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

murder, but I do. I want to keep him here a few days if I can. There’s something, I don’t know what, in the air; but the thing that brought him is probably what brought Martin. I’ll talk with him later on. Would you like to go up to town for a few days?”

“Why?” she asked, puzzled.

“I’ve been thinking it’s rather unfeeling of me to expect you to be here at present under the circumstances. A good many women would not like it.”

Edith smiled and shook her head. “My dear, I can’t take it as seriously as you do, and I’m not nervous. Do anything you like that you believe will bring you nearer Jean. Be as mysterious and occult as you please. It won’t worry me a bit. But the house must be looked after, and that’s for me. I hope this won’t upset Perkins, as things are going very smoothly in her domain, and don’t forget that it will imperil next year’s roses if you demoralize Martin. Now it’s time for lunch.”

VII A Mysterious Peddler

He went to the Millicents’ that afternoon, the bangle in his pocket, and found Jean unaffectedly glad to see him. Mrs. Millicent had said nothing to her daughter, but her manner had been that of one who approves. She liked Derrick and had conceived a genuine fondness for Edith. The contemplated summer in France was becoming a little indefinite. In a few moments she murmured something and disappeared. Derrick thought rapidly and looked straight into the girl’s clear eyes. Then he held out the bangle.

“Will you take this from me? It has a curious something about it.”

Jean hesitated, the look on his face being unmistakable. “It’s charming. Where did you get it?”

“From Burma,” he said slowly. “It arrived this morning by a peddler who is staying the night with Martin. He seemed grateful for my allowing it and insisted that I take this from his pack.”

She stared at the yellow circlet. “Does he know Martin?”

“He pretended that he did not, but Martin knew him without question and was horrified to see him.”

Jean did not speak, but her eyes were full of swift wonder. “And then?”

“Then it was my turn to pretend that I had noticed nothing. They are together now and will be till tomorrow morning, at any rate. That’s one reason I came here.”

She did not ask the other but slid the bangle on her wrist with a slow and lingering touch. Derrick’s gaze did not leave her. He saw the color flood and desert her cheek, and the pulse throbbing in her slim throat. How utterly desirable she was! This was the indescribable quality about which Edith had talked with a cheerfulness that he now saw must have cost her dearly; the thing that secured what all women at some time long to possess.

He waited breathlessly, but she was still silent. Her heart whispered one thing, but over her there yet hung a cloud of memories that well nigh blotted out all else. For so long she had thought of herself as the child of a foully murdered man, for so long had the menace seemed to be transferred to herself, that the promise of a future such as she believed she saw in Derrick’s eyes seemed almost as unreal as it was divine. She was already more than fond of him and admitted it in secret hours. It was something new and strange and alluring for the mind to feed on. But what escape would it mean till the secret of Beech Lodge had been read, and the weight lifted from her soul? She took the bangle because she did not want to hurt him, but her eyes avoided his.

“What do you think is going to happen now?” she asked shakily.

“I don’t know. I wanted to see you first of all. Do you remember such a man ever coming to Beech Lodge before?”

“What is he like?”

He told her, and she shook her head. “I can’t think of anyone. Martin had no friends even in the village, and father had no visitors from the East. Can it be the image that brought him?”

“Nothing else, as I see it.”

“But how could he know it was there?”

Derrick smiled. “How did I know? It’s all part of the main puzzle, and perhaps the missing part. I hoped you might be able to tell me something that would throw some light on this man’s arrival. I have a queer idea that it closes the circle, and am going to get him into the study on some pretext.”

“Alone?”

“Yes, to begin with.”

“Have you told the police about him?”

“I’m not ready for the police yet. The first thing to find out is whether the study means anything to him. That little god, or devil, is there, safely out of sight and touch, but if the peddler is what I take him to be, he will know it, and if he has come here for it, some attempt will be made before long.”

“But what about you?” she asked nervously.

“He’s not interested in me, but I expect he has something to say to Martin. He’s probably saying it now. Oh, my dear!” he went on unconsciously, “don’t you see that we’re getting nearer to the end of it every hour?”

Nothing he might have said could have touched her more, or given her a swifter assurance of what lay next his heart. It moved her to see that he did not know he had said it. So tender was the thought that she hid it away to delight in after he had gone. She was ready to love in secret, but he must not know that yet. Then, in this new light, she was suddenly afraid for him.

“Are you quite sure there’s no danger?”

“The danger,” he said slowly, “is to the man who committed the crime.”

There was a little silence till instinctively they turned to other things. It was a strange talk, of the lips and mind