Alan Sullivan

“ Who had lifted this thing from the place where it should be, and where was that place? It had brought death to Millicent. What would it bring to others? He pictured Perkins, haunting the room of tragic memory that would not let her go. How much more did Perkins see than that to which she had sworn? He pictured Martin, his thick fingers among the rose-trees. What was written on the screen of Martin’s mind, what had jerked him out of the jungle, and why should fear be written on his swarthy face at sight of the stranger of that morning? How could he fear a man he did not know? ”

“ Then the peddler, with restless intelligence in his ageless eyes, himself a traveler from the same land of strange peoples, tongues, and gods, tramping indomitably along the deep Sussex lanes till he arrived as though by chance at the door of one who apparently knew him not, yet regarded his advent with fear and astonishment. And, last of all, Jean Millicent, the shadow of tragedy clouding her bright youth, a creature made for love and tenderness and care but weighted with brooding apprehensions, toward whom his own spirit had begun to move, striving, seeking, and hoping. ”

“ He went off a little later, passing Martin, who only touched his cap. He did look like another man, but neither of them spoke. The shadow of despair seemed to have left his face and to be replaced by a gravity that was new and dignified. Derrick strode on with the consciousness that the wind had blown through himself as well as Beech Lodge. He admitted his debt to Edith and now saw her cheerful sanity in a fresh light. It was strange to have leaned on a person, however dear, because they were incapable of being torn by one’s own reactions. ”

“ It had spread its potent and invisible filaments half round the world, penetrated the Burmese jungle, and haled this shifty-eyed man back to the tiny Sussex village from which he had fled under the shadow of a great crime as yet undetected. How could these filaments have been set in motion if not at the demand of the dead Millicent whose quiet features now surveyed this recaptured wanderer? What would the thing that had been Millicent arrange next? At the thought of this Derrick’s pulse gave a throb of excitement. Then he looked Martin full in the face. ”

“ Derrick stared at the portrait, his features transfigured with something that was not altogether wonder. It was all unreal yet enormously real. What surprised him most was that he should be admitted so readily to this “no man’s land” where mystery, like a cloaked figure, moved among the shadows of tragedy. How much was here? How much of it was his own fancy? Who was the real Millicent, the man within the man who had been afraid before he died? How and why did Millicent die? Did evil take on an embodiment and, emerging like an apparition from the unknown, butcher him where he sat? ”

“ Mystery, breathless, confusing, and baffling, stole in on her like a secret assailant, attacking all senses save that of fear. Her pulse slowed—and beat tumultuously. She stepped to the bell and rang hard. Derrick looked at her with wonder.
“What’s the matter? There’s nothing to be frightened about!”
“How do you know?” she stammered. “I feel queer because I don’t know. I want to see some one who isn’t just ourselves,” she went on chaotically, “and I’m the more vexed because it has to—to be Perkins.” ”

“ Good is ever the same, and it is only evil that changes, assuming a thousand lovely shapes, inviting, alluring, the wine that, having tasted, no man may forget. Come and drink deep while your blood is hot. There are those who wait to show you the way, and soon it will be too late.”
Thus spoke the jade lips; thus cajoled the jade eyes. Even the milky fingers with their narrow, transparent nails seemed to lose their stiffness and beckon, while the blood deserted Derrick’s heart and the hair prickled on his head. ”

“ Derrick saw it and racked his brain. It was not an old thought that moved behind the mask now, but some conception new to that mysterious mentality. Were Blunt indeed the criminal, and assuming his return to recapture his prize, why should the suggestion of this produce so vivid a reaction? If this were the truth, why conceal it? What could this woman lose by coming into the open? She would write herself down a liar, and an innocent man be avenged. No, there was something else, and it beckoned a mystical finger to Derrick’s imagination and invited him on. ”

“ Perkins, springing with convulsive strength, had laid her nervous grip on the model, her eyes suddenly ablaze with mad cupidity. In a fraction of time she was transfigured into a wild thing dominated by one uncontrollable desire, and her movement had the swiftness of light. Her hands closed like claws, but even as she touched the thing her grip relaxed, for in that instant she knew it was not real. She sent Derrick the same strange look of baffled incredulity he had received from the peddler, then sank back in her chair, trembling and unnerved. ”

“ Derrick shook his head.
“Then don’t go, sir. It’s no place for a white man, and less for a white woman. Folks seem to go mad there without knowing it, a sort of slow, creeping madness that by and by gets them. It’s the jungle that does it, with the smell of the orchids like a woman’s breast, air that thick and heavy you could almost cut it with a knife like cheese, soft under your foot with things dying and being born. ”

“ When I got here, I knew by Martin’s face that the god was not far off. So now”—here he glanced dominantly at Derrick—“this thing must go back with me. The god of all evil lives in it, and whoever keeps it will be cursed. Joy will die for him, and fear will come, and love be changed to a dream of terror. God hides in that stone, and sacrifices must be made in front of it. What becomes of me does not matter. The woman killed the man, because the image commanded her. ”

“ He remembered, too, that at times Martin had looked like an honest man. And did villains ever love roses like this gardener of his?
“Martin,” he said, “you’d better leave the sergeant alone while he’s making this search; he won’t need you.”
The man nodded with the air of one who has nothing to fear, cast another contented glance at the peddler’s body, and went out. They watched him cross the drive, hesitate a moment as though deliberating which way to turn, then stand, his hands deep in his pockets, staring down the road. Again Derrick felt reassured. ”

“ Beech Lodge grew oddly indefinite. The landmarks of his mind seemed unsubstantial. He was free as the wind, with neither kith nor kin. He found himself wondering why for months he should have been possessed by the desire to avenge a man he never saw. The tiny green eyes suggested that Millicent, and even Millicent’s daughter, did not matter so much after all. “Come East,” they signaled, “where man can taste all the wild joys of life, and women know how to love as do no others. ”

“ It’s a bit solemn for a woman to realize that she’ll never waken the biggest thing in the world in the heart of a man, because she lacks the indescribable something that is necessary, and it makes a good many of us queer and cantankerous. You see we don’t possess what every woman longs for.
“Sometimes, too, she has a sort of perception about others. I had it when I saw you with Jean; and, Jack, it made me happier than in a long time. That’s why I want you to give her this bangle, which is really lovely, and also tell me just what I can do to help. ”

“ Here your master died, and the evil thing triumphed, and you told me that fear came before he died, the fear that is worse than death. Can’t you hear that voice?”
The blank-faced woman shivered as he spoke, and Derrick knew that the truth had crept a little, a very little nearer than ever before. There was mystery in the study, but the greatest mystery of all was locked within this unresponsive breast. There was some chord which, if he could only touch it, would vibrate in unison with her guarded secret and unloose its bonds. Perkins trembled again and waited. ”

“ Workmanlike? Yes. A man’s room with nothing in it that was not completely livable. A few books in corner cases; a few good prints framed in harmony with the walls; the big, flat desk, leather-covered as to the center, with its dark mahogany edge showing long and careful usage; the leather chairs, men’s chairs, large and inviting; the great fireplace in its dull, oaken setting; all this dominated by the oil portrait, from which a pair of quiet brown eyes looked out with a gaze at once striking and contemplative. ”

“ Burke saluted and went out. There was the slight jingle of a chain, and the front door closed. Derrick pushed back the oaken panel. Involuntarily he glanced at the portrait. Millicent seemed satisfied. He was avenged now.
Then over the young man began to creep sensations in which there was no triumph, no pride, no self-congratulation. The blank-faced woman over whom Martin was crouching in the silent cottage seemed to rise up and point a thin accusing finger. Why had he done this thing? Her secret had been torn from her, and her life with it. What had she ever done to Derrick? ”

“ Out of the door came the figure of the peddler, and Martin, watching him, made a gesture of despair foreign to so powerful a man. The stranger’s eyes were preternaturally bright, and there was now no trace of the weary limp with which he had moved only a few hours ago. His head was erect, the bent shoulders were straight, his body was lithe and had taken on something of the springy contours of youth. Instinctively Derrick’s fingers tightened round the image, but it was at him rather than at his pocket that Blunt looked first. ”

“ The sergeant struck his clenched fist into his palm. “By God, sir! but that’s more than likely.”
“There’s nothing in the evidence to prevent it being the case except the testimony of two persons who you believe know more than was drawn out. It simply involves the reversal of the sequence of two actions to both of which Perkins was sworn. To-day she is to all appearances a broken-hearted woman. Why? Two reasons; one that the master to whom she was so undoubtedly devoted was killed; the other that for fear of her own life she has committed herself to the protection of the criminal. ”

“ You’ll probably think me dreadfully cheeky, but I rather feel that you and Jean have been dwelling mentally far too long on things you both think I can’t understand because I’m not occult, but I do understand them just enough to feel that they’re neither cheerful nor in a queer way healthy for people of your age. So please forgive all this, and give me a cigarette, and help clear this table, and for goodness’ sake tell me where I can get a cook and housemaid who won’t imagine Beech Lodge is full of horrors. ”

“ The thing is done with, Jack, all except this horrid inquest, at which you say Jean and I won’t have to appear, and you don’t know how glad I am of that. I’ve a feeling that you’ll have a good many years in which to tell her the rest of it—I mean anything more you think she should know—but don’t burden her with what is so grim, if you can help it. She’s too young. Girls like her often seem to offer themselves unconsciously to wounds, but they don’t find out till afterward how deep the thing has gone. As for Mrs. Millicent, I wouldn’t attempt to say much to her. Let Jean do that in her own way. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Something in the unbroken monotone captured the brain of Derrick, and the room swam. A mesmeric influence was at work. Everything around him began to slide, smoothly, imperceptibly. Was Millicent’s death so important after all? Soon it would be forgotten—with all else. What did he owe Millicent in any case? Why trouble to waste his time on another man’s affairs? Perkins, Martin, and even Blunt himself became blurred in this general indistinction, merging peacefully with other unrealities.
“So death came into this room, brother to fear, following the steps of the doomed. ”

“ 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? ”

“ The voice lifted with a strange domination that brooked no interruption, and the peddler’s features took on a look of exalted prophecy. “What do the children of to-day know of the wisdom that dwelt in the hills of Mong when England was peopled by half-naked savages? They are like children with toys they do not understand. Gautama opened the books of good and evil that all might read. You of the West have read not at all; Lung Sen read only the evil, and he is dead; and this man from an English village disobeyed the law and passed at the hand of one who struck when her eyes were closed. ”

“ Martin, new come from round the world, the recipient of viewless signals that reached and followed him through the rotting jungles, signals that worked and whispered till they penetrated his slow brain and he came back perforce ten thousand miles of land and sea, a suspect to the source of suspicion, to work within sight of the window of the dead man of whose violent passing he no doubt knew the secret. ”

“ The sergeant stared at his own massive boots, glittering mountains of leather that shone with official luster.
“Anything else, Mr. Derrick?”
“Of course you remember Perkins?”
“Perfectly; the sort of woman one can’t forget.”
“Yes; a strange character, showing nothing on the surface, and so much a part of Beech Lodge that we took her on with the house.”
Burke grinned. “I can see that she hasn’t changed much.”
“No, she can’t change. But did you know that she walked in her sleep?”
The sergeant looked at him sharply. “For a newcomer, sir, you’ve unearthed a good deal. I never heard that before.” ”

“ A shadow darkened the threshold, and as the gardener crossed it a grasp of iron fastened on his shoulder.
“John Martin, I arrest you for complicity in the murder of Henry Millicent. Anything you now say may be used against you.”
A few minutes later Derrick walked slowly and rather wearily toward the house, and Edith met him at the door. For her the past hour had been full of a drama almost too tense for her practical soul, and she realized what it must have meant to her brother. One look at his face was enough. ”

“ Unnameable knowledge rested on the face, a knowledge that sneered at good and gathered to itself the wickedness of misty centuries. Here was the touch of supreme art, the superb assurance of a master hand, but the issue was to charge the mind with a blinding comprehension of all that decent men most strive to forget. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Because she’s not the kind of woman to be afraid of anything obvious, anything she can see and even partly understand. If poor Perkins had done away with herself then, I rather think Mrs. Thursby would have been as much fascinated as horrified. Don’t you know that sort? It would have given her something to talk about for the rest of her life with no one to interrupt; something infinitely more intriguing than her husband’s grenades, or whatever they are. ”

“ It’s practically empty. Martin only brought a bundle, and I sent him a few odds and ends from the house to make the place livable. Shall I tell him?”
“Yes, sir, if you please.”
They went in together. Peters had lit his pipe and was smoking placidly with no concern for the thing on the floor, but Martin stood, still staring down. There was a kind of wonder in his face, and with it a strange thankfulness. He was like a man who straightens his shoulders after they have been crushed by some killing load.
“Martin,” said Derrick crisply, “Sergeant Burke is going to make a search of the cottage.” ”