I found Mr. Franklin writing at the library-table.  He asked for a conveyance to the railway station the moment I entered the room.  The first sound of his voice informed me that we now had the resolute side of him uppermost once more.  The man made of cotton had disappeared; and the man made of iron sat before me again.

“Going to London, sir?” I asked.

“Going to telegraph to London,” says Mr. Franklin.  “I have convinced my aunt that we must have a cleverer head than Superintendent Seegrave’s to help us; and I have got her permission to despatch a telegram to my father.  He knows the Chief Commissioner of Police, and the Commissioner can lay his hand on the right man to solve the mystery of the Diamond.  Talking of mysteries, by-the-bye,” says Mr. Franklin, dropping his voice, “I have another word to say to you before you go to the stables.  Don’t breathe a word of it to anybody as yet; but either Rosanna Spearman’s head is not quite right, or I am afraid she knows more about the Moonstone than she ought to know.”

I can hardly tell whether I was more startled or distressed at hearing him say that.  If I had been younger, I might have confessed as much to Mr. Franklin.  But when you are old, you acquire one excellent habit.  In cases where you don’t see your way clearly, you hold your tongue.

“She came in here with a ring I dropped in my bed-room,” Mr. Franklin went on.  “When I had thanked her, of course I expected her to go.  Instead of that, she stood opposite to me at the table, looking at me in the oddest manner—­half frightened, and half familiar—­I couldn’t make it out.  ‘This is a strange thing about the Diamond, sir,’ she said, in a curiously sudden, headlong way.  I said, ‘Yes, it was,’ and wondered what was coming next.  Upon my honour, Betteredge, I think she must be wrong in the head!  She said, ’They will never find the Diamond, sir, will they?  No! nor the person who took it—­I’ll answer for that.’  She actually nodded and smiled at me!  Before I could ask her what she meant, we heard your step outside.  I suppose she was afraid of your catching her here.  At any rate, she changed colour, and left the room.  What on earth does it mean?”

I could not bring myself to tell him the girl’s story, even then.  It would have been almost as good as telling him that she was the thief.  Besides, even if I had made a clean breast of it, and even supposing she was the thief, the reason why she should let out her secret to Mr. Franklin, of all the people in the world, would have been still as far to seek as ever.

“I can’t bear the idea of getting the poor girl into a scrape, merely because she has a flighty way with her, and talks very strangely,” Mr. Franklin went on.  “And yet if she had said to, the Superintendent what she said to me, fool as he is, I’m afraid——­” He stopped there, and left the rest unspoken.