himself went out to cleanse the effigy outside with a white duster, and
to set his wares in order. It was a good day for sales, as a liner had
come in and brought with it many rich Americans, and Mhtoon Pah was glad
to sell to such as they. His stock-in-trade was beautiful and
attractive, and in the centre of the table, where the unset stones
glittered and shone on white velvet, there stood a bowl, a gold lacquer
bowl of perfect symmetry and very great beauty. He poised it on his
hands once or twice and examined it carefully. As it was already sold it
was not to remain in the curio shop, but Mhtoon Pah was a careful man,
and he desired that Mrs. Wilder should fetch it herself; besides, he
liked her car to stand outside his shop, and he liked her to come in and
look at his goods. Very few people who came in to look, went away
without having bought several things they did not in the least want.
Mhtoon Pah knew exactly how to lure by influence, and he knew that Mrs.
Wilder could no more turn away from a grey-and-pink shot silk than Eve
could refuse the forbidden fruit.
He spread out a sea-blue Mandarin's coat, embroidered with peaches, and
small, crafty touches of black here and there, and looked at it with the
loving eye of a connoisseur. His whole shop was a fountain of colour,
and he was not unworthy of it in his silk petticoat. A ray of sunlight
fell in through the door and touched a few threads of gold in the coat
as Mhtoon Pah hung it up to good advantage, and turned to see a customer
come in. It was the Rev. Francis Heath; and Mhtoon Pah's face fell.
"Reverends" were not good buyers, specially when they had not any wives,
and Mr. Heath took no notice of the attractive display as he stood,
black and forbidding, in the centre of the shop.
"I have come here, Mhtoon Pah, to ask for news of Absalom," he said,
meeting his eyes forcefully. "Where is he?"
Mhtoon Pah bowed low, as befitted the dignity of his guest, who was,
after all, a _Hypongyi_, even though he wore no yellow robes.
"It is unknown," he said, in a heavy voice. "The Reverend himself might
know, since the Reverend saw my little Absalom that night."
"You _must_ have suspicions?"
Mhtoon Pah's face worked violently.
"Leh Shin," he whispered. "Look there for what is left."
Heath retreated before his fury.
"You yourself sent the boy there."
"_Wah! Wah!_ I sent him and he did not return."
"What are you talking about?" said the fresh, gay voice of Mrs. Wilder.
"Where is my lacquer bowl, Mhtoon Pah?" She came in, bright as the
morning outside, and smiled at the Rev. Francis Heath. "So you have got
it for me."
"I did not get it, Lady Sahib," said Mhtoon Pah. "It came here, how I
know not. I found it outside my shop in the care of the wooden image
when I went to dust his limbs this morning."
Mrs. Wilder laughed.
"In that case I shall not have to pay for it. But what do you mean,
Mhtoon Pah?"
"It is blood money," said Mhtoon Pah, with a wild gasp. "Only one man
knew of the bowl, only one man could have put it there. I shall tell
Hartley Sahib; the _Thakin_ will strike surely and swiftly."
"He will do nothing of the kind," said Mrs. Wilder, with a quick look at
Heath. "Give me my bowl, Mhtoon Pah; you are letting yourself dream
foolish things. Absalom"--she tapped the polished floor with her
well-shaped foot--"will come back and explain everything himself, and
then--whoever is responsible--will bear the penalty."
"They have tied his head to his elbows, and set snakes to sting him,"
said Mhtoon Pah. "This have they done, and worse things, Lady Sahib."
Mrs. Wilder shivered.
"Give me my bowl, you horrible old man. Absalom is blacking boots in a
New York hotel, weeks ago.--Ah! what a coat! Are you buying anything,
Mr. Heath?"
"I am going to the school," he answered slowly.
"Then let me drive you there. Send me up the Mandarin's coat, Mhtoon
Pah, and I will haggle another day."
Heath followed her reluctantly down the steps. He wished she had not
made a point of taking him in her motor, but he felt instinctively sorry
for her, which fact, had she known it, would have surprised and
affronted her.
"Will you come and dine with us one night?" she asked, looking at him
with her fine eyes; "it would give us great pleasure, and I do not think
you have met my husband."
"I rarely do dine out," said Heath, staring before him as the car backed
round in the limited space of Paradise Street.
"Then make this an exception. I won't ask you to a function, just a
quiet little family party."
"You are very kind."
He was still abstracted, and hardly seemed to hear her, and, when he got
out and shut the door, she leaned from the window, smiling like weary
royalty.
"I will write and arrange an evening later on. It is a promise, Mr.
Heath."
"I will come," he replied, in the same preoccupied voice, as he raised
his battered _topi_.
"What has he been doing?" she asked herself, in surprise, and again and
again she put the same question to herself, not only that morning, but
often, later on, and with ever-increasing curiosity.
IX
MRS. WILDER IS PRESENTED IN A MELTING MOOD, AND DRAYCOTT WILDER IS
FORCED TO RECALL THE LINES COMMENCING "A FOOL THERE WAS"
It was a bright morning with a high wind blowing and a breath of
freshness in the air that has a charm to inspire a better outlook upon
life. Everywhere it made itself felt in Mangadone, and like Pippa in the
poem, the wind passed along, leaving everything and everybody a little
better for its coming. It passed through the open veranda of the huge
hospital, and touched the fever patients with its cool breath; it
hurried through the Chinese quarter, blew along Paradise Street, dusting
the gesticulating man, and went on up the river, pretending to make the
brown water change its muddy mind and run backwards instead of forwards.
It paid a little freakish attention to Mrs. Wilder's dark hair, and it
cooled the back of Hartley's neck, as they rode along together, by the
way of a lake.
They had met quite accidentally, and Hartley, who had been vaguely
wishing for an opportunity to speak to Mrs. Wilder, seized upon it and
offered himself as her escort. She agreed with complimentary readiness,
and they turned along a wooded road, where the shadows were deep and
where Hartley felt the gripping hands of romance loosen his
heart-strings.
Mrs. Wilder listened to him, or appeared to do so, which is much the
same in effect, and Hartley was not critical. She was a good listener,
as women who have something else to think about often are; and so they
rode along the twisting path, and the wind sang in the plumes of the
bamboo trees, and Hartley believed that it sang a romantic lyric of
platonic admiration, exquisitely hinted at by a tactful man, and
properly appreciated by a very beautiful woman.
"By the way," she said carelessly, "have you found that wretched little
Absalom yet? What a bother he has been since he took it into his head to
go off to America, or wherever it is he went to."
"I am glad you mentioned him," said Hartley, his face growing suddenly
serious. "I have a question or two that I want very much to ask you."
"A question or two? That sounds so very legal. Really, Mr. Hartley, I
believe you credit me with having Absalom's body hanging up in one of my
_almirahs_. Honestly, don't you really believe that I had a hand in
putting him out of the way?"
She laughed her hard little laugh, and shot a look at him over her
shoulder.
"You do know something, some little thing it may be, but something that
might help me."
"About Absalom, or about someone else?"
"About whoever you saw him with."
Hartley pushed his pony alongside of hers, but her face revealed
nothing, and was quite expressionless.
"Whoever I saw him with?" she echoed reflectively. "Ah, but it is so
long ago, Mr. Hartley, I can't even remember now whether I was out or
not that evening."
"You are only playing with me," said Hartley a little irritably. "The
policeman on duty at the cross-roads below Paradise Street saw you."
Her face became suddenly so drawn and startled that Hartley regretted
his words almost as he spoke them.
"Wait a minute, Mr. Hartley," she said, in a strained, hard voice. "You
have to explain to me why you have asked your men questions connected
with me."
"I did not ask questions; I was told."
She pulled up her pony, and, turning her head away from him, looked out
silently over the dip of ground below them. Hartley did not break her
silence. He saw that he had come close to some deep emotion, and he
watched her curiously, but Mrs. Wilder, even if she was conscious of his
look, appeared quite indifferent to it. He could form no idea along what
road her silent concentration led her; but he knew that she pursued an
idea that was compelling and strong. He knew enough of her to know that
even her silence was not the silence that arises out of lack of subject
for talk, but that it meant something as definite and clear as though
she spoke direct words to him.
The Head of the Police would have given much at that moment to have
been able to penetrate her thoughts, but he only stared at her with his
blue eyes a little wider open than usual, and waited for her to speak.
She looked before her steadily, but not with the eyes of a woman who
dreams; Mrs. Wilder was thinking definitely, and while Hartley waited,
her mind travelled at speed across years and came to a halt at the
moment where she now found herself, and from that moment she looked out
forcefully into the future.
Usually, in the tragic instants of life there is very little time for
thought before the need for action forces the will, with relentless
hands. Clarice Wilder knew as well as she knew anything that her
position was one of some peril, and that much more than she could weigh
or measure at that moment lay beyond the next spoken word. She was
telling herself to be careful, steadying her nerve and reining in a
desire to pour out a flood of circumstantial evidence, calculated to
convince the Head of the Police.
If there is one thing more than another that the man or the woman driven
against the ropes should avoid, it is prolixity; the snare that catches
craft in its own net. Clarice Wilder desired to be overpowering,
redundant and extreme in the wordy proof of her innocence of purpose
that evening of July the 29th, but she held back and waited steadfastly
until she was quite sure of herself again, and then she turned her head
and glanced at Hartley with a smile.
"How silent you are," she said gently.
Hartley flushed and looked self-conscious.
"To be quite candid, that was what I was thinking of you," he replied
awkwardly.
"What were we saying?" went on Mrs. Wilder. "Oh, of course, I remember.
You thought I could tell you something about poor Mr. Heath, didn't you?
I only wish I could, but it was so long ago. I do remember the evening.
It was very hot and I rode along by the river to get some fresh air,"
her eyes grew hazy. "I can remember thinking that Mangadone looked as if
it was a great ball of amber, with the sun shining through it, but as
for being able to tell you what Mr. Heath was doing, or who he was with,
it is impossible. You should have pinned me down to it the day you
called on me, when this troublesome little boy first went off." She
gathered up the reins, and Hartley mounted reluctantly. "I am so sorry.
I would love to be able to help you, but I cannot remember."
If Hartley had been asked on oath how it was that Mrs. Wilder had led
him clean away from the subject under discussion, to something
infinitely more satisfying and interesting, he could not have sworn to
it. They loitered by the road and came slowly back to the bungalow,
where they parted at the gate, and he watched her go in, hoping she
might turn her head, but she did not, and Hartley took his way towards
his own house and thought very little of Absalom or the Rev. Francis
Heath. One thing he did think of, and that was that Mrs. Wilder had
looked at him earnestly, and said that she wished he was not "mixed up"
in anything likely to bring uneasiness to the mind of the Rector of St.
Jude's Church. "Mixed up" was a curious way of expressing his connection
with the case, but Hartley felt that he knew what she meant. He pulled
at his short moustache and wished with all his heart that he really did
know; but all the wishes in the world could not help him out of a
professional dilemma.
Mrs. Wilder had not looked round, though she very well knew that Hartley
was waiting and hoping that she would, and once she had turned the first
bend she touched the pony with her heel and cantered up the hill,
throwing the reins to the _syce_ who came in answer to her impatient
call.
"Idiot," she said, as she shut the door of her room and flung her _topi_
on the bed, and she repeated the word several times with increasing
animosity and vigour. She hated Hartley at that moment, and felt under
no further obligation to hide her real feelings; and then Mrs. Wilder
sat down and thought hard.
The mental power of exaggerating danger is limitless, and she could not
deny that her fear was playing tricks with her nerves. She knew that she
had done creditably under the strain of acute nervous tension, but she
felt also that much more of the same thing would be unendurable.
Draycott came in to luncheon, and she was there to receive him, but even
to his careless eye, Clarice was oddly abstracted, and he glanced at her
curiously, wondering what it was that occupied her mind and made her
frown as she thought.
She could not get away from the grip of her morning interview. Try as
she would, she could not shake it off. It caught her back in the middle
of her talk, made her answer at random, and held her with a terrible
power. She considered that there were a thousand other things she might
have said or done, a hundred ways by which she might have appealed to
Hartley, and yet her common sense told her that the less she said on the
subject the better it would be, if, in the end, the Rev. Francis Heath
was led into the awful pitfalls of cross-examination. Anyone may forget
and recall facts later, but to state facts that may be used as evidence
is to stand handcuffed before inexorable justice, and Mrs. Wilder had
left her hands free.
"Is anything the matter?" Draycott jerked out the question as he got up
to leave the room. "You seem rather silent."
Clarice laughed, and her laugh was slightly forced.
"I went for a ride this morning, and met Mr. Hartley. He is the most
exhausting man I ever met."
"I hope you told him so," said Wilder shortly. "He's about here
frequently enough, even though he _does_ bore you."
Something in his voice made her eyes focus him very clearly and
distinctly.
"I have a very good mind to tell him," she said easily, "but he is
blessed with a skin that would turn the edge of any ordinary hatchet; he
would think I was merely being 'funny.'"
"It's an odd fact," said Draycott with a sneer in his eyes, "that
however much a woman complains of a man's stupidity, she will let him
hang about her, and make a grievance of it, until she sees fit to drop
him. When that moment arrives she can make him let go, and lower away
all right. Just now Hartley is hanging on quite perceptibly, and if it
entertains you to slang him behind his back, I suppose you will slang
him, but he won't drop off before you've done with him, Clarice, if I
know anything of your methods." Her face flushed and she began to look
angry. "Mind you, I don't object to Hartley. As you say, he's a fool, a
silly, trusting ass, the sort of man who is child's-play to a girl of
sixteen. If you must have a string of loafers to prove that your
attractions outwear _anno domini_, I must accept Hartley, and other
Hartleys, so long as you continue to play the same game. _Hartleys_, I
said, Clarice."
There was no doubt about the emphasis he laid upon the name.
"You flatter Mr. Hartley considerably," she said, but her voice was
conciliatory and her laugh nervous.
"He represents a type; a type that some married men may be thankful
continues to exist. God!" he broke out violently, "if he could hear you
talk of him, it would be a lesson to the fool, but he won't hear you. No
man ever does hear these things until the knowledge comes too late to be
of any use to him. You have got to have your strings"--he shrugged his
shoulders--"because your life isn't here, in this house; it is at the
Club, and at dinners and races and so on, and to be left to your
husband is the beginning of the end. Don't deny it, Clarice, it's no
earthly use. Women like you have your own ideas of life, I suppose, and
I ought to be thankful they're no worse."
He stood by the door all the time he spoke, and his colourless face and
pale eyes never altered.
"You're talking absolute nonsense," said Mrs. Wilder, preserving an
amiable tone. "We _have_ to entertain, Draycott, and you can't round on
me for what I have done for years. It has helped you on, and you know
it."
"I wasn't talking of that," he said drearily. "I was talking of you.
You're getting old, for a woman, Clarice, and when you're worried, as
you are to-day, you show it; though how an imbecile like Hartley got at
you to the extent of making you worried, I don't pretend to guess."
"Old," she said angrily. "You aren't troubling to be particularly
polite."
"No, I'm damnably truthful; just because it makes me wonder at you all
the more. You can go on smiling at any number of idiots, because you
must have the applause, I suppose. You don't even believe in it--_now_."
His allusion was definite, and Mrs. Wilder felt about in her mind for
some way to change the conversation. Quagmires are bad ground for
walking, and she was in a hurry to reach _terra firma_ again. She came
round the table and slipped her arm through his.
"After all these years. Draycott--be a little generous."
If she had fought him, some deep, hidden anger in his cold heart would
have flared up, but her gesture softened him and he patted her hand.
"I know," he said slowly. "Only I can't quite forget. I simply can't,
Clarice."
She smiled at him and touched his face with a light hand.
"Shall I tell you why? Because even if I am old--and thirty-six isn't so
very dreadful--you are still in love with me."
She went with him to the door and smiled as he drove away, smiled and
waved as he reappeared round a distant bend, and watched him return her
signal, and then she went back into the large drawing-room and her face
grew grey and pinched, and she sat with her chin propped on her hands,
thinking.
She had proved that there are more fools in the world than those who go
about disguised as Heads of Police, and had added another specimen to
the general list, but she found no mirth in the idea as she considered
it.
X
IN WHICH CRAVEN JOICEY IS OVERCOME BY A SUDDEN INDISPOSITION, AND
HARTLEY, WITHOUT LOOKING FOR HIM, FINDS THE MAN HE WANTED
It seemed to Hartley that Fate had dealt very hardly with him. He was
interested in the case of the boy Absalom, and he felt that the
possibility of clearing it up was well within reach, and then he found
himself face to face with an unpleasant and painful duty.
All his gregarious sociable nature cried out against any act that would
cause a scandal in Mangadone, the magnitude of which he could hardly
gauge but only guess at; and yet, wherever he went, the thought haunted
him. His feelings gave him no rest, and he remained inactive and
listless for several days after his ride with Mrs. Wilder. If she had
told him that she implored him personally to drop the case he could not
have felt more certain that she desired him to do so. She worked
indirectly upon his feelings, a much surer way with some natures than a
direct appeal, and the thought brought something akin to misery into the
mind and heart of the police officer.
Absalom had gone, leaving no visible footprint to indicate whither he
had vanished, but the inexorable detail of circumstance after
circumstance led on to a very definite conclusion. The wooden figure
outside the curio dealer's shop pointed up his master's steps, and did
no one any wrong, but the awful fixed finger of changeless fact
indicated the creeper-covered bungalow of the Rev. Francis Heath.
Hartley sat in his room, his elbows on the writing-table, and stared out
before him. A sluicing shower had come up suddenly, obscuring all the
brightness of the day, and the eaves of the veranda dripped mournfully
with a sound like the patter of a thousand tiny feet; the patter sounded
like the falling of tears, and he wondered if Heath, too, listened to
the light persistent noise, and read into it the footsteps of departing
hopes and lost ideals, or merely all the terrible monotonous detail that
preceded an act that was a crime.
Hartley had dealt considerably with criminal cases, but never with
anything the least like the case of the boy Absalom, and the
speculations that came across his mind were new to him. He realized that
a criminal of the class of the Rev. Francis Heath is a criminal who is
driven slowly, inch by inch, into action, and each inch given only at
the cost of blood and tears. It was little short of ghastly to consider
what Heath must have gone through and suffered, and what he still must
suffer, and must continue to suffer as he went along the dark loneliness
of the awful road into which he had turned.
People who have pity and to spare for the murdered body, or for the dupe
who has suffered plunder, think very little of the agony of mind and
the horror of the man who has held a good position, secure and honoured,
and who falls into the bottomless abyss of crime and detection. Hartley
had never considered it before. He was on the side of law and order, and
he was incapable of even dimly visualizing any condition of affairs that
could force him into illegal action, and yet he felt in the darkness
after some comprehension of the mind of the Rector of St. Jude's Parish
Church.
The rain passed over, and the veranda was crossed with strips of yellow
sunlight, the pale washed sunlight of a wet evening, and still the drip
from the eaves fell intermittently with its melancholy noise, so softly
now, as hardly to be heard, and Hartley got up, and, putting on his hat,
walked across the scrunching wet gravel, and out on to the road, making
his way towards the Club.
Far away, gleams of light lay soft over the trees of the park, the green
sad light that is only seen in damp atmospheres. There was no gladness
in the day, only a sense of deficiency and sorrow, even in its lingering
beauty; and the lake that reflected the trees and the sky was deadly
still, with a brooding, waiting stillness. Hartley stopped as he went
towards the further gates of the park, and watched the glassy
reflections with troubled eyes. No breeze touched the woods into
movement, and the long, yellow bars of evening light were full of dim
stillness. The very lifelessness of it affected Hartley strangely.
Except where, here and there, a flash of the low sunset caught the
water, the whole prospect was motionless, and he stood like a man
spellbound by the mystery of its silence.
Hartley had chosen the less frequented road through the Park, and there
was no one in sight when he had stopped to look at the pale sheet of
water with its mirrored reproduction of tree and sky. It held him
strangely, and he felt a curious tension of his nerves, as though
something was going to happen. The thought came, as such thoughts do
come, out of nowhere in particular, and yet Hartley waited with a sense
of discomfort.
When he turned away angry at his own momentary folly, he stooped and
picked up a stone and threw it into the motionless beauty of the water,
breaking it into a quick splash, marring the clearness, and confusing
the straight, low band of gold cloud which broke under the widening
circles. As he stooped, a man had come into sight, walking with a slow,
heavy step, his eyes on the ground and his head bent. He came on with
dragging feet and a dull, mechanical walk, the walk of a man who is
tired in body and soul. He did not look at the lake, nor did he even see
Hartley, who turned towards him at once with sudden relief.
When Hartley hailed him cheerfully, Joicey stopped dead and looked up,
staring at him as though he were an apparition. He took off his hat and
wiped his forehead.
"Where did you spring from, Hartley?" he asked. "I did not see anyone
just now." There was more irritation than warmth in his greeting of the
police officer.
"I was moonstruck by the edge of that confounded lake. It was so still
that it got on my nerves."
"Nerves," said Joicey abruptly. "There's too much talk of nerves
altogether in these days."
Joicey, like all large men with loud voices, was able to give an
impression of solidity that is very refreshing and reviving at times,
but, otherwise, Joicey was not looking entirely himself. He passed his
handkerchief over his face again and laughed dully.
"You're going to the Club, I suppose?"
"I was going there, but now I'll join you and have a walk, if I may.
It's early for the Club yet."
He turned and walked on beside the Banker, who appeared, if anything,
less in the humour for conversation than was usual with him. They left
the lake behind them, now a pallid gleam flecked with wavering light in
a circle of deep shadows that reached out from the margin.