“All right, Peters; he’s not dead. It’s only bluff. You can make your charge now, Mr. Derrick, and we’ll run him in.”
“Charge? I’ve nothing to charge him with.”
Burke grinned. “Do I take it that he attempted burglary and smashed that door by your request?”
Derrick laughed outright. “I’d clean forgotten that already.” What he did not tell the sergeant was that somehow he felt immeasurably younger and happier.
“Well, it’s plenty to hold him for a while till we get at the real thing. This will be theft and damage to property. Pick him up, Peters!”
“One minute,” interrupted Derrick. “Did he say anything to you?”
“Not a word, sir.”
The young man did not answer but knelt quickly beside the prone figure. A sickly color, half gray, half blue, was stealing slowly over the peddler’s features. His eyes, partly open, were glazed and sightless. His body, so lately animated by amazing vigor, had crumpled like a wet leaf. Derrick, feeling himself queerly numb, slid a hand under the torn shirt. No pulse of life was discernible. Close by lay the jade god, its tiny malignant face sneering up from the wet grass. The master of Beech Lodge saw it and shuddered. Was this the next man appointed to die, and had he been the prophet of his own passing? Then Burke knelt beside him, stared hard in his turn, and gave the white beard a strong and sudden jerk.
It came away in his hand, revealing a thin, oval face, a firm mouth and chin, the face of a man not over forty. The jerk had parted the lips, and these sent out a mocking grin, suggesting that it was nothing to Blunt what they did now. Derrick’s breath nearly stopped. A new shadow fell across the body. He looked up and saw Martin. There was a grim satisfaction in the gardener’s dark eyes. It shot through Derrick’s mind that this would free Martin from further suspicion. Burke stared at him, too, then at Derrick. He did not speak, but the same thought was in his mind. He turned again to the limp figure in the grass.
“It looks as though your friend were done for this time, Martin. I’ll not ask you anything now. Your opportunity will come later. Better give Peters a hand and take this chap to the cottage.”
The peddler was carried away, his slight frame sagging limply between gardener and constable. Derrick, watching this, yielded to a vivid realization of the immutability of fate. Ten minutes ago this man was charged with life, throbbing with a desire that he hugged to his soul, and for which he had journeyed from a mysterious country, forgetting all else in one supreme ambition. Now the thing that had driven him thus far had struck its own ambassador, the next appointed to die, and the thing itself leered up from the ground at his feet, malevolent, devilish, and seemingly yet unsatiated. Derrick picked up a stone and was about to splinter the sneering jade when something flickered in the green eyes, mocking and immune, warning him that the time was not yet. Presently he felt that Burke was regarding him with broad amusement.
“If I may say so, sir, I wouldn’t smash it yet. We’ll need it for evidence, and if possible I’d like to hear what Perkins and your gardener have to say about the thing. Shall I take it to the station?”
Derrick stiffened. “No, thanks,” he said abruptly. “I’ll look after it till it’s needed. I think perhaps it feels more at home at the Lodge.”
He picked up the jade god from the ground, dropped it in his pocket as though the touch burned him, and went slowly across the lawn beside Burke. Passing the house, he saw Edith at a bedroom window and waved her a cheery greeting. She signaled back, and he noticed that she smiled with relief. What a standby she had been, he reflected. In a flash his thoughts sped to Jean. He had not seen Perkins, but the woman was at the study window, her hands at her thin breast, a sort of ecstatic joy in her sallow face. So on to the cottage, where the peddler’s body had been deposited on the kitchen floor. Derrick regarded it silently, and again that recurrent sense of unreality came over him.
“What next?” He turned to the sergeant.
“Nothing at the moment, sir, till we get hold of Dr. Henry. It will be queer to have him here once more in the same matter. Had this man any possessions, Martin?”
The gardener gave an odd smile and picked out of the corner a tightly knotted pack.
“This was all I saw. It’s trinkets and such like, but he didn’t show them to me.”
“Has this not been opened since Blunt gave Mr. Derrick that sight of his wares?”
“Not so far as I know. He slept in his clothes.”
Burke fingered the bundle but did not slacken its knots. He sent Derrick a thoughtful glance.
“It’s not likely there’s anything else of importance, and from what we’ve seen to-day we’re pretty near the end of the Millicent case. Would you step outside a minute, sir?”
Derrick followed him, wondering a little. Burke halted out of earshot.
“I don’t want to say anything unnecessary in front of Martin,” he explained, “but all we’ll need now is what I’m convinced they are ready to tell us about Blunt’s last visit. We’re in a position to use pressure to bring out that evidence, and with it will come the reason, which so far beats me, for their ever trying to conceal the fact that he was the murderer. One thing I can imagine is that he had them hypnotized in some way, and as a matter of fact I began to feel hypnotized myself when I was listening to that chant of his outside the French window. Did you get any of it? If it had not been for that I would have nabbed the chap when he came out. As it was I felt half asleep.”
Derrick nodded reminiscently. “Yes, I did get it. Anything else with regard to either Martin or Perkins?”
“Nothing to-night, except that I would not say another word. Let this thing soak in, and it will do the work for us. In a day or so they will both be anxious to tell all they know. Now, just as a matter of precaution, I’m going to search the cottage, with your permission.”
“All right. It’s practically empty. Martin only brought a bundle, and I sent him a few odds and ends from the house to make the place livable. Shall I tell him?”
“Yes, sir, if you please.”
They went in together. Peters had lit his pipe and was smoking placidly with no concern for the thing on the floor, but Martin stood, still staring down. There was a kind of wonder in his face, and with it a strange thankfulness. He was like a man who straightens his shoulders after they have been crushed by some killing load.
“Martin,” said Derrick crisply, “Sergeant Burke is going to make a search of the cottage.”
“That’s all right so far as I’m concerned, sir, but there isn’t anything here except what any one can see.”
There was that in his apparent readiness which gave his master a feeling of solid relief. The latter found himself glad to admit that for months he had been on the wrong trail. There were matters still to be explained, deliberate lies to be accounted for, that secret search of the study to be acknowledged and justified; but all this, thought Derrick, was mysteriously involved with the potent thing that now dragged at his pocket, and when the light did come no corner would be left obscure. He remembered, too, that at times Martin had looked like an honest man. And did villains ever love roses like this gardener of his?
“Martin,” he said, “you’d better leave the sergeant alone while he’s making this search; he won’t need you.”
The man nodded with the air of one who has nothing to fear, cast another contented glance at the peddler’s body, and went out. They watched him cross the drive, hesitate a moment as though deliberating which way to turn, then stand, his hands deep in his pockets, staring down the road. Again Derrick felt reassured.
“Sergeant, I’m greatly relieved about that chap, even though I did bark up the wrong tree.”
Burke rubbed his big palms together. “Well, sir, it was a fortunate kind of bark just the same.”
“So it’s turned out. Now while you’re making this search could the constable go up and stay in front of the house? Also, he might just assure Miss Derrick that everything is quite all right. She’ll be more convinced if it doesn’t come from me.”
Peters got his orders, and the two were alone. Burke gave a broad grin. The idea of promotion had flashed into his mind. Then he, too, indulged in a long stare at what had been Blunt.
“Well, sir, I expect we’ve both got the same conclusion in our heads now. Curious, too, how it’s come about.”
“What’s that, sergeant?”
“That we needn’t dig any deeper to find the man who killed Mr. Millicent. That theory of a criminal returning to the scene of his crime certainly worked in this case.”
“Yes,” said Derrick thoughtfully, “but what brought Martin back?”
“I’ve an idea we’ll get that out of him in a day or two. Have you studied this chap’s face, sir?”
Derrick scrutinized the rigid features. They were gray now, the lips still set in a strange cynical smile. It was not the face of a peddler but had unmistakable signs of birth and breeding. The head was well shaped, the ears small and set close to a finely molded skull, the forehead high and rather broad, the eyes far apart. Nothing of the murderer was suggested here, but much of the dreamer, the visionary, the adventurer of sudden purpose. Over him was the touch of the East, visible in the olive tinge of his skin, the slenderness of hands and wrists, and the faint blueness at the base of his narrow finger-nails. Derrick pondered over the possible history of this man with the build of an aristocrat and the insignia of the Orient. What strange tales those fixed lips might have told. But they were all his secret now.
“He’s not a peddler,” he said, turning to Burke, “and probably never was. We’ll have to depend on Martin and perhaps Perkins for the rest of it. Are you going to have a look at that pack of his?”
It was unrolled on the floor beside its late owner but revealed nothing more than the trinkets Derrick had already seen. The man’s pockets were empty save for a knife and a few coins, and the clothing itself bore no marks that yielded the slightest clue to his identity. Burke made a grimace.
“We’ve drawn a blank this time; now I’ll have a look through the cottage. How long did you say Martin had been with you?”
“Something more than three months now, and he brought all he had on his back. I don’t fancy you’ll find much of interest here.”
The sergeant rooted about with a certain methodical deliberation, finally coming to a small bureau, the drawers of which he pulled open with the manner of one who expects nothing. Martin’s personal property was in truth scanty. He paused at the bottom drawer and looked up.
“Matter of fact, Mr. Derrick, while we know our dead friend is the fellow who held the knife, we’ve got to admit that we can’t prove it unless we drag the truth out of the others. Martin must know perfectly well that he’s up against a sort of third degree examination, and what convinces me that he’s ready to give us the inside of this thing is that already he’s looking almost cheerful. And if he weakens, that woman Perkins will weaken, too. I’m about finished here now.”
He jerked open the last drawer as he spoke, jerked so strongly that it came out on the floor. Like the others it was empty. But between the bottom of it and the floor itself lay a small bundle of dirty shirts.
“Your man isn’t what you’d call exactly a careful housekeeper. He needs a wife.” He picked up the bundle between thumb and forefinger. “Look at this.”
Came a dull knock, a clatter on the floor, and a knife with a broad, curved blade a foot long and a strangely carved handle slid across the floor and rested almost touching the lifeless palm of the peddler. The big man drew in his breath with a great gust and stood glowering. His eyes met Derrick’s.
“Call in your gardener!” he said huskily.
Derrick’s brain was in a whirl. He stared back and, not trusting himself to speak, tapped at the window. He could see Peters pacing slowly up and down in front of the Lodge, and Martin, who was still standing in the same place, apparently plunged in thought. The latter turned at the sound, mechanically touched his cap, and came slowly back. The sergeant nodded, put his hand in his pocket, and stepped a little on one side of the door. A shadow darkened the threshold, and as the gardener crossed it a grasp of iron fastened on his shoulder.
“John Martin, I arrest you for complicity in the murder of Henry Millicent. Anything you now say may be used against you.”
A few minutes later Derrick walked slowly and rather wearily toward the house, and Edith met him at the door. For her the past hour had been full of a drama almost too tense for her practical soul, and she realized what it must have meant to her brother. One look at his face was enough. She hooked her arm into his and led him into the dining-room, where dinner was ready. At the door she pressed his hand for an understanding instant.
“I’m not going to say a thing about it, nor are you, till afterward. Perkins saw the whole thing, and the poor woman is happier than I’ve ever seen her. Congratulations, brother; and now forget it for an hour.”
He sat down with a vast relief. It seemed strange that in the midst of this deadly game such matters as food and cooking should proceed uninterrupted. It was Perkins’s work, Perkins, who, outwardly undisturbed by that which must have shaken her very spirit, was still the perfect servant, the ageless domestic automaton. He knew that Edith did not want him to look at the woman, but could not refrain from quick cursory glances at moments when she could not detect them. There was really no difference, except that the sallow cheeks had a faint color, and the lips were a shade less grim than usual. For the rest of it her face was still a mask, her figure just as unbending, her movements just as measured and deliberate. But what secret thoughts must be traversing that unlocked mind, what emotions stirring in her breast! And through it all she seemed not to know that he was there.
Later, in the study, he filled his pipe, shot a contented glance at Millicent’s portrait, took the jade god from his pocket, and set it on the desk where so often it had glimmered before. Edith scanned it with an interest she had never displayed till this evening, and sank comfortably into a big chair.
“Well,” she said curiously, “aren’t you going to tell me anything about it?”
“Yes, dear, everything.” He paused for a moment. “First of all, the thing is practically over, except another inquest and what will naturally follow that.”
“The last thing I saw was that poor man being carried to the cottage. Then that nice constable came up and talked to me as though I were six years old. I did like that. But there was no real information in it.”
Derrick laughed. “I’m afraid I did that.”
“I thought you had. Did you notice any difference in Perkins at dinner? Isn’t her control amazing?”
“Not much, except that she seemed in a way less grim.”
“Of course she is. She must have suspected the peddler all along, and when she saw him carried off like that one can imagine what she felt—at least one could if it weren’t Perkins.” She hesitated. “Is he dead?” she asked gravely.
He nodded. “The life seemed to go out of him when he was struggling with the constable. Peters said he put something in his mouth—which was no doubt poison.”
Edith shuddered. “How dreadful! It was the fear of the other kind of death, wasn’t it? What did Martin say or do then?”
“Nothing, but stare and stare and look satisfied in a grim sort of way.”
“He must have been something more than satisfied; so is Perkins. This is probably the first evening for two years when they have known peace. You remember, Jack, I told you I didn’t think Martin was really guilty.”
“Martin,” said Derrick slowly, “is now in jail, charged with complicity in Millicent’s murder.”
At the door came a sudden and violent crash. It had opened without sound, and there stood Perkins with the ruins of coffee-cups at her feet. Her hands were gripped together, her lips parted, and the suffering of the damned was written on her colorless cheeks. Her eyes, now large and staring, seemed to be fixed immovably on space. Then, imperceptibly, she regained a sort of shuddering consciousness.
“I’m extremely sorry, madam, but I tripped over the door-mat.”
The voice was lifeless, devoid of inflection, so flat as to be almost unhuman. She stooped, gathered up the shattered china, and disappeared. Edith, too shaken for a moment to speak, regarded her brother with frightened astonishment.
“What do you mean?” she stammered presently.
“Exactly that. Neither you nor Perkins could see what happened after Blunt was taken to the cottage.”
He went on with a sort of labored carefulness and told her all, shooting meanwhile quick glances at the door, where shortly Perkins would reappear. Neither of them doubted that she would be master enough of herself for this. In the middle of it she came in, looking straight ahead. The tremor had left her body, her hands were again steady, her face impassive as ever. She put the tray beside her mistress and went out. At the click of the latch Edith gave a gasp.
“I didn’t know such a woman existed,” she whispered. “Till a minute ago she thought that Martin was a free man and innocent.”
He shook his head. “Free, perhaps, but not innocent. It was obvious from what little I got out of her this afternoon that she was doing all she could to divert suspicion to Blunt, without actually accusing him. She was afraid of Blunt and wanted to get rid of him.”
“But why save Martin at the expense of Blunt?”
“That I can’t say.”
“But the only evidence you have against Martin is that the creese was found hidden in his cottage wrapped up in his clothing?”
“Yes.”
“Could that be called final and sufficient? Could he be convicted on that?”
“It’s enough to start with and puts it up to him to disprove his guilt, and he can’t do that without telling the whole story.”
Edith was unconverted. “He actually left that thing, which may be enough to condemn him, hidden in an old shirt where any one could have found it. That doesn’t seem likely, does it?”
“Perhaps not, but there it was.”
“Jack,” she said suddenly, “that’s not the action of a guilty man. How long had the peddler been there?”
“Only a few hours, as you know.”
“And why did he ask if this room was the same as it was the night of the murder?”
“I’ve been puzzling over that. It could not have been a shot in the dark, and it laid him open to the suspicion that he had seen the place before.”
“Then, listen, Jack,” she said excitedly. “I’m sure he did see the place before. Everything points to that, and you’ve got the wrong man, and it was Blunt who killed Mr. Millicent on account of that thing.” She pointed to the jade god. “Can’t you see how clear it is? He had some sort of hold over Martin and Perkins, probably through that same horrid influence, and they were afraid to incriminate him. Two years afterward he turns up again, and Martin was amazed and terrified to see him, thinking the matter was done with. While he is with Martin, and that was very cleverly arranged, they have arguments which you overheard, and somehow he manages to conceal in Martin’s clothes the knife, or one just like it, before making another attempt at the image. You’ll have to be frightfully careful now what is done, or an innocent man may be punished.”
Derrick looked at her, genuinely puzzled.
“There may be something in that. Anything else to suggest?”
“No, I’m not a detective, but it’s the way any sensible person would look at it, if I may say so. And, yes, there is one thing.”
“What is that?”
“I’d go straight to Jean to-morrow morning and tell her the whole story. She might be able to help, as it will probably suggest other things to her you haven’t discussed yet.”
Derrick took a long breath. “I will,” he said.
CHAPTER IXTHE ESCAPE
IT HAD been a cold night, and frost still sparkled on the dank grass when Derrick neared the Millicents’. He had spent sleepless hours picturing this meeting, recounting all there was to be said, and casting about as to how the story might be put so as to revive as little as possible the poignant memories of two years ago. It was a strange mission that carried him now to his girl, but she greeted him with a calm suggesting that she was not altogether unprepared. Mrs. Millicent, unmistakably agitated, pressed his hand with a nervous tremor.
“You have more news for us, Mr. Derrick? Jean has told me what you told her yesterday. It is all utterly puzzling, and I wish I could help, but I can’t.”
Derrick nodded sympathetically. There was no such fiber of courage here as had been transmitted to her daughter. She was gentle and patient, and her heart centered on Jean, but she was not the woman to grasp a situation like the present one. He wondered how much Millicent had taken her into his confidence, how much she actually comprehended of the real man who sometimes seemed to look out of those painted eyes, then concluded that this could only have been fractional. She might have soothed his secret fears, but she could never understand them. Her mind was too ordered, her horizon too defined. She loved as a mother, and mourned as a wife. That was her existence. There could be no object gained in probing this gentle breast.
But, with Jean, Derrick knew it was different. Hers were eyes that saw, and a brain that pierced beyond the obvious. She had her mother’s charm but her father’s imagination. Derrick knew, and it fortified him to know it, that she could follow, pace by pace, wherever he led, and that her vision might even be keener than his. She, like himself, responded to whispers from the unknown and was also undismayed. So when he told his story it was to her rather than her mother that the tale was recited.
Both listened in rapt attention, Mrs. Millicent in sheer wonder, Jean with a keen and fascinated absorption. When he came to the finding of the creese, the older woman shivered, but Jean, her eyes cloudy with thought, did not stir. When he concluded, he felt that while Mrs. Millicent’s heart was lacerated afresh, Jean was possessed of more profound and vital emotions. And it was she who spoke first.
“It is very strange that the peddler should tell you something I meant to tell you but forgot.”
“Yes?”
“It’s about the study. You remember, mother, how it always was?”
“Yes, dear.”
“The desk stood in the other corner, not where it is now, so that father looked out of the window. The sofa was between the fireplace and the window, and the screen between the door into the hall and the desk. Did the peddler seem to know that?”
“He did not say so but appeared to notice that things were changed. I asked Perkins about it then, and she told me what you have.”
“Don’t you think that in spite of what you found at the cottage he was really the guilty man?”
“But why?”
“For one thing, he might easily have had that—that weapon in his pack without you seeing it, and—”
She broke off, and stared at the bangle on her wrist, slowly drew it off, and handed it to Derrick.
“Please, I can’t wear it now.”
He nodded understandingly, pinched at the twisted metal which was shaped oddly like a serpent, and put it in his pocket. Jean breathed a little faster.
“And, apart from that,” she went on, “doesn’t he seem to you to have been the superior intelligence? Your description of him is not that of an ordinary man, and he seems to have very nearly mesmerized those who were there, including the sergeant. Don’t you see that perhaps Martin and Perkins are, or were, only tools in his hands, and he represented to them some power they had to obey without question. One could then understand the look you say was on Martin’s face when the man died, and,” she added, “it would also explain Perkins acting as she did after dinner.”
“But Perkins was shaken beyond words.”
“Yes, because it meant that though the peddler was dead, the power behind him still operated.”
Mrs. Millicent got up unsteadily. “Jean, dear, I’ll have to leave you to talk the rest of this over alone. I’m sorry, darling, but—but—”
She went out hurriedly, and the girl was silent for a moment.
“Please don’t be upset about mother, and really it’s much better.” She put her hand impulsively on his. “Do you begin to see what it has meant to carry the mystery and the terror alone? She could not help me, and I’m glad for her sake.” She looked in his eyes with such utter confidence and appeal that he thought his heart would break.
“Oh, my dear, my dear,” he whispered, “you don’t know yet how well I understand. It will take all my life to show you.”
Jean turned pale, and from her parted lips came a little sigh of content that, faint as it was, penetrated his very soul. Then she breathed quickly, smiling at him as though she thanked him for a perfect understanding, and for knowing her spirit so well that he could afford not to say more.
“Is it not possible,” she continued quietly—“and of course it is possible; we both realize it—that Martin was unconsciously guilty? I mean that not till after it had happened did he realize what had taken place. If Blunt could dominate him yesterday, why not then?”
“Stranger things have happened,” he admitted.
“Well, if that’s the case it also explains Martin’s helplessness and Perkins’ silence. She knows that Martin did it while under this influence, while they both know that, now Blunt is dead, the influence cannot be proved. It would sound like a fairy-story in court.”
He nodded gravely. “All that may be. Does anything else occur to you in this connection?”
“Nothing about the others at the moment, but Blunt sticks in my mind. You say he was partly Oriental?”
“He had native blood. I’m sure of that.”
“Then he was probably occult. Father was, but I have never told mother that. And death might not mean much to him, as after death he would expect his soul to live on in some other body. The poison he took must have been almost instantaneous, and—”
She looked up suddenly. The big figure of Sergeant Burke was coming rapidly up the narrow brick walk that led to the porch. Hat off, he mopped at his red brow. A bicycle stood against the gate.
“He seems very upset. Perhaps you’d better speak to him, Jack.”
She used the word before she knew it and bit her lip. Derrick hesitated a moment, sent her a brilliant smile, and went out. The sergeant’s bulk filled the doorway, and he breathed fast.
“I’m glad to find you, sir. Went to the Lodge first, and Miss Derrick told me you were here.” He gulped in more air. “A very extraordinary thing has happened.”
“What’s that?”
“Blunt, sir, has escaped!”
Derrick frowned a little. If this was a joke, it was a poor one; if not, the man was mad.
“I don’t follow you.”
“It’s just as I say, sir. He’s got away.”
“A dead man! Who took him?”
“Damn it, Mr. Derrick, don’t you understand English? He’s not dead—he never was,” exploded Burke chaotically; “he’s come to life again, and escaped.”
Derrick blinked. It was ridiculous, absurd, and yet—Burke’s face was so red, his eyes so strained, the whole great body of him labored under such excitement, that his earnestness could not be doubted.
“Will you please tell me exactly what has happened?” he said with slow and almost painful distinctness.
“I will. The body was taken to the jail at the same time as Martin, and I sent for Dr. Henry, but he was away at Eversleigh on some serious case. I put it in an empty room used as a morgue at the other end of the building from Martin’s cell. I examined it before I turned in. It was just the same, but colder, with the hands quite stiff, the face a sort of blue gray, and no pulse. A little after midnight I got to bed, knowing that Dr. Henry would come to me as soon as he arrived. He was out all night and didn’t get back till time for breakfast, after which he went straight to the station. I had been back for three hours then, saw Martin, who was all right, but didn’t go into the morgue. When I took Dr. Henry there it was empty—and that’s all.”
Burke concluded this remarkable statement with an eloquent and helpless gesture, looking at Derrick with a sort of faint hopefulness that perhaps the thing was not quite as baffling as it sounded. He was grimly conscious that the Millicent case was reopened, but not in the manner and with the prospects that a few days ago were so comforting. His dreams of promotion had vanished. Why promote a man to escape from whom it was only necessary to feign death? But all the signs of death had been there. This and much more had jockeyed through his brain as he pumped savagely up the long hill from Bamberley village. His attitude now invited his amateur adviser to suggest the next move if he could. The story would be all over England in a day or two. And Burke hated to think of that.
“You’ve heard of cases of suspended animation?” asked Derrick after a long pause.
“Yes, but I’ve never seen one before.”
“Nor I, but they’re not uncommon in the East. It’s evident that Blunt is master of most of those tricks, but so far as my knowledge goes the suspension is generally for much longer than a few hours. This, no doubt, is the effect of what he put in his mouth when Peters caught him.”
“That’s as I see it, but it doesn’t help matters.”
“What does Martin say?”
“Nothing; but I’m sure he knows.”
“Why?”
“There’s something in his face this morning, but I can’t read it. I’ve an idea that Blunt must have seen and spoken to him on his way out.”
Derrick whistled softly. “That’s more than possible.”
“The point is,” went on Burke, with a desperation he took no pains to conceal, “that if there’s anything to be done, it’s got to be done quickly. If by to-night we can fasten on something that will prove Martin’s guilt, the matter of Blunt’s escape won’t be quite so serious. If not, I doubt whether the discovery of that knife will actually convict him so long as Perkins sticks to the evidence she gave two years ago. That’s how the matter stands now.”
“I’d like to think a little before saying anything. Are you going back to the station?”
Burke nodded.
“Well, I’ll be there in, say, an hour and a half.”
The sergeant hesitated. “I might as well tell you, sir, that I’ve already gone a good deal beyond my official limits in the matter, but I’m ready to go further, which means risking my job, if you can see any light. I’ll wait for you at the station.”
He moved off with no spring in his walk, swung a thick leg over his wheel, and disappeared.
Derrick went back to Jean and by the tenseness of her face knew at once that she had heard everything. They looked at each other for a moment without speaking.
“Well,” he said slowly, “isn’t it extraordinary?”
“No,” she answered under her breath, “not so extraordinary.”
“Why?”
“It’s all part of the rest of it. Do you remember what I said about some power operating behind?”
“Yes.”
“Well, it just means that you are dealing with things that can’t be explained by any reason or argument or logic, and Sergeant Burke hasn’t the right kind of experience for this. He’s fighting against things he can’t see. He’s hoping now that Martin or Perkins will break down and tell everything. They won’t.”
“How do you know that?”
“I can’t explain, though I’m sure of it. Does anything suggest itself to you?”
“To be done now?”
“Yes.”
He shook his head. “Burke’s proposal seems to be all there is left.”
“I think perhaps there’s something else,” she said almost timidly. “Do you remember what you told me some weeks ago about the picture that must always be passing through a criminal’s mind?”
“Yes, distinctly.”
“And the strange impulse to return to the scene of his crime that he has to fight against? Well, let us assume that Martin is the criminal and has returned.”
“There’s no question of that,” he put in quickly.
“Perhaps not, but the picture he found was not the one he had been carrying with him.”
“Why?”
“The study had been changed—I mean its arrangement; therefore the possible effect that might have been produced if he had seen the picture in actual existence did not take place.”
“Go on,” he said tensely.
“But if on the other hand, and without expecting it, Martin were brought suddenly face to face with that picture, if the study were reset just as it was before, and if”—here she trembled, and went on bravely—“if he thought he saw father lying there as he did see him two years ago, don’t you think that something real and truthful might be startled out of him?”
“By Jove!” whispered Derrick. “Do you mean it?”
She nodded. “Yes, all of it. I don’t just know how I feel it, but I know, here.” She touched her breast. “It’s the right thing to do.”
“Would you help?”
“Yes.”
“I hate to ask it. And if it’s attempted Perkins must know nothing about it.”
“No, she mustn’t; and, Jack, there’s something else.” It seemed natural now to call him Jack.
“Yes, Jean?” He lingered on the word. How near it brought him!
Her eyes told him that she, too, felt the nearness, but for the moment her brain was working too swiftly to yield to aught else.
“There’s the peddler. One can’t tell where he is, but not far away. I’m sure of that. He won’t finally go till he has that which he came for. Where is it now?”
“Behind the panel.”
“But if you do what I suggest, and to-night, it should be on the desk beside you.”
“Beside me?”
“Yes, if you—if you take the part of my father.”
He caught his breath at this supreme courage. “Would you come and arrange the study?”
“Yes, when?”
“Let me settle that with Edith. I’ll see her at once and then go on to Burke. She’ll probably come this afternoon and ask you to dinner. Will that be all right?”
He longed to take her in his arms, but again it was only their eyes that met—and spoke.
It was to Bamberley police station and not to Beech Lodge that Derrick went first. He found the sergeant in the little office, his face a map of uncertainty. He looked up inquiringly as the young man came in. The last few hours had been bad ones for Burke. Then Derrick put the matter without delay, told how the suggestion originated, added that he had agreed that it was the next and best move, and waited for the sergeant to speak. Presently the latter shook his head.
“I dare not, Mr. Derrick.”
“Why not?”
“Stop and think, sir. Here’s a man under arrest, and I myself have charged him with complicity in murder. I’m responsible for him till the authorities proceed. One suspect has already escaped. Now you propose that I let the other man out of custody to try an experiment which is, well, Mr. Derrick, fantastic any way you put it.”
“Exactly; but if you stop to think, sergeant, the whole affair has been more or less fantastic ever since we started. We acted on possibilities, not probabilities, and you must admit we’ve dug up a good deal that didn’t come to light before.”
“Yes, I do admit it; also that ten to one we’ve got the man who killed Mr. Millicent. But I’m frank to say that I don’t like what’s bound to happen over Blunt’s escape. I’m only hoping that Martin’s evidence will let me down with a good general average.”
“And if you don’t convict Martin?”
“Then I lose my job,” said Burke grimly.
“Would you have to advertise the fact if you did personally bring Martin to Beech Lodge at, say nine thirty to-night?”
The big man stared at him. “No, but—”
“Then look here. I’m willing to see this last attempt through if you are, but if you’re not, I step down and out. I can’t give you any reasons for saying that I think it will have surprising results, but I do feel that. Admitting that you risk your job, isn’t it worth while taking the chance of producing both the criminal and the evidence? If you decide otherwise, well and good. It’s going to be rather a thick night,” he added, glancing out of the window.
Burke weighed the chances, his eyes half closed, pushing out his broad, full lips and tapping on the bare table. Yes, the night promised to be thick. He saw himself, the guardian of Bamberley, sneaking out of the village in the fog, a criminal chained to his wrist, but himself the more agitated of the two. Against this he was aware that ever since the Millicent case had come to life things just as strange as this had been going on. A man of order and law and precedent, knowing the police code as a parson knows the Pentateuch, he shrank from outlawing himself by doing as Derrick proposed. But here again the consciousness of something beyond the ordinary that lay behind the Millicent case projected itself. He could see the grin that would run through police circles from John O’Groats to Land’s End when the Blunt story came out, and recoiled at the mere thought of it. Without something, as for instance a conviction, to counterbalance that escape, he was done. And he knew it. It was the vision of that official grin that decided him.
“Will you tell me exactly what you suggest I should do?” he asked heavily.
“First, say nothing to Martin. If you want to let Dr. Henry into this, do so, but that’s for you to decide. Fetch Martin to Beech Lodge at exactly nine thirty to-night. Perkins will bring you to the study door, which will be closed. She will knock, and there will be no answer. Then she will naturally open it, and you and she and Martin will see that room just as it looked after the murder two years ago. I will be at the desk in the position in which Millicent was found, and able to give assistance if you want it. You must not speak. I anticipate that Martin, or it may be Perkins, will break the silence, but it is sure to be Martin. His very first words should tell us what we want to know. That’s all.”
Burke listened with strained attention. “If I did bring Martin I couldn’t bring any one else. I mean I couldn’t have any one on duty outside. The two constables could not be allowed to know anything about this.”
Derrick, realizing that the point had been carried, sent him a grave smile. “I don’t think we need bother about the outside of the house to-night, but that’s your end of it. All I ask for is you and Martin at nine thirty. I’m not trying to persuade you into this, sergeant, so drop it if you don’t think it’s good enough. But it’s the only program I can suggest, and I’ve no alternative.”
Burke rose mountainously from his chair. “And I’ve tried to tell you what it involves me in, which is the risk of twenty years’ record and my present job.” He paused, then gave a determined grunt. “But I’ll do it.”
Derrick nodded. “I think you’re right, and sometimes a man moves further ahead in ten minutes than in twenty years. Nine thirty, sergeant.”