Free The Djinn by Graham Masterton Page B

but I imagine you were pretty close. I mean, I guess you were
friends.”
    Dr. Jarvis
nodded. “Indeed we were. My wife and I used to visit Winter Sails quite
frequently for dinner, up until the time that Max became unwell.”
    “Unwell? I
don’t understand. Marjorie said there was nothing physically wrong with him.”
    “There wasn’t,”
said Dr. Jarvis, “apart from. high blood pressure and
some minor prostate trouble. When I say ‘unwell,’ I mean he became nervous and
anxious and allowed his affairs to go downhill.”
    “Did you ever
know why?” I asked. “Did Max ever confide in you?”
    Dr. Jarvis
munched some muffin. “Max was never a forthright man at the best of times, as
you probably know yourself. All I know is that he felt a compulsion CD occupy
his days and his nights with a piece of antique Arabian pottery that he had
brought back from the Middle East”
    “The jar,” I
said. “The jar with the horses and the flowers.”
    Dr. Jarvis
nodded. “That’s correct.” He rang a small silver bell for more coffee.
    “Did Max ever
tell you why?”
    “Why what?”
    “Why he spent
his days and nights with the jar? I mean, what was he doing with the jar? It’s
locked in the turret at Winter Sails now. More than locked-it’s sealed in, with
two iron bars and sealing wax and God knows what else.”
    “I know that,”
said Dr. Jarvis.
    “And you don’t
think that’s strange?”
    Dr. Jarvis
looked at me closely. “Of course it’s strange. In his own way, Max Greaves was
a very strange man. But he knew what he was doing. You have to understand that
he was not an amateur.”
    “An amateur what? I don’t understand.”
    “An amateur
anything,” said Dr. Jarvis carefully. “He was a businessman, a diplomat, a
collector of rare antiquities, a scholar, and a gentleman. He pursued none of
his interests in an amateurish way. As I say, he knew what he was doing.”
    I sighed. “All
the same, he ended up killing himself?”
    Dr. Jarvis
shrugged. “Did he?”
    “Well, you know that as well as I do ,” I said. “Marjorie found him in
the kitchen with his face all cut up.”
    Dr. Jarvis laid
down his napkin and stared at me solemnly. “I don’t know what your profession
is, Mr. Erskine,” he said in a grave voice, “but in my profession I learn not
to leap to hasty conclusions.”
    “So you’re
saying it wasn’t suicide?”
    “It was suicide
of a particular kind.”
    I reached for a
cigarette. “What particular kind? How many kinds of suicide are there?”
    Dr. Jarvis took
a gold lighter from his vest pocket, reached over, and lit my cigarette. “There
are many different kinds of suicide/’ he said steadily. “Almost as many kinds
as there are cases. Each person who decides to take his or her own life does H
for a reason which, at the time of death, seems overwhelmingly important
Suicide is the result of a mental crisis, and all mental crises vary. Each
person is subject to different strains and different pressures.”
    “I think you
can spare me the grade-school psychology,” I said. “I want to know what kind of
suicide Max Greaves committed.”
    Dr. Jarvis
removed his eyeglasses. He had those pale watery eyes that remind me of clams
on the half-shell, with a touch of Tabasco sauce in the corner.
    “Max Greaves’s
suicide was of the self-sacrificing kind,” said Dr. Jarvis quietly. “He didn’t
take his own life. He gave it.”
    I stood up and
walked across to the window. Outside, it was sunny and warm and normal. In
here, the chill and tension that seemed to accompany everything I said about
the jar was all too obvious. I stayed silent for a while, smoking my cigarette, then I said, “Dr. Jarvis, if Max gave his life, can
you tell me what for and why?”
    Dr. Jarvis
coughed. “Mr. Erskine, before I answer that question, I have one of my own.
What is it that you think threatens Mrs. Greaves, and what has it to do with
Max’s death?”
    I leaned
against the window and watched the