“If that’s a joke, sir,” he said, “I’m afraid I’m getting a little dull in my old age.  I don’t take it.”

“It’s no joke,” I answered.  “I have come here to take up the inquiry which was dropped when I left England.  I have come here to do what nobody has done yet—­to find out who took the Diamond.”

“Let the Diamond be, Mr. Franklin!  Take my advice, and let the Diamond be!  That cursed Indian jewel has misguided everybody who has come near it.  Don’t waste your money and your temper—­in the fine spring time of your life, sir—­by meddling with the Moonstone.  How can you hope to succeed (saving your presence), when Sergeant Cuff himself made a mess of it?  Sergeant Cuff!” repeated Betteredge, shaking his forefinger at me sternly.  “The greatest policeman in England!”

“My mind is made up, my old friend.  Even Sergeant Cuff doesn’t daunt me.  By-the-bye, I may want to speak to him, sooner or later.  Have you heard anything of him lately?”

“The Sergeant won’t help you, Mr. Franklin.”

“Why not?”

“There has been an event, sir, in the police-circles, since you went away.  The great Cuff has retired 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?”