" Certainly not. "Why should I?"

She abruptly thrust the letter (as the phrase
is) into my face.

"Take it!" she exclaimed furiously. " I
never set eyes on you before. God Almighty
forbid I should ever set eyes on you again."

With those parting words, she limped away
from me at the top of her speed. The one
interpretation that I could put on her conduct
has, no doubt, been anticipated by everybody.
I could only suppose that she was mad.

Having reached that inevitable conclusion, I
turned to the more interesting object of
investigation which was presented to me by
Rosanna Spearman's letter. The address was
written as follows:—" For Franklin Blake, Esq.
To be given into his own hands (and not to be
trusted to anyone else), by Lucy Yolland."

I broke the seal. The envelope contained a
letter: and this, in its turn, contained a slip of
paper. I read the letter first:—

"Sir,— If you are curious to know the meaning
of my behaviour to you, while you were
staying in the house of my mistress, Lady
Verinder, do what you are told to do in the
memorandum enclosed with this— and do it
without any person being present to overlook
jou. Your humble servant,

"ROSANNA SPEARMAN."

I turned to the slip of paper next. Here is
the literal copy of it, word for word:

"Memorandum:—To go to the Shivering
Sand at the turn of the tide. To walk out on
the South Spit, until I get the South Spit
Beacon, and the flagstaff at the Coast-guard
station above Cobb's Hole in a line together.
To lay down on the rocks, a stick, or any straight
thing to guide my hand, exactly in the line of
the beacon and the flagstaff. To take care, in
doing this, that one end of the stick shall be at
the edge of the rocks, on the side of them
which overlooks the quicksand. To feel along
the stick, among the seaweed (beginning from
the end of the stick which points towards the
beacon), for the Chain. To run my hand along
the Chain, when found, until I come to the
part of it which stretches over the edge of
the rocks, down into the quicksand. And then,
to pull the chain."

Just as I had read the last words—
underlined in the original— I heard the voice of
Betteredge behind me. The inventor of the
detective-fever had completely succumbed to
that irresistible malady. " I can't stand it any
longer, Mr. Franklin. What does her letter
say? For mercy's sake, sir, tell us, what does
her letter say?"

I handed him the letter, and the memorandum.
He read the first without appearing to
be much interested in it. But the second— the
memorandum—produced a strong impression
on him.

"The Sergeant said it!" cried Betteredge.
"From first to last, sir, the Sergeant said she
had got a memorandum of the hiding-place.
And here it is! Lord save us, Mr. Franklin,
here is the secret that puzzled everybody, from
the great Cuff downwards, ready and waiting,
as one may say, to show itself to you! It's the
ebb now, sir, as anybody may see for
themselves. How long will it be till the turn of the
tide?" He looked up, and observed a lad at
work, at some little distance from us, mending
a net. " Tammie Bright!" he shouted, at the
top of his voice.

"I hear you!" Tammie shouted back.

"When's the turn of the tide?"

"In an hour's time."

We both looked at our watches.

"We can go round by the coast, Mr.
Franklin," said Betteredge; " and get to the
quicksand in that way, with plenty of time to
spare. What do you say, sir?"

"Come along."

On our way to the Shivering Sand, I applied
to Betteredge to revive my memory of events
(as affecting Rosanna Spearman) at the period
of Sergeant Cuff's inquiry. With my old
friend's help, I soon had the succession of
circumstances clearly registered again in my mind.
Rosanna's journey to Frizinghall, when the
whole household believed her to be ill in her
own room—- Rosanna's mysterious employment
of the night-time, with her door locked, and
her candle burning till the morning—- Rosanna's
suspicious purchase of the japanned tin case,
and the two dogs' chains from Mrs. Yolland
—the Sergeant's positive conviction that Rosanna
had hidden something at the Shivering Sand,
and the Sergeant's absolute ignorance as to
what that something could be— all these strange
results of the abortive inquiry into the loss of
the Moonstone, were clearly present to me
again, when we reached the quicksand, and
walked out together on the low ledge of rocks
called the South Spit.

With Betteredge's help, I soon stood in the
right position to see the Beacon and the Coastguard
flagstaff in a line together. Following
the memorandum as our guide, we next laid
my stick in the necessary direction, as neatly
as we could, on the uneven surface of the rocks.
And then we looked at our watches once
more.

It wanted nearly twenty minutes yet of the
turn of the tide. I suggested waiting through
this interval on the beach, instead of on the wet
and slippery surface of the rocks. Having
reached the dry sand, I prepared to sit down;
and, greatly to my surprise, Betteredge
prepared to leave me.

"What are you going away for?" I asked.

"Look at the letter again, sir, and you will
see."

A glance at the letter reminded me that I
was charged, when I made my discovery, to
make it alone.

"It's hard enough for me to leave you, at
such a time as this," said Betteredge. " But
she died a dreadful death, poor soul—and I feel
a kind of call on me, Mr. Franklin, to humour
that fancy of her's. Besides," he added,