GOD—OR DEVIL?
THE THING on the table was a diminutive image, about three and a half
inches high. It was carved, apparently, from a single block of the most
perfect jade, and when the sergeant, fingering it delicately, held it
toward the window, the light filtered through it, illuminating it with
striking translucency. The base was perhaps two and a half inches
square, supporting a tiny throne, on which sat a figure clothed in
flowing robes. Each individual drape and fold was produced with absolute
fidelity. The hands of the figure were folded, showing narrow
finger-nails of extreme length; and though the general suggestion was
that of the god Buddha, Derrick remembered that in such images as he had
seen the right hand was raised in benediction.
But there was no benediction here. The head was bent slightly forward,
the slits of Oriental eyes were represented as half closed, and over the
whole face rested an expression of utter and fiendish malignity. One
could not imagine anything more devilish and cruel. There was power in
the face, an abysmal knowledge that penetrated all human frailty and
disguise, and a certain fixed, implacable purpose. Derrick had spent
hours in secret scrutiny of the thing, and it seemed to him that here
was the presentment of the embodiment of evil, and, fixed with an
infinity of patient art, there had been transmitted to this opaque and
precious stone the picture of some soul, wicked and irretrievably
damned. Even now as he stared a chill ran through his body, and he
glanced at the sergeant to determine whether he, too, were not
susceptible to this malign emanation.
“I don’t know that I ever saw a more ugly thing in my life,” said the
latter slowly. “Where did you find it, sir?”
“It’s not much use at the moment to try and tell you what led up to
that. I can only say that ever since going into the house I have been
conscious of something. I had no reason to believe that anything of this
kind existed there, and in spite of what you have said I can’t quite see
that this is really evidence, as yet. All we know is that it used to
stand on Millicent’s desk and was missed after the murder. It may be the
thing that both Martin and Perkins were seeking, but it was removed
during that half-hour of which we spoke.”
“My first move would be to confront them both with this thing when they
didn’t expect it, and watch what happened.”
“I’m afraid I can’t agree with you there. I’ve never studied your
profession but fancy you’d get as much out of them as out of the image
itself. Perkins has been under very close observation for weeks without
knowing it, and her face is a mask. Martin is much the same. The minds
of both of them are foreign countries, so far as we are concerned.”
The sergeant leaned forward. There was no doubt about his attitude now.
“Perhaps you’re right, sir, but what is in your mind as to the next
move?”
“I haven’t gone far enough to say, and there’s an old proverb about
hurrying slowly. Meantime I’d like to know whether you agree that to-day
there are aspects of the case that so far have not been considered at
all?”
“In fairness to you, sir, I must admit that.”
“Then you’ll also agree that of the two ways of approaching it the
inductive method is the only one to be considered?”
Burke was genuinely puzzled and showed it. “I’m afraid I don’t quite
follow you there, Mr. Derrick. It sounds like one of those magazine
stories where the police always fall down and the amateur pulls the
thing off.”
Derrick laughed. “I’ve an idea the police won’t fall down this time if
they adopt the right method—at least the method that I would follow
myself.”
The sergeant looked at him curiously. “And how would you start in this
case, may I ask?”
“Not knowing who the murderer is, let us assume one and proceed on that
assumption. We can safely say that he did his work between nine and ten
at night. We assume also that he did not come with any murderous intent,
unless, and this is a point that must be carefully considered, unless he
knew that there was on Mr. Millicent’s desk a weapon suitable for his
purpose. We also assume that he knew about the image, though for some
reason he denied this, and, more than that, believed that it had
something to do with some act that weighed against him—say, in the
Orient. Mr. Millicent also knew this, and therefore concealed it, and
thereby maintained his hold over the criminal—or the man who finally
became the criminal. That the image should have remained undisturbed for
two years points to the absence of the criminal for that period.”
Derrick paused for a moment and looked hard at the sergeant. “Are you
with me thus far?”
“Yes, go on, sir,” was the tense answer.
“Well, add to that the characteristics of Perkins and Martin, and there
remains the doubt as to whether the woman actually did run to Mrs.
Millicent’s room the minute she made the discovery. Admit the
possibility that she actually saw the murder committed, and, having
secret reasons for sparing Martin, allowed him to return to the cottage
before giving the alarm. Assume, for instance, that she was terrified by
Martin into doing this.”
The sergeant struck his clenched fist into his palm. “By God, sir! but
that’s more than likely.”
“There’s nothing in the evidence to prevent it being the case except the
testimony of two persons who you believe know more than was drawn out.
It simply involves the reversal of the sequence of two actions to both
of which Perkins was sworn. To-day she is to all appearances a
broken-hearted woman. Why? Two reasons; one that the master to whom she
was so undoubtedly devoted was killed; the other that for fear of her
own life she has committed herself to the protection of the criminal. In
this connection there’s a very interesting point. When Martin came to me
and asked for a job, I made a point of privately inquiring from Perkins
whether, from all she knew of him, and under all the circumstances, I
would do well to take him on. Her answer was that if I wanted a garden
like Mr. Millicent’s I should take him. It seems to me now that she was
afraid of what would happen if she said anything else.”
“Yes, sir, that fits in perfectly.”
Derrick got up and relit his pipe. “Then, I think we might let the
matter rest there for a while, and I won’t trouble you any further this
morning. If it is decided to do anything later on, it will all be done
through you, as I do not wish to appear in the thing at all.”
“Very good, sir, and if I can help, which I’d like to, I’ll go as far as
my duties permit, and maybe”—here the sergeant grinned meaningly—“a
bit further.” He pointed to the jade god. “Had I better keep this thing
here?”
Derrick shook his head, picked up the image gingerly, and slipped it in
his pocket.
“No, thanks, I want to use it for a while. By the way, do you know
whether I can get a couple of pounds of green wax in Bamberley?”
Jean Millicent’s unpremeditated visit to Beech Lodge had marked a
turning-point in the long, gray months that followed her father’s death.
The violence and brutality of this had shocked her beyond words, while
to her sense of loss was added the numbing knowledge that on the very
threshold of life she had been confronted with the worst that life had
to exhibit. Millicent himself had had no surviving relations; her
mother’s people, after the first horrified sympathy, did not allow the
matter to burden them further; and, as the girl impulsively told
Derrick, she felt tremendously alone.
Between mother and daughter there was complete love—and a limited
understanding. The real link had been with Millicent, from whom Jean
inherited the subjective side of her nature. She had a profound belief
in mysterious influences, incapable of analysis, but controlling
nevertheless the world of unseen things. She realized that she moved
among these, swaying unconsciously to their faint pressure, the
recipient of distant and unmistakable signals that flicked over the
horizon of existence. She had never talked much about this with her
father. His own belief had of late been too burdened with an
apprehension she never fathomed. But she understood where her mother
often failed to understand, silently completing the sentences he
sometimes left unfinished, putting her mind parallel with his, and
building up a queer unexplainable union that expressed itself not so
much in speech as in those fleeting glances of comprehension that are
more eloquent than any words.
Something of this she recognized in Derrick, and the psychology of the
moment was such that it meant more than she could well express. While
she was with her mother, her heart needed no other companion, though her
spirit was lonely. But she had not been lonely during her visit to Beech
Lodge, however strange the circumstances. She knew now that the visit
was intended. For the first time she had been in touch with another
intelligence that acknowledged what she acknowledged but remained poised
and unafraid. It was like traveling through an unknown and threatening
country, and meeting one to whom all its roads are familiar and who
traverses them without fear.
A few days after Derrick’s visit to the sergeant, he and his sister
walked two lovely miles to the Millicents’. Edith was glad of it for
several reasons. She admitted being lonely, and also welcomed anything
that lifted her brother out of himself. For the past few weeks she had
watched him closely, saying nothing. He was less distrait and more like
his old self, but she knew that the novel progressed not at all. He was
busy in his own peculiar way, and she asked no questions.
She was charmed with Mrs. Millicent, found they had much in common, and
noted with contentment that Jean and her brother seemed like old
friends. While all four were together, the subject of Beech Lodge was
instinctively avoided, but a little later Derrick found himself in the
cottage garden with Jean. It was after a pause that she sent him a
straight questioning look.
“Well, I’m waiting. Something tells me you’ve been very busy and, I
think, successful.”
“Busy, yes,” he smiled, “but I don’t know how successful.”
“Did you have a long talk at the police station?”
“Fairly long. The sergeant regarded me at first as most officials regard
the amateur, but he was interested before I left. It seems that he
regards your father’s case as the one unsatisfactory spot on his record.
It’s odd to talk to a man who is so blunt and at the same time has to
admit that he’s beaten.”
“But you haven’t told me yet. I know by your face there’s something.”
“Yes,” he admitted, “there is. Will you let me know what you can about a
small image that came from Burma?”
“The jade god?” she said swiftly.
“Yes—or devil.”
“How extraordinary! Have you come to that, too?”
“Or else it came to me. Look!”
She shrank involuntarily, then, without touching the thing he had taken
from his pocket, stared at it closely.
“Are there two? Where did you find that?”
“No,” he smiled, “this is a cast in green wax made from a mold I took of
the image itself. I—” he hesitated—“I did not like to carry the
original about with me.”
“I think you are very wise, but where did you find the original?” Her
eyes were full of wonder.
“It happened a week ago, the day before I went to see Sergeant Burke. I
was in the study, looking at your father’s portrait as I often do, when
it seemed more than ever that he was trying to tell me something. That
has often been the case before, but never as vividly. He wanted to
speak, and I believe he was speaking, but not in a language I could
understand. Then I got up and stood in front of him and could have sworn
the expression of his eyes changed. They appeared to be looking down at
something below himself and not far away. Without knowing it I put out
my hand as though to meet an invisible one held out to me, and touched
the oak frame on the side of the mantel. You know those old carvings?”
“Yes,” she said breathlessly.
“It was just under the upper one. Then I heard a click, and a small
panel fell forward, opening a tiny cupboard about six inches square. The
original of this thing was inside, as though it had been waiting for me.
I did not touch it at once but looked up, and there was a sort of relief
in the painted eyes.”
“Go on; please go on!”
“I haven’t much more to say, as yet, except that to my knowledge both
Perkins and Martin have searched the study for something I take to be
the original of this. There’s one other thing to be found now. Evidence
was given that it was there that evening and has not been seen since.”
“I know what that is.”
“Well, I have an idea it’s not far away.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I don’t know, but I feel it. Meantime will you tell me what you know of
the image?”
“Father brought it back from Burma about seven years ago,” she said
slowly, “and seemed both to love and fear it. I have always thought it
terrible, as though half the evil in the world had been captured in that
bit of green stone. From the time he brought it back he himself appeared
to change. I felt that the more because we were very near each other, he
and I, and he believed what you believe. We never talked much about it,
as that didn’t seem necessary. As to the image, I knew it was somewhere
in the study but didn’t know where. No one did. All he ever said about
it was that he got it up country. I have seen Perkins come in when it
was on the desk, try not to look at it, then stare as though
fascinated.”
“Did Martin ever see it?” put in Derrick.
“Yes, and it had the same effect on him. I often wanted to smile at
grown people feeling like that, but somehow I couldn’t.”
“Then, if either Perkins or Martin wanted it there would have been no
great difficulty in stealing it?”
“Perhaps not, but I had a queer idea that though their fingers itched
for it they were afraid to touch it.”
“Yet it kept Perkins at Beech Lodge, and brought Martin back half round
the world. It sent out vibrations to which they had to respond.”
“You believe that?”
He nodded.
“It all fits in,” she admitted slowly. “Always in the study I’ve felt
some kind of war going on between influences; good fighting with evil.
Father used to feel that, too. The room found its own voice and spoke,
and against that was the voice of the jade god, confusing and
confounding everything with threatening messages.”
“And you are satisfied there was no common interest between Perkins and
Martin?”
“I don’t see how that could be. She never had anything to do with him
and didn’t even like having him about the house. I never saw them
together.”
“May I ask if you know what your father actually did in Burma?”
“No, sometimes he talked about the Mong Hills, but he never made any
money in the Orient and used to come back saying that he had been in
touch with strange things and people. That used to content him, but
latterly he sometimes used to look desperate. As to money, we have
always had enough to live quietly.”
“Do you think he had any premonitions of death?”
“No, I’m sure of that. Once he said that it was harder to live than die,
so he expected to live a long time.”
“Was that after his last trip?”
“Yes.”
Derrick was silent for a moment. “Does Mrs. Millicent know that I’m
working on this?” he asked presently.
She sent him a quick smile. “Yes, and she thinks it’s tremendously kind
of you but that it can’t come to anything.”
“My sister knows, too, and can’t see the point, either.”
“She would feel that it is interfering with your work. I feel it, too,
and it may prevent a splendid book from being written. Am I tremendously
selfish?”
He looked at her steadily, and her eyes met his without flinching. She
stood, tall, slim, and straight, with a proud carriage to her head and a
broad serenity of brow. Imagination was in her face, the beauty of whose
contour filled him with a sort of comforting satisfaction. It was firm
but gentle, courageous but sweet. Her eyes were a little wistful, and
charged with changing lights and shadows that he found infinitely
appealing. She awakened both heart and spirit, and he knew she could
awaken his soul. What would it be like to be cared for by such a girl?
He felt that already there existed between them something more than
friendship.
“Will you forgive me for putting you through such an inquisition?” he
asked.
“There is nothing to forgive, and everything to thank you for.”
“I think you are very brave.”
“Brave! It is you who are brave. We have no claim, no reason why you
should be involved in all this.”
“And yet,” he said thoughtfully, “I was involved before we two ever
met.” He made a sudden impulsive gesture, but it was his eyes that spoke
next.
She smiled gravely, and at that smile he knew that another voice had
reached him from the unknown. It carried no mysterious threat; it was
unburdened with tragedy; it emanated neither from wood nor stone nor a
jade devil. It was part of the rest, but all grace and purity and joy; a
whisper of life, not death. What sped between them then he could never
tell, but some echo of that whisper must have reached Jean, for her
glance, strange and lingering and perhaps prophetic, met his own for a
memorable instant while the color climbed delicately to her smooth
cheeks.
“You see,” she said softly, “unless I can think of myself as having
shaken all this off, and laid the ghost of uncertainty and, yes, fear, I
can never have any real future.”
He pressed her slim fingers. “Don’t worry about the future,” he
whispered.
Edith was very cheerful on the way home. She had had a long talk with
Mrs. Millicent, promised her Derrick’s last book, found they had mutual
friends, and in general enjoyed herself. It was a relief to be with some
one professedly practical. Also she was beginning to entertain a shrewd
suspicion that her brother was rather more than interested in Jean and
turned the conversation in that direction before long. She chatted away,
swinging her stick and feeling more at peace with herself than for some
time past.
“I don’t think they’ll stay there very long,” she hazarded. “It’s too
lonely. Mrs. Millicent spoke of France for the summer and feels that
Jean should have a change. It’s no place for a girl like that.”
“Oh!” said Derrick uncomfortably.
“From what I gathered she blames herself for having stayed there at all.
It seems she wanted to move away altogether, but Jean wouldn’t have it.
She’s worried about the child and says that she cannot shake the
dreadful thing off, which isn’t a healthy state of affairs at that age.
You two hit it off very well, Jack, from what I saw. You had a regular
conference.”
He laughed. “Did we?”
“Didn’t you? You ought to know. I never realized fully before what a
variety of interests you seem to demand. First you come into the country
to write a novel—and, by the way, you’ll notice I’ve said nothing about
the novel recently—then you switch off to a murder case, and I haven’t
mentioned that either recently, and the latest development is a
perfectly new young woman of undoubted charm, of whom I begin to have
suspicions.”
“And of whom perhaps you won’t say anything at all,” he parried.
Edith nodded. “Nothing could arouse feminine intuition more than that
remark. However, she’s awfully attractive.”
Derrick grinned. “Suppose we leave it at that.”
“All right, brother, but just in case my feminine intuition happens to
be right, I wouldn’t take Miss Millicent too seriously.”
“You’re very oracular to-day, Edith. What is it?”
“Her mother practically said that she didn’t understand that girl, but
did know that she still felt very strangely about her father’s death.”
“One can imagine that.”
“Yes, of course, but it works in a curious way on her mind. She imagines
herself linked with it in some odd fashion and won’t think of marrying
till the thing is cleared up, which, of course, it never will be now.
She argues that she has her father’s blood and all that, and she may
have inherited some kind of threat or danger or whatever it was that
killed him. The very idea seems grotesque to me, but there you are.”
“What else did Mrs. Millicent say?”
“Very little more about Jean, and nothing of her husband, but she did
talk about Perkins and Martin. I suppose she wanted to reassure me.”
“Anything new about them?”
“Nothing much. Perkins seems to have been just as invaluable to them as
she is to me. You know, Jack, I’ve rather changed my mind about that
woman.”
“In what way? Perkins hasn’t changed that I can see.”
“Not a fraction. She looks just as forbidding and severe and
wet-blankety as ever, and that used to worry me more than you ever knew.
Also I was puzzled about you, and the influence the place seemed to be
getting over you, upsetting your work. I’ve got over that now, and
Perkins has turned out a regular trump. I’m beginning to see what’s
behind that manner of hers.”
“I wish I could.”
“Jack, it’s only that of a broken-hearted woman, her way of expressing
it, and nothing else. Yet in spite of that she’s a household treasure.
Things do themselves; there’s no lost energy and no lost time. If
Perkins could be duplicated in sufficient quantities she’d revolutionize
domestic life in England.”
“It’s a pity she’s never married and started a new breed.”
Edith decapitated a surviving thistle. “That kind doesn’t marry very
often. They’re born into the world without any desire for marriage, and
perhaps it’s just as well in this case. She’d be working for her husband
and not for us. Marriage,” she added quizzically, “isn’t the solution
for everything.”
“But why do you say she’s broken-hearted?”
“Because of a queer thing that happened last night. I wasn’t going to
say anything about it, but you’re so unusually sensible to-day that it
doesn’t matter. I was lying half awake last night, and seemed to hear
some one talking at a little distance with no attempt at concealment,
and quite loud, so I wasn’t nervous. It was a woman’s voice. I got up
and prowled about and found it came from Perkins’s room. She was talking
in her sleep in a queer, flat tone, talking very fast, apparently
arguing with some one, greatly excited and rather desperate.”
“What was she saying?” put in Derrick sharply.
“That’s the strange part of it; I couldn’t understand a word. It was all
in some strange liquid sort of language, ending in ‘ong’ and ‘yang’ and
‘ing,’ and sounds like that. Three or four times she said, ‘Master,
master.’ That must have meant Mr. Millicent, to whom she was so devoted.
All of a sudden it stopped, as though her brain had come back from its
travels, and I heard nothing more. This morning I looked at her very
closely, but not a line of her face had changed, and her eyes were just
the same as ever. She had evidently been dreaming about Mr. Millicent’s
death, and, Jack, that’s the biggest thing in her life now. She was dour
and silent before; Mrs. Millicent said so to-day; and one can imagine
what a tragedy like that must mean to a queer locked-up nature like
hers.”
“Can’t you remember any of the foreign words she used?” he asked
casually.
She frowned a little, thinking hard. “There were two that came quite
often, more than any others, one something like ‘rumah,’ ‘sambayüng,’
and the other like ‘santari.’ That’s as near as I can get to it. Why do
you ask?”
“No particular reason, except that I’d like to identify the language.”
“You’re not going to speak to Perkins herself, are you?”
“No,” he smiled. “Far be it from me to put my finger into the wheels of
domestic comfort. Anything more about her?”
“Nothing except that I’m going to try and cheer her up, and coax out a
smile or two. As it is she smiles about once a week. Then there’s
Martin.”
“And what of him?”
“I don’t quite know. I’ve been watching him at work and talking to him
occasionally, and what strikes me is that here at Beech Lodge are two of
the loneliest souls imaginable. I’ve got it now!” she added suddenly.
“Why shouldn’t they marry?”
“Oh!” said Derrick, startled.
“Well, just think a minute. It might work splendidly for all concerned,”
continued Edith, warming to the idea. “Martin, in spite of his
appearance, is as faithful as a dog, and he absolutely loves flowers.
This place is going to be a picture next summer. He’s had some sort of a
blow, too, and his eyes are often more sad than I can describe, and not
a bit shifty or furtive. And he’s beginning to like you just as he used
to like Mr. Millicent from all accounts. Jack, why shouldn’t they marry?
Don’t you suppose it’s possible that that’s what brought him back,
looking for Perkins?”
Derrick did not answer at once. The idea was too fantastic. It was not
Perkins that Martin sought when he returned, nor was she the type of
woman to bring a suspected man round the world to a place which for
every reason he should avoid. They shared something; he was sure of
that; but whatever it was it had dug a gulf between them, and to
discover a bridge to span that gulf was Derrick’s aim.
“If I were you I’d put that idea out of my head,” he said quietly.
Edith was a little disappointed. “Why? Stranger things have happened
before this.”
It was on the tip of his tongue to say that stranger things would
probably happen, but he only laughed.
“We know nothing of their past—that is, before they came to Beech
Lodge—and their future is their own. It’s too delicate a business.
Perkins doesn’t like Martin, though she was bound to recommend him as an
excellent gardener, and it would be stretching the point a good deal to
imagine that she is anything to him. She hardly speaks to him as it is.
Didn’t you say just now that she was not the marrying kind?”
“Yes, I did; but since there’s no probability of my arranging my own
wedding, I rather like to potter about with other people’s. That may be
useful to you, Jack, later on. As to Perkins, I dare say you’re right,
and after all, if they did ultimately come together, it couldn’t be
utterly festive, could it?”
“No,” he laughed, “it couldn’t. What else is there in the mind of the
thoughtful Martha?”
“Nothing except that I’d like to make those two lives a bit more cheery,
if I could; and naturally one’s mind pitches ahead.”
“It does,” he admitted. “Do you feel prophetic at the moment?”
She sent him a keen glance, at which he colored in spite of himself.
“I don’t believe, old boy, you’re quite ready for me to go on yet.”
Now, if one takes the case of a highly sensitive and imaginative young
man, whose mind is continually exploring for new sensations, and plunges
him into a situation that is clothed with grimness and mystery, there
will inevitably be set up a series of reactions such as Derrick had been
experiencing for weeks past. And if, further, he then comes into touch
with the girl whom he desires for his own, discovers her to be involved
in the mystery, and realizes that she will remain out of reach till the
problem is solved and her spirit set free, there will be added to his
efforts the greatest incentive of all.
So it was with Derrick. Both from Jean herself and from Jean’s mother he
now knew exactly where he stood. Though not told in so many words, he
was under no misapprehension. All thought of his own work disappeared.
This was his work, and the call of it was irresistible. As for Edith,
and he smiled when he thought of her, she was in no danger. She stood
too far outside the sweep of the drama, and it would be an error in
tactics to tell her too much. He believed he would need her help at the
end, but the end was not yet.
He was returning from a long and solitary walk when, nearing Beech
Lodge, he noted on the road ahead a curious figure. It was that of an
elderly-looking man who tramped some hundred yards in advance. His
clothing was loose and weather-beaten. He stooped a little forward as he
walked, and supported himself on a staff which he had evidently cut by
the way. As Derrick drew abreast he took a sidelong glance and at once
remarked the brightness of the stranger’s eyes. Physically he did not
seem more than fifty years old. A first impression of age was given by
the whiteness of his beard, but in spite of both stoop and stick he
moved with an agility that belied his apparent years. His skin was a
dark olive shade, his nose hooked like a raven’s beak, and his cotton
shirt was open at the neck, showing where a thin gold chain lay yellow
against the swarthy flesh.
Derrick, meeting a swift look, experienced a sudden thrill. What manner
of man was this to find in a Sussex lane? It seemed that something
invisible but enormously potent moved down the road beside him. Then,
instinctively, he halted at the gate of Beech Lodge and waited till the
stranger came up. The latter made a sweeping gesture of salutation, and
swung forward the pack that had been balanced on his shoulders.
“Good morning, sir. Will you buy a trinket and help an old man on his
way? Cheap, sir, cheap, so cheap that they’re nothing short of presents,
trade is that bad. Worse than I ever saw it in this country before.”
He spoke in a thin singsong voice that carried with it a sort of
outlandish lilt. No British peddler this, but one from foreign parts.
Derrick felt a now familiar thrill, and the spirit of him scented the
Orient.
“What part of the world do you hail from?”
“Any and every part, sir. So long as it’s south of the line it makes no
difference to me. Central America, Bengal, Borneo, the Cape, Cochîn, and
Singapore, they’re all the same.” He shivered a little. “Time was when I
thought the old country was the only place in the world, but I’ve got
over that now, specially in winter.”
“Have you been here long this time?”
“A matter of a few months, but I’m going back East. This wind is too
much for my bones.”
“What have you got?”
The pack was unrolled deftly on the wet grass, and inside lay a long
strip of raw silk. Opening this after a swift glance down the road, the
stranger revealed a medley of things, some beautiful, many valuable, and
none of them ordinary. No Manchester stock was this. He had chains of
native workmanship, hammered bangles of gold and silver, semi-precious
stones carved with amazing cleverness, bits of oddly shaped ivory, all
the paraphernalia of the peddler of the Far East. These he showed with
obvious and lingering interest as though he loved them, pattering
meantime of the Sunda Islands, the Moluccas, Bali, Lombok, and a host of
Eastern ports and places whose accustomed names fell from his lips with
glib fluency. There was no doubt about his knowing the East.
“This, sir, is a bit of hammered tin from Kuantan in Pahang, and you
don’t get much of that kind of work nowadays. They wash the tin out of
the gravel on the hillsides, and there are only three men in Malaysia
who turn out this grade of art. This gold bangle is from Berak—all
Chinese labor there—and you can have it for ten shillings. Better take
it, sir, for it weighs twenty pennyweight and is worth a sovereign for
the gold alone.”
“Then why not sell it as gold?”
“I wouldn’t offer it unless I were footsore and had to have somewhere to
sleep. Can’t sell this sort of thing in an English village. I’d get
arrested for having it; that’s why I’m heading for London.”
His piercing eyes rested on Derrick while he spoke, and in them moved
something more than a mere interested scrutiny. Then they roamed
curiously about the neighborhood. A brain was working behind those eyes,
and it occurred to Derrick that this man knew well where he was.
“Ever been in this part of England before?”
The lean brown fingers hung motionless over the trinkets. “No, sir,
there’s nothing to bring my kind here unless it’s the June race meet.
Won’t you take this bangle? There’s a good twenty pennyweight of fine
gold in it. There isn’t a lady who would turn up her nose at it. I’ve
seen a woman bought and sold for one not half as good.”
Derrick hesitated. Strange thoughts were coursing through his head and
with them the growing conviction that this, like all the rest of it, was
meant to be. Perhaps it was grotesque, but had not Perkins said weeks
ago that others were coming to Beech Lodge, drawn by mysterious signals
they could not withstand? Then Martin had come, and Jean Millicent, and
who should say that here was not the last of the gathered company. It
was not a bundle of trinkets that had brought this wanderer to these
tragic gates.
“What’s your name? You speak good English, but you’re not English, are
you?”
The peddler shook his head. “No, sir, my name is Blunt. My father was
English and my mother a Malay woman. I was born out there and spent most
of my time between the islands. Now I’m for getting back as soon as I
can, so I’m heading for the East India Docks, where I’ll sign on. It’s
too cold for me in this country. Couldn’t I spend the night in one of
the outhouses, sir?”
“Well,” said Derrick thoughtfully, “I think perhaps my gardener might
find a corner for you in his cottage. I’ve no objections. You can see
him about it, if you like.”
The man’s dark eyes took on a sudden gleam. “That’s good of you, sir,
and I won’t be a bit of trouble to any one. If there’s any work to be
done, I’ll do it. Here, you’d better take this bangle now.”
He held out the yellow circlet. Derrick was about to refuse when
something whispered to him to take it. Slipping it into his pocket, he
was surprised at its weight.
“Why do you offer something worth a sovereign for a night’s lodging?” he
queried.
The peddler sent him a curious glance. “That’s all right, sir. A few
pennyweight of gold is neither here nor there in a lifetime.”
Derrick nodded. “Perhaps not—to either of us. If you turn in here I
think you’ll find the gardener just on the other side of the cottage.”
The man rolled up his pack and moved along the drive toward the house.
Derrick stood irresolute for a moment; then something impelled him to
follow. Presently he stopped and, making no noise, slipped behind a
sheltering tree. The peddler was now thirty yards ahead. At this moment
Martin, who had been working among his rose-bushes, looked up and saw
the stranger.
What happened next was all over in an instant. He made a swift
involuntary gesture in which fear and astonishment were tensely blended.
The spade slipped from his fingers, and his eyes protruded. He seemed to
sway a little as he stood with an uncouth elephantine motion, and his
lips trembled, but no sound came from them. Then, as Derrick emerged
from behind the tree and came carelessly toward him, he made an
extraordinary noise in his throat and turned again to his work. And, so
far as the master of Beech Lodge could determine, the peddler had given
no sign whatever.
Derrick lounged forward with a manner of complete indifference.
“Martin, this man has asked that he might sleep somewhere on the place
to-night, and I told him I had no objection to his spending it in the
cottage if you’re willing. His name is Blunt, and it’s for you to say.
You will be responsible for him if he does stay, so you can settle it
between you.”
The gardener’s face had become rigidly impassive, but there was no
concealing the blood that surged into it. He glanced first at his
master, then at the mysterious stranger, and moistened his dry lips.
“Name of Blunt, sir,” he said thickly. “That will be all right as far as
I’m concerned. I’ll look after him.”
Derrick, fearing that his curiosity might become too apparent, nodded
and strolled on toward the house. He was very deep in thought. Another
factor was now added to the problem and had to be dealt with. In a way
it was not unexpected. There had been built up a triangle with a dead
man in the center and an undeciphered personality at each corner. Was
this all coincidence, or was not destiny rather arranging the puppets of
a great drama without any extraneous assistance?
His first instinct was to report the new arrival to Sergeant Burke, but
on second thought he decided to say nothing at the moment. The
sergeant’s methods were too heavy-handed, too likely to disturb whatever
process was now at work. However vague to human eyes it might be, he was
convinced that subtle causes were in motion, wheels of fate that
revolved within other wheels, a mechanism that operated silently,
mysteriously, and with some inflexible purpose. As to himself, he could
only wait. Instructions would come, as they always had come, and in the
appointed time, from the same imperceptible and unchanging source.
As though in search of these, he went into the study and gave himself up
to thought, leaving the windows of his mind open to the lightest breath
of influence. His vision embraced four divergent figures, all of them
inextricably linked. Perkins, with the half-told tale of her life
shrouded behind her sphinx-like face, a domestic automaton as
imperturbable as the jade god itself, the rigid guardian of her own
secret, who talked a strange language in her sleep, and in that sleep
mourned the disappearance of her murdered master. Martin, new come from
round the world, the recipient of viewless signals that reached and
followed him through the rotting jungles, signals that worked and
whispered till they penetrated his slow brain and he came back perforce
ten thousand miles of land and sea, a suspect to the source of
suspicion, to work within sight of the window of the dead man of whose
violent passing he no doubt knew the secret.
Then the peddler, with restless intelligence in his ageless eyes,
himself a traveler from the same land of strange peoples, tongues, and
gods, tramping indomitably along the deep Sussex lanes till he arrived
as though by chance at the door of one who apparently knew him not, yet
regarded his advent with fear and astonishment. And, last of all, Jean
Millicent, the shadow of tragedy clouding her bright youth, a creature
made for love and tenderness and care but weighted with brooding
apprehensions, toward whom his own spirit had begun to move, striving,
seeking, and hoping.
Compassed with thoughts like these, he saw himself in relation to those
profound forces which, whether acknowledged or not, dominate our lives.
The winds of circumstance seemed to him no longer the winds of chance.
There was purpose behind all, some high and remote goal to which we are
led along roads that might seem strange and byways that wander
apparently from the general direction. He knew now that it would be
futile to attempt anything save the task that lay directly ahead, and
till that task was discharged Jean Millicent could never be his.
He was still plunged in reflection when Edith’s entrance brought him
sharply back to earth. She came into the study, noted that he was not
working, seemed about to speak, then smiled at him inquiringly. He
smiled back. She took a penny from her pocket and laid it silently on
the desk. Derrick was feeling for another when his fingers closed round
the gold bangle.
“Can you wear this?” he asked casually.
She examined it with delighted and intense interest. “It’s perfectly
lovely, Jack; but where on earth did you get it? Not in Bamberley?”
“Not much,” he laughed. “I got it as a present a few minutes ago from my
paying guest, or rather Martin’s.”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s a peddler down at the cottage now. He has a pack full of things
like that.”
She shook her head. “Jack, you know you can’t afford it.”
“It’s all right and didn’t cost me anything. It’s the price of a night’s
lodging with Martin.”
“Then why didn’t the man give it to Martin?”
“That never occurred to me. He was tired and footsore, wanted shelter
for the night, and I suggested to Martin that he take him in and be
responsible for him. The man insisted that I take this, so there you
are. Cheap at the price, I call it. There’s a sovereign worth of gold in
it.”
Edith pushed the bangle on her wrist and twisted it thoughtfully. “Why
don’t you tell me the real truth, old boy?”
“I have. Want to see him? Interesting sort of person, white beard,
bright eyes, and been everywhere. You’ll never guess where he’s come
from now.”
“Where?”
“Burma,” said Derrick meaningly.
“Isn’t that where you told me Martin had come from when he turned up
here?” she asked slowly.
“Yes.”
She was silent for a moment. “Well, Jack?”
He glanced at her thoughtfully. “It’s all part of the rest of it. I’m
caught up in something stronger than myself. I can’t help it.”
She took off the bangle and laid it on the desk. “Do you know where it’s
leading you?”
He nodded, smiling. “Yes, I think so.”
“To Jean Millicent?”
“I believe that,” he said gravely. “It seems now that it was meant I
should find her like this. It was all meant.”
Edith nodded. “When I saw you two together the other day I felt the same
thing, so you’d better give her this. It’s more appropriate. You see,
Jack,” she went on with a smile that was rather sober, “I’m not the
marrying kind.”
“Nonsense,” he expostulated.
“It’s quite true, and girls know it by instinct rather early in life.
Then they try to forget it, and settle down in a sort of way to making
other people comfortable. But they can’t help seeing what’s going on all
round them—I mean other girls with their men—and feeling a bit out of
it. It’s a bit solemn for a woman to realize that she’ll never waken the
biggest thing in the world in the heart of a man, because she lacks the
indescribable something that is necessary, and it makes a good many of
us queer and cantankerous. You see we don’t possess what every woman
longs for.
“Sometimes, too, she has a sort of perception about others. I had it
when I saw you with Jean; and, Jack, it made me happier than in a long
time. That’s why I want you to give her this bangle, which is really
lovely, and also tell me just what I can do to help. You needn’t make
any bones about that. It’s my job, and I’m thankful for it. And for
goodness’ sake, old boy, don’t think of me as being down in the mouth.
I’m not. I understand about you and Jean, and nothing would make me
happier, but as for all the rest of this queer affair I don’t understand
it at all. So tell me what I can do, and I’ll do it. And don’t you ever
think of me as a good-hearted and deserving spinster, or I’ll never
forgive you.”
It was a long speech for Edith, who but seldom let herself go. Derrick
was oddly touched and patted her arm affectionately. He knew she wanted
no thanks and felt that in the next few days he might need her more than
ever before.
“I’d like to tell you something. You probably won’t accept it as I do,
but you ought to know, and somehow I’m glad you don’t believe in the
occult.”
“I don’t,” she said frankly.
“Well,” he laughed, “please carry on. Nothing could help me more. I’ve
no desire to spend the rest of my life in criminal investigation. I know
you think I’m being carried too far by this one and am collecting a lot
of unimportant data that I anticipate will produce something remarkable
later on. Perhaps I am, but I’m going to see it through, and you know
what I’m working for.”
“She’s a darling,” murmured Edith, thoughtfully.
“It means everything to have you say that.” He looked at her keenly and,
deliberating how much to tell her of what was in his mind, decided to
leave the matter where it stood and disclose only what was necessary.
“You’ll think it wild of me to associate the coming of this peddler with
Millicent’s murder, but I do. I want to keep him here a few days if I
can. There’s something, I don’t know what, in the air; but the thing
that brought him is probably what brought Martin. I’ll talk with him
later on. Would you like to go up to town for a few days?”
“Why?” she asked, puzzled.
“I’ve been thinking it’s rather unfeeling of me to expect you to be here
at present under the circumstances. A good many women would not like
it.”
Edith smiled and shook her head. “My dear, I can’t take it as seriously
as you do, and I’m not nervous. Do anything you like that you believe
will bring you nearer Jean. Be as mysterious and occult as you please.
It won’t worry me a bit. But the house must be looked after, and that’s
for me. I hope this won’t upset Perkins, as things are going very
smoothly in her domain, and don’t forget that it will imperil next
year’s roses if you demoralize Martin. Now it’s time for lunch.”