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 civilised 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-ni