The Moonstone

The Moonstone

by

Wilkie Collins

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The Moonstone: The Discovery of the Truth 3: 8 Summary & Analysis

Summary
Analysis
In an unexpected “visit from Mr. Bruff,” Bruff asks Blake to promise not to visit Rachel again. Bruff both believes Rachel’s story and thinks “there must be some dreadful mistake somewhere” that accounts for her having seen Franklin take the Diamond. Bruff hopes they can move forward and focus on “what we can discover in the future.” Namely, he knows that Mr. Luker will withdraw the Moonstone from the bank in a few weeks, at the end of June, and he plans to follow Luker when he does so and discover who actually pawned the Diamond. The Indians are likely to do the same, which makes this a dangerous game.
Realistic and pragmatic as ever, Bruff refocuses on finding the Diamond and clearly recognizes that the facts appear contradictory: Rachel’s testimony is both undeniable and impossible (Franklin does not remember taking the Diamond or bringing it to London). He enlists Franklin, now the novel’s primary detective figure, in his upcoming second investigation. By raising the prospect of encountering the Diamond in the near future, Bruff also reminds Collins’s weekly audience of his own narrative and the general direction of the novel as a whole.
Themes
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Intention, Identity, and Personality Theme Icon
Franklin finds Bruff’s plan reasonable, but he cannot stand to wait two weeks, and decides to try to contact Sergeant Cuff in the meantime. He visits Cuff’s country retirement cottage—but Cuff has just left for Ireland to learn something new about rose gardening, and so Franklin simply leaves a note and returns home, where he stays up most of the night pondering how the theft was possible, and eventually wondering whether anything exists at all. The next morning, he rediscovers the letter Betteredge had left him, which asks him to talk with “Mr. Candy’s remarkable-looking assistant” Ezra Jennings, and he writes a “perfectly commonplace” reply. He thinks through Rachel’s birthday dinner and all the guests present, and decides to return to Yorkshire to get a full guest list from Betteredge.
In retirement, Cuff finally has the luxury to put his roses before detective work. Franklin’s night of fruitless philosophical speculation both exemplifies the contradictions Betteredge sees in his personality and points to the fruitlessness of theoretical inquiry in an investigation based on the scientific appraisal of evidence. Ezra Jennings is again defined as a sort of mad scientist by his appearance, which seems to in turn define his trustworthiness.
Themes
Detective Methods and Genre Standards Theme Icon
Intention, Identity, and Personality Theme Icon
Quotes
Franklin misses the first train to Yorkshire and must wait three hours for the next; during this time, he decides to visit all the guests he can remember who live in London: Mr. Murthwaite, Godfrey Ablewhite, and Miss Clack. He goes to get their addresses from Mr. Bruff, who denounces him as “fanciful.” Bruff says that Godfrey’s whereabouts are unknown, and the other two guests are out of England for the time being. Franklin visits Godfrey’s club, where some of Godfrey’s friends inform him that Godfrey had pursued and broken off an engagement with a rich young heiress, and that one of Clack’s friends had left him 5,000 pounds as inheritance, with which he decided to vacation in Europe. In fact, he has already left—the morning before, just like Cuff. “Depressed in spirits,” Franklin goes to Frizinghall.
While Godfrey’s absence means Franklin’s plans to investigate continue getting thwarted, no information in this novel is ever irrelevant; given Mr. Bruff’s revelation in his own narrative that Godfrey needed money immediately to pay off debts, Godfrey’s new broken engagement suggests that he managed to get the money he needed, and that he either ended up with surplus cash after paying what he owed or simply squandered the money. Otherwise, however, Franklin’s investigation severely lacks momentum.
Themes
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Class, Wealth, and Nobility Theme Icon
When he reaches Frizinghall, Franklin sends notice to Betteredge and then visits Mr. Candy, who “had expressed a special wish to see [him].” Franklin is astonished to see Candy shriveled and incapacitated by his illness, utterly unrecognizable except for his “tendency to vulgar smartness in his dress.” Franklin brings up the Diamond, explaining that he has learned the Moonstone might still be found and that he is trying to investigate the night of its disappearance. He immediately realizes that Candy is incapable of following his speech and instead turns to the letter Candy sent to Betteredge. Although he insists his memory is strong, Candy cannot remember its topic—except that it involved Rachel’s birthday. Franklin gives up and switches “to topics of local interest” for some half-hour, until he feels it appropriate to leave. On his way out, disappointed at Candy’s lapsed memory, Franklin meets Ezra Jennings.
Candy’s transformation is another legacy of Rachel’s birthday party, after which the doctor fell irreversibly ill from riding home in the rain. Franklin struggles to make sense of whether Candy remains the same person in his mental and physical deterioration, raising an important question about the nature of identity and mirroring Franklin Blake’s own struggle to understand if he, or some other version of him, truly stole the Diamond. Candy’s inability to remember his intended topic of conversation means that, again, Franklin just narrowly misses what could have been a crucial clue—and then, for the umpteenth time in this chapter, Ezra Jennings intervenes unexpectedly and ominously.
Themes
Detective Methods and Genre Standards Theme Icon
Intention, Identity, and Personality Theme Icon
Science and Religion Theme Icon
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