第53章

My lady's maid and the housemaid had, it appeared, neither of them believed in Rosanna's illness of the previous day.These two devils--I ask your pardon; but how else can you describe a couple of spiteful women?--had stolen upstairs, at intervals during the Thursday afternoon; had tried Rosanna's door, and found it locked; had knocked, and not been answered;had listened, and not heard a sound inside.When the girl had come down to tea, and had been sent up, still out of sorts, to bed again, the two devils aforesaid had tried her door once more, and found it locked; had looked at the keyhole, and found it stopped up; had seen a light under the door at midnight, and had heard the crackling of a fire (a fire in a servant's bedroom in the month of June!) at four in the morning.All this they had told Sergeant Cuff, who, in return for their anxiety to enlighten him, had eyed them with sour and suspicious looks, and had shown them plainly that he didn't believe either one or the other.Hence, the unfavourable reports of him which these two women had brought out with them from the examination.Hence, also (without reckoning the influence of the tea-pot), their readiness to let their tongues run to any length on the subject of the Sergeant's ungracious behaviour to them.

Having had some experience of the great Cuff's roundabout ways, and having last seen him evidently bent on following Rosanna privately when she went out for her walk, it seemed clear to me that he had thought it unadvisable to let the lady's maid and the housemaid know how materially they had helped him.They were just the sort of women, if he had treated their evidence as trustworthy, to have been puffed up by it, and to have said or done something which would have put Rosanna Spearman on her guard.

I walked out in the fine summer afternoon, very sorry for the poor girl, and very uneasy in my mind at the turn things had taken.Drifting towards the shrubbery, some time later, there I met Mr.Franklin.After returning from seeing his cousin off at the station, he had been with my lady, holding a long conversation with her.She had told him of Miss Rachel's unaccountable refusal to let her wardrobe be examined; and had put him in such low spirits about my young lady, that he seemed to shrink from speaking on the subject.

The family temper appeared in his face that evening, for the first time in my experience of him.

`Well, Betteredge,' he said, `how does the atmosphere of mystery and suspicion in which we are all living now, agree with you? Do you remember that morning when I first came here with the Moonstone? I wish to God we had thrown it into the quicksand!'

After breaking out in that way, he abstained from speaking again until he had composed himself.We walked silently, side by side, for a minute or two, and then he asked me what had become of Sergeant Cuff.It was impossible to put Mr.Franklin off with the excuse of the Sergeant being in my room, composing his mind.I told him exactly what had happened, mentioning particularly what my lady's maid and the housemaid had said about Rosanna Spearman.

Mr.Franklin's clear head saw the turn the Sergeant's suspicions had taken, in the twinkling of an eye.