The Moonstone

In the last year of the 18th century,

Colonel John Herncastle plundered from India

a priceless and most sacred yellow diamond.

Vishnu, the preserver, laid his curse on the thief,

commanding three priests to search forever for his moonstone.

But the wicked colonel smuggled the stone to England.

In his will, he bequeathed the diamond

to his beautiful young niece, Miss Rachel Verinder.

Rachel's gallant cousin, Mr Franklin Blake,

was charged with the gem's delivery.

Rachel was bewitched by her diamond, but the next morning, it was gone.

A year later, Franklin and celebrated detective, Sergeant Cuff,

reopened the case and learned that Rosanna Spearman,

Rachel's housemaid and former thief,

had left a letter for Franklin before her death.

They turned straight back for London,

hoping at last to trace the moonstone and its thief.

Coachman is readying the horses now.

- Were you expecting visitors? - Oh, no.

Oh! It has been a long, arduous journey.

Miss Clack, you did not receive my telegram.

I hoped to speak to you in London.

Then you hoped in vain.

I am but a poor relation, a church mouse.

I do not have the wherewithal for permanent lodgings in the city.

I agreed to pay, Miss Clack. Handsomely, I might add.

And it cost me a hard struggle

before Christian humility conquered sinful pride

and self-denial forced me to accept your cheque.

But I accepted it on the grounds that we speak in Yorkshire.

If you wish for my testimony, we do it here.

- I could go on. - Better that I abandon this interview.

The ground we have to cover in London, you cannot cover alone.

But what about...?

My contacts are already tracing Lucy Yolland.

When they find her, I could cable you, if need be.

And we must watch the jewel broker, Septimus Luker, also.

And he knows your face, so that must needs be me.

Mr Luker figures in your investigation. How curious!

I have news of Septimus Luker.

You have not heard of the outrage perpetrated on the jewel broker?

- No. - Of course, I know the intimate detail

as an identical attack was committed on an esteemed friend of mine.

And who might that be?

Mr Godfrey Ablewhite.

Cousin Godfrey?

I do not understand you. What happened?

Some 10 months since,

not long after the events of dear Rachel's birthday

and the loss of the diamond,

I had cause to visit Mr Godfrey's lodgings.

What business did you have with him?

I do not expect you to be aware of

the Mothers' Small Clothes Conversion Society,

but I am on the select committee of that excellent charity.

And my precious, admirable friend, Mr Godfrey Ablewhite,

is associated with the work of moral and material usefulness.

You have dedicated meetings for such matters?

Well, of course.

I had noticed that Mr Godfrey had been missing some meetings of late,

and I was concerned for his health.

And I was right to be so.

Mr Godfrey?

Mr Godfrey?

Oh! Oh, my dear Mr Godfrey!

Oh! Oh!

Oh. Oh.

Oh! Oh!

Oh!

Oh, my dear Mr Godfrey, what has occurred?!

Free my hands and pass me my clothes, Miss Clack.

Ooo!

Miss Clack!

Oh! Hm.

How came Godfrey to be bound and gagged?

It transpires that earlier that day,

Mr Godfrey had cause to visit a banking house on Lombard Street.

On gaining the door, he encountered a gentleman,

a perfect stranger to him, who was accidentally leaving

the office exactly at the same time as himself.

A momentary contest of politeness ensued between them

as to who should be the first to pass through the door.

The stranger insisted on making Mr Godfrey precede him.

Mr Godfrey said a few civil words,

they bowed and parted in the street.

But before he had gone many paces,

he was apprehended by an unseen hand!

And he awoke some hours later, in his own rooms,

in the state as discussed.

His lodgings had been turned over,

and Mr Godfrey himself has been searched,

if, as a lady, I may venture to use the expression without ceremony,

through and through to his skin.

- So, what did they take? - Oh, nothing.

They had acted in error, making a false association

between our friend and the man in the bank.

'Twas but a mistake.

So if I understand you correctly, that man must've been

the jewel broker, Septimus Luker himself?

That is correct.

He, too, was followed from the bank.

But his kidnappers profited more by Luker's abduction

than by poor, dear Mr Godfrey's.

So, what did they take from Luker?

The papers say the receipt was for a valuable of great price

that Mr Luker had that day placed in the care of his bankers.

The moonstone?

Perhaps. Perhaps not.

It stated a valuable only.

Do they have it, then?

Did the kidnappers collect the gem?

Oh, no. There, the infidels fell down.

The document was useless for the purposes of fraud

as it provided that the valuable must be given up

only on the personal application of Mr Luker himself.

You say infidels.

Who were these kidnappers? Have they been identified?

Mr Luker's landlord could say only

that they appeared to be gentlemen of eastern derivation.

Ah! Sergeant Cuff's exact prediction, sir.

The guardians closing in on the jewel broker.

But he did not foresee them closing in on cousin Godfrey Ablewhite.

Indeed not!

Because it was a trifle, a chance encounter with Mr Luker

that led those heathens to make a false association with him.

The sergeant said the thief would have a link to Luker,

but I never expected this!

Can it be it could be Mr Godfrey who stole the moonstone?

It all seems to point to Mr Godfrey.

Our Christian hero,

a gentleman of independent wealth with modest outgoings.

A barrister, a true friend to the poor. No.

I would ask you to look upon more specific predictions than that.

What else did the sergeant say?

I see you have heard the rumours, Miss Clack.

I had the whole story from the mouth of my aunt herself.

And I understood there was not a shadow of a suspicion

on anybody but dear Rachel.

In the mind of Sergeant Cuff.

He did not know her as we do.

Really?

I am but a... dispassionate observer.

Knowing Rachel's spirit to be essentially unregenerate

from childhood upwards, there is very little in this world

that would shock me as regards my cousin.

Events might pass from bad to worse,

till they end in murder.

And yet I might say to myself,

"Ah, the natural result.

"Oh, dear, dear. The natural result."

Nothing of what you have told us is pointed towards Rachel as thief.

Everything, shocking and upsetting as that may be,

points towards Godfrey.

I have not finished yet.

You might change your view

when you hear dear Rachel's response to the events in question.

I do not understand.

I thought you should know before you next saw dear Mr Godfrey.

You imagine that the jewel this broker was depositing,

the motivation for these kidnappings,

you believe it to be my diamond?

Oh, it is not I who believes.

The whole of London is abuzz with talk of the moonstone.

But cloistered as you are, dear cousin,

I...I suspected that news might not have reached you.

I imagined you would want to know that the diamond,

and, perchance, its thief,

seem close to being found out.

Thank you, Mr Bruff. I'm sure those arrangements will be...

How did that come to be here?!

It doesn't matter, Mama. You need protect me no longer.

Please send word to Godfrey, I must see him today.

What to make of this reaction from Rachel.

Like us, she hopes to find her moonstone.

Like us, she's in consternation and panic at the thought

that the thief could be someone as close as her cousin Godfrey.

I am sure it does you great credit, Mr Betteredge,

that you view it thus.

But I can tell, Mr Franklin Blake,

like your great London detective,

can see quite a different reading of it.

'I'll wager the diamond is in London.'

Pledged to Septimus Luker.

And it was Miss Rachel herself that took it there

'and pledged it.'

I don't presume to argue with a clever man like you,

but is it quite fair, sir, to pass over the opinion

of the famous detective who investigated this case?

I judge the sergeant, brilliant though he is,

to have been utterly wrong.

Had he but known Rachel's character as I know it,

he would've suspected everybody in the house but her. - Oh!

If you'll excuse my interruption,

Miss Rachel has her faults,

she can be secret and self-willed, odd and wild,

but I have known her since birth,

and she's true as steel.

High-minded and generous to a fault.

If the plainest evidence in the world pointed one way

and nothing but Rachel's word of honour pointed the other,