“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.