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

grasped the image. At the mere touch of this, an amazing virility shot through his body, and he darted like a stone from a catapult across the room toward the French window. Derrick tried to shout, but his tongue had lost its power. Following a violent splintering of glass and wood, a bull-like roar from Burke, and the lithe figure was halfway over the lawn. Behind it lumbered the big frame of the sergeant, losing ground at every stride.

Oblivious of the others, Derrick dashed out and took up the chase. The jade god was in flight now. He had drawn level with Burke when there sounded directly ahead the noise of a struggle, a sharp whistle, the curse of a man who is strained to the utmost, and finally a strange, shrill cry. At that the sergeant slackened his pace.

“That’s Peters,” he panted, laboring for breath. “I gave him orders to station himself there behind the hedge, and a good job, too. He’s got our friend.”

Derrick sped on. “Come along,” he shouted over his shoulder. “He may need help.”

Burke grunted. “Not him, with a chap that size, but the little devil pushed his finger into my throat, and I saw stars. Make your own pace, sir, but it’s all right now.”

On the other side of the hedge the peddler lay flat, the constable bending over him. The face of the latter was flushed and the collar of his tunic torn. He saluted mechanically when Derrick ran up but said nothing till Burke arrived, breathing like a leaky bellows.

“I don’t know what to make of this, sergeant. The fellow ran practically into my arms before he knew where he was and put up no end of a fight. He got his finger into my throat and would have done me in if I hadn’t thrown him. Then he got up and went for me again like a wild animal. I got this thing away from him, and he spun round on his toes, put something in his mouth, and crumpled up. Now he looks as though he were dead, but I haven’t used any unnecessary force.”

“All right, Peters; he’s not dead. It’s only bluff. You can make your charge now, Mr. Derrick, and we’ll run him in.”

“Charge? I’ve nothing to charge him with.”

Burke grinned. “Do I take it that he attempted burglary and smashed that door by your request?”

Derrick laughed outright. “I’d clean forgotten that already.” What he did not tell the sergeant was that somehow he felt immeasurably younger and happier.

“Well, it’s plenty to hold him for a while till we get at the real thing. This will be theft and damage to property. Pick him up, Peters!”

“One minute,” interrupted Derrick. “Did he say anything to you?”

“Not a word, sir.”

The young man did not answer but knelt quickly beside the prone figure. A sickly color, half gray, half blue, was stealing slowly over the peddler’s features. His eyes, partly open, were glazed and sightless. His body, so lately animated by amazing vigor, had crumpled like a wet leaf. Derrick, feeling himself queerly numb, slid a hand under the torn shirt. No pulse of life was discernible. Close by lay the jade god, its tiny malignant face sneering up from the wet grass. The master of Beech Lodge saw it and shuddered. Was this the next man appointed to die, and had he been the prophet of his own passing? Then Burke knelt beside him, stared hard in his turn, and gave the white beard a strong and sudden jerk.

It came away in his hand, revealing a thin, oval face, a firm mouth and chin, the face of a man not over forty. The jerk had parted the lips, and these sent out a mocking grin, suggesting that it was nothing to Blunt what they did now. Derrick’s breath nearly stopped. A new shadow fell across the body. He looked up and saw Martin. There was a grim satisfaction in the gardener’s dark eyes. It shot through Derrick’s mind that this would free Martin from further suspicion. Burke stared at him, too, then at Derrick. He did not speak, but the same thought was in his mind. He turned again to the limp figure in the grass.

“It looks as though your friend were done for this time, Martin. I’ll not ask you anything now. Your opportunity will come later. Better give Peters a hand and take this chap to the cottage.”

The peddler was carried away, his slight frame sagging limply between gardener and constable. Derrick, watching this, yielded to a vivid realization of the immutability of fate. Ten minutes ago this man was charged with life, throbbing with a desire that he hugged to his soul, and for which he had journeyed from a mysterious country, forgetting all else in one supreme ambition. Now the thing that had driven him thus far had struck its own ambassador, the next appointed to die, and the thing itself leered up from the ground at his feet, malevolent, devilish, and seemingly yet unsatiated. Derrick picked up a stone and was about to splinter the sneering jade when something flickered in the green eyes, mocking and immune, warning him that the time was not yet. Presently he felt that Burke was regarding him with broad amusement.

“If I may say so, sir, I wouldn’t smash it yet. We’ll need it for evidence, and if possible I’d like to hear what Perkins and your gardener have to say about the thing. Shall I take it to the station?”

Derrick stiffened. “No, thanks,” he said abruptly. “I’ll look after it till it’s needed. I think perhaps it feels more at home at the Lodge.”

He picked up the jade god from the ground, dropped it in his pocket as though the touch burned him, and went slowly across the lawn beside Burke. Passing the house, he saw Edith at a bedroom window and waved her a cheery greeting. She signaled back, and he noticed that she smiled with relief. What a