The Moonstone (61 page)

Admiration of the ingenuity which had woven this smooth and finished texture out of the ravelled skein was naturally the first impression that I felt, on handing the manuscript back to Ezra Jennings. He modestly interrupted the first few words in which my sense of surprise expressed itself, by asking me if the conclusion which he had drawn from his notes was also the conclusion at which my own mind had arrived.

“Do you believe as I believe,” he said, “that you were acting under the influence of the laudanum in doing all that you did, on the night of Miss Verinder’s birthday, in Lady Verinder’s house?”

“I am too ignorant of the influence of laudanum to have an opinion of my own,” I answered. “I can only follow your opinion, and feel convinced that you are right.”

“Very well. The next question is this. You are convinced; and I am convinced—how are we to carry our conviction to the minds of other people?”

I pointed to the two manuscripts, lying on the table between us. Ezra Jennings shook his head.

“Useless, Mr. Blake! Quite useless, as they stand now for three unanswerable reasons. In the first place, those notes have been taken under circumstances entirely out of the experience of the mass of mankind. Against them, to begin with! In the second place, those notes represent a medical and metaphysical theory. Against them, once more! In the third place, those notes are of my making; there is nothing but my assertion to the contrary, to guarantee that they are not fabrications. Remember what I told you on the moor—and ask yourself what my assertion is worth. No! my notes have but one value, looking to the verdict of the world outside. Your innocence is to be vindicated; and they show how it can be done. We must put our conviction to the proof—and You are the man to prove it!”

“How?” I asked.

He leaned eagerly nearer to me across the table that divided us.

“Are you willing to try a bold experiment?”

“I will do anything to clear myself of the suspicion that rests on me now.”

“Will you submit to some personal inconvenience for a time?”

“To any inconvenience, no matter what it may be.”

“Will you be guided implicitly by my advice? It may expose you to the ridicule of fools; it may subject you to the remonstrances of friends whose opinions you are bound to respect.”

“Tell me what to do!” I broke out impatiently. “And, come what may, I’ll do it.”

“You shall do this, Mr. Blake,” he answered. “You shall steal the Diamond, unconsciously, for the second time, in the presence of witnesses whose testimony is beyond dispute.”

I started to my feet. I tried to speak. I could only look at him.

“I believe it CAN be done,” he went on. “And it shall be done—if you will only help me. Try to compose yourself—sit down, and hear what I have to say to you. You have resumed the habit of smoking; I have seen that for myself. How long have you resumed it.”

“For nearly a year.”

“Do you smoke more or less than you did?”

“More.”

“Will you give up the habit again? Suddenly, mind!—as you gave it up before.”

I began dimly to see his drift. “I will give it up, from this moment,” I answered.

“If the same consequences follow, which followed last June,” said Ezra Jennings—“if you suffer once more as you suffered then, from sleepless nights, we shall have gained our first step. We shall have put you back again into something assimilating to your nervous condition on the birthday night. If we can next revive, or nearly revive, the domestic circumstances which surrounded you; and if we can occupy your mind again with the various questions concerning the Diamond which formerly agitated it, we shall have replaced you, as nearly as possible in the same position, physically and morally, in which the opium found you last year. In that case we may fairly hope that a repetition of the dose will lead, in a greater or lesser degree, to a repetition of the result. There is my proposal, expressed in a few hasty words. You shall now see what reasons I have to justify me in making it.”

He turned to one of the books at his side, and opened it at a place marked by a small slip of paper.

“Don’t suppose that I am going to weary you with a lecture on physiology,” he said. “I think myself bound to prove, in justice to both of us, that I am not asking you to try this experiment in deference to any theory of my own devising. Admitted principles, and recognised authorities, justify me in the view that I take. Give me five minutes of your attention; and I will undertake to show you that Science sanctions my proposal, fanciful as it may seem. Here, in the first place, is the physiological principle on which I am acting, stated by no less a person than Dr. Carpenter. Read it for yourself.”

He handed me the slip of paper which had marked the place in the book. It contained a few lines of writing, as follows:—

“There seems much ground for the belief, that every sensory impression which has once been recognised by the perceptive consciousness, is registered (so to speak) in the brain, and may be reproduced at some subsequent time, although there may be no consciousness of its existence in the mind during the whole intermediate period.”“Is that plain, so far?” asked Ezra Jennings.

“Perfectly plain.”

He pushed the open book across the table to me, and pointed to a passage, marked by pencil lines.

“Now,” he said, “read that account of a case, which has—as I believe—a direct bearing on your own position, and on the experiment which I am tempting you to try. Observe, Mr. Blake, before you begin, that I am now referring you to one of the greatest of English physiologists. The book in your hand is Doctor Elliotson’s HUMAN PHYSIOLOGY; and the case which the doctor cites rests on the well-known authority of Mr. Combe.”

The passage pointed out to me was expressed in these terms:—

“Dr. Abel informed me,” says Mr. Combe, “of an Irish porter to a warehouse, who forgot, when sober, what he had done when drunk; but, being drunk, again recollected the transactions of his former state of intoxication. On one occasion, being drunk, he had lost a parcel of some value, and in his sober moments could give no account of it. Next time he was intoxicated, he recollected that he had left the parcel at a certain house, and there being no address on it, it had remained there safely, and was got on his calling for it.”

“Plain again?” asked Ezra Jennings.

“As plain as need be.”

He put back the slip of paper in its place, and closed the book.

“Are you satisfied that I have not spoken without good authority to support me?” he asked. “If not, I have only to go to those bookshelves, and you have only to read the passages which I can point out to you.”

“I am quite satisfied,” I said, “without reading a word more.”

“In that case, we may return to your own personal interest in this matter. I am bound to tell you that there is something to be said against the experiment as well as for it. If we could, this year, exactly reproduce, in your case, the conditions as they existed last year, it is physiologically certain that we should arrive at exactly the same result. But this—there is no denying it—is simply impossible. We can only hope to approximate to the conditions; and if we don’t succeed in getting you nearly enough back to what you were, this venture of ours will fail. If we do succeed—and I am myself hopeful of success—you may at least so far repeat your proceedings on the birthday night, as to satisfy any reasonable person that you are guiltless, morally speaking, of the theft of the Diamond. I believe, Mr. Blake, I have now stated the question, on both sides of it, as fairly as I can, within the limits that I have imposed on myself. If there is anything that I have not made clear to you, tell me what it is—and if I can enlighten you, I will.”

“All that you have explained to me,” I said, “I understand perfectly. But I own I am puzzled on one point, which you have not made clear to me yet.”

“What is the point?”

“I don’t understand the effect of the laudanum on me. I don’t understand my walking down-stairs, and along corridors, and my opening and shutting the drawers of a cabinet, and my going back again to my own room. All these are active proceedings. I thought the influence of opium was first to stupefy you, and then to send you to sleep.”

“The common error about opium, Mr. Blake! I am, at this moment, exerting my intelligence (such as it is) in your service, under the influence of a dose of laudanum, some ten times larger than the dose Mr. Candy administered to you. But don’t trust to my authority—even on a question which comes within my own personal experience. I anticipated the objection you have just made: and I have again provided myself with independent testimony which will carry its due weight with it in your own mind, and in the minds of your friends.”

He handed me the second of the two books which he had by him on the table.

“There,” he said, “are the far-famed CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM EATER! Take the book away with you, and read it. At the passage which I have marked, you will find that when De Quincey had committed what he calls ‘a debauch of opium,’ he either went to the gallery at the Opera to enjoy the music, or he wandered about the London markets on Saturday night, and interested himself in observing all the little shifts and bargainings of the poor in providing their Sunday’s dinner. So much for the capacity of a man to occupy himself actively, and to move about from place to place under the influence of opium.”

“I am answered so far,” I said; “but I am not answered yet as to the effect produced by the opium on myself.”

“I will try to answer you in a few words,” said Ezra Jennings. “The action of opium is comprised, in the majority of cases, in two influences—a stimulating influence first, and a sedative influence afterwards. Under the stimulating influence, the latest and most vivid impressions left on your mind—namely, the impressions relating to the Diamond—would be likely, in your morbidly sensitive nervous condition, to become intensified in your brain, and would subordinate to themselves your judgment and your will exactly as an ordinary dream subordinates to itself your judgment and your will. Little by little, under this action, any apprehensions about the safety of the Diamond which you might have felt during the day would be liable to develop themselves from the state of doubt to the state of certainty—would impel you into practical action to preserve the jewel—would direct your steps, with that motive in view, into the room which you entered—and would guide your hand to the drawers of the cabinet, until you had found the drawer which held the stone. In the spiritualised intoxication of opium, you would do all that. Later, as the sedative action began to gain on the stimulant action, you would slowly become inert and stupefied. Later still you would fall into a deep sleep. When the morning came, and the effect of the opium had been all slept off, you would wake as absolutely ignorant of what you had done in the night as if you had been living at the Antipodes. Have I made it tolerably clear to you so far?”

“You have made it so clear,” I said, “that I want you to go farther. You have shown me how I entered the room, and how I came to take the Diamond. But Miss Verinder saw me leave the room again, with the jewel in my hand. Can you trace my proceedings from that moment? Can you guess what I did next?”

“That is the very point I was coming to,” he rejoined. “It is a question with me whether the experiment which I propose as a means of vindicating your innocence, may not also be made a means of recovering the lost Diamond as well. When you left Miss Verinder’s sitting-room, with the jewel in your hand, you went back in all probability to your own room——”

“Yes? and what then?”

“It is possible, Mr. Blake—I dare not say more—that your idea of preserving the Diamond led, by a natural sequence, to the idea of hiding the Diamond, and that the place in which you hid it was somewhere in your bedroom. In that event, the case of the Irish porter may be your case. You may remember, under the influence of the second dose of opium, the place in which you hid the Diamond under the influence of the first.”

It was my turn, now, to enlighten Ezra Jennings. I stopped him, before he could say any more.

“You are speculating,” I said, “on a result which cannot possibly take place. The Diamond is, at this moment, in London.”

He started, and looked at me in great surprise.

“In London?” he repeated. “How did it get to London from Lady Verinder’s house?”

“Nobody knows.”

“You removed it with your own hand from Miss Verinder’s room. How was it taken out of your keeping?”

“I have no idea how it was taken out of my keeping.”

“Did you see it, when you woke in the morning?”

“No.”

“Has Miss Verinder recovered possession of it?”

“No.”

“Mr. Blake! there seems to be something here which wants clearing up. May I ask how you know that the Diamond is, at this moment, in London?”

I had put precisely the same question to Mr. Bruff when I made my first inquiries about the Moonstone, on my return to England. In answering Ezra Jennings, I accordingly repeated what I had myself heard from the lawyer’s own lips—and what is already familiar to the readers of these pages.

He showed plainly that he was not satisfied with my reply.

“With all deference to you,” he said, “and with all deference to your legal adviser, I maintain the opinion which I expressed just now. It rests, I am well aware, on a mere assumption. Pardon me for reminding you, that your opinion also rests on a mere assumption as well.”

The view he took of the matter was entirely new to me. I waited anxiously to hear how he would defend it.

“I assume,” pursued Ezra Jennings, “that the influence of the opium—after impelling you to possess yourself of the Diamond, with the purpose of securing its safety—might also impel you, acting under the same influence and the same motive, to hide it somewhere in your own room. YOU assume that the Hindoo conspirators could by no possibility commit a mistake. The Indians went to Mr. Luker’s house after the Diamond—and, therefore, in Mr. Luker’s possession the Diamond must be! Have you any evidence to prove that the Moonstone was taken to London at all? You can’t even guess how, or by whom, it was removed from Lady Verinder’s house! Have you any evidence that the jewel was pledged to Mr. Luker? He declares that he never heard of the Moonstone; and his bankers’ receipt acknowledges nothing but the deposit of a valuable of great price. The Indians assume that Mr. Luker is lying—and you assume again that the Indians are right. All I say, in differing with you, is—that my view is possible. What more, Mr. Blake, either logically, or legally, can be said for yours?”