jumped at thirty shillings a week, which is not much as things go now. The point is, why are they both so keen on Beech Lodge?”

Burke stroked his chin. “I suppose that’s one of those coincidences you spoke of. I’ll admit that they almost certainly know a good deal more than we’ve been able to get out of them, but we haven’t got enough evidence to hang your hat on. One can’t make an accusation on anything else, much less an arrest. It’s up to me to prove that so and so is guilty, and not for him to prove that he isn’t.”

“What then would you call a step toward real evidence?” asked Derrick, with a little lift in his voice.

“Proof that either Perkins or Martin had been lying at the inquest, or”—he added with an incredulous smile—“the discovery of that paper-knife, or even the image.”

Derrick put his hand in his pocket and laid a small dark green object on the table.

“Was it at all like this, sergeant?”

The blood rushed suddenly to the big man’s temples. “My God, sir! where did you find that?”

CHAPTER VI GOD—OR DEVIL?

GOD—OR DEVIL?

THE THING on the table was a diminutive image, about three and a half inches high. It was carved, apparently, from a single block of the most perfect jade, and when the sergeant, fingering it delicately, held it toward the window, the light filtered through it, illuminating it with striking translucency. The base was perhaps two and a half inches square, supporting a tiny throne, on which sat a figure clothed in flowing robes. Each individual drape and fold was produced with absolute fidelity. The hands of the figure were folded, showing narrow finger-nails of extreme length; and though the general suggestion was that of the god Buddha, Derrick remembered that in such images as he had seen the right hand was raised in benediction.

T

But there was no benediction here. The head was bent slightly forward, the slits of Oriental eyes were represented as half closed, and over the whole face rested an expression of utter and fiendish malignity. One could not imagine anything more devilish and cruel. There was power in the face, an abysmal knowledge that penetrated all human frailty and disguise, and a certain fixed, implacable purpose. Derrick had spent 

 Prev. P 76/183 next