On the table stood a little wooden box, open, and empty. On one side of the box lay some jewellers’ cotton. On the other side, was a torn sheet of white paper, with a seal on it, partly destroyed, and with an inscription in writing, which was still perfectly legible. The inscription was in these words:
“Deposited with Messrs. Bushe, Lysaught, and Bushe, by Mr. Septimus Luker, of Middlesex Place, Lambeth, a small wooden box, sealed up in this envelope, and containing a valuable of great price. The box, when claimed, to be only given up by Messrs. Bushe and Co. on the personal application of Mr. Luker.”
Those lines removed all further doubt, on one point at least. The sailor had been in possession of the Moonstone, when he had left the bank on the previous day.
I felt another pull at my coat-tails. Gooseberry had not done with me yet.
“Robbery!” whispered the boy, pointing, in high delight, to the empty box.
“You were told to wait downstairs,” I said. “Go away!”
“And Murder!” added Gooseberry, pointing, with a keener relish still, to the man on the bed.
There was something so hideous in the boy’s enjoyment of the horror of the scene, that I took him by the two shoulders and put him out of the room.
At the moment when I crossed the threshold of the door, I heard Sergeant Cuff’s voice, asking where I was. He met me, as I returned into the room, and forced me to go back with him to the bedside.
“Mr. Blake!” he said. “Look at the man’s face. It is a face disguised—and here’s the proof of it!”