第17章

`I don't want to force my opinion on you,' Mr.Franklin went on.`The idea of certain chosen servants of an old Hindoo superstition devoting themselves, through all difficulties and dangers, to watching the opportunity of recovering their sacred gem, appears to me to be perfectly consistent with everything that we know of the patience of Oriental races, and the influence of Oriental religions.But then I am an imaginative man; and the butcher, the baker, and the tax-gatherer, are not the only credible realities in existence to my mind.Let the guess I have made at the truth in this matter go for what it is worth, and let us get on to the only practical question that concerns us.Does the conspiracy against the Moonstone survive the Colonel's death? And did the Colonel know it, when he left the birthday gift to his niece?'

I began to see my lady and Miss Rachel at the end of it all, now.Not a word he said escaped me.

`I was not very willing, when I discovered the story of the Moonstone,'

said Mr.Franklin, `to be the means of bringing it here.But Mr.Bruff reminded me that somebody must put my cousin's legacy into my cousin's hands -- and that I might as well do it as anybody else.After taking the Diamond out of the bank, I fancied I was followed in the streets by a shabby, dark-complexioned man.I went to my father's house to pick up my luggage, and found a letter there, which unexpectedly detained me in London.I went back to the bank with the Diamond, and thought I saw the shabby man again.

Taking the Diamond once more out of the bank this morning, I saw the man for the third time, gave him the slip, and started (before he recovered the trace of me) by the morning instead of the afternoon train.Here Iam, with the Diamond safe and sound -- and what is the first news that meets me? I find that three strolling Indians have been at the house, and that my arrival from London, and something which I am expected to have about me, are two special objects of investigation to them when they believe themselves to be alone.I don't waste time and words on their pouring the ink into the boy's hand, and telling him to look in it for a man at a distance, and for something in that man's pocket.The thing (which I have often seen done in the East) is "hocus-pocus" in my opinion, as it is in yours.The present question for us to decide is, whether I am wrongly attaching a meaning to a mere accident? or whether we really have evidence of the Indians being on the track of the Moonstone, the moment it is removed from the safe keeping of the bank?'

Neither he nor I seemed to fancy dealing with this part of the inquiry.

We looked at each other, and then we looked at the tide, oozing in smoothly, higher and higher, over the Shivering Sand.

`What are you thinking of?' says Mr.Franklin, suddenly.

`I was thinking, sir,' I answered, `that I should like to shy the Diamond into the quicksand, and settle the question in that way.'

`If you have got the value of the stone in your pocket,' answered Mr.

Franklin, `say so, Betteredge, and in it goes!'

It's curious to note, when your mind's anxious, how very far in the way of relief a very small joke will go.We found a fund of merriment, at the time, in the notion of making away with Miss Rachel's lawful property, and getting Mr.Blake, as executor, into dreadful trouble -- though where the merriment was, I am quite at a loss to discover now.

Mr.Franklin was the first to bring the talk back to the talk's proper purpose.He took an envelope out of his pocket, opened it, and handed to me the paper inside.

`Betteredge,' he said, `we must face the question of the Colonel's motive in leaving this legacy to his niece, for my aunt's sake.Bear in mind how Lady Verinder treated her brother from the time when he returned to England, to the time when he told you he should remember his niece's birthday.And read that.'

He gave me the extract from the Colonel's Will.I have got it by me while I write these words; and I copy it, as follows, for your benefit:

`Thirdly, and lastly, I give and bequeath to my niece, Rachel Verinder, daughter and only child of my sister, Julia Verinder, widow -- if her mother, the said Julia Verinder, shall be living on the said Rachel Verinder's next Birthday after my death -- the yellow Diamond belonging to me, and known in the East by the name of the Moonstone: subject to this condition, that her mother, the said Julia Verinder, shall be living at the time.

And I hereby desire my executor to give my Diamond, either by his own hands or by the hands of some trustworthy representative whom he shall appoint into the personal possession of my said niece Rachel, on her next birthday after my death, and in the presence, if possible, of my sister, the said Julia Verinder.And I desire that my said sister may be informed, by means of a true copy of this, the third and last clause of my Will, that I give the Diamond to her daughter Rachel, in token of my free forgiveness of the injury which her conduct towards me has been the means of inflicting on my reputation in my lifetime; and especially in proof that I pardon, as becomes a dying man, the insult offered to me as an officer and a gentleman, when her servant, by her orders, closed the door of her house against me, on the occasion of her daughter's birthday.'

More words followed these, providing if my lady was dead, or if Miss Rachel was dead, at the time of the testator's decease, for the Diamond being sent to Holland, in accordance with the sealed instructions originally deposited with it.The proceeds of the sale were, in that case, to be added to the money already left by the Will for the professorship of chemistry at the university in the north.

I handed the paper back to Mr.Franklin, sorely troubled what to say to him.Up to that moment, my own opinion had been (as you know) that the Colonel had died as wickedly as he had lived.I don't say the copy from his Will actually converted me from that opinion: I only say it staggered me.