THE POINTING MAN
_A Burmese Mystery_
BY MARJORIE DOUIE
NEW YORK
E.P. DUTTON & COMPANY
1920
CONTENTS
I
IN WHICH THE DESTINY THAT PLAYS WITH MEN MOVES THE PIECES ON THE
BOARD
II
TELLS THE STORY OF A LOSS, AND HOW IT AFFECTED THE REV. FRANCIS
HEATH
III
INDICATES A STANDPOINT COMMONLY SUPPOSED TO REPRESENT THE
PRINCIPLES OF THE JESUIT FATHERS
IV
INTRODUCES THE READER TO MRS. WILDER IN A SECRETIVE MOOD
V
CRAVEN JOICEY, THE BANKER, FINDS THAT HIS MEMORY IS NOT TO BE
TRUSTED
VI
TELLS HOW ATKINS EXPLAINS FACTS BY PEOPLE AND NOT PEOPLE BY
FACTS, AND HOW HARTLEY, HEAD OF THE POLICE, SMELLS THE SCENT OF
APPLE ORCHARDS GROWING IN A FOOL'S PARADISE
VII
FINDS THE REV. FRANCIS HEATH READING GEORGE HERBERT'S POEMS, AND
LEAVES HIM PLEDGED TO A POSSIBLY COMPROMISING SILENCE
VIII
SHOWS HOW THE CLOAK OF DARKNESS OF ONE NIGHT HIDES MANY
EMOTIONS, AND MRS. WILDER IS FRANKLY INQUISITIVE
IX
MRS. WILDER IS PRESENTED IN A MELTING MOOD, AND DRAYCOTT WILDER
IS FORCED TO RECALL THE LINES COMMENCING "A FOOL THERE WAS"
X
IN WHICH CRAVEN JOICEY IS OVERCOME BY A SUDDEN INDISPOSITION,
AND HARTLEY, WITHOUT LOOKING FOR HIM, FINDS THE MAN HE WANTED
XI
SHOWS HOW THE "WHISPER FROM THE DAWN OF LIFE" ENABLES CORYNDON
TO TAKE THE DRIFTING THREADS BETWEEN HIS FINGERS
XII
SHOWS HOW A MAN MAY CLIMB A HUNDRED STEPS INTO A PASSIONLESS
PEACE, AND RETURN AGAIN TO A WORLD OF SMALL TORMENTS
XIII
PUTS FORWARD THE FACT THAT A SUDDEN FRIENDSHIP NEED NOT BE BASED
UPON A SUDDEN LIKING; AND PASSES THE NIGHT UNTIL DAWN REVEALS A
SHAMEFUL SECRET
XIV
TELLS HOW SHIRAZ, THE PUNJABI, ADMITTED THE FRAILTIES OF
ORDINARY HUMANITY, AND HOW CORYNDON ATTENDED AFTERNOON SERVICE,
AND CONSIDERED THE VEXED QUESTION OF TEMPERAMENT
XV
IN WHICH THE FURTHERING OF A STRANGE COMRADESHIP IS CONTINUED,
AND A BEGGAR FROM AMRITZAR CRIES IN THE STREETS OF MANGADONE
XVI
IN WHICH LEH SHIN IS BREATHED UPON BY A JOSS AND EXPERIENCES THE
TERROR OF A MAN WHO TOUCHES THE VEIL BEHIND WHICH THE IMMORTALS
DWELL
XVII
TELLS HOW CORYNDON LEARNS FROM THE REV. FRANCIS HEATH WHAT THE
REV. FRANCIS HEATH NEVER TOLD HIM
XVIII
THE REV. FRANCIS HEATH UNLOCKS HIS DOOR AND SHOWS WHAT LIES
BEHIND
XIX
IN WHICH LEH SHIN WHISPERS A STORY INTO THE EAR OF SHIRAZ, THE
PUNJABI; THE BURDEN OF WHICH IS: "HAVE I FOUND THEE, O MINE
ENEMY?"
XX
CRAVEN JOICEY, THE BANKER, IS FACED BY A MAN WITH A WHIP IN HIS
HAND, AND CORYNDON FINDS A CLUE
XXI
DEMONSTRATES THE PERSUASIVE POWER OF A KNIFE EDGE, AND TELLS A
STORY OF A GOLD LACQUER BOWL
XXII
IN WHICH CORYNDON HOLDS THE LAST THREAD AND DRAWS IT TIGHT
XXIII
DEMONSTRATES THE TRUTH OF THE AXIOM THAT "THE UNEXPECTED ALWAYS
HAPPENS"
XXIV
IN WHICH A WOODEN IMAGE POINTS FOR THE LAST TIME
GLOSSARY
THE POINTING MAN
I
IN WHICH THE DESTINY THAT PLAYS WITH MEN MOVES THE PIECES ON THE BOARD
Dust lay thick along the road that led through the very heart of the
native quarter of Mangadone; dust raised into a misty haze which hung in
the air and actually introduced a light undernote of red into the
effect. Dust, which covered the bare feet of the coolies, the velvet
slippers of the Burmese, which encroached everywhere and no one
regarded, for presently, just at sundown, shouting watermen, carrying
large bamboo vessels with great spouts, would come running along the
road, casting the splashing water on all sides, and reduce the dry
powder to temporary mud.
The main street of the huge bazaar in Mangadone was as busy a
thoroughfare as any crowded lane of the city of London, and it blazed
with colour and life as the evening air grew cool. There were shops
where baskets were sold, shops apparently devoted only to the sale of
mirrors, shops where tailors sat on the ground and worked at sewing
machines; sweet stalls, food stalls, cafés, flanked by dusty tubs of
plants and crowded with customers, who reclined on sofas and chairs set
right into the street itself. Nearer the river end of the street, the
shops were more important, and business offices announced themselves on
large placards inscribed in English, and in curling Burmese characters
like small worms hooping and arching themselves, and again in thick
black letters which resembled tea leaves formed into the picturesque
design of Chinese writing, for Mangadone was one of the most
cosmopolitan ports of the East, and stood high in the commercial world
as a place for trade.
Along the street a motley of colour took itself like a sea of shades and
tints. Green, crimson, lemon yellow, lapis-lazuli, royal purple,
intermingled with the naked brown bodies of coolies clad only in
loin-cloths, for every race and class emerged just before sunset. Rich
Burmen clad in yards of stiff, rustling silk jostled the lean, spare
Chinamen and the Madrassis who came to Mangadone to make money out of
the indolence of the natives of a place who cared to do little but smoke
and laugh. Poor Burmen in red and yellow cottons, as content with life
as their wealthy brethren, loitered and smoked with the little
white-coated women with flower-decked heads, and they all flowed on with
the tide and filled the air with a perpetual babel of sound.
The great, high houses on either side of the street were dilapidated and
gaunt, let out for the most part in flats and tenements. Screaming
children swarmed naked and entirely unconcerned upon every landing, and
out on the verandas that gave publicity to the way of life in the
native quarter. Sometimes a rag of curtain covered the entrances to the
houses, but just as often it did not. Women washed the big brass and
earthenware pots, cooked the food, and played with the children in the
smoky darkness, or sat to watch the evening show of the street.
At one corner of the upper end of the street was a curio and china shop
owned by a stout and wealthy Burman, Mhtoon Pah. The shop was one of the
features of the place, and no globe-trotting tourist could pass through
Mangadone without buying a set of tea-cups, a dancing devil, a carpet,
or a Burmese gong, from Mhtoon Pah. A strange-looking effigy in tight
breeches, with pointing yellow hands and a smiling yellow face, stood
outside the shop, eternally asking people in wooden, dumb show, to go in
and be robbed by the proprietor. He had stood there and pointed for so
long that the green glaze of his coat was sun-blistered, but he
invariably drew the attention of passing tourists, and acted as a
sign-board. He pointed at a small door up a flight of steps, and behind
the small door was a dark shop, smelling of sandal-wood and cassia, and
strong with the burning fumes of joss-sticks. Innumerable cardboard
boxes full of Japanese dolls, full of glass bracelets of all colours,
full of ivory figures, and full of amber and jade ornaments, were piled
in the shelves. Silver bands, embossed in relief with the history of the
Gaudama--the Lord Buddha--stood under glass protection, and everything
that the heart of the touring American or Britisher could desire was to
be had, at a price, in the curio shop of Mhtoon Pah. Umbrellas of all
colours from Bussan; silk from Shantung; carpets from Mirzapore; silver
peacocks, Japanese embroideries, shell-trimmed bags from Shan and
Cochin, all were there; and the wealth of Mhtoon Pah was great.
Everybody knew the curio dealer: he had beguiled and swindled each new
arrival in Mangadone, and his personality helped to make him a very
definite figure in the place. He was a large man, his size accentuated
by his full silk petticoat; a man with large feet, large hands and a
round bullet head, set on a thick neck. He had a few sleek black hairs
at the corners of his mouth, and his long, narrow eyes, with thick
yellow whites and inky-black pupils, never expressed any emotion.
Clothed in strawberry-red silk and a white coat, with a crimson scarf
knotted low over his forehead, he was very nearly as strange and
wonderful a sight as his own shop of myriad wares, and his manner was at
all times the manner of a Grand Duke. Mhtoon Pah was as well known as
the pointing effigy outside, but, whereas the world in the street
believed they knew what the wooden man pointed at, no one could ever
tell what Mhtoon Pah saw, and no one knew except Mhtoon Pah himself.
All day long Mhtoon Pah sat inside his shop on a low divan and smoked
cheroots, and only when a customer was of sufficient importance did he
ever rise to conduct a sale himself. He was assisted by a thin, eager
boy, a native Christian from Ootacamund, who had followed several trades
before he became the shop assistant of Mhtoon Pah. He was useful
because he could speak English, and he had been dressing-boy to a
married Sahib who lived in a big house at the end of the Cantonment,
therefore he knew something of the ways of Mem-Sahibs; and he had taken
a prize at the Sunday school, therefore Absalom was a boy of good
character, and was known very nearly as well as Mhtoon Pah himself.
It was a hot, stifling evening, the evening of July the 29th. The rains
had lashed the country for days, and even the trees that grew in among
the houses of Paradise Street were fresh and green, though one of the
hot, burning breaks of blue sky and glaring sunlight had baked the road
into Indian-red dust once more, and the interior of Mhtoon Pah's curio
shop was heavy with stale scents and dark shadows that crept out as the
gloom of evening settled in upon it. Mhtoon Pah moved about looking at
his goods, and touching them with careful hands. He hovered over an
ivory lady carrying an umbrella, and looked long at a white marble
Buddha, who returned his look with an equally inscrutable regard. The
Buddha sat cross-legged, thinking for ever and ever about eternity, and
Mhtoon Pah moved round in red velvet toe-slippers, pattering lightly as
he went, for in spite of his bulk Mhtoon Pah had an almost soundless
walk. Having gone over everything and stood to count the silver bowls,
he waited as though he was listening, and after a little the light creak
of the staircase warned him that steps were coming towards the shop from
the upper rooms.
"Absalom," he called, and the steps hurried, and after a moment's talk
to which the boy listened carefully as though receiving directions, he
told him to close the shop and place his chair at the top of the steps,
as he desired to sit outside and look at the street.
When the chair was placed, Mhtoon Pah took up his elevated position and
smoked silently. The toil of the day was over, and he leaned his arm
along the back of his chair and crossed one leg over his knee. He could
hear Absalom closing the shop behind him, and he turned his curious,
expressionless eyes upon the boy as he passed down the steps and mingled
with the crowd in the street. Just opposite, a story-teller squatted on
the ground in the centre of a group of men who laughed and clapped their
hands, his flashing teeth and quick gesticulations adding to each point
he made; it was still clear enough to see his alternating expression of
assumed anger or amusement. It was clear enough to notice the coloured
scarves and smiling faces of a bullock cart full of girls going slowly
homewards, and it was clear enough to see and recognize the Rev. Francis
Heath, hurrying at speed between the crowd; clear enough to see the Rev.
Francis stop for a moment to wish his old pupil Absalom good evening,
and then vanish quickly like a figure flashed on a screen by a
cinematograph.
Lights came out in high windows and sounds of bagpipes and beating
tom-toms began inside the open doors of a nautch house. An evil-looking
house where green dragons curled up the fretted entrance, and where,
overhead, faces peered from a balcony into the street. There was noise
enough there to attract any amount of attention. Smart carriages, with
white-uniformed _syces_, hurried up, bearing stout, plethoric men from
the wharf offices, and Mhtoon Pah saluted several of the sahibs, who
reclined in comfort behind fine pairs of trotting horses.
Their time for passing having gone, and the street relieved of the
disturbance, lamps were carried out and set upon tables and booths, but
a few red streaks of evening tinted the sky, and faces that passed were
still recognizable. A bay pony ridden by a lady almost at a gallop came
so fast that she was up the street and round the corner in a twinkling.
If Mrs. Wilder was dining out on the night of July 29th she was running
things close; equally so if she was receiving guests.
A flare of light from a window opposite fell across the face of the
dancing man, who pointed at Mhtoon Pah, and appeared to make him offer
his principal for sale, or introduce him to the street with an
indicating finger. The gloom grew, calling out the lights into strength,
but the concourse did not thin: it only gathered in numbers, and the
long, moaning hoot of an out-going tramp filled the air as though with a
wail of sorrow at departure. Lascars in coal-begrimed tunics joined in
with the rest, adding their voices to the babel, and round-hatted
sailors from the Royal Indian Marine ships mingled with them.
All up and down the Mangadone River lights came out. Clear lights along
the land, and wavering torch-lights in the water. Ships' port-holes
cleared themselves in the darkness, ships' lights gleamed green and red
in high stars up in the crows'-nests, or at the shapeless bulk of dark
bows, and white sheets of strong electric clearness lay over one or two
landing-stages where craft was moored alongside and overtime work still
continued. Little sampans glided in and out like whispers, and small
boats with crossed oars, rowed by one man, ferried to and fro, but it
was late, and, gradually, all commercial traffic ceased.
It was quite late now, an hour when European life had withdrawn to the
Cantonment. It was not an hour for Sahibs on foot to be about, and yet
it seemed that there was one who found the night air of July 29th hot
and close, and desired to go towards the river for the sake of the
breeze and the fresh air. He, too, like all the others, passed along
Paradise Street, passing quickly, as the others had passed, his head
bent and his eyes averted from the faces that looked up at him from easy
chairs, from crowded doorsteps, or that leaned over balconies. He, also,
whoever he was, had not Mhtoon Pah's leisure to regard the street, and
he went on with a steady, quick walk which took him out on to the wharf,
and from the wharf along a waste place where the tram lines ceased, and
away from there towards a cluster of lights in a house close over the
dark river itself.
The stars came out overhead, and the Southern Cross leaned down; seen
from the river over the twin towers of the cathedral, seen from the
cathedral brooding over the native quarter, seen in Paradise Street not
at all, and not in any way missed by the inhabitants, whose eyes were
not upon the stars; seen again in the Cantonment, over the massed trees
of the park, and seen remarkably well from the wide veranda of Mrs.
Wilder's bungalow, where the guests sat after a long dinner, remarking
upon the heat and oppressiveness of the tropic night. The fire-flies
danced over the trees like iridescent sparks hung on invisible gauze,
and even came into the lighted drawing-room, to sparkle with less
radiance against the plain white walls. Fans whirred round and round
like large tee-totums set near the ceiling, and even the electric light
appeared to give out heat; no breeze stirred from the far-away river, no
coolness came with the dark, no relief from the brooding, sultry heat.
It was no hotter than many nights in any break in the rains, but the
guests invited by Mrs. Wilder felt the languor of the air, and felt it
more profoundly because their hostess herself was affected by it.
Mrs. Wilder was a dark, handsome woman of thirty-five, usually full of
life and animation, and her dinners were known to be entertainments in
the real sense of the word. Draycott Wilder was no mate for her in
appearance or manner, but Draycott Wilder was marked by the Powers as a
successful man. He took very little part in the social side of their
married life, and sat in the shadow near the lighted door, listening
while his guests talked. The party was in no way different to many
others, and it would have ended and been forgotten by all concerned if
it had not been for the fact that an unusual occurrence broke it up in
dismay. Mrs. Wilder complained of the heat during dinner, and she had
been pale, looking doubly so in her vivid green dress; her usual
animation had vanished, and she talked with evident effort and seemed
glad of the darkness of the veranda.
Suddenly one of those strange silences fell over everyone, silences that
may be of a few seconds' duration, but that appear like hours. What they
are connected with, no one can guess. The silence lasted for a second,
and it was broken with sudden violence.
"My God," said the voice of Hartley, the Head of the Police, speaking in
tones of alarm. "Mrs. Wilder has fainted!" She had fallen forward in her
chair, and he had caught her as she fell.
Very soon the guests dispersed and the bungalow was still for the night.
One or two waited to hear what the doctor had to say, and went away
satisfied in the knowledge that the heat had been too much for Mrs.
Wilder, and, but for that event, the dinner-party would have been
forgotten after two days. Hartley was the last to leave, and the sound
of trotting hoofs grew faint along the road.
By an hour after midnight nearly the whole white population can be
presumed to be asleep; day wakes early in the East, and there are few
who keep all-night hours, because morning calls men from their beds to
their work, and even this hot, sultry night people lay on their beds and
tried to sleep; but in the small bungalow where the Rev. Francis Heath
lived with a solitary Sapper officer, the bed that he slept in was
smooth and unstirred by restless tossing inside the mosquito net.
The Rev. Francis was out, sitting by the bed of a dying parishioner. He
watched the long hours through, dressed as he had been in the afternoon,
in a grey flannel suit, his thin neck too long and too spare for his
all-around collar, and as he watched sometimes and sometimes prayed, he
too felt the pressure of the night.
The woman he prayed beside was dying and quite unconscious of his
presence. Now and then, to relieve the strain, he got up and stood by
the window, looking at the lights against the sky and thinking very
definitely of something that troubled him and drew his lips into a
tight, thin line. He was a young man of the type described usually as
"zealous" and "earnest," and a light that was almost the light of
fanaticism shone in his eyes. A dying parishioner was no more of a
novelty to Mr. Heath, than one of Mrs. Wilder's dinner-parties was to
her guests, and yet the woman on the bed appealed to his pity as few
others had done in his experience.
When the doctor came he nodded to the clergyman and just touched the
hand on the quilt. He was in evening dress, and he explained that he had
been detained owing to his hostess having been taken suddenly ill.
"Where is Rydal himself?"
He asked the question carelessly, dropping the pulseless wrist.
"Who can tell?" said the Rev. Francis Heath.
"He'd better keep out of the way," continued the doctor. "I believe
there's a police warrant out for him. Hartley spoke of it to-night. She
will be gone before morning, and a good job for her."
The throbbing hot night wore on, and July the 29th became July the 30th,
and Mangadone awoke to a fierce, tearing thunder-storm that boomed and
crashed and wore itself out in torrents of heavy rain.
II
TELLS THE STORY OF A LOSS, AND HOW IT AFFECTED THE REV. FRANCIS HEATH
Half-way up a low hill rise on the far side of the Mangadone Cantonment
was the bungalow of Hartley, Head of the Police. It was a tidy,
well-kept house, the house of a bachelor who had an eye to things
himself and who was well served by competent servants. Hartley had
reached the age of forty without having married, and he was solid of
build and entirely sensible and practical of mind. He was spoken of as
"sound" and "capable," for it is thus we describe men with a word, and
his mind was adjusted so as to give room for only one idea at a time. He
was convinced that he was tactful to a fault, nothing had ever shaken
him in this belief, and his personal courage was the courage of the
British lion. Hartley was popular and on friendly and confidential terms
with everybody.
Mangadone, like most other places in the East, was as full of cliques as
a book is of words, but Hartley regarded them not at all. Popularity was
his weakness and his strength, and he swam in all waters and was invited
everywhere. Mrs. Wilder, who knew exactly who to treat with distant
condescension and who to ignore entirely, invariably included him in
her intimate dinners, and the Chief Commissioner, also a bachelor,
invited him frequently and discussed many topics with him as the wine
circled. Even Craven Joicey, the banker, who made very few acquaintances
and fewer intimates, was friendly with Hartley; one of those odd,
unlikely friendships that no one understands.
The week following upon the thunder-storm had been a week of grey skies
over an acid-green world, and even Hartley became conscious that there
is something mournful about a tropical country without a sun in the sky
as he sat in his writing-room. It was gloomy there, and the palm trees
outside tossed and swayed, and the low mist wraiths down in the valley
clung and folded like cotton-wool, hiding the town and covering it up to
the very top spires of the cathedral. Hartley was making out a report on
a case of dacoity against a Chinaman, but the light in the room was bad,
and he pushed back his chair impatiently and shouted to the boy to bring
a lamp.
His tea was set out on a small lacquer table near his chair, and his
fox-terrier watched him with imploring eyes, occasionally voicing his
feelings in a stifled bark. The boy came in answer to his call, carrying
the lamp in his hands, and put it down near Hartley, who turned up the
wick, and fell to his reading again; then, putting the report into a
locked drawer, he drew his chair from the writing-table and poured out a
cup of tea.
He had every reason to suppose that his day's work was done, and that he
could start off for the Club when his tea was finished. The wind rattled
the palm branches and came in gusts through the veranda, banging doors
and shaking windows, and the evening grew dark early, with the
comfortless darkness of rain overhead, when the wheels of a carriage
sounded on the damp, sodden gravel outside. Hartley got up and peered
through the curtain that hung across the door. Callers at such an hour
upon such a day were not acceptable, and he muttered under his breath,
feeling relieved, however, when he saw a fat and heavy figure in Burmese
clothing get out from the _gharry_.
"If that is anyone to see me on business, say that this is neither the
place nor the hour to come," he shouted to the boy, and returning to the
tea-table, poured out a saucer of milk for the eager terrier, now
divided between his duties as a dog and his feelings as an animal.
The boy reappeared after a pause, bearing a message to the effect that
Mhtoon Pah begged an immediate interview upon a subject so pressing that
it could not wait.
Hartley listened to the message, swore under his breath, and looked
sharply at Mhtoon Pah when he came into the room. Usually the curio
dealer had a smile and a suave, pleasant manner, but on this occasion
all his suavity was gone, and his eyes, usually so inexpressive and
secret, were lighted with a strange, wolfish look of anger and rage that
was almost suggestive of insanity.
He bowed before the Head of the Police and began to talk in broken,
gasping words, waving his hands as he spoke. His story was confused and
rambling, but what he told was to the effect that his boy, Absalom, had
disappeared and could not be found.
"It was the night of the 29th of July, _Thakin_, and I sent him forth
upon a business. Next morning he did not return. It was I who opened the
shop, it was I who waited upon customers, and Absalom was not there."
"What inquiries have you made?"
"All that may be made, _Thakin_. His mother comes crying to my door, his
brothers have searched everywhere. Ah, that I had the body of the man
who has done this thing, and held him in the sacred tank, to make food
for the fishes."
His dark eyes gleamed, and he showed his teeth like a dog.
"Nonsense, man," said Hartley, quickly. "You seem to suppose that the
boy is dead. What reason have you for imagining that there has been foul
play?"
"_Seem_ to suppose, _Thakin_?" Mhtoon Pah gasped again, like a drowning
man. "And yet the _Thakin_ knows the sewer city, the Chinese quarter,
the streets where men laugh horribly in the dark. Houses there,
_Thakin_, that crawl with yellow men, who are devils, and who split a
man as they would split a fowl--" he broke off, and waved his hands
about wildly.
Hartley felt a little sick; there was something so hideous in the way
Mhtoon Pah expressed himself that he recoiled a step and summoned his
common sense to his aid.
"Who saw Absalom last?"
"Many people must have seen him. I sat myself outside the shop at sunset
to watch the street, and had sent Absalom forth upon a business, a
private business: he was a good boy. Many saw him go out, but no one saw
him return."
"That is no use, Mhtoon Pah; you must give me some names. Who saw the
boy besides yourself?"
Mhtoon Pah opened his mouth twice before any sound came, and he beat his
hands together.
"The Padre Sahib, going in a hurry, spoke a word to him; I saw that with
my eyes."
"Mr. Heath?"
"Yes, _Thakin_, no other."
"And besides Mr. Heath, was there anyone else who saw him?"
Mhtoon Pah bowed himself double in his chair and rocked about.
"The whole street saw him go, but none saw him return, neither will
they. They took Absalom into some dark place, and when his blood ran
over the floor, and out under the doors, the Chinamen got their little
knives, the knives that have long tortoise-shell handles, and very sharp
edges, and then--"
"For God's sake stop talking like that," said Hartley, abruptly. "There
isn't a fragment of evidence to prove that the boy is murdered. I am
sorry for you, Mhtoon Pah, but I warn you that if you let yourself think
of things like that you will be in a lunatic asylum in a week."
He took out a sheet of paper and made careful notes. The boy had been
gone four to five days, and beyond the fact that the Rev. Francis Heath
had seen and spoken to him, no one else was named as having passed along
Paradise Street. The clergyman's evidence was worth nothing at all,
except to prove that the boy had left Mhtoon Pah's shop at the time
mentioned, and Mhtoon Pah explained that the "private business" was to
buy a gold lacquer bowl desired by Mrs. Wilder, who had come to the shop
a day or two before and given the order. Gold lacquer bowls were
difficult to procure, and he had charged the boy to search for it in the
morning and to buy it, if possible, from the opium dealer Leh Shin, who
could be securely trusted to be half-drugged at an early hour.
"It was the morning I spoke of, _Thakin_," said the curio dealer, who
had grown calmer. "But Absalom did not return to his home that night. He
may have gone to Leh Shin; he was a diligent boy, a good boy, always
eager in the pursuit of his duty and advantage."
"I am very sorry for you, Mhtoon Pah," said Hartley again, "and I shall
investigate the matter. I know Leh Shin, and I consider it quite
unlikely that he has had anything to do with it."
When Mhtoon Pah rattled away in the yellow _gharry_, Hartley put the
notes on one side. It was a police matter, and he could trust his staff
to work the subject up carefully under his supervision, and going to the
telephone, he communicated the principal facts to the head office,
mentioning the name of Leh Shin and the story of the gold lacquer bowl,
and giving instructions that Leh Shin was to be tactfully interrogated.
When Hartley hung up the receiver he took his hat and waterproof and
went out into the warm, damp dusk of the evening. There was something
that he did not like about the weather. It was heavy, oppressive,
stifling, and though there was air in plenty, it was the stale air of a
day that seemed never to have got out of bed, but to have lain in a
close room behind the shut windows of Heaven.
He remembered the boy Absalom well, and could recall his dark, eager
face, bulging eyes and protuberant under-lip, and the idea of his having
been decoyed off unto some place of horror haunted him. It was still on
his mind when he walked into the Club veranda and joined a group of men
in the bar. Joicey, the banker, was with them, silent, morose, and moody
according to his wont, taking no particular notice of anything or
anybody. Fitzgibbon, a young Irish barrister-at-law, was talking, and
laughing and doing his best to keep the company amused, but he could get
no response out of Joicey. Hartley was received with acclamations suited
to his general reputation for popularity, and he stood talking for a
little, glad to shake off his feeling of depression. When he saw Mr.
Heath come in and go up the staircase to an upstairs room, he followed
him with his eyes and decided to take the opportunity to speak to him.
"What's the matter, Joicey?" he asked, speaking to the banker. "You look
as if you had fever."
"I'm all right," Joicey spoke absently. "It's this infernally stuffy
weather, and the evenings."
"I'm glad it's that," laughed Fitzgibbon, "I thought that it might be
me. I'm so broke that even my tea at _Chota haziri_ is getting badly
overdrawn."
"Dine with me on Saturday," suggested Hartley, "I've seen very little of
you just lately."
Joicey looked up and nodded.
"I'll come," he said, laconically, and Hartley, finishing his drink,
went up the staircase.
The reading-room of the Club was usually empty at that hour, and the
great tables littered with papers, free to any studious reader. When
Hartley came in, the Rev. Francis Heath had the place entirely to
himself, and was sitting with a copy of the _Saturday Review_ in his
hands. He did not hear Hartley come in, and he started as his name was
spoken, and putting down the _Review_, looked at the Head of the Police
with questioning eyes.
"I've come to talk over something with you, Heath," Hartley began,
drawing a chair close to the table. "Can you remember anything at all of
what you were doing on the evening of July the twenty-ninth?"
The Rev. Francis Heath dropped his paper, and stooped to pick it up;
certainly he found the evening hot, for his face ran with trickles of
perspiration.
"July the twenty-ninth?"
"Yes, that's the date. I am particularly anxious to know if you remember
it."
Mr. Heath wiped his neck with his handkerchief.
"I held service as usual at five o'clock."
Hartley looked at him; there was something undeniably strained in the
clergyman's eyes and voice.
"Ah, but what I am after took place later."
The Rev. Francis Heath moistened his lips and stood up.
"My memory is constantly at fault," he said, avoiding Hartley's eyes and
looking at the ground. "I would not like to make any specific statement
without--without--reference to my note-book."
Hartley stared in astonishment.
"This is only a small matter, Heath. I was trying to get round to my
point in the usual way, by giving no actual indication of what I wanted
to know. You see, if you tell a man what you want, he sometimes imagines
that what he did on another day is what really happened on the actual
occasion, and that, as you can imagine, makes our job very difficult. I
don't want to bother you, but as your name was mentioned to me in
connection with a certain investigation, I wished to test the truth of
my man's statement."
Heath stood in the same attitude, his face pale and his eyes steadily
lowered.
"It might be well for you to be more clear," he said, after a long
pause.
"Did you go down Paradise Street just after sunset?"
"I may have done so. I have several parishioners along the river bank."
"Why the devil is he talking like this and looking like this?" Hartley
asked himself, impatiently.
"I'm not a cross-examining counsel," he said, with some sharpness. "As
I told you before, Heath, it is only a very small matter."
The Rev. Francis Heath gripped the back of his chair and a slight flush
mounted to his face.
"I resent your questions, Mr. Hartley. What I did or did not do on the
evening of July the twenty-ninth can in no way affect you. I entirely
refuse to be made to answer anything. You have no right to ask me, and I
have no intention of replying."
Hartley put his hand out in dismay.
"Really, Heath, your attitude is quite absurd. I have already told one
man to-day that he was going mad; are you dreaming, man? I only want you
to help me, and you talk as if I had accused you of something. There is
nothing criminal in being seen in Paradise Street after sundown."
Mr. Heath stood holding by the back of his chair, looking over Hartley's
head, his dark eyes burning and his face set.
"Come, then," said the police officer abruptly, "who did you see? Did
you, for instance, see the Christian boy, Absalom, Mhtoon Pah's
assistant?"
The Rev. Francis Heath made no answer.
"Did you see him?"
"I will not answer any further questions, but since you ask me, I did
see the boy."
"Thank you, Heath; that took some getting at. Now will you tell me if
you saw him again later: I am supposing that you went down the wharf and
came back, shall I say, in an hour's time. Did you see Absalom again?"
The clergyman stared out of the window, and his pause was of such
intensely long duration that when he said the one word, "No," it fell
like the splash of a stone dropped into a deep well.
Hartley looked at his sleeve-links for quite a long time.
"Good night, Heath," he said, getting up, but the Rev. Francis Heath
made no reply.
Hartley went back to his bungalow with something to think about. He had
always regarded Heath as a difficult and rather violently religious man.
They had never been friends, and he knew that they never could be
friends, but he respected the man even without liking him. Now he was
quite convinced that Heath, after some deliberation with his conscience,
had lied to him, and it made him angry. He had admitted, with the
greatest reluctance, that he had been through Paradise Street, and seen
the boy, and his declaration that he had not seen him again did not ring
with any real conviction. It made the whole question more interesting,
but it made it unpleasant. If things came to light that called the
inquiry into court, the Rev. Francis Heath might live to learn that the
law has a way of obliging men to speak. If Hartley had ever been sure of
anything in his life, he was sure that Heath knew something of Absalom,
and knew where he had gone in search of the gold lacquer bowl that was
desired by Mrs. Wilder. He made up his mind to see Mrs. Wilder and ask
her about the order for the bowl; but he hardly thought of her, his mind
was full of the mystery that attached itself to the question of the
Rector of St. Jude's parish, and his fierce and angry refusal to talk
reasonably.
He threw open his windows and sat with the air playing on his face, and
his thoughts circled round and round the central idea. Absalom was
missing, and the Rev. Francis Heath had behaved in a way that led him to
believe that he knew a great deal more than he cared to say, and Hartley
brooded over the subject until he grew drowsy and went upstairs to bed.
III
INDICATES A STANDPOINT COMMONLY SUPPOSED TO REPRESENT THE PRINCIPLES OF
THE JESUIT FATHERS
It was quite early the following morning when Hartley set out to take a
stroll down Paradise Street, and from there to the Chinese quarter,
where Leh Shin had a small shop in a colonnade running east and west.
The houses here were very different to the houses in Paradise Street.
The fronts were brightened with gilt, and green and red paint daubed the
entrances. Almost every third shop was a restaurant, and Hartley did not
care to think of the sort of food that was cooked and eaten within.
Immense lanterns, that turned into coloured moons by night, but they
were pale and dim by day, hung on the cross-beams inside the houses.
Some half-way down the colonnade, and deep in the odorous gloom, Leh
Shin worked at nothing in particular, and sold devils as Mhtoon Pah sold
them, but without the same success. The door of his shop was closed, and
Hartley rapped upon it several times before he received an answer; then
a bolt was shot back, and Leh Shin's long neck stretched itself out
towards the officer. He was a thin, gaunt figure, lean as the Plague,
and his spare frame was clad in cheap black stuff that hung around him
like the garments of Death itself. Hartley drew back a step, for the
smell of _napi_ and onions is unpleasant even to the strongest of white
men, and told Leh Shin to open the door wide as he wished to talk to
him. Leh Shin, with many owlish blinkings of his narrow eyes, asked
Hartley to come inside. The street was not a good place for talking, and
Hartley followed him into the shop.
It was very dark within, and a dim light fell from high skylight
windows, giving the shop something of the suggestion of a well. Counters
blocked it, making entrance a matter of single file, and, in the deep
gloom at the back, two candles burned before a huge, ferocious-looking
figure depicted on rice-paper and stuck against the wall. It was hard to
believe that it was day outside, so heavy was the darkness, and it was a
few moments before Hartley's eyes became accustomed to the sudden
change. Second-hand clothes hung on pegs around the room, and all kinds
of articles were jumbled together regardless of their nature. On the
floor was a litter of silk and silver goods, boxes, broken portmanteaux,
ropes, baskets, and on the counter nearest the door a tiny silver cage
of beautiful workmanship inhabited by a tiny golden bird with ruby eyes.
At the back of the shop and near the yellow circle of light thrown by
the candles, was a boy, naked to the waist, and immensely stout and
heavy. His long plait of hair was twisted round and round on his shaven
forehead, and he stood perfectly still, watching the officer out of
small pig eyes. He was chewing something slowly, turning it about and
about inside a small, narrow slit of a mouth, and his whole expression
was cunning and evil. Leh Shin followed Hartley's glance and saw the
boy, and the sight of him seemed to recall him to actual life, for he
spoke in words that sounded like stones knocking together and ordered
him out of the shop. The boy looked at him oddly for a moment; then
turned away, still munching, and lounged out of the room, stopping on
the threshold of a back entrance to take one more look at Hartley.
As a rule Hartley was not affected by the peculiarities of the people he
dealt with, but Leh Shin's assistant impressed him unpleasantly.
Everything he did was offensive, and his whole suggestion loathsome.
Hartley was still thinking of him when he looked at Leh Shin, who stood
blinking before him, awaiting his words patiently.
"Now, Leh Shin, I want to ask you a few questions. Do you sell lacquer
in this shop?"
The Chinaman indicated that he sold anything that anyone would buy.
"Do you happen to know that Mhtoon Pah was looking for a bowl of gold
lacquer, and that he sent his boy Absalom here to get it?"
Leh Shin shook his head. He was a poor man, and he knew nothing.
Moreover, he knew nothing of July the twenty-ninth, he did not count
days. He had not seen the boy Absalom.
"Let me advise you to be truthful, Leh Shin," said Hartley. "You may be
called upon to give an account of yourself on the evening and night of
July the twenty-ninth."
Leh Shin looked stolidly at the mildewed clothes and tried to remember,
but he failed to be explicit, and the greasy, obese creature, still
chewing, was recalled to assist his master's memory. He spoke in a high
chirping voice, and looked at Hartley with angry eyes as he asserted
that his master had been ill upon the evening mentioned and that he had
closed the shop early, and that he himself had gone to the nautch house
to witness a dance that had lasted until morning.
"You can prove what you say, I suppose," said Hartley, speaking to Leh
Shin, "and satisfy me that the boy Absalom was not here, and did not
come here?"
Leh Shin, moved to sudden life, protested that he could prove it, that
he could call half Hong Kong Street to prove it.
"I don't want Hong Kong Street. I want a creditable witness," said
Hartley, and he turned to go. "So far as I know, you are an honest
dealer, Leh Shin, and I am quite ready to believe, if you can help me,
that you were ill that night, but I must have a creditable witness."
When he left the shop, Leh Shin looked at the fat, sodden boy, and the
boy returned his look for a moment, but neither of them spoke, and a few
minutes later the door was bolted from within, and they were once more
alone in the shadows, with the rags, the broken portmanteaux, the relics
of art, and the animal smell, and Hartley was out in the street. He was
pretty secure in the belief that Leh Shin had not seen the boy, and that
he knew nothing of the gold lacquer bowl, but he also believed that
Mhtoon Pah had been far too crafty to tell the Chinaman that anyone
particularly wanted such a treasure of art. Mhtoon Pah, or his emissary,
would have priced everything in the shop down to the most maggot-eaten
rag before he would have mentioned the subject of lacquer bowls.
There was no mystery connected with the bowl, but there was something
sickening about Leh Shin's shop, and something utterly horrible about
his assistant. Hartley wished he had not seen him, he wished that he had
remained in ignorance of his personality. He thought of him in the
sweating darkness he had left, and as he thought he remembered Mhtoon
Pah's wild, extravagant fancies, and they grew real to his mind.
It was next to impossible to discover what the truth was about Leh
Shin's illness on the night of July the 29th, and it really did not bear
very much upon the matter, unless there was no other clue to what had
become of the boy. Hartley returned to other matters and put the case on
one side for the moment. On his way back for luncheon he looked in at
Mhtoon Pah's shop. He had intended to pass, but the sight of the little
wooden man ushering him up the steps made him turn and stop and then go
in. Mhtoon Pah sat on his divan in the scented gloom, very different to
the interior of Leh Shin's shop, and when he saw Hartley he struggled to
his feet and demanded news of Absalom.
"There is none yet," said Hartley, sitting down. "Now, Mhtoon Pah, are
you quite sure that it was Mr. Heath that you saw that evening?"
"I saw him with these eyes. I saw him pass, and he was going quickly. I
read the walk of men and tell much by it. The Reverend was in a great
hurry. Twice did he pull out his watch as he came along the street, and
he pushed through the crowd like a rogue elephant going through a rice
crop. I have seen the Reverend walking before, and he walked slowly, he
spoke with the _Babus_ from the Baptist mission, but this day," Mhtoon
Pah flung his hands to the roof, "shall I forget it? This day he walked
with speed, and when my little Absalom salaamed before him, he hardly
stopped, which is not the habit of the Reverend."
"Did you see him come back? Mr. Heath, I mean?"
Mhtoon Pah stood and looked curiously at Hartley, and remained in a
state of suspended animation for a second.
"How could I see him come back?" he said, in a flat, expressionless
voice. "I went to the Pagoda, _Thakin_. I am building a shrine there,
and shall thereby acquire much merit. I did not see the Reverend return.
Besides, he might not have come by the way of Paradise Street."
"He might not."
"It is not known," said Mhtoon Pah, shaking his head dubiously, and then
rage seemed to flare up in him once more. "It is Leh Shin, the
Chinaman," he said, violently. "Let it be known to you, _Thakin_, they
eat strange meats, they hold strange revels. I have heard things--" he
lowered his voice. "I have been told of how they slay."
"Then keep the information to yourself, unless you can prove it," said
Hartley, firmly. "I want to hear nothing about it." He got up and looked
around the shop. "I suppose you haven't got the lacquer bowl since?"
"No, _Thakin_, I have not got it, neither have I seen Leh Shin, an evil
man. The Lady Sahib will have to wait; neither has she been here since,
nor asked for the bowl."
Hartley walked down the steps; he was troubled by the thought, and the
more he tried to work out some definite theory that left Mr. Heath
outside the ring that he proposed to draw around his subject, the more
he appeared on the horizon of his mind, always walking quickly and
looking at his watch.
Through lunch he went over the facts and faced the Heath question
squarely, considering that if Heath knew that the boy was in trouble,
and had connived at his escape, he would be muzzled, but there was
nothing to show that Absalom had ever broken the law. His employer,
Mhtoon Pah, was in despair at his disappearance, his record was
blameless, and he had been entrusted with the deal in lacquer to be
carried out the following morning.
Looking for Absalom was like tracing a shadow that has passed along a
street on soundless feet, and Hartley felt an eager determination seize
him to catch up with this flying wraith.
Still with the same idea in his mind, he drove along the principal
roads in his buggy, directing his way towards the bungalow where the
Rector of St. Jude's lived with Atkins, the Sapper. The house was draped
in climbing and trailing creepers, and the grass grew into the red drive
that curved in a half-circle from one rickety gate to another. He came
up quietly on the soft, wet clay, and looked up at the house before he
called for the bearer, and as he looked up he saw a face disappear
quickly from behind a window. After a few minutes the boy came running
down a flight of steps from the back, and hurried in to get a tray,
which he held out for the customary card.
"Take that away," said Hartley, "and tell the Padré Sahib that I must
see him."
"The Padré Sahib is out, Sahib."
The boy still held the tray like a collecting-plate.
"Out," said Hartley, "nonsense. Go and tell your master that my business
is important."
After a moment the boy returned again, the tray still in his hand.
"Gone out, Sahib," he said, resolutely, and without waiting for any more
Hartley turned the pony's head and drove out slowly.
Twice in two days Heath had lied, to his certain knowledge, and as he
glanced back at the bungalow, a curtain in an upper window moved
slightly as though it had been dropped in haste.
Just as he turned into the road he came face to face with Atkins,
Heath's bungalow companion, and he pulled up short.
"I've been trying to call on the Padré," he said, carelessly, "but he
was out."
"Out," said Atkins, in a tone of surprise. "Why, that is odd. He told me
he was due at a meeting at half-past five, and that he wasn't going out
until then. I suppose he changed his mind."
"It looks like it," said Hartley, dryly.
"He hasn't been well these last few days," went on Atkins, quickly,
"said he felt the weather, and he certainly seems ill. I don't believe
the poor devil sleeps at all. Whenever I wake, I can see his light in
the passage."
"That is bad," Hartley's voice grew sympathetic. "Has he been long like
this?"
"Not long," said Atkins, who was constitutionally accurate. "I think it
began about the night after the thunder-storm, but I can't say for
certain."
"Well, I won't keep you." Hartley touched the pony's quarters with his
whip. "I'm sorry I missed Heath, as I wanted to see him about something
rather important."
"I'll tell him," said Atkins, cheerfully, "and probably he'll look you
up at your own house."
"Will he, I wonder?" thought the police officer, and he set to work upon
the treadmill of his thoughts again.
There is nothing in the world so tantalizing, and so hard to bear, as
the conviction that knowledge is just within reach and that it is
deliberately withheld. Heath stood between him and elucidation, and the
more firmly the clergyman held his ground, and the more definitely he
blocked the path, the more sure Hartley became that he did so of set
purpose.
"But _why_, _why_?" he asked himself, as he drove through the Cantonment
towards Mrs. Wilder's bungalow.
Atkins got off his bicycle and handed it over to his boy as he arrived
at the dreary entrance.
"The Padré Sahib is out?" he said, in his brisk, matter-of-fact tones.
"The Padré Sahib is upstairs," said the boy, with an immovable face; and
Atkins went up quickly.
"Hallo, Heath, I met Hartley just now, and he said you were out."