“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.