"Are you another police-officer?" she asked.
"I am Sergeant Cuff, miss, of the Detective Police."
"Do you think a young lady's advice worth having?"
"I shall be glad to hear it, miss."
"Do your duty by yourself--and don't allow Mr Franklin Blake to help
you!"
She said those words so spitefully, so savagely, with such an
extraordinary outbreak of ill-will towards Mr. Franklin, in her voice
and in her look, that--though I had known her from a baby, though I
loved and honoured her next to my lady herself--I was ashamed of Miss
Rachel for the first time in my life.
Sergeant Cuff's immovable eyes never stirred from off her face. "Thank
you, miss," he said. "Do you happen to know anything about the smear?
Might you have done it by accident yourself?"
"I know nothing about the smear."
With that answer, she turned away, and shut herself up again in
her bed-room. This time, I heard her--as Penelope had heard her
before--burst out crying as soon as she was alone again.
I couldn't bring myself to look at the Sergeant--I looked at Mr.
Franklin, who stood nearest to me. He seemed to be even more sorely
distressed at what had passed than I was.
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