"Isn't it your business, sir," I asked, "to know what to do next? Surely
it can't be mine?"
Mr. Franklin didn't appear to see the force of my question--not being in
a position, at the time, to see anything but the sky over his head.
"I don't want to alarm my aunt without reason," he said. "And I don't
want to leave her without what may be a needful warning. If you were in
my place, Betteredge, tell me, in one word, what would you do?"
In one word, I told him: "Wait."
"With all my heart," says Mr. Franklin. "How long?"
I proceeded to explain myself.
"As I understand it, sir," I said, "somebody is bound to put this plaguy
Diamond into Miss Rachel's hands on her birthday--and you may as well
do it as another. Very good. This is the twenty-fifth of May, and the
birthday is on the twenty-first of June. We have got close on four weeks
before us. Let's wait and see what happens in that time; and let's warn
my lady, or not, as the circumstances direct us."
"Perfect, Betteredge, as far as it goes!" says Mr. Franklin. "But
between this and the birthday, what's to be done with the Diamond?"
"What your father did with it, to be sure, sir!" I answered. "Your
father put it in the safe keeping of a bank in London. You put in the
safe keeping of the bank at Frizinghall." (Frizinghall was our nearest
town, and the Bank of England wasn't safer than the bank there.) "If
I were you, sir," I added, "I would ride straight away with it to
Frizinghall before the ladies come back."
The prospect of doing something--and, what is more, of doing that
something on a horse--brought Mr. Franklin up like lightning from the
flat of his back. He sprang to his feet, and pulled me up, without
ceremony, on to mine. "Betteredge, you are worth your weight in
gold," he said. "Come along, and saddle the best horse in the stables
directly."
Here (God bless it!) was the original English foundation of him showing
through all the foreign varnish at last! Here was the Master Franklin
I remembered, coming out again in the good old way at the prospect of a
ride, and reminding me of the good old times! Saddle a horse for him?
I would have saddled a dozen horses, if he could only have ridden them
all!
We went back to the house in a hurry; we had the fleetest horse in the
stables saddled in a hurry; and Mr. Franklin rattled off in a hurry, to
lodge the cursed Diamond once more in the strong-room of a bank. When
I heard the last of his horse's hoofs on the drive, and when I turned
about in the yard and found I was alone again, I felt half inclined to
ask myself if I hadn't woke up from a dream.