Lord! how it did enrage me to notice that he
was not in the least put out by our silence!
"There is the case, my lady, as it stands against Miss Verinder alone,"
he said. "The next thing is to put the case as it stands against Miss
Verinder and the deceased Rosanna Spearman taken together. We will go
back for a moment, if you please, to your daughter's refusal to let her
wardrobe be examined. My mind being made up, after that circumstance,
I had two questions to consider next. First, as to the right method
of conducting my inquiry. Second, as to whether Miss Verinder had an
accomplice among the female servants in the house. After carefully
thinking it over, I determined to conduct the inquiry in, what we should
call at our office, a highly irregular manner. For this reason: I had a
family scandal to deal with, which it was my business to keep within the
family limits. The less noise made, and the fewer strangers employed to
help me, the better. As to the usual course of taking people in
custody on suspicion, going before the magistrate, and all the rest
of it--nothing of the sort was to be thought of, when your ladyship's
daughter was (as I believed) at the bottom of the whole business.
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