The Jade God by Alan Sullivan (snow like ashes series txt) 📕

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 someone 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 tonight!” 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.”

“Tonight?”

“Yes, he has just gone. I took him on, and he starts tomorrow.”

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