There, deprived of the breathless excitement incidental to the practice of his profession, he looked at Betteredge--and yawned wearily.
Miss Verinder joined me with a glass jug of cold water, which she had taken from a side-table.`Let me pour out the water,' she whispered.`I must have a hand in it!'
I measured out the forty minims from the bottle, and poured the laudanum into a medicine-glass.`Fill it till it is three parts full,' I said, and handed the glass to Miss Verinder.I then directed Betteredge to lock up the medicine-chest; informing him that I had done with it now.A look of unutterable relief overspread the old servant's countenance.He had evidently suspected me of a medical design on his young lady!
After adding the water as I had directed, Miss Verinder seized a moment--while Betteredge was locking the chest, and while Mr.Bruff was looking back at his papers--and slyly kissed the rim of the medicine-glass.`When you give it to him,' said the charming girl, `give it to him on that side!'
I took the piece of crystal which was to represent the Diamond from my pocket, and gave it to her.
`You must have a hand in this, too,' I said.`You must put it where you put the Moonstone last year.'
She led the way to the Indian cabinet, and put the mock Diamond into the drawer which the real Diamond had occupied on the birthday night.Mr.
Bruff witnessed this proceeding, under protest, as he had witnessed everything else.But the strong dramatic interest which the experiment was now assuming, proved (to my great amusement) to be too much for Betteredge's capacity of self-restraint.His hand trembled as he held the candle, and he whispered anxiously, `Are you sure, miss, it's the right drawer?'
I led the way out again, with the laudanum and water in my hand.At the door, I stopped to address a last word to Miss Verinder.
`Don't be long in putting out the lights,' I said.
`I will put them out at once,' she answered.`And I will wait in my bedroom, with only one candle alight.'
She closed the sitting-room door behind us.Followed by Mr.Bruff and Betteredge, I went back to Mr.Blake's room.
We found him moving restlessly from side to side of the bed, and wondering irritably whether he was to have the laudanum that night.In the presence of the two witnesses, I gave him the dose, and shook up his pillows, and told him to lie down again quietly and wait.
His bed, provided with light chintz curtains, was placed, with the head against the wall of the room, so as to leave a good open space on either side of it.On one side, I drew the curtains completely--and in the part of the room thus screened from his view, I placed Mr.Bruff and Betteredge, to wait for the result.At the bottom of the bed I half drew the curtains--and placed my own chair at a little distance, so that I might let him see me or not see me, speak to me or not speak to me, just as the circumstances might direct.Having already been informed that he always slept with a light in the room, I placed one of the two lighted candles on a little table at the head of the bed, where the glare of the light would not strike on his eyes.The other candle I gave to Mr.Bruff; the light, in this instance, being subdued by the screen of the chintz curtains.The window was open at the top, so as to ventilate the room.The rain fell softly, the house was quiet.It was twenty minutes past eleven, by my watch, when the preparations were completed, and I took my place on the chair set apart at the bottom of the bed.
Mr.Bruff resumed his papers, with every appearance of being as deeply interested in them as ever.But looking towards him now, I saw certain signs and tokens which told me that the Law was beginning to lose its hold on him at last.The suspended interest of the situation in which we were now placed was slowly asserting its influence even on his unimaginative mind.As for Betteredge, consistency of principle and dignity of conduct had become, in his case, mere empty words.He forgot that I was performing a conjuring trick on Mr.Franklin Blake; he forgot that I had upset the house from top to bottom; he forgot that I had not read Robinson Crusoe since I was a child.`For the Lord's sake, sir,' he whispered to me, `tell us when it will begin to work.'
`Not before midnight,' I whispered back.`Say nothing, and sit still.'
Betteredge dropped to the lowest depth of familiarity with me, without a struggle to save himself.He answered by a wink!
Looking next towards Mr.Blake, I found him as restless as ever in his bed; fretfully wondering why the influence of the laudanum had not begun to assert itself yet.To tell him, in his present humour, that the more he fidgeted and wondered, the longer he would delay the result for which we were now waiting, would have been simply useless.The wiser course to take was to dismiss the idea of the opium from his mind, by leading him insensibly to think of something else.
With this view, I encouraged him to talk to me; contriving so to direct the conversation, on my side, as to lead it back again to the subject which had engaged us earlier in the evening--the subject of the Diamond.I took care to revert to those portions of the story of the Moonstone, which related to the transport of it from London to Yorkshire; to the risk which Mr.
Blake had run in removing it from the bank at Frizinghall; and to the unexpected appearance of the Indians at the house, on the evening of the birthday.
And I purposely assumed, in referring to these events, to have misunderstood much of what Mr.Blake himself had told me a few hours since.In this way, I set him talking on the subject with which it was now vitally important to fill his mind--without allowing him to suspect that I was making him talk for a purpose.Little by little, he became so interested in putting me right that he forgot to fidget in the bed.His mind was far away from the question of the opium, at the all-important time when his eyes first told me that the opium was beginning to lay its hold on his brain.
