Sergeant Cuff and I were left face to face, at the bottom of the steps. The Sergeant stood with his face set towards a gap in the trees, commanding a view of one of the windings of the drive which led from the house. He had his hands in his pockets, and he was softly whistling “The Last Rose of Summer” to himself.
“There’s a time for everything,” I said savagely enough. “This isn’t a time for whistling.”
At that moment, the carriage appeared in the distance, through the gap, on its way to the lodge-gate. There was another man, besides Samuel, plainly visible in the rumble behind.
“All right!” said the Sergeant to himself. He turned round to me. “It’s no time for whistling, Mr. Betteredge, as you say. It’s time to take this business in hand, now, without sparing anybody. We’ll begin with Rosanna Spearman. Where is Joyce?”
We both called for Joyce, and received no answer. I sent one of the stable-boys to look for him.
“You heard what I said to Miss Verinder?” remarked the Sergeant, while we were waiting. “And you saw how she received it? I tell her plainly that her leaving us will be an obstacle in the way of my recovering her Diamond—and she leaves, in the face of that statement! Your young lady has got a travelling companion in her mother’s carriage, Mr. Betteredge—and the name of it is, the Moonstone.”
I said nothing. I only held on like death to my belief in Miss Rachel.
The stable-boy came back, followed—very unwillingly, as it appeared to me—by Joyce.
“Where is Rosanna Spearman?” asked Sergeant Cuff.
“I can’t account for it, sir,” Joyce began; “and I am very sorry. But somehow or other——”