THE MOONSTONE.
By THE AUTHOR OF "THE WOMAN IN WHITE," &c. &c.

SECOND PERIOD. THE DISCOVERY OF THE
TRUTH. (1848—1849.)
SECOND NARRATIVE.
THE NARRATIVE OF MR. BRUFF.
CHAPTER III

THE prominent personage among the guests
at the dinner party I found to be Mr.
Murthwaite.

On his appearance in England, after his
wanderings, society had been greatly interested in
the traveller, as a man who had passed through
many dangerous adventures, and who had
escaped to tell the tale. He had now
announced his intention of returning to the scene
of his exploits, and of penetrating into regions
left still unexplored. This magnificent
indifference to presuming on his luck, and to placing
his safety in peril for the second time, revived
the flagging interest of the worshippers in the
hero. The law of chances was clearly against
his escaping on this occasion. It is not every
day that we can meet an eminent person at
dinner, and feel that there is a reasonable
prospect of the news of his murder being the news
that we hear of him next.

When the gentlemen were left by themselves
in the dining-room, I found myself sitting next
to Mr. Murthwaite. The guests present being
all English, it is needless to say that, as soon as
the wholesome check exercised by the presence
of the ladies was removed, the conversation
turned on politics as a necessary result.

In respect to this all-absorbing national topic,
I happen to be one of the most un-English
Englishmen living. As a general rule, political
talk appears 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 round of the table, I found that he
was apparently of my way of thinking. He
was doing it very dexterously— with all
possible consideration for the feelings of his host—
but it is not the less certain that he was
composing himself for a nap. It struck me as an
experiment worth attempting, to try whether a
judicious allusion to the subject of the
Moonstone would keep him awake, and, if it did, to
see what he thought of the last new complication
in the Indian conspiracy, as revealed in
the prosaic precincts of my office.

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

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

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

Mr. Murthwaite shifted round in his chair,
so as to put the rest of the company behind
him (Conservatives and Liberals alike), and
concentrated his 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 an interview with me,
in my office, yesterday."

Mr. Murthwaite was not an easy man to
astonish; but that last answer of mine
completely staggered him. I described what had
happened to Mr. Luker, and what had happened
to myself, exactly as I have described it here.

"It is clear that the Indian's parting inquiry
had an object," I added. " Why should he be
so anxious to know the time at which a
borrower of 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 see it."

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

"Let me ask you one question," he said.
"In what position does the conspiracy 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 you have never seriously
examined it. Shall we run it over together,
from the time when you drew Colonel
Herncastle's Will, to the time when the Indian called