Page:Richard Marsh--The joss, a reversion.djvu/166

154 if a living thing had been inside, and, with a rapid movement, rent it from top to bottom. I was holding what seemed to be a curiosity in the way of tiny dolls. The toy, if it was a toy, was not so long as my forefinger. It seemed to have been cut out of a piece of wood, and fantastically painted to illustrate some very peculiar original. It had neither feet nor legs nor hands or arms. Its head, which was set between hunched-up shoulders, was chiefly remarkable for a pair of sparkling eyes, which I concluded to be beads, I turned it over and over without discovering anything which pointed to a hidden spring. It looked as if it had never moved, and never would. There was nothing whatever to show by what means the paper had come open.

“It’s odd, and ingenious. I suppose there is a spring of some sort; wood, even when it represents the God of Fortune—I think the lady mentioned the God of Fortune—does not move of its own volition, I’ll discover it when I get home.”

I slipped the toy into my waistcoat pocket, meaning to subject it to a searching examination later on. However, when I reached my chambers I found letters which demanded immediate attention. They occupied some time. It was only when I was thinking of a nightcap preparatory to turning into bed, and was feeling for a penknife with which to cut a cigar, that I remembered the doll. I tossed it on to the mantelshelf. There it remained,

As I have said, that was the night of April 3. Since nearly a month elapsed before the arrival of Mr. Batters’ will, and nothing in any way suggestive occurred in the interval it would seem as if the connection between the will and the events of that evening was of the slightest. Yet I felt that if it had not been for the Affair of the Freak in the Commercial Road, or if I had afterwards refused to give the woman my name and address, I should have heard