The Moonstone - Page 99/404

Going into the Court of Justice, when it was all over, to hear if

there were any further commands for me, I found the Sergeant at his old

trick--looking out of window, and whistling "The Last Rose of Summer" to

himself.

"Any discoveries, sir?" I inquired.

"If Rosanna Spearman asks leave to go out," said the Sergeant, "let the

poor thing go; but let me know first."

I might as well have held my tongue about Rosanna and Mr. Franklin! It

was plain enough; the unfortunate girl had fallen under Sergeant Cuff's

suspicions, in spite of all I could do to prevent it.

"I hope you don't think Rosanna is concerned in the loss of the

Diamond?" I ventured to say.

The corners of the Sergeant's melancholy mouth curled up, and he looked

hard in my face, just as he had looked in the garden.

"I think I had better not tell you, Mr. Betteredge," he said. "You might

lose your head, you know, for the second time."

I began to doubt whether I had been one too many for the celebrated

Cuff, after all! It was rather a relief to me that we were interrupted

here by a knock at the door, and a message from the cook. Rosanna

Spearman HAD asked to go out, for the usual reason, that her head was

bad, and she wanted a breath of fresh air. At a sign from the Sergeant,

I said, Yes. "Which is the servants' way out?" he asked, when the

messenger had gone. I showed him the servants' way out. "Lock the door

of your room," says the Sergeant; "and if anybody asks for me, say I'm

in there, composing my mind." He curled up again at the corners of the

lips, and disappeared.

Left alone, under those circumstances, a devouring curiosity pushed me

on to make some discoveries for myself.

It was plain that Sergeant Cuff's suspicions of Rosanna had been roused

by something that he had found out at his examination of the servants in

my room. Now, the only two servants (excepting Rosanna herself) who had

remained under examination for any length of time, were my lady's own

maid and the first housemaid, those two being also the women who had

taken the lead in persecuting their unfortunate fellow-servant from the

first. Reaching these conclusions, I looked in on them, casually as

it might be, in the servants' hall, and, finding tea going forward,

instantly invited myself to that meal. (For, NOTA BENE, a drop of tea is

to a woman's tongue what a drop of oil is to a wasting lamp.) My reliance on the tea-pot, as an ally, did not go unrewarded. In less

than half an hour I knew as much as the Sergeant himself.

My lady's maid and the housemaid, had, it appeared, neither of them

believed in Rosanna's illness of the previous day. These two devils--I

ask your pardon; but how else CAN you describe a couple of spiteful

women?--had stolen up-stairs, at intervals during the Thursday

afternoon; had tried Rosanna's door, and found it locked; had knocked,

and not been answered; had listened, and not heard a sound inside. When

the girl had come down to tea, and had been sent up, still out of sorts,

to bed again, the two devils aforesaid had tried her door once more, and

found it locked; had looked at the keyhole, and found it stopped up; had

seen a light under the door at midnight, and had heard the crackling of

a fire (a fire in a servant's bed-room in the month of June!) at four

in the morning. All this they had told Sergeant Cuff, who, in return for

their anxiety to enlighten him, had eyed them with sour and suspicious

looks, and had shown them plainly that he didn't believe either one or

the other. Hence, the unfavourable reports of him which these two women

had brought out with them from the examination. Hence, also (without

reckoning the influence of the tea-pot), their readiness to let their

tongues run to any length on the subject of the Sergeant's ungracious

behaviour to them.