The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins (10 ebook reader .TXT) 📕
Description
The “Moonstone” of the title is a large but flawed diamond, looted from India at the time of the Mutiny by an unscrupulous British officer. Many years later, estranged from his family due to his licentious lifestyle, the officer bequeaths the diamond to his sister’s daughter, Rachel Verrinder, to be given to her on her 18th birthday. Due to the ill-omens surrounding the gem, this may have been an act of revenge rather than reconciliation. The diamond, it appears, was taken from a statue of the Moon God worshipped by a Hindu cult, and it has long been sought by a group of Brahmins determined to return it to their temple.
On the night of the birthday party the gem mysteriously disappears from Rachel’s room. While the first suspicions naturally fall on these Indians, they are eventually exculpated. Rachel becomes hysterical and angry when questioned about the theft and refuses to assist the police. Active efforts to assist them are taken up by Rachel’s cousin (and sweetheart) Franklin Blake. These efforts simply drive Rachel into further fury, and she becomes completely estranged from him. Suspicion thus falls on her as having some secret reason for wishing to raise money on the diamond. The novel proceeds to slowly uncover the mysteries involved.
Published in 1868, The Moonstone is often considered as one of the precursors of the modern detective novel, though this is a label which would not have been used by its author Wilkie Collins and his contemporaries. While it is true that the plot revolves around the mystery of a theft, and that it features Sergeant Cuff “in the Detective Force of Scotland Yard,” the novel is much more about character and relationships than the mere revelation of secrets. It also has a good dose of Collins’ humour, as the story is told in large part by eccentric characters such as the old house-steward Gabriel Betteredge who regards Robinson Crusoe as an oracle; and the ultra-religious Miss Clack, determined to convert everyone to her views.
Immensely popular at the time of its publication in serial form, The Moonstone is rightly considered to be one of Collins’ best works, and remains highly regarded today.
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- Author: Wilkie Collins
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I turned about, and there was Penelope flying down after me like mad. “Father!” she screamed, “come upstairs, for God’s sake! The Diamond is gone!”
“Are you out of your mind?” I asked her.
“Gone!” says Penelope. “Gone, nobody knows how! Come up and see.”
She dragged me after her into our young lady’s sitting-room, which opened into her bedroom. There, on the threshold of her bedroom door, stood Miss Rachel, almost as white in the face as the white dressing-gown that clothed her. There also stood the two doors of the Indian cabinet, wide open. One, of the drawers inside was pulled out as far as it would go.
“Look!” says Penelope. “I myself saw Miss Rachel put the Diamond into that drawer last night.” I went to the cabinet. The drawer was empty.
“Is this true, miss?” I asked.
With a look that was not like herself, with a voice that was not like her own, Miss Rachel answered as my daughter had answered: “The Diamond is gone!” Having said those words, she withdrew into her bedroom, and shut and locked the door.
Before we knew which way to turn next, my lady came in, hearing my voice in her daughter’s sitting-room, and wondering what had happened. The news of the loss of the Diamond seemed to petrify her. She went straight to Miss Rachel’s bedroom, and insisted on being admitted. Miss Rachel let her in.
The alarm, running through the house like fire, caught the two gentlemen next.
Mr. Godfrey was the first to come out of his room. All he did when he heard what had happened was to hold up his hands in a state of bewilderment, which didn’t say much for his natural strength of mind. Mr. Franklin, whose clear head I had confidently counted on to advise us, seemed to be as helpless as his cousin when he heard the news in his turn. For a wonder, he had had a good night’s rest at last; and the unaccustomed luxury of sleep had, as he said himself, apparently stupefied him. However, when he had swallowed his cup of coffee—which he always took, on the foreign plan, some hours before he ate any breakfast—his brains brightened; the clearheaded side of him turned up, and he took the matter in hand, resolutely and cleverly, much as follows:
He first sent for the servants, and told them to leave all the lower doors and windows (with the exception of the front door, which I had opened) exactly as they had been left when we locked up over night. He next proposed to his cousin and to me to make quite sure, before we took any further steps, that the Diamond had not accidentally dropped somewhere out of sight—say at the back of the cabinet, or down behind the table on which the cabinet stood. Having searched in both places, and found nothing—having also questioned Penelope, and discovered from her no more than the little she had already told me—Mr. Franklin suggested next extending our inquiries to Miss Rachel, and sent Penelope to knock at her bedroom door.
My lady answered the knock, and closed the door behind her. The moment after we heard it locked inside by Miss Rachel. My mistress came out among us, looking sorely puzzled and distressed. “The loss of the Diamond seems to have quite overwhelmed Rachel,” she said, in reply to Mr. Franklin. “She shrinks, in the strangest manner, from speaking of it, even to me. It is impossible you can see her for the present.” Having added to our perplexities by this account of Miss Rachel, my lady, after a little effort, recovered her usual composure, and acted with her usual decision.
“I suppose there is no help for it?” she said, quietly. “I suppose I have no alternative but to send for the police?”
“And the first thing for the police to do,” added Mr. Franklin, catching her up, “is to lay hands on the Indian jugglers who performed here last night.”
My lady and Mr. Godfrey (not knowing what Mr. Franklin and I knew) both started, and both looked surprised.
“I can’t stop to explain myself now,” Mr. Franklin went on. “I can only tell you that the Indians have certainly stolen the Diamond. Give me a letter of introduction,” says he, addressing my lady, “to one of the magistrates at Frizinghall—merely telling him that I represent your interests and wishes, and let me ride off with it instantly. Our chance of catching the thieves may depend on our not wasting one unnecessary minute.” (Nota bene: Whether it was the French side or the English, the right side of Mr. Franklin seemed to be uppermost now. The only question was, How long would it last?)
He put pen, ink, and paper before his aunt, who (as it appeared to me) wrote the letter he wanted a little unwillingly. If it had been possible to overlook such an event as the loss of a jewel worth twenty thousand pounds, I believe—with my lady’s opinion of her late brother, and her distrust of his birthday-gift—it would have been privately a relief to her to let the thieves get off with the Moonstone scot free.
I went out with Mr. Franklin to the stables, and took the opportunity of asking him how the Indians (whom I suspected, of course, as shrewdly as he did) could possibly have got into the house.
“One of them might have slipped into the hall, in the confusion, when the dinner company were going away,” says Mr. Franklin. “The fellow may have been under the sofa while my aunt and Rachel were talking about where the Diamond was to be put for the night. He would only have to wait till the house was quiet, and there it would be in the cabinet, to be had for the taking.” With those words, he called to the groom to open the gate, and galloped off.
This seemed certainly to be the only rational explanation. But how had the thief contrived to make his escape from the house? I had found the front door locked and
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