The Moonstone

by Wilkie Collins

  CHAPTER III

  The prominent personage among the guests at the dinner party I found tobe Mr. Murthwaite.

  On his appearance in England, after his wanderings, society had beengreatly interested in the traveller, as a man who had passed throughmany dangerous adventures, and who had escaped to tell the tale. He hadnow announced his intention of returning to the scene of his exploits,and of penetrating into regions left still unexplored. This magnificentindifference to placing his safety in peril for the second time, revivedthe flagging interest of the worshippers in the hero. The law of chanceswas clearly against his escaping on this occasion. It is not every daythat we can meet an eminent person at dinner, and feel that there isa reasonable prospect of the news of his murder being the news that wehear of him next.

  When the gentlemen were left by themselves in the dining-room, I foundmyself sitting next to Mr. Murthwaite. The guests present being allEnglish, it is needless to say that, as soon as the wholesome checkexercised by the presence of the ladies was removed, the conversationturned on politics as a necessary result.

  In respect to this all-absorbing national topic, I happen to be one ofthe most un-English Englishmen living. As a general rule, political talkappears to me to be of all talk the most dreary and the most profitless.Glancing at Mr. Murthwaite, when the bottles had made their first roundof the table, I found that he was apparently of my way of thinking. Hewas doing it very dexterously--with all possible consideration forthe feelings of his host--but it is not the less certain that hewas composing himself for a nap. It struck me as an experiment worthattempting, to try whether a judicious allusion to the subject of theMoonstone would keep him awake, and, if it did, to see what HE thoughtof the last new complication in the Indian conspiracy, as revealed inthe prosaic precincts of my office.

  "If I am not mistaken, Mr. Murthwaite," I began, "you were acquaintedwith the late Lady Verinder, and you took some interest in the strangesuccession of events which ended in the loss of the Moonstone?"

  The eminent traveller did me the honour of waking up in an instant, andasking me who I was.

  I informed him of my professional connection with the Herncastle family,not forgetting the curious position which I had occupied towards theColonel and his Diamond in the bygone time.

  Mr. Murthwaite shifted round in his chair, so as to put the rest of thecompany behind him (Conservatives and Liberals alike), and concentratedhis whole attention on plain Mr. Bruff, of Gray's Inn Square.

  "Have you heard anything, lately, of the Indians?" he asked.

  "I have every reason to believe," I answered, "that one of them had aninterview with me, in my office, yesterday."

  Mr. Murthwaite was not an easy man to astonish; but that last answerof mine completely staggered him. I described what had happened to Mr.Luker, and what had happened to myself, exactly as I have described ithere. "It is clear that the Indian's parting inquiry had an object," Iadded. "Why should he be so anxious to know the time at which a borrowerof money is usually privileged to pay the money back?"

  "Is it possible that you don't see his motive, Mr. Bruff?"

  "I am ashamed of my stupidity, Mr. Murthwaite--but I certainly don't seeit."

  The great traveller became quite interested in sounding the immensevacuity of my dulness to its lowest depths.

  "Let me ask you one question," he said. "In what position does theconspiracy to seize the Moonstone now stand?"

  "I can't say," I answered. "The Indian plot is a mystery to me."

  "The Indian plot, Mr. Bruff, can only be a mystery to you, because youhave never seriously examined it. Shall we run it over together, fromthe time when you drew Colonel Herncastle's Will, to the time whenthe Indian called at your office? In your position, it may be of veryserious importance to the interests of Miss Verinder, that you shouldbe able to take a clear view of this matter in case of need. Tell me,bearing that in mind, whether you will penetrate the Indian's motive foryourself? or whether you wish me to save you the trouble of making anyinquiry into it?"

  It is needless to say that I thoroughly appreciated the practicalpurpose which I now saw that he had in view, and that the first of thetwo alternatives was the alternative I chose.

  "Very good," said Mr. Murthwaite. "We will take the question of the agesof the three Indians first. I can testify that they all look much aboutthe same age--and you can decide for yourself, whether the man whom yousaw was, or was not, in the prime of life. Not forty, you think? Myidea too. We will say not forty. Now look back to the time when ColonelHerncastle came to England, and when you were concerned in the plan headopted to preserve his life. I don't want you to count the years. Iwill only say, it is clear that these present Indians, at their age,must be the successors of three other Indians (high caste Brahmins allof them, Mr. Bruff, when they left their native country!) who followedthe Colonel to these shores. Very well. These present men of ours havesucceeded to the men who were here before them. If they had only donethat, the matter would not have been worth inquiring into. But theyhave done more. They have succeeded to the organisation which theirpredecessors established in this country. Don't start! The organisationis a very trumpery affair, according to our ideas, I have no doubt. Ishould reckon it up as including the command of money; the services,when needed, of that shady sort of Englishman, who lives in the bywaysof foreign life in London; and, lastly, the secret sympathy of suchfew men of their own country, and (formerly, at least) of their ownreligion, as happen to be employed in ministering to some of themultitudinous wants of this great city. Nothing very formidable, as yousee! But worth notice at starting, because we may find occasion torefer to this modest little Indian organisation as we go on. Having nowcleared the ground, I am going to ask you a question; and I expect yourexperience to answer it. What was the event which gave the Indians theirfirst chance of seizing the Diamond?"

  I understood the allusion to my experience.

  "The first chance they got," I replied, "was clearly offered to them byColonel Herncastle's death. They would be aware of his death, I suppose,as a matter of course?"

  "As a matter of course. And his death, as you say, gave them their firstchance. Up to that time the Moonstone was safe in the strong-room of thebank. You drew the Colonel's Will leaving his jewel to his niece; andthe Will was proved in the usual way. As a lawyer, you can be at no lossto know what course the Indians would take (under English advice) afterTHAT."

  "They would provide themselves with a copy of the Will from Doctors'Commons," I said.

  "Exactly. One or other of those shady Englishmen to whom I have alluded,would get them the copy you have described. That copy would inform themthat the Moonstone was bequeathed to the daughter of Lady Verinder, andthat Mr. Blake the elder, or some person appointed by him, was to placeit in her hands. You will agree with me that the necessary informationabout persons in the position of Lady Verinder and Mr. Blake, would beperfectly easy information to obtain. The one difficulty for the Indianswould be to decide whether they should make their attempt on the Diamondwhen it was in course of removal from the keeping of the bank, orwhether they should wait until it was taken down to Yorkshire to LadyVerinder's house. The second way would be manifestly the safest way--andthere you have the explanation of the appearance of the Indians atFrizinghall, disguised as jugglers, and waiting their time. In London,it is needless to say, they had their organisation at their disposal tokeep them informed of events. Two men would do it. One to follow anybodywho went from Mr. Blake's house to the bank. And one to treat thelower men servants with beer, and to hear the news of the house. Thesecommonplace precautions would readily inform them that Mr. FranklinBlake had been to the bank, and that Mr. Franklin Blake was the onlyperson in the house who was going to visit Lady Verinder. What actuallyfollowed upon that discovery, you remember, no doubt, quite as correctlyas I do."

  I remembered that Franklin Blake had detected one of the spies, in thestreet--that he had, in consequence, advanced the time of his arrival inYorkshire by some
hours--and that (thanks to old Betteredge's excellentadvice) he had lodged the Diamond in the bank at Frizinghall, before theIndians were so much as prepared to see him in the neighbourhood.All perfectly clear so far. But the Indians being ignorant of theprecautions thus taken, how was it that they had made no attempt on LadyVerinder's house (in which they must have supposed the Diamond to be)through the whole of the interval that elapsed before Rachel's birthday?

  In putting this difficulty to Mr. Murthwaite, I thought it right to addthat I had heard of the little boy, and the drop of ink, and the rest ofit, and that any explanation based on the theory of clairvoyance wasan explanation which would carry no conviction whatever with it, to MYmind.

  "Nor to mine either," said Mr. Murthwaite. "The clairvoyance inthis case is simply a development of the romantic side of the Indiancharacter. It would be refreshment and an encouragement to thosemen--quite inconceivable, I grant you, to the English mind--to surroundtheir wearisome and perilous errand in this country with a certain haloof the marvellous and the supernatural. Their boy is unquestionably asensitive subject to the mesmeric influence--and, under that influence,he has no doubt reflected what was already in the mind of the personmesmerising him. I have tested the theory of clairvoyance--and I havenever found the manifestations get beyond that point. The Indians don'tinvestigate the matter in this way; the Indians look upon their boy asa Seer of things invisible to their eyes--and, I repeat, in that marvelthey find the source of a new interest in the purpose that unites them.I only notice this as offering a curious view of human character,which must be quite new to you. We have nothing whatever to do withclairvoyance, or with mesmerism, or with anything else that is hard ofbelief to a practical man, in the inquiry that we are now pursuing. Myobject in following the Indian plot, step by step, is to trace resultsback, by rational means, to natural causes. Have I succeeded to yoursatisfaction so far?"

  "Not a doubt of it, Mr. Murthwaite! I am waiting, however, with someanxiety, to hear the rational explanation of the difficulty which I havejust had the honour of submitting to you."

  Mr. Murthwaite smiled. "It's the easiest difficulty to deal with ofall," he said. "Permit me to begin by admitting your statement of thecase as a perfectly correct one. The Indians were undoubtedly not awareof what Mr. Franklin Blake had done with the Diamond--for we find themmaking their first mistake, on the first night of Mr. Blake's arrival athis aunt's house."

  "Their first mistake?" I repeated.

  "Certainly! The mistake of allowing themselves to be surprised, lurkingabout the terrace at night, by Gabriel Betteredge. However, they had themerit of seeing for themselves that they had taken a false step--for, asyou say, again, with plenty of time at their disposal, they never camenear the house for weeks afterwards."

  "Why, Mr. Murthwaite? That's what I want to know! Why?"

  "Because no Indian, Mr. Bruff, ever runs an unnecessary risk. The clauseyou drew in Colonel Herncastle's Will, informed them (didn't it?) thatthe Moonstone was to pass absolutely into Miss Verinder's possession onher birthday. Very well. Tell me which was the safest course for men intheir position? To make their attempt on the Diamond while it was underthe control of Mr. Franklin Blake, who had shown already that he couldsuspect and outwit them? Or to wait till the Diamond was at the disposalof a young girl, who would innocently delight in wearing the magnificentjewel at every possible opportunity? Perhaps you want a proof that mytheory is correct? Take the conduct of the Indians themselves as theproof. They appeared at the house, after waiting all those weeks,on Miss Verinder's birthday; and they were rewarded for the patientaccuracy of their calculations by seeing the Moonstone in the bosom ofher dress! When I heard the story of the Colonel and the Diamond, laterin the evening, I felt so sure about the risk Mr. Franklin Blake had run(they would have certainly attacked him, if he had not happened to rideback to Lady Verinder's in the company of other people); and I was sostrongly convinced of the worse risk still, in store for Miss Verinder,that I recommended following the Colonel's plan, and destroying theidentity of the gem by having it cut into separate stones. How itsextraordinary disappearance that night, made my advice useless, andutterly defeated the Hindoo plot--and how all further action on the partof the Indians was paralysed the next day by their confinement in prisonas rogues and vagabonds--you know as well as I do. The first act inthe conspiracy closes there. Before we go on to the second, may Iask whether I have met your difficulty, with an explanation which issatisfactory to the mind of a practical man?"

  It was impossible to deny that he had met my difficulty fairly; thanksto his superior knowledge of the Indian character--and thanks to hisnot having had hundreds of other Wills to think of since ColonelHerncastle's time!

  "So far, so good," resumed Mr. Murthwaite. "The first chance the Indianshad of seizing the Diamond was a chance lost, on the day when they werecommitted to the prison at Frizinghall. When did the second chance offeritself? The second chance offered itself--as I am in a condition toprove--while they were still in confinement."

  He took out his pocket-book, and opened it at a particular leaf, beforehe went on.

  "I was staying," he resumed, "with some friends at Frizinghall, at thetime. A day or two before the Indians were set free (on a Monday, Ithink), the governor of the prison came to me with a letter. It hadbeen left for the Indians by one Mrs. Macann, of whom they had hired thelodging in which they lived; and it had been delivered at Mrs. Macann'sdoor, in ordinary course of post, on the previous morning. The prisonauthorities had noticed that the postmark was 'Lambeth,' and that theaddress on the outside, though expressed in correct English, was, inform, oddly at variance with the customary method of directing a letter.On opening it, they had found the contents to be written in a foreignlanguage, which they rightly guessed at as Hindustani. Their object incoming to me was, of course, to have the letter translated to them.I took a copy in my pocket-book of the original, and of mytranslation--and there they are at your service."

  He handed me the open pocket-book. The address on the letter was thefirst thing copied. It was all written in one paragraph, without anyattempt at punctuation, thus: "To the three Indian men living with thelady called Macann at Frizinghall in Yorkshire." The Hindoo charactersfollowed; and the English translation appeared at the end, expressed inthese mysterious words:

  "In the name of the Regent of the Night, whose seat is on the Antelope,whose arms embrace the four corners of the earth.

  "Brothers, turn your faces to the south, and come to me in the street ofmany noises, which leads down to the muddy river.

  "The reason is this.

  "My own eyes have seen it."

  There the letter ended, without either date or signature. I handed itback to Mr. Murthwaite, and owned that this curious specimen of Hindoocorrespondence rather puzzled me.

  "I can explain the first sentence to you," he said; "and the conductof the Indians themselves will explain the rest. The god of the moon isrepresented, in the Hindoo mythology, as a four-armed deity, seated onan antelope; and one of his titles is the regent of the night. Here,then, to begin with, is something which looks suspiciously like anindirect reference to the Moonstone. Now, let us see what the Indiansdid, after the prison authorities had allowed them to receive theirletter. On the very day when they were set free they went at once to therailway station, and took their places in the first train thatstarted for London. We all thought it a pity at Frizinghall that theirproceedings were not privately watched. But, after Lady Verinder haddismissed the police-officer, and had stopped all further inquiryinto the loss of the Diamond, no one else could presume to stir in thematter. The Indians were free to go to London, and to London they went.What was the next news we heard of them, Mr. Bruff?"

  "They were annoying Mr. Luker," I answered, "by loitering about thehouse at Lambeth."

  "Did you read the report of Mr. Luker's application to the magistrate?"

  "Yes."

  "In the course of his statement he referred, if you remember, toa foreign work
man in his employment, whom he had just dismissed onsuspicion of attempted theft, and whom he also distrusted as possiblyacting in collusion with the Indians who had annoyed him. The inferenceis pretty plain, Mr. Bruff, as to who wrote that letter which puzzledyou just now, and as to which of Mr. Luker's Oriental treasures theworkman had attempted to steal."

  The inference (as I hastened to acknowledge) was too plain to need beingpointed out. I had never doubted that the Moonstone had found its wayinto Mr. Luker's hands, at the time Mr. Murthwaite alluded to. My onlyquestion had been, How had the Indians discovered the circumstance? Thisquestion (the most difficult to deal with of all, as I had thought) hadnow received its answer, like the rest. Lawyer as I was, I began to feelthat I might trust Mr. Murthwaite to lead me blindfold through the lastwindings of the labyrinth, along which he had guided me thus far. I paidhim the compliment of telling him this, and found my little concessionvery graciously received.

  "You shall give me a piece of information in your turn before we goon," he said. "Somebody must have taken the Moonstone from Yorkshireto London. And somebody must have raised money on it, or it would neverhave been in Mr. Luker's possession. Has there been any discovery madeof who that person was?"

  "None that I know of."

  "There was a story (was there not?) about Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite. I amtold he is an eminent philanthropist--which is decidedly against him, tobegin with."

  I heartily agreed in this with Mr. Murthwaite. At the same time, I feltbound to inform him (without, it is needless to say, mentioning MissVerinder's name) that Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite had been cleared of allsuspicion, on evidence which I could answer for as entirely beyonddispute.

  "Very well," said Mr. Murthwaite, quietly, "let us leave it to time toclear the matter up. In the meanwhile, Mr. Bruff, we must get back againto the Indians, on your account. Their journey to London simply ended intheir becoming the victims of another defeat. The loss of their secondchance of seizing the Diamond is mainly attributable, as I think, to thecunning and foresight of Mr. Luker--who doesn't stand at the top of theprosperous and ancient profession of usury for nothing! By the promptdismissal of the man in his employment, he deprived the Indians of theassistance which their confederate would have rendered them in gettinginto the house. By the prompt transport of the Moonstone to hisbanker's, he took the conspirators by surprise before they were preparedwith a new plan for robbing him. How the Indians, in this latter case,suspected what he had done, and how they contrived to possess themselvesof his banker's receipt, are events too recent to need dwelling on. Letit be enough to say that they know the Moonstone to be once more out oftheir reach; deposited (under the general description of 'a valuable ofgreat price') in a banker's strong room. Now, Mr. Bruff, what is theirthird chance of seizing the Diamond? and when will it come?"

  As the question passed his lips, I penetrated the motive of the Indian'svisit to my office at last!

  "I see it!" I exclaimed. "The Indians take it for granted, as we do,that the Moonstone has been pledged; and they want to be certainlyinformed of the earliest period at which the pledge can beredeemed--because that will be the earliest period at which the Diamondcan be removed from the safe keeping of the bank!"

  "I told you you would find it out for yourself, Mr. Bruff, if I onlygave you a fair chance. In a year from the time when the Moonstone waspledged, the Indians will be on the watch for their third chance. Mr.Luker's own lips have told them how long they will have to wait, andyour respectable authority has satisfied them that Mr. Luker has spokenthe truth. When do we suppose, at a rough guess, that the Diamond foundits way into the money-lender's hands?"

  "Towards the end of last June," I answered, "as well as I can reckonit."

  "And we are now in the year 'forty-eight. Very good. If the unknownperson who has pledged the Moonstone can redeem it in a year, thejewel will be in that person's possession again at the end of June,'forty-nine. I shall be thousands of miles from England and English newsat that date. But it may be worth YOUR while to take a note of it, andto arrange to be in London at the time."

  "You think something serious will happen?" I said.

  "I think I shall be safer," he answered, "among the fiercest fanatics ofCentral Asia than I should be if I crossed the door of the bank with theMoonstone in my pocket. The Indians have been defeated twice running,Mr. Bruff. It's my firm belief that they won't be defeated a thirdtime."

  Those were the last words he said on the subject. The coffee came in;the guests rose, and dispersed themselves about the room; and we joinedthe ladies of the dinner-party upstairs.

  I made a note of the date, and it may not be amiss if I close mynarrative by repeating that note here:

  JUNE, 'FORTY-NINE. EXPECT NEWS OF THE INDIANS, TOWARDS THE END OF THEMONTH.

  And that done, I hand the pen, which I have now no further claim to use,to the writer who follows me next.

  THIRD NARRATIVE

  Contributed by FRANKLIN BLAKE