etired from business. He has got a little
cottage at Dorking; and he's up to his eyes in the growing of roses.
I have it in his own handwriting, Mr. Franklin. He has grown the white
moss rose, without budding it on the dog-rose first. And Mr. Begbie the
gardener is to go to Dorking, and own that the Sergeant has beaten him
at last."

"It doesn't much matter," I said. "I must do without Sergeant Cuff's
help. And I must trust to you, at starting."

It is likely enough that I spoke rather carelessly.

At any rate, Betteredge seemed to be piqued by something in the reply
which I had just made to him. "You might trust to worse than me, Mr.
Franklin--I can tell you that," he said a little sharply.

The tone in which he retorted, and a certain disturbance, after he had
spoken, which I detected in his manner, suggested to me that he was
possessed of some information which he hesitated to communicate.

"I expect you to help me," I said, "in picking up the fragments of
evidence which Sergeant Cuff has left behind him. I know you can do
that. Can you do no more?"

"What more can you expect from me, sir?" asked Betteredge, with an
appearance of the utmost humility.

"I expect more--from what you said just now."

"Mere boasting, Mr. Franklin," returned the old man obstinately. "Some
people are born boasters, and they never get over it to their dying day.
I'm one of them."

There was only one way to take with him. I appealed to his interest in
Rachel, and his interest in me.

"Betteredge, would you be glad to hear that Rachel and I were good
friends again?"

"I have served your family, sir, to mighty little purpose, if you doubt
it!"

"Do you remember how Rachel treated me, before I left England?"

"As well as if it was yesterday! My lady herself wrote you a letter
about it; and you were so good as to show the letter to me. It said that
Miss Rachel was mortally offended with you, for the part you had taken
in trying to recover her jewel. And neither my lady, nor you, nor
anybody else could guess why.

"Quite true, Betteredge! And I come back from my travels, and find her
mortally offended with me still. I knew that the Diamond was at the
bottom of it, last year, and I know that the Diamond is at the bottom of
it now. I have tried to speak to her, and she won't see me. I have tried
to write to her, and she won't answer me. How, in Heaven's name, am I
to clear the matter up? The chance of searching into the loss of th