uff.

"I can't account for it, sir," Joyce began; "and I am very sorry. But
somehow or other----"

"Before I went to Frizinghall," said the Sergeant, cutting him short, "I
told you to keep your eyes on Rosanna Spearman, without allowing her
to discover that she was being watched. Do you mean to tell me that you
have let her give you the slip?"

"I am afraid, sir," says Joyce, beginning to tremble, "that I was
perhaps a little TOO careful not to let her discover me. There are such
a many passages in the lower parts of this house----"

"How long is it since you missed her?"

"Nigh on an hour since, sir."

"You can go back to your regular business at Frizinghall," said the
Sergeant, speaking just as composedly as ever, in his usual quiet and
dreary way. "I don't think your talents are at all in our line, Mr.
Joyce. Your present form of employment is a trifle beyond you. Good
morning."

The man slunk off. I find it very difficult to describe how I was
affected by the discovery that Rosanna Spearman was missing. I seemed
to be in fifty different minds about it, all at the same time. In that
state, I stood staring at Sergeant Cuff--and my powers of language quite
failed me.

"No, Mr. Betteredge," said the Sergeant, as if he had discovered the
uppermost thought in me, and was picking it out to be answered, before
all the rest. "Your young friend, Rosanna, won't slip through my fingers
so easy as you think. As long as I know where Miss Verinder is, I
have the means at my disposal of tracing Miss Verinder's accomplice. I
prevented them from communicating last night. Very good. They will get
together at Frizinghall, instead of getting together here. The present
inquiry must be simply shifted (rather sooner than I had anticipated)
from this house, to the house at which Miss Verinder is visiting. In the
meantime, I'm afraid I must trouble you to call the servants together
again."

I went round with him to the servants' hall. It is very disgraceful,
but it is not the less true, that I had another attack of the
detective-fever, when he said those last words. I forgot that I hated
Sergeant Cuff. I seized him confidentially by the arm. I said, "For
goodness' sake, tell us what you are going to do with the servants now?"

The great Cuff stood stock still, and addressed himself in a kind of
melancholy rapture to the empty air.

"If this man," said the Sergeant (apparently meaning me), "only
understood the growing of roses