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

the picture in actual existence did not take place.”

“Go on,” he said tensely.

“But if on the other hand, and without expecting it, Martin were brought suddenly face to face with that picture, if the study were reset just as it was before, and if”⁠—here she trembled, and went on bravely⁠—“if he thought he saw father lying there as he did see him two years ago, don’t you think that something real and truthful might be startled out of him?”

“By Jove!” whispered Derrick. “Do you mean it?”

She nodded. “Yes, all of it. I don’t just know how I feel it, but I know, here.” She touched her breast. “It’s the right thing to do.”

“Would you help?”

“Yes.”

“I hate to ask it. And if it’s attempted Perkins must know nothing about it.”

“No, she mustn’t; and, Jack, there’s something else.” It seemed natural now to call him Jack.

“Yes, Jean?” He lingered on the word. How near it brought him!

Her eyes told him that she, too, felt the nearness, but for the moment her brain was working too swiftly to yield to aught else.

“There’s the peddler. One can’t tell where he is, but not far away. I’m sure of that. He won’t finally go till he has that which he came for. Where is it now?”

“Behind the panel.”

“But if you do what I suggest, and tonight, it should be on the desk beside you.”

“Beside me?”

“Yes, if you⁠—if you take the part of my father.”

He caught his breath at this supreme courage. “Would you come and arrange the study?”

“Yes, when?”

“Let me settle that with Edith. I’ll see her at once and then go on to Burke. She’ll probably come this afternoon and ask you to dinner. Will that be all right?”

He longed to take her in his arms, but again it was only their eyes that met⁠—and spoke.

It was to Bamberley police station and not to Beech Lodge that Derrick went first. He found the sergeant in the little office, his face a map of uncertainty. He looked up inquiringly as the young man came in. The last few hours had been bad ones for Burke. Then Derrick put the matter without delay, told how the suggestion originated, added that he had agreed that it was the next and best move, and waited for the sergeant to speak. Presently the latter shook his head.

“I dare not, Mr. Derrick.”

“Why not?”

“Stop and think, sir. Here’s a man under arrest, and I myself have charged him with complicity in murder. I’m responsible for him till the authorities proceed. One suspect has already escaped. Now you propose that I let the other man out of custody to try an experiment which is, well, Mr. Derrick, fantastic any way you put it.”

“Exactly; but if you stop to think, sergeant, the whole affair has been more or less fantastic ever since we started. We acted on possibilities, not probabilities, and you must admit we’ve dug up a good deal that didn’t come to light before.”

“Yes, I do admit it; also that ten to one we’ve got the man who killed Mr. Millicent. But I’m frank to say that I don’t like what’s bound to happen over Blunt’s escape. I’m only hoping that Martin’s evidence will let me down with a good general average.”

“And if you don’t convict Martin?”

“Then I lose my job,” said Burke grimly.

“Would you have to advertise the fact if you did personally bring Martin to Beech Lodge at, say nine thirty tonight?”

The big man stared at him. “No, but⁠—”

“Then look here. I’m willing to see this last attempt through if you are, but if you’re not, I step down and out. I can’t give you any reasons for saying that I think it will have surprising results, but I do feel that. Admitting that you risk your job, isn’t it worth while taking the chance of producing both the criminal and the evidence? If you decide otherwise, well and good. It’s going to be rather a thick night,” he added, glancing out of the window.

Burke weighed the chances, his eyes half closed, pushing out his broad, full lips and tapping on the bare table. Yes, the night promised to be thick. He saw himself, the guardian of Bamberley, sneaking out of the village in the fog, a criminal chained to his wrist, but himself the more agitated of the two. Against this he was aware that ever since the Millicent case had come to life things just as strange as this had been going on. A man of order and law and precedent, knowing the police code as a parson knows the Pentateuch, he shrank from outlawing himself by doing as Derrick proposed. But here again the consciousness of something beyond the ordinary that lay behind the Millicent case projected itself. He could see the grin that would run through police circles from John O’Groats to Land’s End when the Blunt story came out, and recoiled at the mere thought of it. Without something, as for instance a conviction, to counterbalance that escape, he was done. And he knew it. It was the vision of that official grin that decided him.

“Will you tell me exactly what you suggest I should do?” he asked heavily.

“First, say nothing to Martin. If you want to let Dr. Henry into this, do so, but that’s for you to decide. Fetch Martin to Beech Lodge at exactly nine thirty tonight. Perkins will bring you to the study door, which will be closed. She will knock, and there will be no answer. Then she will naturally open it, and you and she and Martin will see that room just as it looked after the murder two years ago. I will be at the desk in the position in which Millicent was found, and able to give assistance if you want it. You must not speak. I anticipate that Martin, or it may be Perkins, will break the silence, but it is sure to be Martin. His very first words should tell us what we want to know. That’s all.”

Burke