`I feel some hesitation, Mr.Murthwaite, in troubling you with family matters in which you can have no interest and which I am not very willing to speak of out of our own circle.But, after what you have said, I feel bound, in the interests of Lady Verinder and her daughter, to tell you something which may possibly put the clue into your hands.I speak to you in confidence; you will oblige me, I am sure, by not forgetting that?'
With this preface, he told the Indian traveller all that he had told me at the Shivering Sand.Even the immovable Mr.Murthwaite was so interested in what he heard, that he let his cheroot go out.
`Now,' says Mr.Franklin, when he had done, `what does your experience say?'
`My experience,' answered the traveller, `says that you have had more narrow escapes of your life, Mr.Franklin Blake, than I have had of mine;and that is saying a great deal.'
It was Mr.Franklin's turn to be astonished now.
`Is it really as serious as that?' he asked.
`In my opinion it is,' answered Mr.Murthwaite.`I can't doubt, after what you have told me, that the restoration of the Moonstone to its place on the forehead of the Indian idol, is the motive and the justification of that sacrifice of caste which I alluded to just now.Those men will wait their opportunity with the patience of cats, and will use it with the ferocity of tigers.How you have escaped them I can't imagine,' says the eminent traveller, lighting his cheroot again, and staring hard at Mr.Franklin.`You have been carrying the Diamond backwards and forwards, here and in London, and you are still a living man! Let us try and account for it.It was daylight, both times, I suppose, when you took the jewel out of the bank in London?'
`Broad daylight,' says Mr.Franklin.
`And plenty of people in the streets?'
`Plenty.'
`You settled, of course, to arrive at Lady Verinder's house at a certain time? It's a lonely country between this and the station.Did you keep your appointment?'
`No.I arrived four hours earlier than my appointment.'
`I beg to congratulate you on that proceeding! When did you take the Diamond to the bank at the town here?'
`I took it an hour after I had brought it to this house--and three hours before anybody was prepared for seeing me in these parts.'
`I beg to congratulate you again! Did you bring it back here alone?'
`No.I happened to ride back with my cousins and the groom.'
`I beg to congratulate you for the third time! If you ever feel inclined to travel beyond the civilized limits, Mr.Blake, let me know, and I will go with you.You are a lucky man.'
Here I struck in.This sort of thing didn't at all square with my English ideas.
`You don't really mean to say, sir,' I asked, `that they would have taken Mr.Franklin's life, to get their Diamond, if he had given them the chance?'
`Do you smoke, Mr.Betteredge?' says the traveller.
`Yes, sir.'
`Do you care much for the ashes left in your pipe when you empty it?'
`No, sir.'
`In the country those men came from, they care just as much about killing a man, as you care about emptying the ashes out of your pipe.If a thousand lives stood between them and the getting back of their Diamond--and if they thought they could destroy those lives without discovery--they would take them all.The sacrifice of caste is a serious thing in India, if you like.The sacrifice of life is nothing at all.'
I expressed my opinion upon this, that they were a set of murdering thieves.Mr.Murthwaite expressed his opinion that they were a wonderful people.Mr.Franklin, expressing no opinion at all, brought us back to the matter in hand.
`They have seen the Moonstone on Miss Verinder's dress,' he said.`What is to be done?'
`What your uncle threatened to do,' answered Mr.Murthwaite.`Colonel Herncastle understood the people he had to deal with.Send the Diamond to-morrow (under guard of more than one man) to be cut up at Amsterdam.
Make half a dozen diamonds of it, instead of one.There is an end of its sacred identity as The Moonstone--and there is an end of the conspiracy.'
Mr.Franklin turned to me.
`There is no help for it,' he said.`We must speak to Lady Verinder to-morrow.'
`What about to-night, sir?' I asked.`Suppose the Indians come back?'
Mr.Murthwaite answered me before Mr.Franklin could speak.
