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The Discovery of the Truth 3: 5
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Moonstone, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Detective Methods and Genre Standards
Intention, Identity, and Personality
Science and Religion
Gender and Victorian Morality
Class, Wealth, and Nobility
British Imperialism
Summary
Analysis
Franklin Blake heads to the train station in Frizinghall for his return to London. He is accompanied by Betteredge, who asks, first, if Franklin was “drunk on the night of Rachel’s birthday” (he was not) and, secondly, whether he used to sleepwalk as a child (he did not, and he has never heard of his having done so since). Betteredge asks if Franklin really thinks that he might have “took the Diamond without knowing it,” and whether it makes any sense for him to have also gone to London and pawned it without realizing. As his train approaches, Franklin bids Betteredge goodbye and then notices Ezra Jennings on the platform.
After eliminating the obvious explanations for why Franklin might have stolen the Diamond without realizing it, Betteredge points out the deeper inconsistency in his newfound evidence: that he could not have unknowingly kept the Diamond for weeks, until Cuff resolved his investigation, and brought it to London to sell it. Ezra Jennings’s appearance again suggests to the clue-seeking reader that he will resurface in a more significant capacity soon.
Themes
When he gets to London, Franklin goes immediately to meet Mr. Bruff at his home and presents the lawyer with Rosanna’s letter. Mr. Bruff thinks this document is also telling because it proves that Rachel, too, “believes [he has] stolen the Diamond.” Franklin must confront Rachel about this belief, Bruff insists, and point out the central gap in the evidence: it is completely possible that someone else was wearing Franklin’s nightgown when Rachel’s door paint smudged and the crime presumably took place. In fact, by proving her capacity for deception, Bruff thinks, Rosanna’s letter undercuts her own credibility; Rachel most likely suspects Franklin because Rosanna showed her the nightgown in an attempt to start conflict, push Rachel and Franklin apart, and create an opening to go after Franklin herself.
Rosanna’s letter becomes the subject of a controversy about evidence and testimony, gesturing to the reader’s responsibility to vet and read between the lines of the novel’s various narratives. Whereas Franklin and Betteredge take Rosanna’s letter at face value, the experienced lawyer Bruff clearly sees how she could have deliberately admitted the proof of her guilt and accordingly used the testimony to cover her tracks. The only problem is that this would not explain Rosanna’s decision to commit suicide. Still, more generally, Bruff’s explanation that Franklin was framed is much more reasonable and more exonerating than anything Betteredge and Franklin managed to come up with; it also raises the sort of doubt about identity and imitation that proves central to the mystery genre, as well as the novel’s climax.
Themes
Franklin asks what it would mean if he were wearing the nightgown, something Bruff considers impossible to prove. And he wonders if Rachel might have suspected him for any other reason—and remembers an event first recounted “in the eighth chapter of Betteredge’s Narrative,” when “a foreigner and a stranger” visited him. They had come to collect a debt, which Julia readily paid off when she heard the collectors arguing heatedly with Franklin in the next room. Rachel was furious at him for a day afterward, and Bruff tells Franklin that this may have been “a predisposing influence” to his losing Rachel’s trust after the theft of the Diamond.
Franklin, like Cuff, sees a clear connection between the Diamond’s theft and the family’s debts—something that, ironically enough, they are able to incur only because of their social reputation and class status, even when they do not actually have the money that class is supposed to be based on. However, the fact that the debt disappeared meant Franklin had no need for the Diamond and seems an adequate explanation of both his innocence and Rachel’s fury at him.
Themes
Bruff and Franklin then begin brainstorming how to convince Rachel to meet with Franklin. Bruff suggests Franklin take advantage of the “perverse weakness for" him that Rachel might still possess, and they agree to invite Rachel’s over to Bruff’s house, which will become “a trap to catch” her. Two days later, she comes under the pretense of meeting Bruff’s wife and daughters, who do not know about the men’s ulterior motive. Bruff promises that Rachel will be alone in the music-room at three in the afternoon, and merely asks Franklin not to “blame [him] for what happens afterwards.”
Although Bruff has tenaciously defended Rachel in the past—including by briefly taking guardianship over her (although it is unclear why she needs a guardian)—he is Franklin’s lawyer as well as hers, and therefore has to negotiate between his two competing obligations in this situation. Clearly, he conspires with Franklin to surprise Rachel because he thinks their relationship can be repaired, and that their best interests coincide.
Themes
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While he waits for three o’clock, Franklin peruses his mail and discovers “a letter from Betteredge,” explaining to him that he was approached by Ezra Jennings after seeing Franklin at the station and Jennings told him that Mr. Candy wanted to see Franklin for some specific, significant, and secret reason. When his time comes, Franklin enters the Bruff house’s garden, moves to the drawing-room, and hears Rachel playing the piano from the adjacent music-room. In a “supreme moment,” he enters to meet her.
Two unwelcomed invitations, in quick succession, promise to transform the Moonstone case. Surely enough, Ezra Jennings and Mr. Candy do reemerge in relation to the Moonstone. Rachel’s piano playing is a refined performance that highlights her femininity and intelligence and adds a deeper air of expectation to Franklin’s approach.
Themes
