, could SHE know that the Moonstone would never be found again?

As things stood, at present, no answer to those questions was to be
hoped for from anybody in the house. Mr. Franklin appeared to think it
a point of honour to forbear repeating to a servant--even to so old a
servant as I was--what Miss Rachel had said to him on the terrace. Mr.
Godfrey, who, as a gentleman and a relative, had been probably admitted
into Mr. Franklin's confidence, respected that confidence as he was
bound to do. My lady, who was also in the secret no doubt, and who alone
had access to Miss Rachel, owned openly that she could make nothing
of her. "You madden me when you talk of the Diamond!" All her mother's
influence failed to extract from her a word more than that.

Here we were, then, at a dead-lock about Miss Rachel--and at a dead-lock
about the Moonstone. In the first case, my lady was powerless to help
us. In the second (as you shall presently judge), Mr. Seegrave was fast
approaching the condition of a superintendent at his wits' end.

Having ferreted about all over the "boudoir," without making any
discoveries among the furniture, our experienced officer applied to me
to know, whether the servants in general were or were not acquainted
with the place in which the Diamond had been put for the night.

"I knew where it was put, sir," I said, "to begin with. Samuel, the
footman, knew also--for he was present in the hall, when they were
talking about where the Diamond was to be kept that night. My daughter
knew, as she has already told you. She or Samuel may have mentioned the
thing to the other servants--or the other servants may have heard the
talk for themselves, through the side-door of the hall, which might have
been open to the back staircase. For all I can tell, everybody in the
house may have known where the jewel was, last night."

My answer presenting rather a wide field for Mr. Superintendent's
suspicions to range over, he tried to narrow it by asking about the
servants' characters next.

I thought directly of Rosanna Spearman. But it was neither my place nor
my wish to direct suspicion against a poor girl, whose honesty had
been above all doubt as long as I had known her. The matron at the
Reformatory had reported her to my lady as a sincerely penitent and
thoroughly trustworthy girl. It was the Superintendent's business to
discover reason for suspecting her first--and then, and not till then,
it would be my duty to tell