Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (2078 page)

Cuff
(
looking at
BETTEREDGE). I have an order to give, sir, to the policeman who is waiting outside. (
to
RACHEL.) Might I ask Mr. Betteredge to take another message for me?

Rachel.
Certainly! Betteredge, take the message!

Betteredge
(
coming forward unwillingly
). Yes, miss. (
Aside.
) Just as I wanted to hear what they’re going to say next! Just as my curiosity is thirsting as it were for a drop more!

Cuff
(
to
BETTEREDGE). You will find the policeman on the drive in front of the house. He is on no account to go back to the town before I have seen him again. The man is hungry and tired, Mr. Betteredge. Will you please see that he has some supper?

Betteredge
(
aside
). I wish his supper may choke him! (
He goes out by the hall door.
)

Rachel.
Now, Mr. Candy, what does this mean?

Mr. Candy.
Ask Sergeant Cuff.

Rachel
(
to
CUFF). You wish to speak to me? What do you want?

Cuff
(
quietly
). A little matter of business, miss. I only want to give you back your diamond.

Rachel
(
thunderstruck
).What!!!

Cuff.
There is the Moonstone. (
He hands it to
RACHEL. RACHEL
stands petrified.
CUFF,
smiling grimly, waits to hear what she will say to him.
RACHEL,
recovering herself, turns to
MR. CANDY,
and shows him the diamond.
)

Rachel.
Can I believe my own eyes!

Cuff
(
to
RACHEL). I won’t intrude on you any longer, miss. I’ll be off by the next train.

Rachel.
Don’t talk of going away (
suddenly changing to perfect amiability.
) I owe you an apology, Mr. Cuff. Pray excuse the hasty words I said to you earlier in the day — and, for Heaven’s sake, tell me how the Moonstone found its way into your hands!

Cuff.
You will please keep it a secret, miss, from every soul in the house; Mr. Betteredge, in particular, must know nothing about it. That good man is of too liberal a nature to keep anything to himself. (
to
MR. CANDY.) He told me, sir, of your notion about Mr. Blake, and the diamond, within hearing of all the men at the stables.

Rachel
(
impatiently
). We quite understand you. Go on! go on!

Cuff.
Very good, miss. Thus it happened: Earlier in the day I received information of a visit paid by a money-
borrowing
person, to a money-
lending
person in London.

Rachel.
What are their names?

Cuff.
Sorry to disappoint you, miss. For the present, I am not at liberty to mention their names. Having my own reasons for suspecting that I was on the trace of the diamond, I telegraphed to the money-
lending
person —

Rachel
(
impatiently
). Do give him a name!

Cuff.
All right, miss! We will give him a number, as they do in the prisons. We will call the money-
lending
person Number One. I telegraphed to Number One, inquiring if he had seen or heard anything of the lost Moonstone. His answer informed me that the money-
borrowing
person — shall we give
him
a number, miss? Shall we call him Number Two?

Rachel.
Yes! yes!

Cuff.
The answer informed me that Number Two had this very day offered your diamond as security for a loan.

Rachel
(
eagerly
). How did he get my diamond?

Cuff.
That’s exactly what I want to find out!

Mr. Candy
(
eagerly
) .You really don’t know?

Cuff.
I know no more than you do.

Mr. Candy.
I may be able to help you.

Cuff
(
surprised
). You, sir!

Rachel
(
to
MR. CANDY). How can you help him?

Mr. Candy.
You will hear, when I return to what I was saying, before Betteredge interrupted us. Let the Sergeant finish his story first.

Cuff.
My story is done, sir. The money-lending person, otherwise Number One, received my telegram in time to stop the loan. Half-an-hour since, miss, he handed the diamond over to me in your stable-yard. (
to
MR. CANDY.) Now, sir, about the money-borrowing person, otherwise Number Two? How do you propose to trace the Moonstone into his hands?

Mr. Candy.
Just as I proposed to find the Moonstone when I thought it was lost. Has Betteredge told you of my sleep-walking patient in the town?

Cuff.
Yes, sir.

Mr. Candy.
A London doctor came to consult with me on the case last night. I made the lad eat and drink (at the same hour) exactly what he eat and drank on the night when he walked in his sleep —

Rachel.
And what came of it?

Mr. Candy.
He never even moved in his chair. The experiment was a complete failure. I don’t care — I am not satisfied yet. What fails with one patient succeeds with another. I mean to try the experiment again with Mr. Franklin Blake.

Rachel.
Are you speaking seriously? Do you really believe you can make Franklin take the Moonstone in his sleep for the second time?

Mr. Candy.
Do people never have the same dream for the second time? It’s a common thing in everybody’s experience.

Rachel.
I admit that. But dreaming is not sleep-walking.

Mr. Candy.
I beg your pardon — sleep-walking is simply putting a dream in action, nothing more. (
He rises.
) I am going to make Mr. Blake repeat the supper to which he is not accustomed, and the drink that he doesn’t like, on the chance that last night’s cause may once more produce last night’s effect. Has his health altered in the interval? His nerves are just as irritable as ever. Does he feel no further anxiety about the diamond? He is more anxious about it than ever. And, to crown it all, he is a far more sensitive subject than my patient in the town. Is there no hope of success, with all these chances in favour?

Rachel.
I can’t argue with you, Mr. Candy. But I believe you will fail.

Mr. Candy.
What do
you
say, Sergeant?

Cuff.
Ditto to Miss Rachel, sir.

Mr. Candy.
Public opinion! Nothing is probable unless it appeals to our own trumpery experience. I am driven to my last resources. I must refer to the only unanswerable authority — authority that is printed in a book. (
He goes to the bookshelves.
RACHEL
and
CUFF
both rise.
)

Rachel.
What are you about?

Mr. Candy.
I have borrowed books enough from this library, Miss Rachel, to know what I am about. (
He takes the book which he brought with him in the Second Act, opens it, and hands it to
RACHEL.) There is the famous case of the Irish porter, quoted by Mr. Combe, the great phrenologist.

Cuff.
Read it out, miss, if you please.

Rachel
(
reading
). “There was a certain Irish porter in a shop in Dublin, who was a little too fond of his native whisky. One day, he was sent to a house with a parcel. He got drunk on the way, and left his parcel at the wrong place. The next morning, when he was sober, he had no idea of where he had left it. In a day or two after, the Irish porter was drunk again. And what did he do? Went back straight to the house that he couldn’t remember when he was sober, and got the parcel.”

Mr. Candy
(
with enthusiasm
). That is what I call a case in point!

Rachel
(
contemptuously
). An Irish porter!

Mr. Candy.
My confidence in the Irish porter is not to be expressed in words! What the drink did with
him,
I expect the supper and the glass of grog to do with Mr. Blake. I grant you it all depends on his dreaming of the diamond again. Let him only do that — and I believe he will lead us, in his sleep, straight to the person who took the Moonstone to London.

Rachel.
I begin to feel interested! When may I order the supper to be sent in?

Cuff
(
interposing
). Not in here, miss, if the doctor will allow me to interfere. (
to
MR. CANDY.) Let the supper be sent up to Mr. Blake in his room, by the back staircase which is used by the servants only.

Mr. Candy.
You have your reasons, I suppose?

Cuff.
The hall is open to everybody, sir. If you try your experiment here, suspicion may be excited in a certain quarter, which I won’t particularly mention just yet. Tell me what is to be sent upstairs, and I will see that it gets to Mr. Blake without being discovered by anybody.

Mr. Candy.
The game pie, Sergeant, the champagne, and the brandy-and-water. We shall see you again, I suppose?

Cuff.
Certainly, sir — when I have said one more word to the policeman outside. (
He goes out by the hall door.
RACHEL
approaches
MR. CANDY
in her most winning manner.
)

Rachel.
Dear Mr. Candy. Let me go with you when you go to Franklin!

Mr. Candy.
Impossible, Miss Rachel!

Rachel.
Don’t be hard upon me! I am heartbroken about Franklin. Let me go with you?

Mr. Candy
(
taking her hand gently
). I appeal to your own good sense, Miss Rachel. It is of the utmost importance to the success of our experiment that Mr. Blake’s mind should be fixed on the Moonstone. By talking on that subject, and no other, we may help him to dream of it for the second time. Judge by your own feelings, how your presence would agitate him now!