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

Now, if one takes the case of a highly sensitive and imaginative young man, whose mind is continually exploring for new sensations, and plunges him into a situation that is clothed with grimness and mystery, there will inevitably be set up a series of reactions such as Derrick had been experiencing for weeks past. And if, further, he then comes into touch with the girl whom he desires for his own, discovers her to be involved in the mystery, and realizes that she will remain out of reach till the problem is solved and her spirit set free, there will be added to his efforts the greatest incentive of all.

So it was with Derrick. Both from Jean herself and from Jean’s mother he now knew exactly where he stood. Though not told in so many words, he was under no misapprehension. All thought of his own work disappeared. This was his work, and the call of it was irresistible. As for Edith, and he smiled when he thought of her, she was in no danger. She stood too far outside the sweep of the drama, and it would be an error in tactics to tell her too much. He believed he would need her help at the end, but the end was not yet.

He was returning from a long and solitary walk when, nearing Beech Lodge, he noted on the road ahead a curious figure. It was that of an elderly-looking man who tramped some hundred yards in advance. His clothing was loose and weather-beaten. He stooped a little forward as he walked, and supported himself on a staff which he had evidently cut by the way. As Derrick drew abreast he took a sidelong glance and at once remarked the brightness of the stranger’s eyes. Physically he did not seem more than fifty years old. A first impression of age was given by the whiteness of his beard, but in spite of both stoop and stick he moved with an agility that belied his apparent years. His skin was a dark olive shade, his nose hooked like a raven’s beak, and his cotton shirt was open at the neck, showing where a thin gold chain lay yellow against the swarthy flesh.

Derrick, meeting a swift look, experienced a sudden thrill. What manner of man was this to find in a Sussex lane? It seemed that something invisible but enormously potent moved down the road beside him. Then, instinctively, he halted at the gate of Beech Lodge and waited till the stranger came up. The latter made a sweeping gesture of salutation, and swung forward the pack that had been balanced on his shoulders.

“Good morning, sir. Will you buy a trinket and help an old man on his way? Cheap, sir, cheap, so cheap that they’re nothing short of presents, trade is that bad. Worse than I ever saw it in this country before.”

He spoke in a thin singsong voice that carried with it a sort of outlandish lilt. No British peddler this, but one from foreign parts. Derrick felt a now familiar thrill, and the spirit of him scented the Orient.

“What part of the world do you hail from?”

“Any and every part, sir. So long as it’s south of the line it makes no difference to me. Central America, Bengal, Borneo, the Cape, Cochîn, and Singapore, they’re all the same.” He shivered a little. “Time was when I thought the old country was the only place in the world, but I’ve got over that now, specially in winter.”

“Have you been here long this time?”

“A matter of a few months, but I’m going back East. This wind is too much for my bones.”

“What have you got?”

The pack was unrolled deftly on the wet grass, and inside lay a long strip of raw silk. Opening this after a swift glance down the road, the stranger revealed a medley of things, some beautiful, many valuable, and none of them ordinary. No Manchester stock was this. He had chains of native workmanship, hammered bangles of gold and silver, semiprecious stones carved with amazing cleverness, bits of oddly shaped ivory, all the paraphernalia of the peddler of the Far East. These he showed with obvious and lingering interest as though he loved them, pattering meantime of the Sunda Islands, the Moluccas, Bali, Lombok, and a host of Eastern ports and places whose accustomed names fell from his lips with glib fluency. There was no doubt about his knowing the East.

“This, sir, is a bit of hammered tin from Kuantan in Pahang, and you don’t get much of that kind of work nowadays. They wash the tin out of the gravel on the hillsides, and there are only three men in Malaysia who turn out this grade of art. This gold bangle is from Berak⁠—all Chinese labor there⁠—and you can have it for ten shillings. Better take it, sir, for it weighs twenty pennyweight and is worth a sovereign for the gold alone.”

“Then why not sell it as gold?”

“I wouldn’t offer it unless I were footsore and had to have somewhere to sleep. Can’t sell this sort of thing in an English village. I’d get arrested for having it; that’s why I’m heading for London.”

His piercing eyes rested on Derrick while he spoke, and in them moved something more than a mere interested scrutiny. Then they roamed curiously about the neighborhood. A brain was working behind those eyes, and it occurred to Derrick that this man knew well where he was.

“Ever been in this part of England before?”

The lean brown fingers hung motionless over the trinkets. “No, sir, there’s nothing to bring my kind here unless it’s the June race meet. Won’t you take this bangle? There’s a good twenty pennyweight of fine gold in it. There isn’t a lady who would turn up her nose at it. I’ve seen a woman bought and sold for one not half as good.”

Derrick hesitated. Strange thoughts were coursing through his head and with them the