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

bit her lip. Derrick hesitated a moment, sent her a brilliant smile, and went out. The sergeant’s bulk filled the doorway, and he breathed fast.

“I’m glad to find you, sir. Went to the Lodge first, and Miss Derrick told me you were here.” He gulped in more air. “A very extraordinary thing has happened.”

“What’s that?”

“Blunt, sir, has escaped!”

Derrick frowned a little. If this was a joke, it was a poor one; if not, the man was mad.

“I don’t follow you.”

“It’s just as I say, sir. He’s got away.”

“A dead man! Who took him?”

“Damn it, Mr. Derrick, don’t you understand English? He’s not dead⁠—he never was,” exploded Burke chaotically; “he’s come to life again, and escaped.”

Derrick blinked. It was ridiculous, absurd, and yet⁠—Burke’s face was so red, his eyes so strained, the whole great body of him labored under such excitement, that his earnestness could not be doubted.

“Will you please tell me exactly what has happened?” he said with slow and almost painful distinctness.

“I will. The body was taken to the jail at the same time as Martin, and I sent for Dr. Henry, but he was away at Eversleigh on some serious case. I put it in an empty room used as a morgue at the other end of the building from Martin’s cell. I examined it before I turned in. It was just the same, but colder, with the hands quite stiff, the face a sort of blue gray, and no pulse. A little after midnight I got to bed, knowing that Dr. Henry would come to me as soon as he arrived. He was out all night and didn’t get back till time for breakfast, after which he went straight to the station. I had been back for three hours then, saw Martin, who was all right, but didn’t go into the morgue. When I took Dr. Henry there it was empty⁠—and that’s all.”

Burke concluded this remarkable statement with an eloquent and helpless gesture, looking at Derrick with a sort of faint hopefulness that perhaps the thing was not quite as baffling as it sounded. He was grimly conscious that the Millicent case was reopened, but not in the manner and with the prospects that a few days ago were so comforting. His dreams of promotion had vanished. Why promote a man to escape from whom it was only necessary to feign death? But all the signs of death had been there. This and much more had jockeyed through his brain as he pumped savagely up the long hill from Bamberley village. His attitude now invited his amateur adviser to suggest the next move if he could. The story would be all over England in a day or two. And Burke hated to think of that.

“You’ve heard of cases of suspended animation?” asked Derrick after a long pause.

“Yes, but I’ve never seen one before.”

“Nor I, but they’re not uncommon in the East. It’s evident that Blunt is master of most of those tricks, but so far as my knowledge goes the suspension is generally for much longer than a few hours. This, no doubt, is the effect of what he put in his mouth when Peters caught him.”

“That’s as I see it, but it doesn’t help matters.”

“What does Martin say?”

“Nothing; but I’m sure he knows.”

“Why?”

“There’s something in his face this morning, but I can’t read it. I’ve an idea that Blunt must have seen and spoken to him on his way out.”

Derrick whistled softly. “That’s more than possible.”

“The point is,” went on Burke, with a desperation he took no pains to conceal, “that if there’s anything to be done, it’s got to be done quickly. If by tonight we can fasten on something that will prove Martin’s guilt, the matter of Blunt’s escape won’t be quite so serious. If not, I doubt whether the discovery of that knife will actually convict him so long as Perkins sticks to the evidence she gave two years ago. That’s how the matter stands now.”

“I’d like to think a little before saying anything. Are you going back to the station?”

Burke nodded.

“Well, I’ll be there in, say, an hour and a half.”

The sergeant hesitated. “I might as well tell you, sir, that I’ve already gone a good deal beyond my official limits in the matter, but I’m ready to go further, which means risking my job, if you can see any light. I’ll wait for you at the station.”

He moved off with no spring in his walk, swung a thick leg over his wheel, and disappeared.

Derrick went back to Jean and by the tenseness of her face knew at once that she had heard everything. They looked at each other for a moment without speaking.

“Well,” he said slowly, “isn’t it extraordinary?”

“No,” she answered under her breath, “not so extraordinary.”

“Why?”

“It’s all part of the rest of it. Do you remember what I said about some power operating behind?”

“Yes.”

“Well, it just means that you are dealing with things that can’t be explained by any reason or argument or logic, and Sergeant Burke hasn’t the right kind of experience for this. He’s fighting against things he can’t see. He’s hoping now that Martin or Perkins will break down and tell everything. They won’t.”

“How do you know that?”

“I can’t explain, though I’m sure of it. Does anything suggest itself to you?”

“To be done now?”

“Yes.”

He shook his head. “Burke’s proposal seems to be all there is left.”

“I think perhaps there’s something else,” she said almost timidly. “Do you remember what you told me some weeks ago about the picture that must always be passing through a criminal’s mind?”

“Yes, distinctly.”

“And the strange impulse to return to the scene of his crime that he has to fight against? Well, let us assume that Martin is the criminal and has returned.”

“There’s no question of that,” he put in quickly.

“Perhaps not, but the picture he found was not the one he had been carrying with him.”

“Why?”

“The study had been changed⁠—I mean its arrangement; therefore the possible effect that might have been produced if he had seen