Here we were, then, at a deadlock about Miss Rachel--and at a deadlock about the Moonstone. In the first case, my lady was powerless to help us. In the second (as you shall presently judge), Mr. Seegrave was fast approaching the condition of a superintendent at his wits' end.
Having ferreted about all over the `boudoir', without making any discoveries among the furniture, our experienced officer applied to me to know whether the servants in general were or were not acquainted with the place in which the Diamond had been put for the night.
`I knew where it was put, sir,' I said, `to begin with. Samuel, the footman, knew also--for he was present in the hall, when they were talking about where the Diamond was to be kept that night. My daughter knew, as she has already told you. She or Samuel may have mentioned the thing to the other servants-- or the other servants may have heard the talk for themselves, through the side door of the hall, which might have been open to the back staircase. For all I can tell, everybody in the house may have known where the jewel was, last night.'
My answer presenting rather a wide field for Mr. Superintendent's suspicions to range over, he tried to narrow it by asking about the servants' characters next.
I thought directly of Rosanna Spearman. But it was neither my place nor wish to direct suspicion against a poor girl, whose honesty had been above all doubt as long as I had known her. The matron at the reformatory had reported her to my lady as a sincerely penitent and thoroughly trustworthy girl. It was the Superintendent's business to discover reason for suspecting her first--and then, and not till then, it would be my duty to tell him how she came into my lady's service. `All our people have excellent characters,' I said. `And all have deserved the trust their mistress has placed in them.' After that, there was but one thing left for Mr. Seegrave to do--namely, to set to work, and tackle the servants' characters himself.
One after another, they were examined. One after another, they proved to have nothing to say--and said it (so far as the women were concerned) at great length, and with a very angry sense of the embargo laid on their bedrooms. The rest of them being sent back to their places downstairs, Penelope was then summoned, and examined separately a second time.
My daughter's little outbreak of temper in the `boudoir,' and her readiness to think herself suspected, appeared to have produced an unfavourable impression on Superintendent Seegrave. It seemed also to dwell a little on his mind, that she had been the last person who saw the Diamond at night. When the second questioning was over, my girl came back to me in a frenzy. There was no doubt of it any longer--the police-officer had almost as good as told her she was the thief! I could scarcely believe him (taking Mr. Franklin's view) to be quite such an ass as that. But, though he said nothing, the eye with which he looked at my daughter was not a very pleasant eye to see. I laughed it off with poor Penelope, as something too ridiculous to be treated seriously--which it certainly was. Secretly, I am afraid I was foolish enough to be angry too. It was a little trying--it was, indeed. My girl sat down in a corner, with her apron over her head, quite broken-hearted. Foolish of her, you will say: she might have waited till he openly accused her. Well, being a man of just and equal temper, I admit that. Still, Mr. Superintendent might have remembered--never mind what he might have remembered. The devil take him!
The next and last step in the investigation brought matters, as they say, to a crisis. The officer had an interview (at which I was present) with my lady. After informing her that the Diamond must have been taken by somebody in the house, he requested permission for himself and his men to search the servants' rooms and boxes on the spot. My good mistress, like the generous highbred woman she was, refused to let us be treated like thieves. `I will never consent to make such a return as that,' she said, `for all I owe to the faithful servants who are employed in my house.'
Mr. Superintendent made his bow, with a look in my direction, which said plainly, `Why employ me, if you are to tie my hands in this way?' As head of the servants, I felt directly that we were bound, in justice to all parties, not to profit by our mistress's generosity. `We gratefully thank your ladyship,' I said; `but we ask permission to do what is right in this matter, by giving up our keys. When Gabriel Betteredge sets