The Moonstone (62 page)

It was put strongly; but there was no denying that it was put truly as well.

“I confess you stagger me,” I replied. “Do you object to my writing to Mr. Bruff, and telling him what you have said?”

“On the contrary, I shall be glad if you will write to Mr. Bruff. If we consult his experience, we may see the matter under a new light. For the present, let us return to our experiment with the opium. We have decided that you leave off the habit of smoking from this moment.”

“From this moment?”

“That is the first step. The next step is to reproduce, as nearly as we can, the domestic circumstances which surrounded you last year.”

How was this to be done? Lady Verinder was dead. Rachel and I, so long as the suspicion of theft rested on me, were parted irrevocably. Godfrey Ablewhite was away travelling on the Continent. It was simply impossible to reassemble the people who had inhabited the house, when I had slept in it last. The statement of this objection did not appear to embarrass Ezra Jennings. He attached very little importance, he said, to reassembling the same people—seeing that it would be vain to expect them to reassume the various positions which they had occupied towards me in the past times. On the other hand, he considered it essential to the success of the experiment, that I should see the same objects about me which had surrounded me when I was last in the house.

“Above all things,” he said, “you must sleep in the room which you slept in, on the birthday night, and it must be furnished in the same way. The stairs, the corridors, and Miss Verinder’s sitting-room, must also be restored to what they were when you saw them last. It is absolutely necessary, Mr. Blake, to replace every article of furniture in that part of the house which may now be put away. The sacrifice of your cigars will be useless, unless we can get Miss Verinder’s permission to do that.”

“Who is to apply to her for permission?” I asked.

“Is it not possible for you to apply?”

“Quite out of the question. After what has passed between us on the subject of the lost Diamond, I can neither see her, nor write to her, as things are now.”

Ezra Jennings paused, and considered for a moment.

“May I ask you a delicate question?” he said.

I signed to him to go on.

“Am I right, Mr. Blake, in fancying (from one or two things which have dropped from you) that you felt no common interest in Miss Verinder, in former times?”

“Quite right.”

“Was the feeling returned?”

“It was.”

“Do you think Miss Verinder would be likely to feel a strong interest in the attempt to prove your innocence?”

“I am certain of it.”

“In that case, I will write to Miss Verinder—if you will give me leave.”

“Telling her of the proposal that you have made to me?”

“Telling her of everything that has passed between us to-day.”

It is needless to say that I eagerly accepted the service which he had offered to me.

“I shall have time to write by to-day’s post,” he said, looking at his watch. “Don’t forget to lock up your cigars, when you get back to the hotel! I will call to-morrow morning and hear how you have passed the night.”

I rose to take leave of him; and attempted to express the grateful sense of his kindness which I really felt.

He pressed my hand gently. “Remember what I told you on the moor,” he answered. “If I can do you this little service, Mr. Blake, I shall feel it like a last gleam of sunshine, falling on the evening of a long and clouded day.”

We parted. It was then the fifteenth of June. The events of the next ten days—every one of them more or less directly connected with the experiment of which I was the passive object—are all placed on record, exactly as they happened, in the Journal habitually kept by Mr. Candy’s assistant. In the pages of Ezra Jennings nothing is concealed, and nothing is forgotten. Let Ezra Jennings tell how the venture with the opium was tried, and how it ended.

   But few words are needed, on my part, to complete the narrative that has been presented in the Journal of Ezra Jennings.

Of myself, I have only to say that I awoke on the morning of the twenty-sixth, perfectly ignorant of all that I had said and done under the influence of the opium—from the time when the drug first laid its hold on me, to the time when I opened my eyes, in Rachel’s sitting-room.

Of what happened after my waking, I do not feel called upon to render an account in detail. Confining myself merely to results, I have to report that Rachel and I thoroughly understood each other, before a single word of explanation had passed on either side. I decline to account, and Rachel declines to account, for the extraordinary rapidity of our reconciliation. Sir and Madam, look back at the time when you were passionately attached to each other—and you will know what happened, after Ezra Jennings had shut the door of the sitting-room, as well as I know it myself.

I have, however, no objection to add, that we should have been certainly discovered by Mrs. Merridew, but for Rachel’s presence of mind. She heard the sound of the old lady’s dress in the corridor, and instantly ran out to meet her; I heard Mrs. Merridew say, “What is the matter?” and I heard Rachel answer, “The explosion!” Mrs. Merridew instantly permitted herself to be taken by the arm, and led into the garden, out of the way of the impending shock. On her return to the house, she met me in the hall, and expressed herself as greatly struck by the vast improvement in Science, since the time when she was a girl at school. “Explosions, Mr. Blake, are infinitely milder than they were. I assure you, I barely heard Mr. Jennings’s explosion from the garden. And no smell afterwards, that I can detect, now we have come back to the house! I must really apologise to your medical friend. It is only due to him to say that he has managed it beautifully!”

So, after vanquishing Betteredge and Mr. Bruff, Ezra Jennings vanquished Mrs. Merridew herself. There is a great deal of undeveloped liberal feeling in the world, after all!

At breakfast, Mr. Bruff made no secret of his reasons for wishing that I should accompany him to London by the morning train. The watch kept at the bank, and the result which might yet come of it, appealed so irresistibly to Rachel’s curiosity, that she at once decided (if Mrs. Merridew had no objection) on accompanying us back to town—so as to be within reach of the earliest news of our proceedings.

Mrs. Merridew proved to be all pliability and indulgence, after the truly considerate manner in which the explosion had conducted itself; and Betteredge was accordingly informed that we were all four to travel back together by the morning train. I fully expected that he would have asked leave to accompany us. But Rachel had wisely provided her faithful old servant with an occupation that interested him. He was charged with completing the refurnishing of the house, and was too full of his domestic responsibilities to feel the “detective-fever” as he might have felt it under other circumstances.

Our one subject of regret, in going to London, was the necessity of parting, more abruptly than we could have wished, with Ezra Jennings. It was impossible to persuade him to accompany us. I could only promise to write to him—and Rachel could only insist on his coming to see her when she returned to Yorkshire. There was every prospect of our meeting again in a few months—and yet there was something very sad in seeing our best and dearest friend left standing alone on the platform, as the train moved out of the station.

On our arrival in London, Mr. Bruff was accosted at the terminus by a small boy, dressed in a jacket and trousers of threadbare black cloth, and personally remarkable in virtue of the extraordinary prominence of his eyes. They projected so far, and they rolled about so loosely, that you wondered uneasily why they remained in their sockets. After listening to the boy, Mr. Bruff asked the ladies whether they would excuse our accompanying them back to Portland Place. I had barely time to promise Rachel that I would return, and tell her everything that had happened, before Mr. Bruff seized me by the arm, and hurried me into a cab. The boy with the ill-secured eyes took his place on the box by the driver, and the driver was directed to go to Lombard Street.

“News from the bank?” I asked, as we started.

“News of Mr. Luker,” said Mr. Bruff. “An hour ago, he was seen to leave his house at Lambeth, in a cab, accompanied by two men, who were recognised by my men as police officers in plain clothes. If Mr. Luker’s dread of the Indians is at the bottom of this precaution, the inference is plain enough. He is going to take the Diamond out of the bank.”

“And we are going to the bank to see what comes of it?”

“Yes—or to hear what has come of it, if it is all over by this time. Did you notice my boy—on the box, there?”

“I noticed his eyes.”

Mr. Bruff laughed. “They call the poor little wretch ‘Gooseberry’ at the office,” he said. “I employ him to go on errands—and I only wish my clerks who have nick-named him were as thoroughly to be depended on as he is. Gooseberry is one of the sharpest boys in London, Mr. Blake, in spite of his eyes.”

It was twenty minutes to five when we drew up before the bank in Lombard Street. Gooseberry looked longingly at his master, as he opened the cab door.

“Do you want to come in too?” asked Mr. Bruff kindly. “Come in then, and keep at my heels till further orders. He’s as quick as lightning,” pursued Mr. Bruff, addressing me in a whisper. “Two words will do with Gooseberry, where twenty would be wanted with another boy.”

We entered the bank. The outer office—with the long counter, behind which the cashiers sat—was crowded with people; all waiting their turn to take money out, or to pay money in, before the bank closed at five o’clock.

Two men among the crowd approached Mr. Bruff, as soon as he showed himself.

“Well,” asked the lawyer. “Have you seen him?”

“He passed us here half an hour since, sir, and went on into the inner office.”

“Has he not come out again yet?”

“No, sir.”

Mr. Bruff turned to me. “Let us wait,” he said.

I looked round among the people about me for the three Indians. Not a sign of them was to be seen anywhere. The only person present with a noticeably dark complexion was a tall man in a pilot coat, and a round hat, who looked like a sailor. Could this be one of them in disguise? Impossible! The man was taller than any of the Indians; and his face, where it was not hidden by a bushy black beard, was twice the breadth of any of their faces at least.

“They must have their spy somewhere,” said Mr. Bruff, looking at the dark sailor in his turn. “And he may be the man.”

Before he could say more, his coat-tail was respectfully pulled by his attendant sprite with the gooseberry eyes. Mr. Bruff looked where the boy was looking. “Hush!” he said. “Here is Mr. Luker!”

The money-lender came out from the inner regions of the bank, followed by his two guardian policemen in plain clothes.

“Keep your eye on him,” whispered Mr. Bruff. “If he passes the Diamond to anybody, he will pass it here.”

Without noticing either of us, Mr. Luker slowly made his way to the door—now in the thickest, now in the thinnest part of the crowd. I distinctly saw his hand move, as he passed a short, stout man, respectably dressed in a suit of sober grey. The man started a little, and looked after him. Mr. Luker moved on slowly through the crowd. At the door his guard placed themselves on either side of him. They were all three followed by one of Mr. Bruff’s men—and I saw them no more.

I looked round at the lawyer, and then looked significantly towards the man in the suit of sober grey. “Yes!” whispered Mr. Bruff, “I saw it too!” He turned about, in search of his second man. The second man was nowhere to be seen. He looked behind him for his attendant sprite. Gooseberry had disappeared.

“What the devil does it mean?” said Mr. Bruff angrily. “They have both left us at the very time when we want them most.”

It came to the turn of the man in the grey suit to transact his business at the counter. He paid in a cheque—received a receipt for it—and turned to go out.

“What is to be done?” asked Mr. Bruff. “We can’t degrade ourselves by following him.”

“I can!” I said. “I wouldn’t lose sight of that man for ten thousand pounds!”

“In that case,” rejoined Mr. Bruff, “I wouldn’t lose sight of you, for twice the money. A nice occupation for a man in my position,” he muttered to himself, as we followed the stranger out of the bank. “For Heaven’s sake don’t mention it. I should be ruined if it was known.”

The man in the grey suit got into an omnibus, going westward. We got in after him. There were latent reserves of youth still left in Mr. Bruff. I assert it positively—when he took his seat in the omnibus, he blushed!

The man in the grey suit stopped the omnibus, and got out in Oxford Street. We followed him again. He went into a chemist’s shop.

Mr. Bruff started. “My chemist!” he exclaimed. “I am afraid we have made a mistake.”

We entered the shop. Mr. Bruff and the proprietor exchanged a few words in private. The lawyer joined me again, with a very crestfallen face.

“It’s greatly to our credit,” he said, as he took my arm, and led me out—“that’s one comfort!”

“What is to our credit?” I asked.

“Mr. Blake! you and I are the two worst amateur detectives that ever tried their hands at the trade. The man in the grey suit has been thirty years in the chemist’s service. He was sent to the bank to pay money to his master’s account—and he knows no more of the Moonstone than the babe unborn.”

I asked what was to be done next.

“Come back to my office,” said Mr. Bruff. “Gooseberry, and my second man, have evidently followed somebody else. Let us hope that THEY had their eyes about them at any rate!”

When we reached Gray’s Inn Square, the second man had arrived there before us. He had been waiting for more than a quarter of an hour.

“Well!” asked Mr. Bruff. “What’s your news?”

“I am sorry to say, sir,” replied the man, “that I have made a mistake. I could have taken my oath that I saw Mr. Luker pass something to an elderly gentleman, in a light-coloured paletot. The elderly gentleman turns out, sir, to be a most respectable master iron-monger in Eastcheap.”