THE JADE GOD

BY

ALAN SULLIVAN

PUBLISHED BY THE CENTURY CO.

New York and London ⁂ ⁂ ⁂ ⁂ ⁂

Copyright, 1925, by

The Century Co.

PRINTED IN U. S. A.

CONTENTS

THE JADE GOD

The Jade God

CHAPTER I
THE OLD HOUSE

MR. JARRAD was a tall, lean man, with very quiet eyes, an observant air, and an impassive face. His clothing was unobtrusive and seemed to have arrived at that point of age at which clothing shows no further sign of wear. He was standing near the fireplace of an old-fashioned, oak-paneled room, and from his expression one might assume that he beheld its entire contents at a glance. Presently he fingered a bowl on the gray stone mantelpiece.

“One blue six-inch Delft, slightly chipped in two places on the upper edge,” he drawled.

Another man, rather younger, somewhat fatter, was seated at a table. He had something of Mr. Jarrad’s world-weary manner, but the process had not been carried quite so far, and he looked rather less diffident. He raised his eyes from a large book spread open before him and nodded.

“On the upper edge,” he repeated mechanically.

Mr. Jarrad put his ear to the clock. “One black marble timepiece, apparently in good order, lower left-hand corner damaged, complete with key. Keyhole slightly scratched.”

“Yes, we have that.”

The older man paused, took a swift inspection of his surroundings, pulled in his lower lip, and nodded thoughtfully. “Matter of fact, Mr. Dawkins, when I compare this room with several thousand others I’ve inspected, I rather like it. Wouldn’t mind having it myself, and in our profession that’s about as far as one can go.”

Dawkins put down his pen. “I had an idea that by this time you were past liking anything in the line of furnishings.”

“Two twelve-inch pewter candlesticks, all feet bent. You’re not right there. After thirty years of inventory work one sometimes becomes thankful in a sort of negative way for the things one does not see. This is one of those times. I generally look about, take the whole show in with one squint, and ask myself why people commit such crimes. Did you ever reflect how much humanity is run by things, just things?”

“No, I haven’t, and I don’t think they are. Things have no influence, no effect. They can’t run anything.”

Mr. Jarad grunted, “Matter of fact, they do. You think again. The getting together of things makes jobs for you and me in the first place. Therefore they run us. There was no inventory work in prehistoric days. And, apart from that, the collecting of them is the finish of at least half the entire number of what we call civilized women.”

Dawkins laughed. “It’ll never finish my woman. We haven’t got any to speak of.”

His companion nodded approvingly. “Keep on like that, if you can, and you’ll do; but it isn’t as easy as you think. It’s the bargain that you really don’t want here, and the job lot there—the gradual accumulation of things—that makes life drag and anchors their souls as well as their bodies. Stop and think a minute. First of all, when a girl is married she starts collecting. Children may come, but she goes on with the collecting in between. It takes her mind off the children. The collection grows and grows. As a general rule about half the articles are not ornamental, and about half are never used. That makes no difference; she goes on. At middle age, Dawkins, they’ve got her; she’s surrounded by them. Carved wood from Uncle John in Burma, Birmingham brass from Egypt, assagais from her brother in Africa, deer heads from Scotland, and perhaps an elephant’s foot from Ceylon, all as ugly as ugliness can be. Some of these things may have certain virtues, or”—here Mr. Jarrad hesitated a little—“or certain disadvantages, but she can’t appreciate that, because they are lost in the general ruck. After a while she dies; the new generation comes along, holds up its hands, says what a frightful collection, throws it all out, and begins the same process over again under new rules.”

Having delivered himself of these sentiments, Mr. Jarrad indulged in a smile that was a little quizzical. His face, though shrewd, had no touch of cynicism, and this in spite of the fact that he had spent thirty years in estimating other people’s property. This interminable procession produced in his mind rather a curious effect, and he had acquired the habit of estimating his fellow-men by the things the latter owned and apparently treasured. Experience enabled him to form an excellent appraisal of the individual by merely walking through his house. He could visualize the owner. And if sometimes the job bored Mr. Jarrad, he never disclosed it.

“I said just now,” he went on with a wave of the hand, “that I rather liked this room. These things are good and not too numerous. They practically all fit. Of course they belong to Mr. Thursby, except the portrait, but, if they could, I’ve an idea they’d sooner still be owned by Mrs. Millicent. Mr. Thursby made his money very quickly during the war, and Mrs. Thursby isn’t the kind to collect such as this.” He touched a bit of lacquer with what almost amounted to a caress. “Ever hear the story? It’s short, but not pretty. It rather got hold of me, because there’s more in it than meets the eye.”

Dawkins shook his head. “I’ve never been in this part before.”

“Well, Mr. Millicent, who lived here for years with his wife and daughter, died very suddenly in this very room. He was a strange, remote sort of gentleman, so I’m told, and a great traveler. About middle age, he was. Had a habit of sitting up late, reading and writing, enjoyed perfect health, enough money to live on so far as people knew, and apparently without an enemy in the world. At ten o’clock one evening he was found lying across that desk with a wound in his throat big enough to put your hand into.”

“Why?” said Dawkins, startled.

Mr. Jarrad shrugged his shoulders. “That’s what the coroner and the local police and the London detective tried to find out, and failed. No proof against any one; no strange characters about, no clues, nothing found afterward, nothing whatever to go on; but it happened in this sleepy old place where there’s nothing but roses and scenery. It’s never been cleared up to this day, and probably never will be.”

Dawkins glanced about rather uncomfortably. “Then the place was sold?”

“Mrs. Millicent couldn’t get out quickly enough. The Thursbys came along in their car, offered half its value, and got it. They said they didn’t mind a murder or so if the drains were good. When they moved in they intended to stay; but they moved out in less than six months, and I’m told that Mrs. Thursby said that nothing on earth would induce her to stay. Interesting, isn’t it?”

“It’s a queer old house anyway. Not haunted, is it?”

“I never heard a whisper of that, and it’s the sort of thing you can’t keep quiet if tongues start wagging.”

“I wonder,” murmured Dawkins reflectively, “if my client knows about this.”

Mr. Jarrad’s brows went up. “In our profession it does not concern us what our clients may or may not know. Our business is to establish the physical condition of a lot of infernally uninteresting things. But, believe me, every house has its secret. We can’t report on that; we can’t even read it, because we’re not there long enough.”

Dawkins nibbled the end of his pen. “I wonder!”

“Why not? Every room I go into seems to want to say something to me, something it’s tired of keeping to itself, but I hurry through because I don’t want to be burdened. When you’ve been an inventory clerk a few years longer, it will come to you. You can’t escape it.” He paused, his gaze traveling round the oaken walls, then peered under the clock, swung out a picture, and examined the surface behind it. He touched this with a moistened finger.

“Condition in general I should say is excellent.”

It struck the younger man that for some time he had been accepting Mr. Jarrad’s conclusions without comment; so he got up and made a businesslike inspection on his own account.

“Only fair, I should say.”

Mr. Jarrad made a little noise in his throat. “There’s not much to disagree about. Shall we arbitrate?”

“Of course!”

The older man felt in his pocket, produced a coin, and tossed it.

“Heads,” said Dawkins.

“It’s tails,” Mr. Jarrad smiled blandly. “Make a note of that, will you?”

Dawkins moved back to the table and began to scribble. The next moment he became aware that some one had entered the room and stopped short. Mr. Jarrad was regarding a woman who stood just inside the door and surveyed them with grim attention. Neither man had heard her come. Her face was well formed but sallow; the chin rather square, the nose long and thin. Her lips were immobile and slightly compressed. It was the eyes that held the two appraisers, being large and black and filled with a kind of slow, smoldering light. Her figure, tall, spare, and angular, carried with it an odd suggestion of menace. Her air was one of distinct animosity. Dawkins gave a slight start. A short silence followed, and he wondered how long she had been there, also how much she had seen and heard.

“Mr. Derrick is just coming up the drive,” she said crisply.

Mr. Jarrad rubbed his hands as though they were cold.

“Excellent,” he replied with obvious relief. “My colleague and I have just completed our work. I understand you are the housekeeper, Miss Perkins?”

“No, I am the housemaid; at least, I was.”

“Then it may interest you to know that we find the place in admirable condition.”

Perkins seemed unimpressed, took a slow glance round the room, and disappeared. Nor did Mr. Jarrad appear to expect any reply. Dawkins did not speak but whistled softly. Since the history of this room had been unfolded, it had become rather oppressive, and the sudden advent of this strange woman added mysteriously to his uncomfortable sensations. He experienced a swift longing for light and air. Mr. Jarrad had crossed to the fireplace and was staring at an oil portrait over the hearth. Presently he stroked his long chin.

“That woman, I believe, came here soon after Mr. Millicent first came. She was here when he died, then stayed with the Thursbys during their occupancy, took charge of the house when they decided they had had enough; and, Dawkins, I don’t mind betting she’ll stay with your clients too, as long as they stay.”

Dawkins gave an involuntary shiver. “What holds her in such a lonely place?”

“Every house has its secret,” said Mr. Jarrad.

At this moment quick steps sounded in the hall, there was an echo of a young, strong voice, and the new tenant of Beech Lodge entered the room. Dawkins jumped up, while Mr. Jarrad assumed an air of professional dignity.

“Good afternoon, sir,” he said. “My colleague and I have just finished our work, and you will be glad to know that all is in excellent order. You may be assured that your interests have been well looked after.”

Derrick, a tall young man with restless eyes, nodded casually. He did not seem much impressed, being busy with a swift scrutiny of the study. The mellow paneling, big fireplace, wide oak-planked floor, the large, companionable desk, and the French window opening to the smooth lawn all gave it an atmosphere at once restful and intimate. He felt as though he could turn out good stuff here. Then he nodded contentedly.

“Thanks very much, but I think you’d better see Miss Derrick about these things.”

Mr. Jarrad and Dawkins made two stiff little bows which were absurdly alike and gathered up their papers. Derrick, left alone, moved automatically to the fireplace and stood staring at the oil portrait. He was in this attitude when his sister entered, short, alert, and businesslike. He glanced at her with a slow, provocative smile.

“Well, here we are. Am I forgiven for a snap decision?”

“Really I don’t know yet. I’ve hardly seen the place, but it seems very comfortable, and I know what took your eye. Isn’t getting settled an awful feeling? When will the Thursbys be here?”

He consulted his watch. “They should be here now; early in the afternoon, Thursby said. Did you inquire about servants?”

“Yes, and I wanted to speak to you about that maid. Did you notice her?”

“Rather; who wouldn’t? She mesmerized me when I came here the first time.” He laughed. “Do you want her?”

“My dear Jack, the question is the other way. If you insist on renting a house two miles from anywhere, the first thing to decide is whether your prospective servants want you. As to this one I don’t exactly know. She rather gives me the creeps.”

“What’s the matter, old thing?”

She sent him an odd smile in which there was no comfort. “I can’t say; probably nothing at all but the move, and this house, and all the rest of it. Jack, why were you so keen on it?”

He looked about, almost as though he saw something more than pictures and furniture. There was something more; he had been sure of that the first time he put foot in the room, but it was not the sort of thing one could explain or even justify.

“I really don’t know,” he said slowly, “but I was, and without any question. The rest of this house is what one might expect to find, but this room, well, I took a special fancy to it, and here we are. That’s about as much as you can expect from the ordinary man. I can do good work here from the feel of the place.”

She examined the study with curious interest. Comfortable? Yes. Workmanlike? Yes. A man’s room with nothing in it that was not completely livable. A few books in corner cases; a few good prints framed in harmony with the walls; the big, flat desk, leather-covered as to the center, with its dark mahogany edge showing long and careful usage; the leather chairs, men’s chairs, large and inviting; the great fireplace in its dull, oaken setting; all this dominated by the oil portrait, from which a pair of quiet brown eyes looked out with a gaze at once striking and contemplative.

“But did you find anything unusual about this room?”

“I’m not so sure now; but, yes, I did. You know my weakness for jumping to conclusions.”

Her brows wrinkled. “I’m glad you admit that at the very start. You were tired with a flat in town, passed this place, and saw the sign. You walked through it and fell a victim, as you often have before. The immediate result is that we’ve made an extra effort to gratify your whim, though I’m afraid it’s really more than we should have attempted. You’ll be much happier, Jack, if you admit this at once.”

“I do,” grinned Derrick, “but I’d never have fallen had I not a very competent sister who I knew would save the situation. You’re quite right, Edith; I really can’t afford it, but the place was dirt cheap.”

“Well, I’m afraid it’s going to be something of the same sort with that maid, who will want more than you can really afford to pay; just another luxury we’ll have to live up to. In a lonely spot like this a servant asks top wages; and we’ll need two.”

Derrick hardly heard this. There was an odd little singing in his ears, as though a myriad of tiny voices, long held silent, had suddenly found a myriad of minute tongues. Well, he could wait for the rest. He went back to his discovery of Beech Lodge, the inspection under the guidance of its silent caretaker, the interview with the agent, and the growing conviction that he must take this house at once.

“How much does the maid ask?” he hazarded.

“I don’t know. I’m almost afraid to inquire.”

“She is a bit formidable,” he admitted; then, slowly, “I wonder whether we’ve taken the house, or the house has taken us.”

His sister glanced at him, puzzled. “I don’t quite follow; but isn’t the result the same in either case?”

He shook his head. “I’m not so sure about that.”

Edith Derrick was prone to confess that she had never quite understood her brother, but had so far maintained that she was better able to look after him than any other woman. He was the only man in her life, and she was not ready to surrender him; but of late the going had become more difficult. She did, however, understand well enough not to attempt to fathom his moods and with a certain placid good nature put them down to the vagaries of the creative mind.

For the past few months he had been caught up in the ambition to write the one great book of his career. This would demand solitude and concentration and, above all things, a garden of his own. So when he returned from a prospecting trip and announced that the abode of his dreams was discovered and secured, Edith packed their belongings and journeyed into Sussex, determined not to be disappointed, yet prepared for the worst. In Beech Lodge she found but little to criticize, so little that she wondered mutely why the terms were so low. The place was comfortable but to her in no way fascinating, and her chief thought was of her own responsibilities in keeping the domestic wheels turning smoothly. If there were anything else behind this, anything that exercised a peculiar fascination on her brother, it would doubtless be apparent later on. Meantime he was in one of his moods. She glanced at the placid features above the mantel, wondering whose they were.

“It’s quite obvious that Mr. John Derrick has one of his preoccupied sensations to-day.”

He nodded. “As a matter of fact I do feel a bit queer, but there’s no anxiety in it, just the preliminary quiver to settling down.” He paused and glanced at her oddly. “I had no alternative.”

“From what?”

“From coming here. I mean I was meant to come.”

She smiled indulgently. The thing about him was that he was different from all the men she knew. A good deal of the boy, a touch of the woman in his gentle persistence, whimsical, sensitive, calling her to aid him in a thousand ways he never saw, his mind open to winds of influence that she could only guess at; how much and how constantly he needed her! She admired his work, which she could not fully appreciate, and believed him capable of anything. Something of this was in her look, and he put an arm caressingly on her shoulder, then perched on the corner of the big desk.

“I think we’re going to be jolly happy and comfortable here, and I’ll certainly get a lot of work done. That’s a man’s way of putting it, and if you only—”

He broke off suddenly, jerked up his hand, and stared at it strangely. “Well, I’ll be dashed!”

She bent forward quickly. “What’s the matter, Jack?”

He flexed his fingers, shook his head with some confusion, and, turning, leaned over and examined the big desk. “Don’t know,” he said awkwardly; “probably only writer’s cramp; but it never took me before. Perhaps I’d better get a typewriter, though I hate the things.”

Edith was about to speak when there came an almost inaudible knock at the door, and Perkins entered.

“If you please, madam, Mr. and Mrs. Thursby are walking up the drive.”

“Thank you; please bring them in here. And, Perkins—”

“Yes, madam?”

“It—it doesn’t matter now. I’ll see you afterward.”

The woman went out, and Derrick glanced at his sister with genuine curiosity. This was very unlike her.

“I say, Edith, what’s up?”

She blinked and pulled herself together. “Nothing at all, Jack.”

“Don’t think of keeping that person if you don’t fancy her. There must be others available.”

“What an extraordinary expression she has! It made me feel a little cold.”

The coming of the Thursbys reduced the atmosphere of Beech Lodge to an undoubted normal. Mr. Thursby was short, brisk, alert, and highly colored both as to clothes and complexion. He spoke in a sharp staccato voice that carried unfailing self-assurance. A manufacturer in a small way before the war, he had seized opportunity with both hands and made his fortune by sending in regular supplies of handgrenades, of which, though they were unloaded when they left his works, he seemed at first almost afraid. This uncertainty, however, soon left him, and after the Armistice he made an excellent settlement in respect of partially completed orders, winding up his business with a credit balance that surprised even himself.

And if her husband’s rotund person was eloquent of commercial success, his feminine counterpart reflected no less this satisfactory dénouement. She had a round, plump face; stubby and equally plump fingers, weighted with rings of varying value and brilliancy; full, red cheeks, and a penetrating, high-pitched voice. She wore all she could, and on top of this a mountain of glossy furs. The Thursbys, man and wife, reeked of money; but were naturally good-hearted people whom money could not quite spoil. And from their present manner it would seem that they were genuinely interested in Derrick and his sister. Mrs. Thursby glanced round, nodded at the sight of familiar things, and settled herself comfortably.

“I’m very glad to meet you, Miss Derrick,” she said cheerfully, “and isn’t it odd to come into one’s own house and find some one else sitting there?”

Miss Derrick smiled. “I suppose it is.”

“I do hope you like the place, and if there’s anything I can tell you about it you’re very welcome.”

“It’s a good deal larger than I expected, but it seems very homelike, and my brother evidently fell in love with it at first sight. The things in it are charming.”

“Glad they appeal to you, but as a matter of fact I chose hardly any of them.”

Mr. Thursby nodded complacently. “That’s so! I picked up the place just at it stood, with practically everything in it. We were motoring past, just like your brother, saw the sign, took a fancy, and bought it the very next day. I don’t believe in haggling over prices when you see what you want.”

“And, what’s more, we took it over with the servants just as they stood, too,” chimed in his wife. “The only trouble was that they stood too much; in fact, all of them except Perkins.”

“Really,” said Edith.

“Yes,” replied Thursby genially, “she couldn’t get a job on the strength of her looks, but I never knew a servant do so much work and make so little fuss over it. The thing is to forget her face, if one can. How do you like Beech Lodge, Mr. Derrick?”

“Very much; but I suppose that since I’m the guilty party in taking it, I couldn’t say anything else. This room appeals to me, especially.”

As he said this, he intercepted a glance that Mr. Thursby darted at his wife, and experienced a curious conviction that these two were trying hard to conceal their satisfaction at having unloaded the house on some one else. He saw the plump lady on the sofa shake her head ever so slightly. Mr. Thursby stiffened, got a shade redder in the face, and his eyes rested for a fraction of a second on the features over the mantel, as though asking their late owner whether he required any publicity. The features evidently telegraphed back that he did not. Whereupon Mr. Thursby looked more genial than ever.

“It’s a good, comfortable room,” he agreed, “but I generally used the little one off the dining-room. It’s warmer.”

Mrs. Thursby gave a slight shiver and regarded the Derricks with renewed and unaffected interest. “I dare say it will sound very queer to you, but neither of us cared much for this room. For my part I like something brighter than old wood and old pictures. Never cared much for leather, either.”

Edith betrayed no surprise. She quite understood. But what did puzzle her was that people of the Thursby type should ever have bought this ancient mansion.

“You weren’t here very long, were you?” she ventured.

“Six months,” said Mr. Thursby; “six months, then we went off to France. I wanted to see some of the places where they used my grenades.”

“Did you make that stuff?” asked Derrick, amused.

“Tons of it. Ever use them?”

Derrick smiled. “Rather, but,” he put in hastily as his visitor brightened and prepared to talk shop, “one doesn’t say anything on that score now.”

“I’d be awfully obliged if Mrs. Thursby would show me something about the house up-stairs,” said Edith.

Thursby laughed. “Your sister is as practical as my wife, Mr. Derrick, so I’ll take the opportunity of showing you one or two things outside that may be useful.”

He seemed in an odd way glad to get out of the room, and Derrick listened to a disquisition on roses and mulch, Thursby being an authority on both. Beech Lodge had a reputation for its roses.

Meanwhile Mrs. Thursby, left alone with her hostess, glanced at the latter rather uncertainly.

“As to Perkins, Miss Derrick, I really don’t know that I can tell you very much. She isn’t the sort about whom one can say much.”

“I’d really be very grateful for anything you can tell me. Might I ask how long you had her?”

“Only six months or so. We weren’t in the house any longer than that.”

“Then did you ascertain anything about her before that? I mean, had she satisfactory references?”

Mrs. Thursby shook her head with what seemed unnecessary decision. “No, we found her here, just as you found her, or your brother. She was practically part of the house, and, looking back at it, I can’t imagine the house without her. Of course she had been with Mrs. Millicent, whom I have never seen, though she lives near here.”

Edith experienced a sudden curiosity about the Millicents, but something in Mrs. Thursby’s expression suggested that information on this subject would be forthcoming before long.

“And you found Perkins quite satisfactory? It would help me a good deal to know, because, frankly, I don’t see what keeps a woman in such a lonely spot.”

“She is absolutely clean and superior, very superior. As for being lonely, I saw no sign of it. She never once left the place, even to go to the village.”

Miss Derrick smiled. “That’s very good news, but I was just wondering if she isn’t too superior for us. We’re going to live very quietly. My brother can’t stand interruptions when he’s writing.”

The other woman sent her a look of candid scrutiny, then shook her head. “Miss Derrick, I’m going to tell you something that will sound queer, but it’s perfectly true. Perkins will like you a good deal better than she liked us. She made no pretense of that, though she was always most respectful. But I felt it just the same. I got the idea, and still have it, that she looked on us as intruders. I can’t for the life of me say why such a thing should be, but there you are, and I know it seems ridiculous. But Beech Lodge is too far from anywhere for its occupants to be over particular about trifles, and I put the thing out of my head—or tried to, anyway.”

“That’s curious,” said Edith reflectively; “she seems very respectful.”

“She’s the soul of respect, but I’m not sure what it’s for. Also she was too reserved for me. And she appeared to be afraid she’d say too much and let something slip she didn’t mean to. You asked about her references, but as a matter of fact I hadn’t the cheek to inquire for any, and took it for granted that she went with the house, whoever took it. I didn’t even write to Mrs. Millicent.”

“Who is Mrs. Millicent?”

Edith put the question impulsively, and Mrs. Thursby’s eyes sought the portrait that hung just above her head. She did not answer at once but seemed to be debating how much she might say. When finally she did speak, it was with a reluctance that was gradually overcome by the interest of her subject.

“We bought the place from her but only saw the agent. Mrs. Millicent herself was ill at the time and on the south coast with her daughter. Mr. Millicent had just died here, very suddenly, and she did not want to come back. She’s never been back since.”

“I didn’t know that,” said Edith slowly.

“Yes, and it happened in this very room.” Mrs. Thursby spoke more confidently now, warming a little, as though it was good to remember that it was now some one else’s room. “Mr. Millicent was found at that very desk and, I’m told, found by Perkins, who was devoted to him. Then his wife put the house on the market at once.”

Edith took a long breath. “I wish I’d known that,” she said thoughtfully, “but I’m glad somehow that I’ve heard it at once.”

“Would it have made any difference? I thought every one hereabouts knew it. Didn’t Perkins say anything about it to your brother?”

“Nothing whatever, and, Mrs. Thursby, please, I don’t want him to know just yet. I hope your husband won’t say anything. Jack is so sensitive and imaginative that it would divert him completely from his work, which at the present is very important.”

The stout woman laughed. “My husband is probably talking hard about roses and garden-mold. He’s got that on the brain now instead of grenades, and it’s much healthier. And if I were you I wouldn’t worry about Mr. Millicent. So now you know how we found Perkins, and I must say she kept the house spotless. But she was so quiet that it did get a bit on my nerves. She went about as though expecting something or some one, till I used to feel like asking her to shout out who or what it was. And, as I said, she never liked me.”

“How very strange!”

“I’m afraid I’ve rather let myself go on the subject, but I’ve told you all I know. It may be that Perkins likes things old and subdued like this, while I confess that I like them more new and shiny. Perhaps that’s why she wants to stay, if she does want to. I know how you can find out without asking.”

“How?” said Edith curiously.

“If she smiles at you, it will be all right. She never smiled at me.”

“I’m afraid I should need rather more than that.”

Mrs. Thursby shook her head impulsively. “I don’t believe you will. It’s a queer sort of house, if I do say it.”

“Did you ever imagine it was haunted?” Miss Derrick knew the question sounded childish, but it came out involuntarily. Much to her surprise Mrs. Thursby took it quite seriously.

“I did at first, but soon got over that. No, we’ve never been bothered. There’s a bit of creaking now and then, but not more than in any house of this sort, and certainly we never saw anything.” She paused, then went on quite frankly. “The real reason I came here to-day was to see whether it was likely that you and Perkins would hit it off, and if not I would have advised you to get rid of her, if you could; but whether the queerness is in the house or in her I really don’t know. It’s somewhere, not the sort of thing that can hurt, but that one just feels without knowing why.” She paused a moment.

“As to your brother, I’d advise you to say nothing at all if he’s the kind of man you describe. He’s bound to find out for himself. And if you’re wondering, Miss Derrick, why we should have let you take the house and then talk about it like this, the reason is that I may be misjudging Perkins altogether, and the whole affair may just be the result of my own imagination. Don’t take any notice of her, and everything should be all right. Now tell me: does it seem to you that I’ve said a lot of foolish things?”

“Not at all. I think you’ve been extremely kind, and, if I may say so, very honest, and it should all help very much, especially with Perkins. My brother had to have a quiet place to work in, and this should do admirably. I really don’t believe in ghosts; neither does he.”

“He’ll find it quiet enough here,” replied Mrs. Thursby significantly.

Voices sounded in the hall, and Derrick entered with his landlord. He looked pleased, as though Beech Lodge had revealed unexpected attractions.

“We’re going to have lots of roses next summer, Edith. Never saw a better lot of trees. Mr. Thursby has shown me everything. Place out there I can work in, too, when the decent weather comes.”

Edith nodded. “How very nice!” She turned to Mrs. Thursby. “One of my principal duties is to keep out of the way of a toiling author, yet to be on hand when wanted. Jack has always pictured himself working in a garden. Now we’ll have some tea.”

“That’s true, but who’s going to look after the roses? What about your late gardener, Mr. Thursby? Is he available for a man of moderate means?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know where he is. There should be somebody in the village who’d like the job.”

“And I’m sorry we can’t stay for tea,” put in his wife; “we have rather a long way to go.” She stole a glance at the portrait, her expression suggesting to Edith that there were already too many in the room.

“So thanks just the same,” said Thursby, “but as a matter of fact we have to be back in town within the hour, and that means hustling. We’re off to France for a while next week, but not the battle-fields this time. If you’re ready, Helen, we’ll make a start now. Good-by, Miss Derrick, and I hope you’ll be comfortable. My agent will look after any repairs, if you let him know. It may be we’ll pass here again, and if so I’ll drop in. And I want to read that book when it comes out.”

He spoke so abruptly that Miss Derrick was a little startled and felt now that while Mrs. Thursby had told her a good deal it was probably not all. Her first impulse was to betray nothing to her brother.

“Can’t you really stay for a few minutes? Tea is ready.” She rang the bell.

“We’d love to,” Mrs. Thursby assured her hastily. “But it’s quite impossible. I hope we’ll have better luck next time.” She put out a plump hand.

Derrick indulged in a puzzled glance. The manner of their departure was unmistakably hasty. He intercepted another wordless signal and felt suddenly amused.

“Would you like tea in the other room?” he hazarded.

The little man shook his head with decision. “It isn’t that at all, I assure you.” Then the door opened, and Perkins stood motionless on the threshold, her eyes fixed on Miss Derrick. She seemed unaware there were others present. Mrs. Thursby busied herself with her gloves and did not look up.

“You rang, madam?”

“Yes, Mr. and Mrs. Thursby are not staying for tea.”

Derrick had a strange conviction that Perkins knew this without being told, but the severe face of the maid changed not at all. She disappeared into the hall, followed shortly by the young man and his visitors. There were a few words of good-by and a final assurance that Beech Lodge would be found homelike and comfortable. Edith looked after them in silent wonder. Why were they so anxious to leave? The excuse had sounded something more than hollow. The whole affair had been queer and unnatural. Then she too stared at the portrait, as though asking what it all meant. Presently sounded the horn of a car and the dwindling note of an engine.

Derrick came back, and she regarded him expectantly. How much of it had he caught? It was the dream of his life to write his biggest book in a place like Beech Lodge. But he was sensitive, imaginative, and subjective, and she dreaded the impression this strange and mysterious atmosphere might produce. The uncertainty made her feel a little cold.

“Well, that’s done!” he said, rubbing his hands. “And I’ve nothing more to learn about the grounds. Thursby must have spent a good deal of money on the place. It’s odd that he left it, because in a way he seems still keen on it. Funny chap, that. He was almost apologetic about what he had done in the way of improvements. Anyway, here we are in full possession.”

“That’s just what I feel, and, Jack, I do hope it will be just what you want.”

“It is absolutely. I know that already, if you don’t find it too slow and remote. I’m a bit guilty on that score. I suppose there are some of the right sort in the neighborhood, and the Millicents are not far off. Did you learn anything satisfactory about that maid?”

“Yes,” she said slowly. “Mrs. Thursby’s report is that she’s very competent and trustworthy and possibly willing to do the whole thing herself. So I think I’ll keep her if she’ll stay.”

“Good. I thought you would. A bit out of the common, that woman.”

The door opened as he spoke, and Perkins came in with the tray. The two glanced at each other, and watched her silently. The long, deft fingers moved with a sort of definite precision, lingering over the silver as though the touch of it conveyed an actual pleasure. This deliberate procedure was marked by a noiseless precision. One could not imagine a woman like this making a mistake. Her face, absolutely impassive, betrayed nothing. While she was in the room she seemed part of it, and from her there spread something that almost suggested ownership. Then she went out, as silent as themselves. Derrick sat up.

“By George!” he said softly.

“What is it, Jack?”

He laughed. “Hanged if I know yet; something in the air. Probably it’s only the new and rather ideal surroundings that set one’s fancy going. You don’t feel anything, do you?”

“Only that I want my tea dreadfully. I had quite a talk with Mrs. Thursby.”

“What sort is she? Like her husband?”

“I should think so. Limited, you know, but doesn’t put on airs and is very honest apparently. She actually said that Perkins made her feel like an intruder but that it would be different with us. She says we suit Beech Lodge better than they did. It was rather pathetic.”

He put down his cup. “I can easily imagine that. The people who modernized Beech Lodge are our own sort and have a good deal in common with us. For instance, when the Thursbys picked up the place I don’t believe they were meant to, or expected. It’s different now. We were. I knew that as soon as I stepped into the hall.”

“Don’t be absurd, Jack! Expected by whom?”

“Perkins, for one, and no doubt by other people, or things; it doesn’t matter which, but I’m sure of it.”

“Jack,” she protested. “You’re rambling!”

“Well,” he answered slowly, “you just remember this talk, and see. We blend with the place, we’re suitable and acceptable, while the Thursbys were not. That’s obvious at a glance, and they certainly felt it themselves.”

“But how could we be expected by any one who didn’t know us? You can’t explain that.”

He looked at her with sudden gravity. “Did you never have a curious sensation that you were doing things for the second time?”

“Now you’re joking. Have some more tea?”

“No,” he said, “I’m not, and there’s no explanation for it. In fact I’ve an idea that they’re not meant to be explained; at least not yet. But I felt it the minute I got here.”

“But, Jack,” she protested, “you saw the house; you liked it, especially as you couldn’t quite afford it; and of course you were impulsive and took it. What has that to do with a servant, or any one else?”

“Perhaps nothing whatever. It’s a wonderful place to work in.”

“I think that’s the best way to look at it. What did Mr. Thursby talk about?”

“Mostly roses and mulch.” He broke off suddenly, regarding his sister with an intense and puzzled expression. “I’ve an extraordinary impression that some one died in this room not long ago; some one who didn’t want to die and wasn’t ready for it.”

“What do you mean?” she stammered. “Please, Jack, don’t go off on that tack the very day we reach here. You’ll never get anything done.”

“I mean just that; I’m perfectly sure some one did. Perkins will know, and, I say, perhaps that’s what—”

“Jack,” she interrupted hastily, “please leave Perkins to me. When Mrs. Thursby was here she said that there was a sudden death in this room about two years ago, and—”

“Millicent?” he shot out.

“Yes,” she said helplessly.

“Murdered?”

“I assumed that. He was found at his desk. Mrs. Thursby seemed to want to say more, and yet not want to.” Miss Derrick paused, aware of her brother’s penetrating gaze. He would soon know it all in any case, and perhaps it was wisest to clear the air as much as possible at the outset.

“Now I understand why the rental asked was so low,” she continued. “The Thursbys simply got frightened. But I’m astonished you asked no questions on your account.”

He shook his head and stared at the portrait. “The questions will come later on. I haven’t got them ready yet. By the way, Edith, that’s Millicent over the fireplace. He’s been trying to tell me something ever since we came into the house; what you call a speaking likeness. Now I’ve got it, and he’s trying to smile.”

“I wish you wouldn’t go on like that, Jack. Please don’t.”

“It’s nothing in the world to be nervous about. This sort of thing is going on all the time around all of us. Some see it, and others don’t.”

“But how did you know?” she asked nervously.

“Can’t tell you that; it’s not a matter of reason or information. Some people call it the influence of the inanimate, which is rather a bald way of putting it. I’ve got the idea that it’s the permanence of things that are universally put down as lost, or at any rate as only transient. Just imagine, for instance, that nothing is really lost, but that everything, every act and motion, and even word, is registered in some kind of extraordinarily delicate vibration, so delicate that it is quite imperceptible to the average person. But the record is there nevertheless; in fact the entire universe is throbbing and quivering with such records that he who can may read, or at least perceive. Go a little further and admit that the more tense the act or word the more keen the pitch of the ethereal record, and one begins to appreciate what is really implied by what we call coincidence, and how it is that often, after many years, mysteries are solved that long baffled any approach to solution. It really means that some one was sensitive enough to decipher the record that was always there. I’ve an idea it may turn out like that in the case of Millicent. And when you ask me how I knew some one died suddenly in this room, I can’t answer in any other way than this. I just knew; that’s all.”

Edith felt utterly confused. She was a practical girl, with a healthy dislike of anything that might upset the normal progress of every-day affairs, and for years had stood between her brother and the drab realities of life, in order that his fancy might have untrammeled swing. Imagination, either on her own part or that of others, had never heretofore caused her any discomfort. She admitted its value, but the process by which it worked was beyond her. Now, however, she experienced a sudden distaste for her new surroundings. Derrick’s eyes had taken on an intense, far-pitched stare as though he were probing things beyond her own ken. He seemed to be moving away from her.

“I wonder if I’m going to like this house,” she hazarded.

He pulled himself together and laughed. “Buck up, old thing, and you mustn’t mind if I wander a bit. It’s too late to take exceptions after signing a year’s lease.”

She glanced at him seriously and a little anxiously. “It’s only that you’ve been in a sort of half-world ever since we got here. Now I must settle this matter of Perkins.”

“Right! And I’ve got to find a gardener. And look here, Edith; speaking of half-worlds, isn’t it possible that that’s about all we get in any case—the obvious half?”

“Don’t be so introspective, and see if you can’t find something cheerful outside. And, Jack, will you ask Perkins to see me here?”

He kissed her and strolled to the door. “If I may make a foolish manlike suggestion it would be that when you’re talking to Perkins you try to imagine this place without her. I’ve tried and failed. I’ll send her in.”

She sat for a moment, deep in thought, till very soon it seemed there was nothing to be anxious about after all. Her brother’s fanciful mind had merely unearthed something which he must inevitably have discovered before long. The mystery might hold him for a few days, till his restless imagination moved on elsewhere. It had always been like that in the past. The fact that Millicent died here two years ago could mean nothing to new tenants. All houses were built to live and die in. Beech Lodge was charming and well arranged, and they had leased it on nominal terms. It was true that the terms were, perhaps, suspiciously nominal, but she pushed this thought aside to make room for others more helpful and constructive. She confessed to being piqued with herself for giving any evidence of discomfort, and would in future take less notice of her brother’s whimsical ideas. Then she looked up and saw Perkins.

“You sent for me, madam?”

Miss Derrick regarded her with absorbed interest. How old was this woman? At first appearance she seemed never to have been young, but her smooth skin and straight figure suggested that she could not be much past forty. It was the grave, inscrutable face that baffled. It carried no trace of expression and revealed no play of the mind. In the dark eyes moved a kind of secret light, quickening at times into a fleeting gleam that was instantly extinguished. In these moments Perkins appeared to receive communications from a source privy to herself, messages that illumined a nature of which the outer world knew but little; and, save for these occasional and passing glimpses, her face was like a mask. Miss Derrick, held for an instant voiceless by something she could not understand, wondered what sort of private life had been led by a woman who looked like this. The pause lengthened, but Perkins stood, passive and undisturbed.

“I’ve had a talk with Mrs. Thursby,” said Edith rather stiffly, “and she mentioned you. It was quite satisfactory.”

“Yes, madam.”

The flatness of her tone announced that it was immaterial what Mrs. Thursby might have said. Obviously the latter meant nothing to Perkins. There was no superiority in her manner; just a total lack of interest.

“So if you would like to stay now, I would be very glad to have you.”

Perkins’s thin lips moved ever so slightly, and the faintest trace of a smile flitted over the blank features. She made a little gesture that put her late employer definitely out of the reckoning.

“I always stay, madam,” she said quietly.

Edith stared at her. “Why always? I don’t quite understand.”

“I came here to Mrs. Millicent, and”—here there was again the ghost of a smile—“I even stayed with Mrs. Thursby, and I’m quite willing to stay with you. People come and go, but nothing has really changed.”

This announcement was made with such calmness that Miss Derrick found herself for a moment robbed of speech. Whoever came or went, this woman would always be at Beech Lodge, no more detachable than the roof which covered it. Jack had suggested that his sister try to imagine the place without Perkins, and now she saw what he meant. She began to recognize herself as part of a procession which passed before the sphinx-like eyes of this house-parlor-maid, a procession to which the woman ministered in order that she might live, but to which she revealed no fraction of her inner self. It was strange to be thus classified. But what was the alternative?

“I am glad you are so fond of the house,” she said uncertainly; “and now it comes to a matter of wages.”

Perkins’s eyes wandered to the portrait over the mantel. Wages, it seemed, were the last thing in her mind. “There will be no difficulty about that, madam.”

Miss Derrick leaned forward involuntarily. “I don’t quite understand. They are very important, to me.”

“I mean, madam, that I don’t ask for high wages.”

Miss Derrick, though greatly puzzled, breathed a sigh of relief. “The most I can pay is forty pounds a year. And of course there’s a cook to be found. Can you help me there?”

Perkins’s face softened a shade. “Forty pounds will be quite sufficient, and you will not need a cook.”

“But are you sure you can do it all?” Miss Derrick felt distinctly bewildered.

“Yes, madam.” The woman said this with so complete a finality that the subject closed forthwith. It was something more than mere competency. There was no spark of animation in her expression. Her attitude suggested that while household duties were unavoidable they were also of a secondary character, and the conversation was becoming pointless. Edith wondered whether some personal tragedy were not hidden behind this immutable barrier and experienced a throb of sympathy at the narrowness of such a life.

“You see, Perkins, I realize that you are taking on a good deal of work. You must not overtax yourself.”

“It is only work of the hands, madam.”

The new mistress of Beech Lodge shifted her ground hastily. “Is this house very old?”

“This room is the oldest part; about two hundred years, I think.”

“You must have got very fond of the place.”

The woman looked slowly about. Her lips were slightly parted, and her eyes were full of shadows, like the eyes of those who know exactly what they are about to see. Something might have been passing from her to those mellow panels in exchange for some other communication she was drawing from them.

“I have been here for eight years, madam; and it may be that the place has got fond of me.” She said this with a subtle change in her tone, as though for an instant she had lifted a corner of a curtain in order to test the other woman’s perception of what lay beyond.

“I can’t quite follow you there, Perkins.”

“No, madam? It doesn’t matter.”

Miss Derrick remembered what Mrs. Thursby had said about wanting to tell the woman to shout out whatever was in the back of her head and have done with it. It was understandable now, and she felt the same desire. The difficulty was going to be to regard Perkins simply as a maid and not a creature of mystery. Again she tried to think of Beech Lodge without her, and again she failed.

“I’m afraid you must have been very lonely here, especially after Mr. Thursby left.”

“I was never alone, madam. That is—” She broke off in strange confusion. “I never feel lonely.”

Miss Derrick shivered in spite of herself. She perceived something now; but it was only a curtain, with no suggestion of what was behind. A thought darted through her brain. She recalled the strange manner of Mrs. Thursby, her restlessness, her obvious desire to get away, especially from this room. Mrs. Thursby had felt like an intruder, that round-faced, good-natured, unimaginative woman. Perhaps all were intruders here except Perkins, even Millicent himself. At the recollection of Millicent her pulse faltered. Perhaps that was why Millicent had been—She forced herself to speak evenly.

“Perkins, will you please be quite candid with me and say whether you have ever seen anything in this house which—which should not be here?”

The black eyes rounded. “I do not understand.”

“Have you ever seen what you thought was a ghost? I know there are no such things, but some people think they see them.”

“There are no ghosts here, madam.” She shook her head slowly. “I would know if there were.”

“Then will you explain what you meant when you said you were never alone?”

Perkins made the same slight indefinite gesture. “I’m sorry I said that, madam, and it was foolish of me. It’s only my fancy and doesn’t mean anything. Perhaps it’s my way of filling up empty hours, and sometimes I say things without thinking. You surprised me, because Mrs. Thursby never asked me any questions like that.”

Miss Derrick pulled herself together. “Well, Perkins, perhaps you’re quite right, and it really doesn’t matter. I suppose it’s the strange house and the feeling of not being settled that makes one curious about all kinds of things. When you’ve had your tea please come up-stairs, and I’ll show you about the linen. Also I hope you’ll help me all you can to make matters go smoothly in the house, on account of Mr. Derrick’s writing. It’s important he should be disturbed as little as possible. And,” she added genially, “please don’t fill your head with fancies about never having been alone.”

CHAPTER II
PERKINS

MISS DERRICK left the room, and Perkins stood motionless as though she welcomed its silence. Her eyes took on a strange expression as she scanned this apartment, with every least detail of which she was utterly familiar. The paneling ran nearly to the ceiling, and was topped by a narrow shelf. The west wall was dominated by the fireplace, and in the corner, placed at a slight angle from the wall itself, was the big desk. Sitting there, one looked not out through the French window, but almost directly at the door from the main hall. The desk was already littered with Derrick’s manuscript, and toward it Perkins moved as in a dream.

She put one thin hand on the smooth leather surface, then bent over the massive frame, searching, it seemed, in the manner of one who hopes she may not find. Her attitude suggested that she had done this many times before, and always with the same result; but it did not affect the swift and silent touch with which she fingered the heavy mahogany corners and deep, carved molding of its intricate design. Presently she shook her head with a sort of patient resolution and turned on the portrait a look of extraordinary inquiry, as though Millicent’s eyes, peering from the pigment, could have directed her—if they only would. The picture might have been alive, so keen was her regard, so expectant of an answer.

Evening had drawn on, and the study became peopled with soft mysterious shadows in which she stood like a priestess before some half-veiled shrine. She made no movement toward the lamp but in the gloom progressed without a sound from point to point, with here and there a lingering touch to furniture and woodwork. These intimate caresses blended her the more completely with all that surrounded her till she was merged and absorbed into the bodily human presentment of wood and stone. Finally she came directly under the portrait, bent her head in an attitude of profound thought, and remained quite motionless. She was standing thus when the front hall door opened and Derrick’s whistle sounded cheerily outside.

At that the maid smiled to herself with sudden pleasure, crossed the room swiftly, and became occupied with the tea-tray. Derrick entered. He did not see her at first and started at a slight rattle of china.

“Jove, Perkins, you made me jump! I thought you were part of the room.”

She did not answer. He sent her a quick searching glance, stood by the mantel, and, taking out his pipe, watched her silently. How amazingly she fitted into everything! No, he could not imagine Beech Lodge without this woman.

“You will want to work now, sir?”

He nodded. “Yes, I think I will”; then, suddenly, “I say, how did you know I wanted to work?”

She gave a queer, twisted smile, the first he had seen on that ageless face—a strange and almost grotesquely communicable look, with which she stepped at once from the rôle of servant and became a sort of administrator of something yet to be explained. But there was no lack of respect in her manner.

“I thought perhaps you might, sir.”

She took out the tray and, returning in a moment, adjusted the heavy curtains over the French window. He watched her light the desk-lamp and turn it low, feeling rested and soothed by every deft and noiseless movement. His senses were comforted by the indescribable certainty of her touch, which gave him an extraordinary feeling of confidence—in something. And Perkins must know what this was. Presently he went to the desk and fingered his manuscript. It struck him that what he had already written was a little unreal and undirected. It didn’t go deep enough.

“Shall I make up the fire, sir?”

“No, thank you. It’s not worth while till after dinner. But I’d like the lamp higher.”

She came slowly toward him. “Have you really seen this room by firelight, sir?”

He looked at her curiously and instantly pictured this ancient chamber with warm shadows flickering over its mellow casements. Depth and warmth; that’s what it would be, had always been. He knew this much.

“Perhaps you might make up the fire after all. Good suggestion!”

She obeyed, and he watched the effect—more fascinating than he had imagined. The study took on a new and ghostly beauty. Its dancing shadows were populous with fantasy that died and was born while he stared. There were tenants of the past here that no change of ownership could ever displace; reminders of spoken things that had drifted from vanished lips; echoes of songs whose lilt had never become silent. It had ceased to be a room. It was a palace of dream and vision. And in the background stood Perkins.

“By George!” he said under his breath.

“I thought you’d like it, sir.”

She was half invisible, and he started violently. “It’s wonderful, but I expected that.”

“Yes, it’s strange how one can tell.”

He glanced at her, as though he had known her all his life. “There is something about this room, and I felt it the first time I came in. How old is it?”

“It has no age, sir.”

Derrick did not seem surprised. “I thought you’d say that.” He paused; then as though resuming some previous talk, “Who else has felt it?”

“Only Mr. Millicent since I came here, and his daughter. It was different with Mrs. Millicent, and she was frightened.”

“I think I understand that, too. Was this his favorite room?”

“Yes, that is his desk. I think that at the end he was frightened as well.”

“And you found him. How was that?”

She made an indefinite gesture. “They sent for me.”

Again he felt nothing of surprise. “Yes, because they had seen and knew. But why did you stay here after it happened?”

Perkins took one long, uncertain breath. “I did go away for a week, but I couldn’t stay. It was all silent in London where I went. Then I knew that it—that they would not let me remain away, so I had to come back.” She gazed round this well-remembered room and seemed to signal that she acknowledged its potency.

Derrick looked at the littered desk and into the mask-like face. Her eyes were alight now, and not those of a lonely woman. She was, as it were, surrounded by friends. He wondered if they would ever be his friends.

“Do you mind talking like this? I think I understand, but most people wouldn’t.”

“It makes me happier. For two years there have been no living words about it. I could never find any one who understood at all since it happened, and Miss Millicent would not speak.” She hesitated, and sent him the faintest smile. “For the last two days the house has been amused.”

“How?” he demanded. Beech Lodge seemed to be stirring about him, and with slow palpitations of a monstrous life, throbbing in one vast pulse on which Perkins kept a cool, knowledgeable finger. It moved and breathed.

“It was at the men who came to take the inventory. They were such children; though one of them, and he was quite old, guessed at something in a general way. The other could never hear or see anything.”

He nodded and, turning, caught a yellow flicker that touched the portrait into a strange similitude of life. Millicent’s eyes were speaking now, strange things to which he had no key. But only for a little while. The key was not far away. There came over Derrick the profound conviction that this was all arranged. It belonged to the cycle of appointed things. The stage was all set. If he could but keep his ears tuned to the elusive vibrations that permeated this solitary dwelling, he might decipher its mystery. And Perkins was part of it.

“Is that like Mr. Millicent?”

She nodded, with no surprise that he should know whose portrait it was. “Yes, and there was something about him very like you, sir. Not in appearance, but the other thing. He once told me that he began to hear and understand a little while he was a child. They commenced to talk before he left his first school. I’m glad, sir, that Miss Derrick does not understand.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because she told me not to be lonely, as if one could. She thinks I’m a little mad, and that’s why I’m willing to stay here and not ask high wages.”

He did not answer, beginning now to perceive why he had been led to this isolated spot. Millicent stared down at him, and he was persuaded that from the picture proceeded a thin appeal for help—or was it for revenge?—Millicent whose life had been so suddenly snuffed out—Millicent who had been afraid before he died. Afraid of what?

“You’re not afraid too, sir, are you? It’s no use if you are.”

He shook his head, scanning thoughtfully the books, the prints, the dull paneling, and heavy oaken floor.

“You believe,” he said slowly, “that all this has sucked in year after year something from mortality, something that is never quite lost, till, in time, wood and stone and paper become something much more than this, and radiate back to us, if we can only catch it, the wisdom and courage and love and evil they have so long absorbed. You believe all this, Perkins?”

Her eyes opened wide, filling with a strange light. She was no longer an impassive, middle-aged woman, the servant of the house, but a creature vibrant with feeling, as one who has unleashed her soul. Her lips moved inaudibly, as at some mystic shrine.

“Wisdom and courage and love and evil,” she repeated in an awed whisper. “Yes, yes, that’s it, all of it. Last time it was evil in Beech Lodge. The evil had been here for months and years, growing stronger and stronger. It began when Mr. Millicent got back from the East, and it never stopped. I tried to silence it but failed, and then it silenced him. The evil was too strong.”

“But it’s over now,” said Derrick steadily.

“No, it’s here yet, in this room,” she pointed to the portrait. “He knows. He’s been trying to tell me but cannot.”

“From whom does it come?”

“Wait, sir; you’re not ready yet. Nothing is quite ready, but it will be soon. That’s why you came. The others will come, too.”

He experienced a remarkable sensation of having lost all physical weight, and seemed to catch a low singing note as of a myriad of tiny voices, the far murmur of those who approached from the unknown. He could see Perkins, still motionless, and feel his own body, but this had no significance. As the wireless operator tunes his set till it abstracts from the invisible only that which is carried by its own individual wave-length and remains unaffected by all others, so Derrick began to pick up a series of vibrations that in a queer and remote fashion he recognized, but could not as yet interpret. Then he caught his own tones.

“So this air is full of that which can never die or disappear, and may save or destroy as it is written. It destroyed Millicent and may be the undoing of others unless it is brought to naught.”

“How else could it be?” Perkins covered her pale face, bent her head, and disappeared.

Derrick stared at the portrait, his features transfigured with something that was not altogether wonder. It was all unreal yet enormously real. What surprised him most was that he should be admitted so readily to this “no man’s land” where mystery, like a cloaked figure, moved among the shadows of tragedy. How much was here? How much of it was his own fancy? Who was the real Millicent, the man within the man who had been afraid before he died? How and why did Millicent die? Did evil take on an embodiment and, emerging like an apparition from the unknown, butcher him where he sat? Derrick pictured him, shrinking back into his chair with starting eyes while something moved closer, closer. And then—

A knock sounded at the door.

“If you please, sir, the inventory men would like to come in for a moment.” The impassive mask had fallen over her face again.

“Eh! I thought they had finished.” He spoke jerkily, aware that the study had suddenly become void and silent. “All right, they may come.”

A shuffle of footsteps in the hall, and Mr. Jarrad entered deferentially, hat in hand. He was followed by Dawkins. The younger man looked amused, and a trifle superior.

“I beg pardon for disturbing you like this, sir, but on looking over our notes I find that my colleague has omitted to make an entry concerning this desk.”

“Anything the matter with the desk?” asked Derrick curiously.

“No, sir, it’s merely the point of its physical condition, which would naturally affect any possible question of dilapidations. When I examined it I noticed a large stain on the leather, quite faint and dull. It’s the sort of thing one generally finds on desks of this character, especially when there happen to be young people in the family. I did not detect it till for some reason I made a second inspection. Now it seems that either I did not mention this for record or, if I did, my colleague failed to make the entry. So with your permission I’ll show it to him.”

Derrick felt no surprise. “Certainly,” he said mechanically. “Do you need more light?”

Mr. Jarrad shook his head, advanced to the desk, reverentially moved a sheaf of manuscript, put on his glasses, and bent low over the glossy surface. Dawkins stood at his elbow looking openly incredulous.

“I can’t see anything, just the same,” said the latter, “and a stain is a stain.”

Mr. Jarrad shifted the lamp and peered hard. “Curious,” he murmured to himself. “How very curious! I could have sworn that—ah—there, my friend,” he nodded with satisfaction, “you can see it now. It seems a little more difficult to place than the last time, but there it is, and quite large.” He ran a thin finger over an irregular outline. “In a certain light it might be almost invisible. Very faint, I admit, but surely your young eyes are as sharp as my glasses?”

Dawkins scrutinized, nodded, mumbled an apology, and made an entry in the large book. Mr. Jarrad turned to Derrick.

“That’s what I referred to, sir, and it’s not my habit to overlook small things. The foundation of a sound inventory business is system plus what might be called perception.”

“Perception?”

“Yes, sir. It involves a certain amount of sensitiveness, strange as that may sound, and the ability to perceive and record what is usually, in fact one might almost say always, missed by the casual observer. It’s not altogether a matter of training, either, but of instinct. Possibly there’s not one man in a hundred who would have spotted that; and if I were fanciful, sir, I would hazard the opinion that the desk was trying to hide it, which is of course absurd. In fact, though I see that you yourself have been sitting here, I am sure you did not observe it. Thank you, sir, and good night! We’ll be of no further trouble now.”

This oration being delivered in his very best manner, and the dignity of his profession thus established, Mr. Jarrad retired. When the steps died out, Derrick looked for himself. Close under the lamp he discerned a shadowy blotch of irregular shape, a rough pool with a tone a shade darker than the leather. It had apparently been subjected to hard rubbing. It was a discoloration of no particular hue, but as he gazed he knew without doubt that it had been made two years previously by the life-blood of Henry Millicent.

CHAPTER III
THE MAN FROM THE EAST

A WEEK passed at Beech Lodge, while Derrick endeavored to get down to work; but in spite of every effort, progress seemed impossible. Ideas, when they came, were illusory; his characters imbued themselves with strange aspirations and qualities, and plot after plot was displaced by the secret but constantly strengthening conviction that this novel was not, for the present at any rate, the most important thing in life. More than ever he was fascinated by Millicent’s study and the nameless advances seemingly made by the portrait of its late owner, and sat at the big desk for hours, fingering his pen, grasping at thoughts that continually eluded him. By the end of the second week he was assured there was something the dead man wanted him to do.

Of all this he said nothing to Edith, and it was a relief to know that she was of too practical a nature to harbor imaginings similar to his own. Her days were spent in settling down, and he agreed thankfully with all she proposed, stipulating only that the study itself should remain absolutely undisturbed. That room, he announced with an air of great contentment, had been designed and equipped to suit his particular fancy. When he said this it seemed that the portrait of Millicent signaled its silent approval.

It was one evening when he was at the desk, trying as usual to classify his own thoughts, that Edith looked up from the book in her lap.

“Jack,” she said suddenly.

He put down his pen with relief. There were whispering shadows in the corner, and one could not work to-night.

“Yes, what is it?”

“Will you tell me something, quite honestly?”

He smiled and nodded. “It’s no particular effort to be honest with you. What am I suspected of now?”

She glanced into the leaping fire, and turned with a quick, familiar motion. “How’s the book going? I do so want to know.”

“It isn’t making what one would call absolutely triumphant progress. It’s generally that way at first. Then later on you realize that you’ve done far more than you thought, and the happy issue is in sight.”

“Do you know yet whether Beech Lodge is as good a place to work in as you expected?”

“I think it is, quite,” he said slowly. “It’s a new atmosphere, and one doesn’t get it at once, but whatever I write here will be different and”—he hesitated an instant—“I think stronger than anything I’ve done yet. I can see that already.”

“I’m glad you haven’t any second thoughts about the place.”

“But I have, quite a lot. They’re not sorted out yet. What about you? Too busy to think at all?”

She glanced at him oddly. “I’ve been trying to be too busy but haven’t quite succeeded.” She said this with a touch of reluctance, as though confessing to some feminine weakness.

“I hope they’re pleasant thoughts.”

“Not altogether, Jack. Sometimes they’re queer and sometimes a bit disconcerting. Foolish for a woman like me to talk like this, isn’t it?”

He laughed easily. “I know no person less foolish.”

She did not answer but continued to gaze into the fire, her eyes a little disturbed. Her brother wanted time to think, being convinced that it was most important that for the present at any rate Edith should remain unaware of certain things. Perkins, for instance. However competent Perkins might be, she could not in any sense be called a normal woman. Perhaps he was not at this time normal himself. Something assured him that no revelation would be made from the unknown to his sister. Her wireless set might be affected, but it was not tuned to the right wave-length. After all, there was no reason why matters should not proceed smoothly enough.

“Why are your reflections disconcerting?” he hazarded.

“I don’t know. It’s stupid of me, and I call myself an idiot for being affected at all. The funny thing, Jack, is that I’m gradually beginning to consider myself absolutely superficial to something or other—I don’t know what. The house is running well, and Perkins is a treasure; a little chilling at times, but the best servant I’ve ever had. Things seem to do themselves at her desire. Why should I feel superficial?”

He shook his head. “You’re anything but that. What else is the matter?”

“Nothing whatever, and yet—” She got up restlessly and balanced herself on the corner of the desk close to the dull stain. But it had no message for her. “If you say definitely that we made no mistake in taking Beech Lodge, I’ll feel a lot better. Isn’t it silly of me? There’s everything here one wants, and all a housekeeper could desire, but—”

He felt a touch of apprehension and laughed it off. “You’re only a bit lonely, and probably I’ve been selfish in planting you in such a lonely spot for the sake of that confounded novel. I admit to being a bit spoiled. But we have neighbors. What about the Millicents?”

“They’re about three miles from here in a cottage. Perkins tells me the daughter is twenty-two and very pretty but has never got over her father’s death. They were devoted to each other.”

“You’ll see them soon,” he said involuntarily.

“I hardly think so. They would not call under all the circumstances; at least it would be strange if they did.”

“Perhaps not, but—” He broke off. “Tell me more of what’s in your mind. You know what you are to me, and I can’t help feeling rather responsible.”

“It’s hard to tell you without seeming an utter fool. It vexes and amuses me all at once,” she said simply. “It’s things I’ve never been conscious of before. I’m not actually conscious of them now, but it’s as if something had suggested their existence. At the same time I know I’ll never quite understand. I’m not built that way. Perhaps I get something through what I feel for you because you feel it, even though it’s past me. Does this all sound like gibberish? Then again it is as though both of us were being threatened. I wonder if you understand that all this is so different from anything I’ve felt before that I don’t quite know what to do.”

Derrick listened seriously. His first impulse was to laugh her mood away, but instantly there came to him from the surrounding shadows a warning that on no account must he be false to that which he himself believed. Pondering this, he knew that he could not deny these mysterious powers that now proclaimed themselves. He might desert their kingdom, but to disown it was impossible.

“If the place does not agree with you, we’ll chuck it,” he said slowly.

She sent him a whimsical smile. “You know that’s out of the question, dear old boy. We simply can’t; we’re in too deep for the next year. And forgive me if I talk to you as though you were my sister, for that’s one of my selfish habits, and it’s really your own fault for standing it. Here we stick till that novel is finished and sold. I’m sorry it doesn’t go as fast as you would like.”

“It will when I get shaken down,” he answered doggedly. “Trouble is that one is apt to think of too many things at once. Then follows the discarding and selecting process, and I suppose I’m going through that now. The point is to be sure of retaining what is really worth while; and, when I begin to feel that, it means confidence and progress. In that last novel I didn’t quite know what to discard, and it jumps at me from every page. But now,” he concluded with a little lift in his voice, “I’ve an idea that I’m just on the edge of something big.”

“While your sister,” she murmured absently, “has a perfectly ridiculous sensation that she’s just on the edge of something deep, and hasn’t the slightest intention of falling over.”

She sent him a companionable smile and was soon lost in her book. Derrick struggled on with his opening chapters, thankful that she had made no searching inquiry into his own inward sensations. There was no sound save the methodical turning of a page and the scratch of a pen. The fire puttered its ruddy comfort, and Beech Lodge was dipped in an abyss of silence.

Presently the inner edge of one of the heavy curtains that hung over the French window stirred ever so slightly and at one point drew very slowly aside, leaving a narrow oval gap on the border of which a man’s fingers, short, broad, and strong, were visible. This gap widened inch by inch, till, framed in the dull fabric, there appeared a face. A mass of tumbled hair surmounted a low forehead, beneath which moved eyes that were dark, shining, and restless. The man might have been forty, with tanned skin, large and rather uncouth features, a broad mouth, heavy lips—blue-black and unshaven—and a strange, furtive expression. No part of his body was visible below the chin, and the face hung as though suspended like a threatening mask in mid-air. The roving eyes searched the room, darting from place to place with extraordinary quickness, and reflecting little pin-points of light from the leaping flames. Finally they rested on Derrick and his sister with a look in which surprise mingled with a certain unconquerable composure. There was no fear in the look but rather the suggestion that this formidable stranger from the dark had been here before and was now making up his mind on some vital matter. Then the lips widened into a grin rendered repulsive by discolored teeth; the gap narrowed as silently as a leaf falls; face and fingers diminished and disappeared; the curtain trembled and hung straight; and there drifted into the room the faintest possible sound from without. It was over, like a baleful dream.

Derrick looked up sharply. “Who was that?”

Edith, perceiving nothing, stared at him. His face was tense, his eyes very wide open. She struggled against a foolish sense of alarm.

“Where, Jack?”

“In this room. Did any one come in just now?” He peered about, searching the dancing shadows, keyed suddenly to a strange pitch.

“No one,” she said. “Who could there be? I heard nothing.”

“That’s odd,” he murmured.

She got up, stood beside him, and put a hand on his arm. “What’s odd, Jack? I wish you wouldn’t go on like this—and don’t be so mysterious, unless you want it to get on my nerves.”

“I had an extraordinary feeling that for a moment we were not alone.” He laughed, but it sounded a shade forced. “Dreaming as usual, I suppose. Sorry, Edith; I won’t do it again.”

But Miss Derrick, in spite of herself, had turned a little pale. For the past hour she had been trying to put out of her head a succession of strange thoughts about strange things, and she had nearly succeeded. Now she felt dizzy. Perhaps they had not been alone. But who could it have been? Mystery, breathless, confusing, and baffling, stole in on her like a secret assailant, attacking all senses save that of fear. Her pulse slowed—and beat tumultuously. She stepped to the bell and rang hard. Derrick looked at her with wonder.

“What’s the matter? There’s nothing to be frightened about!”

“How do you know?” she stammered. “I feel queer because I don’t know. I want to see some one who isn’t just ourselves,” she went on chaotically, “and I’m the more vexed because it has to—to be Perkins.” She covered her eyes unconsciously, like a child. “Jack, Jack, what is the matter with me? I’m acting like a fool.”

He put his arm round her. “I’m awfully sorry, dear, but, really, it’s nothing. I hardly knew I spoke. Of course it is nothing. I’ll search the house if you like.”

“But would you find it?” she whispered. “Would you find it?”

Came a tap at the door, and Perkins entered, her face as blank as ever. Edith controlled herself with an effort and looked straight into the basilisk eyes.

“Perkins, has any one come to the house just now?”

The maid glanced at her, impassive and inscrutable. “No, madam. Was any one expected?”

Edith could but answer with another question. “You—you have heard nothing within the last few minutes?”

“Nothing whatever, madam.” The voice carried no suggestion of surprise, but Perkins’s eyes met those of Derrick for a passing instant.

“Thank you. Please go to my room, and—and bring me a handkerchief. Are all the windows and doors fastened?”

“Yes, madam, except this one. Mr. Derrick told me to leave that to him.”

She disappeared. Derrick laughed and lit his pipe.

“You’re answered now, Edith! The house closed tight as a drum, and the only access from outside through this room.”

“Perhaps you’re right! Yes, of course you are; but, when she comes back, say something that will keep her for a minute; say anything at all. Please do that. I can’t explain, but I must hear some other voice, even Perkins’s comfortless accents. Jack, I am a fool.”

“You’re not very complimentary to my powers of entertainment,” he chuckled. “I won’t write any more to-night. We’ll get out the cards if you like.”

She shook her head and sent him a strange glance, as though wondering if he would understand. “It isn’t entertainment I want to-night.”

“Then what? I’m not in a position to offer much more.”

“I don’t know. It’s something like protection, but not quite that, either. I know it sounds absurd, but it’s the kind of thing that could only come from one who does not believe what you do about all this.” She made a gesture at the surrounding room. “I suppose it’s a sort of companion in my incredulity. You’re beginning to make things rather too much alive for my comfort, though I don’t believe in them at all.”

“There’s nothing here,” he protested quickly, “nothing but ourselves. Forget what I said. I was only dreaming aloud. It’s what the Scotch call havering.”

Even as he spoke there came to him the refutation of his own words. Millicent signaled his disapproval from the canvas overhead, and stinging whispers from the silence around proclaimed him false to his real belief. The protest died on his lips, and Edith looked at him keenly.

“I don’t want you to say what you don’t believe in the hope of stiffening me, but I’d be glad if you’d help to prevent my believing it, too. I don’t want to, and I don’t intend to. I’m tremendously in earnest about all this. The reason is that I know I haven’t got the right kind of mental machinery. It would break me all up, while on the contrary it is perfectly natural for you. All I want to do is to carry on here in the ordinary way and make it as easy as possible for you to work. That’s a woman’s job, Jack, and I’m satisfied with it and don’t want to go beyond it. If there’s anything that you’re forced to tell me, well, tell me, but don’t do any more. All this may sound rather hysterical, but it isn’t; and it’s because I know myself better than I begin to think I know you, even after all these years. So don’t try me more than you can avoid.”

While she was speaking, Perkins entered as silently as before. Edith steadied herself, wondering how much the woman had heard. She took the handkerchief and made an indefinite gesture to her brother.

“I say, Perkins,” he put in, “this garden is running wild, and I’ve got to get some one at once or there’ll be nothing worth while in the summer. Do you know of any good man in the neighborhood?”

“I’m sorry; I don’t, sir.”

“What about the village? Any chance there?”

“I can’t say, sir. I haven’t been to the village for more than a year.”

“Mr. Thursby’s man seems to have been very capable. Think you could find him?”

“I don’t know where he is, sir. He came once a week for the past year, but left the village about a month ago. There’s been no one since.”

“Did Mr. Thursby take over Mr. Millicent’s man?”

“No, sir.” Perkins’s expression changed ever so slightly. “He could not.”

“Why was that?”

“Because Martin, Mr. Millicent’s man, had already left.”

“When?” said Derrick curiously.

“Three days after Mr. Millicent died.”

Edith gave an involuntary shiver. “Why should he do that so soon?”

Perkins glanced at the portrait with a kind of mute unconsciousness. “I cannot say, madam. Martin did not tell me.”

“It’s more or less understandable,” hazarded Derrick; “probably Mrs. Millicent let him go. She wasn’t keeping on the place anyway. Do you happen to know where he went, Perkins?”

Edith looked up. “Does that matter, Jack?”

“Yes, I think so. The man’s reputation for roses spread all over the county, and I’d like to get him back if we could afford it. And it’s better to have some one who knows the ground, if possible. What about him, Perkins?”

“No one has heard of him from that day, as yet, sir.”

Edith got up with unmistakable decision. She was evidently feeling herself again.

“Good night, Jack. Perkins, please bring my hot water now.”

Derrick followed her with his eyes but said nothing. When he was alone, he seated himself again at his desk and looked musingly at his manuscript. How thin and unprofitable was all he had written, these doings of characters so obviously fictitious, so utterly divorced from the stinging realities of life. They saw little and felt less, being framed in paper and not flesh and blood. His long hand stole to the edge of the desk, avoiding that discolored patch, and clasped the solid frame as though to draw from it something like real inspiration. He now touched the shadow of Millicent’s life-blood. His glance traveled then automatically to the portrait. Blood and paint! Between them they held the key of mystery. He scanned the composed features, feeling that the essence of what had once been Millicent was close by. Then it came to him that this essence of the murdered man had its own part to play and was no doubt playing it at this very moment, moving in mysterious channels and in league with mysterious powers. Recurrent and voiceless questions crowded upon him. What could Millicent mean to Perkins, that lank woman with the forbidding eyes? It seemed after a few moments that the painted lips quivered and tried to speak, and the quiet gaze took on something more than the mere flicker of firelight. What was it that Millicent was trying to convey?

“What have you absorbed?” murmured Derrick, half aloud. “What is it you would tell me? You suffered here death and the fear that was perhaps worse than death, but why did you pay the price?” He began to write unconsciously, capturing the words as they came; strange words, unlinked with anything that had gone before, but pregnant with clouded suggestion. “You believed as I do that we are not the masters of things, but that each of us builds up around him invisible towers of influence, by which in time we are dominated. We store the air with records that the air cannot discard or obliterate, eloquent—yet having no voice; strong—yet casting no shadow. And behind it all are Things. We cry for them as children, and when the end comes it is hard to let them go.”

He was staring, puzzled, at what he had written, when Perkins came in, her face grave.

“If you please, sir, the gardener is here.” Her voice was a little breathless.

“What gardener? I thought you told me just a moment ago that you knew of no one.”

“It’s Mr. Millicent’s gardener,” she replied steadily.

“The man who has not been heard of for two years?”

“Yes, sir. He has just returned.”

Derrick took a long breath. “What brings him back now?”

He regretted the question as soon as it was asked, for Perkins was regarding him as though wondering why he should be surprised. It was all part of something else, something bigger. Surely he must realize that.

“I do not know, sir. He only reached the village this evening and came straight here.”

“Does he expect me to engage him?”

“He would like to come back to his old place, sir.”

“How extraordinary!”

Again Derrick spoke too hastily, and again he regretted it. Perkins did not answer. She stood passively, an austere expression on her sallow features; and, scrutinize as he might, there was no penetrating the veil that enshrouded her. She was an embodiment of something that defied his keenest analysis.

“Where has this man been for the past two years?”

“He did not say, sir.”

“You can tell me whether he was satisfactory in every way to Mr. Millicent?”

She nodded. “Mr. Millicent used to say that he was the best gardener in the county.”

Derrick paused. “Perkins, I’m going to ask you another question, but you need not answer unless you like to.”

“I will tell you anything I know, sir.” She spoke steadily and without a trace of surprise.

“Then from all you know, and I refer to more than his ability as a gardener, do you think it would be a good thing to take him on?”

“Why do you put it that way, sir?”

“I leave that to you. The matter may be more important than one can realize—as yet.” He lingered a little over the last words.

“Then, yes, sir, if you want a garden like Mr. Millicent’s.”

The shrewdness of the answer took him aback. “Send him in,” he said shortly.

The man entered, the man whose dark features had peered through the parted curtains a short hour before. He was powerfully built, very broad, and dressed in loose and much worn tweeds of a foreign cut. He came forward with the lurching walk of a seafaring trade, a colored handkerchief twisted round the column of his brown neck. His swinging hands were wide and knotted, and every motion spoke of great physical strength. No mere Sussex gardener this, who had spent his placid years among his roses and dahlias, but one who carried with him nameless suggestions of the jungle and the faint pounding of distant surf. Dangling his cap, he gave a sort of salute, making at the same time a swift survey of the room. From this furtive and searching glance it seemed to Derrick that the man missed something he knew of old in Millicent’s time, but no flicker of change of expression could be discerned on the weather-beaten face. The face itself was neither cruel nor merciless but conveyed a grim, implacable resolution. Here, reflected Derrick, was the man who disappeared three days after Millicent’s death. What brought him back now?

“What is your name?”

“Martin, sir, John Martin.” The voice was deep and husky.

“Perkins tells me you were in Mr. Millicent’s service.”

“Yes, sir, for some years after his last trip to the East.”

“Did you come from the East with him?”

“No, sir, I—I was engaged here at Beech Lodge.”

“Several years service, yet you left three days after your employer died?”

Martin jerked up his head. “Yes, sir; that’s it.”

“How did you happen to go so quickly? Were you discharged by Mrs. Millicent?”

A dull flush rose in the tanned face. “You might as well ask how my master happened to die three days before I left, sir. Mrs. Millicent was giving up Beech Lodge and didn’t want a gardener. There was no other job in sight about here, and I couldn’t afford to hang on in the village.”

Derrick nodded with seeming carelessness. “Perhaps that’s fair enough, and as it happens I do want a gardener, but you’ll have to satisfy me completely on all points before I consider you. The circumstances are a bit out of the ordinary.”

“I’m ready to tell you anything I can, sir.”

“Then where do you come from now?”

“Upper Burma, by way of Canada. I have a sister in Alberta.” He fumbled in his pocket. “Would you be wanting to see my passport?”

“Not now, at any rate. I don’t understand why you should clear out of Sussex for Burma just because there was no job close at hand.”

“Well, sir, to tell the truth, I was that upset I wanted to get away as far as possible. I couldn’t put the master out of my head. He’d always been good to me from the first day I came, and we liked the same things, sir.”

“What was that?”

“Roses.”

He shot this out with rumbling assurance, and, strange as it sounded, Derrick believed him. It was difficult to picture this great hulk among the roses, these thick fingers training the delicate buds, but Martin’s reputation had already been established far beyond Beech Lodge. There had been, too, an assuring little break in the voice, suggesting a depth of feeling in strange contrast to this forbidding exterior. If this was acting, it was good acting. He scanned the man’s face, but as for promising any future revelations it was no more expressive than that of Perkins herself. Anything might lie hidden here. There were hints of passion in the eyes, but over him rested the touch of a complete control. If one could only get underneath that! It was obvious to Derrick that he must act deliberately—and delicately. It would be a matter of weeks, or perhaps months. The strangeness of the situation came over him with redoubled force. It was all part of a plan. Whose plan?

“How is it, Martin, if you can tell me, that after two years on the other side of the world you turn up here within a week or so of my coming? There has been no job going for all that time, but you arrive as soon as the job, your old one, is open.”

Martin scratched his head and seemed genuinely puzzled.

“Dunno, sir. It’s queer to me, too, but here I am. I didn’t know there was a job open till a few minutes ago.”

“I take it, then, you had no particular reason for getting back here to-day?”

The man glanced at him with a sort of awkward interest. He hesitated a little, as though about to put forward something hardly credible even to himself, and finally jerked out an answer.

“I can’t say much more than that things kind of hinted at it, sir, and kept on hinting till they made me uncomfortable. There wasn’t any special reason I know of. I was doing well enough, trading up the Irawadi, when something began to get at me to come back, and it kept on till I started for Rangoon. It stayed with me, hustling me along, and I felt I didn’t even want to go and look up my sister; but I did, and the same feeling lifted me out of their farm in Alberta. Up till about two months ago I believed I wasn’t wanted here; then I knew I was wanted for something.” He frowned to himself at this, as though he hardly expected to be either understood or taken seriously. “Maybe I was a fool to come,” he added, “but in a way it wasn’t left to me to decide. It’s the first time I ever struck anything like that. It was like jungle-fever without the fever.”

“You simply had to come,” said Derrick quickly.

“I’m not given to such feelings, but, since you say it, yes, I reckon I had to come.”

Derrick had a faint thrill of triumph. Here again the mysterious factor was at work, the thing to which he himself was yielding so completely. It had spread its potent and invisible filaments half round the world, penetrated the Burmese jungle, and haled this shifty-eyed man back to the tiny Sussex village from which he had fled under the shadow of a great crime as yet undetected. How could these filaments have been set in motion if not at the demand of the dead Millicent whose quiet features now surveyed this recaptured wanderer? What would the thing that had been Millicent arrange next? At the thought of this Derrick’s pulse gave a throb of excitement. Then he looked Martin full in the face.

“Who found your master?”

The man dropped his cap, and all the blood in his body seemed to climb to his temples.

“Miss Perkins found him,” he said jerkily.

“Where did she find him?” If Martin had lied the fact would come out now.

Martin pointed to the desk. “Where you are sitting, Mr. Derrick. He was leaning forward, his head on one side.”

“Dead?”

“Yes, sir, but not long.”

“What had happened?”

“Stabbed in the neck.”

“By what?”

“I do not know, sir.”

“And no trace of what killed him has ever been found?”

“Nothing that I ever heard of.” Martin moved a little impatiently, but Derrick’s voice was very even.

“Of course you were at the inquest? These are some of the things you need not answer, unless you’re determined to get that job.”

“Yes, I was there”—this with a defiant glance—“and they examined me, and when it was over not a man had a word to say against me.”

Derrick sharpened his tone. “Your master is just behind you.”

The man started violently and made a harsh noise in his throat. He turned slowly and unwillingly, forcing himself inch by inch, till, following Derrick’s gaze he saw the portrait. At that his color changed, his face becoming overcast with anger.

“By God, but you frightened me,” he said thickly. “I didn’t know what you meant—thought it was a ghost.”

“Is that a good likeness?”

Martin breathed deeply and pulled himself together stretching his fingers with a slow gesture of relief.

“Yes, that’s him all right, but he looked older, a good deal older toward the end. Something like you, sir, isn’t he?”

“Where were you at the time it happened? Can you tell me exactly, and what you were doing?”

The dark face grew threatening. “Is this another inquest, Mr. Derrick? I came here to try and get my old job.”

“You can drop it if you like, Martin, or else answer my questions.”

“Well,” said the man truculently, “I was smoking in that little garden beside the cottage—I lived there then—when I heard Perkins. She was running like a deer down from the house and calling at the top of her voice. She was only half dressed, and I thought she was mad, screaming about the master being killed. I ran back with her, and found him as I told you—where you’re sitting now. Then I ran to the village for the doctor. When we got him here he said that Mr. Millicent must have been dead for over an hour. He had been struck with great force in the neck with a dagger of some kind. And that’s all I know.”

Derrick nodded, apparently satisfied. “It’s practically what I’ve heard elsewhere.” He sat for a moment, plunged in thought. “Wait where you are for a moment, Martin. I want to have a word with Miss Derrick before deciding.”

He went out. Martin balanced himself on the edge of his chair, listened keenly to the retreating footsteps, heard a creak on the stair, and glanced cautiously about. Then he got up, stole on tiptoe to the door, and put his ear to the keyhole. Satisfied that he was secure, he crept noiselessly across the floor, darting a look at the portrait as he went, and halted stiffly beside the big desk. Here his hands became intensely busy, his thick fingers passing swiftly over the carved frame, like those of a blind man. One particular spot he explored with strained attention, turning his massive head every few seconds toward the door, his whole body keyed to the utmost nervous pitch. He had his back to the French window, and the lamp cast his gigantic shadow on the ceiling, where its distorted shadow quivered like that of a brooding giant.

But from the window another pair of eyes surveyed this silent drama. Once again the curtains had parted slightly some five feet above the floor, and, from the gap so lately tenanted by Martin’s threatening mask, Derrick now watched every move. This was what he sought, this opportunity, but what had guided him to his vantage-point he could not tell. He had remembered that the window was unfastened. He believed that the curtain would keep him safe from discovery, because he was assured that his strange visitor had come to stay and not to steal. To observe Martin when Martin thought himself unobserved, in that direction might lie knowledge. But what was it Martin sought now?

The scrutiny lasted but a few seconds. The gardener was back in his seat when Derrick entered unconcernedly, resumed his seat at the desk, and lit his pipe with extreme deliberation. Martin’s face was utterly blank, and he got up automatically when the new master of Beech Lodge came in.

“If you want that job, I’m inclined to give it to you.”

The big chest expanded slowly, and the broad figure lost something of its rigidity.

“Thank you, sir, and I’ll do my very best,” said Martin eagerly. “I know the place like a book, and I know roses, and you won’t have reason to regret it.”

Derrick smiled. “We haven’t discussed the matter of wages yet.” He was wondering whether the rate of pay meant as little to this man as it had to Perkins. “What I’m going to offer won’t seem much to one who has knocked about the world as much as yourself. It’s not a case of American wages.”

“I’m not worrying about wages, sir. It doesn’t take much to keep me going, and I’ve never had a drink in my life. It’s the old job I’m after.”

“Then what do you say to thirty shillings a week and the cottage.”

“That’s fair enough,” said Martin eagerly.

“By the way, I take it you’re not married?”

“I haven’t any wife now,” he stammered after a poignant pause.

“Sorry, Martin, I didn’t mean to hurt you. Any children?”

“No, sir.” The tanned face was calm again.

“Then I suppose you can begin to-morrow?”

“I’m ready for that.” Martin fingered his cap. “Might I sleep in the cottage to-night, sir? I’ve got my bundle outside.”

He said this without any seeming thought of the inference Derrick must draw, an inference that the latter jumped at. Why bring a bundle before one was sure of a job? But perhaps, and here a message drifted in from the paneled walls, perhaps it was already arranged that Martin should get the job, and the man in some queer way was aware of that. And, after all, why should he part from his bundle? He would have slept with it under a hedge.

Derrick felt in his pocket. “Perhaps you’d better stop in the village to-night, and clean up the cottage to-morrow. It must be cold and damp. Got enough money?”

Martin gave a twisted smile. “Yes, sir, I have money, but if you don’t mind I’ll risk the damp. It’s nothing to me.”

“No, let it stand till to-morrow; then you can move in. I’ll see you about ten o’clock.”

He rang the bell, Martin standing motionless, a baffling expression on his face. He had secured what he came for but still seemed ill at ease and uncontent. Then Perkins entered like a sallow ghost, and Derrick, regarding these two, experienced a novel sensation at seeing them stand side by side, the staff of Beech Lodge, the depositories of the secret of the house. Between them lay the thing he pursued, or that pursued him. They did not look at each other, but waited, silent, impassive, and remote. He wondered what it would be that first broke through the surface of this extraordinary calm, so profound as to be already ominous. But that would come in its appointed cycle.

“Perkins, I have engaged Martin as gardener. He will commence work in the morning, occupy the cottage, and do for himself entirely. Did you do anything in the house before, Martin?”

“Boots and coals, sir.”

“I don’t need any help now, sir,” put in Perkins swiftly.

Martin’s lids flickered, but he did not stir.

“Then for the meantime, Martin, stick to outside work. All right, you may go now.”

The man mumbled good night, made his former awkward salute, and marched into the hall. He did not glance at the woman, nor she at him. Derrick’s eyes narrowed a little.

“Please come here, Perkins, when you’ve locked up.”

The door closed, and he looked instinctively at the portrait as though to ask whether in all this he had done the right thing. But Millicent was uncommunicative to-night. Quite deliberately Derrick was rebuilding the personnel of Beech Lodge as it existed two years before, peopling it with the same faces, making it echo with the same voices. Its one-time master was no doubt still here, and now there remained only the other Millicents. If the circle could but be closed, and old contacts reëstablished, then perhaps the way would become clear. He was deliberating this when Perkins’s return ended the reverie.

“I’d like, if possible, to feel sure, Perkins, that from all you know of Martin I’ve done the right thing in engaging him. This unexpected return is bound to affect you in some way under the circumstances, and—”

He stopped abruptly. She was staring at him with so searching an expression that he knew that to-night he had drawn nearer the essential mystery of Beech Lodge. Yet it was not his action but his words that produced this remarkable effect. He was aware that it was not in the garden, where Millicent had lovingly tended his roses, or anywhere but in this room that the spirit of the murdered man seemed to cry aloud for vengeance—and for peace.

“It was meant that Martin should come back and you should engage him,” said Perkins dully. “I do not know more than that. You could not help it. You were called, and Martin, too.”

He perceived that there was nothing absurd in this. She spoke simply, as though reciting facts established beyond all question. Her look told him that at this moment she could go no further. Suddenly something reached him out of space. The room was alive again.

“How long had Mr. Millicent been dead when you found him?”

“I told you that they sent for me,” she answered gravely, “but I do not know how soon they sent. When the doctor came he thought that it had happened more than an hour before.”

“And you found him at this desk?”

“Did Martin say that?” she asked breathlessly.

“Does it matter who said it?”

Her thin hands clasped over her breast. There was a look in her face he had never seen there before.

“But it matters a great deal if it was Martin. Were you and he long in this room together?”

“No,” she said tremulously, “only a moment, but he stayed there after the doctor came.”

Derrick’s voice, which in spite of himself had risen a little, now dropped to a more level pitch.

“And in spite of all this nothing of any importance seems to have disappeared. Even his papers were undisturbed, so it was not burglary. He had no enemies?”

“He was not that kind. All liked him who knew him.”

“And you have nothing to say or suggest as to any possible motive.”

She did not answer but seemed to withdraw lest he unearth more than she was prepared to reveal. This suggested that it was now for him to follow the trail alone—if he could.

“Was it hard to get that stain reduced?” He flung the question at her like a missile.

Perkins winced visibly, glancing first at him, then at the desk as though its massive surface had found accusing speech. Her breath came faster, and Derrick knew that he had moved a step nearer the truth.

“Are there no secrets from you?” she whispered.

“Perhaps it was not always there,” he continued meaningly, “but returned after I came here. My fingers found it first, and it spoke. Soon after that I began to understand. The inventory man saw it before I did but got nothing from it. Perhaps Martin found it, too, when I was out of the room. I hoped he would.”

She nodded uncertainly, as one blinded by a sudden vision, then moved unsteadily to the desk and stood looking down at the faint, irregular patch. She put out a hand, lean and claw-like, forcing herself to touch the discolored leather. Leaning over it, her eyes dark with unfathomable things, she relived something in that moment; but it was hidden too deep for discovery. Finally she spoke, as though to some one far distant.

“Is it always this way? Is the whole world full of stains like this, stains that go deeper and deeper, however we try to rub them out, till by and by we cannot reach them?”

“Some stains are never effaced,” said Derrick grimly. “We only rub them deeper in.”

“And Martin is here to-night!” The words came from her very soul.

“Martin is probably in the cottage at this moment.”

“But he said he was going to the village.”

Derrick reached for his pipe. “Yes, that’s what I told him, but now I think he’s in the cottage. He does not want to go further from the house than that. I don’t know why, but I know.”

She sent him a look like that of an animal in a trap and left the room. Derrick sucked at his pipe, pitching his mind back over the last half-hour, piecing together fragment after fragment of evidence, but groping in vain for some underlying fact. Incident and strange coincident, shuffle them as he might, they made no decipherable pattern. Then, as happened so often, his eyes wandered to the portrait of Millicent.

“Is it all right,” he said, half aloud, “you whom I have never seen? You know why I am trying, but I do not. It’s all clear on your side, but misty on mine. Is it only for a little longer, till you find rest and sleep—for till then will there be no peace for me?”

“Jack,” sounded a voice at the door, “who on earth are you talking to?”

He started and laughed awkwardly. “Come in, Edith; I thought you were asleep long ago.”

“I couldn’t get to sleep, so thought I would come and see you. Why this oration to an empty room?”

He hooked his arm into hers, led her across, and halted under the portrait.

“I want you to help me do something for that chap.”

She looked at him regretfully. “There’s no reason in you at all, and just when I had persuaded myself that everything was all right.”

“I admit it sounds ridiculous, but really it’s not. I was never more serious in my life.”

“But how can you do anything for a dead man you never knew?” She glanced keenly about the room. “Do you remember our last talk, the one we had just after we got here?”

“Yes, every word of it. And I’m not going to try you now.”

She put a hand on his arm. “It isn’t myself, Jack; it’s you. I’m all right, except that I blame myself for having been rather silly. But I know perfectly well that nothing has been natural since we came here, especially yourself. Things seem to be settled in the ordinary way; then you make me feel they’re not settled, and you, my dear brother, are drifting about as you never have before. What is it? If I knew, perhaps I might help. Really I don’t understand, and in a queer way we don’t seem to be living for ourselves any longer.”

“Well,” he countered, “I’m not altogether unpractical. For instance, I think I’ve got hold of a first-rate gardener.”

“To-night?”

“Yes, he has just gone. I took him on, and he starts to-morrow.”

She brightened at that and went off after begging him not to sit up too late. Derrick went back to his desk, feeling suddenly a little weary. The singing silence reasserted itself, and the fire was low. He endeavored to work.

Presently he looked up sharply and caught his breath. There was a distinct tapping at the French window. He had a novel sensation of fear. The sound continued with a sort of regular and tiny beat. He got up slowly, and drew aside the curtain. The window was not locked. Through the glass he saw the peaked cap, red face, and brass buttons of a gigantic policeman. The man made a reassuring salute, and Derrick opened the window.

“Come in,” he said.

“Beg pardon, sir, for not going to the front door, but I saw you were alone and didn’t want to wake the whole house. There’s no other light anywhere.”

“All right, officer, but you gave me a bit of a start. What is it?”

“I’m on patrol, sir, passing here twice every night. I usually take a stroll round the house and cottage to see that all is as it should be, and just now, when I was at the back of the cottage, I noticed a light inside. That surprised me, as I knew it had not been occupied since Mr. Thursby left.”

“That’s quite right.”

“Well, sir, there’s a man there now. Is that with your permission?”

Derrick’s pulse beat a little faster. “What sort of a man?”

“Middle-aged, sir, queer face, queer clothes, sitting on a chair and staring.”

“At what?”

“At nothing, sir, so far as I could make out. A thick-set party, his skin burned and brown as though he’d come off the sea. Black hair, he has, and big hands and odd eyes that never stirred. It was the eyes that took me. He’s an ugly-looking customer all round, sir, but I thought I’d better see you before I pulled him in, just in case. What puzzled me was the lamp being lit and the blind up, if he’d no right to be there. There, was a bundle on the floor beside him.”

“I’m glad you came in first. How long have you been on duty in the village?”

“Matter of a year and a half now, sir. I was transferred here just about the time Mr. Thursby left Beech Lodge.”

“Well, I’ve been here a little more than a week. You knew, of course, that this was Mr. Millicent’s house?”

“Yes, sir, we all know that. There wasn’t much chance of forgetting it.”

“But I don’t suppose you personally know anything about his death—or murder, if you like?”

The constable shook his head. “I know what the rest of the force knows, and I’ve read the evidence at the inquest. But there wasn’t anything dug up then that was of any real use.”

Derrick nodded. “I had heard nothing of it up to a week ago, not even a whisper when I leased this house last month. Now I’m beginning to feel as though I’d known it all my life. What does the sergeant think about it?”

“I’m not supposed to say anything about what’s not my duty, sir,” replied the man a trifle stiffly.

“You’re probably right there; is this the first time you’ve been in this room?”

The constable looked ponderously about, his eyes glinting at sight of the desk. He knew what had happened there. Then at the portrait, with a hard stare.

“Yes, sir, first time.”

“Ever been in the house at all?”

“No, sir, never crossed the door-step.”

“I suppose you know that Mr. Millicent was found dead at this desk with a stab in his neck? That’s him above the mantel. They say it’s very like him and, oddly, something like me.”

“I was told about that, sir. A harmless-looking gentleman, I should say.”

“And you’ll probably remember that the only person on whom suspicion really fell was Mr. Millicent’s gardener. I think that’s common knowledge, too.”

“Yes, sir, it is, but he cleared himself somehow, got out of the country, and hasn’t been seen since.”

“Well,” said Derrick slowly, “that’s the man you found in the cottage, the late gardener of Beech Lodge, and I’ve engaged him to work for me. Can you guess why, constable?”

The policeman’s mouth opened wide. “But he’s the one who the sergeant thinks—” He broke off confusedly, while over his face spread a look of dawning astonishment and admiration. “By George, sir, but you’ve done a bold thing, and there’s not many would have done it. Perhaps you’re on the right track. But what brought the fellow here again into the middle of it?”

Derrick smiled grimly. “Now you’re asking too much. We haven’t come to that yet, and there’s no immediate hurry. Main thing is, he’s here and settled for the present. That gives one time to think. As for my end of it, I may be on the right track, and I may not. At any rate, I’m going to make a push for it. So far, I’m trying to piece some of the bits together, and Martin’s arrival is one of them. There’s bound to be a good deal more. So don’t disturb our friend in the cottage, for I fancy he’ll be rather badly needed. And, look here, do you think the sergeant will be willing to have a talk about this matter?”

“If you’re on the track of the man who killed Mr. Millicent, the sergeant would walk twenty miles to see you. I think he dreams about that case every night. It’s a sort of reflection on the police force of Bamberley. It hurts him. That’s the way he feels still.”

“Good! But perhaps it would be better if I went to see him. I’ll do that within the next few weeks. Meantime do you have to report this visit?”

“Only that the cottage is occupied with your authority. That takes it off our special list of empty buildings.”

“I’d be glad if it went no further than that, and the sergeant will agree with me there. Good night, officer. I shall sleep peacefully now, thanks to you. You can’t take a drink, I suppose?”

The big man smiled ruefully. “No, sir; thanks just the same. I think you’ll be a welcome visitor at the station. Good night, and I’ll slip past the cottage without disturbing our friend.”

He saluted, the French window closed behind him without a sound, and his great bulk melted into the darkness.

CHAPTER IV
JEAN

SOME TWO weeks after the staff of Beech Lodge had been completed by the engagement of the gardener, Mrs. Millicent and her daughter were walking along a quiet lane at a little distance from their old home. The house itself they had not seen since the time of the tragedy, and over them still hung the weight of a great grief. It had touched Mrs. Millicent’s hair with gray and given her a strangely wistful expression. Her sorrow was increased by the belief that her husband had had an enemy, the husband who had worshiped her with love and devotion for twenty years of married companionship. What enemy could such a man make in all the world?

For Jean, her daughter, the blow had been no less severe. And it had a deeper significance. Dazed and stupefied, she was nevertheless aware of the power behind the blow, the power that dealt it. Where her mother was inclined to give way with a hopeless wonder at the cruelty of fate, Jean perceived that the hand that thus struck the helpless might not have been stayed by her father’s blood. If her father were in the way of something—she knew not what—might there not be others similarly threatened? The resiliency of her youth refused merely to accept the situation.

They came to a fork in the lane, one turn of which led past Beech Lodge and then on to their own small house. Mrs. Millicent took the other turn instinctively, but Jean, for some reason she could never explain, felt a sudden impulse to pass this time by the road they had both hitherto avoided. She stopped, and her mother glanced back with surprise.

“What is it, dear?”

“I don’t know, mother, but”—she hesitated—“I rather want to go this way.”

“But why?”

“I can’t tell you, really. It’s rather an odd feeling. Would you much sooner not?”

It flashed into Mrs. Millicent’s mind that perhaps she had been unwise in allowing her own shrinking timidity to influence the girl. The only reason she had to put forward sounded a little too personal to carry much weight, and if time was healing the wound in Jean’s heart, should she not be thankful—and show it?

“Very well, dear,” she said slowly. “Perhaps it is better to begin this way. I think I’d like your arm.”

They went on thus, with unvoiced recognition of remembered things. Came the bend in the lane beyond which lay Beech Lodge, and the older woman seemed to feel the knife in her own throat. So many times had she walked here, and so happily. The dip in the hedge, the glimpse of rolling fields patched with woodland, the belt of timber that marked the grounds of Beech Lodge, the cluster of old trees with their pale gray trunks close by the roadside; then the white gates and tiny red-roofed cottage. Her fingers tightened on the girl’s strong arm.

“My dear, my dear,” she whispered. “Just two years ago!”

Jean nodded sympathetically but did not speak. She was staring up the drive at the house with its shining windows, its clustering ivy, and the wide door, in every timber of which seemed to be a welcome.

“Isn’t it strange?” she whispered. “So different, and yet so unchanged.” She paused, then went on uncertainly. “I sometimes wonder, mother, whether houses have some kind of consciousness and are aware of us who live in them. Isn’t it queer, but I feel now as though Beech Lodge was somehow glad to see us, and was wondering why we had never come before.”

Mrs. Millicent shook her head. “It’s a pretty fancy, child, but—”

Jean stopped, nearly opposite the white gates. “Who’s that at the window—your old room? Mother, it looks like Perkins!”

“It is Perkins. You knew she stayed on when the Thursbys left.”

“Yes, but I did not know she was still here. And yet I’m not surprised. She’s part of the house. I wonder if the Derricks like her.”

“She always had a very peculiar manner, but she was an excellent servant.”

Mrs. Millicent’s voice faltered. This inspection was becoming too poignant, and she moved on. It seemed that any moment there might emerge that well-remembered figure, with the straight, familiar form and those clear, thoughtful eyes. She had turned away, her lips trembling, when Jean spoke quickly and sharply.

“Mother, who is that?”

From the climbing rose-bushes that bordered the wide drive, a figure had emerged, shears in hand, a figure that halted and stared. The broad shoulders, the uncouth head, the powerful and deliberate movements of the man were unmistakable.

“Martin!” she said under her breath. “It’s Martin!”

Mrs. Millicent stopped, turned, and came unsteadily back. Then she too looked, and became weak and agitated.

“It is Martin—”

“But where can he have come from, and why come back here?”

For a moment her mother could not answer, being too shaken by this quivering recognition of one who she felt held the key to her husband’s tragic death. It was Martin who had moved with threatening domination through the nightmare of her dreams for the last two years. Now the threat was alive again. It had returned with him. Then she heard Jean. The color had fled from the girl’s cheeks, but her eyes were alight with some thrilling instinct.

“What does it mean, mother?”

“I do not know, child. Come away now, please; I must get home.”

Jean held back. Something more was stirring in her soul than Martin’s return. He had come back to strangers who probably knew nothing of him. If they did, he could not be at Beech Lodge. And Perkins was there, too, and Perkins knew all. It followed, then, that the woman had not spoken. Was it all in preparation for another tragedy? At this thought she felt frightened and choked. Some one must speak—before speech was too late. She glanced again at the motionless figure. Martin was staring, too, and he also had recognized. He touched his cap, and at the curve of that arm she nearly cried out.

“Mother,” she whispered again, “we must tell them.”

“Tell them what, Jean? Come along. I can’t stand this.”

The girl held her ground. “We must tell the Derricks about Martin. Don’t you see it would be utterly unfair, and perhaps cowardly, if we didn’t? They’ve taken the place and, being strangers, can have known very little about it. They have probably heard about father’s death through Perkins, but perhaps not. The agent would naturally say nothing about it, and I don’t suppose the Thursbys would advertise the truth. Perkins has evidently said nothing about Martin, or the Derricks would not have engaged him. We know all, and the suspicions as to Martin, and we simply cannot be silent. Oh, we must tell them, and now!”

“If you feel so strongly I’ll write to-night,” protested her mother faintly, “but, Jean, I cannot go in now. I could not walk past that man.”

The girl was unmoved. “That won’t do, mother. There are too many things one can’t put on paper. One of us must speak.”

“I cannot make myself speak now, and you can’t go in there alone.”

“Why not?”

“There’s Martin looking at you. He knows what we are talking about.”

“Perhaps he does, and if so he’s more afraid of me than I am of him. At any rate I must go. You keep on toward the village, and I’ll catch you up. If I have to wait I’ll have some one walk home with me. And please, please understand that I’m not afraid, because there’s nothing to fear. I know now why we came this way to-day for the first time.”

Mrs. Millicent sighed despairingly and turned away. There was a look on the girl’s face she could not meet, and Martin had not moved.

Jean rallied her courage, passed between the white gates, and walked firmly up the drive. Martin saw her coming and stepped back till he was half screened among his roses. His face was working. When she drew level he touched his cap the second time, and for an instant their eyes met. In hers there was a cold recognition; in his a sort of mute and restless petition. Yes, he knew why she had come and what she was about to impart to his new employer. A surge of impotent anger shot through him, and he turned silently lest he should betray it. He had not reckoned on this when in the Burmese jungle there reached him the first of those discomforting promptings that finally brought him half-way round the world, he knew not why. Jean did not look back. Her eyes were fixed on the too familiar door. It opened almost at once, and she met the changeless look of Perkins. Now she could speak, but the sight of the hall, its rugs and pictures, all as though she had never left them, was nearly too much. They were as unchanged as Perkins herself. Suddenly she felt like an intruder or a thief and wanted to leave. At that she remembered Martin.

“Good afternoon, Perkins. Is Mrs. Derrick in?”

“There is no Mrs. Derrick, miss. It’s Mr. Derrick’s sister who is here.”

“Oh, is she in, then?”

“No, miss, but Mr. Derrick is here.”

“Then I’d like to see him for a moment.”

“Will you wait in the living-room, miss? Mr. Derrick is working in the study.”

“Thanks, I’ll wait here.”

Perkins tapped at the study door.

“Miss Millicent, sir.”

Derrick put down his pen. “Miss Millicent,” he repeated puzzled.

“She is waiting in the hall and would like to see you. She asked for Miss Derrick first, but Miss Derrick is out.”

He got up, his pulse beating hard, and came quickly into the hall. They glanced at each other, these two, drawn thus together by the shadow of a crime. Instinctively she held out her hand, feeling for a strange moment almost as though no introduction was necessary.

“How do you do, Miss Millicent? My sister will be very sorry to miss you. Will you come into the living-room or”—he hesitated an instant—“the study?”

“I won’t keep you a moment,” she said a little nervously. “Are you working in the study?”

He nodded, smiling. “I think it’s a wonderful room. Please come in.”

He followed her in, while Perkins, after a lingering glance, closed the door. Jean took a big chair by the fireplace, and for a moment neither spoke. Then she saw the manuscript littering the desk.

“I’m so afraid I’ve interrupted you.”

He shook his head ruefully. “What I was writing, or trying to write, is all the better for being interrupted. And,” he added, “we have been hoping to meet you and your mother.”

Again their eyes met. Derrick noted the smooth oval of her face and the sensitive curve of her lips. Her expression suggested imagination, a mind at once alert and subjective. She was looking now at her father’s portrait, and he saw the resemblance between these two. And, try as he might, he could not guess her thoughts or what brought her there. But something whispered that a Millicent was again in Beech Lodge.

“I did not know I was coming here to-day,” she said gravely, “not till mother and I came past the gates. Then I knew.”

It was all so strange, and yet so utterly real, that Derrick did not answer at once. Here was Millicent’s daughter in Millicent’s study. That to begin with. And there was about the girl a nameless aura she had brought with her that made the ordinary preliminaries of acquaintance seem pointless and out of place. He did not feel that he had always known her, but that somewhere and somehow they possessed something in common.

“Please tell me,” he said quietly.

“Yes, if I may begin by asking questions.”

“It will be very kind of you.”

“Then, did you know about Beech Lodge when you took it?”

“No; that is, if I understand what you mean. I was looking for a quiet place to work in, found this, and fell in love with it. I went straight to the agent in London and made an offer. He telephoned to Mr. Thursby, and the offer was accepted so quickly that it surprised me—and here we are.”

“It was Perkins who showed you over the house?”

“Yes, she was alone here, and in charge.”

“And the rest?” She glanced at him as though counting on his intuition.

“I discovered that after we moved in.”

“I’m so sorry,” she said involuntarily.

“But why, Miss Millicent?”

“Because I’m sure you would not—”

She stopped abruptly. A whisper came to her that she was saying things of which she was not quite sure. What if Beech Lodge had imparted the edge of its secret, the secret of which she had long been conscious, to its new tenant? His face was that of one who might be able to receive such things.

“You were going to tell me that if I had known what happened here two years ago I would not have taken the house.”

She nodded thankfully. Yes, he did understand.

“Then may I say that I think I realize what it must have meant to you to come in here for that purpose? And, Miss Millicent, while I did not know at the time, I do know now, and regret nothing.”

“Nothing?” she murmured.

He shook his head. “Nothing. Shall I go on?”

She nodded again and, lifting her eyes, took a long straight look at her father’s portrait. Perhaps he was here now, and knew, and was in a way glad she had come. She noted, too, with a sort of thankfulness that Derrick did not sit at the desk.

“When I came first,” he continued, “I saw Perkins. She gave me a strange impression, but it was not altogether discomforting. I took the house without consulting my sister, being attracted to it in a way that I only began to understand by degrees. I actually felt what had happened here before being told about it. That isn’t the sort of thing one can explain, but—”

“It doesn’t need explanation,” she put in.

He sent her a quick, searching glance. “It helps to have you say that. Well, after we moved in, the thing, or perhaps it was the influence, grew stronger—I can’t express it in any other way—till presently I was sure we were meant to come. I got some details from Perkins, but they were incomplete; I was convinced that I must wait for more—which would certainly be furnished from some source.” He paused, reflected for a moment, and went on rapidly. “Does it seem impertinent for me, an utter stranger, to be so interested and allow myself to be drawn into something which is not my affair? If it does, I can only assure you that it is not curiosity, or,” he added thoughtfully, “the result of anything I have done or said.”

“It is impossible to think that.”

“I’m glad you see it that way, because it brings me to Martin. Is it on account of Martin you were kind enough to come in?”

“Yes.”

“Then, some day, if you or Mrs. Millicent will tell me, I’d like to hear more about him; but meantime please be assured that Martin’s being here is all part of the rest of it. I knew what was said and thought about him when I took him on. He told me why he happened to come back at this particular time.”

“Why was it?” asked Jean swiftly.

“He had to come. Telling you that seems to explain a good many other things one can’t very well put into words. I know now that Perkins had to stay, that I had to take this house, that you had to pass this way for the first time in many months; and I know, too, that the gathering is not yet quite complete. It is all utterly intangible; there is no one point on which one can put a finger and say the reason lies there; and one of the most remarkable things is that we can meet for the first time and talk like this. It is something more than fate; it is purpose.”

She looked at him wonderingly. The room, with its poignant memories, was speaking to her now, its ancient walls vibrant with mystical messages. Here was the sounding-box of the unknown, where in times past she had thrilled to mysterious whispers. Here her father had sat—himself even, with all his love, something of a mystery—and here at the end his life had been snatched from him. What reason was there to assume that evil and danger had passed away? And till it did pass the tale could not be complete.

“I am not going to try and thank you,” she said slowly, “for having made my coming here so much easier than it promised to be, but when I saw Martin I knew what I had to do. Mother was with me, but she could not face it and has gone on to the village. Martin looked at me as I came in and knows why I came. He must know that.”

“Would you and your mother feel more comfortable if I sent Martin away?”

“No, you must not do that. We are in no danger from him. I mean you must not do it on our account. But there’s your sister and yourself to think of.”

He shook his head. “I am convinced that this need not trouble you. The police know of the new arrangement, and Martin knows that they know. No danger of the sort you mean lies there. I want to leave Martin to his roses and Perkins to her house-work till something I cannot describe is reëstablished. Beech Lodge seems to be waiting for that. Perkins and Martin are also waiting, though unconsciously. I am certainly waiting. And, Miss Millicent, I think that without knowing it you have been waiting, too.”

“Yes,” she whispered, “it’s the only thing.”

“Then, may I ask something that’s rather difficult to ask? I wouldn’t unless I believed that you too felt something that’s very difficult to express.”

“Please—what is it?”

“You hold with me that we are all surrounded by influences we do not understand, and in so far as we are able to interpret them the difficult things become less threatening?”

“One cannot escape that,” she said slowly.

“I thought as much. But there are some who fight against such powers, and, believing them to be all for evil, are frightened, they know not why. If they are not frightened, they scout them. But since these powers are both for good and evil, and I believe those for good must be the strongest, it is only right to admit that the beneficent and invisible influences are always fighting for readjustments of some kind and will conquer in the end. If this were not the case, what advantage could there be in life? You believe all this?”

“I must believe it.”

“Well, my sister does not; she says she’s too practical, and I do not argue the point. Unless one can accept it, there’s no room for anything but restlessness and probably fear. So what I’d like to suggest, if I may, is that you do not say anything of all this to—to any one who does—not see this as we do.”

“You mean my mother?” she said quickly.

He nodded. “You told me she could not face coming in here, but you came, and that explained much.”

“Mother would not understand,” she admitted, “and I think you’re very wise. But is there nothing else I can do?”

“Yes, if you will, a little later on, tell me some of the things I would like to know. May I bring my sister to see you?”

“Please do; we should be very glad.”

She said good-by. The ordeal she had dreaded was over and concluded in a fashion she never anticipated. It was all strange—and yet not strange. She was persuaded that this interview had been dominated by something her father had left behind, in order that it might fight for what Derrick called readjustment. And in that she was ready to aid to the utmost. There was no room for fear now. She declined Derrick’s offer to walk home with her and went thoughtfully back with a new sense of being fortified in things that for years past had stirred secretly in her soul.

Derrick sat in the study late that night, with no pretense at work. Beech Lodge had dipped into utter silence, and the fire was low. His mind was full of the visitor of the afternoon, whose coming had lent a new significance to his surroundings. Now he perceived more clearly what it must have cost her to come. He was conscious of her communicable courage, the charm of her youth, and above all of the fact that to her also something had whispered from the infinite. How vivid she was, how understanding!

He wondered, too, what impression she carried away. Had he said too much, or too little? In talking, as he had done, to the daughter of a murdered man while she sat in her father’s study beneath her father’s portrait, in taking on himself the office of avenger—had he not already gone too far and too fast? Could Jean Millicent have done otherwise than approve while she must have been still struggling with profound and reawakened emotions? Had he been stilted and self-assured and pedantic? Had he assumed too much? These questions harassed him.

Against it he put the girl’s coming. She had not known what manner of person she would find but, braving the revival of her own loss, had determined to do what she could to save others from any tragic experience. This thought grew in his mind till, in turn, he recognized a new element in this strange affair. He had desired to answer if he could the voiceless petitions of the dead man, but now, in addition, he felt a wave of protection for those whom Millicent had left behind. It was this, he realized, that had animated him during his talk with Jean Millicent. And she had promised to help. He got up restlessly, lowered the lamp, and, moving to the French window, stared out at the moon-smitten lawn. How often must Millicent, who was so close to-night, have stared like this? Perhaps it was on such a night that the evil thing came, strong and merciless. But whence and how?

It was in the midst of a space of profound silence that he heard the faintest click at the door. He started at that, for his sister had been long in bed, and Perkins’s room was in the far corner of the house. What moved in Beech Lodge now? The door was opening, so slowly that it was almost imperceptible. His hair began to prickle. Was this the evil thing, and what did it seek?

He stood, breathless and motionless, his pulse hammering, till through the widening crack projected a hand, followed by a long arm and white-clad shoulder. The fingers were empty and extended as though feeling blindly. Then a face, pallid as of the dead. It was Perkins!

She glided forward without sound or speech, a wraith, a spirit of the night, so unreal, so remote as to be divested of human attributes, the thin hand still held out, exploring and testing the half-light that filtered through the silent chamber. It was the hand rather than the body that had life, with consciousness in its quivering finger-tips. She was only partly dressed and wore a loose white wrapper that accentuated the tall straightness of her figure. Her black hair hung in two thick ropes over her shoulders; her feet were bare; and her face was that of one who sees unspeakable things. The eyes were wide open, and in their glassy stare was a strange hunger and a great question.

She came on like an uncaptured spirit, feeling delicately along the paneled wall, a creature of body and flesh, but directed by some mysterious influence beyond human ken. She did not look toward the window but paused for a moment to survey the portrait with an unearthly and profound recognition. From this she turned to the desk, leaning over it, her dangling ropes of hair rendered semi-luminous against the lamp, peering, peering, till at length the long, questing fingers found what they sought, and poised, quivering above the stain.

Now she swayed, leaning ever a little more forward, till at last her head drooped, her arms stretched out, and her lips touched that darkened patch where they rested in a mute and desperate caress.

“Master,” she pleaded, “master, where are you now? Why did you go; why are you not here where you used to be? The evil waits still, and all is empty and cold and dead without you, all dead, all dead!”

The voice ceased like a wail in the night, drowned in silence. Her lips pressed close to the stain till they seemed to infuse into it the message of her own blood, while the blind fingers groped and groped for that they could not find. Then with a sigh that hung tremulous in the throbbing air she moved to the portrait, made a slow, despairing gesture of farewell, and glided back to the door and out of sight.

Derrick, rooted where he stood, thrilled to a new light that began to flicker in his brain. The fabric of his imagination was becoming more substantial. He had seen the soul of a woman stripped of all disguise, and heard a voice that was robbed of all powers of concealment. The essential meaning of this danced before his mind’s eye.

CHAPTER V
THE PAPER-KNIFE

THE VILLAGE of Bamberley lay about two miles from Beech Lodge, a homelike nest of buildings gathered in a wrinkle of the Sussex hills. It was well removed from any main road, and its thatched roofs and crooked cobbled streets had fortunately escaped the demoralizing finger of progress. It was, in fact, just as it had always been in the memory of its oldest inhabitant. A village green, with the pens of the cattle market just across the road, a rambling public house, whose swinging sign creaked cheerily when the wind was high, a few diminutive shops, the contents of which were huddled in the meadows, perhaps a hundred cottages, a dozen more pretentious buildings dominated by the village institute—and then the encircling hills, velvet and brown and wide, patched with irregular coverts and dotted as far as the eye could reach with farm-house and barn.

Bamberley happened to be the most important of four adjoining villages; so here were the police headquarters of that utterly rural district. It was a neat brick building with the local jail immediately behind, standing where the cross-roads provided the main interest in life.

The road from Beech Lodge climbs the crown of a low hill ere it dips into the village; and Derrick, as he strolled toward the station and looked down on all this, thought he had never seen anything so peaceful.

The sergeant, a large, ruddy-faced, cylindrical man, greeted him with undisguised interest, and Derrick lost no time in getting to the point. They talked in the tiny office, which seemed filled by the other man’s bulk. Derrick knew what he wanted, for this visit had occasioned him much thought. He was aware, too, that minor officials in isolated places were apt to regard with a jealous eye anything that might infringe on their position and privilege. It was at once obvious that the sergeant felt an added sense of responsibility when the visitor asked if he might read the official documents in the Millicent case.

Burke had been prepared by the constable for Derrick’s coming, and during the past few weeks had chafed at his delay. He wanted to talk about the Millicent case more than anything else in the world. It was the biggest and most baffling puzzle in his career, and for a day or so the eyes of England had turned curiously toward Bamberley. After the inquest they turned away to the next sensation, leaving the police force of that tiny community with the stinging sensation of having fallen grievously short. Since then, Burke, feeling his position more than he would ever admit, had explored every avenue that presented itself to his methodical mind. And always with the same result. Now, after nearly two years of silence, the thing was up again, brought up by a complete stranger who had actually taken into his employ the man suspected of the crime, against whom no definite charge could be laid. Burke secretly wondered whether by any chance Derrick and his gardener knew each other a good deal better than appeared on the surface of things. This was undoubtedly a matter for caution.

“The point is, sir,” he said slowly, “that I have no authority to tell you anything whatever, unless it is clear that the law may be aided thereby, and you have supplementary evidence with a direct bearing on the case.”

Derrick nodded. “I quite understand, sergeant, and that’s entirely reasonable. Would you sooner I looked up the counsel acting for the crown at the inquest? I’m quite willing, if you’d rather not talk about it.”

Burke reflected. He did not want to lose anything that might help himself, nor did he want to go beyond his boundaries. There was probably nothing here, but he could not get the reappearance of Martin out of his head. He had walked past the cottage at Beech Lodge only the week before and had a look at the man. Martin had nodded coolly and gone on with his work. A hard man, any way one took him.

“Please yourself, sir, about that; but if you’ll tell me what’s in your mind perhaps it won’t be necessary to go any further.”

“It may take a little time, sergeant.”

Burke glanced out of the window and along the cross-roads. “We’re not likely to be disturbed this morning.”

“Then I’ll begin with a question. Do you believe in the theory that when a serious crime has been committed, I mean one of passion or revenge, that the criminal, wherever he may be, is constantly reminded of it by the process of his own brain—that in spite of all he can do he builds up picture after picture, and lives it all over and over again?”

“There are too many proved instances of that to doubt it.”

“And do you also believe that something constantly suggests to such a man that he should go back and revisit the scene of the crime?”

“There was the Hardwick case, like that,” said Burke reminiscently. “You remember the Gloucester Square doctor who was killed by the man who afterwards took rooms immediately opposite the doctor’s house; and the murderer never could tell why, except that it seemed the only thing to do.”

“Then I take it that in your profession the likelihood is really weighed and considered.”

“Yes, sir, it is. Some of the London men who came down here two years ago were talking about it.”

“Another point is the matter of coincidence. How do you feel about that?”

“It’s something that has played a big part in our work. One can’t put it aside. Coincidence and the other things you’ve mentioned often seem to run together.”

“And you know, of course, that Mr. Millicent’s gardener turned up very soon after I took Beech Lodge?”

“Yes, Mr. Derrick; Constable Peters reported that you had authorized him to occupy the cottage.”

“Then can you guess what brought him here all the way from Burma?”

“Did he go that far?”

Derrick nodded. “And came back by way of Canada—”

“There might be several reasons,” said the big man thoughtfully.

“Well, as a matter of fact there is but one.”

“How do you know, sir?”

“Martin told me himself.”

“What was it?” Burke’s tone had changed a little.

“He had to come. He had no bones about saying so.” Derrick paused a moment. “Sergeant, could an innocent man have felt like that?”

The sergeant stared at his own massive boots, glittering mountains of leather that shone with official luster.

“Anything else, Mr. Derrick?”

“Of course you remember Perkins?”

“Perfectly; the sort of woman one can’t forget.”

“Yes; a strange character, showing nothing on the surface, and so much a part of Beech Lodge that we took her on with the house.”

Burke grinned. “I can see that she hasn’t changed much.”

“No, she can’t change. But did you know that she walked in her sleep?”

The sergeant looked at him sharply. “For a newcomer, sir, you’ve unearthed a good deal. I never heard that before.”

“And would you think it of interest if I told you that the desk at which Mr. Millicent was found is of particular attraction to both Martin and Perkins?”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because I’ve seen them both examining it closely when they thought they were unobserved. They were looking for something, sergeant.”

Burke got up, stood at the diminutive window, and with his hands folded behind his back stared at the verdant expanse of Bamberley Green. Obviously he was thinking very hard. Derrick lit his pipe and contemplated the big frame, the thick neck, and round, neatly clipped skull. There was no promise of great ability here, no quick perception, no imaginative brain. Burke found his inspiration in his official regulations. Law, order, and discipline, was it not all in a book? He was the type for whom it was hard to let go, and impossible to forget. And the biggest thing in his life was still the Millicent murder. It hurt, just as Constable Peters had intimated. Presently he turned.

“Mr. Derrick, in most cases of crime, and especially that of murder, the force is pestered with amateur detectives who believe they have the one and only clue. It’s very often a reporter for some paper. They make all kinds of trouble, and always mix things up if you give them any rope. But you’ve said enough to justify me in talking about what took place at the inquest on Mr. Millicent; though, mind you, it’s entirely unofficial.”

“That’s all I ask, sergeant; and if this thing can be solved I have no desire to appear in it at all. I’d much sooner not. If we get any results, they’re yours, not mine. I don’t pose as an amateur detective; but, from what I have already seen and know, I believe this thing can be run to earth.”

Burke reached to a shelf above his head and took down a large leather-bound volume. On the well-thumbed pages of this were pasted envelopes, from one of which he extracted a docket bearing the name of Millicent, with a date. The manner in which he turned to it suggested that this procedure had often taken place before. He cleared his throat and began rather stiffly.

“At ten thirty on the night of October fourteenth—that’s two years ago less three days—I was just leaving this office when Paling, the groom of Dr. Henry, drove up in great haste and said that I was wanted at once at Beech Lodge by the doctor, who was himself at that time at the Lodge. He had been summoned there by Martin, Mr. Millicent’s gardener, who told him that a murder had been committed. We galloped all the way to the Lodge, arriving there at ten thirty-seven by my watch. I left instructions here that Constable Franklin should follow me without delay. I was admitted by the maid Perkins, who took me to the study, where I found Mrs. Millicent, her daughter, and the doctor. A lamp was burning on the desk, and beside it was Mr. Millicent, lying forward so that his head rested on the desk. He was quite dead. There was a large wound in his neck that had bled profusely and formed a puddle among his papers. The doctor very wisely had left things undisturbed, because his first examination proved that life was extinct.”

“Were Perkins and Martin in the room at this time?” asked Derrick evenly.

“No, only Mrs. and Miss Millicent and the doctor. Perkins and Martin waited in the hall with the doctor’s groom.”

“And then?”

Burke turned a page. “It was, of course, most important not to destroy the slightest clue that might have been left, so a very careful examination of the room was made, with exact measurement of the position in which the body was found. I searched the room, examined the door leading to the lawn, and found that it was fastened. By this time Constable Franklin had arrived, and he helped. We went over the entire ground floor, made sure that all windows were closed, then locked the study door, and took Mr. Millicent up-stairs to his own room. I left the constable on guard outside with instructions that no person should be allowed to enter or leave the grounds.”

“What sort of a night was it?”

“Dull, mild, and rather cloudy, with no rain.”

“And the outside of the house?”

“Nothing could be done till next morning except make sure that any tracks should remain undisturbed; but after a most careful examination we found nothing of the kind. My own conclusion, and it has not been changed since, was that the blow must have been struck by some member of the household—or”—here Burke paused significantly—“at any rate some one in the family service. Mind you, Mr. Derrick, this is absolutely unofficial.”

“I quite understand that. Now what can you tell me about the inquest?”

“I was just coming to that. The witnesses were narrowed to five: Mrs. Millicent and her daughter, Dr. Henry, Perkins, and Martin. I’ll take them in their order, so Mrs. Millicent comes first. She told a very simple story. Her husband was forty-five, and the latter part of their married life had been spent at Beech Lodge. He had at one time a very comfortable income, which latterly had been reduced by speculations. They were not, however, in difficult circumstances, although she seemed to know very little of his financial affairs. He was always much interested in anything that had to do with the Orient. So far as she was aware he had no enemies. He spent a good deal of his time in the garden and often went for long walks, always alone. Since his last trip to the East, from which he returned five years before his death, he seemed to have some kind of worry, of which he would never speak, or explain. Letters had arrived for him from Singapore, at which his worry seemed to increase; but he always destroyed these and never referred to their contents. From what I make of it, he was up to his eyes in something he found it necessary to conceal from those he cared for most. There had been no hard words with any of the staff, and no stranger had been at the house that day so far as we could learn.”

“I understand that Mrs. Millicent engaged Perkins, while later on her husband employed Martin. How much later?”

“About a year.”

“So that any collusion between them before this is improbable?”

“I should say so; and it seems that they took very little notice of each other at any time.”

“Then, as far as we have gone, the period between the actual moment of the murder and the time when Perkins notified Mrs. Millicent is unaccounted for.”

Burke nodded. “Exactly!”

“Before we go on to the other evidence, can you tell me whether anything was missed after the murder?”

The sergeant opened another envelope, extracting a sheet of brown paper some eighteen inches long.

“This is a drawing made by Mrs. Millicent of a thing that her husband used as a paper-knife. It’s not been found since that night.”

Derrick took it eagerly and scrutinized the outline of a murderous-looking weapon. Its curving blade must have measured a foot, being chopped off at the point in a curious and characteristic fashion. The handle was heavy and carried a short guard. Its deadly curve was unmistakable.

“By George!” he said. “That’s a Malay creese!”

“Yes, Mr. Millicent got it in the East and seemed to attach some kind of sentimental value to it. He always kept it on his desk. Of course, it may be that it was there for protection, though the average man would have preferred a revolver. On the other hand, you can see what chance any one would have against a thing like that.”

“Then there are two assumptions,” answered Derrick thoughtfully, “one that the person who committed the crime knew that this thing was on the desk available for his purpose; the other, that he came without any evil intent, but a dispute developed and in a burst of anger he picked up the creese, and struck.”

“And there’s just one person to whom both of those cases might apply, at ten o’clock at night,” said Burke grimly, “the person against whom we have no evidence.”

“I agree with that. Did anything else disappear at the same time?”

“So far as we know only one thing, and that apparently not of any importance. It was a sort of little toy image, about three or four inches high, that Mr. Millicent used as a paper-weight. It was carved out of a block of jade. He used to joke about it in a queer sort of way and say it was more valuable than they knew. Sometimes it was on his desk, but only when he was in the room himself. At other times he used to hide it away; but no one ever knew where. He never talked about it, except in that joking manner. It seems to have been an ugly-looking thing, too, but Mrs. Millicent could not make a drawing of it.”

A sudden light danced in Derrick’s eyes. “Then there was no concealment about this?”

“No more than that it used to be stowed away, and he’d never allow it to be touched. You know how men sometimes get queer ideas about things?”

“Yes, I know.”

“And it’s generally something quite unimportant. Well, it was like that with this image. Matter of fact, it was so ugly that no one in the house seemed to want to touch it, except Perkins.”

“Ah!” said Derrick slowly. His eyes were very keen. “Now, there are a few other questions I’d like to ask, but first you might tell me what other evidence was given.”

The sergeant glanced out of the window. “That’s queer! I was going to say that Miss Millicent couldn’t tell us anything important, and there she is now.”

Derrick looked up. The girl was just abreast of the tiny office, walking slowly. Involuntarily she turned her head, and their eyes met. Color mounted to her cheeks, and she bowed. Derrick went out to her quickly. There were no preliminaries.

“May we come over in a few days? I think perhaps you could help then.” He spoke as though their last conversation had only been interrupted.

“Do!” she nodded.

“And till then I hope you’re not worrying, or anxious?”

She shook her head, smiled, and sent him a look of complete confidence. “Would it seem odd if I said that I worry less now than in the past two years?”

“I’m so glad of that!”

“It’s quite true. I’m happier, and so is mother. I”—she hesitated a little—“I think we don’t feel so horribly alone.”

“You’re not.” His voice was queerly strained. “Indeed, you’re not.”

She glanced at him again, then turned quickly away.

Derrick looked after her, following the slight figure till it came to the corner of the green. Something of him went with her, and he reëntered the sergeant’s office wondering at himself.

Whatever doubts the latter might have had about this unofficial conference had been laid at rest. The new master of Beech Lodge was animated by more than mere curiosity. That was now established; and, surveying the past two years, the big man realized how heavily the unfathomed crime had rested on his own spirit. The memory of it could never leave him till the mysterious scroll was unrolled. This visit of Derrick’s might result in nothing; but, in a way not entirely clear, the chance of solution seemed at last a little more probable. He looked at the young man almost with respect.

“As I said, Miss Millicent could really tell us little more than her mother. She seemed just as frightened of something that might still take place as of what had happened. She knew about the image, but nothing of its history; and my impression was that she linked it up with the crime in a way that none of the rest of us did. She had no explanation of this. I got the impression that she understood her father, if one can put it that way, better almost than her mother—although I have no real reason for saying this.”

Derrick glanced at him shrewdly. “Nevertheless, I’m glad you mentioned it. Anything else?”

“No, sir. Perkins was the next witness. She had been in Mrs. Millicent’s employ for nearly five years. An Englishwoman, aged thirty-eight, she had traveled a good deal before she went into service. She stated that on the night in question she was on her way up-stairs from the servants’ hall—there was no other servant there at the time—and passed the study. The door was closed, and there was no sound; but she could see the lamplight under the door. A little later, when she was ready for bed, she went back to the servants’ hall for a book and noticed that the door was ajar and the lamp still burning.

“She went in, thinking that Mr. Millicent had gone to bed and forgotten to put it out. There she found him, bent forward over the desk, his head on one side and a deep wound in his neck from which the blood had poured in a pool. She said that for a moment she could not move, then ran up-stairs, hammered at Mrs. Millicent’s door, and told the latter that there had been an accident in the study. Mrs. Millicent called to her to send Martin at once for the doctor, so she raced down to the cottage at once without going again into the study. She found Martin, who ran for Dr. Henry, coming back a little later with the doctor and groom in the cart. Then the groom came for me. As you probably know, Beech Lodge is about half-way between Bamberley and the doctor’s house.”

“Did Perkins admit having missed anything from the desk?”

“She mentioned the paper-knife but said nothing about the image till she was questioned.”

“And then?”

The sergeant reflected a moment. “I didn’t make much of what she said then. She was very upset, and rambled a good deal, till I think the coroner was glad to have done with her. I almost thought she attached as much importance to that as to the paper-knife, but of course she was hysterical.”

“Possibly,” murmured Derrick. “So I take it that Martin could not actually have seen the body till he returned with the doctor?”

“That is his evidence, which I will come to in a minute, and also Perkins statement. It would be a matter of perhaps twenty or twenty-five minutes after Perkins waked Mrs. Millicent.”

“And Mrs. Millicent, and I suppose her daughter, stayed with the body till the doctor came?”

“Yes.”

“Where was Perkins then?”

“Also in the study, trying to help Mrs. Millicent, who she thought was going off her head.”

“Let me go back a minute. The first time Perkins passed the study on her way up-stairs the door was shut, and the next time ajar. How long intervened?”

“Perkins says perhaps half an hour, while she undressed.”

“So during that half-hour the crime was committed, and the door was probably left ajar by the murderer?”

“I could never see it any other way, Mr. Derrick.”

“And that is the time left unaccounted for?”

“Exactly. Now you’ve reached the point where I’ve had to leave the thing for two years, and you’ve reached it by the same road of reasoning.”

Derrick smiled. “Tell me what the doctor said, sergeant.”

“Very little. He testified that from the condition of the body life could not have been extinct for more than one hour.”

“That again narrows it down to about one half-hour in which the thing happened. The question is what did happen, so perhaps we’d better hear what Martin said.”

“There again it didn’t amount to much. He stated that he was smoking in the garden of the cottage when Perkins came running in, half dressed, crying out like a mad woman that Mr. Millicent had been murdered, and—”

“She used the word ‘accident’ to Mrs. Millicent,” interrupted Derrick.

“Yes, but not this time. She told Martin to get Dr. Henry as soon as possible. There was no horse at Beech Lodge then, so he ran all the way to the doctor’s place. The rest of it coincided with Perkins’s evidence. He also said that he had been outside the cottage all the evening and could swear that no one had entered the grounds from the road.”

“Had there been any difference between him and Mr. Millicent?”

“Apparently not. Mr. Millicent had been in the garden with him that afternoon, discussing the pruning of the roses and general preparations for the winter. Mrs. Millicent confirmed this, subsequently, and said that her husband trusted the man implicitly.”

“Did Martin mention the paper-knife?”

“He was questioned but said he knew nothing about it. From what the others testified, it seems that he very seldom came into the house, so it’s reasonable he should not have known.”

“Or the image?” asked Derrick thoughtfully.

“No, sir, nothing of that, either.”

“And how long had he been in Mr. Millicent’s employ?”

“A matter of something less than five years.”

“And before that?”

“According to his statement, knocking about in the Orient.”

“Do you think it is possible that he may have met his master somewhere in the East, and the fact never came out?”

“I hadn’t thought of that, but now it begins to seem possible.”

“And that there had for some time existed between them something that ultimately culminated in murder?”

“We could not get as far as that at the inquest, sir.”

“Let it stand for the present. What was Martin’s manner or attitude while he gave evidence?”

“A bit surly, as he always is, though I think without meaning it. It’s a bit against him that he’s apt not to look one in the face.”

Derrick nodded. “Now I’ll only put one or two more questions. From what you know, do you imagine there can be any link or understanding between him and Perkins?”

The sergeant shook his head with decision. “What makes me feel there is not is that, from all I can gather, Perkins dislikes the man.”

“That seems to be so. When I took him on she preferred to do the boots and coals herself, though he was available. She’s doing them now. On the other hand, Martin has come back around the world, and Perkins seems riveted to the house. Neither of them displayed any particular interest in their wages. Martin jumped at thirty shillings a week, which is not much as things go now. The point is, why are they both so keen on Beech Lodge?”

Burke stroked his chin. “I suppose that’s one of those coincidences you spoke of. I’ll admit that they almost certainly know a good deal more than we’ve been able to get out of them, but we haven’t got enough evidence to hang your hat on. One can’t make an accusation on anything else, much less an arrest. It’s up to me to prove that so and so is guilty, and not for him to prove that he isn’t.”

“What then would you call a step toward real evidence?” asked Derrick, with a little lift in his voice.

“Proof that either Perkins or Martin had been lying at the inquest, or”—he added with an incredulous smile—“the discovery of that paper-knife, or even the image.”

Derrick put his hand in his pocket and laid a small dark green object on the table.

“Was it at all like this, sergeant?”

The blood rushed suddenly to the big man’s temples. “My God, sir! where did you find that?”

CHAPTER VI
GOD—OR DEVIL?

THE THING on the table was a diminutive image, about three and a half inches high. It was carved, apparently, from a single block of the most perfect jade, and when the sergeant, fingering it delicately, held it toward the window, the light filtered through it, illuminating it with striking translucency. The base was perhaps two and a half inches square, supporting a tiny throne, on which sat a figure clothed in flowing robes. Each individual drape and fold was produced with absolute fidelity. The hands of the figure were folded, showing narrow finger-nails of extreme length; and though the general suggestion was that of the god Buddha, Derrick remembered that in such images as he had seen the right hand was raised in benediction.

But there was no benediction here. The head was bent slightly forward, the slits of Oriental eyes were represented as half closed, and over the whole face rested an expression of utter and fiendish malignity. One could not imagine anything more devilish and cruel. There was power in the face, an abysmal knowledge that penetrated all human frailty and disguise, and a certain fixed, implacable purpose. Derrick had spent hours in secret scrutiny of the thing, and it seemed to him that here was the presentment of the embodiment of evil, and, fixed with an infinity of patient art, there had been transmitted to this opaque and precious stone the picture of some soul, wicked and irretrievably damned. Even now as he stared a chill ran through his body, and he glanced at the sergeant to determine whether he, too, were not susceptible to this malign emanation.

“I don’t know that I ever saw a more ugly thing in my life,” said the latter slowly. “Where did you find it, sir?”

“It’s not much use at the moment to try and tell you what led up to that. I can only say that ever since going into the house I have been conscious of something. I had no reason to believe that anything of this kind existed there, and in spite of what you have said I can’t quite see that this is really evidence, as yet. All we know is that it used to stand on Millicent’s desk and was missed after the murder. It may be the thing that both Martin and Perkins were seeking, but it was removed during that half-hour of which we spoke.”

“My first move would be to confront them both with this thing when they didn’t expect it, and watch what happened.”

“I’m afraid I can’t agree with you there. I’ve never studied your profession but fancy you’d get as much out of them as out of the image itself. Perkins has been under very close observation for weeks without knowing it, and her face is a mask. Martin is much the same. The minds of both of them are foreign countries, so far as we are concerned.”

The sergeant leaned forward. There was no doubt about his attitude now. “Perhaps you’re right, sir, but what is in your mind as to the next move?”

“I haven’t gone far enough to say, and there’s an old proverb about hurrying slowly. Meantime I’d like to know whether you agree that to-day there are aspects of the case that so far have not been considered at all?”

“In fairness to you, sir, I must admit that.”

“Then you’ll also agree that of the two ways of approaching it the inductive method is the only one to be considered?”

Burke was genuinely puzzled and showed it. “I’m afraid I don’t quite follow you there, Mr. Derrick. It sounds like one of those magazine stories where the police always fall down and the amateur pulls the thing off.”

Derrick laughed. “I’ve an idea the police won’t fall down this time if they adopt the right method—at least the method that I would follow myself.”

The sergeant looked at him curiously. “And how would you start in this case, may I ask?”

“Not knowing who the murderer is, let us assume one and proceed on that assumption. We can safely say that he did his work between nine and ten at night. We assume also that he did not come with any murderous intent, unless, and this is a point that must be carefully considered, unless he knew that there was on Mr. Millicent’s desk a weapon suitable for his purpose. We also assume that he knew about the image, though for some reason he denied this, and, more than that, believed that it had something to do with some act that weighed against him—say, in the Orient. Mr. Millicent also knew this, and therefore concealed it, and thereby maintained his hold over the criminal—or the man who finally became the criminal. That the image should have remained undisturbed for two years points to the absence of the criminal for that period.”

Derrick paused for a moment and looked hard at the sergeant. “Are you with me thus far?”

“Yes, go on, sir,” was the tense answer.

“Well, add to that the characteristics of Perkins and Martin, and there remains the doubt as to whether the woman actually did run to Mrs. Millicent’s room the minute she made the discovery. Admit the possibility that she actually saw the murder committed, and, having secret reasons for sparing Martin, allowed him to return to the cottage before giving the alarm. Assume, for instance, that she was terrified by Martin into doing this.”

The sergeant struck his clenched fist into his palm. “By God, sir! but that’s more than likely.”

“There’s nothing in the evidence to prevent it being the case except the testimony of two persons who you believe know more than was drawn out. It simply involves the reversal of the sequence of two actions to both of which Perkins was sworn. To-day she is to all appearances a broken-hearted woman. Why? Two reasons; one that the master to whom she was so undoubtedly devoted was killed; the other that for fear of her own life she has committed herself to the protection of the criminal. In this connection there’s a very interesting point. When Martin came to me and asked for a job, I made a point of privately inquiring from Perkins whether, from all she knew of him, and under all the circumstances, I would do well to take him on. Her answer was that if I wanted a garden like Mr. Millicent’s I should take him. It seems to me now that she was afraid of what would happen if she said anything else.”

“Yes, sir, that fits in perfectly.”

Derrick got up and relit his pipe. “Then, I think we might let the matter rest there for a while, and I won’t trouble you any further this morning. If it is decided to do anything later on, it will all be done through you, as I do not wish to appear in the thing at all.”

“Very good, sir, and if I can help, which I’d like to, I’ll go as far as my duties permit, and maybe”—here the sergeant grinned meaningly—“a bit further.” He pointed to the jade god. “Had I better keep this thing here?”

Derrick shook his head, picked up the image gingerly, and slipped it in his pocket.

“No, thanks, I want to use it for a while. By the way, do you know whether I can get a couple of pounds of green wax in Bamberley?”

Jean Millicent’s unpremeditated visit to Beech Lodge had marked a turning-point in the long, gray months that followed her father’s death. The violence and brutality of this had shocked her beyond words, while to her sense of loss was added the numbing knowledge that on the very threshold of life she had been confronted with the worst that life had to exhibit. Millicent himself had had no surviving relations; her mother’s people, after the first horrified sympathy, did not allow the matter to burden them further; and, as the girl impulsively told Derrick, she felt tremendously alone.

Between mother and daughter there was complete love—and a limited understanding. The real link had been with Millicent, from whom Jean inherited the subjective side of her nature. She had a profound belief in mysterious influences, incapable of analysis, but controlling nevertheless the world of unseen things. She realized that she moved among these, swaying unconsciously to their faint pressure, the recipient of distant and unmistakable signals that flicked over the horizon of existence. She had never talked much about this with her father. His own belief had of late been too burdened with an apprehension she never fathomed. But she understood where her mother often failed to understand, silently completing the sentences he sometimes left unfinished, putting her mind parallel with his, and building up a queer unexplainable union that expressed itself not so much in speech as in those fleeting glances of comprehension that are more eloquent than any words.

Something of this she recognized in Derrick, and the psychology of the moment was such that it meant more than she could well express. While she was with her mother, her heart needed no other companion, though her spirit was lonely. But she had not been lonely during her visit to Beech Lodge, however strange the circumstances. She knew now that the visit was intended. For the first time she had been in touch with another intelligence that acknowledged what she acknowledged but remained poised and unafraid. It was like traveling through an unknown and threatening country, and meeting one to whom all its roads are familiar and who traverses them without fear.

A few days after Derrick’s visit to the sergeant, he and his sister walked two lovely miles to the Millicents’. Edith was glad of it for several reasons. She admitted being lonely, and also welcomed anything that lifted her brother out of himself. For the past few weeks she had watched him closely, saying nothing. He was less distrait and more like his old self, but she knew that the novel progressed not at all. He was busy in his own peculiar way, and she asked no questions.

She was charmed with Mrs. Millicent, found they had much in common, and noted with contentment that Jean and her brother seemed like old friends. While all four were together, the subject of Beech Lodge was instinctively avoided, but a little later Derrick found himself in the cottage garden with Jean. It was after a pause that she sent him a straight questioning look.

“Well, I’m waiting. Something tells me you’ve been very busy and, I think, successful.”

“Busy, yes,” he smiled, “but I don’t know how successful.”

“Did you have a long talk at the police station?”

“Fairly long. The sergeant regarded me at first as most officials regard the amateur, but he was interested before I left. It seems that he regards your father’s case as the one unsatisfactory spot on his record. It’s odd to talk to a man who is so blunt and at the same time has to admit that he’s beaten.”

“But you haven’t told me yet. I know by your face there’s something.”

“Yes,” he admitted, “there is. Will you let me know what you can about a small image that came from Burma?”

“The jade god?” she said swiftly.

“Yes—or devil.”

“How extraordinary! Have you come to that, too?”

“Or else it came to me. Look!”

She shrank involuntarily, then, without touching the thing he had taken from his pocket, stared at it closely.

“Are there two? Where did you find that?”

“No,” he smiled, “this is a cast in green wax made from a mold I took of the image itself. I—” he hesitated—“I did not like to carry the original about with me.”

“I think you are very wise, but where did you find the original?” Her eyes were full of wonder.

“It happened a week ago, the day before I went to see Sergeant Burke. I was in the study, looking at your father’s portrait as I often do, when it seemed more than ever that he was trying to tell me something. That has often been the case before, but never as vividly. He wanted to speak, and I believe he was speaking, but not in a language I could understand. Then I got up and stood in front of him and could have sworn the expression of his eyes changed. They appeared to be looking down at something below himself and not far away. Without knowing it I put out my hand as though to meet an invisible one held out to me, and touched the oak frame on the side of the mantel. You know those old carvings?”

“Yes,” she said breathlessly.

“It was just under the upper one. Then I heard a click, and a small panel fell forward, opening a tiny cupboard about six inches square. The original of this thing was inside, as though it had been waiting for me. I did not touch it at once but looked up, and there was a sort of relief in the painted eyes.”

“Go on; please go on!”

“I haven’t much more to say, as yet, except that to my knowledge both Perkins and Martin have searched the study for something I take to be the original of this. There’s one other thing to be found now. Evidence was given that it was there that evening and has not been seen since.”

“I know what that is.”

“Well, I have an idea it’s not far away.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I don’t know, but I feel it. Meantime will you tell me what you know of the image?”

“Father brought it back from Burma about seven years ago,” she said slowly, “and seemed both to love and fear it. I have always thought it terrible, as though half the evil in the world had been captured in that bit of green stone. From the time he brought it back he himself appeared to change. I felt that the more because we were very near each other, he and I, and he believed what you believe. We never talked much about it, as that didn’t seem necessary. As to the image, I knew it was somewhere in the study but didn’t know where. No one did. All he ever said about it was that he got it up country. I have seen Perkins come in when it was on the desk, try not to look at it, then stare as though fascinated.”

“Did Martin ever see it?” put in Derrick.

“Yes, and it had the same effect on him. I often wanted to smile at grown people feeling like that, but somehow I couldn’t.”

“Then, if either Perkins or Martin wanted it there would have been no great difficulty in stealing it?”

“Perhaps not, but I had a queer idea that though their fingers itched for it they were afraid to touch it.”

“Yet it kept Perkins at Beech Lodge, and brought Martin back half round the world. It sent out vibrations to which they had to respond.”

“You believe that?”

He nodded.

“It all fits in,” she admitted slowly. “Always in the study I’ve felt some kind of war going on between influences; good fighting with evil. Father used to feel that, too. The room found its own voice and spoke, and against that was the voice of the jade god, confusing and confounding everything with threatening messages.”

“And you are satisfied there was no common interest between Perkins and Martin?”

“I don’t see how that could be. She never had anything to do with him and didn’t even like having him about the house. I never saw them together.”

“May I ask if you know what your father actually did in Burma?”

“No, sometimes he talked about the Mong Hills, but he never made any money in the Orient and used to come back saying that he had been in touch with strange things and people. That used to content him, but latterly he sometimes used to look desperate. As to money, we have always had enough to live quietly.”

“Do you think he had any premonitions of death?”

“No, I’m sure of that. Once he said that it was harder to live than die, so he expected to live a long time.”

“Was that after his last trip?”

“Yes.”

Derrick was silent for a moment. “Does Mrs. Millicent know that I’m working on this?” he asked presently.

She sent him a quick smile. “Yes, and she thinks it’s tremendously kind of you but that it can’t come to anything.”

“My sister knows, too, and can’t see the point, either.”

“She would feel that it is interfering with your work. I feel it, too, and it may prevent a splendid book from being written. Am I tremendously selfish?”

He looked at her steadily, and her eyes met his without flinching. She stood, tall, slim, and straight, with a proud carriage to her head and a broad serenity of brow. Imagination was in her face, the beauty of whose contour filled him with a sort of comforting satisfaction. It was firm but gentle, courageous but sweet. Her eyes were a little wistful, and charged with changing lights and shadows that he found infinitely appealing. She awakened both heart and spirit, and he knew she could awaken his soul. What would it be like to be cared for by such a girl? He felt that already there existed between them something more than friendship.

“Will you forgive me for putting you through such an inquisition?” he asked.

“There is nothing to forgive, and everything to thank you for.”

“I think you are very brave.”

“Brave! It is you who are brave. We have no claim, no reason why you should be involved in all this.”

“And yet,” he said thoughtfully, “I was involved before we two ever met.” He made a sudden impulsive gesture, but it was his eyes that spoke next.

She smiled gravely, and at that smile he knew that another voice had reached him from the unknown. It carried no mysterious threat; it was unburdened with tragedy; it emanated neither from wood nor stone nor a jade devil. It was part of the rest, but all grace and purity and joy; a whisper of life, not death. What sped between them then he could never tell, but some echo of that whisper must have reached Jean, for her glance, strange and lingering and perhaps prophetic, met his own for a memorable instant while the color climbed delicately to her smooth cheeks.

“You see,” she said softly, “unless I can think of myself as having shaken all this off, and laid the ghost of uncertainty and, yes, fear, I can never have any real future.”

He pressed her slim fingers. “Don’t worry about the future,” he whispered.

Edith was very cheerful on the way home. She had had a long talk with Mrs. Millicent, promised her Derrick’s last book, found they had mutual friends, and in general enjoyed herself. It was a relief to be with some one professedly practical. Also she was beginning to entertain a shrewd suspicion that her brother was rather more than interested in Jean and turned the conversation in that direction before long. She chatted away, swinging her stick and feeling more at peace with herself than for some time past.

“I don’t think they’ll stay there very long,” she hazarded. “It’s too lonely. Mrs. Millicent spoke of France for the summer and feels that Jean should have a change. It’s no place for a girl like that.”

“Oh!” said Derrick uncomfortably.

“From what I gathered she blames herself for having stayed there at all. It seems she wanted to move away altogether, but Jean wouldn’t have it. She’s worried about the child and says that she cannot shake the dreadful thing off, which isn’t a healthy state of affairs at that age. You two hit it off very well, Jack, from what I saw. You had a regular conference.”

He laughed. “Did we?”

“Didn’t you? You ought to know. I never realized fully before what a variety of interests you seem to demand. First you come into the country to write a novel—and, by the way, you’ll notice I’ve said nothing about the novel recently—then you switch off to a murder case, and I haven’t mentioned that either recently, and the latest development is a perfectly new young woman of undoubted charm, of whom I begin to have suspicions.”

“And of whom perhaps you won’t say anything at all,” he parried.

Edith nodded. “Nothing could arouse feminine intuition more than that remark. However, she’s awfully attractive.”

Derrick grinned. “Suppose we leave it at that.”

“All right, brother, but just in case my feminine intuition happens to be right, I wouldn’t take Miss Millicent too seriously.”

“You’re very oracular to-day, Edith. What is it?”

“Her mother practically said that she didn’t understand that girl, but did know that she still felt very strangely about her father’s death.”

“One can imagine that.”

“Yes, of course, but it works in a curious way on her mind. She imagines herself linked with it in some odd fashion and won’t think of marrying till the thing is cleared up, which, of course, it never will be now. She argues that she has her father’s blood and all that, and she may have inherited some kind of threat or danger or whatever it was that killed him. The very idea seems grotesque to me, but there you are.”

“What else did Mrs. Millicent say?”

“Very little more about Jean, and nothing of her husband, but she did talk about Perkins and Martin. I suppose she wanted to reassure me.”

“Anything new about them?”

“Nothing much. Perkins seems to have been just as invaluable to them as she is to me. You know, Jack, I’ve rather changed my mind about that woman.”

“In what way? Perkins hasn’t changed that I can see.”

“Not a fraction. She looks just as forbidding and severe and wet-blankety as ever, and that used to worry me more than you ever knew. Also I was puzzled about you, and the influence the place seemed to be getting over you, upsetting your work. I’ve got over that now, and Perkins has turned out a regular trump. I’m beginning to see what’s behind that manner of hers.”

“I wish I could.”

“Jack, it’s only that of a broken-hearted woman, her way of expressing it, and nothing else. Yet in spite of that she’s a household treasure. Things do themselves; there’s no lost energy and no lost time. If Perkins could be duplicated in sufficient quantities she’d revolutionize domestic life in England.”

“It’s a pity she’s never married and started a new breed.”

Edith decapitated a surviving thistle. “That kind doesn’t marry very often. They’re born into the world without any desire for marriage, and perhaps it’s just as well in this case. She’d be working for her husband and not for us. Marriage,” she added quizzically, “isn’t the solution for everything.”

“But why do you say she’s broken-hearted?”

“Because of a queer thing that happened last night. I wasn’t going to say anything about it, but you’re so unusually sensible to-day that it doesn’t matter. I was lying half awake last night, and seemed to hear some one talking at a little distance with no attempt at concealment, and quite loud, so I wasn’t nervous. It was a woman’s voice. I got up and prowled about and found it came from Perkins’s room. She was talking in her sleep in a queer, flat tone, talking very fast, apparently arguing with some one, greatly excited and rather desperate.”

“What was she saying?” put in Derrick sharply.

“That’s the strange part of it; I couldn’t understand a word. It was all in some strange liquid sort of language, ending in ‘ong’ and ‘yang’ and ‘ing,’ and sounds like that. Three or four times she said, ‘Master, master.’ That must have meant Mr. Millicent, to whom she was so devoted. All of a sudden it stopped, as though her brain had come back from its travels, and I heard nothing more. This morning I looked at her very closely, but not a line of her face had changed, and her eyes were just the same as ever. She had evidently been dreaming about Mr. Millicent’s death, and, Jack, that’s the biggest thing in her life now. She was dour and silent before; Mrs. Millicent said so to-day; and one can imagine what a tragedy like that must mean to a queer locked-up nature like hers.”

“Can’t you remember any of the foreign words she used?” he asked casually.

She frowned a little, thinking hard. “There were two that came quite often, more than any others, one something like ‘rumah,’ ‘sambayüng,’ and the other like ‘santari.’ That’s as near as I can get to it. Why do you ask?”