You asked us last week at the end of class to consider the role of servants in the novel’s that we have read. Having finished much of Wilkie Collins’, The Moonstone, the prompt now seems tailor-made for this particular novel. Servants, particularly Mr. Betteredge, play an integral part in Collins’ detective novel. The social sphere that servants inhabit is given particular care in Collins’ hand; Collins not only humanizes servants, but presents them as the indispensable cogs that run an aristocratic household. No cog in The Moonstone is as crucial as the chief servant, Mr. Betteredge. In the absence of the late Mr. Verinder, Betteredge enjoys a position within the Verinder house that borders upon that of sole patriarch. Though Betteredge seems