Page:Richard Marsh--The joss, a reversion.djvu/52

40 was the something which had been in the scrap of paper. Mr. Paine eyed it.

“What is it?”

“That’s what I should like to know; also where it’s come from; it wasn’t there a moment back, and that I’ll swear.”

“May I look at it?”

“Certainly; and throw it out of the window too, for all I care.”

Mr. Paine took it up. He turned it over and over.

“It looks like one of the images, representatives of well known deities, which are used as household gods on some of the Pacific coasts. People hang them over their beds, or over the thresholds of their doors, or anywhere. Imitations are sold in some of the London shops. Perhaps Messrs. Cardew & Slaughter keep them in stock.”

“That I am sure they don’t. And, if they do, that’s not out of their stock. That was given to me last night by a foreigner in yellow canvas cloth. It jumped out of the scrap of paper in which it was wrapped”

“Jumped?”

“If it didn’t jump I don’t know what it did do; I can tell you it took me aback. Miss Ashton threw it on to the floor; yet, when I woke up this morning, it was on my forehead, though how it got there I know no more than the dead.”

“Are you in earnest, Pollie?”

“Dead earnest. It’s my belief I left it in the bedroom, though I might have put it in my pocket, but how it came on to my knee is just what I can’t say.”

Mr. Paine was dividing his attention between me and the thing.

“This is very interesting, Miss Blyth. Especially as I also have had a curious experience or two lately. Can you describe the person who gave it you?”

I described him, to the best of my ability.