He stole a glance at Millicent’s portrait. “Here, on the hearth, under that. I think he’ll know about it and be glad. It won’t burn, but I’ve got a wax duplicate that ought to make a pillar of flame.”
Opening a drawer in the desk, he took out a hammer and the model, then laid the image on the tile hearth.
“There is proof, at any rate for you and me,” he said thoughtfully, “that this exercised a strange influence over the minds of many persons. It is the object of fear among thousands we shall never see, and the story of it has run through valleys and hills on the other side of the earth where the brown people talk of it in whispers. It has brought men round the world, and there are others who are waiting for the word that will bring them, too. Just so long as it exists there will be pain and theft and crime and fear. And this is the finish of all that, darling.”
He raised the hammer. Driven with all the strength of his wrist, it fell fair on the malignant head. There was a shivering sound as of tinkling glass, and the jade god dissolved into mottled green fragments. He felt a sharp pang in his thumb. An emerald splinter quivered there, like a miniature javelin beaded with blood.
“Evil to the very end,” he grunted, then struck again.
The god’s head dwindled to powder. He swept back the wreckage and dropped the wax model into the smoldering embers. Flame shot up, leaping, sputtering, and hissing. They stood staring at it, their cheeks touching. It was in Derrick’s mind that in this flame the dross of life was being burned away. Jean did not move till the fiery pyramid subsided. And as it died there came the sound of a horn from the drive.
“The Thursbys,” he said disgustedly. “Do you want to see them?”
“Please, no. What had I better do?”
“I’d go to your mother, and please ask Edith to join me here.” He gave a sudden little smile. “I’ve a sort of foolish idea that—” He stopped, glanced at the hearth, and shook his head. “No, it’s too foolish.”
“Tell me quickly.”