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

thought he had it. That was always in my head. And there was she, moving further and further away from me, and more and more in love with him. Can you see the sort of life I led? But the master was always straight with me, and no man ever had a better boss.”

“The night you applied to me for a job,” put in Derrick, “I asked her if she thought under all the circumstances I would do well to take you on, and she said yes, if I wanted a garden like Mr. Millicent’s. How do you explain that?”

“Simple enough, sir. She remembered me as a gardener for Mr. Millicent, and that I was good with flowers, and nothing else.” He broke off in distress and sent Blunt a pathetic glance.

“You people are getting the truth,” said the latter, fingering his handcuffs. “Go on, Martin.”

“Well, I waited and waited, knowing that that lot in the Mong Hills would never forget, or give the thing up, and the jade god was working somewhere in the dark. Then came the night when it happened. I was out behind the cottage when my wife came tearing down the drive like a crazy woman, screaming that she had had a terrible dream and Mr. Millicent was dead. She was only half dressed, with her hair down, and just for a minute I thought the worst of them both, then saw that she was in a sort of daze as she used to be when once or twice I caught her walking in her sleep. The knife was in her hand. I guessed what had happened and got it away from her, and wiped the blood from her fingers, and all the time she kept on talking as though she didn’t see me. I told her it was only a dream and went up to the house with her and found it was as she said.”

Martin’s voice faltered here, and he looked beseechingly at Derrick. “What would you have done, sir, if you’d been me?”

“I think probably exactly the same.”

“Yes, because no man could do anything else. Here was this poor woman who did not know she had committed any crime, only that she had found the man she loved better than anything on earth in a pool of his own blood. I knew that I had to act quickly if I was going to save her and got it into her head that she must break the news to Mrs. Millicent, who would send her straight to the cottage again. Her mind was still dazed, but she grasped that, and I sneaked back to my own place. And all this I’ve told you is God’s truth, and it brings you up to the start of what everyone knows about the Millicent mystery. Since then I’ve kept my mouth shut, but”⁠—and here the man stared grimly at Burke⁠—“I’d do the same thing again for the same reason. I know I’m a perjurer and reckon I’ll have to pay for that. But I’m ready to pay.”

Derrick turned involuntarily to Burke, who had been sitting quite motionless, slowly twisting a pencil between his broad fingertips. The big, strong face reflected nothing of his thoughts. The sergeant had drunk in every word, his brain turned to detect any seeming flaw on which he might fasten. But so far there was none, except that his stolid British mind could not grasp the seeming potentiality that lay in a lump of carved stone. Blunt did not stir a muscle and regarded his handcuffs with a sort of quiet interest as though they were children’s toys. From his expression Derrick knew what Blunt was thinking about.

“Is there anything else, Martin?”

“Only the inquest and all that part of it. After it was over I knew by my wife’s face that her soul had gone wandering after Millicent and that I was nothing to her and never could be. But she was my woman, and nothing would alter that. I did not know where the image was, nor did she, and right away it seemed clear that if I stayed I might let out something. I told her I was going away, and she looked at me as though she had never seen me before, so I knew that nothing would drive her from Beech Lodge while that damned thing was hidden there. She wanted to find it, too, but in a way was afraid to find it. So I hid the knife and went off.”

“Why hide the knife?” put in Derrick sharply.

“So in case she should ever be charged with the murder I might come back and the thing be found with me. That would let her out,” said Martin steadily.

Derrick caught his breath. He had a blinding glimpse of the unswerving devotion hidden behind this formidable exterior. The sheer depth of it seemed to dwarf all other kinds of worship. The gallows to save this cold and repellent woman, this one woman of his heart. That was the offering Martin stood ready to make.

“Well,” continued the heavy voice, “I went back to Burma, and by that time the story of the theft of the god was pretty much all over the Mong Hills, not talked of openly, but going round in whispers, and I knew that something else was bound to happen. I met Blunt there, and he knew that I knew and followed me. He’ll tell you his own story about that if you ask him. I stayed with my sister in America, but all the time something was calling me back here, so I came, hotfoot. And the minute I reached the house I knew the god was still there.”

“And when you arrived you found you were no more to your wife than before?”

Martin pulled himself together. “That’s it,” he said, with a glance almost of gratitude; “not even as much. And when Miss Millicent came in I knew the infernal thing was at work again.”

“I felt something of the kind, too.”

Martin