"The Sergeant won't help you, Mr.Franklin."

"Why not?"

"There has been an event, sir, in the
police-circles, since you went away. The great Cuff
has retired from business. He has got a little
cottage at Dorking; and he's up to his eyes in
the growing of roses. I have it in his own
handwriting, Mr. Franklin. He has grown the
white moss rose, without budding it on the
dog rose first. And Mr. Begbie the gardener is to
go to Dorking, and own that the Sergeant has
beaten him at last."

"It doesn't much matter," I said. " I must
do without Sergeant Cuff's help. And I must
trust to you, at starting."

It is likely enough that I spoke rather
carelessly. At any rate, Betteredge seemed to be
piqued by something in the reply which I had
just made to him. " You might trust to worse
than me, Mr. Franklin—- I can tell you that,"
he said a little sharply.

The tone in which he retorted, and a certain
disturbance, after he had spoken, which I
detected in his manner, suggested to me that he
was possessed of some information which he
hesitated to communicate.

"I expect you to help me," I said, " in
picking up the fragments of evidence which Sergeant
Cuff has left behind him. I know you can do
that. Can you do no more?"

"What more can you expect from, me, sir?"
asked Betteredge, with an appearance of the
utmost humility.

"I expect more—from what you said just
now."

"Mere boasting, Mr. Franklin," returned the
old man obstinately. " Some people are born
boasters, and they never get over it to their
dying day. I'm one of them."

There was only one way to take with him.  I
appealed to his interest in Rachel, and his
interest in me.

"Betteredge, would you be glad to hear that
Rachel and I were good friends again?"

"I have served your family, sir, to mighty
little purpose, if you doubt it!"

"Do you remember how Rachel treated me,
before I left England?"

"As well as if it was yesterday! My lady
herself wrote you a letter about it; and you
were so good as to show the letter to me. It
said that Miss Rachel was mortally offended
with you, for the part you had taken in trying
to recover her jewel. And neither my lady, nor
you, nor anybody else could guess why."

"Quite true, Betteredge! And I come back
from my travels, and find her mortally offended
with me still. I knew that the Diamond was
at the bottom of it, last year; and I know that
the Diamond is at the bottom of it now. I have
tried to speak to her, and she won't see me. I
have tried to write to her, and she won't answer
me. How, in Heaven's name, am I to clear
the matter up? The chance of searching into
the loss of the Moonstone, is the one chance of
inquiry that Rachel herself has left me!"

Those words evidently put the case before
him, as he had not seen it yet. He asked a
question which satisfied me that I had shaken
him.

"There is no ill-feeling in this, Mr. Franklin,
on your side—- is there?"

"There was some anger," I answered, " when
I left London. But that is all worn out now.
I want to make Rachel come to an
understanding with me— and I want nothing more."

"You don't feel any fear, sir— supposing you
make any discoveries— in regard to what you
may find out about Miss Rachel?"

I understood the jealous belief in his young
mistress which prompted those words.

"I am as certain of her as you are," I
answered. " The fullest disclosure of her secret
will reveal nothing that can alter her place in
your estimation, or in mine."

Betteredge's last-left scruples vanished at
that.

"If I am. doing wrong to help you, Mr.
Franklin," he exclaimed, " all I can say is—- I
am as innocent of seeing it as the babe unborn!
I can put you on the road to discovery, if you
can only go on by yourself. You remember
that poor girl of ours—Rosanna Spearman?"

"Of course!"

"You always thought she had some sort of
confession, in regard to this matter of the
Moonstone, which she wanted to make to
you?"

"I certainly couldn't account for her strange
conduct in any other way."

"You may set that doubt at rest, Mr.
Franklin, whenever you please."

It was my turn to come to a standstill now.
I tried vainly, in the gathering darkness, to see
his face. In the surprise of the moment, I
asked a little impatiently what he meant.

"Steady, sir!" proceeded Betteredge. " I
mean what I say. Rosanna Spearman left a
sealed letter behind her— a letter addressed to
you."

"Where is it?"

"In the possession of a friend of her's, at
Cobb's Hole. You must have heard tell, when
you were here last, sir, of Limping Lucy— a
lame girl, with a crutch."

"The fisherman's daughter?"

"The same, Mr. Franklin."

"Why wasn't the letter forwarded to me?"

"Limping Lucy has a will of her own, sir.
She wouldn't give it into any hands but yours.
And you had left England before I could write
to you."

"Let's go back, Betteredge, and get it at
once!"

"Too late, sir, to-night. They're great savers
of candles along our coast; and they go to bed
early at Cobb's Hole."

"Nonsense! We might get there in half an
hour."

"You might, sir. And when you did get
there, you would find the door locked." He
pointed to a light, glimmering below us; and,
at the same moment, I heard through the
stillness of the evening the bubbling of a stream.