He came over, stared hard, and straightened up with an exclamation. “You must have mesmerized me into seeing that before. It’s certainly not there now, and the light is excellent. What do you make of it?”
“What we don’t know won’t hurt us,” said Jarrad with a slow shake of the head. “Initial this erasure, will you. What’s next?”
Dawkins looked troubled, and a little anxious. “But I say—”
“I began just the way you’re going on now, but I got over it. I suggest that so far as this room is concerned we just count the books and articles of furniture, pass on their general condition, and call the thing a go. Your clients are not the kind who give me any worry.”
Dawkins nodded and began the recital, reading from the book in a rapid and level singsong as though he were chanting the creed of his profession.
“General condition excellent,” he concluded, and shut the book.
Mr. Jarrad shook his head. “I can’t agree to that now. The maintenance is not what it was. Quite obvious that the housemaid is untrained or lazy; possibly both. Look at this mantel.”
He drew a finger across the top of the mantel behind the clock, and left a faint trail where the dust had been displaced.
“Couldn’t do that the last time we were here. No, the upkeep is not as good. Condition fair, I should say, at the most. See for yourself.”
Dawkins sniffed and investigated. “Perhaps you’re right. I suppose my client is a little short of help. All right, ‘condition fair.’ Anything else?”
Mr. Jarrad glanced at the hearth. “Yes, one thing. One fireplace tile split. You have no note of that, I think, and it’s the only real damage we’ve seen.”
“No, I’ve nothing here. Let me see it.”
He was bending over the hearth when Derrick came in. Jarrad made his well-known bow.
“We have just completed this room, sir, and the only real dilapidation we find is in this hearth. It’s a small matter, but nothing is too small for us to note. Perhaps you may remember when it happened, as it’s evidently quite recent.”
Derrick stared at the cracked tile.
“Yes,” he said slowly, “I remember that very distinctly.”
Colophon
The Jade God
was published in 1925 by
Alan Sullivan.
This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
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Lukas Bystricky,
and is based on a transcription produced in 2021 by
Al Haines, Cindy Beyer, and The Online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team
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and on digital scans available at the
HathiTrust Digital Library.
The cover page is adapted from
The Girl by the Window,
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