The Jade Dragon by Nancy Buckingham

dead—if it ever existed at all.”
    He shook his head. “No, my dear, it is far from dead. It lives on in the secret hearts of thousands of Portuguese. It lives on here at Castanheiros in the form of that jade monstrosity. The Chinese emperor who presented the wretched thing to Henriques da Milaveira could not have forseen the harm it would do. Personally, I wish to heaven the Jade Dragon could vanish into thin air and never reappear. Then, and only then, we might get some sensible thinking about what is to become of this family to which we are all in our different ways connected—God help us.”
    As he finished speaking, his final words seemed to echo and re-echo, filling the salon with a sense of doom. Against my will, I felt nervous, and, like Vicencia, I wanted to hurry away and shut the door upon that menacing jade statuette, to leave it to the darkness. But I found I could not move. I felt rooted to the spot, and I stood gazing helplessly at Stafford.
    The tense moment of silence was shattered by a noise of splintered glass, followed by a cry of consternation. It seemed to come from the adjoining room—the library. Then we heard rapid footsteps hurrying away.
    Stafford snatched the candelabra from Vicencia’s hand and went swiftly to the communicating doors, Vicencia and I following. One of the doors, I noticed, was slightly ajar. Stafford flung them both open wide and held the candles aloft while we all stared round. I took a step forward, and something crunched beneath my foot. It was a fragment from an engraved glass bowl that had been dislodged from its place on a chiffonier.
    The French doors stood wide open, and clearly the eavesdropper must have departed that way. Instinctively, we all moved outside to the terrace, though whoever had passed through before us would surely by now have vanished, either melting into the darkness of the gardens or returning to the house by another entrance.
    Outside, the sky was overcast with heavy clouds, and no glimmer of starlight showed. I caught the sweet scent of summer jasmine, and high in a tree somewhere a nightingale was singing, its liquid phrases floating upon the air. A sudden freshening of the night breeze rustled the leaves of the oleander bushes and guttered the candles that Stafford held. Then, as if some unseen hand had descended, all three flames were snuffed out, leaving us standing in total darkness.
    * * * *
    Through a gap in the curtains I could see the sun’s rays gilding the tips of the pine trees that crested the hill. A glance at the clock told me it was still only half-past six, yet from the corridor outside came a sound of people hurrying to and fro. Doors opened and closed, and I could hear voices raised in excitement.
    I sat up in bed, puzzled, then rang for Maria. When the young maid entered the room a few moments later, her usual cheerful smile was missing. She looked flurried and anxious, and I mustered my limited Portuguese to inquire what was the matter. “O que e que se passa, Maria?”
    She burst into a torrent of excited words, so fast that I couldn’t catch the thread of what she was saying. But I picked out a phrase and pounced upon it. “O Dragao de Jade, Maria? What of it? Tell me what has happened.”
    The Jade Dragon was missing, she stammered fearfully. One of the housemaids, sent early to dust and polish in the Chinese salon, had suddenly caught sight of the empty pedestal. She rushed screaming from the room to announce the dreadful fact, and the entire household was now in turmoil.
    Maria’s fear, bordering on a state of panic, immediately communicated itself to me, and I felt my heart pounding against my ribs. I struggled to make myself intelligible. Were there no clues, no theories, I asked her. Was it believed to have been stolen or removed as some practical joke? Or what?
    But Maria shook her head helplessly, and I saw two huge tears form in her eyes and trickle slowly down her plump cheeks.
    “Oh, senhora, I am so