"What
is to be done?"
"What your uncle threatened to do," answered Mr. Murthwaite. "Colonel
Herncastle understood the people he had to deal with. Send the Diamond
to-morrow (under guard of more than one man) to be cut up at Amsterdam.
Make half a dozen diamonds of it, instead of one. There is an end of
its sacred identity as The Moonstone--and there is an end of the
conspiracy."
Mr. Franklin turned to me.
"There is no help for it," he said. "We must speak to Lady Verinder
to-morrow."
"What about to-night, sir?" I asked. "Suppose the Indians come back?"
Mr. Murthwaite answered me before Mr. Franklin could speak.
"The Indians won't risk coming back to-night," he said. "The direct way
is hardly ever the way they take to anything--let alone a matter like
this, in which the slightest mistake might be fatal to their reaching
their end."
"But suppose the rogues are bolder than you think, sir?" I persisted.
"In that case," says Mr. Murthwaite, "let the dogs loose. Have you got
any big dogs in the yard?"
"Two, sir. A mastiff and a bloodhound."
"They will do. In the present emergency, Mr. Betteredge, the mastiff and
the bloodhound have one great merit--they are not likely to be troubled
with your scruples about the sanctity of human life.
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