Wilkie Collins
The Moonstone

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Ooooh, I am looking forward to re-reading this as I love Wilkie Collins’ tales, he is such a wonderful storyteller. I’ve not read this book in years and luckily my memory is so rubbish that I don’t remember all the details of the plot so I can heartily enjoy re-reading it. I am also pretty sure this is an epistolary novel, and I adore this type of book as it always feels so delightfully nosy to peek at people’s diaries and letters, etc, and I love how you get their private thoughts and opinions, as well as their criticisms and judgements of other people, tee hee!

The first chapter is taken from a family document written in India by the cousin of John Herncastle, who wants to ‘explain the motive which has induced me to refuse the right hand of friendship’ to Herncastle, and it is written to his family in England. He refers to a yellow diamond called the Moonstone, named because its brightness seems to alter with the waxing and waning of the moon and also because it was first set in the forehead of a statue of an Indian God who represents the moon. He says that a prophecy in the 11th century stated that three priests (Brahmins) were given the task to guard over the Moonstone from now until eternity, each man being replaced by another when he died, and that if the Moonstone was stolen then ‘certain disaster’ would fall on the thief and any of his family who received it after him. The Moonstone was stolen in the early 1700s and ended up in the late 1790s in the possession of the Sultan of Seringapatam who set the stone in a dagger, but the current priests watching the stone had disguised themselves as officers of the sultan’s household. The writer and Herncastle were soldiers in the English army in India, and Herncastle was fascinated with the stories of the Moonstone. Their regiment invaded the town of Seringapatam, conquering it and killing the sultan along with many of his men. The writer then found two dead Indian men lying across the doorway of the treasury of the palace and a third man laying dying at the feet of Herncastle who had a bloodied dagger in his hand, the dying man had pointed to the dagger in Herncastle’s hand, which had a stone in the handle, and cried ‘The Moonstone will have its vengeance yet on you and yours’ and then died. Herncastle then ran out of the room, and later when they met again the writer asked him to explain how the men had died and what the dying words of the final man meant, but Herncastle had said he didn’t know the answer to either. The writer states that he and Herncastle have not spoken since and that Herncastle shortly afterwards applied to join another regiment. The writer says he didn’t feel he could report Herncastle to their commanding officer as he had no proof that Herncastle had killed the men, and so he leaves the family members reading this to make up their own minds. But he adds that ‘I am not only persuaded of Herncastle’s guilt, I am even fanciful enough to believe that he will live to regret it if he keeps the diamond, and that others will live to regret taking it from him if he gives the diamond away’. Oooh, a prophecy and a curse, as well as possible murder, it’s all deliciously exciting! But who is the writer (apart from a cousin of John’s)? I wonder why we’re not given his name, and I wonder if he will feature again in the story.

It is now 1850 and the story is being told by Gabriel Betteredge, who is House-Steward for Lady Julia Verinder at her house in Yorkshire. He explains that he has been asked by Franklin Blake, the nephew of Lady Julia, to help compile a record of what happened at the house two years ago regarding the loss of the Moonstone, in order to make sure that innocent people aren’t wrongly suspected. Franklin suggests that this record be in the format of a written story, with each person involved writing in turn but only writing about their personal experience of the incident, and that the record will begin with the family paper of the eyewitness written 50 years before (detailed in the first chapter). Betteredge begins his task, but two hours later is still looking at a blank piece of paper, struggling to know where to start. As he always does whenever he needs guidance or comfort, he turns to his favourite book Robinson Crusoe and opens it at random, as he always maintains that whatever is written on the page he has randomly opened is suitable advice for the dilemma he is faced with, and he is now on his seventh copy of the book as he has worn out the other six. Tee hee, I like reading the thoughts of Betteredge, him being very polite but a little sarcastic and judgmental of Franklin, and I chuckled at him politely protesting to Franklin that he felt he wouldn’t be skilled enough to write his memory of the incident, whilst privately being certain that ‘I was quite clever enough to perform it if only I gave my own abilities a fair chance’. And I like how he chats to the reader too, such as, ‘I did what you would probably have done in my place’. And his adoration of the Robinson Crusoe book is so touching, and makes me wonder if I should adopt a similar method of looking in a favourite book when I need guidance! And ooooh, I’m loving the idea of a written record from several different people with their different views and prejudices as well as their memories, yay!

Betteredge is now aged 70 and was first employed by the family in Lady Julia’s father’s time, at the age of 15, when he was page-boy-in-waiting to the three daughters, Miss Adelaide, Miss Caroline, and the youngest Miss Julia (‘Miss Julia being the best of the three sisters, in my opinion’, he adds). When Miss Julia married Sir John Verinder, they both begged Betteredge to come with them to their marital home in Yorkshire, where he has been ever since, becoming the bailiff with a cottage of his own ‘and my pipe and my Robinson Crusoe in the evening’, and then as he got older becoming the house-steward and butler, and his daughter Penelope becoming maid to Lady Julia’s daughter Rachel. Wow, I love this glimpse into the old world of fine families and their stately homes, especially the wordy title of page-boy-in-waiting! And I love Betteredge’s loyalty to the family, he has devoted nearly his whole life to them. I also chuckled at Betteredge wondering, when he was still struggling to get started properly on the tale, ‘whether the gentlemen who make a business and a living out of writing books ever find their own selves getting in the way of their subjects, like me?’, and I like his frank chatty babbly way of writing!

The beginning of the tale of the Moonstone, says Betteredge, was when Franklin came from London to stay at the house for a month ahead of Rachel’s birthday, which Betteredge was delighted at as Franklin hadn’t been to the house since he was a boy because he had been educated abroad. On the day of Franklin’s arrival, three Indians and a young English boy come to the house asking if they can perform conjuring tricks for the household, but Bettrredge sends them away. A short while later, Penelope says to him that she is worried about Franklin as she had followed the Indians when they left the property as she was concerned about the young English boy, and she had then seen the men put some ink onto the boy’s palm and make signs over his head and the boy then went into a kind of trance and answered questions that the men put to him, stating that the English gentlemen would travel along that lane that day to reach the house and that he had ‘it’ on him. Oooh, three Indians! The prophecy!! It’s all beginning now!

Betteredge goes to collect second-housemaid Roseanna Spearman for dinner. She is the newest servant at the house, having only been there for four months, she came from a Reformatory as she had been in prison for theft, and as Lady Julia supports the work of the Reformatory and was impressed by Roseanna she decided to give her a chance and employ her at the house, not telling anyone of her history apart from Betteredge and Rachel. However, Roseanna has struggled to make friends with the other servants and always prefers to be alone, she suffers from fainting fits and low mood, and also has a deformity of the shoulder which she is very self-conscious of. He finds Roseanna at her favourite place, The Shivering Sand, which is an area of quicksand that trembles and shivers at the turn of the tide, and is an unpleasant area avoided by all but Roseanna. Roseanna is crying, and explains to Betteredge that she is thinking about her past life and her doubts of whether she should be at the house surrounded by good honest people, and she also tells him that she often thinks the Shivering Sand will be her grave and she dreams about the sand at night. Franklin suddenly joins them on the sand, having come seeking Betteredge. Roseanna is confused and blushes deeply when he appears, and immediately hurries away. Awww, poor Roseanna, I do feel sorry for her, having been given a chance in life and every reason to be happy but letting her past and her judgements about herself play on her mind, and struggling to fit in with the other servants (having experienced things they probably can’t even imagine) which means that she ends up alone even more with her own depressed thoughts, and I’m sure there was little sympathy or understanding for depression and low mood at those times (Betteredge’s thinking is that her low mood is caused by ‘thinking on an empty stomach’ and he reminds her that ‘there’s roast mutton and suet pudding waiting for you’ in an effort to cheer her, although he does mean well, bless him!). I am intrigued by Roseanna and what has happened to her in the past and what led her to her life of crime, and also how she will fit into the story of the Moonstone, and how the Shivering Sand fits in too as I imagine that this has been introduced for a reason. And I wondered if she already knew Franklin, with them both having been in London, and that this was the cause of her confusion as he knew something of her past or was perhaps involved in it, but he doesn’t seem to recognise her so I’m obviously wrong there (I’m obviously thinking of Charles Dickens’ books with everyone in London being connected in some way, tee hee!).

Franklin tells Betteredge that he thinks he had been watched and followed in London for the last three or four days, and that he therefore came to the house by the morning train rather than the afternoon train he had planned to travel by as he wanted to give the follower the slip. He then asks Betteredge for details of the three Indians who were there earlier that day, as he thinks they may be connected with who was following him in London. When he has heard the story, he says he imagines that the ‘it’ they had mentioned was the Moonstone, and then takes out of his pocket a sealed paper parcel, to Betteredge’s surprise. Franklin explains that he has recently found out that his father, Herncastle’s brother-in-law, had been asked by Herncastle to deposit the Moonstone in a safety deposit box in a bank, Herncastle explaining that Franklin’s father ran no risk to himself by doing this but that Herncastle was at risk of being killed if he kept the Moonstone with him. Herncastle had told Franklin’s father that he would send a note to him on the same date every year in order to demonstrate that he was still alive, and if this note wasn’t received then Franklin’s father was to presume that Herncastle had been murdered and was then to open the sealed instructions stored with the Moonstone which states that it is to be cut up into several pieces. Herncastle had said that in this way he hoped to avoid being murdered as he knew the Indians following the prophecy would not want the Moonstone cut into pieces. The notes had arrived to Franklin’s father’s lawyer year after year on the same date until about six months ago when the note from Herncastle said that he was dying and requested that the lawyer help him make his will, and his will stated that the Moonstone was to be given to Rachel on her birthday. Franklin says he was initially unsure whether to believe the story of the prophecy but after being followed since he took the Moonstone out of the bank he is now tempted to believe it and is now also worried about the harm he may be bringing to Rachel by bringing the Moonstone to her. Betteredge remembers that Herncastle was an older brother of Lady Julia, and that when he had returned to England after his army life he was shunned by his family for the bad things he was suspected of having done, and that Lady Julia had guided the others in this and stated that he would never enter her house, and Herncastle had written to Lady Julia a few times asking to be reconciled but had been refused. Betteredge remembers that Herncastle had turned up uninvited to Lady Julia’s house in London two years ago on Rachel’s birthday, looking ‘wasted, and worn, and old, and shabby, and as wild and as wicked as ever’, asking if he could wish his niece a happy birthday, but Lady Julia had refused to let him in and when Betteredge had communicated this refusal from Lady Julia to him he had just said he would remember his niece’s birthday and then chuckled in a ‘horridly mischievous way’, and a year and a half later Lady Julia had received a letter from a priest saying that Herncastle had died and that he had forgiven everyone, including Lady Julia, on his deathbed. Franklin has a copy of Herncastle’s will stating that the Moonstone is to be given to Rachel but the will also states that this is to happen in the presence of Lady Julia and that Herncastle wishes to remind her of the ‘insult offered to me as an officer and gentleman when her servant, by her orders, closed the door of her house against me’. Betteredge is certain that Herncastle means harm by giving Rachel the Moonstone and suggests throwing it into the Shivering Sand, but Franklin says they would then be acting illegally by destroying Rachel’s property. They wonder if they should warn Lady Julia, but Betteredge advises that they wait a month until Rachel’s birthday and see if anything happens in the meantime to help them decide if the Moonstone is trouble or not, and that it is put in the safe at the local bank in the meantime. Oooh, sealed instructions to be opened in the event of Herncastle’s murder all sound so deliciously mysterious! But oh dear, Herncastle is seeming very vindictive, I’m thinking that he was definitely not doing something nice and forgiving by leaving the Moonstone to Rachel and instead was doing something nasty! And I loved Betteredge urging the reader to concentrate on what he was about to tell them, ‘pay attention to it, or you will be all abroad when we get deeper into the story, clear your mind of the children, or the dinner, or the new bonnet…haven’t I seen you with the greatest authors in your hands, and don’t I know how ready your attention is to wander?’, tee hee, that really made me chuckle!

Franklin returns from depositing the Moonstone in the bank with no incident, but later that night when Betteredge is locking the house up he spots a shadow in the grounds and hears footsteps running away, and finds a bottle of dark liquid on the ground which he presumes is what Penelope saw the Indians pour onto the palm of the young boy. However the Indians aren’t seen near the house again for the following month, though they are understood to be in the town, so Franklin and Betteredge wonder if they had heard of the Moonstone being deposited in the bank or their boy had told them he sensed this, as they seem to believe that it isn’t at the house. Rachel and Franklin entertain themselves by decoratively painting the inside of the door to Rachel’s sitting room, while they await Rachel’s 18th birthday on the 21st June. The servants think that Franklin is in love with Rachel and they note that he has given up smoking for her even though this drastically affects his sleep, but they find it harder to judge her feelings for him particularly as she was angry at him when a man turned up at the house regarding something Franklin had done while abroad (the servants presume this was either a debt or a woman). Godfrey Ablewhite, a cousin of Rachel and Franklin’s, is due to arrive at the house with his two sisters for Rachel’s birthday and to stay there for a few days afterwards, and this is who the servants had previously thought Rachel would marry. Betteredge describes Rachel as fiercely loyal to those she loves, and when she was a child she would take the blame and punishment for them so they avoided getting into trouble and she would never tell on anyone who she loved. Meanwhile Roseanna is ill, not eating and not sleeping and being curt with Rachel, and the doctor is called out to her and diagnoses nerves but Penelope thinks that Roseanna is in love with Franklin and is upset at him ignoring her and is jealous of his attention to Rachel. Tee hee, I chuckled at Betteredge’s judgement of ‘gentlefolks’ regarding the painting of the sitting room door, when he says they ‘firmly believe they are improving their minds, when the plain truth is they are only making a mess in the house’. It’s difficult to know what is relevant within all this early information, so I’m trying to note it all in the hope it helps me later after the incident has happened and the mystery begins.

It’s the day of Rachel’s birthday, and Franklin and Betteredge decide that nothing has happened to justify them worrying Lady Julia with the rumours about the Moonstone, or for Franklin not to give the Moonstone to Rachel as he is legally obliged to do. Franklin therefore goes to the bank to collect the Moonstone, and returns to the house accompanied by Godfrey and his sisters. The Moonstone is given to Rachel, who is enamoured of it. The copy of Herncastle’s will is given to Lady Julia, who tells Betteredge later that she believes Herncastle’s motive in doing this was to cause mischief and trouble. Betteredge doesn’t tell her about the Indians at the house as he doesn’t want to alarm her further. Penelope reports to her father later that Godfrey had proposed to Rachel and was refused, and she is convinced that Rachel loves Franklin. Tee hee, in amongst all this I do find Betteredge’s comments so funny, his account is so amusing even though I am trying to concentrate hard on possible clues for use ahead, I am glad he is our narrator and I particularly chuckled his insistence that his time spent resting was ‘not a nap but a reverie’.

Rachel wears the Moonstone as a brooch at her birthday party that evening, and it is much admired. One of the guests is Mr Murthwaite who has travelled extensively in India and he tells Rachel that if she were to go to certain areas in India wearing the Moonstone then she would be killed in five minutes, at which news Rachel is enthralled. Another guest is Dr Candy who Franklin mocks for his offer of giving him medicine to help with his sleep problems caused by giving up smoking. The Indians and the little boy appear on the lawn later and Betteredge rushes to send them away but some of the guests reach them first and beg them to perform, so Franklin and Betteredge immediately stand by Rachel with her wearing the Moonstone. Murthwaite speaks to the Indians in their own language, at which they look disconcerted and immediately say that they must leave. Murthwaite later explains to Franklin and Betteredge that he had told the Indians he recognised that they aren’t jugglers but are actually high-caste Brahmins. He says they have sacrificed their caste by crossing the sea and also by pretending to be jugglers, and that they must have had an extraordinary reason for this. Franklin then explains to Murthwaite about the Moonstone, and he immediately says that this would be the extraordinary reason why the Indians would sacrifice their caste, and he adds that he is amazed that Franklin hasn’t yet been killed. He recommends sending the Moonstone to Amsterdam to be broken up into many little diamonds as this is the only way to end the Indians chasing it and killing someone to get it. Franklin tells Betteredge that they must now tell everything to Lady Julia, though he is reluctant to alarm her, and proposes to do this tomorrow. Murthwaite thinks the Indians won’t risk coming back tonight as they will want to reform their plans after being discovered by him today, but he recommends letting the dogs loose in the grounds tonight just in case. At the end of the evening, Lady Julia suggests to Rachel that she keep the Moonstone safe in her room that night as the cabinet in Rachel’s sitting room has no lock, but Rachel refuses this offer. Betteredge checks over the house when all have gone to bed, and then lies awake unsettled and worried and listening to the rain pouring down outside. Oooh, it’s feeling quite serious now, and I feel apprehensive that Franklin and Betteredge are waiting until tomorrow until they speak with Lady Julia and take action, as there are quite some hours of night to get through with Rachel at risk! And I sense that if Rachel had agreed to store the Moonstone in her mother’s room, rather than the unlocked cabinet in her sitting room, then the incident would have been avoided!

Penelope runs to her father at 8am the next morning crying that the Moonstone has gone, and when Betteredge reaches Rachel’s sitting room he can see the drawers of the cabinet are wide open with no Moonstone inside. Rachel is very shocked and white and goes into her bedroom allowing no-one in except her mother, who then explains to everyone that Rachel is overwhelmed and refuses to speak of the Moonstone or to see anyone. Franklin wakes late and is shocked at the news of the theft, though he is very sleepy and sluggish and explains that it took him a long while to get to sleep and that he then slept very deeply. He says that he thinks the Indian jugglers must have sneaked into the house earlier in the evening as the guests were leaving and then stolen the Moonstone later that night and escaped with it. He says that the police must be immediately informed so the Indians can be found before they get away, and he rides off to the town to do this. Betteredge wonders how the Indians could have escaped the house, as the front door and all the windows are still closed and locked and the dogs were loose outside all night. Betteredge tells Lady Julia all they know of the prophecy and the Indians, which she is shocked at, but she is more concerned by the very unusual way in which Rachel is behaving, this being in ‘so strange and so reserved’ a way that it seems to Lady Julia like the Moonstone has almost ‘turned her brain’. Omg, the Moonstone has been stolen!! But how, when the house was secured by Betteredge? And, tee hee, even in amongst this drama, Betteredge still makes me laugh with him saying Franklin has foreign ways as he has coffee as his first hot drink of the day rather than tea, and I also laughed at his observation that ‘we had our breakfasts, whatever happens in a house, robbery or murder, it doesn’t matter, you must have your breakfast’! 

Franklin returns from town saying that Superintendent Seegrave and two of his officers are on their way to the house. However he says the police are convinced that the Indians didn’t steal the Moonstone as the police saw the Indians in their lodging house at midnight (being called to the lodging house for another reason), and also the Indians have shown no sign of attempting to leave the town which they surely would have done if they had the Moonstone. However the police have arrested the Indians and will detain them for a week. Superintendent Seegrave arrives and examines the house and states that no-one broke in from outside so he concludes that the Moonstone was stolen by someone inside the house and says he suspects the servants, going on to demand that the servants’ bedrooms are now out of bounds to anyone but him and his officers. He asks to speak to Rachel, but she continues to refuse to see anyone and states that she has nothing to say. However, she is later seen marching out of her room and speaking ‘vehemently’ to Franklin on the terrace, he seeming to be astonished at what she says, and she then marches back to her room ‘wild and angry, with fierce eyes and flaming cheeks’, refusing again to speak with the superintendent and stating that ‘no-one will ever find the diamond’, then slamming her bedroom door and being heard to sob loudly. Franklin refuses to tell Betteredge what Rachel said to him, though Betteredge suspects he has told Lady Julia. The superintendent asks Lady Julia for permission to search the servants’ bedrooms but Lady Julia refuses this, stating that she trusts all of her staff. However, Betteredge offers his room keys to the superintendent, saying he is happy for his room to be searched, so the rest of the servants then follow suit, but the Moonstone isn’t found. Awww, how lovely of Lady Julia to stand by her servants. But what did Rachel say so angrily to Franklin, and why, when they had been so close before? And it’s strange that Franklin hasn’t explained it either, given how open he has been about everything so far. And why is Rachel acting so oddly, shutting herself away and not seeming to trust anyone with her thoughts or wanting to help the police in retrieving the Moonstone? Hmmm, it’s turning into a nice puzzle, particularly with the surprise that the police believe the Indians didn’t do it!

Franklin is in the library and sends for Betteredge, who is surprised to see Roseanna exiting the library as he approaches it and he views this as ‘a breach of domestic discipline’ on her part, but when he questions her Roseanna tells him that she was returning one of Franklin’s rings to him which she had found upstairs. Franklin tells him that he had been puzzled by Roseanna’s behaviour in the library and he thinks she may know more about the Moonstone than she is saying and she should be closely watched, as he says she was acting strangely when she said she’d found his ring and had then said in a ‘half-frightened, and half-familiar way’ that the police would never find the Moonstone or the person who took it, and had then nodded and smiled at him. Betteredge is worried by this and wonders whether to tell Franklin about Roseanna’s history, but decides not to, thinking that it would just condemn her and also thinking that she couldn’t be involved as she wouldn’t have hinted at this to Franklin if so. He wonders if Penelope was right about Roseanna’s feelings for Franklin and that she was just desperately trying to get him to notice her and talk to her. Superintendent Seegrave thinks that one of the servants must have been in league with the Indians so says he will question the Indians in jail, and invites Franklin and Godfrey to attend this questioning and to bring Murthwaite to translate. However, after this interview the conclusion is that the Indians have had nothing to do with any of the servants. Franklin tells Betteredge that he feels they need someone cleverer than Superintendent Seegrave on the case, so he is writing to the Chief Commissioner of Police requesting that he sends someone from London. That afternoon Betteredge seeks out Roseanna but is told that she has gone to bed as she was ill, but he is puzzled by this the next day as the baker’s man mentions that he saw Roseanna yesterday afternoon walking over the moor towards Frizinghall. Hmmm, is there any significance to where Roseanna might have found Franklin’s ring upstairs, did she actually find his ring in another room, like Rachel’s sitting room, meaning he had been in there? I wonder if Roseanna thinks Franklin is involved in some way with the theft and is determined to screen him from discovery, as she has feelings for him and this secret that she thinks they have together gives her great pleasure and perhaps explains her ‘flighty self-conceited’ manner which Betteredge observed. And what was she doing in Frizinghall, after pretending she was sick in order to sneak out? Again, I am trying to note all the information being given to us, particularly about Roseanna as I feel her part in the story will be significant, and there are clearly mysteries around her whether these are to do with the Moonstone or not. But I liked Betteredge’s cautionary wisdom of ‘in cases where you don’t see your way clearly, you hold your tongue’. And bless him, I loved that when he was ‘hard up for a little cheerful society’ he took his chair to the kennels and talked to the dogs! A very wise thing to do, dogs always listen and always think you’re right!

The celebrated Sergeant Cuff arrives from London, sent by the Chief Commissioner after he receives Franklin’s request for help. Betteredge notes that Sergeant Cuff’s eyes ‘had a very disconcerting trick when they encountered your eyes, of looking as if they expected something more from you than you were aware of yourself’, but Betteredge doubts Sergeant Cuff’s abilities as he seems obsessed with roses and frequently speaks to the gardener about this subject, though Betteredge later begins to think him ‘rather a quicker man than he appeared to be at first sight’. Sergeant Cuff investigates the Indian cabinet and sitting room where the Moonstone had been stored, and he notices a smear on the newly painted door and seeks clarification from Franklin about when the paint would have been dry, which was at 3am on Thursday morning, so Sergeant Cuff concludes that the smear may be crucial if it happened during the early hours of the night when the Moonstone was stolen as that could indicate the thief has the smear on their clothing. Sergeant Cuff is thanking Franklin for his help when Rachel bursts out of her door curtly saying ‘Don’t allow Mr Franklin Blake to help you’, in a tone ‘so spitefully, so savagely, with such an extraordinary outbreak of ill will’ that she shocks all of them, and she then goes back into her room and they can hear her crying. Sergeant Cuff gets the servants onto his side by stating that they are free to access their bedrooms and asking for their help. Penelope is asked about the smear and confirms that the paint wasn’t smeared at midnight when she left Rachel’s room and she examines her dresses to check she hadn’t accidentally caught against the door. Sergeant Cuff states that they need to find whose clothing has the paint smear on it as that person will have the Moonstone. He also states that ‘nobody has stolen the Moonstone’. Well, we seem to have moved on quite swiftly there, with discovering that the thief has a paint smear on their clothes (though with over 300 pages to go, I don’t imagine it will be solved as simply as just finding the item of clothing and seeing who it belongs to!). And I do kind of cherish how detailed and drawn out all this is as there is soooo much description to wade through but it’s so lovely to have all this description to savour, compared to the swifter style of today’s writing. But what can Sergeant Cuff mean by saying that no-one has stolen the Moonstone? I wonder if he suspects Rachel of having removed it for some reason, though why would she do this? And again, it is odd how Rachel is so now antagonistic and angry towards Franklin. If we knew what she had said to him, then that may give an idea of why she is acting in this way, grrr! And Sergeant Cuff seems an interesting character, and he’s been written with lots of details about him rather than as just an anonymous detective (like Superintendent Seegrave) so I am guessing he will be a main character throughout the story. He reminds me of Inspector Bucket in Dickens’ Bleak House, with his gruff manner and clever assumptions.

Lady Julia is reluctant to speak with Sergeant Cuff, which surprises Betteredge, and she asks Betteredge to be present when she does. Sergeant Cuff explains to her about the paint smear and asks for her permission to examine everyone’s clothing, suggesting that to avoid the servants feeling persecuted a second time he will tell them that everyone’s clothes in the whole house, from Lady Julia downwards, will be examined. She agrees to this, as do Godfrey and Franklin, though Godfrey is leaving at that moment to return to his charitable work but he leaves his portmanteau of clothes with Sergeant Cuff for him to examine and forward onto him. The sergeant also requests to see the washing book so he can check the laundry. He also tells Lady Julia that he recognises Roseanna, saying he last saw her when she was in prison for theft, and Lady Julia admits this was her history but stresses Roseanna’s good conduct since she has been employed there. Rachel then sends word that she refuses to have her clothes examined, to which Sergeant Cuff murmurs ‘ah’ in ‘the tone of a man who had heard something which he expected to hear’, and he states the search for the stained clothes must now be given up as he must either search everyone’s clothes or nobody’s. Oh dear, he definitely suspects Rachel! And it’s odd why Lady Julia doesn’t want to speak to Sergeant Cuff and help him retrieve the Moonstone, I wonder if this is something to do with what Rachel said to Franklin (as Betteredge thought Franklin had relayed this to Lady Julia), and grrrr again that we don’t know what it was that Rachel said to Franklin! Although I guess Lady Julia’s reluctance to speak to the sergeant meant that Betteredge was present for the interview which then means we get the details of it in his narrative, so it might just be a slightly convoluted way to ensure that. And ‘portmanteau’ is such a wonderful word, I guess it is something larger than a suitcase, perhaps even the size of a small wardrobe? I will have to google for examples, but I’m pretty sure people don’t have them today, I certainly don’t recall seeing any portmanteaus being checked in ahead of me in the Ryanair queue, tee hee! And searching for marks on clothes and also checking the washing book, reminds me of the Road Hill House murder case which featured in The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, as I think Detective Inspector Whicher was suspicious about an item of clothing that had disappeared which he thought might be stained with blood from the murder, and Sergeant Cuff seems also a little like Detective Inspector Whicher, with his methodicalness and determination.

Sergeant Cuff and Betteredge walk in the garden where they spot Roseanna hiding in the shrubbery, so Betteredge feels it is better to explain to Sergeant Cuff that she is suspected of having feelings for Franklin and is presumably waiting there hoping he will walk past, rather than have the sergeant suspect her of something more sinister. Later the sergeant speaks to each servant asking for their thoughts on the case, and then tells Betteredge that if Roseanna asks to go out that she be given permission so that he can follow her. She does ask for permission to go out, and the sergeant follows her. Betteredge discovers, with the aid of cups of tea, that two of the servants had told the sergeant that they had been suspicious of Roseanna’s illness yesterday and had listened outside her door on the two occasions when she had gone to bed feeling ill, and they were certain the first time that she was not actually there in her bedroom, and the second time they felt sure she had lit a fire and was burning something. Betteredge walks outside and bumps into Franklin who asks where Sergeant Cuff is, and Betteredge can’t think of anything but the truth to tell him, which is that the sergeant is following Roseanna because the other servants had shared their suspicions of her. Franklin immediately guesses that the baker’s man was right when he thought he saw Roseanna walking to Frizinghall when she was supposed to be ill in bed, and he thinks that she was burning her paint-smeared dress. He is keen to tell his aunt immediately about his suspicions of Roseanna, but Sergeant Cuff suddenly appears, having overheard Franklin, and tells him not to tell Lady Julia as she would then tell Rachel, seeming to hint that Franklin should understand why that wouldn’t be a good idea, resulting in Franklin storming off angry and frustrated. Betteredge is puzzled and worried about it being thought that Rachel is concerned in all this in some way. Sergeant Cuff then asks Betteredge if there is a path that leads to the sea, and Betteredge takes him to the Shivering Sand. The sergeant assures Betteredge that Roseanna is not in any danger of getting into trouble regarding the Moonstone saying she is ‘simply an instrument in the hands of another person’, he won’t say who this person is but seems surprised that Betteredge can’t guess. He says he believes the paint smear was on Roseanna’s dress so she walked secretly to the town to buy material to make a replacement one, and the fire in her room was to dry and iron it after she had made it, that she has kept the stained dress and is at the sands at the moment disposing of it. He says that he had followed her to a cottage at nearby Cobb’s Hole fishing village where she came away with something hidden under her cloak, but he wasn’t able to follow her along the sand as he would have been seen so he has therefore decided to reach the Shivering Sand from another direction. However when they get to the sand, there is no sign of Roseanna but the sergeant can see her footprints in the sand, though she has tried to disguise them by walking in different directions, and he thinks she walked through the water to get to where she wanted to go in order to prevent leaving footprints. He thinks now that she has hidden rather than destroyed the dress. He suggests going to the cottage at Cobb’s Hole, and Betteredge explains that this is the cottage of Roseanna’s friend, Lucy Yolland, who lives there with her parents and brother, and that Lucy has a deformed foot so she and Roseanna feel an affinity for each other, with Roseanna’s deformed shoulder. They go there and Mrs Yolland talks happily with the sergeant and Betteredge, responding to the sergeant’s praise of Roseanna and praising her herself. She mentions that Roseanna is planning to leave her job and has a friend who will help her and that Roseanna wrote a long letter to this friend at the Yollands’ house that day, saying there was no privacy where she lives. Mrs Yolland also says that Roseanna had bought from her a tin case and a couple of chains for travelling, these being from a pile of items that her husband had found discarded when out fishing. On their way back to the house, Sergeant Cuff tells Betteredge that he’s certain that Roseanna hasn’t put the Moonstone in the tin, but he’s uncertain why she would have put the stained dress in there as it would seem by her putting chains around the tin that she intends to retrieve it again at a later time and the sergeant can’t think why she would want to retrieve the dress, he says he can understand her disposing of it by dropping it into the Shivering Sand to be lost forever, but not why she would want to retrieve it again. He says that he intends to go to Frizinghall tomorrow to discover what material she bought so he can see what she made a replacement of. Phew, lots of interesting information there! But oh dear, it’s really not looking good for Roseanna, though I take heart from Sergeant Cuff saying that she is in no danger and he doesn’t believe she took the Moonstone herself, but her behaviour seems so very puzzling and suspicious and mysterious! Who is the person using or directing Roseanna? I can only think of Franklin who she’d do such a thing for and he surely can’t be involved, he can’t be lying to Betteredge like this, can he? I think Sergeant Cuff suspects that it’s Rachel manipulating Roseanna, but why would she do such a thing when the Moonstone already belongs to her? And (as puzzles Sergeant Cuff) why would Roseanna want to sink the stained dress and recover it later when she could just destroy it? Or is it someone else’s dress and she’s keeping it to use as evidence to blackmail them? Though she doesn’t really seem like a blackmailer. And I know Sergeant Cuff doesn’t suspect Roseanna of having stolen the Moonstone (and I’m tempted to agree with him myself, or at least I ardently hope he’s right) but it is very tempting to think that the case she sunk in the sand contains the Moonstone. 

When they return to the house, they are told that Roseanna returned herself an hour ago. The sergeant goes out into the garden and looks up at Rachel’s window where there are lights moving back and forth, and he tells Betteredge that he is pretty certain that Rachel has decided in the last hour to leave the house. They go into the house and are told that Lady Julia wants to see the sergeant, and she tells him that Rachel wishes to go and stay with her Aunt Ablewhite in Frizinghall from tomorrow morning, and when asked when Rachel decided this she says it was about an hour ago. Betteredge is unsettled by the fact that Roseanna and Rachel and Lady Julia seem linked somehow. The sergeant requests that Rachel be delayed from leaving until 2pm tomorrow, and asks that he can speak to her ‘unexpectedly’ before she leaves, which Lady Julia agrees to. Hmmm, did Sergeant Cuff see something in particular at Rachel’s window? I can’t guess what he has gathered from the light moving back and forth, or did he just guess from her movements that she was packing in order to go away? And are Rachel and Roseanna connected somehow, is it Rachel’s dress that Roseanna has hidden? It all seems very odd!

The sergeant tells Betteredge that he is certain that Rachel has stolen her own Moonstone and has had it all this time, and she has taken Roseanna into her confidence because she knew Roseanna would be suspected. He says he will probably state all this to Lady Julia tomorrow. The sergeant is then given a message reminding him that the Indians must be released from custody shortly, so he decides he will speak to them, with Murthwaite as a translator, when he is in Frizinghall tomorrow. Franklin tells Betteredge that he thinks now that Roseanna was just about to admit to him that she stole the Moonstone, as she had come into the Billiard Room when he was there and said she wished to speak to him but he had continued to play billiards as he felt nervous and uncomfortable about what she was going to say, so she muttered that he couldn’t even bear to look at her and ran off upset. He asks Betteredge to apologise to Roseanna for his unintended rudeness and to say that he is happy to speak with her if she wishes. Betteredge gets the impression that Franklin suspects that Rachel is involved with the loss of the Moonstone and is desperate in his own mind to be proved wrong by Roseanna being found to be guilty. When locking the house up for the night, Betteredge finds the sergeant sleeping across three chairs outside Rachel’s door and he explains to Betteredge that Rosanna and Rachel must have met that afternoon for Roseanna to assure Rachel that the thing was hidden which then meant that Rachel could leave the house, and he suspects the two girls may try and speak again so he wants to prevent their further colluding. Omg, could it really be that Rachel has the Moonstone and the stealing of it is an elaborate story? With Sergeant Cuff and Franklin thinking so, then it does seem to be the case, and would go some way to explaining her strange behaviour. Though why? But I also feel very disappointed in her if she is framing Roseanna. And I feel for poor Franklin who obviously thinks Rachel is involved in some way but is desperately hoping she isn’t, while he is also suffering from her isolating herself from him when they were so close before. Again, I feel like every detail in the book could potentially be vital in understanding the plot, so I’m trying to remember everything that happens, though it’s such a big book and every chapter is so detailed, arrgh!

Betteredge and Penelope are concerned about Roseanna as she seems to be in a daze or dream-like state, Betteredge tells her that Franklin apologises for hurting her feelings and has said that he is happy to speak with her again, though Betteredge urges that if she has anything on her mind then she would probably be better speaking to Lady Julia who has always been kind and supportive to her. Roseannna barely responds to this, she just murmurs that she will speak to Franklin at some point. Betteredge and Penelope consider asking for the doctor to see Roseanna, as they are worried about how dull and unresponsive she seems, but Penelope then reminds her father that Dr Candy has been unwell since catching a chill travelling home in the rain after Rachel’s birthday party so his assistant Ezra Jennings is seeing patients but that no-one in the house fully trusts or likes him. Sergeant Cuff returns from Frizinghall and tells Betteredge that the Indians have nothing to do with the disappearance of the Moonstone and will be released from jail, though he feels they are still determined to find the Moonstone. And he says Roseanna bought ‘a piece of longcloth’ at the drapers which he feels would be used for a servant’s plain dress, whereas lace and frilling would have been used if it was for Rachel’s dress, though he says he still can’t understand why Roseanna has hidden the smeared one instead of destroying it, and he proposes to find the hiding place of the dress at the Shivering Sand by using a search warrant to find the written reminder of the hiding place which he suspects Roseanna is keeping on her. Sergeant Cuff also speaks to the driver of Rachel’s carriage saying that a policeman will secretly jump on behind the carriage to see where Rachel goes, but the driver isn’t to say anything about this. As Rachel gets into the carriage, Sergeant Cuff tells her that her leaving like this will put a serious obstacle in the way of him finding the Moonstone and asks her to consider staying, but she doesn’t respond. Franklin runs over to the carriage calling out goodbye and holding out his hand but Rachel ignores him. Sergeant Cuff tells Betteredge that he believes Rachel has the Moonstone in the carriage with her. He also says he had set a policeman to watch Roseanna, thinking that she would try and speak to Rachel, but the policeman had lost sight of Roseanna. He then discovers that Roseanna had posted a letter to Cobb’s Hole, and he presumes it is a note regarding the hiding place on the Shivering Sands so he plans to see Mrs Yolland again and intercept the letter. Omg, Rachel might have had the Moonstone in the carriage with her, but now she’s gone, argh, I almost can’t stand that the Moonstone may be leaving the house and no-one can stop it happening! But it really seems to be a statement of Rachel’s guilt that she is deliberately hindering the investigation into its disappearance by her leaving at this time, as Sergeant Cuff pointed out to her. But now the smeared dress seems to be Roseanna’s again, not Rachel’s as I’d guessed, which makes me puzzle again why Roseanna has kept it rather than destroying it. And I wonder if Roseanna got the paint on her dress because she was with Rachel in her room in the early hours helping her remove and hide the Moonstone. But there’s still so many other things that puzzle me, namely why is Roseanna so low and unresponsive to Betteredge’s kindness, is it that she is struggling to cope with the guilt of being involved and of everything that Rachel has asked her to do? And why does Roseanna want to speak to Franklin, is it that Rachel wants him to also help her with the Moonstone but doesn’t want to be seen speaking to him herself so has sent Roseanna as a messenger? But then why is Rachel so angry at him, or is this just to allay any suspicions from others that she is secretly wanting to speak to him? But Franklin seems so honest, I can’t imagine he is doing anything underhand, unless his appearance to Betteredge and to the reader is all just some wonderfully fiendish double bluff?! And the letter that Roseanna has posted to the Cobb’s Hole cottage is very very intriguing, I do hope the sergeant can intercept that as I can’t wait to find out what it says!

Sergeant Cuff discovers that Roseanna was last seen running towards the sea so he and Betteredge follow, as a storm begins. They can see her footprints heading towards the Shivering Sand but no footprints coming away from it. Sergeant Cuff is worried as he thinks that Roseanna had gone to the hiding place and then met with an accident, but Betteredge remembers how low and numb she seemed earlier and how she had previously told him that she could imagine dying at the Shivering Sand so he fears she has taken her own life. They return to the house to find a note left for Betteredge from Roseanna thanking him for always being kind to her and asking him to forgive her for this, saying ‘I have found my grave where my grave was waiting for me’. Oh noooo, why why why has she done this?! I am so shocked and so gutted by it, I just didn’t expect this at all, although I know she had hinted about it to Betteredge at the start of the story. I really am so upset, it seems such a drastic turn for the book to take, I am quite surprised that Wilkie Collins decided to have this happen, I can only guess it will be crucial to the plot in some way but it seems such a waste of an fascinating and complex character, I felt she still had more interesting things to reveal, both in this case and in her future life and in her past life, and I was looking forward to learning more about her, as well as really feeling for her with her struggles and wishing her well. I can hardly believe it and was hoping she was just fooling them by pretending to kill herself, but everyone seems to think she has really done it. It’s so very sad. And how awful for Franklin as he will blame himself for being curt with her. This is really tragic though, I wish she had just run away or something, but to kill herself is so awful.

Sergeant Cuff asks to speak with Lady Julia, and she asks Betteredge to join them. He says that he believes Roseanna was driven to kill herself due to some unbearable anxiety in connection with the missing Moonstone, that he doesn’t know what the unbearable anxiety was but that he believes that Rachel knows. Lady Julia says she knows that Sergeant Cuff believes that Rachel has secreted the Moonstone herself and has deceived everyone but she states that Rachel is ‘absolutely incapable’ of doing this, she says she has no extra information from Rachel that Sergeant Cuff doesn’t have as Rachel has refused to talk with her about it but that she is certain of this because she knows her child. The sergeant seems impressed with Lady Julia’s assertion, but goes on to say that in his 20 years’ experience of dealing with family scandal cases he has seen young ladies with private debts that they need to raise money for and that they can’t speak to their relatives about. He says his assumption that Rachel is involved came firstly from her being so rude and resentful towards the people trying to help her recover the lost Moonstone, added to the fact that she blocked the search for the smeared item of clothing and she left the house after being told that both of these actions would hinder the recovery of the Moonstone. He says that Rachel must have had an accomplice amongst the servants and believes this was Roseanna and that she chose to use Roseanna as she thought that Roseanna’s history of being a thief would focus the police’s attention onto Roseanna and away from herself, and also that Roseanna would know who to go to to sell the Moonstone to and raise the needed money. He suggests the next course of action is that Rachel be watched and followed, that the moneylender who Roseanna recommended to Rachel (and he says he knows this will have been Septimus Luker, of Lambeth in London) be spoken to by the police and urged to inform them if the Moonstone reaches him, and that a woman police officer be brought into the house as a servant in Roseanna’s place. Lady Julia refuses to agree to these things. The sergeant then suggests an alternative course of action, which is to suddenly and abruptly tell Rachel of Roseanna’s death in the hope that the shock will make her talk and admit what she has done. Lady Julia agrees to this plan, but states that she will be the one to tell Rachel, and faithfully promises to share the result with him. Hmmm, well, Lady Julia’s assertion about Rachel is interesting, that Rachel is ‘absolutely incapable’ of deceiving everyone and of taking the Moonstone herself, but it seems to fit with Rachel being involved and the private debt suggested by Sergeant Cuff (and I presume his usually assumed purpose for the urgently needed money which he said to Lady Julia would ‘shock you by mentioning’ is that the young lady is pregnant and needs money to get the pregnancy dealt with, though he thankfully says he doesn’t think this applies in Rachel’s case, but it makes me shudder to think of young ladies at that time being so desperate and putting themselves in harm’s way with unqualified people in order to achieve that, poor things). And I’m intrigued just how Rachel will react to the shock news of Roseanna’s death, I would be annoyed at her if she has used Roseanna in the way that Sergeant Cuff believes she has, but omg, the news of Roseanna’s killing herself due to being forced by Rachel to be involved would be awful for Rachel to live with. But we’re not even halfway through the book so I can’t imagine Rachel immediately confesses everything when she is told this and the case is then solved!

Lady Julia goes to Frizinghall to see Rachel, and then sends a letter to Betteredge saying she has decided to stay at Frizinghall and adding that she had relayed the news of Roseanna’s suicide to Rachel but that Rachel had firmly stated that she had never spoken or communicated privately with Roseanna, that they didn’t meet on the night the Moonstone was stolen, that the Moonstone has never been in her possession after she put it in the cabinet that night, that she owes money to no-one, and that she refuses to explain any more of the situation. Lady Julia encloses a cheque for Sergeant Cuff’s fee, so ending his involvement in the case. The sergeant leaves the house and the case, but implies to Betteredge that the business of the Moonstone will rise up again, reminding him that Roseanna’s letter will shortly arrive at the Yollands’ cottage, that the Indians will continue to follow the Moonstone so it will be interesting to see if they stay close by or move on, and that he thinks the moneylender will make contact. He ends by saying how much he admires and likes Betteredge, and invites Betteredge to visit him when he has retired to his little house near London. Awww, I do like Sergeant Cuff, particularly with how gently and respectfully he has treated Betteredge, recognising how Betteredge faithfully adores the family. I’m sad he seems to be leaving the story for the moment, but he has left us plenty of clues to consider! I had half forgotten about Roseanna’s letter to the Yollands, so it will be interesting to see what is in that. And I’m thinking more about Godfrey Ablewhite now, could he have taken the Moonstone due to anger at Rachel’s refusal to marry him and a wish to hurt her, or due to jealousy of Franklin and a wish to spoil Rachel’s enjoyment in Franklin’s gift of the Moonstone? But amongst all this, I am fascinated yet again with the glimpse of life in a stately home, with all the rooms mentioned when Betteredge was looking for someone, as he searched in the library and then the drawing room and then the dining room and then the morning room, wow, all these rooms (and I’m not even sure what a morning room is used for, I’m guessing you would be there in the morning but is this because the sun is in that room in the morning or is it where you eat breakfast, with the dining room being just used for formal dinner time?). 

Lady Julia writes to Franklin saying she thinks Rachel has had ‘some incomprehensible obligation of silence…laid on her by some person or persons utterly unknown to me, with some object in view at which I cannot even guess…she is in a condition of nervous agitation pitiable to see’. She says she dare not mention the Moonstone to Rachel any more until she is quieter and calmer, and intends taking her to London to seek medical advice. She asks Franklin to keep away from Rachel, as she thinks his well-meant investigations into the disappearance of the Moonstone have been ‘threatening her secret with discovery’. Franklin leaves the house after first remarking to Betteredge that his uncle would be satisfied with the unhappiness that his gift of the Moonstone has caused the house. Oh dear, there has indeed been much unhappiness caused, particularly to Franklin who has been hurt by Rachel’s behaviour, and also to Lady Julia who sounds really worried about Rachel’s mental health. And the ‘obligation of silence’ that Rachel is keeping to is very intriguing and sounds really quite threatening, but who is this to and why?!

Lucy Yolland comes to the house looking for Franklin, calling him the ’murderer’ as she says he was the cause of Roseanna’s death. She sobs when she tells Betteredge how much Roseanna’s friendship had meant to her and of their plans to go to London together and earn their living by sewing, until Franklin had ‘bewitched her’, and that Roseanna had told her that she couldn’t live without Franklin even though he never even looked at her. She says that Roseanna wrote to her saying she had done with the burden of life and saying goodbye to her forever. She adds that Roseanna had enclosed a letter for Franklin, so Betteredge tries to then urgently get hold of Franklin but is told that after arriving at the family’s London home he took the tidal train the next morning and has left England and they don’t yet know which country he went to. Lucy refuses to leave the letter with Betteredge, saying Roseanna had stated that Lucy must put it into Franklin’s hands herself, so to Betteredge’s frustration the letter must be left unread until Franklin’s return. Later, a newspaper arrives for Betteredge from Sergeant Cuff who has circled a report in it about Septimus Luker the moneylender applying to the courts for action to be taken against three Indians who keep following him and harassing him and who he believes may try to enter his premises and rob him. Betteredge can’t help wondering if the Moonstone is now with Luker and that Rachel, now in London, has passed it to him. Betteredge then says that this is the end of his part of the narrative, even though he could tell us of what happens next and of the conclusion, but that Franklin wants each part of the story to be told first-hand by the people directly involved at that point of the story. Ooooh, Roseanna’s letter?!! Grrr, that is so unbelievably frustrating that we have to wait until Franklin’s return until we find out what the letter contains and he can’t be contacted, how tantalising!! I guess the contents of the letter could just have been about her love for Franklin, but it’s very tempting to think that it is related to the Moonstone in some way, but what connection could Franklin have to the Moonstone? Although Rachel’s behaviour, being so angry at him, seems to imply she possibly thinks he is involved with its disappearance. But why on earth would Franklin take it? I can only think in order to keep the family safe by removing it, but surely he would share this with someone. And it sounds like the Moonstone is in London with Luker, with the Indians following him! But who gave it to him? Obviously Rachel is in London now and Lady Julia, but Franklin was there briefly too before he went abroad, and Godfrey is based there. And poor Lucy with how distraught she is at the loss of Roseanna, and this makes me feel so sad all over again for Roseanna’s committing suicide when she had such a good friend in Lucy and a possibly content future with her in London living by their needles, and just the fact that she was loved and valued by Lucy even if not by anyone else, what a dreadful waste, and also the damage and hurt it has done to poor Lucy’s life, bless her. I’m also quite sad to say goodbye to Betteredge and his narrative, I have grown quite attached to him, I admire his fierce loyalty to the family and how they clearly value him, and I love his care for the family dogs and his adoration of his Robinson Crusoe book.

The story is taken up by Miss Clack, who is a spinster related to the family by her uncle’s marriage, and who for economic reasons now lives in Brittany. She says she has always kept a journal from childhood onwards but that it is now to be used ‘to serve the caprice of a wealthy member of the family…Mr Franklin Blake’, though she feels he has acted ‘with the want of feeling peculiar to the rich’. She describes herself as having ‘sad and bitter meditations…broken slumbers’, of being ‘isolated and poor’ and ‘not infrequently forgotten’. She says she has been asked to relay her time staying with the family at Lady Julia’s house in Montagu Square in London (Lady Julia being Miss Clack’s aunt), though she states this will cause her pain as it will ‘reopen wounds that time has barely closed’. Hmmm, I’m feeling disappointed with Miss Clack, I was quite looking forward to her time relating the story as I had imagined she’d be a bit Miss Marple-ish and very quick and observant while also being quite demure and olde-worlde ladylike, or perhaps like Miss Climpson in the Lord Peter Wimsey books and delightfully babbly and apologetic yet really quite spirited and determined with the cause she is following, both ladies often adding amusing little observations on the human character which always make me smile. And I had been prepared to feel quite sorry for her with how lonely she sounds. But she is actually quite spiteful and bitter! Not amusing really, and although I want to feel sorry for her with her being often forgotten by the family, she is determined to always view herself as being hard-done-to and believing that anything done for her has been done grudgingly, rather than being grateful and seeing it as a kindness, so her ungratefulness mitigates my sympathy for her. Perhaps she acts like this as it makes it easier for her to deal with the shame she feels for needing charity, and it is sad that she is poor and is dependent on her family for help, and being an unmarried woman means she has no way to support herself, so I can imagine that her pride is hurt and she is frustrated at potentially being a burden to her family and of needing help, and I can understand that she feels like life has been unjust to her if she grew up having plenty of money and now she has none. But she tries to seem superior to the ones who would be happy to help her, and to be almost angry at them rather than grateful. She states she has been forgotten and ignored by her family, but she is unable to see that she alienates them by always criticising them, which she dresses up as religiously educating them and when her views aren’t listened to she even leaves Christian tracts/passages behind for them offering judgmental guidance on their behaviour. It is wryly amusing really to see how completely un-self-aware she is not to realise that her behaviour is actually further away from Christian charity and tolerance than anyone else’s! Hmmm, I’m afraid I don’t like her and I find her wearying, with her ungratefulness and critical sneering views, and (ridiculously) it makes me a bit uncomfortable that she shares these views with the reader as it then feels almost like we are complicit with her by hearing these views and being unable to correct her. I’m disappointed again that we’ve left Betteredge’s narrative, which was amusing and touchingly loyal, to go to hers which is completely the opposite, sigh.

Miss Clack knows Godfrey Ablewhite well, as she is a member of several of his charitable committees. She relates that a few days earlier Godfrey was knocked into by Septimus Luker as they both exited the bank. Godfrey was then given a letter when he arrived home requesting him to go to a particular house in Northumberland Street in an hour’s time to meet with an old lady who wished to contribute to one of his charities. He went to the house and was let in by an English man. Godfrey was examining an Oriental manuscript on a table while he waited to be seen, when he was seized and blindfolded and gagged and then thrown to the floor and searched by three men talking in a foreign language, he was then bound to a chair and left there until he was rescued by the owners of the house who had seen him enter and were curious why he hadn’t left with the other men who had rented the apartment for a week. All his possessions were found scattered about the room but nothing was missing. Miss Clack says that exactly the same thing then happened to Luker, he was brought a letter apparently from a customer who wished to purchase an antique from him and requesting that Luker meet him at a house in Tottenham Court Road. He was met there by an Englishman, then gagged and blindfolded and searched by three foreign men and then bound to a chair and left there until he was later discovered by the landlord of the house who had rented rooms to the men. Luker’s possessions were scattered on the floor but a receipt for a valuable deposited at the bank was missing, even though the receipt stated that the valuable was only to be released to Luker so the foreign men wouldn’t be able to claim it themselves. Miss Clack reports that the police linked the two incidents together and concluded that the Indians were following Luker and because he knocked into Godfrey as they were leaving the bank, they thought Luker might have passed the valuable to Godfrey. Hmmm, well, this is all very interesting! It seems that Luker definitely has the Moonstone then, this must surely be the valuable he deposited at the bank! But again, who gave it to him? It now appears that several more characters are now (or have recently been) in London, who were at the house when the Moonstone was stolen and could have made contact with Luker, eg Rachel is there, as is Lady Julia (though I can’t really suspect her), and Miss Clack (even though she had left the house before the Moonstone was presumably stolen in the night so I guess it would be difficult to make her a suspect, unless she came back to the house secretly at night, or she had taken it earlier in the evening and put a fake in its place and got a servant to take the fake (or am I just getting desperate here?!)), and Penelope Betteredge (as Rachel’s maid, though I like her and would hate to think it was her), and Godfrey (I can’t help suspecting him the most), and Franklin passed through London before going abroad. And I’m pleased that Godfrey is back on the scene again, as I felt that he ought to be looked at again with him being at the house the night the Moonstone was stolen and he doesn’t really seem to have been considered much as a suspect before now. 

Miss Clack goes to see Lady Julia and Rachel in Montagu Square, and she notes that Rachel seems restless and excitable and is frequently reminded by Lady Julia that she needs to quiet herself as recommended by the doctor. Godfrey comes to visit, and Rachel is very keen to speak to him of the recent attack on him, demanding that he give her all the details which the newspapers left out and directing many questions to him. He confirms that no trace of the foreign men have been found and it is presumed that they were the same Indians who were at Lady Julia’s house in the country, he also admits reluctantly that the incident has been linked by the newspapers to the disappearance of the Moonstone and people believe that Luker’s valuable at the bank is the Moonstone, even though he states it is not, and people believe that Godfrey pawned it to him. Rachel is horrified that Godfrey’s name is being damaged like this, she reacts very dramatically and shrieks and feels faint, and says that this is all her fault and that she has no right to keep a secret if it affects the reputation of an innocent man. She says ‘I know the hand that took the Moonstone’, and then demands that Godfrey write a declaration of his innocence so she can sign it, which he does in order to pacify her but after she has left the room he destroys this, explaining to Lady Julia and Miss Clack that he can’t bear Rachel’s name to be further involved with this scandal. Eeeek, so Rachel very definitely does know what happened to the Moonstone and who took it!! This is extremely exciting! But then why is she protecting that person? I remember Betteredge spoke of her as a child shielding people she loved, so is it someone she loves who has taken the Moonstone and she is shielding them? Lady Julia and possibly Penelope would fit this, and also possibly Franklin (but she doesn’t seem to be showing much love to him lately), but I can’t really see her loving Miss Clack or Godfrey. And with her stating that Godfrey is innocent it seems he isn’t involved in it, which disappoints me greatly as he was my top suspect!

Miss Clack notices that Lady Julia looks very unwell, and she later explains to Miss Clack that her doctor recently told her that she has an incurable heart disease and probably has only months to live, though she has suffered from no symptoms regarding this so had no indication before this time that she was so unwell. She asks Miss Clack to keep this a secret from Rachel, and also to be a witness to her will which the family solicitor, Mr Bruff, is bringing to the house later. Miss Clack immediately sees the chance to also be of spiritual help to Lady Julia and suggests several clerical friends who could visit her and several books she could read which are ‘calculated to arouse, convince, prepare, enlighten, and fortify…turned down at all the right places…marked in pencil’, though Lady Julia says she is too tired for these. Oh noooo, I’m so sad about Lady Julia, I really like her, she seems like a great determined grande-dame but was clearly (with Betteredge’s affectionate memories of her) a high-spirited and fun lady in her youth, and she was lovely and loyal to her servants and to Betteredge and also to Rachel, and she politely but firmly stood up to Sergeant Cuff, and she took a chance on Roseanna by employing her, she’s a very special lady! And I did chuckle at Miss Clack’s books and her trying to force them onto Lady Julia, but she also seemed a little pathetic with how eager she was and how passionately she believed in the books and I think there was an element of genuine care for Lady Julia in the gesture too, although she was clearly very keen to add Lady Julia to the numbers of converts! And I also smiled a little at Miss Clack’s realisation that being asked to witness the will meant that she was not a beneficiary of it and her inward effort to convince herself that she was relieved by this, though clearly she is very poor and would have benefitted from any money left to her, though no doubt she would still have found some way to be critical and disappointed if she had been left something, rather than grateful and thankful! And awww, bless her, Lady Julia later tells Miss Clack that she does intend to leave something to her but wanted to give it to her directly rather than in her will. And I realise that after saying I was disappointed that Miss Clack had taken over the story, I realise that I am now quite enjoying analysing her character!

Miss Clack returns to Montagu Square the following day in order to deliver the books for Lady Julia, she is asked to wait in the library but decides to sneak upstairs so she can place her books in several rooms in order to catch Lady Julia’s eye and tempt her to read them. She hears a man approaching the room she is in and presumes it is Lady Julia’s doctor, so as she thinks he would be scornful of her books and disapproving of her trying to encourage Lady Julia to read them, she hides behind a curtain separating that room from another room. She then realises that the man in the room is Godfrey, and he is joined by Rachel. He proposes again to Rachel, telling her that everything else in his life is of little interest to him compared to her, including his charitable commissions which he now views as ‘an unendurable nuisance’ (which Miss Clack is horrified to hear). Rachel tells Godfrey that she is wretched, that she is in love with a man who is ‘utterly unworthy’ of her and who she can never marry, and yet she cannot conquer her feelings of love for this man, she says that this love is ‘the breath of my life…the poison that kills me’ but that this man doesn’t know how she feels, and that she will never see this man again. She also refers to the Moonstone as ‘a dreadful responsibility…a miserable secret’ that she involved herself in. Godfrey still urges his proposal on her, stating she shouldn’t waste her life on this man and that marriage with himself would provide her with a peaceful refuge where time will heal her wounds, that she doesn’t need to love him but he just asks for her affection and regard, and that he will devote himself to her happiness. She accepts him, though asks that it be kept a secret for the moment. Omg, I didn’t expect Rachel to accept Godfrey, that was all quite dramatic! And I’m sure she won’t be happy with him and will regret her decision, though I like him for his gentleness with her and his promise to look after her without demanding anything in return. And she sounded so desperately unhappy that I really felt quite sorry for her, though this makes me realise that I haven’t really liked Rachel or felt any sympathy for her up to this point, she has just seemed like a demanding and spoilt child who indulges herself in passionate outbursts and sulking. But oooh, the identity of this man that she loves is very interesting! My first thought was that it can only be Franklin, but then would he be unaware of her love, I’d have thought if her feelings for him were fairly obvious to the servants then they would be fairly obvious to Franklin too so he would be aware of it, although I guess she may not realise that she had displayed her feelings so obviously (so perhaps she is unaware that he is aware of her love, arrrggh, I’m confusing myself!). But it’s difficult to think that it could be some other man who we’ve never heard of, that would be very mean for Wilkie Collins to do that! There was no other man at her birthday party that I can remember, only Godfrey and clearly it’s not him she loves (I am discounting Dr Candy and Murthwaite as surely being too old for her). But if it is Franklin then it’s very intriguing about why he is suddenly unworthy of her when she seemed to earlier return his love and be likely to marry him…I’m only left with the guess that it’s because he is the one who stole the Moonstone and the one she is shielding!! But that seems so unlikely, why would he steal it?! But her altered behaviour towards him, her anger at him and her disappointment in him, does seem to fit. Ooooh, very very intriguing! And I had to chuckle at Miss Clack being ‘painfully uncertain whether it was my first duty to close my eyes, or to stop my ears, that I did neither’ when she was overhearing Godfrey and Rachel’s conversation, I bet she didn’t, tee hee, she was desperate not to miss a thing! And omg, her books include chapters such as ‘Satan in the hair-brush’ and ‘Satan behind the looking-glass’ and ‘Satan under the tea-table’ and ‘Satan out of the window’, and ‘Satan among the sofa cushions’, presumably the book is  saying that women who focus on these things are being shallow and tempted by the devil, but these are all just such ridiculous things to worry about that I had to laugh at her yet again!  

Later, Lady Julia faints and cannot be roused, and then dies! Oh nooooo, I’m so sad that Lady Julia is dead, I wasn’t expecting that so soon, and I wonder again why Wilkie Collins included this death at this point (like with Roseanna’s death), did he want Lady Julia out of the story for some reason, does he want Rachel to be more alone and unguided, does he intend her to make decisions which her mother (if alive) would have advised she didn’t make? Will Rachel now yearn even more for the peaceful refuge that Godfrey promises, and marry him swiftly? But I also imagine that Franklin will come back for Lady Julia’s funeral so Rachel will be forced to see him again and no doubt feel that unconquerable love for him (if it is him) in comparison to her lack of love for Godfrey. Oooh, I see trouble ahead, if so! And I feel for poor Betteredge and how distraught he will be at the news of Lady Julia’s death, as he seemed to almost hero-worship her, bless him. I hope he will be able to attend the funeral and will be allowed time to mourn, although I presume his focus will be on getting everything just right for her funeral, all the little details just so, rather than thinking about his own grief.  

Lady Julia’s will states that Rachel’s guardian will be Mr Ablewhite Snr (Godfrey’s father, and Rachel’s uncle) until she marries or comes of age. Her engagement to Godfrey is now known within the family. Rachel goes to live with Mrs Ablewhite and Miss Ablewhite (Godfrey’s mother and sister) and Miss Clack in a house in Brighton, as she is grieving and shocked and doesn’t want any society. The family solicitor, Bruff, comes to Brighton and speaks privately with Rachel which results in her revoking her engagement to Godfrey, who seems to agree to this news surprisingly well when she informs him of this, however she refuses to share with anyone else her reasons for revoking the engagement, including with Godfrey’s father who is angry and insulted at this decision, saying that Rachel clearly sees herself as above his son and adding that he therefore refuses to now be her guardian and demanding that she leave his house. Bruff immediately invites Rachel to come and live with him and his wife and daughters, although Miss Clack also invites Rachel to live with her but she adds that this was offer is made because she wants to encourage Rachel to follow a religious path in order to save her from going to hell like her mother, which results in Rachel angrily pushing her away. This is the end of Miss Clack’s narrative. Phew, that was all quite dramatic too, Miss Clack’s chapters are certainly very tense and exciting! So Bruff must have discovered something dodgy about Godfrey to convince Rachel to revoke her engagement, so I wonder what this was, even though I am very relieved that she won’t be marrying him. It is hinted that Ablewhite Snr’s enthusiasm for the marriage was due to Rachel being rich, so perhaps Godfrey’s aim was also her money. But it’s strange that he didn’t then argue when she called off the engagement, that kind of implies that she (courtesy of Bruff) perhaps had some kind of proof of his ulterior motive. Hmmm, very interesting! I had wondered if the engagement would be called off due to Franklin arriving for Lady Julia’s funeral but there is no mention of him being there which was a surprise, I presume it was only that he wasn’t able to be contacted as no-one knew exactly where he was, as surely he would have naturally attended. And awww, my heart quite softened towards Bruff when he invited Rachel to live with him and his wife, and clearly he had already looked out for Rachel’s interests when guiding her to break off her engagement. And I can’t help feeling a little sorry for Miss Clack, even though (omg!!) she so very much ill-judged things by saying about Lady Julia going to hell! But then she writes, ‘I was left alone in the room, reviled by them all, deserted by them all, I was left alone in the room’, and she sounds really shocked and hurt (even though she had caused Rachel hurt, but she wouldn’t have been able to see that herself). And she’d said earlier in the chapter that less than a month later ‘events in the money-market forced me into foreign exile’ so this must be her having to live in Brittany which is mentioned at the start of her narrative, so everyone shunned her and she was offered no help with her financial difficulties even though her situation was so desperate that she was forced to leave England. As I say, I know she brings it on herself with the way she lectures and criticises people, but surely this ignoring of her and her difficulties must have hurt her deeply, and I can’t help feeling sorry for her really. But I see that our next narrator is Bruff, oooh, I’m excited at this as I have grown to really like him! I wonder what kind of style he will write in, and it makes me consider that it must have been quite a challenge to Wilkie Collins to try and write in the hand of different characters, Betteredge and Miss Clack are perhaps fairly similar in style as they are both quite wordy but I imagine Bruff to be quite curt and to the point in his speech so it will be interesting to see if his narrative is quite direct and short too. I also wonder who else will be a narrator, perhaps Rachel will be but then I wonder what she thought afterwards about these narratives of people observing and commenting and judging her behaviour and actions and decisions!

Bruff explains that Godfrey had gone to look at Lady Julia’s will, which made Bruff suspicious about his motive in wanting to marry Rachel. Bruff advised Rachel of this and she decided to call off the engagement. Bruff felt that Godfrey was unlikely to readily agree to this, however him agreeing to it then made Bruff wonder if Godfrey actually needs a large sum of money quickly and had realised by looking at the will that marrying Rachel wouldn’t provide him with this as she only has a life interest in the family properties (which means that she is wealthy but can’t sell the properties), so this is why he was happy for the engagement to be called off. Bruff is concerned about Rachel with her being ‘so young and so lonely…she was deeply to be pitied’, but he says that she has ‘found the quiet and repose which she sadly needed, poor thing, in my house in Hampstead’. He also adds his knowledge of her character as someone who thinks deeply in her own mind about things, rather than discussing them with others, and although Bruff admires this self-dependency, he can also see how keeping quiet about things could be misconstrued by others, and he suspects that this has happened regarding the Moonstone, he also adds that he is ‘satisfied nevertheless that she had done nothing unworthy of her’. Awww, bless him, I like how he cares for Rachel, I suspect he has a gruff exterior but is soft within, to certain people. And his address is Gray’s Inn Square, which always reminds me of Dickens’ books, especially Bleak House. And good, we have the answer to the reason why the engagement was broken off, I’m glad we haven’t had to wait too long for that (seeing as we are waiting for lots of other things to be explained!), but Bruff’s guess that Godfrey wants a large sum of money quickly is very interesting, is this to do with the Moonstone perhaps, does he need the money in order to get it out of pawn to Luker? And Bruff’s view of Rachel is interesting and I feel I am learning more about her and liking and respecting her more from reading his views, she seemed like a spoilt demanding child in Betteredge’s narrative, and Miss Clack didn’t paint a good picture of her, but Bruff shows a lonely sad side to her as well as a determined self-sufficiency and I can see this fits with her shutting herself away to think about things after the Moonstone was taken, rather than it meaning she was being sulky and difficult as it appeared earlier in the book, and makes me wonder if she is following some course that makes sense to her rather than just acting irrationally.  And I wonder if this is deliberate on Wilkie Collins’ part to only let us get to know Rachel and understand her character a bit better later in the book.

The chief of the Indians comes to see Bruff, on the recommendation of Luker. Bruff finds the man extremely polite and respectful, but is in no doubt that he is ‘an admirable assassin…would have murdered me…without a moment’s hesitation’ if he believed that Bruff had the Moonstone. The man shows Bruff a little ebony box covered in jewels and asks Bruff to lend him money, using the box as security for the debt. He says that Luker told him that he had no money to lend and therefore recommended he go to Bruff. Bruff tells him that he never lends money to strangers and never on the security of objects. The man accepts this decision, but asks that if Bruff had been in the habit of lending money then how long is the usual time in England until it must be paid back and the object reclaimed which had been left as security, to which Bruff answers that a year is the usual time. Bruff feels that the man only actually wanted the answer to this question of the usual time to pay back money lent on an object, and the request to borrow money was just an excuse to ask the question. Luker then comes to see Bruff, he says the Indian came to see him asking to borrow money and offering the jewellery box as security, but that Luker was ‘paralysed with terror’, believing that this was one of the men who had followed him and who had also bound him and searched him and was convinced the man had now come to kill him, so got rid of him as speedily as he could by stating that he had no money to lend. He apologises for giving Bruff’s name to the Indian, but explains that this was the first name that occurred to him in his terror. Hmmm, I do like Bruff’s narrative, it is considered and to the point and factual, which makes me trust him. I like that when he mentions Luker he says that ‘he is quite unworthy of being reported, at any length, in these pages’ and is therefore is only very very brief in his description of him, whereas I feel Betteredge and Miss Clack would have filled pages describing Luker and how he made them feel and their presumptions on his character, etc, as their narrative style was far more babbly. I think if Bruff had narrated the whole book then we’d have got answers a lot quicker and the book would have been far shorter, but then where’s the fun in that?! And I’m presuming the Indian’s question about when a loan has to be repaid is because he believes the Moonstone has been put down as security for a loan of money and wants to know when it will be redeemed again and when it will therefore be taken out of the bank vault and available for them to try and steal. I’m sure Luker has the Moonstone in his bank vault, and I still feel that it was Godfrey who lent money from Luker using the Moonstone as security and now has to find money to reclaim it.

Bruff attends a dinner party where Murthwaite is another guest, so he engages him in talk of the Moonstone. Murthwaite says he believes that there is an organisation of Indians in England dedicated to the retrieval of the Moonstone and they have access to money and resources, and that they looked at a copy of Herncastle’s will and so learned that the Moonstone was bequeathed to Rachel and that Franklin was to take it to her. He knows that the Indians placed one of their associates at Luker’s house, who then saw the Moonstone there and wrote to the others at Frizinghall, as this letter was shown to Murthwaite by the police for him to translate. Murthwaite believes that Godfrey took the Moonstone from Yorkshire to London and deposited it with Luker, but that Luker foiled the Indians’ plans by sacking their man in his employment and swiftly putting the Moonstone into his bank’s vault, and that the Indians know the Moonstone is at Luker’s bank because they found the receipt on him when they searched him. He adds he believes that the purpose of the Indian’s question about when a loan has to be repaid is so they then know when the Moonstone is next likely to be removed from the bank, ie in a year’s time from the original transaction, so at the end of June 1849. Bruff makes a note in his diary of this date. This is the end of Bruff’s narrative. Well, Murthwaite was useful there in clearing up a few more things. But we haven’t had Bruff as a narrator for very long, sigh. However, I see the next narrator is Franklin Blake, which is exciting as he is one of the main characters in the drama so hopefully more will be revealed!

Franklin says that he had been informed by a letter from Bruff, in the spring of 1849 while travelling in the East, that his father had died, and that he had inherited his father’s fortune and the responsibilities which came with that, so needed to return home. He had heard of Rachel being engaged to Godfrey and also of her releasing herself from the engagement, though not the reasons why. He hears now that she is living with her aunt, Mrs Merridew, in London. He goes there asking to see her, but she refuses to see him. He presumes that she is still annoyed at him for trying to solve the mystery of the missing Moonstone, so he determines that the only way to deal with this is to finally solve the mystery, so goes to the house in Yorkshire. He finds Betteredge dozing in his chair in the garden with his Robinson Crusoe book and the family dogs by his side. He tells Betteredge of his intention to finally solve the mystery of the Moonstone’s disappearance, and Betteredge tells him that Rosanna left a sealed letter for him which he can retrieve from Lucy at Cobb’s Hole the following morning. Yay, we will finally find out what the letter contains! And I’m relieved that we have come back to the house in Yorkshire as it feels like this location is where the answers will be, obviously the scenes in London were important to the story as this is where the Moonstone must be now (in Luker’s bank’s vault), but I felt that leaving Yorkshire and leaving Sergeant Cuff meant that we weren’t getting any closer to discovering how the Moonstone was taken and why and by whom. And of course, being in Yorkshire we have Betteredge back, yay!

Franklin and Betteredge wake early the following morning, full of anticipation, and head to the cottage to retrieve the letter. Lucy demands that Franklin walks with her down to the shore and she then examines him carefully, looking at him with ‘abhorrence and disgust’ as Franklin perceives, and states she can’t understand what Roseanna saw in him, and that she herself never wants to set eyes on him again. She then thrusts the letter at him and walks off. The letter directs Franklin where to find the chain in the Shivering Sand and to pull it up, telling him that this will explain to him her behaviour while he was at Lady Julia’s house, and stressing that he must do this whilst alone. Franklin and Betteredge head to the Shivering Sand immediately, but Betteredge says that he will leave Franklin alone there, loath though he is to miss anything, as he feels he must do right by Roseanna’s wishes after she died such a dreadful death. Franklin finds the chain and pulls up the case, and inside is a letter with his name on it, wrapped in linen. He realises that the linen is a nightgown and it has the smear of paint on it from Rachel’s door, but then is shocked to see his own name on the nightgown! Eeek, so Franklin is the thief!! But how or why?! I can understand now why Rosanna involved herself in all this though, as she must have wanted to save Franklin from discovery and to show him how much she loved him by doing so. So the nightgown was his nightgown not hers, and I guess her choosing only to hide it rather than destroy it was so she could show it to him at some point and therefore demonstrate what she had done for him, in order to convince him of her love for him. But omg, it’s so puzzling, why would Franklin want to steal the Moonstone? It can’t be for the money as he presumably had plenty of money even before he inherited his father’s fortune. Franklin seems genuinely shocked at the discovery that it was his nightgown and it was he who stole the Moonstone though, which is then a puzzle in itself. I kind of feel he wouldn’t lie to the reader, unless it’s all some clever bluff (like in one of Agatha Christie’s wonderful books where the narrator is the murderer). Was it perhaps someone else who stole the Moonstone whilst wearing Franklin’s nightgown and deliberately smeared paint on the nightgown in order to incriminate him? But then why didn’t they draw attention to the fact the paint was on his nightgown so as to throw suspicion on him, or had Roseanna gathered the nightgown up too quickly and this foiled their plan? And this must explain Rachel’s antagonism towards Franklin, she must know he stole it (though how? Did Roseanna tell her, but why would she do this?) and she has been sheltering him all this time by keeping that secret, which fits with her sheltering the man she loves and yet him being unworthy of her. And I’m half wondering if Franklin will conceal from Betteredge that the smeared nightgown was his? And eeek, there is still Roseanna’s letter in the case for him to read so this might answer all my questions, while I’m getting carried away with all these speculations, tee hee! Phew, this was such a dramatic chapter to read, with him getting the letter and going to the Shivering Sand and finding the case and then finding the nightgown and then the reveal that the nightgown was his! And bless him, lovely Betteredge being respectful to Roseanna’s memory and leaving Franklin alone to pull up the case, even though it must have nearly killed him to do so!

Betteredge comes to find Franklin on the sand, unable to wait any longer, and sees him in a state of shock holding the nightgown. Franklin hands the nightgown to him by way of an explanation. Betteredge takes Franklin back to the house and gives him a drink, and says that the nightgown is a lie and that there must have been ‘foul play’ somewhere. They then read Rosanna’s letter. She writes of her love for Franklin, how she was overcome with her feelings for him when she first saw him and how desperate she was for him to notice her, and how lonely her life was and the pleasure she gained from little things like tidying his room and folding his clothes, and also how she came to think of the quicksand as a way to do away with herself when she felt so very low. All of this is a shock to Franklin, who had no idea of her feelings for him. She says she found his nightgown in his room with the paint on, so knew he must have been in Rachel’s room in the early hours of the morning, she says she first presumed that he and Rachel had been intimate so she kept the nightgown as possible evidence to use against Rachel in her jealousy of her. She says she then realised that the paint smear must mean that he had taken the Moonstone for some reason and she presumed it was probably to pay debts as she had heard talk of him being extravagant, and she was overjoyed to think that he had come down to her level with stealing something. She says she was also delighted that she had the means, by having the nightgown, to shield and protect him from discovery. She made a replacement nightgown for him so he wouldn’t be suspected if the rooms were searched, and she then dropped hints to him about the Moonstone, thinking he would understand the hints, but was mortified all over again by his indifferent manner towards her and she despaired of ever finding the courage to speak to him more openly. She was also worried about the nightgown being found in her possession so she decided to hide it, but she hoped to be able to use it in the future to demonstrate to him how she had shielded him. She says all this weighed on her mind and she became lower and lower in mood and thought more often about ending her life. Oh dear, poor Roseanna, I do feel sorry for her and how unhappy she was, and it’s particularly tragic given she had been given a second chance in life from Lady Julia, a chance that others with her start in life probably wouldn’t get, but she wasn’t able to be happy with her past life weighing on her so much and her obsession with her appearance, and how tragic that she focused all her thoughts on Franklin, given how unrealistic a relationship with him was. But what a tough letter for Franklin to read, being told by her that his indifference and coldness (as she perceived it) caused her to kill herself, when he didn’t deliberately shun her or wish to hurt her. And though I feel sorry for her, I also feel annoyed at her for deliberately aiming with her letter to make him feel guilty and to intend for him to be haunted by her death and have it on his conscience, that is cruel of her, though obviously she was desperately unhappy and not thinking logically. I am relieved that Franklin left Betteredge to read the majority of the letter, rather than read it himself, he doesn’t need those words in his head. But there is no clue in her letter as to what happened to the Moonstone! I’d wondered if the Moonstone would also be in the case and that she’d found it in Franklin’s room or in the pocket of his nightgown, although that wouldn’t then fit with Luker seeming to get hold of it and take it to Luker? And I realise that although her letter has given us some valuable information that Franklin took the Moonstone (or someone wearing Franklin’s nightgown…!), we’re actually no further forward on why he did it. So the ‘piece of longcloth’ that Rosanna secretly bought and which led Sergeant Cuff to think she had used to replace her smeared dress because it was of a plain material (rather than being used to replace Rachel’s smeared dress or nightgown which he would expect to be of more lacy and frilly material), was actually of a plain material because it was Franklin’s nightgown which presumably wasn’t lacy and frilly. But awww, I did like that Franklin said what an ‘inexpressible comfort’ Betteredge was to him, in those first few moments when he couldn’t think straight. And I am pleased he immediately shared it all with Betteredge, not trying in any way to conceal his apparent guilt with the stained nightgown. And I liked too that Betteredge was in no doubt about Franklin’s innocence, bless him, even before they had read Rosanna’s letter. And what a lovely old-fashioned gentle expression is the term ‘foul play’!

Franklin decides to go to London to share all this new information with Bruff and see what light he may be able to throw on it all, and he also means to talk with Rachel and find out what she actually knows about the theft, given what he now knows himself of his apparent involvement in it. As he prepares to leave the house, Ezra Jennings, Dr Candy’s assistant, brings a list to Betteredge of the local sick people, as Rachel now helps them as her mother used to help them. Franklin is struck by the man’s gypsy-like appearance and asks Bettredge about him, who explains that Dr Candy never fully recovered after contracting a fever getting caught in the rain when leaving Rachel’s birthday party which resulted in him losing his memory, and the business is mostly run now by Jennings. Betteredge accompanies Franklin to the station to catch his train to London, and Franklin asks him if he thinks he could have been drunk or walked in his sleep that night, trying to find an explanation of how he could have got the paint on his nightgown and taken the Moonstone without remembering it. Betteredge thinks both ideas are unlikely as Franklin has never sleep-walked before and didn’t seem drunk that night, and he also points out that these solutions don’t explain how the Moonstone then got to Luker in London. Betteredge is still convinced that Franklin didn’t have anything to do with the theft. When in London, Franklin meets with Bruff and relays everything to him, showing him the nightgown and the letter. Bruff thinks that someone else could have worn Franklin’s nightgown to steal the Moonstone, and wonders if Rosanna showed Rachel the smeared nightgown which has made her believe in Franklin’s guilt. Meanwhile, Betteredge writes to Franklin, saying he has no more news of the Moonstone but says that Jennings had told Dr Candy of seeing Franklin and that Dr Candy had sent a message that he particularly wished to speak to Franklin. Hmmm, Franklin’s ideas are good ones, him being drunk or sleep-walking, that would have perhaps accounted for how he genuinely doesn’t remember his actions regarding the Moonstone, but it seems that can’t have happened, sigh. I like that Bruff has the same idea as me, that someone else could have worn Franklin’s nightgown, but I suspect Bruff thinks that Roseanna wore it to steal the Moonstone and then took the chance to poison Rachel’s mind against Franklin by showing her his nightgown, hmmm, I don’t see Roseanna as the thief, although perhaps in her desperation to forge a connection with Franklin she may have attempted something drastic like that in order to gain his affection and loyalty and separate him from Rachel, more than for possession of the Moonstone. And I wonder why there is this few paragraphs about Ezra Jennings and Dr Candy, it seemed irrelevant at this point and I was a bit annoyed to have it included as it took us away from the main points of the case, but I’m then thinking Wilkie Collins must have included it for some reason, so it will be interesting to see what that reason is.

Franklin meets with Rachel at Bruff’s house, surprising her by walking in on her unannounced as he knows she wouldn’t have agreed to see him. He is overwhelmed with love when he sees her and can’t help but kiss her, and he thinks she feels the same at first but she then becomes angry and he sees ‘merciless contempt on her lips’ and she calls him a ‘mean, miserable, heartless coward’. He tells her what he has discovered of the nightgown and Roseanna concealing this, and asks if Roseanna showed her the nightgown and this is why she suspects him of stealing her Moonstone. She then shocks him by saying, ‘I saw you take the diamond with my own eyes’! She adds that she had spared him and kept his secret, so asks why he has come there that day humiliating himself and her. Omg, so she actually saw him herself, this changes things completely, though I am still trying to hold onto the idea that it was someone else in his nightgown and so in the darkness she presumed that it was him, although did he have that distinct a nightgown that she would potentially identify him by this alone? I think not, really. And I can see why she was so puzzled at why he was there that day, seeing as she believes that they both know it was him who took the Moonstone, and I guess she must have been puzzled too the first few days after the theft when he seemed keen to discover who had taken it when she felt they both knew it was him! But awww, I did melt a bit with Franklin’s feelings of love when he first saw her, oh god, I don’t want him to be tricking her and everyone else and not be who we think he is, although I’ve never once guessed it when Agatha Christie has a twist like this in her books so I’m probably not the best judge of character or a skilled detective!

Franklin is completely shocked and confused at Rachel’s revelation. He tells her that they must both be the victims of ‘some monstrous delusion’, and asks her to relate the details of that night to him step by step. Rachel agrees, and explains that she couldn’t sleep that night so went into her sitting room to get a book but then stepped back into the doorway of her bedroom when she heard footsteps approaching the sitting room from the passageway and saw a light under the door. The door from the passageway to her sitting room then opened and she saw Franklin there in the doorway, dressed in his nightgown and holding a candle which illuminated his face so she could see clearly that it was him. She says his eyes were open and they looked normal, not vacant or fixed, although a little brighter than usual, and she says he walked as normal. She says he went to the Indian cabinet and she watched him through the reflection of one of the mirrors in the room as he opened each drawer until he found the Moonstone and then picked it up, he stood in thought for a while and then left the room. She says she stayed awake all the rest of the night, unable to sleep, but nothing else happened until Penelope came to her as usual in the morning. She says she concluded that he must be in debt and so she wrote a carefully worded letter to him hinting that she would raise the money to clear his debt, planning on pawning the Moonstone herself and then giving him the money, but she then heard the following morning that he was actively seeking the thief of the Moonstone and bringing in the police, and therefore thought him false and cunning so she decided not to help him and tore up her letter. She says she then spoke to him, hinting of what she knew but not stating it directly as she was unable to call him a thief to his face as she couldn’t bear to hear him lie, knowing what he had done, but she says he just looked astonished and admitted nothing and she says she knew him then for ‘as base a wretch as ever walked the earth’. He remembers this, and that he had thought she was acting very oddly and even wondered himself if she had taken the Moonstone. He leaves her, too shocked and upset to be able to think straight or know what to say, but he vows to her that she shall know that she has wronged him. Phew, that was very dramatic and emotional! So no doubt now then that it was Franklin she saw, with the candle clearly showing his face and her even noting his eyes looking a little brighter than usual (is there something in this, though I don’t see what), and her mentioning that he was walking normally does away with his hope that he was sleep-walking or drunk, though Betteredge had already discounted these ideas. Poor Franklin, what a dreadful shock for him to hear her say these words after he had convinced himself (and been convinced by Betteredge and Bluff) that it wasn’t him who took the Moonstone! I can understand why he was reeling and unable to then offer any further suggestions, his mind must have been spinning! But also I’m wondering what he did with the Moonstone after he left her room? And I do feel for Rachel too with all the turmoil of feelings she has gone through and which she has concealed and struggled to deal with all on her own. I remember again that Betteredge said in his narrative something about her keeping quiet about a friend’s guilt and even risking being blamed herself when a child, so this was obviously a clue (!) and what she had done with Franklin in not exposing him, even though it made her look like she was acting strangely and unreasonably and even causing people to suspect that she might have taken the Moonstone herself (me included, so I apologise to her!). And awww, how much she must love him with her having planned to pawn the Moonstone herself in order to give him the money, thinking he needed it as he was in debt. And I guess she thought he was in debt because that man came to the house seeking him, and this is probably what led Roseanna to presume the same thing.  

Franklin relays all this to Bruff, who still maintains that there ‘must be some dreadful mistake somewhere’, even though he acknowledges that Rachel has told the truth as she knows it and she believes him to be guilty. He reminds Franklin that in about two weeks the Moonstone will likely be redeemed from Luker’s bank and returned to the person who pledged it to Luker, a year having almost passed, so he suggests setting a watch on the bank to see who Luker returns the Moonstone to. Franklin tells Bruff that in the meantime he will seek out Sergeant Cuff in his retirement cottage in Dorkin, hoping he may be able to help him. However, Sergeant Cuff is away in Ireland, on the trail of roses, so Franklin can only leave a message for him with his housekeeper. Frustrated in this plan, he then decides to ask each of the guests at Rachel’s birthday for their recollection of the events that evening, but discovers that Murthwaite has gone travelling again, Miss Clack has gone to live in France due to lack of funds, and Godfrey has gone on holiday to Brussels after receiving a legacy from a lady of one of his charitable committees. He therefore decides to go back to Yorkshire and Betteredge. Grrr, that’s frustrating that everyone who could have helped isn’t now available, Wilkie Collins is dangling this carrot infront of us for longer and longer! And I wonder if it’s significant that none of them are around when the Moonstone is about to be redeemed from Luker, I guess there are still two weeks for Godfrey to return as I still feel that he is involved in some way. And awww, I do like Bruff, still resolutely believing in Franklin’s innocence even though he can’t make sense of what has happened. And he’s so caring and protective towards Rachel too, he really is a lovely man. 

When Franklin returns to Yorkshire, he visits Dr Candy as he had requested to see Franklin. He is shocked at the change in Dr Candy after his illness, as he now looks very old and weak and shrunken and seems easily distracted and forgetful, though he tries to conceal these alterations, particularly his loss of memory. Therefore Franklin leaves without Dr Candy sharing what he wanted to speak to him about, although he had referred a few times to Rachel’s birthday dinner, before losing the thread of what he intended to say, so Franklin is left frustrated and with the suspicion that it could have been something to do with the Moonstone. On his way out of Dr Candy’s house, Franklin is spoken to by Ezra Jennings, who was obviously waiting to waylay him. They walk down the street together and Ezra describes how ill Dr Candy was and how he had cared for him and battled to help him live, and of how Dr Candy had been rambling deliriously at the crisis of the illness so Ezra had jotted down in shorthand what he had said, partly to pass the time in the lonely hours of watching over him and partly because he was interested in researching how the brain worked. He says that Dr Candy had spoken of something he had done to Franklin, but Ezra is then reluctant to share these notes of what he had said as he feels they were taken without Dr Candy’s knowledge when he was vulnerable and totally dependent on Ezra. Franklin then explains, though reluctantly, that he is having to try and clear his name from being a thief and having stolen the Moonstone, and Ezra then feels a connection with Franklin’s situation and relays how he has been suspected in the past, though was innocent. He tells Franklin a little about his life, how he was treated unfairly by his family and says ’I am a man whose life is a wreck, and whose character is gone’ and he mentions, though doesn’t give any detail of, ‘a horrible accusation…slander that was death to my character…has rested on me for years’, and which he is ‘incapable of proving my innocence, I can only assert my innocence…as a Christian’, but says he won’t live under an assumed name as he sees this as ‘guilty evasion’. He says he had told all this to Dr Candy, who said he would stand by him and who gave him shelter and employment. He adds that he expects to die soon from an ‘incurable internal complaint’, for which he is currently taking opium to relieve the symptoms. Omg, the suspicion and prejudice in the village against Ezra Jennings really is quite cruel, and based solely on his partly-foreign appearance, it’s awful to think of how he must have been ostracised in that little old-fashioned insular English village and other places like it, bless him. And his personal history is so sad! I can’t help being curious as to what the accusation is against him though, which is so alarming and serious and damaging that it follows him from place to place. What can it be, and why can’t he disprove it, as he says it is false?! And also why did his family treat him wrongly, as I’m guessing this wasn’t anything to do with the accusation as he said that had occurred in England. Grrr, I want to know more! And now he faces imminent death from an internal illness, it’s awful, really really sad, I feel so sorry for him. I also wonder where he comes from in the world, after Franklin’s description of him that his face had ‘the fine shape and modelling so often found among the ancient people of the East’ and his eyes were ‘dreamy and mournful…deeply sunk in their orbits…of the softest brown…and took your attention captive at their will’, and that he was ‘a gentleman…in whose delicacy and discretion I could trust’. I am pleased that Franklin feels sympathy for him and recognises how he must have suffered, and I also admire Dr Candy for taking Ezra on as an assistant and for obviously helping and supporting him in other ways, with Ezra describing Dr Candy as the only man on earth who had befriended him. At first I thought Ezra was going to be a kind of Uriah Heep character (from Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield) with his seeming eagerness to speak to Franklin and to attempt to ingratiate himself, but clearly not. I also wonder why he is only being brought into the story towards the end of the book, as it seems like there’s so much potential in him that he could have been a far more featured character. I wonder if the book was serialised as Wilkie Collins wrote it, so he couldn’t go back and add new characters earlier in the book? And it was so sad to see Dr Candy’s memory problems and how agonisingly distressing it was for him, and it seemed even more tragic with his pathetic effort to try and conceal this. Franklin was kind again though, listening patiently to him and not letting his frustration show. But omg, Wilkie Collins certainly seems an expert at building up the tension and making us wait and wait and wait for information, raising our hopes that something is about to be revealed and then putting a delay in place, sigh, I thought we were going to get information from Dr Candy but then no, and even though Ezra has agreed to tell Franklin what Dr Candy revealed, it has taken Ezra ages and ages to reach the point of sharing, and even (grrr!) leaving Franklin in order to attend an urgent medical case saying he will return in two hours, omg, did Wilkie Collins realise what he was doing to us?!!! I keep thinking I’ll read just the next couple of paragraphs in order to get the information before I really must put the book down and go to sleep, but the paragraphs roll on (tantalising though they are) and the information isn’t coming!

When they meet again, Ezra asks Franklin a few questions about the night when he was supposed to have stolen the Moonstone, and then states that he believes Dr Candy secretly gave Franklin opium which resulted in him being ‘unconscious of what you were about when you entered the room and took the diamond’, the opium adding to the effects of Franklin’s lack of sleep from suddenly giving up smoking as well as his anxiety about the Moonstone and its potential danger to the household. Ezra says that Dr Candy did this because Franklin was teasing him at dinner and mocking the medical profession and their medicines, so he wanted to prove to Franklin that medicine could aid him by providing him with a good night’s sleep, planning to reveal the cause of this benefit the following morning and have Franklin be forced to admit that his views about medicine were wrong, however Dr Candy was prevented from doing so by falling ill. Omg, so that’s the solution! It was indeed Franklin who took the Moonstone but he was acting under an opium-induced trance so didn’t know what he was doing. I imagine his drugged mind persuaded him to put the Moonstone in a safer hiding place than Rachel’s cabinet, particularly after Lady Julia had raised this concern before they all went to bed, so this is why he took it in the night, he must then have put it somewhere he considered safe and I’m thinking it was found by Godfrey (I am still clinging to him being guilty!) who then took it and pawned it. Interesting though that Franklin obviously has no idea of where he put the Moonstone, so if (as I presume) it hadn’t been found by someone (Godfrey, as I suspect!) and pawned to Luker, then it could have laid hidden at the house all this time. It is a relief to finally know what happened, and it is clever of Wilkie Collins to have found a way to have Franklin both be guilty of taking the Moonstone but innocent too, but…is this a bit sneaky? I kind of feel that we couldn’t possibly have guessed at this solution. Yes, we knew of Franklin’s teasing of Dr Candy but it’s a big stretch to then guess that Dr Candy secretly gave opium to Franklin. Did Dr Candy even talk about opium at all during the meal? I will check back and apologies if so, but I don’t think he did. And the only possible indication of Franklin being under the influence of opium was his slightly brighter eyes which Rachel had noticed but only mentioned a couple of pages ago. And we’d crossed off sleep-walking as a possible answer as Betteredge had said that Franklin had no history of sleep-walking, but actually he was sleep-walking but from an opium-induced trance. Grrrr, a bit sneaky, as I say, wonderful and ingenious yes, but sneaky! And I could forgive Franklin for being angry at Dr Candy, obviously the doctor didn’t at all mean for this chain of events to happen and he would have cleared everything up with his explanation of his trick the following morning if he hadn’t been taken unwell, and obviously it is tragic how unwell he now is and how his life has been effectively wrecked by falling ill, but still, the consequences of his trick have been huge!

Ezra says this theory can’t be shared with other people in order to prove what Franklin did, as it is only Ezra’s surmises from piecing together Dr Candy’s delirious ramblings, and even though he is certain that he is right in his surmises he knows he isn’t trusted in the town so no-one would likely believe it. He says he has another idea for proving what happened, which is to try and make it happen again, so he suggests that Franklin gives up smoking and will doubtless then not sleep and they then try to replicate the atmosphere of the birthday party and the anxiety that Franklin felt about the Moonstone, and he then takes some opium and hopefully he will then walk in an opium-induced trance to the cabinet as if to take the Moonstone again, therefore proving that this must have been what happened before. Ezra also hopes that by re-enacting that night’s event, Franklin may lead them to where he hid the Moonstone, but Franklin then explains his and Bruff’s belief that the Moonstone now isn’t at the house as it has been put in the bank by Luker. Ezra states that he will write to Rachel sharing his surmises and his plan of how to prove this and asking for permission to try his experiment in her house. Oooh, going with my suspicion of Godfrey, I wonder if they will try and have as many of the same guests there at the house for the re-enactment as were originally there for the birthday party, which would include Godfrey, and what he would then think about this experiment revealing where Franklin put the Moonstone, if he had then taken it from that place! And ooooh, the next narration is by Ezra himself! I do hope we find out more about his life.

Ezra relates that Franklin has given up smoking and is having disturbed sleep and feeling tired. Rachel replies to Ezra saying that she believes in Franklin’s innocence now Ezra has explained everything to her and she doesn’t need the experiment with opium in order to prove it, however she gives her permission for the house to be used as Ezra wishes for the experiment but states she wants to be there herself too. Ezra agrees but suggests that she arrives at the house in late evening after Franklin has gone to bed so she can watch the experiment from her bedroom without Franklin knowing she is there in the house. Betteredge and Bruff have both informed Franklin that they have no confidence in the experiment and believe it foolish trickery and to be raising false hopes, so Ezra invites Betteredge and Bruff to also be present to witness the experiment. Awww, poor Ezra seems to really value Franklin’s respect and friendship, he must feel keenly the loss of talking to and exchanging views with Dr Candy now he is so changed after his illness which makes it even nicer that he now has Franklin’s friendship, I do hope Franklin continues to be friends with him after the Moonstone experiment is over. And being able to bring Rachel and Franklin together seems to give Ezra a purpose too which makes him happy and feel stronger, bless him. Although I worry about the toll it is taking on him, as he is so focused on being of help to Franklin that he is neglecting, and willing to sacrifice, his own health needs. And tee hee, wonderful Betteredge made me chuckle with all his objections that he listed regarding putting the house exactly as it was last year for the party, these objections including damage to a couple of ornaments which has rendered them now unusable since the party and also demanding to know who has the responsibility of putting Franklin’s room into the messy state that it was in last year (and Franklin took responsibility for that task, tee hee!), and him also trying to educate Ezra with Robinson Crusoe.

It is the evening of the ‘medical experiment’ (Bettredge’s term for it) or the ‘proposed exhibition’ (Bruff’s term for it), and Ezra and Franklin have walked in the shrubbery and eaten dinner and talked of the Moonstone and the Indians, as happened last year. The witnesses all arrive, although Rachel’s presence is kept from Franklin. Rachel greets Ezra in a welcoming and trusting and enthusiastic manner, very different to how everyone usually greets him, and he instantly warms to her. She tells him that he has relieved her of ‘indescribable wretchedness’ about Franklin and thanks him heartily, adding that she has loved Franklin ‘from first to last’. Ezra gives the dose of opium to Franklin at 11pm, witnessed by Bruff and Betteredge, and they all wait for it to take effect. Eeeek, I really feel quite tense wondering if this experiment is going to work, as I’m obviously keen for Franklin’s innocence to be proven but I’m almost as keen for Ezra to be proved right and for him to receive the recognition of the success of his experiment. And awww, I’m liking Rachel much more now, mainly because she has treated Ezra so kindly but also because I feel Wilkie Collins has finally let us get to know her and allowed her to express her feelings, it’s a shame he didn’t do this earlier and it’s intriguing why he didn’t, but I guess it was because she was to be a potential suspect in our minds, but it’s a shame as I like her honesty and her frankness and her spirit and her steadfastness and her resilience and her eagerness and her kindness. And I chuckled at Franklin’s response to Bruff’s seeming lack of interest in the unusual proceedings by telling him that he has ‘no more imagination than a cow’, tee hee! And I loved Betteredge’s growing excitement, in spite of his best efforts to be dismissive of it all, him even winking at Ezra in anticipation!

After going to sleep, Franklin is restless and then sits up in bed muttering to himself about the Moonstone and how it isn’t locked up properly and that the Indians may even be in the house, and he then gets out of bed, taking the candle, and walks out of the bedroom. Ezra and Bruff and Betteredge are hidden behind the curtains watching him, and they follow him into Rachel’s sitting room, with Rachel watching from her bedroom. Franklin opens the drawers of the cabinet and takes out the fake stone in there. However he then pauses and walks to the sofa in the room, then drops the stone and lays on the sofa and sleeps. Omg, how tense was that?! I was cheering Franklin on in my mind, as all the time this is indicating his innocence and proving Ezra’s theory right. But arrrgh, such a shame that he didn’t then lead them to where he hid the Moonstone the original time, but hopefully his actions are enough to convince all the watchers that this is what happened a year ago, that Franklin was acting under the influence of opium when he took the Moonstone.

Bruff and Betteredge say they are now convinced that this is what happened a year ago, and both sign a statement stating what they saw, and both apologise to Ezra for doubting him. Rachel and Franklin announce their engagement and invite Ezra to the wedding in the autumn, Franklin describing him as ‘our best and dearest friend’. Yay, yay, yay, I am so pleased that Ezra has been vindicated in the eyes of Bruff and Betteredge, as well as Franklin being cleared of being a thief. And I am so delighted with Franklin’s description of Ezra as their best and dearest friend, I can imagine how much that must have meant to poor lonely Ezra, bless him. 

Franklin and Rachel and Bruff return to London to continue the watch on Luker’s bank. They receive notification that Luker has left his home accompanied by two police officers, so Bruff feels sure this means that he is going to take the Moonstone out of the bank. Bruff and Franklin immediately head to the bank and watch Luker coming out of the inner office and seeming to move closely to two different men in the banking hall, so they follow one of these men and Bruff’s colleague follows the other, but both men are found to have nothing to do with the case. A young boy who Bruff uses for errands is thought to be following someone else from the banking hall, so they wait for his return. Meanwhile, Sergeant Cuff comes to Franklin’s flat, having returned from Ireland and received the message that Franklin left for him. He is very interested in the result of the opium experiment and acknowledges immediately that he didn’t even come close to guessing at opium as the solution, and he then hands Franklin a sealed envelope which he says contains the name of the person he thinks took the Moonstone from Franklin’s room, adding that Franklin is to open this when the case is over. As they are talking, Bruff’s boy arrives saying that he saw Luker pass something at the bank to a man with a black beard dressed like a sailor so followed this man to the docks and heard him ask the steward of the Rotterdam steamboat if he could sleep in his booked berth that night ahead of sailing tomorrow morning but was told no. He says the man then went to a restaurant to eat a meal, and the boy noticed that another man dressed as a mechanic was watching the first man and a cab drew up containing an Indian who spoke to this second man. The boy says that the first man left the restaurant, followed by the second man, and went to a pub where he booked a room for the night. Sergeant Cuff presumes that Luker spoke to several people in the bank in order to mislead anyone seeing who he had passed the Moonstone to, and he also presumes that the Indians had decided that they were too conspicuous themselves to follow the person collecting the Moonstone so employed the man dressed as a mechanic to follow him. Sergeant Cuff and Franklin and the boy immediately go to the pub where the first man stayed the night and speak to the landlord, but they are told that the man hasn’t come out of his room that morning and they can’t get any answer at his door. The door is finally broken down, and the man is found smothered to death with a pillow over his face. Sergeant Cuff takes off the man’s beard and wig and wipes off the make-up on his face, to reveal Godfrey Ablewhite! There is an empty jewellers box on a table in the room, with a note saying it contains a valuable of great price and is only to be given up to Mr Luker, so they then know this box had contained the Moonstone. Franklin is urged by Sergeant Cuff to open the sealed envelope he gave him earlier with the name of the person he felt had taken the Moonstone from Franklin’s room, and it reads Godfrey Ablewhite. Omg!!! I had thought that Godfrey was the one who had taken the Moonstone from Franklin’s room, but I didn’t guess that he was this man disguised as a sailor! And omg, he is dead and the Moonstone is stolen, presumably by the man the Indians employed to watch him!! Wow, the dramas and tension just don’t stop, I had thought it would calm down a bit after the reveal of what had happened to Franklin, but no! And I’m glad Sergeant Cuff is involved again and that he redeemed himself by guessing Godfrey correctly. And the next narrative/report is from the man himself, Sergeant Cuff! But I think I need to take a few deep breaths before continuing, Wilkie Collins certainly writes a dramatic story!

Sergeant Cuff relates that Luker has admitted that it was Godfrey who he gave the Moonstone to at the bank. Sergeant Cuff has also discovered that Godfrey was leading a double life, one life as the leader of charitable institutions, and the other life under a different name living in a villa with a wife, and he was also one of two trustees for a young gentleman who was due to inherit £20,000 when he came of age but Godfrey had spent all of this young gentleman’s money over several years by forging the signature of the other trustee, so Godfrey was desperate for a large sum of money in time for when the inheritance would come due. Luker had also told Sergeant Cuff how Godfrey came to have the Moonstone, which was because Dr Candy had asked Godfrey himself to put the opium into Franklin’s drink, Godfrey was sleeping in the room next to Franklin and heard him muttering about the Moonstone and followed him to Rachel’s sitting room and watched as Franklin took the Moonstone and he also saw Rachel watching Franklin do this, and when Franklin returned to his room he spoke to Godfrey asking him to return the Moonstone to the bank as he said his legs felt too tired to work and he handed Godfrey the Moonstone, Godfrey then realised the following morning that Franklin had no recollection of the event and also that Rachel had decided to keep quiet about what she had seen in order to protect Franklin, so he realised no-one knew that he himself had the Moonstone. Sergeant Cuff has also discovered that Godfrey’s proposal of marriage to Rachel was to secure him the money to redeem the Moonstone but in the meantime his wife had heard of this and threatened to reveal his lies if he went any further with the marriage to Rachel, so he then swiftly agreed to Rachel’s suggestion to end their engagement, however he was then left money from the will of a lady of one of his charitable institutions so this gave him enough money to pay Luker and redeem the Moonstone, having first used some of the funds to travel to Amsterdam to pre-arrange its cutting up into lots of little diamonds which the sale of would then have given him the inheritance money for the young gentleman just in time. Sergeant Cuff has also discovered that the Indians gained access to Godfrey’s room by going through the trapdoor in the ceiling which led from the roof of the pub, as a piece of gold thread of Indian origin was found in the room and three Indians were seen to leave England on the Rotterdam steamer the following morning, and he adds that the boat the Indians transferred to after Rotterdam is due to arrive in Bombay in a few days time and he has contacted the authorities there to apprehend the Indians. Phew, well, that’s it then, the mystery is all explained! I’m pleased Sergeant Cuff was in at the end and gathered all the final bits of information together, that seems fitting. And how sneaky and dishonest Godfrey was, particularly as he painted himself as such a whiter-than-white character with his charitable works, I guess him being handed the Moonstone by Franklin was kind of opportune rather than deliberate criminal planning on his part, but the forging of the other trustee’s signature and the stealing of the young man’s inheritance money definitely was premeditated and criminal, phew, what a baddie! And I wonder if the Moonstone will be taken from the Indians when they arrive at Bombay, part of me hopes it won’t be really as they’re not wanting it for its monetary value, just for its heritage and importance as their culture’s heirloom, and it was stolen from them and they’ve been enormously patient through many many years in trying to retrieve it so it does perhaps seem only right that it ends up with them.

A letter is included from Dr Candy, who writes to Franklin saying that Ezra has died and that he is returning unopened Franklin’s letter to Ezra. He says that Ezra had declined to give any details of relatives to contact about his death, so ‘there is no hope now of making any discoveries concerning him, his story is a blank’, apart from Ezra murmuring the name Ella in his last few moments. Ezra had also asked Dr Candy to seal up his diary and papers and some letters, and to promise that he would put the sealed bundle into his coffin without allowing anyone to look at them. He also made Dr Candy promise that his grave would be unmarked. Oh nooooo, I am so very sad that Ezra has died, it seems so unfair when he had just found some friends who would have loved and cherished and valued him. And I’m also so sad and frustrated that he has died without giving us any more details of his life. And how odd to demand that his grave be left unmarked, it’s almost like he feels guilty for something he has done and yet he said he was innocent of the allegation against him. I do again wonder why Wilkie Collins introduced this mysterious character so late in the book and with seemingly no intention of completing his story?!

Betteredge finishes the story, saying that Rachel and Franklin were married and honeymooned in Scotland, and that he had foretold their having a child by reading a passage in his Robinson Crusoe book! It is also stated that the three Indians had taken one of the ship’s boats at night when they were fairly close to Bombay and so avoided capture. And Murthwaite writes to Bruff from his travels abroad saying that he had attended a huge festival on his journey through India and the point of worship high on a shrine was the statue of the Moon God with the Moonstone back in his forehead.

Ooooh, I thoroughly thoroughly thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, what a wonderful storyteller Wilkie Collins is! At times the story seemed a little slow-paced but then I realised it was actually being drawn out in a wonderfully controlled and tantalising manner, and omg was it drawn out at times! But there were also some really exciting and tense bits which made me race through the pages! As I said, I feel it was a little sneaky that the solution wasn‘t really guessable with Franklin’s opium-induced stealing of the Moonstone, and I obviously would have liked more details of Ezra’s life, and also of Roseanna’s life, as I feel Wilkie Collins teases us with hints of the backgrounds of both these characters but doesn’t fill in the gaps, especially with Ezra. And I do feel so sad about both of their deaths and question whether these were necessary for the storyline, especially Roseanna’s being due to suicide, I guess it was necessary in order to ensure that Franklin couldn’t question Roseanna and discover too early what she knew and of course there was the delicious anticipation of the contents of her letter which she had written to him and which we were kept from discovering by Franklin being abroad, as well as the red herring of the presumption of her guilt by her having destroyed herself, but it still seems a bit harsh to have her kill herself. I am puzzled a little though about when Sergeant Cuff and Betteredge had tried to follow Roseanna when she buried the case in the sand, and they then found out that she had returned to the house an hour before them and Sergeant Cuff said that he believed Rachel would have decided in that hour to leave the house, which he was correct about but he believed Rachel’s decision to leave was based on Roseanna communicating to her that the case had been successfully buried, but actually Roseanna and Rachel hadn’t communicated, had they, so was Rachel deciding to leave at that point just a misleading coincidence? Or have I missed something?

I was fascinated to learn that Wikipedia describes this book as being one of the first detective stories and that it was also the first to introduce many of the essential elements of a detective story which have been used ever since, such as ‘an English country house robbery, an inside job, red herrings, a celebrated skilled professional investigator, a bungling local constabulary, detective enquiries, a large number of false suspects, the least likely suspect, a reconstruction of the crime, and a final twist in the plot’! Wow, those are all the wonderful aspects of a detective story that I adore, and sure enough he ticked them all off in this book (!), but I hadn’t realised at all that it was Wilkie Collins who first introduced all these to the genre, and basically introduced the detective genre itself! That’s really quite incredible, and it feels even more of a special book with it being so ground-breaking and influential, as well as being a great read, and I feel exceedingly grateful to him for effectively bringing about all the other books since which I have loved. 

I have read most of Wilkie Collins’ books now but recently bought one I hadn’t previously read, Basil, so I am looking forward to reading that, and I have also promised myself that I will re-read The Woman in White (with the extremely sinister Count Fosco!) which is a fantastic read and is also an epistolary novel, although I think more from diaries rather than the narratives written by the characters in this book. And I’ve been reading up about epistolary novels on the wonderful Wikipedia and apparently the first one of them all was Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister by Aphra Behn so I’d love to read that, and of course Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Anne Bronte’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall are listed as being famous epistolary novels and these are some of my favourite books so I always love re-reading those. I feel I also have to re-read Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, in honour to Betteredge! And as Sergeant Cuff reminded me of Inspector Bucket in Charles Dickens’ Bleak House, as well as Bruff’s address at Gray’s Inn reminding me of Bleak House too, and as Bleak House is one of my favourite books of all time then I’m very happy to have an excuse to re-read that as well. Sergeant Cuff also reminded me of Detective Inspector Whicher from Kate Summerscale’s book The Suspicions of Mr Whicher which fascinated me the first time I read it and I’ve been meaning to re-read that book again too. And as I had Miss Climpson and Miss Marple in mind with my hopes that Miss Clack would be like them but was disappointed with Miss Clack being as unlike them as is possible to be (!), I feel I am entitled to indulge myself and be reminded of how wonderful both characters are by re-reading Dorothy L Sayers’ Unnatural Death, and Agatha Christie’s A Murder is Announced. But before I pick up another book, I feel I must just revel some more in my gratitude to Wilkie Collins for beginning the genre of detective stories which have so brightened my life!

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