If this had been a common case of thieving, I should have given Rosanna the benefit of the doubt just as freely as I should have given it to any of the other servants in the house.

Our experience of the Reformatory woman is, that when tried in service--and when kindly and judiciously treated--they prove themselves in the majority of cases to be honestly penitent, and honestly worthy of the pains taken with them.

But this was not a common case of thieving.

It was a case--in my mind--of a deeply planned fraud, with the owner of the Diamond at the bottom of it.

Holding this view, the first consideration which naturally presented itself to me, in connection with Rosanna, was this: Would Miss Verinder be satisfied (begging your ladyship's pardon) with leading us all to think that the Moonstone was merely lost?
Or would she go a step further, and delude us into believing that the Moonstone was stolen?
In the latter event there was Rosanna Spearman--with the character of a thief--ready to her hand; the person of all others to lead your ladyship off, and to lead me off, on a false scent." Was it possible (I asked myself) that he could put his case against Miss Rachel and Rosanna in a more horrid point of view than this?
It WAS possible, as you shall now see.
"I had another reason for suspecting the deceased woman," he said, "which appears to me to have been stronger still.