"Isn't that Miss Verinder's room?" asked Sergeant Cuff.
I replied that it was, and invited him to go in with me to supper. The
Sergeant remained in his place, and said something about enjoying the
smell of the garden at night. I left him to his enjoyment. Just as I
was turning in at the door, I heard "The Last Rose of Summer" at the
wicket-gate. Sergeant Cuff had made another discovery! And my young
lady's window was at the bottom of it this time!
The latter reflection took me back again to the Sergeant, with a polite
intimation that I could not find it in my heart to leave him by himself.
"Is there anything you don't understand up there?" I added, pointing to
Miss Rachel's window.
Judging by his voice, Sergeant Cuff had suddenly risen again to the
right place in his own estimation. "You are great people for betting in
Yorkshire, are you not?" he asked.
"Well?" I said. "Suppose we are?"
"If I was a Yorkshireman," proceeded the Sergeant, taking my arm, "I
would lay you an even sovereign, Mr. Betteredge, that your young lady
has suddenly resolved to leave the house. If I won on that event, I
should offer to lay another sovereign, that the idea has occurred to her
within the last hour." The first of the Sergeant's guesses startled me.
The second mixed itself up somehow in my head with the report we had
heard from the policeman, that Rosanna Spearman had returned from the
sands with in the last hour. The two together had a curious effect on
me as we went in to supper. I shook off Sergeant Cuff's arm, and,
forgetting my manners, pushed by him through the door to make my own
inquiries for myself.
Samuel, the footman, was the first person I met in the passage.
"Her ladyship is waiting to see you and Sergeant Cuff," he said, before
I could put any questions to him.
"How long has she been waiting?" asked the Sergeant's voice behind me.
"For the last hour, sir."
There it was again! Rosanna had come back; Miss Rachel had taken some
resolution out of the common; and my lady had been waiting to see the
Sergeant--all within the last hour! It was not pleasant to find these
very different persons and things linking themselves together in this
way. I went on upstairs, without looking at Sergeant Cuff, or speaking
to him. My hand took a sudden fit of trembling as I lifted it to knock
at my mistress's door.
"I shouldn't be surprised," whispered the Sergeant over my shoulder,
"if a scandal was to burst up in the house to-night. Don't be alarmed! I
have put the muzzle on worse family difficulties than this, in my time."