Devoting myself once more to the elucidation of the impenetrable
puzzle which my own position presented to me, I now tried to meet the
difficulty by investigating it from a plainly practical point of view.
The events of the memorable night being still unintelligible to me,
I looked a little farther back, and searched my memory of the earlier
hours of the birthday for any incident which might prove of some
assistance to me in finding the clue.
Had anything happened while Rachel and I were finishing the painted
door? or, later, when I rode over to Frizinghall? or afterwards, when I
went back with Godfrey Ablewhite and his sisters? or, later again,
when I put the Moonstone into Rachel's hands? or, later still, when the
company came, and we all assembled round the dinner-table? My memory
disposed of that string of questions readily enough, until I came to the
last. Looking back at the social event of the birthday dinner, I found
myself brought to a standstill at the outset of the inquiry. I was not
even capable of accurately remembering the number of the guests who had
sat at the same table with me.
To feel myself completely at fault here, and to conclude, thereupon,
that the incidents of the dinner might especially repay the trouble of
investigating them, formed parts of the same mental process, in my case.
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