I went round with him to the servants' hall. It is very disgraceful,
but it is not the less true, that I had another attack of the
detective-fever, when he said those last words. I forgot that I hated
Sergeant Cuff. I seized him confidentially by the arm. I said, "For
goodness' sake, tell us what you are going to do with the servants now?"
The great Cuff stood stock still, and addressed himself in a kind of
melancholy rapture to the empty air.
"If this man," said the Sergeant (apparently meaning me), "only
understood the growing of roses he would be the most completely perfect
character on the face of creation!" After that strong expression of
feeling, he sighed, and put his arm through mine. "This is how it
stands," he said, dropping down again to business. "Rosanna has done one
of two things. She has either gone direct to Frizinghall (before I
can get there), or she has gone first to visit her hiding-place at the
Shivering Sand. The first thing to find out is, which of the servants
saw the last of her before she left the house."
On instituting this inquiry, it turned out that the last person who had
set eyes on Rosanna was Nancy, the kitchenmaid.
Nancy had seen her slip out with a letter in her hand, and stop the
butcher's man who had just been delivering some meat at the back door.
Nancy had heard her ask the man to post the letter when he got back to
Frizinghall. The man had looked at the address, and had said it was a
roundabout way of delivering a letter directed to Cobb's Hole, to
post it at Frizinghall--and that, moreover, on a Saturday, which would
prevent the letter from getting to its destination until Monday morning,
Rosanna had answered that the delivery of the letter being delayed till
Monday was of no importance. The only thing she wished to be sure of was
that the man would do what she told him. The man had promised to do
it, and had driven away. Nancy had been called back to her work in the
kitchen. And no other person had seen anything afterwards of Rosanna
Spearman.
"Well?" I asked, when we were alone again.
"Well," says the Sergeant. "I must go to Frizinghall."
"About the letter, sir?"
"Yes. The memorandum of the hiding-place is in that letter. I must see
the address at the post-office. If it is the address I suspect, I shall
pay our friend, Mrs. Yolland, another visit on Monday next."
I went with the Sergeant to order the pony-chaise. In the stable-yard we
got a new light thrown on the missing girl.