CHAPTER XA NIGHT OF TRAGEDY
IT TOOK all Jean’s courage to go with Edith when the time came. She had had a not altogether comforting talk with her mother, in which, knowing that it was unwise to tell Mrs. Millicent too much, she only said that Edith wanted her to dine at Beech Lodge and that she might be able to help Derrick in his self-imposed task. Her mother assented, with a curious glance that suggested that it was not altogether the task that took her daughter to her old home. Jean, realizing the futility of fuller explanation, said little more.
It was something of a help that Edith understood so much and yet, in a way, understood so little. Her sanity, her cheerful hope that the tableau would frighten Martin into saying something that would settle the matter, and the growing affection in her manner, all combined to act like a much needed tonic. Jean found herself talking more freely than she ever imagined she could talk. She realized that this was because Edith was aware what was in her heart, and could perceive love, though the occult was beyond her. And the difference between the two girls did much to cement their friendship.
The affair of that night was tacitly avoided, Edith talking for the most part about that which lay nearest her heart. This was Derrick. She did not grudge him, wanting only his happiness, and the generosity of her nature touched Jean enormously. Edith took it for granted that whether thetableau vivant, as she put it, was successful or not, the next important event would be of a brighter character, and her contented assumption of this had an intriguing effect. It was strange to be regarded as a sister-in-law before the word was spoken. She was still talking about her brother, his art, his ambition, and the unexpectedness of him that she loved so much, when they came in sight of the gates of the Lodge.
Jean fell silent as they passed the cottage, again untenanted, and the rose-trees that bore the marks of Martin’s skill. She recalled her last visit here, and marveled at its outcome. These familiar windows, this well-known door, and most of all that she would soon meet the blank eyes of Perkins, all moved her profoundly. She came to the house again not as a visitor, or to revive memories of the past, but actually to rebuild that past in such a way as to drag into the open the secret of so many years. It was a crusade on behalf of the dead, a high mission that involved putting aside all else till it be performed. Though the wound in her own heart ached, it must ache till the mission be discharged. And behind that was the whisper of love. It was this thought that enabled her to meet Derrick with a glance of high resolution that he found infinitely inspiring.
Looking back at it afterward, she always wondered whether dinner was not the greatest test of that memorable night. In spite of their combined efforts, it was very voiceless. Perkins, who glanced less at Jean than at her mistress, moved silent-footed as ever, blank to everything except her duties, and even these were carried out with a sort of subconscious detachment. She both cooked and served the meal, and with the same unaltered perfection. Nothing in her had changed, and as of old she made no lost motions. She knew that Martin was in jail, charged with complicity in the murder of her former master, yet no sign of it appeared on her ageless face.
But from her emanated something that made the usual conversation well nigh impossible. Had she shown her knowledge, the tension had been less. As it was, Jean pictured her father and mother in the chairs occupied by Derrick and Edith, heard the tones of a remembered voice, saw the same trim, straight figure moving with the same soundless precision—and could hardly forbear to cry out. When, a little later, she entered that other room of grim significance, it was with a feeling that almost amounted to relief. There was no Perkins here.
Derrick, whose eyes were unusually bright, waited till the maid had disappeared with the coffee-cups, then turned swiftly to Jean.
“Now we must act. Edith has given Perkins enough to keep her busy till half-past nine. That’s an hour. It was not safe to do anything here before this, so we must move things ourselves, and if possible without making a sound. One thing I want to ask: was your father dressed as in that picture?” He made a gesture toward the portrait.
“Yes, he always put on that coat after dinner.”
Derrick nodded, opened a drawer in the bottom of the desk, and produced a velveteen smoking-jacket.
“I thought that might be, so rooted out this old one of mine. Now we must shift the desk; then you can arrange the things on it. In a general way, are the contents of the room just the same?”
“Exactly, I think,” said the girl, after a swift scrutiny.
“And that French window, was it locked?”
“Yes, always before dinner at this time of year.”
He gave a curious smile, “To-night I think we’ll leave it open.”
“How stupid, Jack!” interjected Edith, “and let the man escape.”
“He can’t, because he’ll be chained to the sergeant. It’s with another object. Now are you ready?”
Jean sent him a quick glance. She guessed the object, and it made her heart beat faster.
Gradually the room assumed its former appearance. Edith assisted with a businesslike, good-humored alacrity, in the manner of a housekeeper who helps to arrange a stage for young people’s tableaux. To her these were chairs, tables, and rugs, nothing more. She wondered a good deal why a practical man like Sergeant Burke should be willing to take part, a man responsible for the custody of his prisoner, then reflected that it was all rather queer, and there was no point in worrying about what one didn’t understand. The consoling phase of it was her conviction that this was the last act of the somewhat disconcerting drama of the past few months, that it would soon be followed by the wedding of two of the principals, and then her brother would settle down and get on with his work. The thing that really most bothered her was the lease of Beech Lodge. She knew that Jean would never live here again.
It was as well she took her present occupation so placidly, for to Jean and Derrick, especially the former, the rearrangement of the study brought with it an austere and growing significance. They moved in the presence of what had been Millicent, recreating a poignantly familiar scene, directed by the gesture of an unseen hand. They were automatons, obeying they knew not what elusive instinct. And it seemed that as the room took shape it throbbed once more with a medley of tiny voices, each thrilling its own message in a fine, thin, vibrating tone. The chair where the dead man used to sit, the desk over which he leaned, the blurred stain that bore its cloudy witness to his passing; all these became vocal, joining in a mysterious communication which announced that nothing is ever utterly dissipated or lost, but in some form or quality remains, an imperishable record for all time.
Nine o’clock struck, and Derrick glanced from the French window into the darkness. The night was profound, and over the country-side rested a great blanket of fog. Putting out his hand, he could hardly see it. Beyond was the world, populous with life, lost and infinitely removed. From the trees bordering the lawn came a slow, soft drip, sounding like a vast, subdued weeping in this black obscurity. Anything might move here and be undetected. All in a breath he became convinced that there was something close by. But it did not move.
He pictured what must be going on now in Bamberley jail. Burke in his shiny cape, tramping down the barred passage to Martin’s cell, handcuffs dangling, grim, resolute, conscious of the desperate risk he ran, his jaw like iron. How had Burke disposed of his constables, and what kind of story had he told? Again Burke, with his dark-lantern at Martin’s barrier, the glint of yellow light on the gardener’s sullen face, the brief word of command, the click of metal that chained them together. Did Martin ask questions? Was he surprised, or unwilling, or did he take it all with his customary dogged silence? Then two burly figures engulfed in the fog, the wet glimmer from Bamberley windows—if Bamberley were not already asleep—the scrape of heavy feet on the graveled road, this strangely assorted pair moving up the long hill beneath trees that stretched ghostly arms overhead. What must Burke be thinking now?
He turned abruptly, leaving the window ajar, and drawing the curtains close. Crossing to the mantel, he beckoned to the two girls.
“Now I’m going to show you a part of the mystery of Beech Lodge.”
He touched the woodwork, a small panel fell forward, and inside gleamed the jade god.
“Isn’t that clever?” said Edith cheerfully.
Jean did not stir. Her eyes, very wide open, were fixed on the image. It was all very extraordinary—and very simple. Had her father found this hidingplace, or had he made it during the long evenings he spent alone after it became imperative to have some hidden shrine for his deadly trophy? Here was the spot, so near and yet so safe, whence came the mysterious authority that gave tongues to inanimate things. Yes, the jade god was safe there. Again she looked at Derrick.
“I begin to understand now,” she said under her breath.
Edith moved close and peered in. “I’ll have that well scrubbed out to-morrow. It’s dreadful!”
Derrick laughed. “Please wait till I ask it.” He took out the thing and set it beside the lamp.
“It used to stand on the other side of him.” Jean’s voice was quiet and steady.
“I know, but that won’t matter this time, and,” he added thoughtfully, “I want it to be visible from the window.”
He paused, then sent her a glance that gave her renewed fortitude. “Now I’m going to get into position. Please don’t try and help me unless you feel you must, and it can only last a few minutes. You and Edith stand behind the screen, if you feel that staying there won’t be too much for you, and above all don’t stir till I do. It will all turn on Martin’s first words. If anything happens at the window, leave it to me. When Perkins knocks do not answer on any account. Is the lamp right?”
Jean nodded.
He pressed her hand comfortingly, and again their eyes met in a gaze of perfect understanding.
“Get behind the screen now,” he whispered, “and don’t look at me.”
He put on the velveteen jacket and took the dead man’s chair. Leaning his head forward on the desk, the blurred stain was but a few inches from his throat. The deadly creese was beside him. He could see the jade god, its sardonic eyes bent on him, the cruel lips curved as though they comprehended the grim irony of the moment. Under that scrutiny he felt once more the mesmeric power evidenced here only the day before.
“Edith,” he murmured.
“Yes?”
“Twitch the curtains so that they are about an inch apart. Then get back quickly.”
She did this without a sound. Derrick lay still, his eyes closed. He knew that a narrow rib of light was streaming out over the sodden lawn and that the one who hid there could view the strange scene inside. Then silence fell. The tick of the clock sounded heavy and fateful. Shadows danced on the oaken walls, as they had danced two years before, and the flicker of fire cast an intermittent glow on Millicent’s face as it looked down from its gilded frame. From a near-by covert came the soft hooting of a barn-owl.
A faint whisper from the outer world reached Derrick, lying motionless with the blood pounding in his temples. It was that of movement, not sound; the merest fraction of movement, and transmitted by the most delicate waves of air. His senses, tuned to the utmost pitch, caught this, though it was no more than the suggestion that the atmosphere had been displaced not far off. Close to him some one had changed position. That was all he knew, and by the quality of this sensation he also guessed that the change had been made stealthily.
In the midst of this, and while the air seemed to transmit a steady singing monotone, came a sharp knock at the front door. He held his breath for the click of the latch, presently catching Burke’s voice, deep and husky. Followed a sound of heavy feet, and Perkins’s tap at the study door. She waited a moment; Derrick felt a slight draft and knew she was in the room with the two men behind her.
From Martin came a strange, throaty cry, and from the woman a choking gasp. Derrick’s hair prickled, and all power seemed to leave him. Again the gasp. Then flying feet crossed the floor with inconceivable swiftness, and Perkins flung herself beside his chair. He felt the grip of frenzied arms on his shoulders and heard tones of unutterable anguish.
“Master, master, what is it? Speak to me, speak to me! You’re not dead! I didn’t mean it. I didn’t know I did it. I was asleep; don’t you understand? And when I woke your blood was on my hands. Speak to me, master; for God’s sake, speak!”
For an instant Derrick was unable to move. Perkins crouched on the floor beside him, her body shaking, her face buried in her arms. Another cry from Martin, and he plunged, dragging Burke with him. He put his one free hand on the woman’s head.
“Don’t you go on like that, lass. It’s only a plant. You didn’t do it. I’ll swear you didn’t.”
Perkins staggered to her feet. Her eyes were glazed. She stared wildly up at Martin, then at the sergeant as though she did not see him, then at the French window. The curtains had parted, and in the gap crouched the tense figure of Blunt, poised for a spring. At this last, her features became distorted. All the suffering of the damned crowded into them. With a motion of incredible swiftness, she grasped the creese and plunged it into her heart. Simultaneously Blunt darted forward.
What happened in that instant happened in a flash. Martin fell on his knees beside the woman. Burke, half dazed as he was, flung out his great fist and caught Blunt on the temple. There came a cry from the two who had been hidden behind the screen. Derrick leaped up. He saw Perkins, her breast stained scarlet, with Martin beside her, rocking in an abandonment of grief. Against the wall, as though it had been thrown there like a rag, huddled the insensible figure of the peddler. Burke was breathing hard and already fumbling at the lock of the handcuff that bound him to the gardener. On one side stood Jean and Edith, their eyes starting with horror.
In a moment the sergeant got himself free with a clink of metal. He glowered at the inert body of Blunt with a sort of animal satisfaction, then, kneeling beside Perkins, stared at her hard, and finally put his big head against that crimson heart. Martin did not move but gave one long shuddering sigh. A moment thus, till Burke heaved up, his face very grave, and made an unmistakable gesture. At that Edith put her arms round Jean and held the girl close.
“I’ll take charge now, sir,” said Burke grimly. “These two men must come to the station with me. As for this poor woman, we can’t do better than take her to the cottage, if you don’t mind her being there till morning, and I’ll send a man up there as soon as possible. And,” he added, “perhaps I’d better take this knife for safe-keeping till the inquest.”
“No, no!” Martin turned his grief-stricken face, clutching at the officer’s arm. “For God’s sake don’t do that. Let me stay with her,” he implored hoarsely.
Burke stared at him. “What are you talking about?”
“Don’t leave her in the cottage with any one but me. I’ll be there in the morning. I won’t run away. I’ll do anything else you like, but for God’s sake let me stay with her to-night!”
Burke shook his head. “You’ll do what you’re told, and do it now. What is this woman to you?”
“My wife,” groaned Martin, and burst into throttling sobs.
Utter silence fell upon this room of death. Against the wall, Blunt gave a slow shiver and raised his head, regarding the scene with a strange calm, as though such tragedies were only passing incidents in a still greater drama. He made no attempt to move but lay there, resting on one elbow, part of it all, but infinitely removed. Derrick stared at the two girls. Edith’s arms were still round Jean, but their eyes were fixed on what lay on the floor. Jean looked at the man she loved. The terror was leaving her face, being replaced by a vast incomprehensible wonder mingled with a profound pity. In that moment she was his, and yet unspeakably distant. It was like traversing a forest of dreadful shadows and emerging, suddenly blinded, into the light, where one had to find oneself before seeing anything else. A great pity enveloped her altogether. She came quickly forward and knelt beside the still form.
“Jack, you must ask the sergeant to permit that. Don’t you understand? One poor woman among all these men,” she whispered. “Oh, the poor, poor soul!”
Burke nodded. “Perhaps that will be all right, miss,” he broke in with a queer, deep gruffness. “We’ll let it go at that, but I’ll have to send a man up to stay outside till morning. He won’t come into the cottage. Is there anything you want to say, Mr. Derrick, before—”
Derrick shook his head. “I think it has all been said.”
The sergeant touched Martin’s shoulder. “Will you—” He glanced at the body. “Blunt goes with me.”
Martin nodded speechlessly. With infinite tenderness he picked up his wife as though she had been a child and, staring straight ahead with unseeing eyes, strode through the door which her lifeless hand had so recently opened for him. Then into the hall alone with his burden. The others heard the front door open and close, and after that the sound of slow feet on the gravel. This dwindled. Burke stepped across to where the peddler lay on his side and snapped on a handcuff. At the ring of metal, Derrick felt his eyes suddenly drawn to the jade god.
The thing still rested, the light soaking into its emerald depths, and it seemed that on the tiny features rested a smile of sardonic satisfaction, as though it had known it all, and all the time. What was any individual tragedy, what was this minute portion of the great human drama, with the pangs of a moment, to the profound acquaintanceship with evil that lay hidden here? These actors were only discharging their parts in an endless play that would continue with its constantly changing scenes so long as humanity could feel passion and anger and fear and revenge. Derrick stared at the image and vowed silently that, come what might of his act, this reign of terror would soon end. But here was neither the time nor the place. He made a gesture to Edith, and the latter slipped her arm into that of Jean. When he knew they had reached Edith’s room, Derrick turned to Burke.
“I want to speak to you a minute.”
The sergeant crooked a finger at Blunt and led him into the hall. Again the clink of metal, and the peddler was anchored to a massive chair. The big man came back, smiling grimly.
“That’s a useful dodge when you think of it. Now, what about this image? Hadn’t I better take it to the station for the present?”
Derrick shook his head. “If you don’t mind, I’d rather keep it till it happens to be needed.” There followed a little pause, while through both their brains ran the swift wonder of the night. “I suppose,” he added, “there’s no objection to that.”
Burke grinned. “No, sir; matter of fact, I’m not in love with the ugly thing myself. It worked, didn’t it? that plan of yours,” he went on respectfully, “but not just in the way either of us expected. Who would ever have thought it? As for that poor woman, why, there’s only one explanation.”
“What’s that?”
Burke put a significant finger to his forehead.
“Look here,” said Derrick suddenly, “I want to know something. What’s the next move, now that the matter is in your hands?”
“There’s the inquest, perhaps to-morrow, but maybe the day after. It depends on Dr. Henry.”
“And then?”
“The trial of Blunt and Martin, of course.”
“Just what will they be tried for?”
“Housebreaking, attempted theft, and possible complicity in the murder of Mr. Millicent.”
“Then take Martin first. He did not break into this house. I sent for him.”
“That may be true, sir, but you can’t say that for the other fellow, and they seem to be in pretty close touch and to have worked together.” Burke paused and looked puzzled. “I don’t very well see how they can be separated in this affair, judging by what you’ve said yourself in the last day or two.”
“Suppose, sergeant,” said Derrick thoughtfully, “that I should decide not to lay any charge against Blunt after all.”
The big man blinked. “I don’t quite follow you, sir. What’s to be gained by acting like that?”
“I can’t say yet, but do you honestly think there’s any chance of really proving anything serious now against these two men?”
“There’s a good working chance, but I fancy a jury would be as much puzzled as we’ve been, and probably more. You never can tell about a jury.”
“Then I particularly ask that no charge be laid against either of them till I have had a talk with both. I admit, and you’ve said it, too, that all our suspicions were wrong and unfounded. We were working hard, but only playing about on the edge of the truth. Now we have heard a confession of the act from lips where we never expected to find it, and the person who committed the murder has gone before another court. Our discovery, which has led to this, was a matter of chance, and we were on a false trail from the start.”
“I admit that, sir, but you did all the guessing. The only thing we had in common was our suspicion of Martin.”
“That’s true, and I’ll shoulder whatever blame attaches to it. But, officially, the net result is that you have cleared up the mystery of the Millicent murder, and after every one else had failed. You mustn’t forget, sergeant, that so far as any one else is concerned I’m merely an onlooker. I congratulate you, Burke. It ought to mean promotion.”
The other man indulged in a broad smile. He had had no time to think about promotion yet, but the prospect was distinctly rosy. “That’s very good of you, sir, and this certainly ought to help.”
“So that now the matter of Blunt’s escape does not seem very serious?”
“Well, sir, Dr. Henry told me enough about that trick to show that it’s fooled a good many wiser men than me. It has proved not to be important after all, and I don’t think it will be brought up against me. Is there anything you want me for now?”
“Yes, to make the following arrangement. I’ll be responsible for Martin till morning, and he will then go with your man to the station. Meantime, please understand that I lay no charge whatever against him. As to Blunt, in that case also I lay no charge at present, but reserve the right to do so to-morrow if I wish. Meantime, I’d like it understood, if possible, that you are merely taking him at my request because I found him in my house without my authority. I don’t know the law in such matters but assume that you could not proceed against him till I did actually lay the charge. As for the rest of it, I suppose they will both be needed as witnesses to the confession and suicide. With that, of course, I have nothing to do. Can the matter be left that way for the next day or so?”
Burke pondered. He could not get much further at present than that the Millicent mystery was solved, and his own reputation not only reëstablished but enhanced, and there was solid satisfaction in the thought. Already he could see the head-lines in the London papers.
“Yes,” he said slowly, “I think we could leave it that way, sir. When would you want to talk to these men?”
“To-morrow morning?”
“All right, Mr. Derrick. I’ll get most of my work out of the way by ten thirty and be ready for you, if that will suit. Nothing more I can do for you here to-night?”
The young man breathed a long sigh of relief. “There’s nothing left to go wrong now, and I’ll put this jade friend, or enemy, of ours back where he belongs for the present. Good night, sergeant, and I’m glad your luck has turned.”
Burke saluted and went out. There was the slight jingle of a chain, and the front door closed. Derrick pushed back the oaken panel. Involuntarily he glanced at the portrait. Millicent seemed satisfied. He was avenged now.
Then over the young man began to creep sensations in which there was no triumph, no pride, no self-congratulation. The blank-faced woman over whom Martin was crouching in the silent cottage seemed to rise up and point a thin accusing finger. Why had he done this thing? Her secret had been torn from her, and her life with it. What had she ever done to Derrick? His lips became dry at the thought, and he felt almost like a murderer himself. What was wrong with his philosophy? Up-stairs was Jean waiting for him. He would go to her across the body of another woman.
He struggled with this picture, but it would not down. By what trail had he come to so unexpected a solution? Could it be that it was always thus with those over whom the jade god held its malignant sway? Were their lives at the mercy of undercurrents of whose very existence they were ignorant? What did the image mean to Perkins, or any of them? She knew now, perhaps for the first time, but would he himself ever know? Who was Blunt in this deadly circle, and why should Martin and Perkins, being man and wife, remain yet strangers to one another? Had the jade god come in between? His brain rocked with hazardings like this, and at the end of it all he felt guiltier and guiltier.
He went up-stairs and found Jean waiting for him in the hall. She had watched Blunt, swinging one arm, disappear in the fog, walking close to the sergeant. They had stopped at the cottage, where Burke peered in but did not enter. He saw what he expected to see. Blunt did not attempt to look. Then the two passed on through the white gates and were swallowed up. Jean knew that Derrick would now come to her soon.
“Oh, my dear,” she said, “who ever could have dreamed of this?”
He made no answer, for there was none, but the look on his face gave her a new throb of fear.
“What is it, Jack?”
“I don’t know,” he said wearily, “but if it were not for you I would regret having done anything. As it is”—he made a helpless gesture—“see what I have done!”
“Has anything else happened?” she asked timidly.
“No, there’s nothing more to happen now. I’m thinking of Perkins down in the cottage, and that it was I who sent her there. I wish I hadn’t. God, how I wish that!”
“Jack,” she said swiftly, “don’t think of it that way! Dear one, don’t!”
“I’ve done a woman to death,” he said in a half-whisper.
“No, no”—she was trembling with a great longing to comfort him—“no one has. It was all written, and had to be. I am full of the horror of it, too, but you and all of us were only pawns. Perkins’s life was utterly unhappy, and her death, however terrible, can’t be more so. To me it all seems like some law.”
“What law?” he asked dully.
“I can’t explain. She killed my father, we all know that now, but why we don’t know. Nor did she really know why she should kill herself. You did not bring her to her death.”
“But if I had not acted as I have she would be alive now.”
With that his arms went out, and he held her close. For a moment they clung like children, moved by some common and half-understood impulse. Surrounded by something, they knew not what, it was good to be like this and touch each other in the shadows of life. It brought Derrick a throb of divine comfort, strange and new. It was his turn to feel not so utterly alone.
“To-morrow, and after that?” she asked.
He told her, and what he had arranged with Burke.
“I’m glad. Just think of Martin all these years, how he must have loved her in spite of everything; what it must have cost him to go away as he did, and under suspicion, just to save her. And all that hidden behind his strange and threatening face. It could not have been anything he did that killed her love for him. Jack, dear, I can only feel pity, all the pity in the world, and you must feel only that, too. That poor woman would not want to live it all over again. And, oh, it does make me want to be understanding and merciful when I can to every one, always!”
CHAPTER XIA STRANGE CONFESSION
THE WHOLE earth, bathed in bright sun and clear air, looked younger when Derrick walked into Bamberley next morning. It seemed but an hour since he had piloted Jean back through the fog, and when they parted she had clung to him for a wonderful moment that needed no words. His mind was still in a whirl, and with difficulty he pitched it forward to Bamberley jail.
Martin had been brought there in the gray of dawn, and with him the body of his wife, which rested where so lately the stiff figure of the peddler lay till subjugated consciousness mysteriously returned. There had been no chance to talk with Blunt, nor did Martin want to talk. He had sat for hours, quite motionless, turning the thing over and over in his slow brain, and it seemed that from the truth itself there was least to be feared. It was strange for him even to contemplate truth now. He was innocent of murder, but he was a perjurer nevertheless. He would have to risk that. Burke did not speak to him, and the moments dragged inflexibly on. But there was a new look in his swarthy face when Derrick entered the cell in company with the sergeant. He got up and nodded awkwardly.
“Do you want Blunt here when you question this man?” asked Burke. “I’ll answer for it that nothing has been fixed up between them since last night.”
“Do you see any objection?”
“They’re your questions, sir, not mine.”
Derrick hesitated a moment but felt persuaded that already he had got far enough under the skin of things to detect any probable collusion. He rather wanted to see these two men together and see if he could corroborate or disprove the story of one from the eyes of the other. Then something suggested that with death so near at hand there was little prospect of collusion.
“Yes, I think Blunt had better be here.”
Martin gave him a swift glance in which there was something that was almost gratitude for his confidence. Blunt was brought in by Peters, the constable. Peters’s face was full of an unbounded curiosity, and he was unaffectedly disgusted when Burke motioned him to withdraw. The peddler looked now not more than forty, and only in the brightness of his eyes was there anything of the bent and bearded man who had opened his pack at the cottage of Beech Lodge. One temple was swollen from Burke’s blow, but there was no animosity about him. Nor was there any suggestion of fear. He glanced not at all at Martin but sent Derrick a long, steady stare. There was knowledge in that stare, and a certain unshakable fortitude. Such men in times past had died on the rack without a whisper of confession. Their bodies one can conquer, but not their spirits. Derrick knew then that what Blunt would say would be the truth; as much of it as he thought wise, and no more.
“Well, Martin,” began the former slowly, “Miss Derrick and I and all of us are more than sorry about what happened last night, and what I don’t understand is why your poor wife and you should have thought it best to say nothing to us of what you were to each other. Even now I am not here to examine you, I have no right to do anything like that, but just to ask whether you do think it wise to say something of your own free will. I think”—here he hesitated a little—“that I’ve been fairly decent to you since you came. As to your wife, she never said anything which gave us the slightest inkling of the situation.”
The man regarded him with unfathomable eyes, and here again there was no fear. He seemed to be weighing chances, and at the same time to be prepared for any outcome. Presently he looked full at the peddler, and Derrick noted that the latter nodded ever so slightly, while once more there spread from him that nameless atmosphere of authority. Then Martin took a long breath and began in a deep voice, rough and broken with emotion.
“You’ve always been straight with me, Mr. Derrick, and now I’m going to be just as straight with you. I can’t help letting myself in for it”—here he glanced swiftly at Burke—“but I don’t much care what happens. What’s more, I’d just as soon Blunt heard what I’ve got to say, and he can check me up when I get off the track, if he wants to. I’ll start at the beginning, and that’s about eight years ago when we went up country in Burma.”
“Who do you mean by we?”
“My wife and me. I had been trading along the Irawadi, been there for some years, when I heard there was good business to be done further up. We were about ready to pull out, but I changed my plans. Ever been in those parts?”
Derrick shook his head.
“Then don’t go, sir. It’s no place for a white man, and less for a white woman. Folks seem to go mad there without knowing it, a sort of slow, creeping madness that by and by gets them. It’s the jungle that does it, with the smell of the orchids like a woman’s breast, air that thick and heavy you could almost cut it with a knife like cheese, soft under your foot with things dying and being born. There are butterflies as big as your hat that go fluttering round as though they were drunk with the smell of the flowers, as I guess they are; and the flowers are like pulp, with nothing to touch a Lady Hillingdon in the whole country. It seemed to me after a while that most every one is either mad or drunk in the jungle, which is perhaps the same thing, but of course they don’t know it. Anyway, it was eight years ago, no, seven, that Mr. Millicent came along. He had traveled up river to see the country, being interested in that sort of thing. I was away still further up at the time, and when he got back on his way to Rangoon he stopped at my place because there was nowhere else to stay. What happened there I didn’t know at the time, but—”
He broke off helplessly, locked and twisted his thick fingers together, stared uncertainly at Derrick and then at Blunt.
“Go on,” said the latter quietly.
“It was nearly a year before I found out, but when I got back my wife had gone, leaving no word. Then I went mad, too, blaming myself because I had kept her so long in the jungle and she begging me to take her out. Perhaps as I see it now she felt the madness coming on her, but trade was so promising that I hung on. After a while the natives told me about Mr. Millicent, but none of them knew his name, only that he had come from up country, and there were queer stories about him. I started tracing the thing back till I found a priest who told me that an Englishman like him had robbed a temple up in the Mong Hills. Then I sold my stuff and started for Rangoon. There was more of the story there, and I got Mr. Millicent’s address from a clerk in the shipping office. I took the first boat to England, came to Bamberley, and my wife didn’t know me.”
Martin stopped abruptly, and Derrick made a sudden gesture of sympathy. Blunt’s face did not alter a fraction. This was but a tale to him, and apparently not of great interest, a minor scene in the play.
“Go on!” he said again.
“Looking back at it now, I can see one reason for some of it. Soon after we married she had a son, but he didn’t live only a few days. She was never quite the same afterward, knowing she couldn’t have another. Maybe that had a little to do with her going off after Mr. Millicent. You can’t guess what it’s like to be hunting a wife who has gone in pursuit of a man you never saw.”
“No,” said Derrick slowly, “I can’t.”
“Well, sir, that was my case, and when finally I found her I learned the truth. It wasn’t Mr. Millicent himself at all, but that damned jade god he had stolen, that and perhaps the jungle madness. Maybe Blunt here will tell you more about the thing. Mind you, the natives believed in it, and whatever it was that got into her blood made her believe in it, too. At any rate, Mr. Millicent had the ungodly thing, though I suppose he never knew just why he stole it, and that anchored her wherever he happened to be, like a moth trying to get inside a lamp. She couldn’t get away if she wanted to. Mr. Millicent himself never knew, I believe that, and was always kind to her as he was to every one else, and nothing more. Had I thought there was anything else I would have killed him myself, and I don’t care if the sergeant hears me say so, either. So my wife went into his family as a servant, just to be near him. Mad, yes, she was mad enough. Did you never notice her eyes, sir?”
“I think we all noticed them.”
“Then I needn’t say much more about that. As I say, I got to Beech Lodge, and she looked straight in my face and didn’t know me for her husband. She knew that she had known me before, but that was all, if you understand. I couldn’t force myself on her without destroying what little comfort she got out of being near her master, though God knows that was more pain than comfort. At the same time, I couldn’t leave her without some kind of protection, for I had never wanted any woman but her, so I applied for the job of gardener, and got it, perhaps because I knew the country Mr. Millicent was thinking of most of the time. There I was, working for the same people as my own wife, but no more a husband of my wife’s than one of my own shrubs. The jade god had her for its own, and it had Mr. Millicent, too. The fear was on him. I could see that.”
“Why didn’t you tell Mr. Millicent the truth as soon as you got to Beech Lodge?”
“Because my wife would have gone clean mad if I had, for he would have tried to send her away. And back of all this I knew there were those in the Mong Hills who would never rest or be content till they got the damned thing back in their own hands. What’s more, they weren’t the sort who cared much what they did to get it. Millicent’s life wouldn’t be worth a snap of the finger when they found out where he was, if they thought he had it. That was always in my head. And there was she, moving further and further away from me, and more and more in love with him. Can you see the sort of life I led? But the master was always straight with me, and no man ever had a better boss.”
“The night you applied to me for a job,” put in Derrick, “I asked her if she thought under all the circumstances I would do well to take you on, and she said yes, if I wanted a garden like Mr. Millicent’s. How do you explain that?”
“Simple enough, sir. She remembered me as a gardener for Mr. Millicent, and that I was good with flowers, and nothing else.” He broke off in distress and sent Blunt a pathetic glance.
“You people are getting the truth,” said the latter, fingering his handcuffs. “Go on, Martin.”
“Well, I waited and waited, knowing that that lot in the Mong Hills would never forget, or give the thing up, and the jade god was working somewhere in the dark. Then came the night when it happened. I was out behind the cottage when my wife came tearing down the drive like a crazy woman, screaming that she had had a terrible dream and Mr. Millicent was dead. She was only half dressed, with her hair down, and just for a minute I thought the worst of them both, then saw that she was in a sort of daze as she used to be when once or twice I caught her walking in her sleep. The knife was in her hand. I guessed what had happened and got it away from her, and wiped the blood from her fingers, and all the time she kept on talking as though she didn’t see me. I told her it was only a dream and went up to the house with her and found it was as she said.”
Martin’s voice faltered here, and he looked beseechingly at Derrick. “What would you have done, sir, if you’d been me?”
“I think probably exactly the same.”
“Yes, because no man could do anything else. Here was this poor woman who did not know she had committed any crime, only that she had found the man she loved better than anything on earth in a pool of his own blood. I knew that I had to act quickly if I was going to save her and got it into her head that she must break the news to Mrs. Millicent, who would send her straight to the cottage again. Her mind was still dazed, but she grasped that, and I sneaked back to my own place. And all this I’ve told you is God’s truth, and it brings you up to the start of what every one knows about the Millicent mystery. Since then I’ve kept my mouth shut, but”—and here the man stared grimly at Burke—“I’d do the same thing again for the same reason. I know I’m a perjurer and reckon I’ll have to pay for that. But I’m ready to pay.”
Derrick turned involuntarily to Burke, who had been sitting quite motionless, slowly twisting a pencil between his broad finger-tips. The big, strong face reflected nothing of his thoughts. The sergeant had drunk in every word, his brain turned to detect any seeming flaw on which he might fasten. But so far there was none, except that his stolid British mind could not grasp the seeming potentiality that lay in a lump of carved stone. Blunt did not stir a muscle and regarded his handcuffs with a sort of quiet interest as though they were children’s toys. From his expression Derrick knew what Blunt was thinking about.
“Is there anything else, Martin?”
“Only the inquest and all that part of it. After it was over I knew by my wife’s face that her soul had gone wandering after Millicent and that I was nothing to her and never could be. But she was my woman, and nothing would alter that. I did not know where the image was, nor did she, and right away it seemed clear that if I stayed I might let out something. I told her I was going away, and she looked at me as though she had never seen me before, so I knew that nothing would drive her from Beech Lodge while that damned thing was hidden there. She wanted to find it, too, but in a way was afraid to find it. So I hid the knife and went off.”
“Why hide the knife?” put in Derrick sharply.
“So in case she should ever be charged with the murder I might come back and the thing be found with me. That would let her out,” said Martin steadily.
Derrick caught his breath. He had a blinding glimpse of the unswerving devotion hidden behind this formidable exterior. The sheer depth of it seemed to dwarf all other kinds of worship. The gallows to save this cold and repellent woman, this one woman of his heart. That was the offering Martin stood ready to make.
“Well,” continued the heavy voice, “I went back to Burma, and by that time the story of the theft of the god was pretty much all over the Mong Hills, not talked of openly, but going round in whispers, and I knew that something else was bound to happen. I met Blunt there, and he knew that I knew and followed me. He’ll tell you his own story about that if you ask him. I stayed with my sister in America, but all the time something was calling me back here, so I came, hotfoot. And the minute I reached the house I knew the god was still there.”
“And when you arrived you found you were no more to your wife than before?”
Martin pulled himself together. “That’s it,” he said, with a glance almost of gratitude; “not even as much. And when Miss Millicent came in I knew the infernal thing was at work again.”
“I felt something of the kind, too.”
Martin nodded. “I saw that, sir, though you were all in the dark. Then Blunt got here, as I knew he would, and you can guess the rest. Last night, when my woman came into the study and saw things just as they once were, she thought she had waked up again, and I hadn’t time to stop her. My God, Mr. Derrick, did you know what was coming?”
“No, Martin, I didn’t, except that I frankly expected you might say something. It was a jump in the dark.”
“Then if I had said what she did, or something like it, she would be alive now,” groaned the man bitterly.
Derrick could not answer that, and there ensued a poignant moment which he ended by turning suddenly to Burke. “Is there anything you want cleared up, sergeant?”
“No, sir”—the man’s voice was softer than usual—“but there’s one thing, about Martin calling himself a perjurer. The law does not ask that a man or woman give evidence against each other if they are man and wife. Considering what we’ve heard, I think Martin can forget the perjury part of it. I see now how the knife happened to be in the cottage, for that did surprise me. I thought perhaps Blunt had put it there for his own purpose. We might as well get on to what he has to say.”
“I’ll give you the rest of it,” began the peddler in a clear voice, “and you can pick any holes in it you like. All that Martin says is true, every word of it. I come from the Mong Hills and was born near there. My father was English, and you might know his name, but he’s dead now, so that end of it doesn’t matter. My mother was a Malay woman, and she’s alive. I lived near a temple in the hills where the priests believed in what they said and read, which isn’t always the case in that country. It was a famous temple, and the more famous on account of what was in it, this being a lot of images of Buddha, all the work of one man. The name of the man was Lung Sen, and he had the blood of forefathers who were the greatest artists of their time in wood and gold and jade. Most of Lung’s work went to this temple, where it was very precious, but of the man himself the priests knew nothing except that the faces he carved were alive and something moved behind the eyes. One night I stayed with Lung, and before morning came I knew the man as none other ever had. It seemed that there were two men in him, one the carver of images, the other with all the evil of the world wrapped up in his black heart. He told me, perhaps because I had foreign blood and he thought I would understand better, that he was tired of making flat-faced Buddhas and had been tired for years, and that evil was more interesting than good, and it was more difficult to carve evil than the other thing. Then he looked at me for a quarter of an hour while he smoked, and took something out of a roll of silk. It was the jade god.”
He paused reflectively, his eyes cloudy with memories, and Derrick had a glimpse of what he must have seen then. The half-light, the dark sardonic face, the long, lean fingers, the obscurity of a riverside hut, and all around it the ceaseless whisper of the jungle.
“When I saw that,” went on Blunt presently, “I was frightened, for it was the image of the soul that Lung Sen had hidden from the world. He had spent years making it, putting in the hours when he wasn’t turning out the standard article. And as he looked at the thing I saw that his own face had become just like it. There was a sort of living devil there, crammed with all the knowledge in hell and afraid of nothing in the other place. And this was the man who had been carving Buddhas for nearly fifty years according to his own account. I asked him what he was going to do with it, and he said put it in the temple, where they let him do pretty much as he liked, and after a while it would acquire and soak in the power of the real thing, by which it would be surrounded, but would lose nothing of what he had carved on it. That would make it a god of evil, with the influence of the real gods behind it.”
The man hesitated an instant and looked curiously at Derrick. “All this may sound like a fairy-story to you, but if you and your people had lived in the Mong Hills all your lives it wouldn’t seem like that.”
“I think I understand.”
“Well, when he finished it, working with sharp sand and thousands of little wooden drills to cut the stone, he did put it in the temple. I don’t know how long the job had taken, but probably not less than thirty years. Then he sat tight, smiling to himself, till the priests found out. They knew in a minute that if the thing ever got away from them it would raise hell for whoever had it, so they guarded it day and night till a year or so later Millicent came along. He heard of it; the thought of the thing began to work in his brain; and, to make a long story short, he bribed a young priest and got away with it. The first thing that happened was that Lung Sen didn’t wake up one morning, and his face was just like the jade god’s. The priest was never seen again. Then for some reason they sent for me and told me to go in search of it; didn’t ask, but told me. And I knew enough to go. It took me years to find Martin, and if you ask why I didn’t give it up long ago, I can’t tell you, except that I knew another was coming after me, and then another, but I would only see them once. When I got here, I knew by Martin’s face that the god was not far off. So now”—here he glanced dominantly at Derrick—“this thing must go back with me. The god of all evil lives in it, and whoever keeps it will be cursed. Joy will die for him, and fear will come, and love be changed to a dream of terror. God hides in that stone, and sacrifices must be made in front of it. What becomes of me does not matter. The woman killed the man, because the image commanded her. She could not help it, her love being turned to gall. And this is only the beginning of what must come if the image stays in your keeping.”
The voice lifted with a strange domination that brooked no interruption, and the peddler’s features took on a look of exalted prophecy. “What do the children of to-day know of the wisdom that dwelt in the hills of Mong when England was peopled by half-naked savages? They are like children with toys they do not understand. Gautama opened the books of good and evil that all might read. You of the West have read not at all; Lung Sen read only the evil, and he is dead; and this man from an English village disobeyed the law and passed at the hand of one who struck when her eyes were closed. When after two years they opened, she struck again, but this time at herself. She was asleep, but the god never sleeps. So if you do not give it to me, then make an end of me quickly, and prepare for the next messenger, who is now on his way, and will not ask, but take.”
Silence descended in the cell. Burke’s eyes were half closed, as though he peered at visions hitherto unguessed. A cart creaked in the distance but did not break the spell. Derrick had an abiding sensation that from the East a hand had reached out and touched the village of Bamberley into a strange sleep. Martin sat motionless, reliving the past, while the peddler clasped his lean fingers, a look of intense abstraction on his dark smooth face. Derrick was aware that he felt amazingly impotent, and with difficulty made an indefinite gesture.
“Sergeant,” he said, after a long pause, “I make no charge against Martin and will go bail for his appearance at the inquest when wanted.”
The big man jerked himself together, stood up, groped in his pocket, and produced a key. There was a click of steel. Martin was a free man.
“You might go back to the cottage now,” said Derrick, looking him full in the eye.
The gardener nodded, shook himself like a wet dog, said one sibilant word of farewell to the peddler, and vanished. His step was still audible when Burke fastened an inquiring look on Blunt.
“What about this man, sir? Are you going to let him down as easy as that?”
“I take it that the only charge is of attempted theft?”
“That’s right, but I wouldn’t be so sure about bail in this case.”
“And the only damage is to the French window?”
“That’s for you to say, sir. It’s your house.”
Derrick turned to Blunt. “You have come here in search of a certain thing. In that I believe you have told the truth, but as to what may follow if you don’t get it, that’s another story. I do accept what you said about the image, and that it has for some reason an evil effect. It is not necessary to go into that any further, but since the thing is evil, it should no longer exist, and—”
Blunt leaped to his feet. “What are you going to do?”
“First leave it to the sergeant to decide whether he keeps you here till the inquest, and—”
“I’ll certainly do that,” put in Burke.
“Well, after that’s over there will be no reason for you to stay in England any longer. You can go back to the Mong Hills and tell them that the image does not exist. It won’t.”
“You’ll destroy it?” whispered Blunt, aghast.
“Yes. If it’s the evil thing you say, and I believe you, it ought to be destroyed. If it isn’t, you’ve been lying, which I don’t believe. I’ve learned something from all this, Blunt,” he added thoughtfully, “and my mind is made up. Good morning, sergeant.”