THE MAN FROM THE EAST
A WEEK passed at Beech Lodge, while Derrick endeavored to get down to
work; but in spite of every effort, progress seemed impossible. Ideas,
when they came, were illusory; his characters imbued themselves with
strange aspirations and qualities, and plot after plot was displaced by
the secret but constantly strengthening conviction that this novel was
not, for the present at any rate, the most important thing in life. More
than ever he was fascinated by Millicent’s study and the nameless
advances seemingly made by the portrait of its late owner, and sat at
the big desk for hours, fingering his pen, grasping at thoughts that
continually eluded him. By the end of the second week he was assured
there was something the dead man wanted him to do.
Of all this he said nothing to Edith, and it was a relief to know that
she was of too practical a nature to harbor imaginings similar to his
own. Her days were spent in settling down, and he agreed thankfully with
all she proposed, stipulating only that the study itself should remain
absolutely undisturbed. That room, he announced with an air of great
contentment, had been designed and equipped to suit his particular
fancy. When he said this it seemed that the portrait of Millicent
signaled its silent approval.
It was one evening when he was at the desk, trying as usual to classify
his own thoughts, that Edith looked up from the book in her lap.
“Jack,” she said suddenly.
He put down his pen with relief. There were whispering shadows in the
corner, and one could not work to-night.
“Yes, what is it?”
“Will you tell me something, quite honestly?”
He smiled and nodded. “It’s no particular effort to be honest with you.
What am I suspected of now?”
She glanced into the leaping fire, and turned with a quick, familiar
motion. “How’s the book going? I do so want to know.”
“It isn’t making what one would call absolutely triumphant progress.
It’s generally that way at first. Then later on you realize that you’ve
done far more than you thought, and the happy issue is in sight.”
“Do you know yet whether Beech Lodge is as good a place to work in as
you expected?”
“I think it is, quite,” he said slowly. “It’s a new atmosphere, and one
doesn’t get it at once, but whatever I write here will be different
and”—he hesitated an instant—“I think stronger than anything I’ve done
yet. I can see that already.”
“I’m glad you haven’t any second thoughts about the place.”
“But I have, quite a lot. They’re not sorted out yet. What about you?
Too busy to think at all?”
She glanced at him oddly. “I’ve been trying to be too busy but haven’t
quite succeeded.” She said this with a touch of reluctance, as though
confessing to some feminine weakness.
“I hope they’re pleasant thoughts.”
“Not altogether, Jack. Sometimes they’re queer and sometimes a bit
disconcerting. Foolish for a woman like me to talk like this, isn’t it?”
He laughed easily. “I know no person less foolish.”
She did not answer but continued to gaze into the fire, her eyes a
little disturbed. Her brother wanted time to think, being convinced that
it was most important that for the present at any rate Edith should
remain unaware of certain things. Perkins, for instance. However
competent Perkins might be, she could not in any sense be called a
normal woman. Perhaps he was not at this time normal himself. Something
assured him that no revelation would be made from the unknown to his
sister. Her wireless set might be affected, but it was not tuned to the
right wave-length. After all, there was no reason why matters should not
proceed smoothly enough.
“Why are your reflections disconcerting?” he hazarded.
“I don’t know. It’s stupid of me, and I call myself an idiot for being
affected at all. The funny thing, Jack, is that I’m gradually beginning
to consider myself absolutely superficial to something or other—I don’t
know what. The house is running well, and Perkins is a treasure; a
little chilling at times, but the best servant I’ve ever had. Things
seem to do themselves at her desire. Why should I feel superficial?”
He shook his head. “You’re anything but that. What else is the matter?”
“Nothing whatever, and yet—” She got up restlessly and balanced herself
on the corner of the desk close to the dull stain. But it had no message
for her. “If you say definitely that we made no mistake in taking Beech
Lodge, I’ll feel a lot better. Isn’t it silly of me? There’s everything
here one wants, and all a housekeeper could desire, but—”
He felt a touch of apprehension and laughed it off. “You’re only a bit
lonely, and probably I’ve been selfish in planting you in such a lonely
spot for the sake of that confounded novel. I admit to being a bit
spoiled. But we have neighbors. What about the Millicents?”
“They’re about three miles from here in a cottage. Perkins tells me the
daughter is twenty-two and very pretty but has never got over her
father’s death. They were devoted to each other.”
“You’ll see them soon,” he said involuntarily.
“I hardly think so. They would not call under all the circumstances; at
least it would be strange if they did.”
“Perhaps not, but—” He broke off. “Tell me more of what’s in your mind.
You know what you are to me, and I can’t help feeling rather
responsible.”
“It’s hard to tell you without seeming an utter fool. It vexes and
amuses me all at once,” she said simply. “It’s things I’ve never been
conscious of before. I’m not actually conscious of them now, but it’s as
if something had suggested their existence. At the same time I know I’ll
never quite understand. I’m not built that way. Perhaps I get something
through what I feel for you because you feel it, even though it’s past
me. Does this all sound like gibberish? Then again it is as though both
of us were being threatened. I wonder if you understand that all this is
so different from anything I’ve felt before that I don’t quite know what
to do.”
Derrick listened seriously. His first impulse was to laugh her mood
away, but instantly there came to him from the surrounding shadows a
warning that on no account must he be false to that which he himself
believed. Pondering this, he knew that he could not deny these
mysterious powers that now proclaimed themselves. He might desert their
kingdom, but to disown it was impossible.
“If the place does not agree with you, we’ll chuck it,” he said slowly.
She sent him a whimsical smile. “You know that’s out of the question,
dear old boy. We simply can’t; we’re in too deep for the next year. And
forgive me if I talk to you as though you were my sister, for that’s one
of my selfish habits, and it’s really your own fault for standing it.
Here we stick till that novel is finished and sold. I’m sorry it doesn’t
go as fast as you would like.”
“It will when I get shaken down,” he answered doggedly. “Trouble is that
one is apt to think of too many things at once. Then follows the
discarding and selecting process, and I suppose I’m going through that
now. The point is to be sure of retaining what is really worth while;
and, when I begin to feel that, it means confidence and progress. In
that last novel I didn’t quite know what to discard, and it jumps at me
from every page. But now,” he concluded with a little lift in his voice,
“I’ve an idea that I’m just on the edge of something big.”
“While your sister,” she murmured absently, “has a perfectly ridiculous
sensation that she’s just on the edge of something deep, and hasn’t the
slightest intention of falling over.”
She sent him a companionable smile and was soon lost in her book.
Derrick struggled on with his opening chapters, thankful that she had
made no searching inquiry into his own inward sensations. There was no
sound save the methodical turning of a page and the scratch of a pen.
The fire puttered its ruddy comfort, and Beech Lodge was dipped in an
abyss of silence.
Presently the inner edge of one of the heavy curtains that hung over the
French window stirred ever so slightly and at one point drew very slowly
aside, leaving a narrow oval gap on the border of which a man’s fingers,
short, broad, and strong, were visible. This gap widened inch by inch,
till, framed in the dull fabric, there appeared a face. A mass of
tumbled hair surmounted a low forehead, beneath which moved eyes that
were dark, shining, and restless. The man might have been forty, with
tanned skin, large and rather uncouth features, a broad mouth, heavy
lips—blue-black and unshaven—and a strange, furtive expression. No
part of his body was visible below the chin, and the face hung as though
suspended like a threatening mask in mid-air. The roving eyes searched
the room, darting from place to place with extraordinary quickness, and
reflecting little pin-points of light from the leaping flames. Finally
they rested on Derrick and his sister with a look in which surprise
mingled with a certain unconquerable composure. There was no fear in the
look but rather the suggestion that this formidable stranger from the
dark had been here before and was now making up his mind on some vital
matter. Then the lips widened into a grin rendered repulsive by
discolored teeth; the gap narrowed as silently as a leaf falls; face and
fingers diminished and disappeared; the curtain trembled and hung
straight; and there drifted into the room the faintest possible sound
from without. It was over, like a baleful dream.
Derrick looked up sharply. “Who was that?”
Edith, perceiving nothing, stared at him. His face was tense, his eyes
very wide open. She struggled against a foolish sense of alarm.
“Where, Jack?”
“In this room. Did any one come in just now?” He peered about, searching
the dancing shadows, keyed suddenly to a strange pitch.
“No one,” she said. “Who could there be? I heard nothing.”
“That’s odd,” he murmured.
She got up, stood beside him, and put a hand on his arm. “What’s odd,
Jack? I wish you wouldn’t go on like this—and don’t be so mysterious,
unless you want it to get on my nerves.”
“I had an extraordinary feeling that for a moment we were not alone.” He
laughed, but it sounded a shade forced. “Dreaming as usual, I suppose.
Sorry, Edith; I won’t do it again.”
But Miss Derrick, in spite of herself, had turned a little pale. For the
past hour she had been trying to put out of her head a succession of
strange thoughts about strange things, and she had nearly succeeded. Now
she felt dizzy. Perhaps they had not been alone. But who could it have
been? Mystery, breathless, confusing, and baffling, stole in on her like
a secret assailant, attacking all senses save that of fear. Her pulse
slowed—and beat tumultuously. She stepped to the bell and rang hard.
Derrick looked at her with wonder.
“What’s the matter? There’s nothing to be frightened about!”
“How do you know?” she stammered. “I feel queer because I don’t know. I
want to see some one who isn’t just ourselves,” she went on chaotically,
“and I’m the more vexed because it has to—to be Perkins.” She covered
her eyes unconsciously, like a child. “Jack, Jack, what is the matter
with me? I’m acting like a fool.”
He put his arm round her. “I’m awfully sorry, dear, but, really, it’s
nothing. I hardly knew I spoke. Of course it is nothing. I’ll search the
house if you like.”
“But would you find it?” she whispered. “Would you find it?”
Came a tap at the door, and Perkins entered, her face as blank as ever.
Edith controlled herself with an effort and looked straight into the
basilisk eyes.
“Perkins, has any one come to the house just now?”
The maid glanced at her, impassive and inscrutable. “No, madam. Was any
one expected?”
Edith could but answer with another question. “You—you have heard
nothing within the last few minutes?”
“Nothing whatever, madam.” The voice carried no suggestion of surprise,
but Perkins’s eyes met those of Derrick for a passing instant.
“Thank you. Please go to my room, and—and bring me a handkerchief. Are
all the windows and doors fastened?”
“Yes, madam, except this one. Mr. Derrick told me to leave that to him.”
She disappeared. Derrick laughed and lit his pipe.
“You’re answered now, Edith! The house closed tight as a drum, and the
only access from outside through this room.”
“Perhaps you’re right! Yes, of course you are; but, when she comes back,
say something that will keep her for a minute; say anything at all.
Please do that. I can’t explain, but I must hear some other voice, even
Perkins’s comfortless accents. Jack, I am a fool.”
“You’re not very complimentary to my powers of entertainment,” he
chuckled. “I won’t write any more to-night. We’ll get out the cards if
you like.”
She shook her head and sent him a strange glance, as though wondering if
he would understand. “It isn’t entertainment I want to-night.”
“Then what? I’m not in a position to offer much more.”
“I don’t know. It’s something like protection, but not quite that,
either. I know it sounds absurd, but it’s the kind of thing that could
only come from one who does not believe what you do about all this.” She
made a gesture at the surrounding room. “I suppose it’s a sort of
companion in my incredulity. You’re beginning to make things rather too
much alive for my comfort, though I don’t believe in them at all.”
“There’s nothing here,” he protested quickly, “nothing but ourselves.
Forget what I said. I was only dreaming aloud. It’s what the Scotch call
havering.”
Even as he spoke there came to him the refutation of his own words.
Millicent signaled his disapproval from the canvas overhead, and
stinging whispers from the silence around proclaimed him false to his
real belief. The protest died on his lips, and Edith looked at him
keenly.
“I don’t want you to say what you don’t believe in the hope of
stiffening me, but I’d be glad if you’d help to prevent my believing it,
too. I don’t want to, and I don’t intend to. I’m tremendously in earnest
about all this. The reason is that I know I haven’t got the right kind
of mental machinery. It would break me all up, while on the contrary it
is perfectly natural for you. All I want to do is to carry on here in
the ordinary way and make it as easy as possible for you to work. That’s
a woman’s job, Jack, and I’m satisfied with it and don’t want to go
beyond it. If there’s anything that you’re forced to tell me, well, tell
me, but don’t do any more. All this may sound rather hysterical, but it
isn’t; and it’s because I know myself better than I begin to think I
know you, even after all these years. So don’t try me more than you can
avoid.”
While she was speaking, Perkins entered as silently as before. Edith
steadied herself, wondering how much the woman had heard. She took the
handkerchief and made an indefinite gesture to her brother.
“I say, Perkins,” he put in, “this garden is running wild, and I’ve got
to get some one at once or there’ll be nothing worth while in the
summer. Do you know of any good man in the neighborhood?”
“I’m sorry; I don’t, sir.”
“What about the village? Any chance there?”
“I can’t say, sir. I haven’t been to the village for more than a year.”
“Mr. Thursby’s man seems to have been very capable. Think you could find
him?”
“I don’t know where he is, sir. He came once a week for the past year,
but left the village about a month ago. There’s been no one since.”
“Did Mr. Thursby take over Mr. Millicent’s man?”
“No, sir.” Perkins’s expression changed ever so slightly. “He could
not.”
“Why was that?”
“Because Martin, Mr. Millicent’s man, had already left.”
“When?” said Derrick curiously.
“Three days after Mr. Millicent died.”
Edith gave an involuntary shiver. “Why should he do that so soon?”
Perkins glanced at the portrait with a kind of mute unconsciousness. “I
cannot say, madam. Martin did not tell me.”
“It’s more or less understandable,” hazarded Derrick; “probably Mrs.
Millicent let him go. She wasn’t keeping on the place anyway. Do you
happen to know where he went, Perkins?”
Edith looked up. “Does that matter, Jack?”
“Yes, I think so. The man’s reputation for roses spread all over the
county, and I’d like to get him back if we could afford it. And it’s
better to have some one who knows the ground, if possible. What about
him, Perkins?”
“No one has heard of him from that day, as yet, sir.”
Edith got up with unmistakable decision. She was evidently feeling
herself again.
“Good night, Jack. Perkins, please bring my hot water now.”
Derrick followed her with his eyes but said nothing. When he was alone,
he seated himself again at his desk and looked musingly at his
manuscript. How thin and unprofitable was all he had written, these
doings of characters so obviously fictitious, so utterly divorced from
the stinging realities of life. They saw little and felt less, being
framed in paper and not flesh and blood. His long hand stole to the edge
of the desk, avoiding that discolored patch, and clasped the solid frame
as though to draw from it something like real inspiration. He now
touched the shadow of Millicent’s life-blood. His glance traveled then
automatically to the portrait. Blood and paint! Between them they held
the key of mystery. He scanned the composed features, feeling that the
essence of what had once been Millicent was close by. Then it came to
him that this essence of the murdered man had its own part to play and
was no doubt playing it at this very moment, moving in mysterious
channels and in league with mysterious powers. Recurrent and voiceless
questions crowded upon him. What could Millicent mean to Perkins, that
lank woman with the forbidding eyes? It seemed after a few moments that
the painted lips quivered and tried to speak, and the quiet gaze took on
something more than the mere flicker of firelight. What was it that
Millicent was trying to convey?
“What have you absorbed?” murmured Derrick, half aloud. “What is it you
would tell me? You suffered here death and the fear that was perhaps
worse than death, but why did you pay the price?” He began to write
unconsciously, capturing the words as they came; strange words, unlinked
with anything that had gone before, but pregnant with clouded
suggestion. “You believed as I do that we are not the masters of things,
but that each of us builds up around him invisible towers of influence,
by which in time we are dominated. We store the air with records that
the air cannot discard or obliterate, eloquent—yet having no voice;
strong—yet casting no shadow. And behind it all are Things. We cry for
them as children, and when the end comes it is hard to let them go.”
He was staring, puzzled, at what he had written, when Perkins came in,
her face grave.
“If you please, sir, the gardener is here.” Her voice was a little
breathless.
“What gardener? I thought you told me just a moment ago that you knew of
no one.”
“It’s Mr. Millicent’s gardener,” she replied steadily.
“The man who has not been heard of for two years?”
“Yes, sir. He has just returned.”
Derrick took a long breath. “What brings him back now?”
He regretted the question as soon as it was asked, for Perkins was
regarding him as though wondering why he should be surprised. It was all
part of something else, something bigger. Surely he must realize that.
“I do not know, sir. He only reached the village this evening and came
straight here.”
“Does he expect me to engage him?”
“He would like to come back to his old place, sir.”
“How extraordinary!”
Again Derrick spoke too hastily, and again he regretted it. Perkins did
not answer. She stood passively, an austere expression on her sallow
features; and, scrutinize as he might, there was no penetrating the veil
that enshrouded her. She was an embodiment of something that defied his
keenest analysis.
“Where has this man been for the past two years?”
“He did not say, sir.”
“You can tell me whether he was satisfactory in every way to Mr.
Millicent?”
She nodded. “Mr. Millicent used to say that he was the best gardener in
the county.”
Derrick paused. “Perkins, I’m going to ask you another question, but you
need not answer unless you like to.”
“I will tell you anything I know, sir.” She spoke steadily and without a
trace of surprise.
“Then from all you know, and I refer to more than his ability as a
gardener, do you think it would be a good thing to take him on?”
“Why do you put it that way, sir?”
“I leave that to you. The matter may be more important than one can
realize—as yet.” He lingered a little over the last words.
“Then, yes, sir, if you want a garden like Mr. Millicent’s.”
The shrewdness of the answer took him aback. “Send him in,” he said
shortly.
The man entered, the man whose dark features had peered through the
parted curtains a short hour before. He was powerfully built, very
broad, and dressed in loose and much worn tweeds of a foreign cut. He
came forward with the lurching walk of a seafaring trade, a colored
handkerchief twisted round the column of his brown neck. His swinging
hands were wide and knotted, and every motion spoke of great physical
strength. No mere Sussex gardener this, who had spent his placid years
among his roses and dahlias, but one who carried with him nameless
suggestions of the jungle and the faint pounding of distant surf.
Dangling his cap, he gave a sort of salute, making at the same time a
swift survey of the room. From this furtive and searching glance it
seemed to Derrick that the man missed something he knew of old in
Millicent’s time, but no flicker of change of expression could be
discerned on the weather-beaten face. The face itself was neither cruel
nor merciless but conveyed a grim, implacable resolution. Here,
reflected Derrick, was the man who disappeared three days after
Millicent’s death. What brought him back now?
“What is your name?”
“Martin, sir, John Martin.” The voice was deep and husky.
“Perkins tells me you were in Mr. Millicent’s service.”
“Yes, sir, for some years after his last trip to the East.”
“Did you come from the East with him?”
“No, sir, I—I was engaged here at Beech Lodge.”
“Several years service, yet you left three days after your employer
died?”
Martin jerked up his head. “Yes, sir; that’s it.”
“How did you happen to go so quickly? Were you discharged by Mrs.
Millicent?”
A dull flush rose in the tanned face. “You might as well ask how my
master happened to die three days before I left, sir. Mrs. Millicent was
giving up Beech Lodge and didn’t want a gardener. There was no other job
in sight about here, and I couldn’t afford to hang on in the village.”
Derrick nodded with seeming carelessness. “Perhaps that’s fair enough,
and as it happens I do want a gardener, but you’ll have to satisfy me
completely on all points before I consider you. The circumstances are a
bit out of the ordinary.”
“I’m ready to tell you anything I can, sir.”
“Then where do you come from now?”
“Upper Burma, by way of Canada. I have a sister in Alberta.” He fumbled
in his pocket. “Would you be wanting to see my passport?”
“Not now, at any rate. I don’t understand why you should clear out of
Sussex for Burma just because there was no job close at hand.”
“Well, sir, to tell the truth, I was that upset I wanted to get away as
far as possible. I couldn’t put the master out of my head. He’d always
been good to me from the first day I came, and we liked the same things,
sir.”
“What was that?”
“Roses.”
He shot this out with rumbling assurance, and, strange as it sounded,
Derrick believed him. It was difficult to picture this great hulk among
the roses, these thick fingers training the delicate buds, but Martin’s
reputation had already been established far beyond Beech Lodge. There
had been, too, an assuring little break in the voice, suggesting a depth
of feeling in strange contrast to this forbidding exterior. If this was
acting, it was good acting. He scanned the man’s face, but as for
promising any future revelations it was no more expressive than that of
Perkins herself. Anything might lie hidden here. There were hints of
passion in the eyes, but over him rested the touch of a complete
control. If one could only get underneath that! It was obvious to
Derrick that he must act deliberately—and delicately. It would be a
matter of weeks, or perhaps months. The strangeness of the situation
came over him with redoubled force. It was all part of a plan. Whose
plan?
“How is it, Martin, if you can tell me, that after two years on the
other side of the world you turn up here within a week or so of my
coming? There has been no job going for all that time, but you arrive as
soon as the job, your old one, is open.”
Martin scratched his head and seemed genuinely puzzled.
“Dunno, sir. It’s queer to me, too, but here I am. I didn’t know there
was a job open till a few minutes ago.”
“I take it, then, you had no particular reason for getting back here
to-day?”
The man glanced at him with a sort of awkward interest. He hesitated a
little, as though about to put forward something hardly credible even to
himself, and finally jerked out an answer.
“I can’t say much more than that things kind of hinted at it, sir, and
kept on hinting till they made me uncomfortable. There wasn’t any
special reason I know of. I was doing well enough, trading up the
Irawadi, when something began to get at me to come back, and it kept on
till I started for Rangoon. It stayed with me, hustling me along, and I
felt I didn’t even want to go and look up my sister; but I did, and the
same feeling lifted me out of their farm in Alberta. Up till about two
months ago I believed I wasn’t wanted here; then I knew I was wanted for
something.” He frowned to himself at this, as though he hardly expected
to be either understood or taken seriously. “Maybe I was a fool to
come,” he added, “but in a way it wasn’t left to me to decide. It’s the
first time I ever struck anything like that. It was like jungle-fever
without the fever.”
“You simply had to come,” said Derrick quickly.
“I’m not given to such feelings, but, since you say it, yes, I reckon I
had to come.”
Derrick had a faint thrill of triumph. Here again the mysterious factor
was at work, the thing to which he himself was yielding so completely.
It had spread its potent and invisible filaments half round the world,
penetrated the Burmese jungle, and haled this shifty-eyed man back to
the tiny Sussex village from which he had fled under the shadow of a
great crime as yet undetected. How could these filaments have been set
in motion if not at the demand of the dead Millicent whose quiet
features now surveyed this recaptured wanderer? What would the thing
that had been Millicent arrange next? At the thought of this Derrick’s
pulse gave a throb of excitement. Then he looked Martin full in the
face.
“Who found your master?”
The man dropped his cap, and all the blood in his body seemed to climb
to his temples.
“Miss Perkins found him,” he said jerkily.
“Where did she find him?” If Martin had lied the fact would come out
now.
Martin pointed to the desk. “Where you are sitting, Mr. Derrick. He was
leaning forward, his head on one side.”
“Dead?”
“Yes, sir, but not long.”
“What had happened?”
“Stabbed in the neck.”
“By what?”
“I do not know, sir.”
“And no trace of what killed him has ever been found?”
“Nothing that I ever heard of.” Martin moved a little impatiently, but
Derrick’s voice was very even.
“Of course you were at the inquest? These are some of the things you
need not answer, unless you’re determined to get that job.”
“Yes, I was there”—this with a defiant glance—“and they examined me,
and when it was over not a man had a word to say against me.”
Derrick sharpened his tone. “Your master is just behind you.”
The man started violently and made a harsh noise in his throat. He
turned slowly and unwillingly, forcing himself inch by inch, till,
following Derrick’s gaze he saw the portrait. At that his color changed,
his face becoming overcast with anger.
“By God, but you frightened me,” he said thickly. “I didn’t know what
you meant—thought it was a ghost.”
“Is that a good likeness?”
Martin breathed deeply and pulled himself together stretching his
fingers with a slow gesture of relief.
“Yes, that’s him all right, but he looked older, a good deal older
toward the end. Something like you, sir, isn’t he?”
“Where were you at the time it happened? Can you tell me exactly, and
what you were doing?”
The dark face grew threatening. “Is this another inquest, Mr. Derrick? I
came here to try and get my old job.”
“You can drop it if you like, Martin, or else answer my questions.”
“Well,” said the man truculently, “I was smoking in that little garden
beside the cottage—I lived there then—when I heard Perkins. She was
running like a deer down from the house and calling at the top of her
voice. She was only half dressed, and I thought she was mad, screaming
about the master being killed. I ran back with her, and found him as I
told you—where you’re sitting now. Then I ran to the village for the
doctor. When we got him here he said that Mr. Millicent must have been
dead for over an hour. He had been struck with great force in the neck
with a dagger of some kind. And that’s all I know.”
Derrick nodded, apparently satisfied. “It’s practically what I’ve heard
elsewhere.” He sat for a moment, plunged in thought. “Wait where you are
for a moment, Martin. I want to have a word with Miss Derrick before
deciding.”
He went out. Martin balanced himself on the edge of his chair, listened
keenly to the retreating footsteps, heard a creak on the stair, and
glanced cautiously about. Then he got up, stole on tiptoe to the door,
and put his ear to the keyhole. Satisfied that he was secure, he crept
noiselessly across the floor, darting a look at the portrait as he went,
and halted stiffly beside the big desk. Here his hands became intensely
busy, his thick fingers passing swiftly over the carved frame, like
those of a blind man. One particular spot he explored with strained
attention, turning his massive head every few seconds toward the door,
his whole body keyed to the utmost nervous pitch. He had his back to the
French window, and the lamp cast his gigantic shadow on the ceiling,
where its distorted shadow quivered like that of a brooding giant.
But from the window another pair of eyes surveyed this silent drama.
Once again the curtains had parted slightly some five feet above the
floor, and, from the gap so lately tenanted by Martin’s threatening
mask, Derrick now watched every move. This was what he sought, this
opportunity, but what had guided him to his vantage-point he could not
tell. He had remembered that the window was unfastened. He believed that
the curtain would keep him safe from discovery, because he was assured
that his strange visitor had come to stay and not to steal. To observe
Martin when Martin thought himself unobserved, in that direction might
lie knowledge. But what was it Martin sought now?
The scrutiny lasted but a few seconds. The gardener was back in his seat
when Derrick entered unconcernedly, resumed his seat at the desk, and
lit his pipe with extreme deliberation. Martin’s face was utterly blank,
and he got up automatically when the new master of Beech Lodge came in.
“If you want that job, I’m inclined to give it to you.”
The big chest expanded slowly, and the broad figure lost something of
its rigidity.
“Thank you, sir, and I’ll do my very best,” said Martin eagerly. “I know
the place like a book, and I know roses, and you won’t have reason to
regret it.”
Derrick smiled. “We haven’t discussed the matter of wages yet.” He was
wondering whether the rate of pay meant as little to this man as it had
to Perkins. “What I’m going to offer won’t seem much to one who has
knocked about the world as much as yourself. It’s not a case of American
wages.”
“I’m not worrying about wages, sir. It doesn’t take much to keep me
going, and I’ve never had a drink in my life. It’s the old job I’m
after.”
“Then what do you say to thirty shillings a week and the cottage.”
“That’s fair enough,” said Martin eagerly.
“By the way, I take it you’re not married?”
“I haven’t any wife now,” he stammered after a poignant pause.
“Sorry, Martin, I didn’t mean to hurt you. Any children?”
“No, sir.” The tanned face was calm again.
“Then I suppose you can begin to-morrow?”
“I’m ready for that.” Martin fingered his cap. “Might I sleep in the
cottage to-night, sir? I’ve got my bundle outside.”
He said this without any seeming thought of the inference Derrick must
draw, an inference that the latter jumped at. Why bring a bundle before
one was sure of a job? But perhaps, and here a message drifted in from
the paneled walls, perhaps it was already arranged that Martin should
get the job, and the man in some queer way was aware of that. And, after
all, why should he part from his bundle? He would have slept with it
under a hedge.
Derrick felt in his pocket. “Perhaps you’d better stop in the village
to-night, and clean up the cottage to-morrow. It must be cold and damp.
Got enough money?”
Martin gave a twisted smile. “Yes, sir, I have money, but if you don’t
mind I’ll risk the damp. It’s nothing to me.”
“No, let it stand till to-morrow; then you can move in. I’ll see you
about ten o’clock.”
He rang the bell, Martin standing motionless, a baffling expression on
his face. He had secured what he came for but still seemed ill at ease
and uncontent. Then Perkins entered like a sallow ghost, and Derrick,
regarding these two, experienced a novel sensation at seeing them stand
side by side, the staff of Beech Lodge, the depositories of the secret
of the house. Between them lay the thing he pursued, or that pursued
him. They did not look at each other, but waited, silent, impassive, and
remote. He wondered what it would be that first broke through the
surface of this extraordinary calm, so profound as to be already
ominous. But that would come in its appointed cycle.
“Perkins, I have engaged Martin as gardener. He will commence work in
the morning, occupy the cottage, and do for himself entirely. Did you do
anything in the house before, Martin?”
“Boots and coals, sir.”
“I don’t need any help now, sir,” put in Perkins swiftly.
Martin’s lids flickered, but he did not stir.
“Then for the meantime, Martin, stick to outside work. All right, you
may go now.”
The man mumbled good night, made his former awkward salute, and marched
into the hall. He did not glance at the woman, nor she at him. Derrick’s
eyes narrowed a little.
“Please come here, Perkins, when you’ve locked up.”
The door closed, and he looked instinctively at the portrait as though
to ask whether in all this he had done the right thing. But Millicent
was uncommunicative to-night. Quite deliberately Derrick was rebuilding
the personnel of Beech Lodge as it existed two years before, peopling it
with the same faces, making it echo with the same voices. Its one-time
master was no doubt still here, and now there remained only the other
Millicents. If the circle could but be closed, and old contacts
reëstablished, then perhaps the way would become clear. He was
deliberating this when Perkins’s return ended the reverie.
“I’d like, if possible, to feel sure, Perkins, that from all you know of
Martin I’ve done the right thing in engaging him. This unexpected return
is bound to affect you in some way under the circumstances, and—”
He stopped abruptly. She was staring at him with so searching an
expression that he knew that to-night he had drawn nearer the essential
mystery of Beech Lodge. Yet it was not his action but his words that
produced this remarkable effect. He was aware that it was not in the
garden, where Millicent had lovingly tended his roses, or anywhere but
in this room that the spirit of the murdered man seemed to cry aloud for
vengeance—and for peace.
“It was meant that Martin should come back and you should engage him,”
said Perkins dully. “I do not know more than that. You could not help
it. You were called, and Martin, too.”
He perceived that there was nothing absurd in this. She spoke simply, as
though reciting facts established beyond all question. Her look told him
that at this moment she could go no further. Suddenly something reached
him out of space. The room was alive again.
“How long had Mr. Millicent been dead when you found him?”
“I told you that they sent for me,” she answered gravely, “but I do not
know how soon they sent. When the doctor came he thought that it had
happened more than an hour before.”
“And you found him at this desk?”
“Did Martin say that?” she asked breathlessly.
“Does it matter who said it?”
Her thin hands clasped over her breast. There was a look in her face he
had never seen there before.
“But it matters a great deal if it was Martin. Were you and he long in
this room together?”
“No,” she said tremulously, “only a moment, but he stayed there after
the doctor came.”
Derrick’s voice, which in spite of himself had risen a little, now
dropped to a more level pitch.
“And in spite of all this nothing of any importance seems to have
disappeared. Even his papers were undisturbed, so it was not burglary.
He had no enemies?”
“He was not that kind. All liked him who knew him.”
“And you have nothing to say or suggest as to any possible motive.”
She did not answer but seemed to withdraw lest he unearth more than she
was prepared to reveal. This suggested that it was now for him to follow
the trail alone—if he could.
“Was it hard to get that stain reduced?” He flung the question at her
like a missile.
Perkins winced visibly, glancing first at him, then at the desk as
though its massive surface had found accusing speech. Her breath came
faster, and Derrick knew that he had moved a step nearer the truth.
“Are there no secrets from you?” she whispered.
“Perhaps it was not always there,” he continued meaningly, “but returned
after I came here. My fingers found it first, and it spoke. Soon after
that I began to understand. The inventory man saw it before I did but
got nothing from it. Perhaps Martin found it, too, when I was out of the
room. I hoped he would.”
She nodded uncertainly, as one blinded by a sudden vision, then moved
unsteadily to the desk and stood looking down at the faint, irregular
patch. She put out a hand, lean and claw-like, forcing herself to touch
the discolored leather. Leaning over it, her eyes dark with unfathomable
things, she relived something in that moment; but it was hidden too deep
for discovery. Finally she spoke, as though to some one far distant.
“Is it always this way? Is the whole world full of stains like this,
stains that go deeper and deeper, however we try to rub them out, till
by and by we cannot reach them?”
“Some stains are never effaced,” said Derrick grimly. “We only rub them
deeper in.”
“And Martin is here to-night!” The words came from her very soul.
“Martin is probably in the cottage at this moment.”
“But he said he was going to the village.”
Derrick reached for his pipe. “Yes, that’s what I told him, but now I
think he’s in the cottage. He does not want to go further from the house
than that. I don’t know why, but I know.”
She sent him a look like that of an animal in a trap and left the room.
Derrick sucked at his pipe, pitching his mind back over the last
half-hour, piecing together fragment after fragment of evidence, but
groping in vain for some underlying fact. Incident and strange
coincident, shuffle them as he might, they made no decipherable pattern.
Then, as happened so often, his eyes wandered to the portrait of
Millicent.
“Is it all right,” he said, half aloud, “you whom I have never seen? You
know why I am trying, but I do not. It’s all clear on your side, but
misty on mine. Is it only for a little longer, till you find rest and
sleep—for till then will there be no peace for me?”
“Jack,” sounded a voice at the door, “who on earth are you talking to?”
He started and laughed awkwardly. “Come in, Edith; I thought you were
asleep long ago.”
“I couldn’t get to sleep, so thought I would come and see you. Why this
oration to an empty room?”
He hooked his arm into hers, led her across, and halted under the
portrait.
“I want you to help me do something for that chap.”
She looked at him regretfully. “There’s no reason in you at all, and
just when I had persuaded myself that everything was all right.”
“I admit it sounds ridiculous, but really it’s not. I was never more
serious in my life.”
“But how can you do anything for a dead man you never knew?” She glanced
keenly about the room. “Do you remember our last talk, the one we had
just after we got here?”
“Yes, every word of it. And I’m not going to try you now.”
She put a hand on his arm. “It isn’t myself, Jack; it’s you. I’m all
right, except that I blame myself for having been rather silly. But I
know perfectly well that nothing has been natural since we came here,
especially yourself. Things seem to be settled in the ordinary way; then
you make me feel they’re not settled, and you, my dear brother, are
drifting about as you never have before. What is it? If I knew, perhaps
I might help. Really I don’t understand, and in a queer way we don’t
seem to be living for ourselves any longer.”
“Well,” he countered, “I’m not altogether unpractical. For instance, I
think I’ve got hold of a first-rate gardener.”
“To-night?”
“Yes, he has just gone. I took him on, and he starts to-morrow.”
She brightened at that and went off after begging him not to sit up too
late. Derrick went back to his desk, feeling suddenly a little weary.
The singing silence reasserted itself, and the fire was low. He
endeavored to work.
Presently he looked up sharply and caught his breath. There was a
distinct tapping at the French window. He had a novel sensation of fear.
The sound continued with a sort of regular and tiny beat. He got up
slowly, and drew aside the curtain. The window was not locked. Through
the glass he saw the peaked cap, red face, and brass buttons of a
gigantic policeman. The man made a reassuring salute, and Derrick opened
the window.
“Come in,” he said.
“Beg pardon, sir, for not going to the front door, but I saw you were
alone and didn’t want to wake the whole house. There’s no other light
anywhere.”
“All right, officer, but you gave me a bit of a start. What is it?”
“I’m on patrol, sir, passing here twice every night. I usually take a
stroll round the house and cottage to see that all is as it should be,
and just now, when I was at the back of the cottage, I noticed a light
inside. That surprised me, as I knew it had not been occupied since Mr.
Thursby left.”
“That’s quite right.”
“Well, sir, there’s a man there now. Is that with your permission?”
Derrick’s pulse beat a little faster. “What sort of a man?”
“Middle-aged, sir, queer face, queer clothes, sitting on a chair and
staring.”
“At what?”
“At nothing, sir, so far as I could make out. A thick-set party, his
skin burned and brown as though he’d come off the sea. Black hair, he
has, and big hands and odd eyes that never stirred. It was the eyes that
took me. He’s an ugly-looking customer all round, sir, but I thought I’d
better see you before I pulled him in, just in case. What puzzled me was
the lamp being lit and the blind up, if he’d no right to be there.
There, was a bundle on the floor beside him.”
“I’m glad you came in first. How long have you been on duty in the
village?”
“Matter of a year and a half now, sir. I was transferred here just about
the time Mr. Thursby left Beech Lodge.”
“Well, I’ve been here a little more than a week. You knew, of course,
that this was Mr. Millicent’s house?”
“Yes, sir, we all know that. There wasn’t much chance of forgetting it.”
“But I don’t suppose you personally know anything about his death—or
murder, if you like?”
The constable shook his head. “I know what the rest of the force knows,
and I’ve read the evidence at the inquest. But there wasn’t anything dug
up then that was of any real use.”
Derrick nodded. “I had heard nothing of it up to a week ago, not even a
whisper when I leased this house last month. Now I’m beginning to feel
as though I’d known it all my life. What does the sergeant think about
it?”
“I’m not supposed to say anything about what’s not my duty, sir,”
replied the man a trifle stiffly.
“You’re probably right there; is this the first time you’ve been in this
room?”
The constable looked ponderously about, his eyes glinting at sight of
the desk. He knew what had happened there. Then at the portrait, with a
hard stare.
“Yes, sir, first time.”
“Ever been in the house at all?”
“No, sir, never crossed the door-step.”
“I suppose you know that Mr. Millicent was found dead at this desk with
a stab in his neck? That’s him above the mantel. They say it’s very like
him and, oddly, something like me.”
“I was told about that, sir. A harmless-looking gentleman, I should
say.”
“And you’ll probably remember that the only person on whom suspicion
really fell was Mr. Millicent’s gardener. I think that’s common
knowledge, too.”
“Yes, sir, it is, but he cleared himself somehow, got out of the
country, and hasn’t been seen since.”
“Well,” said Derrick slowly, “that’s the man you found in the cottage,
the late gardener of Beech Lodge, and I’ve engaged him to work for me.
Can you guess why, constable?”
The policeman’s mouth opened wide. “But he’s the one who the sergeant
thinks—” He broke off confusedly, while over his face spread a look of
dawning astonishment and admiration. “By George, sir, but you’ve done a
bold thing, and there’s not many would have done it. Perhaps you’re on
the right track. But what brought the fellow here again into the middle
of it?”
Derrick smiled grimly. “Now you’re asking too much. We haven’t come to
that yet, and there’s no immediate hurry. Main thing is, he’s here and
settled for the present. That gives one time to think. As for my end of
it, I may be on the right track, and I may not. At any rate, I’m going
to make a push for it. So far, I’m trying to piece some of the bits
together, and Martin’s arrival is one of them. There’s bound to be a
good deal more. So don’t disturb our friend in the cottage, for I fancy
he’ll be rather badly needed. And, look here, do you think the sergeant
will be willing to have a talk about this matter?”
“If you’re on the track of the man who killed Mr. Millicent, the
sergeant would walk twenty miles to see you. I think he dreams about
that case every night. It’s a sort of reflection on the police force of
Bamberley. It hurts him. That’s the way he feels still.”
“Good! But perhaps it would be better if I went to see him. I’ll do that
within the next few weeks. Meantime do you have to report this visit?”
“Only that the cottage is occupied with your authority. That takes it
off our special list of empty buildings.”
“I’d be glad if it went no further than that, and the sergeant will
agree with me there. Good night, officer. I shall sleep peacefully now,
thanks to you. You can’t take a drink, I suppose?”
The big man smiled ruefully. “No, sir; thanks just the same. I think
you’ll be a welcome visitor at the station. Good night, and I’ll slip
past the cottage without disturbing our friend.”
He saluted, the French window closed behind him without a sound, and his
great bulk melted into the darkness.