The next and last step in the investigation brought matters, as they say, to a crisis.  The officer had an interview (at which I was present) with my lady.  After informing her that the Diamond must have been taken by somebody in the house, he requested permission for himself and his men to search the servants’ rooms and boxes on the spot.  My good mistress, like the generous high-bred woman she was, refused to let us be treated like thieves.  “I will never consent to make such a return as that,” she said, “for all I owe to the faithful servants who are employed in my house.”

Mr. Superintendent made his bow, with a look in my direction, which said plainly, “Why employ me, if you are to tie my hands in this way?” As head of the servants, I felt directly that we were bound, in justice to all parties, not to profit by our mistress’s generosity.  “We gratefully thank your ladyship,” I said; “but we ask your permission to do what is right in this matter by giving up our keys.  When Gabriel Betteredge sets the example,” says I, stopping Superintendent Seegrave at the door, “the rest of the servants will follow, I promise you.  There are my keys, to begin with!” My lady took me by the hand, and thanked me with the tears in her eyes.  Lord! what would I not have given, at that moment, for the privilege of knocking Superintendent Seegrave down!

As I had promised for them, the other servants followed my lead, sorely against the grain, of course, but all taking the view that I took.  The women were a sight to see, while the police-officers were rummaging among their things.  The cook looked as if she could grill Mr. Superintendent alive on a furnace, and the other women looked as if they could eat him when he was done.

The search over, and no Diamond or sign of a Diamond being found, of course, anywhere, Superintendent Seegrave retired to my little room to consider with himself what he was to do next.  He and his men had now been hours in the house, and had not advanced us one inch towards a discovery of how the Moonstone had been taken, or of whom we were to suspect as the thief.

While the police-officer was still pondering in solitude, I was sent for to see Mr. Franklin in the library.  To my unutterable astonishment, just as my hand was on the door, it was suddenly opened from the inside, and out walked Rosanna Spearman!

After the library had been swept and cleaned in the morning, neither first nor second housemaid had any business in that room at any later period of the day.  I stopped Rosanna Spearman, and charged her with a breach of domestic discipline on the spot.

“What might you want in the library at this time of day?” I inquired.

“Mr. Franklin Blake dropped one of his rings up-stairs,” says Rosanna; “and I have been into the library to give it to him.”  The girl’s face was all in a flush as she made me that answer; and she walked away with a toss of her head and a look of self-importance which I was quite at a loss to account for.  The proceedings in the house had doubtless upset all the women-servants more or less; but none of them had gone clean out of their natural characters, as Rosanna, to all appearance, had now gone out of hers.