The paper focuses on the analysis of the narrative contingencies of Wilkie Collins’ novel The Moonstone, as the landmark of detective fiction. Even though Edgar Allan Poe is considered as the father of detective novels, Collins was the first one to introduce a mystery novel with a detective, which was inspired by the “Road Murder” case of 1860. The Newgate novel and the sensation novel, which was inspired by real-life crime and closely related to the newspress, could be subsumed under the period detective fiction. In order to solve the mystery of the missing diamond in The Moonstone, Collins uses multiple narrators to highlight the fact that a single agent of detection is not enough for solving the crime and a joint investigation is needed. It is important to analyze some of the characters from the novel, such as Gabriel Betteredge, Franklin Blake and Rosanna Spearman, who either play significant parts in the story or whose behavior and thoughts reflect the current state of Victorian domesticity and English imperialism. One of the most important motives of the novel is the Moonstone, which stands for the Orient and Collins explored that theme by using the diamond as a symbol for “otherness” and a critique of imperialism. The aim of this paper was to prove that through the narrative attributes of the novel, Collins managed to highlight the importance of the Moonstone as a symbol, as well as give an equal opportunity of solving the mystery to both the “misjudged characters” of the novel and the readers.