Mr. Candy’s assistant had produced too strong an impression on me to be immediately dismissed from my thoughts.  I passed over the last unanswerable utterance of the Betteredge philosophy; and returned to the subject of the man with the piebald hair.

“What is his name?” I asked.

“As ugly a name as need be,” Betteredge answered gruffly.  “Ezra Jennings.”

CHAPTER V

Having told me the name of Mr. Candy’s assistant, Betteredge appeared to think that we had wasted enough of our time on an insignificant subject.  He resumed the perusal of Rosanna Spearman’s letter.

On my side, I sat at the window, waiting until he had done.  Little by little, the impression produced on me by Ezra Jennings—­it seemed perfectly unaccountable, in such a situation as mine, that any human being should have produced an impression on me at all!—­faded from my mind.  My thoughts flowed back into their former channel.  Once more, I forced myself to look my own incredible position resolutely in the face.  Once more, I reviewed in my own mind the course which I had at last summoned composure enough to plan out for the future.

To go back to London that day; to put the whole case before Mr. Bruff; and, last and most important, to obtain (no matter by what means or at what sacrifice) a personal interview with Rachel—­this was my plan of action, so far as I was capable of forming it at the time.  There was more than an hour still to spare before the train started.  And there was the bare chance that Betteredge might discover something in the unread portion of Rosanna Spearman’s letter, which it might be useful for me to know before I left the house in which the Diamond had been lost.  For that chance I was now waiting.

The letter ended in these terms: 

“You have no need to be angry, Mr. Franklin, even if I did feel some little triumph at knowing that I held all your prospects in life in my own hands.  Anxieties and fears soon came back to me.  With the view Sergeant Cuff took of the loss of the Diamond, he would be sure to end in examining our linen and our dresses.  There was no place in my room—­there was no place in the house—­which I could feel satisfied would be safe from him.  How to hide the nightgown so that not even the Sergeant could find it? and how to do that without losing one moment of precious time?—­these were not easy questions to answer.  My uncertainties ended in my taking a way that may make you laugh.  I undressed, and put the nightgown on me.  You had worn it—­and I had another little moment of pleasure in wearing it after you.

“The next news that reached us in the servants’ hall showed that I had not made sure of the nightgown a moment too soon.  Sergeant Cuff wanted to see the washing-book.

“I found it, and took it to him in my lady’s sitting-room.  The Sergeant and I had come across each other more than once in former days.  I was certain he would know me again—­and I was not certain of what he might do when he found me employed as servant in a house in which a valuable jewel had been lost.  In this suspense, I felt it would be a relief to me to get the meeting between us over, and to know the worst of it at once.