telling them what had happened I suppose, for they both stopped short, after taking a few steps, like persons struck with amazement.  I had just seen as much as this, when the door of the sitting-room was opened violently.  Miss Rachel walked swiftly through to her bed-room, wild and angry, with fierce eyes and flaming cheeks.  Mr. Superintendent once more attempted to question her.  She turned round on him at her bed-room door.  “I have not sent for you!” she cried out vehemently.  “I don’t want you.  My Diamond is lost.  Neither you nor anybody else will ever find it!” With those words she went in, and locked the door in our faces.  Penelope, standing nearest to it, heard her burst out crying the moment she was alone again.

In a rage, one moment; in tears, the next!  What did it mean?

I told the Superintendent it meant that Miss Rachel’s temper was upset by the loss of her jewel.  Being anxious for the honour of the family, it distressed me to see my young lady forget herself—­even with a police-officer—­and I made the best excuse I could, accordingly.  In my own private mind I was more puzzled by Miss Rachel’s extraordinary language and conduct than words can tell.  Taking what she had said at her bed-room door as a guide to guess by, I could only conclude that she was mortally offended by our sending for the police, and that Mr. Franklin’s astonishment on the terrace was caused by her having expressed herself to him (as the person chiefly instrumental in fetching the police) to that effect.  If this guess was right, why—­having lost her Diamond—­should she object to the presence in the house of the very people whose business it was to recover it for her?  And how, in Heaven’s name, could she know that the Moonstone would never be found again?

As things stood, at present, no answer to those questions was to be hoped for from anybody in the house.  Mr. Franklin appeared to think it a point of honour to forbear repeating to a servant—­even to so old a servant as I was—­what Miss Rachel had said to him on the terrace.  Mr. Godfrey, who, as a gentleman and a relative, had been probably admitted into Mr. Franklin’s confidence, respected that confidence as he was bound to do.  My lady, who was also in the secret no doubt, and who alone had access to Miss Rachel, owned openly that she could make nothing of her.  “You madden me when you talk of the Diamond!” All her mother’s influence failed to extract from her a word more than that.

Here we were, then, at a dead-lock about Miss Rachel—­and at a dead-lock about the Moonstone.  In the first case, my lady was powerless to help us.  In the second (as you shall presently judge), Mr. Seegrave was fast approaching the condition of a superintendent at his wits’ end.

Having ferreted about all over the “boudoir,” without making any discoveries among the furniture, our experienced officer applied to me to know, whether the servants in general were or were not acquainted with the place in which the Diamond had been put for the night.