf. His eyes, of a steely light grey, had a very
disconcerting trick, when they encountered your eyes, of looking as if
they expected something more from you than you were aware of yourself.
His walk was soft; his voice was melancholy; his long lanky fingers were
hooked like claws. He might have been a parson, or an undertaker--or
anything else you like, except what he really was. A more complete
opposite to Superintendent Seegrave than Sergeant Cuff, and a less
comforting officer to look at, for a family in distress, I defy you to
discover, search where you may.
"Is this Lady Verinder's?" he asked.
"Yes, sir."
"I am Sergeant Cuff."
"This way, sir, if you please."
On our road to the house, I mentioned my name and position in the
family, to satisfy him that he might speak to me about the business
on which my lady was to employ him. Not a word did he say about the
business, however, for all that. He admired the grounds, and remarked
that he felt the sea air very brisk and refreshing. I privately
wondered, on my side, how the celebrated Cuff had got his reputation.
We reached the house, in the temper of two strange dogs, coupled up
together for the first time in their lives by the same chain.
Asking for my lady, and hearing that she was in one of the
conservatories, we went round to the gardens at the back, and sent a
servant to seek her. While we were waiting, Sergeant Cuff looked
through the evergreen arch on our left, spied out our rosery, and walked
straight in, with the first appearance of anything like interest that he
had shown yet. To the gardener's astonishment, and to my disgust,
this celebrated policeman proved to be quite a mine of learning on the
trumpery subject of rose-gardens.
"Ah, you've got the right exposure here to the south and sou'-west,"
says the Sergeant, with a wag of his grizzled head, and a streak
of pleasure in his melancholy voice. "This is the shape for a
rosery--nothing like a circle set in a square. Yes, yes; with walks
between all the beds. But they oughtn't to be gravel walks like these.
Grass, Mr. Gardener--grass walks between your roses; gravel's too hard
for them. That's a sweet pretty bed of white roses and blush roses. They
always mix well together, don't they? Here's the white musk rose, Mr.
Betteredge--our old English rose holding up its head along with the best
and the newest of them. Pretty dear!" says the Sergeant, fondling
the Musk Rose with his lanky fingers, and speaking to it as if he was
speaking to a child.