easy to convince as a committee of charitable
ladies. Appearances are dead against him. He
was in the house when the Diamond was lost.
And he was the first person in the house to go
to London afterwards. Those are ugly
circumstances, ma'am, viewed by the light of later
events."

I ought, I know, to have set him right
before he went any farther. I ought to have
told him that he was speaking in ignorance of
a testimony to Mr. Godfrey's innocence, offered
by the only person who was undeniably
competent to speak from a positive knowledge of
the subject. Alas! the temptation to lead the
lawyer artfully on to his own discomfiture was
too much for me. I asked what he meant by
"later events"—with an appearance of the
utmost innocence.

"By later events, Miss Clack, I mean,
events in which the Indians are concerned,"
proceeded Mr. Bruff, getting more and more
superior to poor Me, the longer he went on.
"What do the Indians do, the moment they
are let out of the prison at Frizinghall? They
go straight to London, and fix on Mr. Luker.
What does Mr. Luker say, when he first applies
to the magistrate for protection? He owns to
suspecting a foreign workman in his
establishment of collusion with the Indians. Can
there be plainer moral evidence, so far, that
the rogues had found an accomplice among
the persons in Mr. Luker's employment, and
that they knew the Moonstone to be in
Mr. Luker's house? Very well. What
follows? Mr. Luker feels alarmed (and with
good reason) for the safety of the jewel which
he has got in pledge. He lodges it privately
(under a general description) in his bankers'
strong-room. Wonderfully clever of him; but
the Indians are just as clever on their side.
They have their suspicions that the Diamond is
being shifted from one place to another; and
they hit on a singularly bold and complete way
of clearing those suspicions up. Whom do they
seize and search? Not Mr. Luker only—which
would be intelligible enough—but Mr. Godfrey
Ablewhite as well. Why? Mr. Ablewhite's
explanation is, that they acted on blind
suspicion, after seeing him accidentally speaking
to Mr. Luker. Absurd! Half a dozen other
people spoke to Mr. Luker that morning. Why
were they not followed home too, and decoyed
into the trap? No! no! The plain inference
is, that Mr. Ablewhite had his private interest
in the Moonstone as well as Mr. Luker, and
that the Indians were so uncertain as to which
of the two had the disposal of the jewel, that
there was no alternative but to search them
both. Public opinion says that, Miss Clack.
And public opinion, on this occasion, is not
easily refuted."

He said those last words, looking so wonderfully
wise in his own worldly conceit, that I
really (to my shame be it spoken) could not
resist leading him on a little farther still, before I
overwhelmed him with the truth.

"I don't presume to argue with a clever
lawyer like you," I said. " But is it quite fair,
sir, to Mr. Ablewhite to pass over the opinion
of the famous London police-officer who investigated
this case? Not the shadow of a suspicion
rested on anybody but Miss Verinder, in the
mind of Sergeant Cuff."

"Do you mean to tell me, Miss Clack, that
you agree with the Sergeant?"

"I judge nobody, sir, and I offer no opinion."

"And I commit both those enormities, ma'am.
I judge the Sergeant to have been utterly
wrong; and I offer the opinion that, if he
had known Rachel's character as I know it,
he would have suspected everybody in the
house, before he suspected her. I admit that
she has her faults—she is secret, and self-
willed; odd, and wild, and unlike other girls
of her age. But true as steel, and high-minded
and generous to a fault. If the plainest
evidence in the world pointed one way, and if
nothing but Rachel's word of honour pointed the
other, I would take her word before the
evidence, lawyer as I am! Strong language, Miss
Ciack; but I mean it."

"Would you object to illustrate your meaning,
Mr. Bruff, so that I may be sure I understand
it? Suppose you found Miss Verinder
quite unaccountably interested in what has
happened to Mr. Ablewhite and Mr. Luker?
Suppose she asked the strangest questions about
this dreadful scandal, and displayed the most
ungovernable agitation when she found out the
turn it was taking?"

"Suppose anything you please, Miss Clack,
it wouldn't shake my belief in Rachel Verinder
by a hair's-breadth."

"She is so absolutely to be relied on as
that?"

"So absolutely to be relied on as that."

"Then permit me to inform you, Mr.
Bruff, that Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite was in this
house not two hours since, and that his
entire innocence of all concern in the
disappearance of the Moonstone was proclaimed
by Miss Verinder herself, in the strongest
language I ever heard used by a young lady in
my life."

I enjoyed the triumph—the unholy triumph,
I fear, I must admit—of seeing Mr. Bruff
utterly confounded and overthrown by a few
plain words from Me. He started to his feet,
and stared at me in silence. I kept my seat,
undisturbed, and related the whole scene exactly
as it had occurred. " And what do you say
about Mr. Ablewhite now?" I asked, with the
utmost possible gentleness, as soon as I had
done.

"If Rachel has testified to his innocence,
Miss Clack, I don't scruple to say that I
believe in his innocence as firmly as you do. I
have been misled by appearances, like the rest
of the world; and I will make the best atonement
I can, by publicly contradicting the
scandal which has assailed your friend wherever
I meet with it. In the mean time, allow
me to congratulate you on the masterly
manner in which you have opened the full fire