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-