answer. I sent one of the stable-boys to look
for him.

"You heard what I said to Miss Verinder?"
remarked the Sergeant, while we were waiting.
"And you saw how she received it? I tell her
plainly that her leaving us will be an obstacle in
the way of my recovering her Diamond—and
she leaves, in the face of that statement! Your
young lady has got a travelling companion in
her mother's carriage, Mr. Betteredge—and the
name of it is, The Moonstone."

I said nothing. I only held on like death to
my belief in Miss Rachel.

The stable-boy came back, followed—very
unwillingly, as it appeared to me—by Joyce.

"Where is Rosanna Spearman?" asked
Sergeant Cuff.

"I can't account for it, sir," Joyce began;
"and I am very sorry. But somehow or
other—-"

"Before I went to Frizinghall," said the Sergeant,
cutting him short, "I told you to keep
your eye on Rosanna Spearman, without allowing
her to discover that she was being watched.
Do you mean to tell me that you have let her
give you the slip?"

"I am afraid, sir," says Joyce, beginning to
tremble, "that I was perhaps a little too careful
not to let her discover me. There are such a
many passages in the lower parts of this
house—-"

"How long is it since you missed her?"

"Nigh on an hour since, sir."

"You can go back to your regular business
at Frizinghall," said the Sergeant, speaking
just as composedly as ever, in his usual quiet
and dreary way. "I don't think your talents
are at all in our line, Mr. Joyce. Your present
form of employment is a trifle beyond you.
Good morning."

The man slunk off. I find it very difficult to
describe how I was affected by the discovery
that Rosanna Spearman was missing. I seemed
to be in fifty different minds about it, all at the
same time. In that state, I stood staring at
Sergeant Cuff—and my powers of language
quite failed me.

"No, Mr. Betteredge," said the Sergeant, as
if he had discovered the uppermost thought in
me, and was picking it out to be answered, before
all the rest. "Your young friend, Rosanna,
won't slip through my fingers so easily as you
think. As long as I know where Miss Verinder
is, I have the means at my disposal of tracing
Miss Verinder's accomplice. I prevented them
from communicating last night. Very good.
They will get together at Frizinghall, instead
of getting together here. The present inquiry
must be simply shifted (rather sooner than I
had anticipated) from this house, to the house
at which Miss Verinder is visiting. In the
mean time, I'm afraid I must trouble you to call
the servants together again."

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 stockstill, 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
on the missing girl.

CHAPTER XIX.

The news of Rosanna's disappearance had, as
it appeared, spread among the out-of-door servants.
They too had made their inquiries; and
they had just laid hands on a quick little imp, nick-
named "Duffy"—who was occasionally employed
in weeding the garden, and who had seen
Rosanna Spearman as lately as half an hour since.
Duffy was certain that the girl had passed him