On the table stood a little wooden box, open, and empty. On one side of
the box lay some jewellers' cotton. On the other side, was a torn
sheet of white paper, with a seal on it, partly destroyed, and with
an inscription in writing, which was still perfectly legible. The
inscription was in these words:
"Deposited with Messrs. Bushe, Lysaught, and Bushe, by Mr. Septimus
Luker, of Middlesex Place, Lambeth, a small wooden box, sealed up in
this envelope, and containing a valuable of great price. The box, when
claimed, to be only given up by Messrs. Bushe and Co. on the personal
application of Mr. Luker."
Those lines removed all further doubt, on one point at least. The sailor
had been in possession of the Moonstone, when he had left the bank on
the previous day.
I felt another pull at my coat-tails. Gooseberry had not done with me
yet.
"Robbery!" whispered the boy, pointing, in high delight, to the empty
box.
"You were told to wait down-stairs," I said. "Go away!"
"And Murder!" added Gooseberry, pointing, with a keener relish still, to
the man on the bed.
There was something so hideous in the boy's enjoyment of the horror of
the scene, that I took him by the two shoulders and put him out of the
room.
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