and applied myself, single-handed,
to the case. It ended, as you are aware, in the discovery of the smear
on the door, and in Mr. Franklin Blake's evidence satisfying me, that
this same smear, and the loss of the Diamond, were pieces of the same
puzzle. So far, if I suspected anything, I suspected that the Moonstone
had been stolen, and that one of the servants might prove to be the
thief. Very good. In this state of things, what happens? Miss Verinder
suddenly comes out of her room, and speaks to me. I observe three
suspicious appearances in that young lady. She is still violently
agitated, though more than four-and-twenty hours have passed since
the Diamond was lost. She treats me as she has already treated
Superintendent Seegrave. And she is mortally offended with Mr. Franklin
Blake. Very good again. Here (I say to myself) is a young lady who
has lost a valuable jewel--a young lady, also, as my own eyes and
ears inform me, who is of an impetuous temperament. Under these
circumstances, and with that character, what does she do? She betrays an
incomprehensible resentment against Mr. Blake, Mr. Superintendent,
and myself--otherwise, the very three people who have all, in their
different ways, been trying to help her to recover her lost jewel.
Having brought my inquiry to that point--THEN, my lady, and not till
then, I begin to look back into my own mind for my own experience.
My own experience explains Miss Verinder's otherwise incomprehensible
conduct. It associates her with those other young ladies that I know of.
It tells me she has debts she daren't acknowledge, that must be paid.
And it sets me asking myself, whether the loss of the Diamond may not
mean--that the Diamond must be secretly pledged to pay them. That is the
conclusion which my experience draws from plain facts. What does your
ladyship's experience say against it?"

"What I have said already," answered my mistress. "The circumstances
have misled you."

I said nothing on my side. ROBINSON CRUSOE--God knows how--had got into
my muddled old head. If Sergeant Cuff had found himself, at that
moment, transported to a desert island, without a man Friday to keep him
company, or a ship to take him off--he would have found himself exactly
where I wished him to be! (Nota bene:--I am an average good Christian,
when you don't push my Christianity too far. And all the rest of
you--which is a great comfort--are, in this respect, much the same as I
am.)

Sergeant