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

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. Today she is to all appearances a brokenhearted 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