he had spoken plainly, she would no more have believed your denial then
than she believes it now. What answer can you make to that? There is no
answer to be made to it. Come, come, Mr. Franklin! my view of the case
has been proved to be all wrong, I admit--but, as things are now, my
advice may be worth having for all that. I tell you plainly, we shall be
wasting our time, and cudgelling our brains to no purpose, if we attempt
to try back, and unravel this frightful complication from the beginning.
Let us close our minds resolutely to all that happened last year at Lady
Verinder's country house; and let us look to what we CAN discover in the
future, instead of to what we can NOT discover in the past."

"Surely you forget," I said, "that the whole thing is essentially a
matter of the past--so far as I am concerned?"

"Answer me this," retorted Mr. Bruff. "Is the Moonstone at the bottom of
all the mischief--or is it not?"

"It is--of course."

"Very good. What do we believe was done with the Moonstone, when it was
taken to London?"

"It was pledged to Mr. Luker."

"We know that you are not the person who pledged it. Do we know who
did?"

"No."

"Where do we believe the Moonstone to be now?"

"Deposited in the keeping of Mr. Luker's bankers."

"Exactly. Now observe. We are already in the month of June. Towards
the end of the month (I can't be particular to a day) a year will have
elapsed from the time when we believe the jewel to have been pledged.
There is a chance--to say the least--that the person who pawned it, may
be prepared to redeem it when the year's time has expired. If he
redeems it, Mr. Luker must himself--according to the terms of his own
arrangement--take the Diamond out of his banker's hands. Under these
circumstances, I propose setting a watch at the bank, as the present
month draws to an end, and discovering who the person is to whom Mr.
Luker restores the Moonstone. Do you see it now?"

I admitted (a little unwillingly) that the idea was a new one, at any
rate.

"It's Mr. Murthwaite's idea quite as much as mine," said Mr. Bruff. "It
might have never entered my head, but for a conversation we had together
some time since. If Mr. Murthwaite is right, the Indians are likely to
be on the lookout at the bank, towards the end of the month too--and
something serious may come of it. What comes of it doesn't matter to
you and me except as it may help us to lay our hands on the mysterious
Somebody wh