we were as merry as
crickets, until the next new side of his character turned up in due
course. So things went on with my young master and me; and so (while the
Sergeant and the gardener were wrangling over the roses) we two spent
the interval before the news came back from Frizinghall.

The pony-chaise returned a good half hour before I had ventured to
expect it. My lady had decided to remain for the present, at her
sister's house. The groom brought two letters from his mistress; one
addressed to Mr. Franklin, and the other to me.

Mr. Franklin's letter I sent to him in the library--into which refuge
his driftings had now taken him for the second time. My own letter,
I read in my own room. A cheque, which dropped out when I opened it,
informed me (before I had mastered the contents) that Sergeant Cuff's
dismissal from the inquiry after the Moonstone was now a settled thing.

I sent to the conservatory to say that I wished to speak to the Sergeant
directly. He appeared, with his mind full of the gardener and the
dog-rose, declaring that the equal of Mr. Begbie for obstinacy never
had existed yet, and never would exist again. I requested him to dismiss
such wretched trifling as this from our conversation, and to give his
best attention to a really serious matter. Upon that he exerted himself
sufficiently to notice the letter in my hand. "Ah!" he said in a weary
way, "you have heard from her ladyship. Have I anything to do with it,
Mr. Betteredge?"

"You shall judge for yourself, Sergeant." I thereupon read him the
letter (with my best emphasis and discretion), in the following words:

"MY GOOD GABRIEL,--I request that you will inform Sergeant Cuff, that
I have performed the promise I made to him; with this result, so far as
Rosanna Spearman is concerned. Miss Verinder solemnly declares, that she
has never spoken a word in private to Rosanna, since that unhappy woman
first entered my house. They never met, even accidentally, on the night
when the Diamond was lost; and no communication of any sort whatever
took place between them, from the Thursday morning when the alarm was
first raised in the house, to this present Saturday afternoon, when Miss
Verinder left us. After telling my daughter suddenly, and in so many
words, of Rosanna Spearman's suicide--this is what has come of it."

Having reached that point, I looked up, and asked Sergeant Cuff what he
thought of the letter, so far?

"I should only offend you if I