three strolling Indians have been at the house, and that my arrival from London, and something which I am expected to have about me, are two special objects of investigation to them when they believe themselves to be alone.  I don’t waste time and words on their pouring the ink into the boy’s hand, and telling him to look in it for a man at a distance, and for something in that man’s pocket.  The thing (which I have often seen done in the East) is ‘hocus-pocus’ in my opinion, as it is in yours.  The present question for us to decide is, whether I am wrongly attaching a meaning to a mere accident? or whether we really have evidence of the Indians being on the track of the Moonstone, the moment it is removed from the safe keeping of the bank?”

Neither he nor I seemed to fancy dealing with this part of the inquiry.  We looked at each other, and then we looked at the tide, oozing in smoothly, higher and higher, over the Shivering Sand.

“What are you thinking of?” says Mr. Franklin, suddenly.

“I was thinking, sir,” I answered, “that I should like to shy the Diamond into the quicksand, and settle the question in that way.”

“If you have got the value of the stone in your pocket,” answered Mr. Franklin, “say so, Betteredge, and in it goes!”

It’s curious to note, when your mind’s anxious, how very far in the way of relief a very small joke will go.  We found a fund of merriment, at the time, in the notion of making away with Miss Rachel’s lawful property, and getting Mr. Blake, as executor, into dreadful trouble—­though where the merriment was, I am quite at a loss to discover now.

Mr. Franklin was the first to bring the talk back to the talk’s proper purpose.  He took an envelope out of his pocket, opened it, and handed to me the paper inside.

“Betteredge,” he said, “we must face the question of the Colonel’s motive in leaving this legacy to his niece, for my aunt’s sake.  Bear in mind how Lady Verinder treated her brother from the time when he returned to England, to the time when he told you he should remember his niece’s birthday.  And read that.”

He gave me the extract from the Colonel’s Will.  I have got it by me while I write these words; and I copy it, as follows, for your benefit: 

“Thirdly, and lastly, I give and bequeath to my niece, Rachel Verinder, daughter and only child of my sister, Julia Verinder, widow—­if her mother, the said Julia Verinder, shall be living on the said Rachel Verinder’s next Birthday after my death—­the yellow Diamond belonging to me, and known in the East by the name of The Moonstone:  subject to this condition, that her mother, the said Julia Verinder, shall be living at the time.  And I hereby desire my executor to give my Diamond, either by his own hands or by the hands of some trustworthy representative whom he shall appoint, into the personal possession of my said niece Rachel, on her next birthday after my death, and in the presence, if possible, of