Уильям Коллинз - Лучшие романы Уилки Коллинза / The Best of Wilkie Collins

I did my best to preserve my gravity, and answered, “Yes.”

“Can you sleep?”

“Yes.”

“When you see a poor girl in service, do you feel no remorse?”

“Certainly not. Why should I?”

She abruptly thrust the letter (as the phrase is) into my face.

“Take it!” she exclaimed furiously. “I never set eyes on you before. God Almighty forbid I should ever set eyes on you again.”

With those parting words she limped away from me at the top of her speed. The one interpretation that I could put on her conduct has, no doubt, been anticipated by everybody. I could only suppose that she was mad.

Having reached that inevitable conclusion, I turned to the more interesting object of investigation which was presented to me by Rosanna Spearman’s letter. The address was written as follows: – “For Franklin Blake, Esq. To be given into his own hands (and not to be trusted to any one else), by Lucy Yolland.”

I broke the seal. The envelope contained a letter: and this, in its turn, contained a slip of paper. I read the letter first: —

“Sir, – If you are curious to know the meaning of my behaviour to you, whilst you were staying in the house of my mistress, Lady Verinder, do what you are told to do in the memorandum enclosed with this – and do it without any person being present to overlook you. Your humble servant,

“ROSANNA SPEARMAN.”

I turned to the slip of paper next. Here is the literal copy of it, word for word:

“Memorandum: – To go to the Shivering Sand at the turn of the tide. To walk out on the South Spit, until I get the South Spit Beacon, and the flagstaff at the Coast-guard station above Cobb’s Hole in a line together. To lay down on the rocks, a stick, or any straight thing to guide my hand, exactly in the line of the beacon and the flagstaff. To take care, in doing this, that one end of the stick shall be at the edge of the rocks, on the side of them which overlooks the quicksand. To feel along the stick, among the sea-weed (beginning from the end of the stick which points towards the beacon), for the Chain. To run my hand along the Chain, when found, until I come to the part of it which stretches over the edge of the rocks, down into the quicksand. AND THEN TO PULL THE CHAIN.”

Just as I had read the last words – underlined in the original – I heard the voice of Betteredge behind me. The inventor of the detective-fever had completely succumbed to that irresistible malady. “I can’t stand it any longer, Mr. Franklin. What does her letter say? For mercy’s sake, sir, tell us, what does her letter say?”

I handed him the letter, and the memorandum. He read the first without appearing to be much interested in it. But the second – the memorandum – produced a strong impression on him.

“The Sergeant said it!” cried Betteredge. “From first to last, sir, the Sergeant said she had got a memorandum of the hiding-place. And here it is! Lord save us, Mr. Franklin, here is the secret that puzzled everybody, from the great Cuff downwards, ready and waiting, as one may say, to show itself to YOU! It’s the ebb now, sir, as anybody may see for themselves. How long will it be till the turn of the tide?” He looked up, and observed a lad at work, at some little distance from us, mending a net. “Tammie Bright!” he shouted at the top of his voice.

“I hear you!” Tammie shouted back.

“When’s the turn of the tide?”

“In an hour’s time.”

We both looked at our watches.

“We can go round by the coast, Mr. Franklin,” said Betteredge; “and get to the quicksand in that way with plenty of time to spare. What do you say, sir?”

“Come along!”

On our way to the Shivering Sand, I applied to Betteredge to revive my memory of events (as affecting Rosanna Spearman) at the period of Sergeant Cuff’s inquiry. With my old friend’s help, I soon had the succession of circumstances clearly registered in my mind. Rosanna’s journey to Frizinghall, when the whole household believed her to be ill in her own room – Rosanna’s mysterious employment of the night-time with her door locked, and her candle burning till the morning – Rosanna’s suspicious purchase of the japanned tin case, and the two dog’s chains from Mrs. Yolland – the Sergeant’s positive conviction that Rosanna had hidden something at the Shivering Sand, and the Sergeant’s absolute ignorance as to what that something might be – all these strange results of the abortive inquiry into the loss of the Moonstone were clearly present to me again, when we reached the quicksand, and walked out together on the low ledge of rocks called the South Spit.

With Betteredge’s help, I soon stood in the right position to see the Beacon and the Coast-guard flagstaff in a line together. Following the memorandum as our guide, we next laid my stick in the necessary direction, as neatly as we could, on the uneven surface of the rocks. And then we looked at our watches once more.

It wanted nearly twenty minutes yet of the turn of the tide. I suggested waiting through this interval on the beach, instead of on the wet and slippery surface of the rocks. Having reached the dry sand, I prepared to sit down; and, greatly to my surprise, Betteredge prepared to leave me.

“What are you going away for?” I asked.

“Look at the letter again, sir, and you will see.”

A glance at the letter reminded me that I was charged, when I made my discovery, to make it alone.

“It’s hard enough for me to leave you, at such a time as this,” said Betteredge. “But she died a dreadful death, poor soul – and I feel a kind of call on me, Mr. Franklin, to humour that fancy of hers. Besides,” he added, confidentially, “there’s nothing in the letter against your letting out the secret afterwards. I’ll hang about in the fir plantation, and wait till you pick me up. Don’t be longer than you can help, sir. The detective-fever isn’t an easy disease to deal with, under THESE circumstances.”

With that parting caution, he left me.

The interval of expectation, short as it was when reckoned by the measure of time, assumed formidable proportions when reckoned by the measure of suspense. This was one of the occasions on which the invaluable habit of smoking becomes especially precious and consolatory. I lit a cigar, and sat down on the slope of the beach.

The sunlight poured its unclouded beauty on every object that I could see. The exquisite freshness of the air made the mere act of living and breathing a luxury. Even the lonely little bay welcomed the morning with a show of cheerfulness; and the bared wet surface of the quicksand itself, glittering with a golden brightness, hid the horror of its false brown face under a passing smile. It was the finest day I had seen since my return to England.

The turn of the tide came, before my cigar was finished. I saw the preliminary heaving of the Sand, and then the awful shiver that crept over its surface – as if some spirit of terror lived and moved and shuddered in the fathomless deeps beneath. I threw away my cigar, and went back again to the rocks.

My directions in the memorandum instructed me to feel along the line traced by the stick, beginning with the end which was nearest to the beacon.

I advanced, in this manner, more than half way along the stick, without encountering anything but the edges of the rocks. An inch or two further on, however, my patience was rewarded. In a narrow little fissure, just within reach of my forefinger, I felt the chain. Attempting, next, to follow it, by touch, in the direction of the quicksand, I found my progress stopped by a thick growth of seaweed – which had fastened itself into the fissure, no doubt, in the time that had elapsed since Rosanna Spearman had chosen her hiding-place.