I understood the allusion to my experience.
"The first chance they got," I replied, "was clearly offered to them by
Colonel Herncastle's death. They would be aware of his death, I suppose,
as a matter of course?"
"As a matter of course. And his death, as you say, gave them their first
chance. Up to that time the Moonstone was safe in the strong-room of the
bank. You drew the Colonel's Will leaving his jewel to his niece; and
the Will was proved in the usual way. As a lawyer, you can be at no loss
to know what course the Indians would take (under English advice) after
THAT."
"They would provide themselves with a copy of the Will from Doctors'
Commons," I said.
"Exactly. One or other of those shady Englishmen to whom I have alluded,
would get them the copy you have described. That copy would inform them
that the Moonstone was bequeathed to the daughter of Lady Verinder, and
that Mr. Blake the elder, or some person appointed by him, was to place
it in her hands. You will agree with me that the necessary information
about persons in the position of Lady Verinder and Mr. Blake, would be
perfectly easy information to obtain. The one difficulty for the Indians
would be to decide whether they should make their attempt on the Diamond
when it was in course of removal from the keeping of the bank, or
whether they should wait until it was taken down to Yorkshire to Lady
Verinder's house. The second way would be manifestly the safest way--and
there you have the explanation of the appearance of the Indians at
Frizinghall, disguised as jugglers, and waiting their time. In London,
it is needless to say, they had their organisation at their disposal to
keep them informed of events. Two men would do it. One to follow anybody
who went from Mr. Blake's house to the bank. And one to treat the
lower men servants with beer, and to hear the news of the house. These
commonplace precautions would readily inform them that Mr. Franklin
Blake had been to the bank, and that Mr. Franklin Blake was the only
person in the house who was going to visit Lady Verinder. What actually
followed upon that discovery, you remember, no doubt, quite as correctly
as I do."
I remembered that Franklin Blake had detected one of the spies, in the
street--that he had, in consequence, advanced the time of his arrival in
Yorkshire by some hours--and that (thanks to old Betteredge's excellent
advice) he had lodged the Diamond in the bank at Frizinghall, before the
Indians were so much as prepared to see him in the neighbourhood.
All perfectly clear so far. But the Indians being ignorant of the
precautions thus taken, how was it that they had made no attempt on Lady
Verinder's house (in which they must have supposed the Diamond to be)
through the whole of the interval that elapsed before Rachel's birthday?