"They have seen the Moonstone on Miss Verinder's dress," he said. "What
is to be done?"
"What your uncle threatened to do," answered Mr. Murthwaite. "Colonel
Herncastle understood the people he had to deal with. Send the Diamond
to-morrow (under guard of more than one man) to be cut up at Amsterdam.
Make half a dozen diamonds of it, instead of one. There is an end of
its sacred identity as The Moonstone--and there is an end of the
conspiracy."
Mr. Franklin turned to me.
"There is no help for it," he said. "We must speak to Lady Verinder
to-morrow."
"What about to-night, sir?" I asked. "Suppose the Indians come back?"
Mr. Murthwaite answered me before Mr. Franklin could speak.
"The Indians won't risk coming back to-night," he said. "The direct way
is hardly ever the way they take to anything--let alone a matter like
this, in which the slightest mistake might be fatal to their reaching
their end."
"But suppose the rogues are bolder than you think, sir?" I persisted.
"In that case," says Mr. Murthwaite, "let the dogs loose. Have you got
any big dogs in the yard?"
"Two, sir. A mastiff and a bloodhound."
"They will do. In the present emergency, Mr. Betteredge, the mastiff and
the bloodhound have one great merit--they are not likely to be troubled
with your scruples about the sanctity of human life."
The strumming of the piano reached us from the drawing-room, as he fired
that shot at me. He threw away his cheroot, and took Mr. Franklin's arm,
to go back to the ladies. I noticed that the sky was clouding over
fast, as I followed them to the house. Mr. Murthwaite noticed it too. He
looked round at me, in his dry, droning way, and said: "The Indians will want their umbrellas, Mr. Betteredge, to-night!"
It was all very well for HIM to joke. But I was not an eminent
traveller--and my way in this world had not led me into playing
ducks and drakes with my own life, among thieves and murderers in the
outlandish places of the earth. I went into my own little room, and sat
down in my chair in a perspiration, and wondered helplessly what was to
be done next. In this anxious frame of mind, other men might have ended
by working themselves up into a fever; I ended in a different way. I lit
my pipe, and took a turn at ROBINSON CRUSOE.
Before I had been at it five minutes, I came to this amazing bit--page
one hundred and sixty-one--as follows: "Fear of Danger is ten thousand times more terrifying than Danger
itself, when apparent to the Eyes; and we find the Burthen of Anxiety
greater, by much, than the Evil which we are anxious about."